Just a quick shout out to Massively OP for featuring me in their Global Chat feature post. As much of as an honor when they mentioned my comments on their podcast about how I listen to podcasts at 2x speed in the shower. If you want MMO news and insights then Massively OP is the site for you.
Welcome to week two of Blaugust 2024; outlined below:
"Introduce Yourself Week (August 4th – August 10th) – The idea behind this week is to have some structured time around getting to know the other bloggers. I realize that those of us who are veteran bloggers might have already written half a dozen introduction posts by now, but it is a great time to share anything interesting you might have in your arsenal."
As a veteran blogger I do have lots of different posts introducing myself. I will refer you to my first post of Blaugust this year if you want some links and more info. I also shared some info about the Real World me in that post but I left out one of my favorite hobbies: fishing.
I've fished since I was a kid and used to spend every summer day down at my local fishing spots. I was fortunate to grow up in a small town in the midwest with a local lake that I could ride my bike around. Even when I finally got into video games with Sega Genesis I jumped outdoors every chance I got to go fishing.
Speaking of video games I am a big fan of fishing games from Super Black Bass all the way to more modern takes like recent adventures in Russian Fishing 4 or Call of the Wild: The Angler.
My dad also took us fishing from time to time and some core childhood memories were watching my dad rake away weeds near shore so we had a spot to fish for bluegill/sunfish (our local lake was very weedy at the shorelines). Then we'd usually end up at A&W or Hardees for a lunch afterwards. My dad always got a strawberry shake. Good times.
Also I am posting this as a dad myself who is getting ready to take my kids fishing later today. We don't have a small town lake we can ride bikes to so it's a bit of a drive for a good fishing spot here, but I hope the memories for my kids form the same. Though we won't be stopping at fast food afterwards today; if we did it would be Culvers (since they are now down here in the south).
Want to post for Blaugust 2024 but stuck on what to blog about? Then I suggest you hit up the prompt list, grab a D20, roll that beautiful bean footage and count down the list to the prompt you rolled. Then get writing!
 |
| 2 |
In classic D20 fashion I rolled low; a 2. That prompts me to write about:
What are some key sources of media (games/movies/etc) that have shaped your worldview?
One of the best parts of the prompt list is that there are no rules, and the questions are open to your interpretation. In this case, I get to ponder what to do with "worldview" in the question. My gaming worldview or my real-world worldview? Hmmm. Let me think on this. Since I've shared a bit more about the real me this Blaugust, let me stay in reality and focus on one piece of media most may not think of: football announcers in the '90s.
 |
| John Madden |
Growing up, I religiously watched the Packers games (we were practically in the shadow of Lambeau Field). While I am obviously influenced by being a Packers fan, one aspect that went hand-in-hand with the Packers in the 1990s was John Madden. I will admit to not knowing a ton about John Madden outside of football broadcasts, but what he did inside those broadcasts left a lasting mark on me. That mark was one of positivity, keeping things simple, and a willingness to say the "duh" things out loud
The infamous Madden joke goes something like, "Well, you see the team who scores the most points wins the game." - John Madden ... probably. For diehard football fans, Madden's basic statements seemed unwarranted, but to many others, they made the game infinitely more approachable. There was an entire cast of extended family members in my orbit who bounced in and out of the living room to catch Madden's updates on the games. He delivered his commentary with such flair and simplicity that it met them right where they were as passerby fans.
Another part of this puzzle is that many in my family have entered the teaching profession; you could say it is in our blood. I personally did not, but every time I coach my kids' sports teams or lead my son's scouting activities, I always get asked if I am a teacher. I have a way with kids, and a lot of it comes down to just talking to them with a bit of excitement in a simple manner and saying the "duh" things out loud that so many adults skip over.
Nowadays, I am a director at my company and lead teams on big projects. We have a reputation for getting stuff done on time and above expectation—seriously, to the point where I have senior vice presidents saying, "That is just not how projects go in business. Good job." I am good at what I do. You know a big part of it? Simplicity and laying the "duh" things out.
