Archive: 2013

223 entries. 88,031 words.

January, 2013

• Fiscal Cliff Countdown. 2013-01-01 12:41 AM.
  • Commentary
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Forget the Times Square ball drop, what channel is the Fiscal Cliff countdown on? 14 words.
• Sanderson Takes Over. 2013-01-01 12:53 AM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I’ve been trying to get through the Wheel of Time books before A Memory of Light comes out on January 8, and since I am now 20% finished with The Towers of Midnight, I think I can safely say that I am going to make it. Light! What a reading frenzy. I was keenly interested to see what Brandon Sanderson would do with the series, and so far I’m quite pleased. I can definitely see the change in writing style (mainly in shorter sections and paragraphs and sentences), but I expected that. What I didn’t expect was the emotional impact that Sanderson brought to the series. Sanderson did something that Jordan never managed: He made me actually care about Rand for the first time since the first book. Rand’s been such an insufferable, stubbornly indecipherable butthead of a hero for so long that I frankly hoped the Dark One would win the Last Battle. 399 words.
• It’s 2013 And It’s Still Hard To Publish To A Blog. 2013-01-02 3:25 AM.
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  It is now 2013. This is an incredibly advanced, science-fiction-sounding year. Yet still, it is an incredible pain in the butt to compose and publish long-form blog posts. 2,502 words.
• At the bottom of the cliff. 2013-01-02 11:58 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Not surprisingly, all sides reached a deal on the fiscal cliff negotiations, so the cliff was more of a pothole. It’s rather difficult to find actual information among the news reports, but it looks like, among other more mundane things, the tax increase on 200k earners that Obama was adamant about changed to a tax increase on 400k earners, which could either be considered a win for Republicans or a compromise by everyone. Either way, it still doesn’t affect me. 227 words.
• Thoughts on Laptops. 2013-01-04 3:28 PM.
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  So I’m trying to come up with my future plan for computers. 446 words.
• What Would a Professional Do. 2013-01-06 12:20 AM.
  • Writing
  • Process
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  So yeah, I’m still stuck on Airworld. The main obstacle I think is my complete lack of confidence in the outline I have sketched out for the rest of the book. It sounds like it will be terrible. Nothing makes sense, nobody is anywhere for a reason, entire plotlines are pointless and stupid. And what’s worse, according to my 3-books-a-year schedule, I should be starting a new book in February. That’s less than a month away, if you’re somehow unable to look at a calendar. 456 words.
• An Epic Belly Flop Of An Ending. 2013-01-07 1:08 AM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Redskins … I just … I don’t even … I can’t even describe … 16 words.
• Finished A Memory of Light. 2013-01-15 8:22 PM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  The Third Age is finally over. I powered through books 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 all in a row, which has left me exhausted, yet exalted. Say what you want about it, but you can’t deny that The Wheel of Time is EPIC. I quipped on Facebook that they should retire the category of “epic fantasy” after this because nobody else could possibly write anything as epic. I’m trying to think of anything I’ve read that had a similar scope. Lord of the Rings, obviously, but that was only three tiny, tiny books. The only other books I can think of (that I’ve read) that came close in terms of sheer immersion were Stephen R. Donaldson’s _The Chronicles of Thomas _Covenant and possibly The Sword of Shannara, which I remember as incredibly epic in scope, even though it was only one book, and I read it when I was a teenager. 291 words.
• Dissecting What Went Wrong. 2013-01-16 1:35 AM.
  • Writing
  • Process
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  In the continuing saga of what to do with Airworld, I believe I have figured out why I don’t particularly want to continue it. Somewhere along the way, the story stopped being fun to write. It seems pretty obvious in retrospect. If it was fun to write, obviously I’d still be writing it. But what happened? This exact thing was something that Rachel Aaron addressed in her NaNoWriMo question-and-answer thread again and again. She advised not to continue writing something that wasn’t fun. She also advised that you should figure out why it isn’t fun to write, because it probably indicates a problem that needs to be fixed. 296 words.
• Snow and Comments. 2013-01-18 2:55 PM.
  • Administration
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  It snowed last night. A thick, wet, yucky snow that subsequently froze, accumulating to perhaps a couple of inches. I used to like snow. But now I find it just about the most annoying weather there is, with the possible exception of cold rain, which we have had for the previous week, so I suppose the snow is an improvement. On another note, I get a lot of Chinese comments. I’ll probably get one on this post. I always mark them as spam, so on the off chance that there is actually a real Chinese person out there trying to comment on my posts, sorry. 105 words.

February, 2013

• Superbowl Something-or-Another. 2013-02-03 11:19 PM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Live blogging the Superbowl, because people on Facebook would probably be annoyed if I did this on there. 6:17 – Sandy Hook Kids: Oh, Superbowl, you’re always bringing up the depressing stuff and trying to make us cry. 6:22 – Dammit can’t find a good place for the rabbit ears. 6:23 – That was the longest Star-Spangled Banner ever. (Also a good one.) 6:27 – They should mount a camera on the coin to make this more interesting. 706 words.
• Tunguska’s Revenge and Moons. 2013-02-21 2:52 AM.
  • Personal
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  It was a big day for Near Earth Objects last Friday. And why does Pluto have more moons than us? 433 words.
• Furloughs Might Actually Harm Me. 2013-02-23 9:56 PM.
  • Personal
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  The potential for government furloughs is one of the rare political stories that actually might have a direct impact on my life. 348 words.
• Upcoming 2013 Games. 2013-02-23 10:10 PM.
  • Musings
  • Status
  • Steam
  
  Looking at upcoming PC games for 2013, I’m only seeing three that I think I’ll buy when they come out: Bioshock Infinite, Elder Scrolls Online, and Neverwinter. GTA V is a possibility but I think I can wait for a Steam sale on that one. (Especially since GTA 4 sucked.) 50 words.
• No More Saturday Mail. 2013-02-23 10:19 PM.
  • Commentary
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  The USPS is going to stop Saturday delivery. Now they just need to work on stopping mail delivery Monday through Friday, too. 110 words.

March, 2013

• Sequestrated. 2013-03-02 1:39 AM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Looks like sequestration is a go. 132 words.
• Update on the Lack of Writing. 2013-03-02 9:24 PM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Since it’s now March I should probably write an update. I am still struggling with writing, and failing miserably. This is the result of many factors which are incredibly easy to identify, but not very easy to resolve. The first is NaNoWriMo. I’m wondering if I should skip it in the future, because the blitz of writing during that one month has always been followed by a period of severe burn-out which is hard to recover from. As it is now three months later, that’s probably the least of my problems. 402 words.
• MMORPG Micro-Reviews. 2013-03-08 1:54 PM.
  • Reviews
  
  Being a little bored of Guild Wars 2, Tera, and Rift, I went looking on MMORPG.com’s list of games sorted by rating for free-to-play MMOs I haven’t played yet. These reviews are first impressions having played less than an hour of each. Wizardry Online - Ridiculously old-school and very slow-moving. Supposed to be really hard, but in the beginning it’s just hard to have fun. The writers clearly aren’t native English-speakers. Surprised that Sony’s name is on this. 172 words.
• Beta Signups. 2013-03-09 1:00 AM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I’ve signed up for three betas: Neverwinter, Elder Scrolls Online, and just now I signed up for Defiance, a sci-fi shooter MMO (or something like that) from Trion Worlds, the same people that did Rift, so I assume it won’t suck. 41 words.
• Tech at Night Like A Barrel of Fish. 2013-03-11 11:12 PM.
  • Politics
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I stumbled onto a blog called Tech at Night hosted by RedState. That’s right, you heard me, it’s a tech blog by the hyper-partisan right-wing blog RedState. 859 words.
• Searching For News Readers. 2013-03-16 12:26 AM.
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  It’s time for me to search for a news reader. 381 words.
• Google Keep Is What Now?. 2013-03-23 2:30 PM.
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I’m not sure I get the point of Google Keep. 81 words.

April, 2013

• BioShock Infinite – Game of the decade?. 2013-04-05 12:22 PM.
  • Reviews
  
  I finished Bioshock Infinite over the holiday weekend. I don’t often buy games as soon as they are released, because roughly 90% of the time they suck, and also 90% of the time they’re in a 75%-off Steam sale within a year. But like everyone else, I was blown away by the first Bioshock, so I knew there was a good chance this would be a great, culturally-significant game. Also, I knew there was going to be a twist in the story that I didn’t want spoiled by every jerkwad troll on the Internet. (I severely curtailed my social media presence and even turned off the global chat in GW2.) 440 words.
• Google+ No Good As A News Reader. 2013-04-06 2:45 PM.
  • Personal
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Google+ sucks as a news aggregator. 184 words.
• On Feedly. 2013-04-06 2:48 PM.
  • Personal
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I want to like Feedly. I really do. 129 words.
• North Korea Trollololol. 2013-04-06 3:08 PM.
  • Commentary
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  This daily hubbub about North Korea is getting kind of ridiculous. 287 words.
• Android Calendar Date Entry Sucks. 2013-04-06 3:19 PM.
  • Commentary
  • Personal
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  In what world is it easy to enter a month and day using these stupid radial spin dials? 171 words.
• A Writing Uniform?. 2013-04-06 3:30 PM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  The most recent episode of Writing Excuses introduced me to the concept of a “writer’s uniform.” I think they were referring to the clothing an author wears while conducting writer business, but I am thinking about it in terms of clothing to wear while writing. In general, I don’t particularly like dressing up. But I have to admit that the act of putting on business casual attire does make me “feel” more like a professional in the ol’ day job. So I’m wondering if there is an outfit I could wear that would make me “feel” more like writing. 246 words.
• Twitter versus Television. 2013-04-17 12:47 AM.
  • Uncategorized
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  It was interesting to compare my reaction to the tragic news from Boston based on the delivery medium. 381 words.

May, 2013

• My Top 5. 2013-05-22 9:21 PM.
  • Reviews
  
  Saw this on MMORPG.com: The Best MMOs of 2013… So Far. Darkfall: Unholy Wars. Haven’t seen it. Not going to look at it. Age of Wushu. Really? Seriously? It doesn’t even have invert mouse! The Secret World. Yes, but it should be in the top 3. Star Wars: The Old Republic. Maybe, possibly. Neverwinter. It’s not bad, but I’m not prepared to put it at #3. 180 words.
• Jetpack Post-by-Email. 2013-05-23 12:08 PM.
  • Administration
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I setup the post-by-email feature of the Jetpack for Wordpress plugin 49 words.
• Tera. 2013-05-23 12:12 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I pulled out Tera again for a bit. Tera is a really a great game for playing a melee character. My main right now is a berserker, and I just love that class. The combat is so visceral and engaging when you can block attacks. Also, each encounter is an epic battle. It’s not like most MMOs where it takes less than a second to kill most things. Fights in Tera go on and on, even against regular mobs. 91 words.
• Neverwinter Open Beta. 2013-05-23 2:21 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I discovered that Neverwinter is available in what they’re calling an “open beta.” Rabid fans will tell you that you should only play if you are willing to test the game and that you should expect bugs, but in truth, this is not a beta in the software development sense. It’s beta in the Google sense. It’s live, and there will be no character wipe at the end of it. 1,293 words.
• Stealth Poison Ivy. 2013-05-23 6:28 PM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I’m getting over a bad case (for me) of poison ivy. 377 words.
• Game of Thrones Season 3. 2013-05-23 6:42 PM.
  • Television
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Okay I’m going to say it. Or write it. Whatever. Game of Thrones is getting a bit dull. In the books, it’s fine to have twenty different storylines, because it’s an epic fantasy after all and you get to stay with the characters for at least a chapter before moving on, and they are usually long chapters. In the television series, you get to spend roughly thirty seconds on each story in each episode, so it’s nearly impossible to form any kind of attachment with what’s going on. We see so little of Daenerys that I really don’t care what she’s doing over there in the desert anymore. Every time we see her, all she’s doing is whining about slaves. I almost wish they would devote each episode to one specific character’s story instead of trying to weave them all together. 199 words.
• Defiance Beta Results. 2013-05-24 6:33 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Reviews
  
  From the unpublished archives: I tried out the Defiance beta. It was “kind of” fun but it’s not really my kind of game. MMO shooters never seem that great to me. Lag plays a significant factor in being able to hit anything. Also, maybe my expectations are wack, but I thought all TPS (Third Person Shooter) games were supposed to have cover mechanics. This one didn’t. One thing that drove me crazy was the complete inability to see enemies and players in the environment until you’re standing on top of them. I hate that. The landscape, NPCs, and players are all shades of brown. 143 words.
• GIFs In The News Again. 2013-05-24 7:16 PM.
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  The debate over how to pronounce GIF is back in the tech news again. 430 words.
• On the Control Wizard. 2013-05-29 1:49 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I got my Control Wizard to 60. It’s really easy to level in Neverwinter, by far the easiest game to level in I’ve seen (after WoW, of course). I think it literally took two weeks (maybe it was three). Admittedly I played a lot in that time, but still, pretty fast. Side note: What is the deal with the class names? Why is it “Control Wizard” instead of just “Wizard?” Why “Trickster Rogue” instead of “Rogue?” What other kind of rogues are there? None, that’s what. At least not yet. 438 words.
• On the Devoted Cleric. 2013-05-31 6:10 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I’d been hearing a lot about how threat is “broken” in NW (Neverwinter) and that cleric healing generates too much aggro. I’d also been hearing that DCs (Devoted Clerics) need to be more versatile than simply healing. I’d also heard that DCs get into dungeons a lot faster, since nobody plays them (because of the first two items). Well, I wanted to see all of that for myself, so I started a Devoted Cleric. 913 words.
• Neverwinter Forums. 2013-05-31 7:45 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  When I read the Neverwinter forums, I get the feeling that the only people posting have either a) never played anything but PnP D&D, or b) never played any other MMO, or c) have never played in PUGs before. I can understand some people fitting those criteria, but *everyone*? It’s like nobody has ever seen a “need or greed” loot system before, and they think they are the first people to notice it’s not a very good system. Yeah, no kidding. It’s been terrible ever since it was invented. But it sure beats the first come, first served loot system. And people have survived all the other MMOs that have implemented it. I ran dungeons a lot in Rift and got all the loot I needed without any fuss. Doing the same in NW. It’s easier in NW actually, because each boss only drops like 2 possible things. 148 words.

