Category Archives: Meta

Gaming, Meta, MMO

On Saving Time

4 Comments

At this point I’m not sure where I first heard it, but I find when it comes to dungeons in Final Fantasy 14, the following is quite true:

Nothing wastes more time than people trying to save time.

So to my tank in Aurum Vale this past week, this one’s dedicated to you. It’s a bit of a rant, so sorry ahead of time for that.

Slow Down

The nature of some of the high level content in FF14 means that you may end up doing some dungeons rather often, especially if you decide to continue the relic quest past the atma stage (I don’t recommend this if all you care about is having a good weapon). Sometimes this makes people a bit impatient. Recently I’ve noticed a trend in doing nonstandard things in an attempt to “save time” and finish the instance faster, particularly on the part of tanks. Strategies for this range from reasonable (pulling more things than intended), to ridiculous (ignore all mechanics and hope for the best), to mildly exploitative (skip pulls by sending someone, usually the tank, on a suicide run). The only reason I call that last one mildly exploitative is because Square Enix seems to have reduced or eliminated the ability to do this in some of the older instances, and designs most current instances to make it impossible.

The thing is, there are very few things that slow a run down more than a wipe, and some of these things lead to that very scenario. If your entire party isn’t on-board, a suicide run is a disaster waiting to happen (I’ve even seen this go bad in the first turn of Binding Coil). Speedpulling is well and fine, unless your healer isn’t aware of what it takes to keep up with such high damage on the tank (or worse, isn’t aware that they need to hold off on heals until things have some amount of aggro and get instantly murdered). As far as ignoring mechanics goes, almost all cases where this is viable require high DPS, and sometimes people try without being aware that it’s an issue. A wipe in the last phase of Howling Eye (Hard) takes a lot longer than simply killing the adds would have, and I encountered this when going for my Scholar relic recently. Other notable examples include the Bone Dragon and King Behemoth in Labyrinth of the Ancients.

Communication is Key

The most important thing is that your entire group is prepared and willing to go along with whatever you’re doing. If someone says that they’re not familiar with a particular instance, or doesn’t feel confident in their ability to do a speed run, don’t try it anyway. If your party’s DPS is a pair of dragoons, you’re not really saving time by pulling more things at a time. On the other hand, if you have a Bard and a Black Mage feel free to pull as many things as you can without giving your healer a heart attack. If you’re in an instance below level 50, it’s important to keep in mind that some classes are missing relatively important tools (Flare, Perfect Balance, and Medica II come to mind immediately) and if you’re in an instance low enough there are some classes that don’t have any AOE abilities at all (Monks get their only worthwhile one at 30, Summoners get vastly improved AOE ability at 30, Dragoons get their first at 42 and a better one at 46).

The one that really gets me is ignoring mechanics without warning the party, particularly when this requires healers to kite or tank something they were previously unaware of. I first encountered the “screw the healer” strategy in Cutter’s Cry, and I’ve since seen it in Copperbell Mines and a few other places. It also tends to be the go-to in the Crystal Tower instances, even though there are somewhere between 2-5 tanks who don’t really have anything better to do who could be picking up adds instead of fighting for aggro on a miniboss. (Mini-rant: If you’re a tank, and you’re in one of the 24-man instances without a real job, please don’t fight whoever’s tanking a boss for aggro. In fact, turn on Sword Oath/turn off Defiance, and you will help more by doing damage than you would by spinning the boss. The exception here is when there are adds that need to be handled, most notably on Glasya and Amon, but you can switch your tank stance on when you get there if you’re paying enough attention.) If your healer doesn’t know what they have to do, they’ll die, and you’ll wipe, and have to do the whole thing over again. There are many more examples of this, like not killing the pillars in the last boss of Qarn, or ignoring the Iron Giant in Labyrinth. More uptime on the boss doesn’t speed things along if it causes a wipe.

It’s the little things

THAT SAID, there are some genuine ways to save time in instances that don’t endanger the group. For DPS classes, the biggest one of these is knowing your own class. If you are a bard, and you don’t anticipate the need for TP or MP regen, Foe Requiem increases the damage of your dots and Flaming Arrow even if there are no magical DPS in the party. (It also pulls from a very long distance, so be careful with it.) For Monks, Perfect Balance can be used to get a lot of AOE damage out of spamming Rockbreaker. For Black Mages, Blizzard III and Fire III replace Transpose entirely (unless you mess up).

