When real life intrudes

For those of you who have been following me for a long time you may have noticed this blog has grown steadily quieter over the past few weeks and months. Where I used to make one post every day or two I’m down to about twice a week and one of these if often short and quick. I got this nice raid awareness post in the works that I hope to be able to find some time to finish tomorrow but not a whole lot ahead.

The reason is rather simple. No I’m not bored with WoW or mmos in general. It’s simply that since the christmas holidays I’ve been under increasing pressure from my job. Those who are familiar with software developement will be familiar with “The Crunch”. The Crunch is basically that time just before you deliver a project where you work like crazy. I’m doing long days and when I do get home I’m often tired and don’t feel like doing much more than watching Tv or reading a book.  What time I consecrate to gaming is precious to me and blogging about said games tend to fall to the side.  Plus I’m still not finished with DA2 ! 😛

There’s not much to add here besides I just wanted to let you all know I’m still there if a bit tired. Still I’d be curious to hear from fellow bloggers how they deal with blogging when work keeps piling.

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Dead monkey edition

A wild “Real life Too much damn work” has appeared!

You do “Work hard”… it’s not very effective…

You do “Work harder”… it’s not very effective…

Real life Too much damn work crits you with “Even more Work!” It’s very effective!

You are defeated.

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To Casey Heynes

If you don’t know about the Casey Heynes story I suggest you google it.  This is not about MMOs but still, the story touched me deeply.

Hello Casey,

I know you will probably never read this but I wanted to write nonetheless.  I wanted to applaud you and salute the courage you displayed in standing up to that bully and more than that, I am deeply impressed by all the restraint you displayed before and after the fact. 

I was in your shoes when I was in 8th grade because I was into video games, wore huge glasses and loved Dungeon and Dragons. I was constantly bullied until one day I snapped and sent the other kid to the hospital with broken ribs and a broken arm. I wish I had displayed the same restraint. I netted me 2 weeks of suspension plus a heap of trouble.

But to this day I’ve never regretted it.  Don’t let anyone fool you. You have the right to defend yourself and your dignity and some people only understand to stop once they are put down. I was left mostly alone for the rest of my high school and I wish you the same.

So once again, I applaud your restraint and wish the best in the coming weeks.

Sincerely,

The monkey

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Crazy project #WM-17SH

Have you have ever any crazy ideas or goals in an MMO. Something that all logic would suggest you should not attempt? I know I do… often…

The latest of these crazes is getting myself a legendary weapon in WoW. More precisely I want to get myself a Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros. At first it was more or less to help out with guild achievements and maybe get someday to complete them but the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of setting myself a long-term goal.

Not only that but back in the day, I was drooling over Ragnaros hammer and to finally get one would be awesome.

That said, I’m also realist and know full well I may never complete it or lose interest along the way. Hopefully that won’t happen and to prevent that I’ve decided to take my time. Instead of rushing to get all the mats, I try to do a little bit every day and figure that by the time I get the Eye of sulfuras to drop off Rag, I will have more than enough time to collect everything I need.

Mats collection is going well so far. Got all the dark iron I need, about a quarter of the way there on Arcanite bar mats and I’m shy a few lava and fiery cores. Pretty sure that by next week I’ll get the remaining cores and from there progress will depend entirely on drops.

So now you know. I’m hopeful that I’ll manage to get the fabled hammer in due time, just have to stay motivated until the end.

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Who do they think they are?

/rage

I don’t know if you noticed but this blog has been pretty quiet when it comes to talking about other bloggers, gaming news sources or why game X is better than Y. In fact, while I won’t hesitate to points perceived flaws in whatever game I’m playing I try my best not to turn things into a debate about why it’s bad here and how that other game does it better. For those still not sure what I’m talking about, I don’t go around telling everyone why WoW sucks and why you should play another game, usually my game and I don’t tell you the reverse either.

I believe that my readers are smart enough to agree or not with what I’m saying and don’t need me to tell how they should think.

That’s me, but holy shit am I tired of reading everyone else telling me what I need to think, love or hate. Every time a new game comes out there’s two dozens blogs out there telling me I should hate it and another two dozens telling me I must love it.

You want to convince me that something is good or bad? Then post about what you think is good or bad about the game, simple as that. Don’t go telling me that your game (Rift) is better than mine (WoW) or better don’t tell me I suck at playing MMOs because my tastes are different from yours!

Because in the end this is what this is all truly about. People trying to enforce their beliefs on others. Because someone has been playing a game for X time, or because they hold some kind of position, they believe this entitle them to come and tell me what I should like or not like. Sorry game designers, there’s bad games too out there and ex-game designers a plenty wich only proves that some of you still don’t know what they hell you are talking about even if you work in said industry.

Sorry I can’t bear the religious zealotry anymore. Back in the middle ages they would have been the inquisitors going from house to house to convert the ignorant masses or force them to convert with sword and fire. So unless one of these self-appointed apostle of “The One and True MMO” can show me concrete proof that the Almighty himself showed them the truth, they have no more right to come into my house to force their beliefs on me than I have to force mine on them.

Here’s the deal. You want to convince me that your game is better than mine (wich may be true), then write about your games strength and let me decide for myself if I agree with you or not. You want to rant about how bad a game is? Sure thing! Tell me what you think is bad and why but don’t go telling me that I suck if I don’t agree with you.

Opinions are not truth and a lot of people seems to forget that.

/rage off

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