June, 2013

• Anticlimatic Nevewinter Feats. 2013-06-01 3:37 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  About those Neverwinter Feats. Is it just me, or is it really hard to get excited about spending points that only increase your damage/whatever by 1%/2%/3%? I mean, statistically speaking, there isn’t much difference between a 3% increase and a 0% increase, right? It seems very … anticlimatic. Two clerics side-by-side, one with 3% increase, and one without - you won’t be able to tell the difference. “Woohoo, I leveled up after all that work, now I get to increase my damage from 500 to 505 points! That’ll make all the difference in future combat!” 154 words.
• Lair of the Mad Dragon. 2013-06-03 3:31 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I’ve read and heard a lot about how difficult the Lair of the Mad Dragon is (a level 34 5-man dungeon in Neverwinter). I’ve attempted MD five times in PUGs now, twice as a cleric and three times as a GWF (Great Weapon Fighter), so I have some thoughts of my own. For comparison, MD is the third dungeon as you’re leveling. The first is the level 16 Cloak Tower, which is simple enough that anyone can do anything and still get through it. The second is the level 24 Cragmire Crypts, which is noticeably harder but still requires little strategy. 1,089 words.
• A Minor Variation. 2013-06-03 6:18 PM.
  • Process
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  With apologies to Billy Joel. I had a minor revelation for my Airworld story last night. It occurred to me that things would work out much better if the location of the Council of Life is known when we start out. For some reason I had set it in stone that Naobi was leaving Motiva to search for the Council of Life. Now she is leaving to visit the Council of Life. With that minor variation, some other things fall into place nicely. Mainly, it removes “finding the Council of Life” as a condition for ending the story. I was having major problems with the ending because it wasn’t symmetrical with the beginning. 113 words.
• Chortlefax Fail Number 6. 2013-06-04 2:35 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Failed again in Lair of the Mad Dragon with a PUG. (I think that was the 6th failure in total.) Group composition was a guardian, cleric, GWF (me), and 2 rogues. No control wizard, but it seemed like a balanced group that should have had the tools to tackle Chortlefax. Unfortunately we struggled through most of the dungeon. I’ve noticed that the only people who queue for Chortlefax are people who seem like they haven’t done it before. The guardian was only 30, and the rogues were 32ish. Me and the cleric were 35, but the cleric acted like he had never experienced that level of madness and was still under the illusion that he could throw out heals like candy. 331 words.
• NBC Nightly Weather News. 2013-06-04 2:52 PM.
  • Commentary
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  When did NBC Nightly News turn into a half-hour weather show? 63 words.
• Why Chartilifax is so Hard. 2013-06-04 4:18 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I forgot to mention my theory for why Lair of the Mad Dragon is so difficult. I think it’s to get people to buy resurrection scrolls, plain and simple. When you’re sitting there dead on the floor, there’s a button that says “spend X zen to get life scrolls!” I expect that if everyone could rez after every death, the dragon would be a lot easier to defeat. That being said, I do expect them to nerf Chortlefax at some point. The difficulty increase from even the previous boss in the Lair to Chortlefax is just ridiculous. 97 words.
• On the Great Weapon Fighter. 2013-06-05 5:17 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  My current favorite class in Neverwinter is the Great Weapon Fighter (GWF). This came as a huge surprise to me, because when I sampled the five classes, the GWF was absolutely godawful in the first four newbie levels, and for a supposedly DPS class, it had terrible, horrible damage output. Even the Guardian Fighter did better, and tank classes are traditionally pretty terrible at damage. Perhaps partially because of the challenge of it, I went back to the GWF to see what it could do. I wanted a pure DPS character for dungeon delves and honestly the Trickster Rogue (TR) gets on my nerves. For one thing, everyone plays it, and for another, it is so ridiculously overpowered at first that I found it insulting to my intelligence. Because it does such ridiculously high damage early on, it has to get worse as you level, right? Whereas the GWF does terrible damage at first, so it has to get better toward the endgame. Such was my thinking anyway. Also, the GWF seemed to have more skills for hitting more than one target at once. 403 words.
• Which Difficulty is Artificial and Which Is Real. 2013-06-06 5:59 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I see a lot of people on Neverwinter forums complain about the “artificial difficulty” added to boss encounters. The argument they use is that bosses aren’t difficult to kill, but the adds that spawn make it difficult to focus on the boss, so this was a cheap and lazy way for Cryptic to “artificially” make boss encounters hard. This logic makes no sense to me. Most of my instance experience comes from Rift, but I’m led to believe it is typical of what you might find in other raids and dungeons like from, say, WoW. Usually there is a boss which has some “mechanic” that makes it more difficult than just standing there pouring DPS into it. For example, it has a big cleave that will kill anything in the way, or it will drop a bomb that must be focused or the group will wipe, or there are lasers on the ground that you have to avoid, or sometimes you have to stop DPS so it doesn’t reflect back on you, or something like that. 510 words.
• On The Throne of Idris. 2013-06-06 6:06 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  My GWF dinged 36, so I can’t queue for Lair of the Mad Dragon anymore with him. Instead, I queued for the Throne of Idris, which I think is a level 38 dungeon. Idris is a bit easier than MD, in that it is actually finishable. I’ve done it twice, and finished both times (though it took two tries on the last boss both times, too). And it’s very short, which is awesome. (I hate long dungeons. No gaming event should ever take an hour. 20 minutes tops, I say.) However some parts, including the final boss, have something that no previous dungeon encounter has: It matters how you pull the monsters. There are places where you should tackle a few monsters at a time instead of charging into the middle of the room - mainly, the final boss, which is a dude surrounded by 500 smaller monsters. 286 words.
• Neverwinter's First Major Update aka. Launch Day Coming. 2013-06-07 1:46 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Word has come down that Neverwinter’s “launch day” (June 20) will bring major balance and gameplay changes. This coincides with the 1-month-after-launch massive patch that every MMO always does to address issues that arise after launch. To me, this also seems to be the time when the developer actually implements a lot of the feedback they got from their beta period. They hardly ever change anything but major breaking bugs between beta and launch. 897 words.
• Government Surveillance. 2013-06-07 4:50 PM.
  • Commentary
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Constant surveillance seems like a fairly logical side effect of instantaneous global communication. 314 words.
• Every MMO Forum Thread. 2013-06-07 6:38 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I just love how every single MMO forum thread goes something like this: A. I don’t like this aspect of the game. B. No, I think you’re complaining about nothing. A. What are you retarded? Learn to read! I didn’t say I was complaining! You’re a total moron! You’re a scrub loser with a pathetic gear score, and you’re stupid! Can’t you even read? Rage rage rage. B. Did you even bother to read my post? God you’re stupid and your post count is pathetic. You’re pathetic. Your mom thinks you’re pathetic. Rage rage rage rage rage. 136 words.
• Is Facebook Like A Telephone Book?. 2013-06-08 4:51 PM.
  • Commentary
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Is Facebook like a telephone book? 53 words.
• Grey Wolf, Pirate King, Frozen Heart, Spellplague. 2013-06-10 4:43 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I have to say that the dungeons are my favorite part of Neverwinter. Everyone on the forums whines constantly about how poorly designed the bosses are but I find them rather fun. You don’t have to memorize any strategies beforehand - you just jump in and play your class and your role well, and chances are you’ll do fine. If you don’t play your class well, chances are you’ll get schooled and then have to go to the forums and whine about it. 433 words.
• Metrics On Eating Better. 2013-06-10 4:52 PM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  There should be some kind of measurable effect when eating better. 62 words.
• Spellplague Caverns Death March. 2013-06-11 2:57 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  So I hit level 52 on my GWF and decided to try Spellplague Caverns again for a Dungeon Delve event. That turned out to be a huge mistake. Do not ever go into this dungeon. Ever. It is just not worth it. There’s no way the loot justifies the time spent. We had a GWF (me), cleric, wizard, and two rogues. At first. Somewhere before the first boss, one of the rogues disconnected and someone had the brilliant idea to kick him and get another from the queue. Except that once you go beyond a certain point in a dungeon, it bugs out and doesn’t pull in new people from the queue anymore. It would have been much better to wait for the disconnected person to come back, because they usually do. So we only had four for about 98% of the dungeon. And no tank. 579 words.
• Back to Rift For A Bit. 2013-06-13 6:49 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I think I’m going to lay off of Neverwinter until the big upcoming patch. I find that I have little interest in doing anything in that game except running dungeons, but since it is nearly impossible to get through a queue after level 50, I just stand there doing nothing most of the time. I’m rather hoping that the next patch will make the dungeon queue work a lot better. If not, then I doubt I’ll play it much more until they make some changes. 335 words.
• Fresh 60 In Rift. 2013-06-18 2:57 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Well the “big patch” for Neverwinter came a week earlier than I expected. Guess what? No changes in queueing - it still takes forever. So I’ve basically given up on Neverwinter, so it’s all Rift all the time for me! My mage reached level 60, so now I’m a “fresh 60.” I’m not sure how long the total journey from 50 to 60 took, but it took a little over a week to get from 55 to 60. I’m now remembering just how much stuff there is to do in Rift, with dailies and crafting and fishing and so forth, and how much fun it is. Zone Events are tons and tons of addictive fun. There’s a World Event going on now that I haven’t even seen yet. There are not one, not two, but *three* level 60 zones to run around in! 720 words.
• Ready Player One – Start!. 2013-06-18 4:26 PM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I’m finally listening to the audiobook of the much-talked-about Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, read by Internet super-celebrity Wil Wheaton. Though I’m only a handful of chapters into it, this book is clearly an 80s geek subculture nerdgasm from start to finish. It’s fascinating, hilarious, and depressing - despressing because of how many of the obscure references I understand (like, roughly, all of them). Now I’m going to take the fanboy hat off and put on the author hat. This book has a lot of exposition. I mean a lot of it. There are what I assume are pages and pages and pages of telling, not showing. I think there was one whole chapter telling Halliday’s life story. He’s basically John Carmack on steroids, which is neat if you know anything about computer gaming history, but it really didn’t do much to serve the story right then. 505 words.
• Weekend Rift Accomplishments. 2013-06-24 4:04 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I finally got to Grandmaster Runecrafter (375), one tedious point at a time. Then I realized I could have been buying recipes from the Runecrafter Vendor all along … I never scrolled down below the 375 recipes heh. Speaking of professions I bought a fourth profession slot for Artificer, because I had removed it from my cleric to make him a pure gatherer. At the time I thought I would level it up and be able to runebreak the artificer items I made to get to grandmaster, which is still a sound theory, but I hit Runecrafter 375 before I even got to Artificer 150. I still want to get Grandmaster Artificer though because it is such a pain to find things to runebreak. 579 words.
• A Game’s Most Important Features. 2013-06-25 1:43 AM.
  • MMORPG
  
  All this hubbub over the Neverwinter cats and the 7-hour rollback has got me thinking something I’ve believed for a while. It seems to me that the most important thing that an MMO developer should focus on during their game development is … not the game at all. They need to focus on logging and tracking functionality. They need to focus on being able to “undo” any item in the system. They need to be able to rollback individual characters, and in so doing, rollback all of the transactions that character has done in that time frame, which means they need a complete transaction history for each item. (Perhaps only keep such transactions for blue or purple items, common items aren’t important enough.) They need to be able to see alerts whenever unusual activity occurs. They need to see when a character’s gold increases dramatically over the course of a day. They need an automatic freeze on any character who receives more than a set amount of gold, so that someone can manually investigate it. Someone needs to be sitting in front of a big monitor with realtime alerts on it, showing a big map of the game world, with blinking red dots everywhere there’s suspicious activity. 238 words.
• Low-Level Tanking. 2013-06-25 1:41 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I’ve got MMO fever pretty bad right now - sorry IRL. :/ So I’m getting ready to start tanking RotF on my new Defiant warrior, and since I’m stuck at work for a while I thought I’d go lookup some up-to-date “low level tanking” guides first. Except there aren’t any. I found where someone asked for one on the forums, but the basic response from the tankerotti was, “Just do anything. The low level dungeons are so easy it doesn’t matter.” 648 words.
• Mentored Healing Attempts. 2013-06-26 2:45 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I queued for healing twice with my mage last night. I ticked the “Mentor” checkbox and a Random Normal dungeon, because I’m a chicken, and wanted to see if I remembered anything at all about Chloromancer. So first I got into Storm Breaker Protocol, one of the SL dungeons. First I hit as healer, then someone refused, then I hit as a DPS. When I arrived, the group had just gotten beyond the mech suits. The other four guys were all guildies, and I assume they were all talking on some kind of Ventrillo thing because they were otherwise silent. 939 words.
• Drama Queen Tanks. 2013-06-26 4:14 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  So I tried to get in a random expert with my mage, something I try to do at least once a day. It was Archive of Flesh, and right away the support guy says it’s his first time. No problem, it’s the right thing to say that up front and actually pretty ballsy because most people don’t admit it. :) For a while, he did basically no DPS so he was actually trying to play a support role - normally not required unless the healer requests it, but no big deal to me. As long as we clear the dungeon in a reasonable time frame (which to me is maybe less than 45 min), I don’t really care how it’s done. 1,267 words.
• Tanking Realm of the Fae. 2013-06-26 5:05 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  So I tanked Realm of the Fae on my level 16 Bahmi warrior for the first time, using a Reaver/Paladin/Tempest build. (Technically you can queue for it at 15, but I waited until 16 so I had an AoE attack.) I was pretty nervous beforehand - tanking is stressful for me, and I had not seen RotF in about a year, and who knows what they might have changed for Storm Legion. But as it turns out, RotF is just as easy as all the guides say it is, and nothing’s really changed. In fact, it’s actually not a good place to learn tanking, because you can do just about everything wrong and still survive. 684 words.
• Newbie Tanking Realm of the Fae (Normal). 2013-06-27 3:46 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Guide
  
  I now present my newbie tanking guide for Realm of the Fae (Normal). I am roughly two years late in writing this guide, but it’s actually hard to find a guide like this that isn’t written by a theorycrafter who is used to max level tanking. You can queue for RotF at level 15, but it’s probably better to wait until level 16 so you can bring an AoE attack ability with you. 678 words.
• Healer Meltdown. 2013-06-27 4:16 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I did one random expert 60 last night with my mage and got into Golem Foundry, which is one I know fairly well now (thanks to many previous PUG wipes). Everything went fine until the tank accidentally needed on a green dimension item before the last boss (the aptly-named Manslaughter) and for some reason the healer had a complete meltdown about it. None of us even noticed (including the tank) but the healer took it as a personal insult or something and we had to kick him because he stopped healing the tank. (I should point out that the tank *said* it was an accident - maybe he was secretly plotting and maneuvering to get that green dimension item all along - though I highly doubt it, since he offered to give it to the healer - who refused.) So there’s another one for the ol’ ignore list. 473 words.
• Stranger Guildies. 2013-06-28 5:54 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  It was a light, ordinary evening in Rift. I did a blissfully un-dramatic random expert SL dungeon (Archive of Flesh) with a good tank/healer duo and ended up with a nice purple mage dagger at the end, which is probably the best I will ever see until or unless I start raiding. So I’m in this guild, right? But it’s one of those guilds that basically takes anyone, no-questions-asked, so it’s got thousands of random people in it, so I see a lot of fellow guildies out in the wild even though I don’t know any of them. It makes it somewhat awkward. Sometimes I’m grouped with a guildie in a dungeon but I don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything or not. Like, “Hey guildie who is a complete stranger that I’ve never seen before, what’s up?” Am I supposed to greet them? I usually opt for silence when in doubt. 704 words.