Another thing that can help as a healer is casting damage spells. In particular, Holy is one of the game’s best AOEs, and the associated stun helps to reduce incoming damage on the tank. For Scholars, Shadowflare is also very good and causes a slow on everything standing in it, again reducing incoming damage. Provided you keep an eye on MP (Holy is very expensive) and don’t neglect normal healing duties, a bit of healer DPS can go a long way.

If someone’s new, an explanation ahead of time is better than a wipe later. It’s ok to suggest other things, but make sure everyone’s prepared and willing to go along with whatever strategy you’re using. Otherwise you’re just wasting time.

Gaming, Meta

On Definitions

2 Comments

There’s been a rash of stupidity in the gaming field lately. I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t weigh in on it in some way, especially when we agreed to avoid talking about it in last week’s podcast. When I answered the questionnaire from “Cannot be Tamed” I glossed over the question about whether or not I considered myself a gamer. It’s time to expand on it a bit.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes, but that doesn’t say anything useful about me.

Words Have Meanings

I’m an incredibly literal person. To me, the word “gamer” denotes “someone who plays games regularly”, kind of like biker, or moviegoer. Given the giant segment of the population that it applies to now, I’d say that attempting to apply any qualities to this label is a lost cause. I suspect that as my generation grows older, this segment will continue to grow. I’m sure that almost any descriptor you can think of, you can find a “gamer” that it would apply to. As of late, this includes assholes, nice people, women, men, students, people who play MMOs 12 hours a day, and people who play Candy Crush on their way to work. “Gamer” isn’t meaningless, but its value as a label is questionable.

With that out of the way, it’s completely stupid some of the things people have been doing in the name of this label. Regardless of what your personal opinions may be, it’s never okay to embark on a campaign of harassment against someone who doesn’t share your opinions.

#IStandWithGanondorf

I don’t always agree with the things he says, but I’m with Jim sterling on this one. Even ignoring that you should be a decent human being to other people, it’s not a bad thing for the medium if games are made to appeal to a larger audience than “18-25 year old white male”. The industry’s treatment of women and minorities is usually pretty terrible, and AAA games will probably have to get over that to appeal to a wider audience. This is really irrelevant to the issue, though.

I guess I’m annoyed that a thing I like is now associated with terrible behavior. It’s really not the first time, but it’s not going to stop me. “Gamer” covers half of the people in this country, and I know they aren’t all dicks. I’ll be over here playing games like usual. Destiny’s out in a few days, after all.

-Ashgar

P.S. Have I mentioned that attaching “-gate” to things is supremely stupid? Watergate got that name from the actual name of the location it took place. Not everything needs to be “something-gate”.

P.P.S. If someone wants to place me in the SJW camp for this post, can I please be a druid? Warriors are so boring.

Gaming, Meta

On The End of the Party

First things first: It’s the final day of the Job Fiesta. I challenged a bunch of people and only 3 have shown evidence of completion, so I guess I owe $30.


https://twitter.com/belghast/status/506151268239175680

Personally, I turned in two completions of my own.

Without any contributions from people seeing how the results came out, the Fiesta earned $10,385.64 as of this writing. If it keeps growing like this every year, it will become one of the larger events for Child’s Play. I know a large amount of money comes in from Something Awful, so many thanks should be extended to them each year.

It’s also the end of Blaugust, and all of the festivities that entails. It’s been fun, etc., etc. I could say that I hated everything and everyone, but that would be untruthful and my actual thoughts can be found here.

With the ending of things, it’s time to start anew. A new D&D campaign is starting tomorrow, and my Dragonborn Paladin will show up, probably to ruin everything. With the end of the Job Fiesta I can use my PSP to go back to playing Breath of Fire 3 (although I want to beat Azure Striker Gunvolt first.) Destiny’s coming out in just over a week. A friend is starting a new job, and it’s a time of transition for a lot of people. Hopefully the end of things just means new things are getting started, and I’ll be here to chronicle wherever things take me.

Records of the month can be found here. Thanks for the trip, Bel!

Meta

On Blaugust, Redux

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Blaugust is almost over, and I have a few thoughts on the whole process. Kodra wrote about the same thing yesterday, and I thought I’d share my thoughts on it.

