New Year, New Computer

As I indicated a couple posts ago, my 6-year-old model laptop finally gave up the ghost in early December after a traumatic plane ride to Las Vegas. That's not entirely true. Because of previous experience, I believe it is the trip through the airport luggage system that damages computers, not the flight itself. I did not own this particular ASUS G73 for 6 years, I've actually had a succession of three. The first was stolen in a home robbery forcing me to buy another. The second suffered motherboard issues after a different trip; and this most recent one, a Franken-puter of my old one and another sold to me by a good friend, was getting to be out of spec for modern games and expansions before its failure to boot. According to diagnostics, it's possible it only needed a recovery of Windows, but the DVD drive no longer worked, and I'd been wanting a new computer anyway. I'd started to save up a bit for a new rig already, but unexpected expenses in November threw me off my timeline. My sweet bride offered to use household funds to pay for the new computer, which I would then replenish after the fact.

In talking with a coworker who also travels frequently, I came up with a plan to build my own computer, a portable desktop rather than a laptop. I would be able to plug into hotel TVs using HDMI, and have a powerful computer for less money than a higher end gaming laptop. Plus, I had never built a computer from the ground up before, and I wondered if I was up to the challenge. Many of you fellow techies are probably laughing now, because it turns out not to have been particularly difficult at all, especially with Scooter's help. The part I was most nervous about was screwing up the thermal paste on the CPU cooling unit. However, in some ways, the hardest part was actually getting the necessary drivers to run the network interface card, so I could download the rest of the drivers, many of which updated automatically as soon as I had a connection.

[EDIT: Revised list, not all the components were correct. If anyone is interested, I can add links to Amazon]:

-Gigabyte Motherboard (GA-B150N)
-Intel Core i7 (BX80662I76700K)
-Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB RAM (PC4-21300)
-Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Mini ITX (GV-N1070IXOC-8GD)
-Noctua CPU Cooler (NH-L9I)
-Intel 600p Series m.2 512GB SSD (SSDPEKKW512G7X1)
-HGST Travelstar 7k1000 SATA 1TB HDD (0J22423)
-SilverStone Milo Mini-ITX Computer Case (ML08B-H)
-SilverStone 500W SFX-L Power Supply (SX500-LG)
-ViewSonic 22" Gaming Monitor (VX2252MH)
-Logitech K350 Keyboard (to go with my M570 mouse)
-Windows 10

I'll blurb a bit in a different post on my so-far limited gaming experience with this setup; I was downloading World of Warcraft as I typed the original draft. When all is said and done, the project has cost more than any other computer that I have owned. However, some of this is due to purchasing the new monitor and keyboard, and a really nice graphics card.

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In addition to providing computer construction expertise, Scooter proofreads almost all my articles before I post them, for which I am very grateful. However, any mistakes are mine and mine alone (unless otherwise noted). If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

For the World is Hollow . . .

In some ways, it seems silly to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the premier of a show that limped along in the ratings until it was mercifully killed off at the end of its dismal third season. But, of course, Star Trek is so much more than a failed TV show. Like many cultural phenomena, Star Trek was not well understood by those in charge of its fate on television.

As a child of the 70s, Star Wars, with its cinematic luster and cutting edge special effects, loomed larger in my young mind. Star Trek, like Lost in Space, was a relic of an earlier, less cool era. I was 7 when The Motion Picture was released. Not that my parents were likely to have taken me, I had no interest in seeing it.

My love of Star Trek began with books. My brother had a copy of Death's Angel that I borrowed when I was maybe 9. More aliens that were more alien than 1960s television production technology could have permitted, much less the budget. Let's say I was intrigued. This was not the lame show that came on in reruns after Saturday morning cartoons. More books came from the library, until I was primed for The Wrath of Khan (even though I had never seen the episode that inspired it.) And then Spock died. And this ten-year-old bawled.