July, 2013

• Rift Mage Maxed Out. 2013-07-01 1:24 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Hrm. Over the weekend I started to realize that Rift is actually not as much fun as I thought. My mage is 60 and has a bunch of expert dungeon gear, so the only way left to advance that character is raiding with the guild, but the thought of setting up ventrillo and signing up for schedules and all that crap is not very appealing. Even the expert dungeons are kind of painful. It takes so long to get into a dungeon queue as DPS that by the time it pops, I have no interest in playing anymore. I only got into two dungeons. One was Storm Breaker Protocol, and everyone left before the first boss because nobody likes that dungeon. The second was the Tower of something or another, which I’ve only done once before, and I was so irritated at having to navigate those stupid jump pads at the beginning that I just left. (They wouldn’t have had trouble getting another DPS.) While waiting for queues, the only meaningful thing to do is Zone Events, and those happen infrequently in the 60 zones. Other than that, all I can do is quest in the Dendrome, which provides no real rewards for my character. Most of the time, I get bored long before the queue pops and switch to another character. 283 words.
• Latest Audibooks I've Listened To. 2013-07-01 3:13 PM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I’ve been on an audiobook kick lately. I realize it’s “cheating” to listen to a book instead of read it, but it’s just so darn convenient. You can actually accomplish other things simultaneously while listening to a book (like driving, washing dishes, playing games, paying bills, etc.), whereas if you read a book, it’s pretty much all you can do. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, read by Wil Wheaton. Great nostalgia book, although I could have lived without the cliche “real world is better than the virtual world” moral. 411 words.
• Newbie Tanking Iron Tombs (Normal). 2013-07-05 2:30 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Guide
  
  Again, it is hard to mess up Iron Tombs on Normal. My Bahmi warrior uses a Reaver/Paladin build, with more points into damage abilities than armor/endurance abilities for better threat. I also now have a Cleric that I tank with, for which I use the standard tank preset. When you start, first determine if people need the quests. If they don’t, you can skip a lot of side stuff. The trash mobs are straightforward all throughout. Run to the mobs and hit your AoE builders. That’s basically all there is to it. Occasionally a mob will run off toward the healer or a DPS, but not as often as in RotF. Use your lure abilities to grab them back. Pull casters to you with the Warlord Sergeant’s Order ability if you have it. 566 words.
• Newbie Guide to Dungeons. 2013-07-09 5:22 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I am writing this newbie guide because there are a surprising number of people who go into the first couple of normal Rift dungeons without knowing these basics. Perhaps they have never played Rift before, or they have never played an MMO before, or they have never played in a group before. General Do remember that playing in a group requires different skills than soloing. Do avoid using tank pets because they interfere with the actual tank. 342 words.
• Rift Is Too Easy. 2013-07-09 7:36 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Since there are a lot of new people flooding into Rift, there have been complaints on the forums from the usual suspects about how easy it is to level. I can confirm that yes, it’s really easy to get from 1 to 50, and it’s now easier than ever. It used to be harder, but even back when it was hard, it was still pretty easy for a veteran gamer to get to 50. If the last MMO you played was EQ1 or vanilla WoW, you’re not going to be challenged. But if you’re coming from almost any other modern MMO, it’s about the same. 514 words.
• Newbies in the Lowbie Dungeons. 2013-07-09 7:50 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I spent most of the holiday weekend queuing for lowbie dungeons with my new collection of lowbie Defiants. I’ve realized that I don’t like tanking with a warrior … dealing with the builder/finisher mechanic interferes with focusing on the tanking. Maybe I just need to forget about finishers. Anyway I generally prefer the cleric tank, where you don’t have to really do anything but spam the AoE attack. (I say that knowing full well that you almost never see cleric tanks in raids or expert dungeons. I wouldn’t ever want to be a raid tank anyway.) 360 words.
• Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. 2013-07-10 1:12 PM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I started listening to steampunk audiobook Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, which I have heard from multiple sources is a great series, and the premise intrigued me as it is an alternate history of World War I. Also, later books in the series won awards and stuff. Unfortunately, nobody told me that this was a young adult series, where the two protagonists are 16-ish. In fact, I would argue that this is not just young adult, but middle grade, because the kids act like middle grade kids and are usually accompanied by adult guides. They aren’t “rebeling” like most of the kids in young adult books. 444 words.
• Healers and Tanks are like Cats and Dogs. 2013-07-12 7:02 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I got into a couple of particularly bad Rift dungeon groups all in one night, and they both basically came down to a fight between the tank and the healer. “You’re a terrible tank” vs. “you’re a terrible healer.” One group was in Realm of the Fae. The tank was a dwarf warrior who clearly didn’t have a tank soul setup, and played with a two-hander generating no threat whatsoever. He didn’t attempt to gather any mobs that got away from him either. He was not good. And the healer not-so-subtley let him know, too. “So we’re going with a two-hander, then?” he said, at the start. But it was RotF, so it didn’t really matter. You can get through RotF with no tanking whatsoever, and we basically did, until we wiped on Twyl at the end and then all the flaming really got started. “I’m so sick of people who don’t know what they’re doing!” yells the healer. For god’s sake, it’s the very first dungeon. Chill out. 839 words.
• Dark Souls on the PC. 2013-07-15 6:56 PM.
  • RPG
  
  I watched some very amusing “Let’s Play” videos of two of the GWJ guys playing Dark Souls, and decided that I finally needed to get this “killer” game. By killer I mean it has a reputation of being mercilessly difficult. So I got the “Prepare to Die” PC version from Steam. Okay. So yeah, it’s hard. But it’s not hard in the way you might think. It’s hard because the controls and camera management are impossibly obtuse for a PC game, at least initially. I’m used to playing with mouse-and-keyboard, but the mouse-and-keyboard controls for this game are just horrible. It doesn’t even hide the Windows pointer. So you really have no choice but to play with the keyboard only, where in addition to the normal WASD controls on the left, your right hand has WASD-style controls on the right side of the keyboard, which controls your camera view and target-lock. It’s a bit awkward, to say the least. 525 words.
• The Latest Trial of the Century. 2013-07-16 5:11 PM.
  • Commentary
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  So I heard something about a Zimmerman verdict? I think it was a trial or something. 282 words.
• Taurus Demon Down. 2013-07-18 2:58 PM.
  • RPG
  
  I finally defeated the second boss in Dark Souls. I say “finally” because I spent quite a lot of time wandering around dying in the Undead Burg, leveling up with the meager amounts of souls I could accumulate from the skeletons there, and gathering bits and pieces of gear. I feel like I know the stretch of the map between the campfire and the boss like the back of my hand now. Two skeletons, run across bridge, three skeletons, up stairs, three skeletons, up the tower, one skeleton sniper, down the stairs, two skeletons and a tough dude, then another skeleton comes running down, and then you’re going up the spiral stairs to the boss area. 353 words.
• Firefall Founder By Accident. 2013-07-22 1:55 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I played a fair amount of Firefall over the weekend, which they are still saying is in Open Beta, driven mainly by boredom with everything else I’ve been playing. After you go to an Internet guide and read up on what it is you’re actually supposed to *do* in the game, it’s a bit more fun. Of course, that means the game itself is not providing any bread crumbs for the player, which one could argue is poor design. Previously I would log in and play around with battle suits during character creation, then it would set me down in the starting zone of Copacabana and I’d think to myself, “Okay, now what? Nobody is giving out quests.” Then I got bored running around looking for somebody to give me something to do and exited. 403 words.
• Ender's Game. 2013-07-22 6:49 PM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I just finished the audiobook for Ender’s Game, which I have never read before. I’ve missed quite a few science fiction classics over the years, so I’m trying to make up for it with my Audible credits. The audiobook, by the way, was very well read. I don’t know what I would have thought if I’d read this book when I was younger, but now, I found it to be a tragically depressing story. Basically it’s about the military using a child to commit genocide on an alien race. 420 words.
• Deconstructing The Hunger Games. 2013-07-24 12:45 AM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  (This unpublished gem has been sitting in my drafts since April 16, 2012.) Stolen image of The Hunger Games’s book cover from Amazon.com. Okay, I have figured out the magical formula for making a hit Young Adult book. It’s really quite easy. The story elements in The Hunger Games: A smart and tough, but emotionally vulnerable hero. 283 words.
• The Walking Dead Game Bites. 2013-07-24 7:26 PM.
  • Steam
  
  Ha ha! Wasn’t that hilarious? Anyway I’m currently bored to death with all existing MMOs, so I’ve turned to my Steam library to find a game that will hold my attention for more than a few hours. I tried Rogue Legacy, which the GWJ people raved about. I can see why they liked it, but it’s basically a side-scrolling platformer and I’ve never liked platformers. It would take me a long time to get the hang of the controls, and at least in the first hour of play, I didn’t see where there’s any reward for spending the time to learn the controls. 294 words.
• Throwing Out The Royal Baby. 2013-07-24 7:45 PM.
  • Commentary
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Can we please stop reporting about the Royal Baby now? 28 words.
• The Walking Dead Game Episode 3. 2013-07-25 1:51 PM.
  • Steam
  
  Finished The Walking Dead (game) Episode 3. This one seemed considerably longer and to drag a bit more than the previous two. There were times when I just wanted it to move forward without having to go through the adventure-style puzzle solving. In those times I would say that the gameplay was getting in the way of the story. I’m thinking in particular of a time on the train toward the end of the episode, when you had to get a map, but someone was in the way and wouldn’t move, so you had to find a way to get him to move on his own, but I didn’t really realize that’s what I was supposed to be doing, and the way you had to do it was pretty convoluted and strange. 143 words.
• I Think It's Dead. 2013-07-26 2:34 PM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Iconic image of a funeral pyre.. you know the movie, right? I think it’s dead. Airworld, that is. It’s been almost a year since Naobi strode from her Orderhouse without looking back, determined to move forward. It was an opening sentence that was carefully crafted to show that the character had autonomy right from the very beginning, taking action instead of reacting, physically moving through space. All the things that we aspiring writers are told will make readers more likely to keep reading. 846 words.
• Finally Finishing up Assassin's Creed II. 2013-07-29 7:04 PM.
  • RPG
  
  Over the weekend I decided to press on with the Assassin’s Creed series, since I rounded out my AC game collection in the last Steam sale, picking up Brotherhood, Revelations, and AC3. I played AC2 last year but for some reason I just stopped in the middle. I decided that I should finish it before I went on to the next game so I wouldn’t miss any of the cool story stuff. 207 words.
• Assassin's Creed II Finished. 2013-07-31 6:49 PM.
  • RPG
  
  I finished Assassin’s Creed II last night. Man, the storytelling in this series is really good. It ended in a cliffhanger just like the first one did. And there was actually some light gameplay *during the closing credits*. How cool is that? Anyway I started in on Brotherhood right away, which is a noticably better-looking game. It also feels a bit more like Uncharted. That is, it feels more action-oriented, with less buttons to worry about pushing. Plus there’s a part where Desmond and Lily (I think that’s her name?) wander around in some catacombs for a while trading witty banter, just like you saw Drake and what’s-her-name doing in Uncharted. 121 words.
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. 2013-07-31 7:31 PM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Someone at work recommended Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, so I got it from Audible with one of my credits. This same person also recommended Hunger Games, so my expectations were not very high. But as it turns out, Gone Girl is a pretty good psychological thriller/mystery. Overall the book makes some pretty strong feminist statements, as well as having some brutal social commentary about the state of the media and judicial system. It had a pretty big twist about halfway through, which I did not see coming at all, so congratulations to the author for completely fooling me. I can’t elaborate without spoiling it, so if you haven’t read it, you might want to skip the rest of this. 280 words.