Worth

First, I believe the event was absolutely worth it for me personally. I’m a lot more comfortable writing things on relatively short timelines. I feel like I know a bit more about what sort of posts people actually click on (and while it might help, I’m still not going to change how I title my posts). Some of my habits while playing games have changed a bit. I’m always looking for ways to take screenshots now, and taking note of things that work and things that don’t, so I can say things about the games I play other than “It was fun” or “It sucked”.

More importantly, it’s been a good way for me to see what other people are writing about. I’ve taken the opportunity to see a lot of content from people who weren’t part of NBI (and some people that were, but I wasn’t following that closely). Special mentions in particular to Isey and Murf, who’ve given me plenty of ideas about things to write about, whether they know it or not. Both Rae and Kodra (fellow Aggrochat participants) used the opportunity to start posting more. Because this is as good a place as any to mention it, Tam has also started a blog this month (although if he manages to write 31 posts before the end of the month I’ll be both shocked and impressed).

But…

However, I’m pretty sure I’m going to go back to posting 2-3 times a week in September, probably starting the second week of September. It’s had the desired effect on me, and I’m going to finish out the month, but daily posting is not something I’m willing to do long-term. It’s a bit easier during the week, especially if I can get a draft up (or sometimes a post, if it doesn’t need actual screenshots) during lunch. It suffers a lot on the weekends, when I’d rather be playing games than writing about them using that time. There have also been a few days where I worked on a post, and then decided that it needed more work than I had time for and posted something else instead. (This is what happened yesterday, I’m sure the original idea will surface eventually).

A journey of self-discovery is worth it even if we fall a bit short of the end goal, so this one satisfies. You should really check out the Blaugust Initiative for more posts on a variety of topics by other people. Did I mention that Tam wrote an introductory post?

Gaming, Meta

On an Ash NPC

I think this is the first time I’m resorting to one of the prompts for this event, but here goes.

If you were an NPC in a video game, what type of NPC would you be?

First, this is cheating. Random ESO NPC aside, I’d probably be an inconveniently located trainer. I’ve got a bit of a reputation for knowing things, and I frequently like being away from people. I’m not sure I’d go to a place like Uldaman, because there are reasonable limits to this sort of thing. (Seriously, that was bullshit.) I could see myself as a druid trainer, living in the wilderness, forcing people to come find me if they want to know my secrets.

On the other hand, I might be a random mob, zone-sweeper style (think Fel Reavers or Morladim). I could also see myself as a big bear, chasing after low-level players for no good reason. Maybe if the game was sophisticated enough, chasing after the person with the most food in their inventory or something. FF14 had Phecda, but now that B-rank hunt mobs are non-hostile, the effect of a giant bear running after you is lost.

I guess it’ll just be a short one today. For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative.

Gaming, Meta

On Difficulty

1 Comment

This is kind of related to what Liore and Belghast have posted recently, but as I just hit on it in two recent posts myself, I figure it’s worth expanding on my thoughts.

My first experience with “difficulty level mockery” was in the Touhou series. All of the games in the series (since the 6th one at least) have 4 difficulty modes: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. The first game in the series to release on Windows (Embodiment of Scarlet Devil) locked you out of the final level (and thus, the good ending) if you played on Easy. All of them have some additional text in the difficulty screen, usually mocking you somewhat for picking Easy (although occasionally also mocking you for picking Hard or Lunatic). Ten Desires has the following to say about its difficulties:

Prayer for Health and Long Life Easy Mode Hard to die.
For those who want to live long as possible.
Prayer for Traffic Safety Normal Mode Find a safe way to go.
Have a nice trip.
Prayer for Business Prosperity Hard Mode If you’re confident in your abilities.
You should be able to make a profit.
Prayer for IT Data Security Lunatic Mode Asking gods for help is pointless.
Don’t play this.

Just for reference, This is Ten Desires on Easy mode:
http://youtu.be/wgtFpcnlrDk

This phenomenon isn’t unique to Japanese games. Syder Arcade’s default difficulty cuts your score in half because it’s for “those who grew up with modern consoles”. (This implication, that modern games are “easier” than those that came before is also common.)

So why do we do this? There are probably players better and worse than you at nearly any game I’d care to name, so why focus on the second? I don’t actually have answers to these questions, or at least not answers that don’t make me sound like a cynical old man.

