The Killing really should be regulated as a controlled substance. It’s impossible to stop watching it. I finished the second season, and you may or may not be happy to know that they do finally reveal the murderer, and it looks like you can walk away from the show after two seasons. Spoilers way down at the end of the post. (Not really, though. I don’t tell you whodunnit, but I do sort of rule out one person.) They really punch you in the face with feels in the second season finale. Get your hankies ready. (248 words.)

Why didn’t anyone warn me about this show? Don’t start watching The Killing unless you’re willing to put in the time to finish the entire thing in one sitting. Because it’s really addicting. And in case you’re thinking you can get away with just watching one season at a time: The murder is not resolved at the end of the first season. The story just keeps right on going into the second season. I’m writing this paragraph to avoid spoilers, but my full thoughts are way down below: I had an idea of who the murderer might be after four or five episodes, based on my award-winning strategy of “picking the least plausible person it could possibly be.” Through the whole first season I was more and more convinced I was going to be right, because they never showed anything that directly refuted my theory. Once, it was close, but I can think of a way to explain it. At least until they arrested that dude in the last episode of season one. But then some evidence surfaced that made me think my theory could still be plausible, so I’m sticking with it as I start watching season two. In many ways, The Killing is a stereotypical cop show. It’s got the cop obsessed with finding the murderer at the expense of her family. It’s got the victim’s family coping with the loss of their daughter and the morbid depictions of how a victim’s body gets back to the family after the crime. It’s got the cop who went too far undercover and got hooked on drugs. It’s got the crusty police lieutenants. It’s got the city hall with their political agendas that are more important than the truth. But somehow it’s still a compelling show. (436 words.)

To be fair, here’s one thing that FFXIV doesn’t get right: I just re-installed it, subbed up, and jumped in again. (I went crazy and got a 3-month sub because I have some money coming in again heh.) I’m installing it on a different PC from when I last played it, so maybe you can guess what happened. All of my settings, keybinds, and HUD configurations were gone. Even the character-specific configurations like my gear sets were gone. (201 words.)

Well, here’s a topic. From Rowan Blaze: Why Have I Touched The Sky? Sort of a meta-blogging topic. So my second challenge for you, Dear Reader, in these few days of Blaugust: Why did you title your blog what you did? Do you think the name still fits? My first name for this blog was Melanthius. I still think that’s a cool name that rolls off the tongue, but it doesn’t have any inherent meaning when you look at it. (209 words.)

I’ve written about 1200 words a day for two days in a row. That may not sound like much, but it makes me feel like a rock star. I’m working on adding the middle part that goes between the beginning and ending of Moving Day. I couldn’t just leave it hanging the way it was. (Also I did some brainstorming and came up with some neat ideas for it.) It’s sort of morphed from a science fiction story to… I don’t know… horror? (137 words.)

Continuing my journey through cutting edge games from two years ago (also games I’ve already paid for), I’m finally playing Far Cry 3, previously purchased in a Steam sale. I enjoyed the first Far Cry. Well, I say that now, but when I look back on what I wrote about it in 2009, apparently I only thought it was “okay.” I picked up FarCry from Steam for $9.99 a couple weeks ago. (810 words.)

With August coming to an end I thought I would release another writing update. Being temporarily unemployed (which I prefer to think of as a short sabbatical), this is the first month in forever (aka. 2000-ish) where I have had nothing but time to write. So you would think that I would have written tons of stuff, particularly when I’ve had this ongoing crazy notion that I should someday get paid for writing. (640 words.)

What’s the best subscription-only MMO out there right now? If you could only pick one to maintain, which one would it be? (By the way, the possible answers are: WoW, EVE, WildStar, ESO, or FFXIV.) This is pretty easy for me to answer, actually: Final Fantasy XIV. Hands down. No need to even talk about it. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, there’s a lot to do, it’s updated often, it does every MMO mechanic (that matters) exactly right, and it’s cheaper than the others at $12/month. (328 words.)

I just finished watching episodes 8 and 9 of HBO’s The Leftovers, and something finally clicked. Yes, I know, I said I wasn’t going to watch more than 4 episodes, but I was intrigued by a television show (and a story) that does nothing but raise questions without ever answering them. Oh, that crack I made about Lost? Turns out, Leftovers producer Damon Lindelof did write for Lost. No wonder! Spoilers below if you haven’t seen the show yet. (I don’t recommend it, by the way. Unless the 10th and final episode of the season blows my mind, I just don’t get the point of this show.) (660 words.)

I’m not entirely sure what happened, but somehow WordPress posted two different versions of my last post. The RSS feed and the front page shows one version, but the post page itself shows a newer version. I think maybe ScribeFire did something to it. Anyway, I added a paragraph to my answer for question 20 at the last minute and this is what it was supposed to say: 20. Do you identify as a gamer? (281 words.)

Okay, okay, here’s my answers to the Cannot Be Tamed Gaming Questionnaire. I found many of these questions pretty silly. I feel like writing my own questionnaire with hard-hitting, insightful questions like, “If you were a ferret, what kind of video game controller would you use?” **1. When did you start playing video games? **2. What is the first game you remember playing? Somewhere around 1980-ish. I don’t remember if I had an Atari 2600 or a TRS-80 Color Computer first, though. (1107 words.)

By accident I noticed that Neverwinter released a new update called Tyranny of Dragons, in which they added the very cool-sounding new class Scourge Warlock. In terms of gameplay, however, I found the SW a little on the “meh” side. I feel like they might have borrowed a lot from the Control Wizard because it felt very similar to me. (My first level-cap character was a CW.) The main attack is the same kind of triple-bolt spell that the CW uses. (363 words.)

UPDATE 10/24 - Before you run to the comments to disprove me because of that one time you were ganked in a situation where you probably should have expected it, let me explain the purpose of this post. I’m not saying that ganking is impossible in ArcheAge, especially after level 30 (though I would argue that “ganking” is the wrong term to use after you’ve reached level 30). What I’m saying is that it’s extremely rare if you stay in safe zones, and you’re not going to lose anything if it happens, so there’s no reason not to try the game. (1143 words.)

Alternative Chat is asking everyone 10 questions about WoW for a documentary. Most answers that I’ve seen have been coming from semi-hardcore WoW players, but I thought it would be fun to give answers from a non-hardcore WoW player. Plus, it’s good material for a blog post! 1. Why did you start playing Warcraft? I started playing in 2006 after I saw the infamous Make Love, Not Warcraft episode of Southpark. (1006 words.)

It seems like years ago that I bought The Witcher 1 & 2 in one of those deep-discount Steam sales. I spent about 15 minutes playing The Witcher 1 (enough time to watch the opening movie and then get to where I could feel the intense pain of the combat controls), and then never played it again. Lately I’ve started to see some buzz about The Witcher 3, and I see that it’s now available for pre-order on Steam. (523 words.)