Another Age of Conan Delay

Funcom set a new release date for Age of Conan today.

Funcom announces a new release date for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. The highly anticipated MMO receives 8 more weeks of development, allowing Funcom to deliver a more polished MMO experience when the game launches on the 20th of May 2008

With the rumormill and beta leaks swirling, the news coming out of the Age of Conan camp has not been good. I don't harbor any ill-will towards the title, but I am a bit confused by the delays for the title.

I praised Age of Conan at one point for showing the fans what they wanted to see: PvP sieges, mounts, city building. However, apparently most of what was touted to be "in-game" was actually not. What fans have seen through demonstrations seems to have been pre-canned development server stuff, which is disappointing.

Is this the last delay for Conan? I think so, but I also thought I would be playing both Pirates of the Burning Sea and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning back in 2007! Oh well, I still hold to my 2008 predictions that AoC and WAR will both launch.

Heartbreak, Bad Weekend

Well, the Green Bay Packers managed to throw out a stinker tonight and forfeit their chance to go to the Super Bowl this year. I'm proud of what the Packers accomplished this year, but I am absolutely dismayed by the performance they put on against the Giants. I am still not sure what team and coaching staff showed up, but it was not the same one that had been in Green Bay all season.

I give credit to the New York Giants for the win and playing a good game, but I can't stand the "destiny" tag that the Giants fans have thrown on their team. Let's face it, they beat a fairly flat Tampa Bay team, were in the right place at the right time to catch Dallas with their pants down, and then really just got the luck of the draw and catch the Packers playing their second-worst football of the year.

Congrats to any team that wins a Championship game, but as a football fan, it pains me to see underdogs limp into a win over a team that for whatever reason falls apart for a few hours. However, that is why the NFL is so great, any team can win on any Sunday and being a football fan, GO GIANTS AND BEAT THOSE PATRIOTS!

On top of a heartbreaking Brett Favre interception to end my weekend, our heating unit died. We had snow the other day and last night either the heat pump seized or there is a freon leak that turned our unit into an ice cube.

Adding insult to injury, our dog has absolutely gone off the deep end, coming within an inch of biting a random joggers hand. We've worked extremely hard and long with our dog, but she has gotten worse by the week and it is starting to worry us that there is something we're missing that has turned a friendly puppy into an aggressive 11-month old dog. Sadly, as a Doberman, our dog does not get a second chance and one bite could be the end.

I'm not sure what else could go wrong in the next thirty minutes to make this weekend any worse, but at least I have tomorrow off from school and work. Too bad I have an online test to take, two massive assignments to get done, a heater to get fixed, and I still have to get around to getting into see the eye doctor and figure out why I am going blind.

Life's a bitch, but I'm not one to gone down quietly.

Challenges

I really wanted to tackle my RE: RE: Why Be Nice Anymore? post today, but time is just not on my side.

I am enrolled in a capstone course for my Computer Networking degree. This is the big daddy of classes and will require my complete attention for the next fifteen weeks. Already, in the first two weeks, I've dedicated more time to the project than I am used to dedicating to gaming!

The class is split into teams of three, each team responsible for designing a Request For Proposal for an imaginary company. Basically, our team will design a computer network from the ground up on a budget of $150,000 dollars.

Being the outstanding person that I am, I was elected to be the Team Captain. I understand some readers may not believe that, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. In reality, I was hand-picked to be part of this group by my instructors.

The group that I am part of has a perceived advantage, a forth person to split the work with. Unfortunately, the fourth person is the odd-man-out in the class and presents a unique situation. The extra member has been deaf since birth, has never really learned English, and has struggled to get into this course.

Yet, he has persisted and made it to the crowning achievement of the networking degree program at my college. In reality, this should be a ticket to a diploma, but it is doubtful that my team member will be able to pass his programming courses anytime soon.

I have been tasked to lead this team to success. My instructors have undaunted faith in my patience and leadership ability to see this through and produce a noteworthy end product. I have been challenged, and I do not plan to disappoint.

Bad Weather Incoming!

Looks like a wintry mix of rain, snow, and ice is going to hit overnight here in the Carolinas. Hopefully this means class and work are canceled for tomorrow... and that the Internet connection and power stay up! Then I can post my follow up to RE: Why Be Nice Anymore?

RE: Why be nice anymore?

Over at Wife Aggro, PVTHudson, asks: Why be nice anymore? Apparently, I am not nice, which may be a good thing according to PVTHudson, who seems to have grown bitter on the idea of playing nice.

Bloggers are guilty of being human. It is better to be nice, because no one likes to get noticed for being the Negative Nancy in the room. There is an argument to be had about the Internet and the effect anonymity has on a person, but in my decade of travel across the vast online sea, I've found most people to act fairly normal. Even as much as I'd like to argue that I'm a pretty nice guy in real life, and I am, I can't deny the fact that I have a whiny and combative edge.

The real effect of the Internet: amplification. I am inherently more whiny and combative on the Internet. I wish I could fully-explain why it occurs, but I can't. I observe it in almost every blogger I know personally, whether it is politics, gaming, or knitting (yes, with needles and yarn).

I know part of it comes from passion and the fact that most blogs get started out of a person's passion for something. Bloggers inevitably break down and say "Here it is world! Here is the fire that lights my world!". That opens the door for criticism and most people do not want to deal with criticism.

This blogging thing they started was suppose to be about them and their passion, how dare criticism become involved. How dare what they say matter. How dare that someone else on the Internet has an opinion. Honestly, how many bloggers have woken up to find some massively rude comment on their blog? I know I've had my fair share of wake up comments on this blog.

So, we end up with a lot of bloggers that talk in hushed tones and rarely have an opinion differing from the mainstream. I like to call it the "I agree too" problem. How many multi-blog posts have occurred where hundreds of comments and dozens of posts are written basically agreeing with the one before them. Everyone gets together at the end and pulls out some grand conclusion that the rest of us better live by, or else!

Lastly, it is wrong to go against the grain, because it puts a label on a person. For example: Heartless_ is an angry gamer. See what happened there? In reality though, it isn't going against the grain. It is following the grain, but differentiating one's self from the noise.

More to come...