August, 2013

• The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. 2013-08-02 2:17 PM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I started reading The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold … and this time, I actually *mean* reading, not listening to the audiobook. (There are people who insist that listening to an audiobook is the same as reading, but IMO they are very different media consumption experiences.) I picked it up because I saw that it was the next book in The Sword and Laser book club, so on impulse I got it. Not because I wanted to participate in The Sword and Laser, but because I’d wanted to read a Bujold book anyway because her name appears somewhat frequently on the Hugo award winner list. 276 words.
• He Had His Liberty. 2013-08-03 4:16 PM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  What does “he had his liberty” mean? Say, in the early 17th century? I came across it reading Edward Wingfield’s account of his removal from the first Council in Jamestown in 1607, in the book The Jamestown Adventure. (Edward Wingfield could be considered the first elected governor of Virginia. Or the first elected president of North America. Or something along those lines.) 266 words.
• Jamestown is a Fertile Source of Story. 2013-08-05 4:53 PM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  For the last few days I’ve been researching the beginning of the Jamestown colony, because I’ve been tossing around the idea of basing a story around similar events. (I know, everyone else has done it — Disney, James Cameron — so why not me? It’s a freakin’ timeless story after all, even if you totally leave out the whole John Smith/Pocahontas angle.) Actually “researching” is probably not the right word. “Voraciously obsessed with reading about” is probably more accurate. I can understand why it’s been a popular story for all these years. It’s the perfect storm of human drama, all rolled into a 5-10 year period. 372 words.
• Page of Scribbling Technique. 2013-08-05 11:57 PM.
  • Writing
  • Process
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Just for posterity, here is a page of scribbling I did trying to block out what I thought would be the final 10,000 words or so of Airworld. What ended up happening is that I raised more questions than I answered, and all the answers started branching off into all these other fairly massive sub-plots. You may also notice there is a whole new, vitally important character in there that was introduced very late in the story. (Just in case I ever do finish the story, I blurred out some spoilers.) 106 words.
• Throwing Away Batteries. 2013-08-08 6:10 PM.
  • Technology
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  So at work I have a stack of dead laptop batteries from a handful of old Dell Lattitude laptops. 256 words.
• Who Is This Edward Snowden Guy?. 2013-08-10 1:51 AM.
  • Commentary
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Today I decided to figure out why I keep hearing the name Edward Snowden so much. 725 words.
• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Finished. 2013-08-11 11:09 AM.
  • RPG
  
  Finished Brotherhood. Cool game - shorter than Assassin’s Creed II but I think more polished. (By the way, when I say I “finished” I mean I finished the story; I’m nowhere near 100% completion, because I’m not a completionist gamer. I think it was somewhere around 40% actually.) Another cliffhanger ending. Can’t really say anything without spoiling it, but I was a little bit suspicious of that person anyway. Started Revelations. First thing I noticed is that Desmond’s and Ezio’s faces look completely different! Not just aged, but totally different people. It’s really jarring, especially since the voices are the same. It’s like different actors playing the same part, but they got voiceovers from the original actors. 167 words.
• Tomb Raider, the 2013 reboot. 2013-08-13 2:19 PM.
  • RPG
  
  I was getting a bit tired of Assassin’s Creed Revelations, so I took a short break and finally played Tomb Raider, which I had gotten in a Steam sale. There’s no doubt it’s one of the best games of 2013. For the record, I’ve never been a fan of the Tomb Raider games. Originally, they were largely nothing more than jumping puzzles, but honestly I haven’t played any of the hundreds of TR games since the original few, so I’m not sure what they’ve evolved into. All I know is that 2013 Tomb Raider bears no resemblance to the Tomb Raiders I remember. 660 words.
• Codefellas. 2013-08-17 10:20 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  John Hodgman is in it. That is all. 40 words.
• Weird Knocking. 2013-08-19 1:28 PM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  So someone knocked on my front door last night at about 10 PM. 198 words.
• AC Revelations Finished. 2013-08-19 1:54 PM.
  • RPG
  
  Finished the main story in Assassin’s Creed Revelations the other day. Other than the horribly inaccurate face models of Ezio and Desmond which made them look like scarred zombies, I thought it was pretty good, as all Assassin’s Creed games are. The endings always give me a chill, when they bring together the past, present, and future. Well — the past, the past, the past, and the present would be more accurate I guess. And this one was really poignant because I guess after four games, the stories of Altair and Ezio are now finally complete. 153 words.
• The Curse of Chalion, Part 2. 2013-08-19 6:33 PM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  This book really grew on me. I almost stopped reading it at about 20%, but pressed onward, and I’m glad I did, because I feel like I learned something important about writing from this book. When I got to about 35% I was hooked, and when I got to about 40% I was riveted. I won’t spoil it but if you’ve read the book you probably know the events that caused the riveting. The book has a lot of religious themes after the 40% mark which are really interesting. 529 words.
• Bradley Manning Sentenced. 2013-08-24 12:26 AM.
  • Commentary
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Bradley Manning Army Photo from Wikimedia Commons I mentioned Bradley Manning in a previous post, so to follow-up on that, and to let you know that I have not yet been murdered by the strange late-night knocker I mentioned in another previous post: Manning was sentenced to 35 years. The news report that I heard (from CBS News I think) said that he might only serve 7 of those years. 151 words.
• Comments, Huh, What Are They Good For. 2013-08-24 12:46 PM.
  • Administration
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I think I’m going to disable comments altogether. 46 words.
• A Unique Observation On Moving. 2013-08-26 7:17 PM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but moving sucks. I’ll soon be moving from one rental house to a bigger, better rental house, and despite having thrown out tons of stuff in the past year, I’m still surrounded by oppressively large stacks of boxes that need to be moved. If moving boxes was the only part of it, that wouldn’t be so bad. But there’s also a thousand little errands to deal with, like hooking up utilities and FIOS, updating your driver’s license and credit cards, and forwarding your mail. (Woe be unto those who make a mistake in forwarding your mail, as I - and my neighbor - learned from painful experience. Though I’m still not convinced that *I* made the mistake of transposing a 6 and a 9.) 133 words.
• Syrian Intervention. 2013-08-29 5:36 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I’m generally not in favor of going into Syria. 132 words.
• Assassin's Creed III. 2013-08-29 7:26 PM.
  • RPG
  
  I started Assassin’s Creed III unsure of what to expect. I had a general feeling that AC3 had not been well-received, but other than that I knew little about it, except that it was a departure from the previous versions. First thing’s first: The game’s new engine looks beautiful. I mean, drop-dead gorgeous. I’ve always thought Assassin’s Creed was one of the most realistic-looking games out there, even back to the first version, but this new version raises the bar higher than ever. 642 words.
• Tricksy Tricksy. 2013-08-31 9:13 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Wow, what a shrewd political move by the president. 103 words.

September, 2013

• Revolution. 2013-09-01 12:09 AM.
  • Television
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Being super drained after moving, I wanted something that I could sit and stare at for hours on end without thinking, so I started binge-watching this TV show that Netflix put into their Top 10 Shows We Know You Will Like. It’s called Revolution. After five minutes, I thought, “Oh God, seriously? Another post-apocalyptic, civilization-has-collapsed show? Like Jericho? Falling Skies? Under the Dome (kind of)? Um… all those other shows I can’t think of at this moment? And J.J. Abrams is involved? Hasn’t he done enough damage with Lost and Fringe?” I was thoroughly prepared to turn it off after five minutes and move on to something else, because I knew without a doubt it was going to suck, and it would be filled with stupid science and clichés put in by clueless TV executives. 368 words.
• Science Problems with Revolution. 2013-09-02 2:27 PM.
  • Television
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Don’t get me wrong, I like the show. I’m a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction I guess. And it has a lot of “heart.” But sometimes television writers are just really lazy about basic science. It’s why this country is like last place in math and science, I guess. 1. Pilot When electricity goes off, screens don’t blink and distort. They instantly go black. I’ve been through power outages. I know these things. Cars wouldn’t stop dead if the electrical system died … at worst I think they’d drift to a stop. But I feel like the engines wouldn’t just shut off, right? I mean they would keep running until they ran out of gas, then you wouldn’t be able to start them again. Anyway they certainly wouldn’t stop in perfect columns on a highway. Planes definitely wouldn’t fall from the sky. They can glide. You know, aerodynamics? Come on. It’s not Y2K for God’s sake. So all of civilization collapsed and rebuilt itself in the 15 years since The Blackout. Seems like a short time. The voiceover said, “Not even car engines or jet turbines. Hell even batteries.” Okay that kind of implies that internal combustion doesn’t work any more? Is that what they’re trying to say? Does that mean all chemical reactions don’t work? Would a match not strike? Lighters not light? How are they building fires? Or are they saying the current just doesn’t flow out of the battery any more? “Physics went insane.” This is the exact moment when the show jumped the shark. I thought to myself, “This show totally sucks and should not be watched.” But I was way too tired to stop it. While the kid eats the last melting ice cream: “I want you to really remember what it tastes like.” People made ice cream before electricity, ya know. Gus, from Breaking Bad! The show started looking up. What is up with these crazy-looking swords/machettes with hilts that look like brass knuckles? They look terribly uncomfortable and impractical. Ugh, crossbow bolts don’t throw people backwards like that. I’ve never seen anyone shot by a crossbow bolt, but I’m very sure of that. Even if physics did go insane. Here’s the inciting incident of the Hero’s Journey, where our hero is thrown from her normal world and forced to go on a quest. Gus has amazing facial expressions. He has another name in this show but I can’t remember it at the moment. Ow, getting hit in the face with a pipe probably hurts. What the hell kind of poison makes people spit up blood within seconds? Shards of glass? You’d think they would notice that. I can’t help wondering how people survived asthma attacks before there was medicine for it. Uncle Miles reminds me of a badass version of MacGyver. This woman with the shotgun looks like Diana Ross to me. Muskets?? Well at least some kind of chemical reactions still work. It sort of implies that they can still make musket balls easily but manufacturing jacketed bullets is beyond them. I assumed that car engines didn’t work because spark plugs didn’t work. (But then, spark plugs are only used to start an engine.) Oh my. A shocking revalation. Very unusual for a J.J. Abrams production. Oh my. Another shocking revalation! 2. Chained Heat “Oh there’s a sale on heroin.” Ha. Why does everyone have freshly-washed hair except the ex-Google millionaire?? And why is he wearing those gigantic black-rimmed glasses?? Total geek discrimination!! I thought that accent was Australian. It never occurred to me that it was supposed to be British. Why would they sleep next to a swamp? They probably would have gotten malaria. And why did they wake up at what looked like noon? Why would they use human prisoners to pull a helicopter when they could use horses or mules or a hundred other draft animals which would be far more effective? I think this exact same sniper guy with dark aviator shades has manned every prison tower in every movie ever. When she typed “Randall is here” I immediately thought of Stephen King’s The Stand. Another shocking revelation! 3. No Quarter The opening sequence of this show is pretty lame. “We’re hoping someone will come and light the way.” Really? Stu Redman! Frannie! Another reference to Stephen King’s The Stand. It’s easier to “scavenge antiques” (muskets) than to find “smokeless powder, copper jacket” bullets. We have more muskets than moden firearms laying around? Sniper rifles are more rare than muskets? Okay, sure. That makes perfect sense. Okay. Let’s talk. Nobody working for Google is going to know what an 8-bit register looks like. An 8-bit register would be a total antique to anyone working at Google today. Only somebody that’s like 50 years old or more (today, not counting the 15 years after the blackout) would have even a chance to be able to pick up an 8-bit register chip and recognize it. And we all know that Google doesn’t hire people more than like 22 years old. And also, an 8-bit register is going to look like a huge microchip, not a little circuit board. AND! Why build a whole cabinet-sized computer from spare 8-bit registers when you could just pick up a freakin’ Rasberry Pi which is a whole freakin’ computer in a package the size of a pack of gum? I am not a trained sniper, but I have a feeling that shooting people in the sternum is not the best way to kill someone in a single shot. Danny’s disgruntled guard is the best actor in this episode. Why don’t people in television know how to tie people up? I mean, loose-hanging rope around the chest and upper arms is probably not going to work very well. 4. The Plague Dogs These people seem to be able to walk a long way in a short time. So these dogs are running away from fresh food to chase after people? If electricity doesn’t work, why is there still lightning?? This kid is apparently the only tornado-sniffing expert in the post-apocalptic world. These people sure do recover from injuries fast. The sailor with the big funny ears said: There are “no more steam boats.” But wait … in the very next episode we’re going to see a steam train. He also said all the ships were “destroyed in the wars.” What wars?? What a minute. These two groups are only a day apart on foot. But one of them is in the middle of a tornado, and the other one is in bright sunshine? Come on Danny. Did you even watch Breaking Bad? Gus cannot be trusted! Couldn’t she have just, like, tilted her head to the side? Instead of trying to rock the chair back and forth? I’m not a contortionist, but I can move my head at least a foot sideways. Aw dammit. Stupid emotional scenes. I’m trying to make fun of this show! There can’t be touching moments in it. 5. Soul Train Gus holds his fists funny when he fights. Awwww, sad puppy dog eyes. Okay, so apparently steam engines still work. Because there’s a steam engine train. So why haven’t we seen a lot of steam engine technology before now? Why didn’t the major governments immediately revert to steam engine technology? What the hell kind of name is “Bass”? Not like the guitar, but like the fish? Where did Monroe get that “M” pin that he wears on his collar? So they can make “M” pins but not bullets? “Fuses are unreliable.” Again, implying that chemical reactions are messed up? And yet, somehow throwing logs into a fire is a sure-fire way to set off a bomb. Not even a fifth-grade science teacher for a consultant on this show, is there? And how/why did they put “M” signs all over the buildings? Finally, sad puppy dog eyes girl grows a spine. Oh snap! Another shocking revelation! Ah ha! Twelve of them! Just like the Apostles. And the lost colonies of Battlestar Galactica. 6. Sex and Drugs Horse and carriage with rubber tires! Not a flaw in the show, I just thought it was funny-looking. Actually one of the first things that actually makes logical sense. Of course they’d put rubber tires on a carriage. What, are they going to build wooden wheels? Oh, I see they are doing the Lost strategy of giving each character a backstory in each successive episode. Okay, I see, so only regular cars stopped dead at the time of the blackout. But giant tractor trailers that need to serve a plot purpose keep rolling along like a ton of bricks. Oh, he pulled a Lando! “Is she Latin?” Um, shouldn’t that have been “Latina?” Hrm, well, sad puppy dog eyes girl is going a little too far into sociopathic territory. I think I can see where this is going… Come on dude. Someone smart enough to work at Google can learn to hunt. Aw dude. You’re better than this! Nooooooo! Not sure what to make of that. Was it a brilliant plan or just dumb luck? I’m thinking the latter, which is unfortunate. 7. The Children’s Crusade The Lord of the Flies episode, apparently. They’re like the A-Team. I think that’s the kid from Under The Dome. Well, at least The Militia supports gender equality! I’m not sure why they went to the trouble to make themselves uniforms. They must have a pretty good tailoring industry going on at least. I know this is totally stupid but I really wish it was fashionable to wear a sword. :) I guess it would be impractical to get into a car, though. Oh wow that’s inconvenient. But it’s a very convenient distraction. Wow, go Google dude! See, I told you smart people can become violent sociopathic killers! A weapon that inhibits electricity would be more dangerous than any kind of bomb. Just sayin'. That’s Randall! And he was in Stephen King’s Storm of the Century! It all comes back to Stephen King with this show. 8. Ties That Bind Hey wait, a few episodes ago they said fuses were unreliable… Ohhhh, she’s coming back. Don’t be so sad. Oh snap! A shocking revelation! Damn people walk fast in this show. Ugh dude take that rifle with you! On second thought, probably a good idea to leave the rifle if you’re going to jump into a raging river. I swear I’ve seen Charlie in another show but according to IMDB I haven’t. Aw man. Uber bad guys! 9. Kashmir The one with that cool Led Zepplin song, right? Hrm, they’re playing the wrong Led Zepplin song. “This pendant powers up anything within its range.” “It’s like a wireless battery.” No, it’s nothing like a wireless battery! It’s like a wireless MAGICAL AMULET THAT DEFIES THE LAWS OF NATURE AND COMMON SENSE. “It has very limited range; only 9 or 10 feet.” Okay so she moves away from the CD player and it stops. Then she moves it back in range, and the CD player starts again … at the same place in the song. I realize CD players are rare now and maybe kids aren’t as familiar with them, but surely everyone knows that when you cut the power to a CD player, it doesn’t just resume where you left off! Even if it had been an iPhone playing an MP3, it wouldn’t have resumed at the same place. If it had been a record player it might have worked, with the appropriate spin-up warbling. Or a cassette tape player. Or an 8-track tape player. I’m not even going to comment on the whole “pendant” concept. I mean. It’s just. I can’t even. Her explanation of the pendant “powering up anything within its range” is obviously wrong anyway. Obviously, something is actively inhibiting electricity over the whole world, because electricity is a natural phenomenon. I can only assume that the uber bad guys from the previous episode are inhibiting the world’s electricity with orbiting satellites of some kind. So these little pendants must be inhibiting the inhibitors somehow. Which means … oh man, I don’t even want to go down that rabbit hole of what that means. Okay I will. I guess they’re trying to say that radio waves or microwaves or something is inhibiting electricity, and the pendants put out waves which cancel the other waves. That makes perfect sense, right? TO A SCIENTIFICLY ILLITERATE PERSON. And/or the average American school graduate. Oh snap, I just burned the American school system. Not enough oxygen in the tunnels. Um. I’m not sure about that. I am not very well-versed on oxygen depravation, but I feel like if they were so low on oxygen that the torches weren’t burning and they were hallucinating, that they would not be physically able to walk around. Also, I mean, they might want to consider putting out some of the torches if they’re burning up the oxygen. Also, the tunnel like just collapsed, and it’s a pretty big space, so I feel like the oxygen wouldn’t run out that fast. Explosions in that enclosed space would probably make them all deaf. :) Oh wow, they finally played the cool Led Zepplin song! 10. Nobody’s Fault But Mine Another Led Zepplin reference in the episode title. I just realized that Episode 3 “No Quarter” was also a Led Zepplin song. Again using the fuses that are supposed to be unreliable… So the Google guy can’t get matches to work, but somehow flint works? That seems pretty random. Dual-wielding swords looks badass and all, but it’s not very practical. Also, everyone knows that real sword fights only last like 2 seconds, right? Erol Flynn-like duels never actually happened. Even fencing duels are rather fast. Have you seen the pros? 11. The Stand Stephen King reference in the episode title. I can’t help but wonder why everyone’s pendant works all the time except the one that Aaron carried around which only turned itself on sporadically at the most inopportune times. “Audio cannon.” I’ve heard of audio weapons before but I seriously doubt you could put one in a handheld weapon the size of a pistol that would do anything more than annoy people. Aw dammit. Another touching moment. Feels like this episode is the end of a story arc. Like they only expected to make 11 episodes. Randall Flynn … obviously meant to be a variation of Randall Flagg! (A Stephen King reference.) Dubya tee eff is that?!? 2,420 words.
• All About Syria. 2013-09-06 1:04 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  This is the sheik topic of the day, and since we have to post stuff on our blogs now and then, we need to idly speculate about it. 940 words.
• Syrian Rebels: Know Anyone With Guns?. 2013-09-06 4:27 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Some Syrian rebels were complaining that the U.S. hasn’t sent any weapons or ammunition. 276 words.
• The President’s Remarks on Syria. 2013-09-11 4:31 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I only have a couple of comments about the president’s address. 473 words.
• Followups On Moving and Furloughs. 2013-09-14 3:35 PM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I thought I would follow up on a couple of previous posts on the off chance that anyone is actually following this blog. As I hinted at before, I have moved into a new house. Boxes are everywhere, and I have only unpacked the bare minimum of things needed for day-to-day life. Essentially that means a couple of computers and some dishes. Secondly, a long time ago I mentioned that government furloughs might impact my life. Furloughs did actually go into effect during July and August, but the length was reduced roughly in half (and it had already been cut in half from the original estimates), so DoD employees were only off for about six Fridays. Nothing bad happened on those six days, so in my little corner of the world, the furlough had exactly zero effect. Most people were sad that the 4-day work weeks ended. 147 words.
• Star Trek: Into Darkness. 2013-09-14 8:41 PM.
  • Movies
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Now and then I listen to a podcast called The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, which is basically about debunking popular myths like UFOs and ghosts and homeopathy with scientific skepticism. Sometimes they also review the science in science fiction movies, and a while back they looked at Star Trek: Into Darkness. I skipped it because I hadn’t seen it yet, and I’ve been waiting for Amazon Prime to let me rent it ever since. This week I finally got around to watching it. 742 words.
• Crazy People Are Always Out There. 2013-09-17 5:14 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  It’s all been said before. Crazy people are always out there. You can’t stop them. 194 words.
• Bored with Everything. 2013-09-18 1:45 AM.
  • Blog
  