I’m not sure every game needs selectable difficulty, but games without it should be somewhat carefully designed. Examples I can think of that teach you how to play them before asking impossible things of you include VVVVVV and Shovel Knight. The idea that it’s okay to have a difficulty curve that resembles a cliff is also part of this problem. Many roguelikes are guilty of this, and claim that if you can’t understand them, then it’s not “meant” for you. I’d really prefer if we could be more encouraging to people adjusting to things. Touhouwiki has a page geared toward beginners that helps a lot (although it still tries to discourage starting on easy at the bottom). More things like this, and less making fun of people playing on easy would be appreciated all around.

That got a bit rambly at the end. For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust initiative.

Meta, MMO

On What’s In a Name

Names are Hard. I’ve been playing a series of Tabletop games, and it’s pretty much always the hardest part. My general online handle, HiddenWings, came about shortly after high school. It’s taken directly from a song title posted to an online music site that I’m surprised to see still exists. (When I found it, there was literally no artist name posted.) I’ve been using it since 2007 on forums, and since 2008 in games on PSN and Steam. It’s become my go-to default username ever since.

Even less creative is my go-to character name. Ashgar was a character in the GBA game Magi-Nation, and also a card in the related TCG (which I knew very little about at the time). In the game, Ashgar is the not-very-bright elder of Cald, the fire region. He does have in his possession a key that opens almost every door in the entire game; you have to steal it as part of the plot. (As a side note, there are severe penalties for not returning it before a certain point when he notices it’s missing.) The idea that “Ashgar’s Key” could open everything was fascinating to me, and so I remembered the name. It became the name of my horde-side druid in the summer of 2007, and since that was my first character to see serious play, the name stuck. When I transferred to Argent Dawn the name was taken, and so the name Ashfang came about.

Ashgar
Other names come from other places. When I need a full name (especially for a human), I tend to look up name meanings and pick something that has the right feeling, even if these names have completely different origins, or would be unlikely to occur together due to being popular in different parts of the world. Zane Dimetrius is from a variation on my actual name, and a surname meaning “Earth-lover”, an appropriate name for the earth mage that the name represented. Another example is Trevor Lowell, a name for a werewolf of sorts from nowhere special. This one’s a bit of a joke, as the names mean “big town” and “little wolf”. I liked that one enough that it became the name of my TSW character. As I play more things my stable of names slowly expands, but I’ll probably keep using a lot of the same ones whenever I can make similar characters.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative. This post is inspired by Tyluroth’s post on his names from yesterday.

Meta

On Obstacles

It’s interesting to consider the things that keep me from posting a blog post every day. I try to maintain a twice a week posting rate, although I haven’t done a good job of keeping to any particular schedule. There have been several times when I wrote most of a post and it hasn’t gone up until the next day, even though I spent probably under an hour on the actual writing part. This is examining the things that cause delays, in order to help me (and perhaps others) better avoid them this month.

1. Not Enough Pretty Pictures

I try to include some imagery with almost everything I post, but I’m not in the practice of taking screenshots much. I used to take more when I was playing WoW, but I got out of the habit when I started tanking raids. The boss’s feet and legs usually don’t make for a good screenshot, and I had other things in mind anyway.

What usually happens here is that I start to write something, realize I have no relevant screenshots, and delay the post until I can take some. I’m getting better at taking screenshots as I play (this is really easy for Steam games) so hopefully this one won’t happen as much in the future.

Sahagin

2. Not Interesting Enough

I originally had some grand standard in mind for my posts, that they should inform and entertain all at once, and also be on whatever the current hot topic is. Unfortunately, this isn’t really compatible with how I think or how I play games, so the posting schedule suffered. Some cool things did come out of it though, like the post about Transistor.

This venture is to teach me that there’s a middle ground between writing War and Peace and writing about my breakfast. It’s okay to post about random adventures in the things I’m doing. That’s what the blog’s allegedly about anyway.

carrier unlocked

3. Too Personal

This one doesn’t come up as much, but it has stopped me a few times. I attempted to write the post that became about podcasting a few times, but stopped because it primarily discusses me. This is a bigger hurdle than the others, for me. What I said there is true, I’m a fairly reserved person.

There’s time to fix that, I suppose. I have 29 more of these to write after this, and I can’t imagine I’ll keep myself out of all of them.

relaxing
Edit:
I forgot to mention this when it went up, but for more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative.

