Breaking Iron: An Ironbreaker Blog

Just a scheduled programming note: I have started an Ironbreaker blog entitled Breaking Iron.

I am going to use it to muse about the class, patch notes, and playing tips. It should actually contain only useful information, where as this blog contains mostly mindless rants one.

Enjoy!

Tag: 2008 Predictions for 2008

I am going to try something here, in the manor of chain-blogging. I'm not sure if that is what it is called, but here's the idea: I will make some predictions for 2008 and then pass it on to another person. That person will then make up the next set of predictions before passing it on. The goal? 2008 predictions by the end of all the tagging.

The rules are simple: no limit on the number of predictions per person, tagged bloggers can elect to pass, and links to the before and after predictions in relation to the current blogger. I will try my best to tally the score and see how many we get.

Scorecard:

Me - 10
Grimwell - 11

Total = 21

My Predictions:

1. 2008 will be a year of announcements for MMOs. 38 studios, Bioware, Zenimax, Red 5, and many other studios will all announce their MMO projects. Some will come out of left field, while others will just confirm current rumors.

2. 2008 will be a year of launches for delayed games. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Age of Conan, and Pirates of the Burning Sea will all finally launch. WAR will be the only big success in the group.

3. 2008 will NOT be a year for micro-transaction or RMT based games. RMT and micro-transactions will take another hit as WAR launches and proves the monthly subscription model is still king of the hill for revenue. RMT and micro-transactions will turn a profit, but only in accounting terms. The model will barely break-even in economic terms.

4. 2008 will be a year of web-games. Already popular web-games will continue to grow. New web-games will launch. None of them will challenge the revenue generation of monthly subscription or box sale titles. All will be susceptible to any sort of web 2.0 wrinkles.

5. 2008 will not be a good year for Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). SOE is closing out 2007 in grand fashion: developer scandals, buyout rumors, and reportedly falling subscriptions. Two of which, the buyout and falling subscriptions, have been denied repeatedly. Tack this onto SOE's shift in revenue models and 2008 doesn't look pretty. Grimwell, I await your response :)

6. 2008 will be a Dark year. Dark Age of Camelot will feel increasing pressure this year as WAR launches and replaces the Realm vs. Realm gameplay model with a newer and fresher version.

7. 2008 will be a Cold year. Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft's second expansion, will launch late in the year. It will be successful, but will fall short of the success of The Burning Crusade. China will not see the expansion until 2009.

8. 2008 will be a year of MMO podcasting. MMO podcasting has picked up over the last couple of years, but 2008 will bring it into the limelight as more commercially driven entities enter the market. Unfortunately, popularity will remain in the hands of the "weekend warriors", not the commercially driven podcasts.

9. 2008 will be a year of lawyering. From the RIAA chasing grandmas with MP3s to IGE's potential criminal investigation, 2008 will be an unprecedented year for lawyers entering the online-circus. Expect to see some major court cases develop over the year, but don't expect them to finish before the year is out.

10. 2008 will not be a good year for Gax-Online. This is a personal pick. The dog and pony show holding up Gax-Online will finally realize they have become what they've always chastised, sending them into a cataclysmic tailspin. Or, they'll sell out the second someone offers them half a donut and a cup'o'joe.

Tag: Grimwell, Ethic at Kill Ten Rats, and Tobold. Oh, and Mr. Freeman.

Steam Community Group Formed

I have gone ahead and created a Steam Community Group entitled Heartless Gamer. If you have a Steam account feel free to go over and join up so we can keep tabs on each other.

This is mainly a test to evaluate the value and functionality of a Steam Community Group. I have bigger ideas than just this group, but I need to start somewhere.

Bloggers Roll Call

MMORPG and gaming bloggers, I need you! I need links for a new blog roll I will be putting up. Plus, I want to find new blogs that I don't read. I plan to visit each of these blogs on a daily basis, so please drop your link in a comment.

Bye-Bye Xfire

I have removed Xfire from all of my computers and my Xfire profile link from this blog.