  After I moved into a new house, I instantly became bored with all computer games. I still load up Assassin’s Creed III now and then, but I can only get through a mission or two before getting bored. I also tried to play Europa Universalis IV for a while, but I just can’t get into all the details of a Colonial Europe Simulator. Which is a shame because I think the game map looks very pretty. 117 words.
• Subscribe-by-Email. 2013-09-18 1:56 AM.
  • Administration
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I added the Jetpack subscribe-by-email thingy over on the side. 61 words.
• Chicken With Defunding. 2013-09-21 12:08 AM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Looks like we’re back at the ol’ debt ceiling stalemate. Or government funding stalemate. Or something like that. Is this the third one? Fourth? Hundredth? I can’t remember. It seems to happen once or twice a year now. 598 words.
• Trying New Feed Readers. 2013-09-24 2:26 PM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I was quite excited to find three new web-based RSS readers: InoReader, Feedspot, and G2Reader. Unfortunately they are not any faster than Feedly. 204 words.
• MacBook Air Obtained. 2013-09-27 12:22 AM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I was finally ready to get a “thin-and-light” laptop for writing and web surfing, so I decided I couldn’t get much thinner and lighter than a MacBook Air. 146 words.
• Back to the House We Go. 2013-09-27 6:36 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  As fully expected by everyone, the Senate removed the defund-Obamacare provision and returned the budget bill to the House. 156 words.
• Bring On The Shutdown I Guess. 2013-09-28 9:05 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Well, it looks like the House Republicans are determined to shut down the government because now they’ve put in a clause to fund the government only if Obamacare is delayed for a year. 302 words.
• Breaking Bad Is Over. 2013-09-30 5:17 PM.
  • Television
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Breaking Bad is over now. One of the best shows of all time ended after five years. And I think it was time. It’s extremely rare to see a really good show stay good after five seasons. After that, you just play along because you have fond memories of the first few years, on the off chance that a good episode comes along and brings back the magic. Honestly, most shows peak in two or three years. 447 words.
• An Odd Time For a Late Opening. 2013-09-30 5:26 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  You have to wonder about the logic of waiting until 2 PM to open the Senate for business on the final day before an alleged government shutdown. 110 words.
• Back to the House We Go, Part Two. 2013-09-30 7:08 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  The Senate spat the funding bill back to the House in record time. Less than ten hours left for the United States government! 74 words.

October, 2013

• Journalists Aren’t Helping, Gotta Watch Live. 2013-10-01 1:39 AM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Journalists are really pretty useless in this day and age, so I’m watching C-SPAN live to see what’s going on with this funding bill. What could be more exciting than counting votes? 399 words.
• It’s A Libertarian Paradise. 2013-10-01 12:59 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  No last-second midnight deal after all, but I still have to believe the House won’t let this shutdown go on for very long. 195 words.
• One Month Until NaNoWriMo. 2013-10-01 10:21 PM.
  • Writing
  • Tel
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  With NaNoWriMo coming up in a month, I’m not sure what to work on. There’s a distinct possibility that I might free-write 50k words. That would probably be good for me. It will be an exercise in keeping-the-writing-fun and not-worrying-if-it-doesn’t-make-sense. First I need to come up with a character that I like, because I feel like that’s the main thing that keeps me writing. I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting started on any other writing projects, so I’ve been spending most of my writing time revising last year’s Sovereign of Tel. I figure working on revisions has got to be better than doing nothing at all, right? 175 words.
• House Tries Reverse Psychology. 2013-10-02 3:01 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  "If we can’t pass a bill that defunds Obamacare, let’s try passing many different bills that fund everything except Obamacare." 38 words.
• What’s Really At Stake Here. 2013-10-03 8:56 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  This has nothing to do with whether Obamacare is good, bad, or indifferent. What’s at stake is whether factions in Congress should have the power to circumvent the normal process of making laws so they can enforce their will on the whole country. 633 words.
• Say What Now?. 2013-10-04 12:28 AM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  In other news, it looks like the Obama administration is bringing us a few steps closer to a police state. 157 words.
• Why Jon Stewart Usually Resonates. 2013-10-04 11:46 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I guess when you look at an issue without layers and layers of self-delusional partisan rhetoric in the way, and just focus on the absurdity of it, you can’t help but come up with a consistent view of who did what, when, and why. 264 words.
• It’s Okay, It’s Just A Slimdown. 2013-10-07 2:02 AM.
  • Uncategorized
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  A “slimdown” doesn’t sound nearly as bad as a “shutdown,” right? 144 words.
• DoD Civilians Back At Work. 2013-10-07 1:16 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Using the Pay Our Military Act, Chuck Hagel put most DoD civilians back to work. 83 words.
• Red Alert. 2013-10-07 1:52 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  No, not the game. I don’t know anything about Red Alert the game. I’m talking about Final Fantasy XIV, A Realm Reborn. It’s a relic of the past: A new subscription-based MMO. Although it’s apparently been out since 2010, it’s just that they recently re-released a version that actually works and that people might actually want to play. Anyroad, it’s cheap so I got it and have been playing it, and it’s actually kind of fun and not terrible and most importantly, not boring. It’s extremely Asian in flavor, though, so you have to get past that vaguely unsettling over-emphasis on cherubic youth. Everyone in the game is either a child, a perfect semi-androgynous beauty, or a hideous monster. 133 words.
• FFXIV. 2013-10-09 6:45 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  So I’ve been sucked into Final Fantasy XIV. It’s all the fault of Gamers With Jobs, just so you know. They generally liked it, and I usually like things that they like, so I had to try it. Especially since it was only $30 for the first month. They’ve stolen one idea from me. In the MMO that I want to design and write but of course I never will, you could advance in three different areas: PvE, PvP, and crafting. So you don’t have one level, you have three different levels. FFXIV stole this idea and took it a bit farther: You can level up any of a bunch of adventuring, gathering, and/or crafting classes. It basically means you only need to create one character and eventually you will be able to do everything (I think). Once you get to around level 15, you can unlock everything and essentially change classes on the fly, by simply changing your equipped weapon. The possibilities are endless. (There is a significant delay before you can use your abilities after you switch, though, so don’t be thinking you can switch fifty times in the middle of a battle.) 592 words.
• Turnabout Is Fair Play. 2013-10-15 1:09 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Seems to be some buzz now about a bi-partisan deal the Senate is cooking up to open the government and raise the debt ceiling. The deal sounds like it goes something like this: "Let’s do this exact same shutdown and debt ceiling drama again in February." Because it’s not so much a deal as it is a postponement of a deal. 185 words.
• Back to the Senate We Go. 2013-10-16 4:02 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Today we are assured (again) that the Senate deal is close and will save us all, and everybody will approve it, and everything will be back to normal. Until January. If House Republicans go for it. Which based on their past performance, you have to think they won’t. Because if they do, then they did all this for nothing. 167 words.
• Things That Are Different In FFXIV. 2013-10-16 6:23 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I’ve played quite a few MMOs in my time, including a few that I thought were sort of JRPG-ish in nature (Aion and Tera come to mind), but I have to say, FFXIV in some ways is a brand new world to me. It is freakishly weird how quiet the general chat is in this game. I can’t recall the last time I played in an MMO where the general chat wasn’t filled with a constant stream of random subhuman noise. Even paid subscription games. One time (only once!) I saw someone trolling general chat by posting something like, “Obamacare is great isn’t it?” In a typical game, that would result in two solid hours of rapid-scrolling yelling back-and-forth in general chat. In FFXIV, it was met only with silence. The only explanation I have is that a lot of FFXIV players are on the PS3, which suggests a significant number of people are playing the game without a keyboard. 1,621 words.
• Welcome to Endgame Viable. 2013-10-17 12:01 AM.
  • Blog
  