Gaming, Meta

On Influences

1 Comment

A while back, a friend posed a question to a group of us, asking what 15 games had most influenced us. Bel posted about it a while back, and I came up with my list around the same time. It’s now the first post of Blaugust. These are in roughly the order in which I encountered them, which means that they’re roughly arranged by date, but not quite. Trimming the list to 15 games is hard, and each of these led to other similar games in almost all cases.

Sonic 2 (1992)

This is the game I would credit with getting me into video games in general. My earliest memories of gaming are of me playing as Tails in this game. Tails is essentially invincible, but can be a valuable co-op partner if the person controlling him is good. Even if they’re not (and when this came out I certainly wasn’t), it’s not a real drawback. This being one of my first experiences is probably why I value co-op games so highly now.

Honorable Mention: Super Mario World

sonic_1 sonic_2 sonic_3

Overkill (1992)

I’ve talked about Overkill before, so I won’t expand here. This is the first game I “beat” on my own (Like a lot of games in the genre, Overkill starts again harder when you beat the last stage), and it established my love of scrolling shooters.

Honorable Mention: Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom

overkill1 overkill2 Overkill_menu

Street Fighter 2 (1992)

This is a bit of an odd case. I played Street Fighter 2 with friends before any of us knew what we were doing, or how to do a fireball motion or any of that, and found it fun. I learned what a Hadouken was too late to put any of it to practice in these matches or in the arcade, but memories of those experiences are why I found fighting games fun. I eventually enjoyed the more over-the-top games (BlazBlue, Marvel vs. Capcom) more than Street Fighter, but this one remains special.

Honorable Mention: Tekken 2

Street_Fighter_1 Street_Fighter_2 Street_Fighter_3

Illusion of Gaia (1994)

Illusion of Gaia (or Illusion of Time if you’re in Europe) was my first “Action-RPG” of sorts. This is the game that taught me that games could have actual stories beyond “rescue the princess” or “stop the bad guy”. This game in particular is somewhat difficult, so I didn’t actually beat it on a real SNES; I played it to completion on an emulator years later.

gaia_1 gaia_2 gaia_3

Mario Kart 64 (1997)

The joy of multiplayer, now with twice the players. Mario Kart 64 was my first 4-player game, and therefore the first game around which gatherings were specifically held. Prior to this, gaming was something my friends and I did while hanging out, this marked the start of hanging out specifically to play games.

Honorable Mention: Star Fox 64

MK_select MK_wario MK_rainbow

Mega Man X4 / Mega Man 8 (1997)

These released in the same year, use almost the same sprite for the main character, and were played by me literally back to back, so they can share this slot. They also share terrible voice acting (but I didn’t know better back then) and relatively high difficulty (which is common to the series). This was the expansion of my earlier enjoyment of the Mario and Sonic games, but with an additional layer of complexity that wasn’t just “jump on enemies”. I went back and played a lot of the earlier games later, and they’re also great. The same can’t be said for what came after…

mm8_1 mm8_2 mmx4

Pokemon Red/Blue (1998)

This might as well be My First JRPG, but it’s hiding some ridiculousness underneath. The simple nature of this game and ease of understanding the basics got me in, and trading with friends kept me in. As I got older, I grew to enjoy the complicated parts.

pokemon_1 pokemon_2 pokemon_3

Legend of Dragoon (2000)

This game made me aware that JRPGs as a genre were a thing I was interested in. Legend of Dragoon grabbed me in a way Final Fantasy 7 did not*, and it became my life for a period of time in 2001. The story is a bit cliché, and the translation is terribad (they couldn’t keep things consistent). But the combat system requiring timed button presses is fun (others have described it as “tedious”) and it has beautiful backgrounds and animations for the PS1 era.

*I died to the guard scorpion because I didn’t know “Attack while the tail’s up” was a mistranslation and it’s the same ATB tutorial boss the series used since FF4. I was 10; I hadn’t played any of the SNES games yet.

dragoon_1 dragoon_2 dragoon_3

Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001)

AKA the most fun I had with a multiplayer game since Mario Kart. Despite what some people say, this is a fighting game at its core, so a lot of the same principles of spacing and timing apply. At the same time, the simple nature of inputs and the chaotic nature of combat allow for people without much knowledge of the game to play and have fun. The skill ceiling is rather high, so it’s possible to see experienced players completely destroy beginners, but it can stay fun as long as the skill gap isn’t too wide.