I will miss one-click server joining for my favorite FPS games. I will miss having a running record of what games I've played and for how long I've played them. However, I won't miss the constant desktop crashes, disconnect messages, and annoying key combinations to make Xfire work.

I will be better off without Xfire.

100,000

Sometime last night, this blog's odometer rolled over the 100,000 unique visitors mark. Not bad for a mere two years of blogging. I had originally hoped to reach this milestone by the end of my first year, but I learned a few lessons along the way that slowed the pace.

Lesson 1: Spamming blog links on forums earns you a bad name, but it brings in the hits. It is a great tool for pissing off a few people; not that I would ever want to do that. In a vain attempt at recognition, I spammed away early on, but I think I've grown up a bit since then.

Lesson 2: Slashdot and Digg hits are great for the visitor count and for lengthy comment sections. However, they really open my opinions -- that I most likely posted while half asleep -- to criticism from the Internet at large. The average Internet user doesn't understand that an opinion is a person's own belief in something, and that it doesn't change just because someone has a different one.

Lesson 3: It is return visitors, and consistent comment leavers, that make me sleep better at night.

So, a big THANK YOU to everyone that has helped make this blog what it is... which I'm sure we'll figure out sometime soon.

Bye-bye Labels

I have removed the label section in my sidebar. It was getting a bit unwieldy to look at, so I removed it. If anyone absolutely can't live without it, let me know and I can bring it back. You can still click any label attached to any post to browse other articles with the same tag.

I'm back!

My Internet connection has been down and out for the past few weeks so I have done very little. I did manage to get a good amount of time logged in the Lord of the Rings Online beta, but I was not impressed enough to play it more than an hour at a time. Nor, would my Internet connection let me play it for more than an hour at a time! I will have my impressions posted sometime next week (hopefully).

I have started back into World of Warcraft. My little brother uses my account most of the time, but I am sneaking back in here and there for a few minutes. He has upgrade the account to The Burning Crusade so I may try and level to 70 over the next few months.

Other than that I have just been busy with house projects, school work, and job searching.

Making the List

It seems that I have made the list as one of the top 100 blogs for MMO gamers!

Heartless Gamer is in a respectable 86th place with the likes of Grimwell, Gamespot, and Raph Koster.

I can't take all the credit for this because it is the readers that make the blogging world turn. Without readers would our blogs get read? Nope. So thank you everyone who reads and subscribes to this blog in some form. Also a special thanks to the games and their developers that give us so much to talk about.

Welcome to the new Heartless Gamer

I finally got around to cleaning up my blog template and switching over to the new Blogger Beta. It offers easy to use template tools that have allowed me to customize my template without having to rewrite the whole thing myself; which is great!

One of the biggest new features is: labels. I am in the process of retro-updating all old posts to include a label. Hopefully, this will help visitors find older posts on my blog about certain topics with the simple click of a label.

The template is not exactly what I want yet, but its a good start. I will slowly be adding to it with little tweaks here and there. If you see anything acting funny just let me know in the comments.

Update: 8 Jul, 2007 - Edited post and applied labels.

It's getting messy around here!

I've decided to go ahead and start cleaning up some of my posts over the last year or so. I will be deleting a bunch of meaningless posts full of broken links. Also I will try to clean up spelling mistakes and grammar issues in a lot of older posts. I figure the sooner I start the faster I will catch up to my current posts and from then on I can hopefully keep it clean.

This is all in preparation for the Blogspot changes that Google is testing in beta right now. Once those go live I will be redoing the sites layout as well as going back and putting all my posts into categories! I'm open to any other suggestions as well; just leave a comment.

I made the report

Raph Koster has his monthly report up for March and I've made the grade.

The question remains: is this an insult or a compliment?

"And the main event, the wild and wooly world of the Internet, which washes up weird and wonderful weblinks which winkled out wacky wordage from Google, which I wish started with a W.

game website nobody knows about. Given the traffic, not this one anymore. As I recall, Heartless was upset I was stealing his traffic. Try that one."