  I stumbled onto this thing called the Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI). I found it by reading a post on a blog called Inventory Full, which is an awesome blog name, by the way. That post, which referenced a bunch of other blogs, got me thinking that I didn’t have enough MMORPG gaming blogs in my feed reader, so I went and added a bunch. Then, when I looked over the recent posts on all of those different blogs, they all had one thing in common (besides MMORPGs): The Newbie Blogger Initiative. 508 words.
• See You Back Here In January. 2013-10-17 2:23 AM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I’m watching on C-SPAN.org as the House is voting to adopt the Senate’s bill to fund the government until January and raise the debt ceiling until February, which the Senate passed today 81-18. Everyone expects it to pass. 237 words.
• It’s Nothing Like A Credit Card!. 2013-10-17 1:05 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I was watching C-SPAN last night and saw Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) speaking about the debt ceiling when he stumbled into a pet peeve of mine. He was describing the debt ceiling and what it means to raise it. Naturally he went to the go-to analogy that everyone uses when discussing the debt ceiling: It’s like paying your mortgage with your credit card. 446 words.
• The Walking Dead Season 4 Has Begun. 2013-10-17 3:26 PM.
  • Television
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Since Breaking Bad is gone, I guess The Walking Dead moves up to become the best drama on television, now starting its fourth season. This is traditionally the point in a show’s lifecycle when it starts to die out. Maybe not in TWD’s case, though, because the show didn’t really get going (imo) until its third season. The first episode of Season 4 didn’t do much but set the stage for what’s to come in the rest of the season. Apparently, we are going to see a lot of: Muddy ground, bleak skies, bleak conditions, bleak people, and zombies. 508 words.
• Can Rift Really Be Fading Away?. 2013-10-17 4:21 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  TAGN wrote* that the Happy Time for Rift is over. Meaning that its resurgence in popularity after it went F2P is over, and now it has nowhere to go but down. It’s hard to disagree since when I last logged into Hailol up in the Dendrome, it was a ghost town. He also had a fair number of negative things to say about Rift going F2P, saying that he immediately unsubscribed when he heard about it. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I think it’s pretty naive to think that AAA MMOs aren’t going to have cash shops from now on. Anyway, I hadn’t been playing Rift for a while, so it was nice to have an excuse to get back into it. At the time, I remember a lot of people were offended that every vendor suddenly had a huge interface window and direct access to the cash shop. I just shrugged and said, “Whatever.” I can’t remember ever being in an MMO and thinking, “Gosh, I really love this vendor window, I hope it never changes.” Honestly most of the time I think, “This vendor window sucks, can’t anyone ever spend some development time to make buying and selling a pleasant experience?” (They did not in FFXIV btw, the vendor interface sucks, as usual.) 637 words.
• Story Locked In for NaNoWriMo 2013. 2013-10-18 12:26 PM.
  • NaNoWriMo
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I have my story idea for NaNoWriMo this year. I’m kind of excited about it. At least I was when I thought of it. It’s a bit of a meta-story, a pure fantasy that could not in any way happen in real life, or even alternate world life, and I would be lying if I said it did not in some way resemble John Scalzi’s inexplicably-Hugo-award-winning Redshirts­. I would say it has some elements of Redshirts and Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One mixed up together. Possibly with a dash of Disney’s Tron. 178 words.
• What Is EQLandmark?. 2013-10-18 7:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I read on Inventory Full (still an awesome blog name) about this thing coming out called EQLandmark. I do not know what it is, but it sounds like some kind of new game in the EQ universe. Bhagpuss then mentioned something about making a Heroic character in EQ2, and I got sidetracked. Because I have some EQ2 characters too, and I figured I’d better log in and make my own Heroic characters, too. Because everyone’s doing it apparently. Well, one person is. I don’t know why I needed one, because I haven’t played EQ2 in years, and found it only a fair game while playing it, and I don’t even know what a Heroic character even is, but if somebody else is doing something in an MMO, obviously there must be something cool going on there that needs to be checked out. MMO players have a herd mentality, and they are perpetually looking for “the next new thing.” 707 words.
• FFXIV Opening Movie. 2013-10-19 7:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I had to stick a link to this movie in my blog. I think it’s the best opening sequence for an MMORPG I can recall seeing, and also a really fantastic computer-generated short film in its own right. Even if you have no clue what an MMORPG is, you might like this. Updated the link. 55 words.
• Tequatl’s On The Juice. 2013-10-20 7:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I usually stick to one MMORPG at a time, play it until I get bored, then move to the next one. This week though I’ve been firing up a different one every night. The latest one was Guild Wars 2. I got sucked into this session right away. I had last logged out in Sparkfly Fen on the beach where Tequatl attacks. I went there to see the new-and-improved Tequatl event I keep hearing so much about, but it wasn’t running when I got there, so I just logged out. Well it was running this time, and damn. 309 words.
• Weird Things That Freak Me Out. 2013-10-21 1:09 PM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Weird things that freak me out: The sound that one of those county trash cans makes when rolling it to the end of the driveway for pickup. 76 words.
• Warhammer Online Comes To An End. 2013-10-21 7:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I found out from all the gaming blogs that WarHammer Online is shutting down in December. WAR ran for five years, which seems like a pretty decent run for any game. I was there at launch, struggling through the bugs and lack of content with everyone else. The biggest problem I remember was not being able to play for several days because my pre-ordered copy of the game was late and I couldn’t put in my game code. Other than that, I thought it was a pretty good MMO, but it was heavily focused on PvP, and that’s not really my thing, so I drifted away from it. 429 words.
• Whoa, Elder Scrolls Online Character Creation. 2013-10-22 7:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  From what I can tell, the two most anticipated MMOs “coming soon” are WildStar and Elder Scrolls Online. WildStar I can only assume because it’s made by some former WoW developers, and ESO because, well, it’s Elder Scrolls, man, come on. Anyway, a video was recently posted showing ESO character creation options, and wow, it looks pretty awesome. I’m not sure why I thought this but I figured ESO would be a lot more graphically simplified than Skyrim, but it actually looks pretty similar. It does appear that there are fewer customization options than Skyrim, which to me is actually a bit of a relief. I’m not fond of fiddling with hundreds of sliders to get cheekbones exactly right. I’m fine with broader adjustments. 124 words.
• I Really Have To Say This?. 2013-10-23 6:46 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  The problems with Healthcare.gov are entirely unrelated to whatever problems are in the law. Saying the healthcare law is bad because the web site is broken is like saying speed limits are bad because your car broke down. 286 words.
• WoW, Relaxing Trinquility. 2013-10-23 7:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Perhaps as a result of a post on Inventory Full and a post on Herding Cats, I found myself playing WoW over the weekend. It was not one of my better weekends in terms of getting productive things done in my life, but I choose to think of that as the cause of playing WoW, rather than the effect. Anyway, I made a number of observations about WoW as compared to more modern MMOs. 657 words.
• FFXIV Tab Targeting. 2013-10-24 6:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Can we talk about the tab targeting in FFXIV? And when I say “talk” I mean “rant” and when I say “we” I mean “me.” The tab targeting in FFXIV is the worst I have ever seen. It makes absolutely no sense. When I hit tab to switch to the next target, I expect the “next” target to be somewhere in the same vicinity as the first target. But for some reason, when you hit tab, suddenly you’re targeting some monster a mile away from everyone else who isn’t even attacking. Then you have to hit tab fifty more times to get to the mob you want to hit, and you usually overshoot it because you’re tapping the tab key really fast because you’re in a hurry, and then the whole thing starts over again. By then you’ve usually pulled fifty new mobs into the fight by accident. This is especially annoying in FATEs where you have monsters attacking in packs. 240 words.
• Rift Server Merges Meh. 2013-10-24 7:08 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Rift completed server merges. I didn’t notice any change, personally. I logged in for a few minutes, decided I still had no interest in the Fae Autumn Festival thingy, then logged out again. It kind of sucks that nobody is playing it anymore. Where did everyone go? FFXIV, the newest shiney? Or back to some other game? 57 words.
• Silencing Your Inner Editor. 2013-10-25 1:40 PM.
  • Process
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Writing Excuses recently challenged the standard newbie writing advice that you should “silence your inner editor” while writing. Instead, Mary advised that you need only silence your “inner heckler,” while harnessing your “inner editor” to tell you when you need to improve your writing. Personally I think Mary completely missed the mark on this one. (And I got the sense that Brandon wasn’t on board either.) The “inner editor” as I’ve understood it is not so much a heckler as it is someone who is obsessed with good grammar and who is terrified of making a mistake. Such a person will constantly revise and re-revise and re-re-revise every sentence before moving on to the next one. Listening to this editor will result in never finishing a book or never thinking it’s good enough to release. This is not the kind of thing you want to think about, particularly when you’re writing a first draft. 243 words.
• Book 3, Chapter 5, Part II of III. 2013-10-25 6:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  When I logged back into LotRO for the first time in a long time, I remembered one of the main reasons I stopped playing: On the outside looking in... It was Book 3, Chapter 5, Part II of III. I’ve probably been stuck on that quest for well over a year. It says you can do it solo, but I was facerolled every time. Lies! The Elf-stone's inspiration is no help at all. 288 words.
• Healthcare.gov Contractors Declare: Not It. 2013-10-25 6:00 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  It’s extremely clear what the contractors are saying in their Congressional testimony: "Everything worked fine when we delivered it, so don’t blame us." 381 words.
• WvW Season In GW2. 2013-10-28 7:42 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I saw an announcement recently about the start of the Guild Wars 2 World versus World “season.” I personally have never gotten into the WvW thing in GW2, so I’m not sure why I’m supposed to care about a new season. Conceptually I like the idea of jumping in there, zerging around for a while, and leaving, but it never seems to work out that way. First of all, I’ve never been a fan of PvP in any MMO, because it’s inherently random. Two opponents of equal skill level should theoretically play to a 50/50 win/loss ratio over time. However, thanks to the random factor, you might go higher or lower than that ratio due to forces beyond your control. I just find it irritating to get killed by a random crit. Therefore I never go anywhere alone in PvP settings. 369 words.
• WoW Doesn't Take Itself Seriously. 2013-10-29 1:25 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Playing WoW again recently, it dawned on me why it’s been so popular. It’s a good game and all, and it’s more addictive than blue meth, but I think that one of the main things that pushes it over the top from niche game to mainstream hit is: It doesn’t take itself seriously. Most people would probably be embarassed to admit that they play a game involving elves and dwarves and knights and dragons. Society tells us that those things are for kids, or hardcore D&D nerds, and those guys are weird. (At least they were when I was growing up.) WoW said to the world, hey all that stuff is stupid, right? We’re going to make fun of that in our game. We’re going to put in quests with ridiculous characters who say silly things and make meta jokes about pop culture and anything we can think of to keep this from being a serious fantasy world. Our trolls are going to be Jamaican stoners. Our Undead are going to be necrophiliacs. Our dwarves are going to be Scottish highlanders. It’s all just going to be a big silly cartoon. So nobody will have to pretend that they’re really playing in a fantasy world, and it’ll be okay for normal people to enjoy it. (Normal as in not a D&D nerd.) 358 words.
• FFXIV First Month Ending. 2013-10-30 3:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  My first month of FFXIV ends on Nov. 1 so I need to decide whether to subscribe or not. I think I will, because it is definitely the “freshest” MMO I’m playing right now, although perhaps not right away. (I’ve also been on a weird WoW kick lately, but that’s another story.) There is an endless number of things to do in the game if you bounce between adventuring, gathering, and crafting, particularly since you can change classes at will. Bored with archer? Switch to pugilist for a totally different gameplay experience! It’s a lot like Rift in that way. 236 words.
• NaNoWriMo Starts Tomorrow. 2013-10-31 2:13 PM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow, and I couldn’t be more apathetic about it. A few weeks ago I was very excited about a story idea, but now I’m in that classic writer’s mood that goes something like this: “So what if I write a cool story, nobody is ever going to read it anyway.” At least I think it’s a classic writer’s mood. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it means I’m writing for the wrong reasons. Shouldn’t I be writing because the writing itself is fun? But if nobody ever reads my writing, there is exactly zero chance of supporting myself as a weirdo reclusive author who lives in a cave. 109 words.
• Halloween in the MMO. 2013-10-31 3:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Autumn (aka. Halloween) celebrations are a staple of modern MMORPGs. Ye gods what is that? (I was going to put another picture captioned “It’s always Halloween in Kingsmouth!” but I couldn’t find my screenshot.) 34 words.

November, 2013

• Tower of Nightmares. 2013-11-01 1:34 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I stopped by GW2 and discovered a big ol’ patch had happened, and when I logged in to see if there was any chance of defeating Tequatl, I had mail telling me to go to Kessex Hills to save the world again. I could describe it, but Inventory Full did a nice summary already: http://bhagpuss.blogspot.com/2013/10/next-stop-kessex-hills-all-change-here.html I haven’t played GW2 seriously in a long time but I was able to get through the initial Tower of Nightmares instance. (That’s one thing I like about GW2-it’s really easy to pick it up again after you’ve been gone, because there aren’t any complex “rotations” you need to know. Just target something, hit your main attack, and off you go.) I almost got facerolled halfway through the last boss fight when those four adds appeared right when my health was almost gone. I thought I was a goner but it turned out if you just run far enough away from them, they stop chasing you. It gave me time to recharge before coming back to take them out one at a time instead of all four at once. 354 words.
• Hacking Data Pipes Not That Bad. 2013-11-01 3:38 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Nobody hacked into anyone’s servers. They only tapped into the raw data stream between the servers. 573 words.
• Discovering Comments On Old Posts. 2013-11-04 1:04 PM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I happened to look at one of my more popular posts recently and discovered there’s a boatload of comments on it! I had no idea. 209 words.
• NaNaWriMo First Weekend. 2013-11-04 2:55 PM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  NaNoWriMo is off to a mediocre start this year, as I am running about 900 words behind after the first weekend. Not too bad, really, considering what a collosal chore it has been to get writing. I feel like there’s a compelling story in this mess of text somewhere but I’m having a hard time getting to it. I am writing this year with zero preparation, by the way, other than some ideas jotted down so I wouldn’t forget them. Also, I’m not doing very well with my main goal of making myself laugh, because what I’m writing is not very funny so far. 104 words.
• Maybe It’s Time For A Break. 2013-11-04 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Discussion
  
  Herding Cats has an interesting post up about how we, the gaming community, may have shot ourselves in the foot by telling MMO developers to limit cash shop purchases to cosmetic items so that the game won’t turn pay-to-win. But she argues that when you play an MMO only for cosmetic items, a cosmetic cash shop is pay-to-win. I’m one of those people who unofficially agreed that cosmetic items are fine in cash shops, because I personally don’t care that much about cosmetic items. I mean, if I run across a neat-looking item, I’ll be all like, “Yay, that looks cool, I’m glad I found it!” But I don’t often set out on any adventures with an objective of getting a cosmetic item. I just pick them up if I “happen” to come across them in the normal course of playing. 464 words.
• When WoW Tanks Go Rogue. 2013-11-05 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Tanking
  