Final Fantasy 5 (1992)

My favorite Final Fantasy, which is surprising when people learn I played this after 4 and 6, and it was the fan-translated version on an emulator. I’ve also talked about this one before. (As a reminder, you have exactly one month to finish/join the Fiesta.) My love of systems was established by this game, and it hasn’t worn off. Pieces of it still shine through in later Final Fantasy games, most notably in Tactics, X-2, and 14.

FF5_1 FF5_2 FF5_3

Shining Soul 2 (2004)

This is probably the game in the list that other people are least likely to have played. Shining Soul is a dungeon crawler of sorts for the Game Boy Advance, featuring a variety of characters and a very simple story. I picked this up because I liked the dragon, but I ended up playing more of the wolf. I’m fairly certain this was the start of my trend of playing non-humans in things that allow it, in addition to the start of me actually enjoying dungeon crawlers.

Honorable Mention: Diablo 2

SS2_1 SS2_2 SS2_3

World of Warcraft (2004)

I didn’t play WoW until 2007, right when Burning Crusade came out. By sheer virtue of the number of players it had at its peak, World of Warcraft was the first MMO for many people, and I count myself among that crowd. It’s thanks to WoW that I met a bunch of the people I now associate with, including Belghast and Kodra. It’s had ups, it’s had downs, but what I think of as an MMO is shaped almost entirely by World of Warcraft, from my preferred roles to what kinds of classes I like.

WoWScrnShot_012010_001700 WoWScrnShot_032610_011519 WoWScrnShot_011009_191706

Mass Effect (2008)

Mostly what Mass Effect did was teach (or re-teach) that I didn’t dislike shooters. I played a bunch of Goldeneye when that was relevant, and a fair bit of Halo 2 in high school, but after that everything seemed to be Call of Duty and competitive multiplayer, and I wasn’t a big fan. Mass Effect brought me back in a number of ways, mostly thanks to RPG mechanics and abilities. Mass Effect 3 did even more, thanks to the greatly expanded abilities on show in the multiplayer.

ME_1 ME_2 ME_3

Bastion (2011)

Bastion is a marvel of sound design. It’s also pretty and plays well, but those are honestly secondary to the music and the narration. This opened me up to the difference sound can make in a game. Without the work of Darren Korb and Logan Cunningham, Bastion would be a good, but not terribly special top-down action game, and it would draw unfavorable comparisons to things like Diablo or Sacred 2. The music and voice are what distinguish it. (My personal favorite track is Spike in a Rail.)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)

I played Oblivion when it came out and didn’t like it very much. I tried it again in 2008 and liked it more, but not enough to “finish” it. Skyrim engaged me in a way that Oblivion did not, and the streamlining of certain things (like attributes) made the experience much more enjoyable for me. Oblivion (and GTA) made me think I didn’t like Open World games, and Skyrim taught me otherwise.

Honorable Mention: Saint’s Row 3

skyrim_1 skyrim_2 skyrim_3

Final Words

Now that I’m here at the end, this is kind of a ridiculous post. Expect most of my Blaugust posts to be about a 5th of this. Thanks to MobyGames for the vast majority of the screenshots.

Edit:
Forgot to mention this when it went up, but for more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative.

Meta

On Blaugust

The major advantage to writing a blog post in the afternoon is that I can “borrow” topics from people who post in the morning. This has been convenient more than a few times, and today is one of those times. Belghast has been posting daily since April of last year, and today he challenged others to do the same for the month of August. And to that, I think I have only one thing to say:

Challenge Accepted

There are two main reasons I started blogging during this year’s NBI. The first was to have a bit of an outlet for my random thoughts, because I have a lot of random thoughts, mostly (but not entirely) relating to gaming. The second reason was simply to write more. I’ve been sticking to two posts a week, albeit rather erratically, and I think I could probably kick it up a few notches. I’m generally a rather reserved person, and this has helped me to express some things I otherwise might not have.
blaugust

With Reservations

As an additional note, Bel mentions posting a bit more personally, and I don’t think that’s going to happen this month. I’d like to keep this web space a bit more focused on my hobbies, rather than my personal life. But expect to see an expansion in the types of things I talk about, because staying focused on one thing for days at a time is just unlikely to happen for me. (Then again, my yearly obsession with FF5 does paint a different picture.) It’ll be an experiment for me. I don’t know how grand it will end up, but it should at least be entertaining. If you’re interested in doing the same, the community is here on Anook.