Either way, I'll take it!

No Longer With Gamergod.com and Updates

Due to my real life schedule, I have decided to stop writing for Gamergod.com. With my little bit of free time, I want to be gaming. If not gaming, I want to be posting on my blog or a message board. I'm here to game and bitch about it.

Also, Grimwell is done with Gamergod.com and has reopened Grimwell Online. So, expect to see me over there from time to time.

Blog Update @ Technorati : I am now ranked within the top 100,000 blogs on Technorati.com! I suggest everyone use it to search for the truth about games, from the mouths of gaming bloggers everywhere!

Another new template? I've been thinking about updating this blog's template again, so keep checking back for a new look. Any suggestions welcome.

Update: 8 Jul, 2007 - Edited post and applied label.

Raph Koster steals my hits!

Raph Koster has his monthly break down of website statistics.

In the search terms section one of the search phrases that lead to Raph's site was "heartless blog" to which Raph replied "Sniff. Meanie."

So I must conclude that Raph is paying Google to steal my hits.

Carnival of Gamers X - Winter Carnival

Carnival of Gamers X (10 for the non-romans out there) has graced the front page of the KillTenRats blog. Go over and check out the articles linked. There is a great selection!

This is my first Carnival of Gamers appearance and I submitted my "MO5 - The SOE effect… part II… MMORPG madness" article.

New Template Is Here

I hope everyone enjoys the new template. I am still working out the bugs and would appreciate feedback from anyone having problems.

Known Bug List:
-[Fixed]To read comments you must click on Post Comment. Working to make # Comments clickable.
-[Fixed]While using IE, the columns of text overwrite each other.
-[Fixed]If your resolution is set below 1024x768, the background picture interferes with reading the text. --> Even though the problem is fixed, it is strongly recommended to view this site at 1024x768 resolution.

Update: 8 Jul, 2007 - Edited post and applied label.

I'm an e-celebrity... featured at GU Comics

It seems my /. article about how MTV is offering better gaming TV than G4 is the center of a GU Comic. The comic features "a guy at Gamergod" which just so happens to be me.

To be kind I stopped in on their forums and offered my opinion on some things their posters seemed to be missing. Here is my post...

"I think most of the people hating on MTV here have not honestly seen any of their gaming shows. It is heads and tales above anything G4 produces. Most obviously because there is more money being spent on production, but a few key areas they hit make gamers watch... and we're not just talking teenagers.

1. If they don't have the content they don't have a show for it. G4 thinks just because its part of gaming they need to have a show on it. I think that speaks for itself.

2. They produce quality over quantity. G4 is exactly the opposite because they are still trying to fill in all that time between Man Show reruns and infomercials.

3. They focus on gamers of ALL variety. MTV is well known for selling sex to teenagers, but oddly enough when it comes to gaming they sell it without believing their audience is a bunch of teenage boys. Find one thing on G4 that isn't trying to sell their programming to a bunch of teenage boys.

The great thing about MTV is you can grab a TV guide and watch what you want. You can TIVO quality shows without having to worry if your TIVOing another rerun off of G4.

To each his own."

Update: 6 Nov, 2006 - Updated post and applied labels. Removed link to now defunct Gamergod.com article.

Raph Koster blog

Raph Koster has started blogging. Great to see what he is up to!

Update: 6 Nov, 2006 - Updated post and applied labels.

Updates for 18 Oct 2005

The first update is that I reached Honor Rank 7 (Blood Guard) in World of Warcraft on my Shaman. I had 63,000 contribution points last week! That means new gear: [Blood Guard's Mail Walkers] & [Blood Guard's Mail Grips].

Also, my article on Overcomplicated Beta sign ups has been picked up by Slashdot! Great to always see my word getting out.

Welcome /. readers!

Update: 14 Oct, 2007 - Edited post and corrected labels.

My first /. hit

My first /. (Slashdot) hit.

Update: 5 Nov, 2006 - Consolidated post and applied labels.