  I had an odd, somewhat amusing experience in WoW recently. I’ve been playing a lot of dungeon instances lately, partly because I’ve never actually done any WoW dungeons before, and partly because I wanted to level a mage without going through the hassle of soloing. Almost every instance has been an enjoyable, workmanlike experience … until this tank decided to be an ass. So the random dungeon selector came up with the Scarlet Monastary. Or maybe it was the Scarlet Halls. I can’t remember. They all run together. It was the one that starts out with those piles of corpses and zombies which most people just run around, but the second we stepped into this instance we were beset by flaming zombies and fighting for our lives. That usually happens when somebody doesn’t circumvent that first area, so I figured somebody was trying to do a quest I didn’t know about, or somebody was panicking, or somebody just didn’t know what was going on. 667 words.
• Big Mistake or a Big Lie. 2013-11-06 3:48 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I’m not one of those people who thinks that "making a big mistake" is the same as "lying," but now that plenty of people are losing their existing plans, he’s getting hammered for lying to us. 384 words.
• Is WoW Leveling Really That Fast?. 2013-11-06 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  So my WoW mage has Enchanting as a profession, and he’d leveled way past the point where he could disenchant the magic items he picked up at the measely skill level of 15. I had a couple of other characters in the 25-30 range that I could have used to farm items from dungeons, but I didn’t think those items would be any better. So I got the brilliant idea that I would level another character to 15 and just keep doing dungeon instances and send all the excess low-level magic items that I picked up to my mage. 483 words.
• GW2 Tower of Nightmares and Story in MMOs. 2013-11-07 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I saw a lot of negative reactions around the blogosphere to the GW2 Tower of Nightmares update. Surprisingly, the main criticism seems to be that people aren’t interested in the new story. It isn’t engaging enough. This is puzzling to me for a couple of reasons. First, I didn’t even realize there was a story in the new GW2 update, and second, I didn’t realize people judged new MMO content on the new storylines brought into the world. 715 words.
• Rift Song of Dreams – Where Is It?. 2013-11-08 4:24 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I got an email from Trion saying that the Rift Song of Dreams patch 2.5 was live, so I eagerly patched up and logged in. What I saw was … nothing. Nothing looked different in Tempest Bay, so I checked my mail to get what I was sure would be a nice invitation to participate in the cool new Mini-Saga and … there was no mail. I knew all the action was supposed to happen on Ember Isle so I took the nearest porticulum over there and … nothing was happening. Nothing was coming out of the ocean, nobody was running around in zergs, nothing changed on the map, no new quest indicators, nothing. Okay, well, Rift is f2p now so maybe I have to buy something to get started on all the fun, so I looked in the store and there was … nothing. All this new content would be right on the front page of the store, right? So there’s no way I could have missed it. But there was nothing there but a dinosaur mount. Next I thought maybe a “Mini-Saga” is something like a Chronicle, so I checked my list of Chronicles and found … nothing. (Though I did find a couple I hadn’t done before.) 273 words.
• Trying To Make Sense of Insurance Premiums. 2013-11-08 7:18 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  Normally if I see an article titled "Obamacare destroying lives, killing business," I skip it, because it’s obviously going to be partisan rhetoric, especially coming from RedState, a political blog which thrives on such. But for some reason I went through with reading this article, because I saw that it was a (supposedly) real-life example of someone who is being forced to buy a more expensive plan with less benefits under Obamacare. 369 words.
• GW2 Thank God I’m Not An Achiever. 2013-11-08 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I was reading a post on Why I Game which talked about lackluster enthusiasm for GW2, and I started to feel really bad for him. I cannot imagine what it’s like to feel such a compulsion to obtain achievements that you’re willing to log tons of game time doing things that aren’t fun. I certainly agree about the lack of enthusiasm for GW2. This Tower of Nightmares update is more of the same. Log in, kill lots of stuff, get some achievements, log out. Really nothing to look forward to except watching your achievment progress bar go from zero to full, and that’s not fun for me at all. I mean I guess there’s loot too, but I’m 80 so what do I need loot for? A new “finishing move?” I’m not doing PvP and it’s not like there are any raids to do. 485 words.
• Achievements – The Journey Is Part of The Reward. 2013-11-09 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Discussion
  
  Lots of talk about achievements. Are they good? Are they bad? MMO Gypsy hates them (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RagingMonkeys/~3/UCUa6ra8IUg/achievement-hate-exploration-and-mystery.html), Herding Cats defends them (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/machiavelliscat/xgUW/~3/EBQ0bOGdQLk/), and CuppyVille relies on them (http://cuppyville.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/in-which-i-defend-achievements-in-mmos/). Me? I tend to ignore them. It’s true that I’m an Explorer on the Bartle test, so you might think I’d be siding with Syp in saying that achievements have destroyed the MMO genre. Well, first of all, I don’t think the genre has been destroyed at all; I think it’s far better now than it’s ever been. Also, I don’t feel like the Bartle Explorer fits me very well. A Bartle Explorer sounds like someone who will divert from a quest line to wander off into the jungle to see what’s there, because he saw a funny-looking knot on a tree, and then he’ll cross the river past the jungle, and then climb the mountain across from the river, and so on. Totally A.D.D. in other words. I do that occasionally, but these days I rarely go out into the jungle unless there is a quest telling me to. 760 words.
• LotRO Mithril Coins Rule. 2013-11-11 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I know that the Mithril Coins are just a way to force people to buy from the shop, but I still cheerfully bought a big bagful of them. Being able to zip back to quest givers is an incredible time-saver. Way more worth real money than, say, a fancy cape or horse or whatever. (Actually, I had a trove of Turbine Points sitting around so I didn’t need to spend any (more) real money.) 74 words.
• Is Chain-Pulling Harder?. 2013-11-12 2:41 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Tanking
  
  I was in a dungeon recently with a chain-pulling tank, and it got me thinking. I’ve always associated the chain-pulling tank behavior with a more advanced tanking technique, but is it really harder to chain-pull? Chain-pulling, if you don’t know, is where the tank runs at full speed pulling mob after mob after mob without stopping, until he gathers a big group of them together, and then he takes off again before the group is even dead. So he gets a big train of mobs following him around, and the rest of the party has to run full speed to keep up with him. 224 words.
• MMO Pinball. 2013-11-13 3:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Progression Report
  
  Just so you know, I have been a veritable pinball of MMO playing lately. First FFXIV leveling an Archer/Bard to level 30. Then WoW leveling a Mage from around 17 to 50, and leveling some other characters. Then GW2 to check out the Tower of Nightmares. Then LoTRO leveling my hobbit Hunter from 38 to 45. Then Rift to check out the Song of Dreams patch. Even a little bit of Neverwinter and TERA and (gasp) Aion thrown in there between. 106 words.
• Flying Mounts In WoW. 2013-11-13 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  The Burning Crusade has been out since January 2007, which makes it nearly seven years old. Since that time, there has always been a contingient of people on every new MMO forum who scream, “Where are the flying mounts? I keep getting hit by mobs!” I, like most everyone else, always scoffed and thought, “Just run around the mobs. Jeez. We don’t need no stinkin’ flying mounts.” Flash forward to today, when my Hunter finally bought a flying mount on the Hellfire Penninsula. I’ve been slowly leveling him since I first started playing WoW, which was, coincidentally enough, somewhere around 2007. (Actually I think it was 2008.) Anyway, he’s 64 now and I still occasionally break him out and grind through some quests to inch slowly forward toward where I can enter the second oldest expansion area. One day I found myself standing in front of the flying mount vendor with 225 gold burning a hole in my pocket, so I bought a white griffin. 408 words.
• A Lucky Political Disaster. 2013-11-14 5:34 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I think it’s safe to say now that the Obamacare rollout has been a total disaster, and Democrats have no choice but to make some concessions (or "fixes"). Even if it wasn’t really a disaster, it’s solidified in the national consciousness as a disaster, and perception is reality in politics. 221 words.
• WoW Dungeon Guides Are Terrible. 2013-11-14 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  There is one area where WoW is woefully far behind other games like Rift and FFXIV. That is: Normal dungeon guides on YouTube. Good ones, I mean. They don’t exist for WoW. Or maybe they do exist, but they are so deeply buried within the noise that you can’t find them. I don’t want to see some guy rambling about nothing for twenty minutes of unedited game footage. I want a little intro telling me what the trash mobs are, then I want to see the first boss and his special mechanics, then the second boss, and so on. I don’t even need to see the whole boss fight. The whole video should be five minutes or less. And I don’t want to have the in-game dungeon guide read to me, either. I want to know in five words or less what I need to worry about. 167 words.
• NaNoWriMo Mid-Month Update. 2013-11-15 5:58 PM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I am all over the place with this year’s NaNoWriMo. Some days I write enough, some days I don’t. Overall I am behind, but not so far behind that it’s impossible to make it up. My heart is definitely not in it, though. This story is bad. I mean, really, really bad. There is a kernel of a seed of an idea that I don’t think is too bad, but everything else around it is as bad as it can possibly get. And also the writing is bad. 387 words.
• Rift Song of Dreams Mini-Saga Completed. 2013-11-15 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  It took me a while, but I finally found the new content for Song of Dreams. Looking at the map around Ember Isle, I noticed there was a shaded area off to the west of the island that looked new, so I started running that way and found a little island at the extreme western edge with new stuff! (If you think Ember Isle looks like a reverse Pac Man like I do, it’s in the mouth.) 573 words.
• Side Note On New Consoles. 2013-11-16 1:27 PM.
  • Consoles
  
  This isn’t MMO related, but here’s a couple cents on the new consoles. I have a PS3 Slim so I don’t expect I’ll be getting a PS4 until developers stop making games for the PS3. However, since I’ve never owned an Xbox, I will probably get an Xbox One in the somewhat near future, possibly after Christmas, at which time I will also have to get a TV to connect it to. :) 73 words.
• GW2 Go Blackgate!. 2013-11-17 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Oh hey, according to the mid-season WvW report, Blackgate is winning. Go Blackgate! When I randomly chose Blackgate to play on, I picked a winner! (Actually it wasn’t random. It was a choice between Blackgate which was the “coolest” sounding server, or Yak’s Bend which was the “funniest” sounding server, and in the end I went for coolness.) My only contribution to the war effort was capturing one empty Ruins and escorting one yak. 289 words.
• WoW Warlords of Draenor Impressions. 2013-11-18 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Here are some first impressions of the newly announced WoW expansion Warlords of Draenor. I’m not a hardcore WoW player but recently I’ve been playing more than I usually do, so I have more of an opinion than “meh, whatever.” New Character Models. It’s about time, I say. I can’t believe anyone would oppose this. I found it rather annoying that they made these nice, smooth panda models and animations for MoP but left everybody else with like fourty-seven triangles and six frames of movement. 508 words.
• A Typical Day In The Life Of NaNoWriMo 2013. 2013-11-19 6:57 PM.
  • Writing
  • Process
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Last night I once again approached my NaNoWriMo writing at about 9:00, which is the absolute latest I can possibly start writing with any expectation of getting anything done. Once again I stared at a blank document, not even looking at the previous day’s writing, wondering how on earth I could possibly come up with 1,667 words to write of a story that has no outline. Not just 1,667 words either. I actually need slightly more than 2,000 words a day to catch up again. 553 words.
• Making Sense of EQ Landmark. 2013-11-19 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I’m trying to wrap my head around this EQ Next/Landmark thing. If I’m understanding this correctly, what we’re buying in Landmark is the toolset that a game developer would use to create an MMO game world. SOE must have looked at their tools and said, “You know, these tools are so fun and intuitive to use, maybe we could polish them up a bit and sell them, because people really seem to like building virtual things.” 349 words.
• The Delicate Balance of Beta Testing. 2013-11-20 2:36 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I think it’s safe to say this: I got an invitation for this weekend’s TESO beta test. I assume it’s okay to say that because they made a big public announcement that they were sending out the invitations. I had to accept a rather harsh-sounding NDA though so I don’t think I’ll be able to say much of anything else. Beta testing is a delicate balance. On the one hand, it’s super exciting to see a new shiney and possibly shape the course of its future (though to be honest, in my experience, beta reports are largely ignored unless it is a game-breaking bug), but on the other hand, you don’t want to play so much that you burn out before the game even launches. Not to mention all of your progress is going to get wiped anyway. So it’s like, “Yay, I’m in the beta!” Followed shortly by, “Crap, this could ruin the game for me.” 157 words.
• Trove Triggers 8-Bit PTSD. 2013-11-20 8:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Trion Worlds is working on something called Trove. Now when Trion does something, I tend to take notice, because Rift is hands down the best themepark MMO out there right now. Any arguments you might have against my statement are invalid, because I said so. (Defiance, on the other hand, was a bit meh.) I anxiously looked at the screenshots for Trove and … drooped with disappointment. Really? 8-bit crap graphics? Really? People are still into this? What is wrong with people? 289 words.
• So Over Obamacare. 2013-11-21 6:31 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  I’m over the whole Obamacare apocalypse now. It’s no longer a topic of interest. 691 words.
• Black Desert?. 2013-11-21 7:01 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  We all know that blockbuster MMOs EQ Next/Landmark (the minecraft one), WildStar (the cartoon one), and The Elder Scrolls Online (the D&D one) are “coming soon.” But a while back some posts I saw about a Korean-made MMO called Black Desert caught my eye. I hadn’t heard of it before, so I did some investigation. ( That means I went to Wikipedia .) Wikipedia says it’s a “sandbox-oriented” MMO, but I’m not entirely sure what that means. The Black Desert site itself says it will be “focused on Sandbox Features, PvP and PvE.” Again, that’s about as vague as it gets. I’m not even sure it’s going to be available in English-speaking countries. I’ve got to think that since they made an English web page, they’re planning an English version of the game. 160 words.
• On the Removal of Leveling. 2013-11-22 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Discussion
  
  With the announcement of Warlords of Draenor, there was a bit of buzz around the MMO-sphere about the role of the leveling process. I was struck by a post on Healing the Masses suggesting that it’s time to remove the leveling game entirely from MMOs so that we no longer segregate the players into groups that can’t play together. … an ideology that is slowly dying, an ideology that never really belonged much in the first place in this genre. 585 words.
• LotRO Helm's Deep Skill Trees. 2013-11-23 1:52 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  After a patching process that seemed to take hours (possibly because I was playing another game while I waited), I spent a couple of minutes in LotRO to see the class changes in Helm’s Deep. (I am only 45 so I am nowhere near seeing the content of Helm’s Deep.) It looks like all they did was integrate industry-standard “skill trees” into the game, so you have to choose one of three specializations for your character. For my Hunter, I got to pick from a Jack-of-all-Trades tree, a Ranged DPS tree, and a Traps-base tree. I don’t mind the change but I do think it makes LotRO gameplay a bit less unique. Not something I would rage quit over, though. Who knows, maybe it will bring in some new players. 130 words.
• EQ2 Status Report, 43 Warden. 2013-11-25 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I thought it would be fun to write a series of posts talking about where my characters are in various games. Lately I have been bouncing back and forth between MMOs, so I’ve touched base with a lot of them recently. At the time of this writing, my main character in EQ2 is a level 43 Wood Elf Warden (one of the many classes of healer, if you don’t know). After a recent spate of playing, he moved from the clockwork-kobold-infested Steamfont Mountains to the icy island of Everfrost. 885 words.
• WoW Tanks Are Top DPS??. 2013-11-26 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Tanking
  
  I realize nobody wants to read about WoW, but historically I haven’t played it much, and about 90% of it is still new to me. Well “new” isn’t the right word exactly-it’s more that WoW’s implementation of familiar MMO tropes is new to me. For example, I’ve made a shocking observation in my low to mid-range dungeon runs: The tank almost always does the most damage in the group. Sometimes by a very large margin. 339 words.
• Rift, Great For Introverts. 2013-11-27 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly what it is that I love(d?) about Rift, and I think I figured it out. It was perfect for an introvert like me who enjoys solo play, but also wants to do group activities without a lot of hassle. Rift’s dynamic rifts and zone events fulfilled that requirement perfectly. You’re out doing quests to level your character, enjoying the scenery. Then a zone event breaks out, and you rush to the spot marked on your map and find a big group of players there. Ten seconds ago you were by yourself in the middle of nowhere, then in a flash you’re part of a group working together toward the same objectives. You can heal if you want to, you can tank if you want to, or you can just sit back and pew-pew if you want to. You don’t have to spam a chat channel with “lfg” for an hour, you don’t have to sit in a dungeon finder queue, you don’t have to manage a bunch of personalities, you just run to a spot and you’re automatically part of a like-minded group working toward the same goal, without any sense of commitment. When you’re done, you just go back to your quest. It worked beautifully. (You could even ignore the event completely if you wanted to be left alone.) 388 words.
• Happy Thanksgiving. 2013-11-28 4:00 PM.
  • Administration
  
  Happy Thanksgiving everyone! No posts until Monday. Have a great weekend! 11 words.

December, 2013

• Impressions of Wizardry Online. 2013-12-02 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Has anyone seen Wizardry Online? It’s free-to-play, and another one of those hardcore old school MMORPGs that SOE seems to like. It’s clearly Asian in origin, but it’s weird because it’s an Asian vision of standard European medieval tropes like elves and dwarves. The graphics are odd as well. It looks a bit like everything is a low-contrast sepia-toned image. WO seems to be one of the “hard” MMOs that everyone clamors for (but never actually plays). Some games are hard now simply because the controls are foreign (like EQ and AC-playing those two now is like trying to type on a Dvorak keyboard). WO is hard even with a modernized input system. There are no (well, few) sparklies showing you where to go. Supposedly it is permanent death if you die. (I haven’t died yet to test that out.) Supposedly it is open world PvP and anyone can PK you. (I haven’t encountered any PKs yet.) It’s got an odd combat system where you lock onto targets to fight with them (it’s a bit like Dark Souls if you’ve played that). There’s no renewal of health or mana so you have to drink potions or cast spells to heal. It’s got very limited inventory so you have to really choose your equipment wisely (things that you wear still take up space in your backpack, a super old school concept). You can’t see how tough monsters are until you fight them. You have to identify magic items to see what they are, and you have to go back a place to level up after you’ve gained enough experience. It’s … you know, hard. 361 words.
• LoTRO Status Report, 45 Hunter. 2013-12-03 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  When I last left LotRO (Lord of the Rings Online) a couple of years ago, my highest level character was only a level 38 Hunter. I stopped playing largely because of this one Epic quest that kept defeating me, and nothing will drive me away from a game faster than a required quest that keeps killing me and/or requires a group. I discussed that quest in another post. When I came back this time, I got past that quest, so progression could resume. 822 words.
• Aion – Surprise, It's PvP. 2013-12-04 6:40 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  In playing Aion again, I made a shocking* discovery: It’s open world PvP! I had no idea. I always thought the PvP was voluntary. But nope, I found out the hard way when I was out in Morheim. I got killed by some guy on a skateboard in like four shots. I didn’t even realize it was another player until I was almost dead. Well that sure puts a new spin on things. 262 words.
• Stanley’s Parable. 2013-12-05 4:00 PM.
  • Steam
  
  One night I didn’t feel like playing an MMO. It happened to be a night where there was a Steam sale on Stanley’s Parable, a game I’ve heard a lot about, so I got that and played it. First of all, it’s not a game. There needs to be another category for this kind of thing. Something like Interactive Art Project or Interactive Entertainment. (It’s similar to Gone Home in that regard.) Stanley’s Parable is like a point-and-click Adventure game I suppose, but it’s not quite the same because there aren’t really any puzzles to solve. It’s something you are just supposed to view and experience, not “play.” 124 words.
• NaNoWriMo 2013 Post-Mortem. 2013-12-06 3:46 PM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  This is an example of how to make nanowrimo harder. I won NaNoWriMo, barely. Scrivener said I had 50,140 words, but NaNoWriMo only gave me credit for 50,005 words, which I turned in on the night of the 30th. You might be surprised to know that I actually did “end” the story as well. I didn’t just stop writing. 997 words.
• Twitch.tv. 2013-12-06 4:00 PM.
  • Streaming
  
  Over the holiday weekend I started a new Twitch channel for EndgameViable, because I like to do weird stuff like broadcast my gaming sessions for the entire world to see. Plus, all the kids are doing it. (Actually I’m not sure if I like it or not, but I like it when other people do it.) So yeah, tune in and watch me play games you’ve already seen before! Follow @endgameviable on Twitter and you’ll get an obnoxious tweet every time I go live. 316 words.
• Which Fingers for WASD. 2013-12-09 4:00 PM.
  • Gaming
  • Discussion
  
  I’ve always wondered something. Most of the world uses WASD for their keyboard controls, right? I’m assuming so because that’s how every game is pre-configured. I, however, use ESDF for my keyboard controls, so I have to change the defaults on every single game I play. I am not bitter about that. Mostly. I chose ESDF when I re-did my Quake keyboard binds way back in the day because it seemed like the natural choice, because my ring finger, middle finger, and index finger naturally rested on SDF anyway. If I needed to type a quick message, my fingers were right there ready to do so. 227 words.
• Slumming in EQ and AC. 2013-12-10 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I did something odd over one weekend. I installed and played both Everquest and Asheron’s Call for a little while. Everquest is free-to-play now, if you didn’t know. You can download the client and log right on in there, and there are a surprising number of people who apparently do just that. The little newbie cave must have had a dozen people in it wandering around trying to figure out how to play. 608 words.
• Re-Using Character Names. 2013-12-11 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Discussion
  
  I’ve been thinking about character names. Normally I make up new names for all my characters, but I know a lot of people carry over their names from one game to another. You always see people trying “get their names” when a new game launches. One day on a whim I decided to re-use a couple of names from Rift characters for some EQ2 alts to see what it was like, and I found it very weird. 149 words.
• Trove Alpha Impressions. 2013-12-12 2:09 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I was moderately shocked last night to receive an email from Trion with a code to get into the Trove Alpha. I was even more shocked to discover a complete lack of an NDA. Although, if you think about it, I did actually pay $20 (or whatever it was) to see this alpha, so it would be weird for them to restrict me. There are very few options in the game right now, which I found surprising. (I just didn’t expect that game options would be added so late in the life cycle of a game.) The only in-game option is to pick full screen or not. If you’re an invert mouse person, you have to edit your Trove.cfg file and set InvertY = true. If you’re not a WASD person, you’re out of luck. 640 words.
• Mortal Online – Travel Back to the 90s. 2013-12-13 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  So you say you wish you could play an MMORPG like the ones in the old days? Something like UO maybe? Well get yourself a copy of Mortal Online and experience what MMORPG life was like in the late 1990s. Previously, I thought that Wizardry Online was a pretty old school, hardcore MMORPG. But WO is a total cake walk compared to Mortal Online. Here’s the first thing you need to know about MO: You’re going to die and lose everything. 3,464 words.
• WoW Progress Report. 2013-12-16 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I bought a 3-month subscription for WoW when I suddenly got interested in playing again. Now that I’m running out of interest, the subscription will be expiring in January. It’s obvious that game developers are not doing subscriptions anymore, but I have to say, it’s pretty awesome to play a game where you aren’t bothered with cash shops or gems or other alternate forms of cash-based currency. Anyway, my highest-level character in WoW is a 66 Night Elf Hunter. I rolled him back in Vanilla WoW when a Hunter was just about the only way to go around soloing without spending all of your time either dead or healing between encounters. He’s still the guy I do all my solo questing with, but now it’s trivial beyond belief. I just mow down all the mobs in the Outlands like cutting grass with a butter knife. Or cutting butter with a scythe. Or something. It’s actually not very fun. I typically log in with him, finish a handful of quests, and then log out. 493 words.
• In Which I Hate Shopping For Clothes. 2013-12-16 6:00 PM.
  • Personal
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  At the end of 2013, online shopping for clothes is still nowhere near where it should be. 517 words.
• Invert Mouse Forever. 2013-12-17 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Discussion
  
  Why doesn’t everyone use invert mouse? I simply cannot comprehend it. Yet informal polls show that only about 30% of people use invert mouse. I choose the invert mouse setting because I want to mimic the controls of a flight simulator, which is pretty much the de-facto standard 3D environment control scheme. In a flight simulator (and presumably a real airplane), you push the stick forward to go down, and you pull the stick back to go up. So clearly when using a mouse, you should roll the mouse forward to aim down, and roll the mouse backward to aim up. 170 words.
• FFXIV Free Company Housing In 2.1. 2013-12-18 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Wow. I just read an article on Massively about the pricing for Final Fantasy XIV guild housing. It’s rather high, and it has enraged the FFXIV community. At least according to the article. For myself, I’m not into housing on a good day, but I’m definitely not into housing if it’s going to cost me a bazillion jillion gil for a starter house. Before we get to the housing, I’ve got to say, Square Enix knows how to put out some friggin’ patch notes. The FFXIV 2.1 patch notes are the most detailed patch notes I’ve ever seen, to the point of obsessive compulsion. It’s a complete encyclopedia of patch information that must have taken an enormous amount of time to put together. Kudos to them. 331 words.
• Bye Warhammer!. 2013-12-19 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Bye Warhammer! I wish I’d been able to log into you before you left, but your publisher apparently can’t manage simple things like letting people easily login and play you, even when you’re free. Gotta think that might have something to do with your departure. Anyway, you weren’t a bad game. Certainly better than EQ1 or AC which are inexplicably still running approximately fifty years later. Warhammer Online is the first MMORPG I’ve played a significant amount that shut down, and only the second MMORPG from which I’ve lost significant characters. (I lost my original Asheron’s Call characters when Turbine moved from Microsoft to their own servers.) 116 words.
• Why Don’t People Like Poor Desmond?. 2013-12-20 4:00 PM.
  • RPG
  
  Tobold recently was not impressed by Assasin’s Creed 1. He expressed the same baffling opinions that I often hear about AC, which gives me a chance to be baffled in a public blog post. I’ve always like Assassin’s Creed. At the time AC1 came out, I thought it was mind-bogglingly revolutionary. It was the best mo-cap I’d ever seen, the graphics looked realistic as crap, the city landscapes were amazing, and it had so many friggin actors on the screen at once. Also, nobody had ever seen “Parkour” before. All of that innovation is unfortunately lost on a modern audience, though, and all anyone sees when they go back to AC1 is the boring and repetitive gameplay. 392 words.
• Fallen Earth Impressions. 2013-12-23 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  Fallen Earth is one of the sort-of kind-of AAA-ish quality MMORPGs that I haven’t ever played, so being generally bored with all other games, I recently started playing it. The key word there is “started.” This is actually the second time I’ve started it up. The first time I made a character and took one look at the 1990s-era graphics and promptly uninstalled it. This time I am deliberately overlooking the weird graphics so that I can evaluate the game itself. (The graphics aren’t that bad but they are primitive compared to recent titles. It reminds me a lot of the style of Fallout 1 and 2, perhaps intentionally.) 598 words.
• GW2 Winter Wonderland of Doom. 2013-12-24 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I ducked into GW2 to check out the Christmas event. As usual, there is nothing to gain from doing the events except some cosmetic fluff, because god forbid you actually get to advance your GW2 character in any way. But I set aside my anti-horizontal-progression Scrooge-like sentiment for a bit and did the events anyway, and they’re kind of fun. Most of them, anyway. There’s a dungeon which I skipped because I didn’t want to deal with a group. (Naturally most of the achievements revolve around the dungeon.) I did the snowball fight which is just a PvP Capture-the-Flag kind of game that doesn’t let you use any of the class abilities you’re used to. The bell-ringing event was interesting although I had to re-bind my keys to have even a remote chance of getting anywhere with it. (I use TRGVBH instead of the normal 123456.) 866 words.
• Mortal Online – Why is this Fun?. 2013-12-26 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I’m at a loss to explain it, but I’m digging Mortal Online. When I’m staring at my desktop full of MMO icons trying to decide which one to play, MO is the one I usually click on. I’d be hard pressed to tell you why this game is compelling. I log in. I run out to the Graveyard and kill some undead to make some money and practice my blocking and swordfighting. I gather some plants and chop up some trees. I tame donkeys and horses and ride around. I cook up some food to feed myself and my animals. I make myself some leather armor from pig skins. I practice swimming in the ocean. I read books to train skills. 976 words.
• WildStar Gushing From MMO Reporter. 2013-12-27 4:00 PM.
  • MMORPG
  
  I’ve been hearing more and more about people’s WildStar beta experiences lately. Apparently they lifted some of the NDAs. They pretty much gushed about it on MMO Reporter Episode 152, and what they described sounded like a solid themepark MMO with action-oriented combat, and how can anyone not like that? No word on the endgame yet, though. I like The MMO Reporter podcast, by the way. It’s one of the best ones if you like a more “casual” style of podcast. This was the funniest part: At 19:30, when Harry was complaining about WildStar controls: “If you have your right hand on the mouse and you have your left hand on the WASD and you have to keep moving to avoid enemy telegraphs, try to hit the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 buttons at the same time.” 211 words.
• Totally Insensitive Thoughts on Shooters. 2013-12-27 4:13 PM.
  • Politics
  • thomaskrehbiel.com
  
  A bunch of thoughts struck me when I saw a Louisiana mass shooting headline. 448 words.
• The Time of the Doctor. 2013-12-27 5:23 PM.
  • Television
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I didn’t understand much of anything that happened in the Christmas Special The Time of the Doctor, Matt Smith’s final episode as Dr. Who. I didn’t understand the story, I didn’t understand why he was carrying around a Cyberman head, I didn’t understand why the crack was back, I didn’t understand why there was a town called Christmas or why The Doctor was stuck there, I didn’t understand where the Church of the Holy Whatever with the soldiers came from, nothing, zip, zilch. It seemed like a completely random jumble of people, places, and concepts. Was any of that in the last half-season anywhere? I sure don’t remember it. I guess I wasn’t paying nearly enough attention. 341 words.
• 2013 MMOs In Review. 2013-12-30 3:11 PM.
  • MMORPG
  • Discussion
  
  I hate these year-in-review kinds of posts. So what do I do? Write one, of course. Because everyone’s doing it. This is my review of 2013. 2013 began with GW2 fizzling out because of its lack of endgame progression. I still popped in now and then throughout the year to look at the Living Story but it’s just an occasional diversion. I played in one of the last betas of Defiance before it came out in April. I wanted to like it, but I wasn’t hooked. I’m generally not a fan of shooter MMOs. (Late in the year, however, I bought the game and played a little bit more.) 407 words.