From the unpublished archives: I tried out the Defiance beta.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.)

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.)

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. (1293 words.)

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.)

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.)

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.)

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.)

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.)

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.)

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.)