Then came The Next Generation. More movies, more shows. I've attended a few conventions, including the 25th Anniversary TrekCon in Los Angeles with my brother (we could only afford passes to the vendor floor). Made my ex-wife watch so many episodes that my nerdy daughters were shocked by her Trek Fu when they were watching reruns decades later. Scooter and I are in the middle of a Voyager re-watch, and I'd love to actually see all of Enterprise (military deployment caused me to miss a couple seasons).

I was so excited by the new Star Trek (Kelvin timeline). While Into Darkness was disappointing, I wanted to see Beyond, and finally got my chance this past Saturday. It was amazing, and has me excited to see where they take the franchise next.

It's been 50 years since Captain Kirk led the crew of the Enterprise on a trek through the stars and into our imaginations. Countless people have been inspired to pursue careers in science because of Star Trek. Others have been inspired to pursue the kind of society where everyone can fulfill their potential regardless of their race, gender, or whatever makes them seem different. People have met, fallen in love, and had children because of Star Trek. Is it silly to celebrate a show that made history and impacted (created) so many lives, including my own?

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This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.

Scooter proofreads almost all my articles before I post them, for which I am very grateful. However, any mistakes are mine and mine alone (unless otherwise noted). If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

A Return to Regression

Earlier this month, as part of NBI, I discussed the sometimes futile attempt to correlate the blog author's activity on the blog with that of the readers. In other words, whether posting more often leads to more pageviews. (I made the dark charts in MS Excel, the pale graph is from Blogger.)

Due to an extreme outlier—I received almost 3x the number of pageviews this past month than I did my previous peak, which was May—my posts-to-pageviews R² is now even less than it was at mid-month. However, I realized I could put in the cumulative number of months I've been blogging as an independent variable instead. The result is much more compelling. As I understand it, there is a 40% percent correlation between my pageviews and how long I've been blogging. Remember however, that "correlation is not causation."

You'll notice, as I've posted less in the early part of this year (just to the left of the 76 month mark), my pageviews slackened as well. While I would say that there is less correlation between my posting and my pageviews than some other bloggers, that is partly because I post erratically, some months posting hardly at all, and a few months posting every day. I'd theorize that if I posted more predictably, my pageviews might stabilize, month to month.

Which brings us to this milestone. A couple days ago, I reached 50,000 hits within a 30-day window, and then, as of the early morning hours of 30 June, I reached 50k in a calendar month. By midnight UCT, I was just shy 52k, and I'm not sure when I'll reach that again. Being a bit of a realist (I'd like to think), I have a feeling this new peak is not a plateau, and I'll be seeing more conventional numbers in the near future. But regardless, it's a heady feeling to have reached such a milestone, whether I earned it or not. If you're a regular visitor, I thank you for reading my little rambles and ruminations.

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If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

NBI: Regression Analysis of Posting and Page Views

Instead of Warcraft Movie hotness, my Dear Reader, you are going to get graphs today.

So it's time once again for the Newbie Blogger Initiative. In the spirit of delayed events that seem to be a running theme this year, I have neglected to discuss or promote the NBI until almost a third of the way into the month. I don't participate as much in NBI as I have in the past, for various reasons. But I do think it is worthwhile endeavor, bringing together the MMO blogging community, both old and new.

Statistical Navel Gazing

A little over a month ago, Ravanel Griffon celebrated her fourth blogging anniversary with a bit of analysis. Curious as to the impact of posting on page views (or "hits") Ravanel did some regression analysis, and decided posting more accounted for a little over 40% of any increased visits to her blog.

I was also curious, and so decided to do a little analysis on my own blog.

For the first few months after I started my blog, Google/Blogger was not tracking my pageviews, so that is the reason for the gap on the left end of the orange line. Unlike Ravanel, my two graph lines don't seem to correspond that much. In fact, I haven't even posted this second article of June 2016, and my hits for the month already higher than all but two months going back to June 2015. You may also notice, that I have been very inconsistent with posting over the years, some months, I have been very prolific; others, I've hardly posted at all.