If you are following along, you can see that this sounds a lot like what passerby fans got from John Madden. As a Packers fan, I am fortunate that he covered so many of their games and was there for our Super Bowl runs in the '90s. I really do think of Madden when I am laying things out for folks, and I use him as an analogy anytime I am working with a newer manager struggling with working with employees. No doubt most of my employees are the football fans and not the passerby, but the power of keeping things simple and breaking things down for the passerby also reminds football fans how they got to be the fans they are. I feel like a bit of John Madden is narrating when I lead.
Blaugust 2024 is here which means July 2024 is over! Let's take a look at what happened on the blog in July.
Blogger provided number (last 30 days graph so a bit off a full month): 29,200 visits
This is up about 7,000 from June and there was a spike around 7/5 while I was out of town. I did not dig into the spike.
In other metrics:
 |
| Look at that mountain in the chart all driven by Throne and Liberty searches. |
For the first month in close to two years the answer for "what I played" is NOT New World. I basically quit New World cold turkey after coming back from my trip. I do drop in to reset some long duration trading post listings and to keep my "days since last login" fresh on the company board but that is it. I have not actually "played" the game since June.
What I have played though is a lot of Once Human (all tagged posts). I really like the game even though it has tons of issues and is death marching towards a seasonal model that is going to piss a lot of players off with how the server locking has gone. We'll see if it has staying power after July.
I also took the opportunity to try out the Throne and Liberty global beta and I shared my thoughts. I wasn't hooked enough to say for sure I am playing at launch but having broken the New World grip on my gaming time it is entirely possible I give it a go in Sept. It will be free 2 play so not much risk.
In July 2023 I was prepping for my first Blaugust!
Season 2 of New World was in full swing and I was posting my daily checklist which was a long standing driver of traffic to the blog as it was picked up on the New World subreddit. Sort of makes me sad to look back and see how positive we were on New World and just a year later and its doom and gloom.
July 2019 was in the 'no blogging' era and nothing comes to mind.
In
July of 2014 I was also not blogging regularly so had no entries.
July of 2009 had us talking about the infamous Darkfall review debacle and eventually we got the real Kieron Gillen Darkfall re-review to talk about. To be honest the original review was fair. Darkfall was a turd of a game. Personally I liked my May 2009 take by taking Kieron's review of The Path and treating it like it was for Darkfall.
I was also enamored with Battlefield Heroes through the month of July. It still holds a spot in my "best battlefield" list. Sad that it closed so soon after launching. It was Fortnite-like before Fortnite!
Technically I have 20 named years on my sidebar, but mathematically 2005 is only 19 years ago.
In July of 2005 it was a mix of Battlefield 2 posts and posts complaining about World of Warcraft. Hmmm... that seems familiar.
Welcome to Blaugust 2024! This year many bloggers are participating in the “First Post of Blaugust” initiative. The idea is that for my very first Blaugust post this year I should take a bit of time and introduce myself and the blog. As Tipa so quoted on my post yesterday "Once more into the breach, and damned be he who first cries "Hold! Enough!""
First I think it is worth looking back at Blaugust 2023 (my first year doing Blaugust) and my "about me" posts on where the blog came from and how I became the gamer I am today.
In explaining who I am and why I have this blog I always go back to my first blog post and pull forward this quote.
This blog has officially started. It has been a process of thought pulling at my mind for a while. I play these games we call MMORPGs, but I don't even know if "play" is the correct word to describe it anymore. I live and breath these games. They are more than an escape from my mediocre life. Fun is no longer the driving factor. Social interaction with like minded nerds and geeks; people whom live through their in game characters as though it was version 2.0 of themselves.
As I said last year this statement holds true all these years later and if you want nothing more than to know about the who and why of Heartlessgamer that is it.
There is of course the personal side out in the real world as well which I tend not to share too much about but Blaugust is good a time as any to share some more about the real me:
