Hi! I’m an old reclusive Gen-X software developer who writes about games or projects I’m working on or what’s happening in the world. Not AI-generated since 2012, despite what ZeroGPT says. Except the images. :)

The 2023 Baldur’s Gate 3 Playthrough Index

A Very Morose Writing Update

1,277 words.

# Monday, March 19, 2018 I promised myself that I would write about writing twice a month. The last writing post I published was January 17, over two months ago. Brace yourself for a shocking revelation. My writing is not going well. This could explain why I haven’t been rushing to tell you about it twice a month. I am writing this post in Visual Studio Code, because perhaps it will inspire me. (1277 words.)

MMO Roundup #9

681 words.

A weekly diary of MMO news and observations. The Bane Bard 330 outfit, mostly. The boots don't match! It’s been a very unusual multi-game bonanza lately. Normally I stick with one game at a time, but I’ve been all over the place. This is not a good thing. It means that none of the games I’m currently playing are all that interesting to me, and I’m in that mood where I’m searching for The Next Big Thing. (681 words.)

Project: Gorgon Acquired

1,031 words.

Project: Gorgon launched on Steam Early Access Tuesday at $40 with a 25% sale, bringing it down to $30 for the first week, which is precisely the price that I hoped it would be. Unlike all the other Early Access games that expect you to pay $30, I know exactly what I’m going to get with Project: Gorgon, and $30 seems like a decent price point to play around with it. (1031 words.)

RIFT Prime – The First Week

3,391 words.

2 plat 50 gold for that horse so you better believe it gets a screenshot! I mentioned briefly that I jumped into RIFT Prime, because of course I did. Everybody was talking about it, so as an MMORPG player, it is part of the rules that you have to join in on whatever the newest, shiniest thing is, especially if there is even the slimmest of possibilities that it might actually be fun. (3391 words.)

MMO Roundup #8

415 words.

Now I’m trying to work out why WordPress keeps using old images when it posts these things to Twitter. I think it’s because I was using a “Clone Post” plugin to make these posts. So I’m making this one from scratch. Seeing as how there is a game-breaking bug that prevents me from continuing to play it, I’ve abandoned Kingdom Come: Deliverance until whichever decade Warhorse decides to release the 1. (415 words.)

Life is Strange

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Steam is having yet another one of those sales, and I saw that a lot of Square Enix games were available cheap. Life is Strange, for example, is available for $5. It’s one of those games that everyone says is fantastic. It also happens that the first episode is available for free, so I thought I’d try it out and see if I wanted to spend the $5 for the entire thing. (689 words.)

Games Played – February 2018

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I can’t say that February was the most productive month I’ve ever spent on this Earth. But I got a lot of material for a podcast, at least. (And YouTube videos, if I ever upload them.) Kingdom Come: Deliverance - 63 hours Fallout 4 - 60 hours Final Fantasy XIV - 39 hours Elder Scrolls Online - 17 hours If you were to put them in chronological order, it would be: Fallout 4, FFXIV and ESO, then Kingdom Come: Deliverance. (98 words.)

MMO Roundup #7

330 words.

Not only am I still trying to find a formula for this weekly bullet post, but I am also still trying to find the right formula for the post’s title. A hilariously anachronistic priest in a supposedly historical game. I have played nothing at all this week except Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and am now over 60 hours. I almost rage quit when I met the first boss and died a hundred times, but after I eventually beat him mostly through luck and potions, I realized it was actually really easy and there was no need to quit. (330 words.)

Why Is It So Hard to Get Back Into ESO?

1,160 words.

Coldharbor, a painfully long slog through a very depressing blue landscape. If I had to guess which MMORPG was most popular right now based just on my Twitter feed (discounting WoW of course), I would guess that ESO is probably a strong contender. I used to love ESO. I played for about two months when it launched. I enjoyed it a lot. It was such a fresh take on the genre. (1160 words.)

Kitchen Sink Post #6

318 words.

_I’m still tinkering with the formula for this weekly “bullet post” thing. Now I feel like I should include news items and any interesting progress I’ve made on games I’m playing. _ ESO… always seems better in screenshots. I started the week playing some FFXIV, trying to work on improving my gear with Rabanastre runs and Omega 4.0 runs. Then I started playing ESO, trying to find what it was that everyone keeps saying that they love about that game. (318 words.)

That Ashes of Creation Live Stream

2,523 words.

I’ve worked on this post for a very long time. I’ve added stuff. Then I’ve deleted stuff. Then I’ve added other stuff. Then I’ve deleted other stuff. I don’t even know what it reads like anymore. If this were a novel, it would certainly be abandoned. Bhagpuss asked me what I didn’t like about the Ashes of Creation video. I actually try not to be this negative anymore, because it doesn’t do anyone any good to complain about something that other people might like. (2523 words.)

FFXIV – 4.2 Rise of a New Sun Completed (Spoilers)

627 words.

I put off FFXIV for a couple of weeks while I finished my Fallout 4 obsession, then I jumped in and completed the Main Scenario Quest for the 4.2 Patch. It took two whole days, maybe three total hours. I’m glad to have finished it. I had basically zero interest in playing it, to be honest, but I know from experience that no matter how much one doesn’t feel like playing the MSQ, it’s far better to stay up-to-date than to have to catch back up later. (627 words.)

MMO News Reactions 5

318 words.

A series of short reactions to the week’s MMORPG stories, otherwise known as “just about giving up on blogging” because I can’t be bothered to write long posts lately. Sorry about last week’s post. I was scrolling through Twitter last Friday and much to my own surprise I found that I’d posted something to my blog without even looking at it or setting a header image or anything. This time I will refrain from scheduling this to post right after creating the draft! (318 words.)

RIFT Leveling Anew

1,409 words.

With all the buzz about RIFT Prime, I wondered if I could recreate a nostalgic experience for free just by starting a new character on plain old RIFT Normal. I wanted to check two things: To see if experience points were withheld from free players at the beginning of the game just like at level 68, leading to hard road blocks that could only be made up by endless grinding or spending cash. (1409 words.)

A Podcast Experiment

380 words.

I’m excited and terrified to announce that I’m launching an experimental podcast project tentatively called Main Quest and you-yes you-can listen to the first two episodes right here! Well, down below a bit, anyway. Have you ever been sitting at work, or driving your car, or waiting at the dentist, and thought, “I wish I could listen to the story from a game right now?” Well I have. A lot. So much so that I’ve recorded a lot of my own gameplay with OBS over the last two or three years, converted it to mp3s, and put them on my phone, just so I could listen to them at work. (380 words.)