Doing a little Excel magic, I learned a bit about  regression analysis on a scatter plot. I included my whole run from the time Google started recording my pageviews because I actually got a stronger correlation, something Ravanel did not find. The line represents the rough prediction on whether posting more get me more pageviews. The R² score indicates that increased posting accounts for only about 15% of any increased hits. In fact, the analysis predicts that if I don't post at all, I should still get 4556 hits in the month. I did fail to post anything in February 2015, and got over 6000 hits.

Analysis of My Analysis

Now, I want to point out a few flaws in this sort of analysis. Belghast of Tales of the Aggronaut posted every day for several years, breaking his streak only recently. For him, comparing posts to hits in this way would be futile, the time line chart would probably be better to see whether he is gaining audience. Also, the ebb and flow of pageviews does not always correspond to calendar months. My hits for last month totaled almost 18,000, but most of that was in the second half of the month. That surge has continued into June, and so over the past thirty days, I have gotten almost 30,000 hits. I reached 10,000 hits in thirty days back in November and December of 2012, but didn't crack 10K in a single calendar month until the following August, when I had posted 60 times in two months (July & August 2013), and the next month September 2013 was a longstanding record for me, on the strength of a single post that got shared on Reddit.

My point in illustrating this is to say simply: Post what you want when you want. You will gain a small following of loyal readers, which will increase over time. Posting regularly will help, but is not a guarantee of popularity. Blogging is not a race, it is a series of morning jogs. And like those morning runs, it is mostly something you do for yourself.

[EDIT: Adding my sawtooth hits graph for the past day for Bhagpuss. It's been like this for weeks. The aberration about 9 a.m. is when I first published this post.]

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If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

The Zabrak Twins

You'd think I'd have enough SWTOR toons by now. After all, prior to the two you see here, I had thirteen on The Ebon Hawk, and another four spilled over onto Begeren Colony. The "problem," of course is that BioWare has created a-cheese-ments for taking one of each race all the way through a story, which also unlocks that race for hitherto inaccessible classes. For example, thanks to Silverleaf the Bounty Hunter, I now have a Rattataki Jedi Knight. For the most part, though, I have stuck to Humans, Cyborgs, and a couple Mirialans. Since I have pretty much all eight classes accounted for, do I really need to complete more races? Which brings me to these two. Ionanthe the Knight and Ukunga the Agent are my two Zabraks. (Just yesterday, I spent a little coin to change Ukunga into a waif and altering her face a bit. But these pics are from last week.)

Ionanthe (a Greek word for "Violet") is a Zabrak from the southern continent of Iridonia. After training on Ossus, she traveled to Tython to undergo the Trials necessary to become a full Knight. This coincided with the uprising of the native "Flesh Raiders," led by the fallen Jedi Bengel Morr. Ionanthe was instrumental in quelling the Flesh Raider threat, including the first recruitment of a Force sensitive Flesh Raider shaman into the Order. She later stopped the Sith Lord Tarnis from launching the Planet Prison weapon over Coruscant, which would have trapped the capital of the Republic behind a ship disabling ion field.

Ukunga (from a Swahili word meaning "fog" or "mist") is an Imperial Agent, originally from the eastern continent of Iridonia, trained at the Imperial Academy on Dromund Kaas, and initially assigned to Nal Hutta in a bid to gain support for the Empire from the Cartel, represented by Suudaa Nem'ro. Following her first assignment, Ukunga returned to the Seat of the Empire and assisted in foiling a terrorist plot to destroy the generators powering Kaas City. Unfortunately, the terrorists had a secondary target in the form of the Imperial Dreadnought Dominator, destroyed in a the skies over Dromund Kaas, with the loss of 3,000 people aboard and a number of the planet's inhabitants on the surface. Thereafter, Ukunga was promoted to the rank of Cipher Agent and given the assignment to track down and dismantle the Eagle terrorist network, who claimed responsibility for the Dominator attack.

I  know, I know, these are basically the Prologues of the class stories. There's not a ton of stuff on Wookiepedia about the Zabraks, and and I created these two to occupy a little time when Scooter is otherwise indisposed. As it turns out, Zabrak are the only race besides human who can be any class. On the other hand, I am curious to see if the red and purple tattoo pattern of the imperial Zabrak and the earth tones patterns of the Republic will translate to the other faction once I have completed these.

On an unrelated note, despite this only being my third post this month, I have been getting a steady heartbeat of traffic—perhaps influenced by the upcoming Warcraft movie—making May 2016 my most heavily trafficked month ever, as of some time last night.

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This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.

If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Where's Count Rugen When I Need Him?

Because, otherwise, I have to start using two hands to count how long I've been at this blogging thing. Yes, Dear Reader, this post marks the sixth year of IHTtS. With an extremely prolific birthday month—countered by a singularly negligent valentine month—on average, I managed to post less than once every three days this year, for a total of 116 posts.

I spent some time, early in the year, reacquainting myself with Star Trek Online. But my voyages there were brief. The bulk of the year from May on has been dominated by Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Interestingly, my biggest post of the year is almost two years old, with an embed of the awesome machinima short, "Death Knight Love Story" by Hugh Hancock. Of those I have actually posted within the past year, my recent spoilerific discussion of the latest entry of Star Wars canon has already shot to the top of individually accessed posts, but that may simply be a combination of the popularity of "The Force Awakens" and the fact that I hid most of the post behind a break. With most of my posts appearing in full on the main page and in RSS/Atom readers, it's hard for me to gauge the popularity of what I write.

As has become a regular feature of the blog, I feel the need to publicize my appreciation for Scooter and her support of my hobbies and eccentricities. She puts up with my foibles, and helps me do better. She regularly proofs my writing and spares you, Dear Reader, some pretty rough drafts. I'm not sure where I would be without her, but I am sure I would not be nearly as happy. Anyway, we have Lulara and Heliantha on Corellia; and hopefully, we will be able to finish their Original stories tonight—our first on the Republic side. Hooray!

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to this blog. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Five Years Blogging, Still a Noob

With full "pups" to Wilhelm Arcturus for inspiring the title of this post, I greet you, Dear Reader, on this auspicious occasion. As of this post—strangely enough, my first of the year—I have been blogging about MMOs for over a tenth of my life. It's honestly a bit of a surprise.

I played quite a few games this year: EverQuest 2, Landmark, The Elder Scrolls Online, WildStar, a return to Rift and Guild Wars 2. And, of course, The Secret World. Some were played more consistently than others. And at my side in each has been my lovely bride, Scooter.

I haven't been particularly consistent with IHTtS, either. Some months I blogged every day, or nearly so. Others, I barely posted at all. I would like to post more regularly this year. Thank you, Dear Reader, for joining me on this journey. And here's to many more miles together.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

'Tis the Season for Screamin'

First, a bit of administrivia: This post is my 125th of the year, matching my total for 2012. Obviously, I anticipate posting more, but I probably won't reach my personal record of 214 from last year. This year, my posting has been really inconsistent from month to month, for various reasons. I started out with an ambitious goal of posting every day, emulating Belghast. However that quickly fell by the wayside, except during the Blaugust community event sponsored by the Aggronaut himself. I came to the realization that posting daily is really not practical for me. My readership has steadily grown, however; such that as of this morning, October is my fourth highest month for page hits since I began blogging almost 5 years ago, and it only surpassed September a couple days ago. This not exactly another Bragtoberfest post, and there are certainly more prolific and more popular bloggers out there. But these sorts of stats excite me, so thank you Dear Reader, for sharing some of your day with me.

Scooter and I are about halfway through Stonefield on our new characters, Sonnenblume and Girasol. I am definitely enjoying Rift right now. We're approaching this play-through much more casually, doing things we wouldn't normally spend much time on, like fishing dailies. The game has been retooled since the Storm Legion expansion, I guess. A lot of quests no longer require returning to the quest giver, and all the KTR-style quests have been reinvented as "Carnage" quests that trigger as soon as you kill the first creature of a given type. It certainly helps the flow of the zone, though we still got ahead of ourselves twice already in Stonefield. After a couple years of playing together, Scooter and I have developed a rhythm of combat and communication that I think works well. Not that there aren't glitches.  But I really love that we can share this hobby.

It's Autumn Harvest time in Rift, complete with a bunch of Halloween style items in the store: mounts, costumes, and dimension items. I am having technical issues with my dimensions right now, being able to access only Faen's Retreat, even though I own Warden's point and (in theory) Dormant Core. But I am very tempted by the Halloween themed Dimensions on offer—not to mention all the decor, like cobwebs and jack-o'-lanterns. I don't have enough experience with the event to know if it extends into the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday—celebrated in late November—but for now, there don't appear to be any items reflecting it in the store.

Despite downloading a pretty big patch yesterday evening, I couldn't find any evidence of the Autumn Harvest in Meridian or Granite Falls. Perhaps that crops up in a day or so? Or maybe I just don't know where to find it.

Meanwhile, Halloween has begun in The Secret World. Arguably the biggest event of the year (barely rivaled by Krampusnacht), Halloween in TSW is something special. Heck, The first major zone, Solomon Island, is locked in an eternal October. Of course, they've added something every year, from the Cat God, to SuperJack, and Urban Legends missions. Any TSW player interested in the shirt modeled above can redeem it for their account using the promo code: HALLOWEEN2014TEE. I assume it is a free gift from Joel and crew, available for only a limited time. Since the patch dropped just this morning, I haven't had a chance to check it out. But I will tonight, as Beyond the Veil airs live from in-game with plenty of tricks and treats. Join us about 7p.m. Eastern Time on Holosuite's Twitch channel.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Life, the Universe, and Everything

Something for those who have ears to hear, and eyes to see. One reaches a certain age when one thinks one is wise. Fourteen? Twenty-eight? You may find the answer, but do you really know the question? Understanding what is important—understanding how little one really knows—that is wisdom.

As bloggers, we live in a kind of bell jar. The things we think about echo from one post to another, one blog to another. And we think that what concerns us must concern the larger MMO "community." But it is all a tempest in a teapot, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." It is really just the bloggers, and their relatively tiny audience. To say nothing of the even larger gaming world, or the human population at large. Heck, I can't even bring myself to be concerned about whatever is happening in LOTRO or GW2, because I am not really part of those communities, even if I was at one point. C. T. Murphy rightly points out that not many mourned the relative decline of other gaming genres. However, I would hazard a guess that each was discussed among concerned friends, or on bulletin boards and newsgroups. Much like the "decline" of English is lamented, rather than its evolution celebrated.

But what is more important, the games we play or friendships we form while doing so? More than anything else, MMOs are a shared experience in a way that single player games can never be. They say you can't choose your family, but in many ways we do. And that is far more important than any game mechanic or IP.

The heat of Blaugust is upon us. Take shelter on the Blaugust Initiative Page on Anook. Belghast promises cool rewards for the faithful.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

DataCronies: Greetings and Salutations

[EDIT: Very few will probably come back to this little post. But I belatedly realized it is the 600th post I have published on IHTtS.]

This is getting to be a habit. I want to post earlier in the day, but it just can't happen when I am up till midnight. I thought I might need to use one of Belghast's Prompts, but then my buddy Xander posted a new podcast on Holosuite Media, the inaugural episode of DATACRONIES!

In this new podcast, my buddy and fellow Beyond the Veil castmat,e Feii, joins his friend, Yolo_Vision, to discuss WildStar. This episode is more about introducing the two hosts and the show itself, and is about 22 minutes.

In the meantime, Beyond the Veil hits Episode 101: "Hit Me With Your Best Shot!!" with special guest Vikestart, Project Administrator for tswdb.com.

You can subscribe to Beyond the Veil through Holosuite Media's RSS feed, through iTunes (with older episodes here), and through Stitcher. You can catch the live show every Thursday at about 7p.m. EDT (11p.m. UTC) on Holosuite Excess. DataCronies and Beyond the Veil is produced by "Xander Hayes" and Holosuite Media.


If you're interested in joining the Whirlwind of Words that is Blaugust, breeze on over to Belghast's Blaugust Initiative Page on Anook and let him know you're there. It may even mean a small windfall for you, as Belghast has prizes prepared for high achievers.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Happy Birthday, Ruciboo

The 6-Pack: Lucy on the left, then clockwise from the top: Bella, Chico, Moina, Dexter, & Quintus

Perhaps a bit off topic, but it's not the first time. I wanted to get this post out yesterday, but I procrastinated. And then there were Dominion weenies to slaughter, so the blog fell by the wayside.

As you may know, we "rescued" several dogs last year, two from a coworker who was moving, and one quite literally a stray off the street. The stray (top-middle in the top pic), whom we named Bella, turned out to be gravid, and on Mother's Day last year, she gave birth to two beautiful puppies. Sadly, our tiny Ivory puppy did not make it, and though we had planned to give them away to friends or family, we decided to keep the Ebony one, formally naming her "Lucy."

Lucy quickly had the pack alpha wrapped around her finger. She has earned several nicknames: Lucifer, Rucifee, Ruciboo, and so on. We know she's half chihuahua, but we're not quite sure about the other half. She may be a chiweenie, given her length, but some other characteristics make us think of other breeds. I need to break down and get a genetic test, just to satisfy my curiosity.

Lucy loves to play. She wrestles her mother and her Auntie Moina(on the far right in the top pic). She loves to run outside with Moina and Unca Chico (top right). And she loves to get up on the couch or bed and snuggle close to me. She has competition from my "overly attached puppy" Moina. Unfortunately for Rucifee, she's not a jumper, having strained her hips or hind legs at some point while our magnificent Zane was still with us. But she generally holds her own, getting my attention with little barks and yelps.

Scooter finds it amusing that I—a man of such large stature—have this tiny puppy as my favorite.  As I said, she has captured my heart. Unlike the rest of the six-pack, I have known her all her life. And I plan to know her all her life.

So Happy 1st Birthday little Lucy-Boo! And many more to come.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Ding, Level Four!

Four years. Almost a tenth of my life. So much about my life both in cyberspace and meatspace has changed in that time. This blog has grown from humble beginnings to slightly less humble middles. This fourth year been a banner one for I Have Touched the Sky:

4 Balls of Cute

I've posted 223 times since my last blogoversary, including this one. July was my most prolific month, where I managed to average just over one post per day. My most popular posts of the year:

3. Dead Horse Discussions: F2P Rears Its "Ugly" Head with 1113 hits
2. DAW4: ArenaNet with 1431 hits, I'm gratified it's not all controversial stuff
1. Barriers to Entry: More Revenue Model Discussions with 9481 hits, also making it the most popular post I've yet written.

You guys are sometimes a lively bunch. I was totally not expecting two of my biggest posts in this sense to be right before my anniversary. In terms of "audience response":

1. What Is Pay to Win? with 19 comments not by me
2. Wildstar: Class or Race? with 16 comments not by me
2. Social Mobility, or, No Class with 16 comments not by me
4. More Dead Horses: Money May Equal Time, But It Will Never Equal Commitment with 14 comments not by me (Honorable mention because it also got a lot of hits.)

Something else I tried to do this year was to become more community oriented on Twitter (I would on G+, as well, but there are logistical issues). And so I reTweet links to people's blog posts, giving my own little spin in an effort to generate interest. I do it because it's fun, and the 140 character forces a certain kind of creativity. I had no idea until fairly late in the year, how much attention that effort had garnered:

-Best of Bio Break 2013: Blogging and podcasting community shout-outs
-Tales of the Aggronaut: Vacation Catch Up

I've played a lot of games this fourth year of the blog: Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, Defiance, Neverwinter, Star Trek Online, EverQuest II. I think that's it. Maybe not much compared to some other gamers, but I enjoyed my time in each game; some of them more than others. I'm sure you've followed the exploits of the Knights of Mercy on Secret Monday, a great chance to meet regularly with friends from SWTOR and elsewhere.

Prepare to be Schooled

In April, I was extended an invitation by Antida and Xander to join the cast of Beyond the Veil. Not only has it opened up a level of of access to a developer studio I never thought I would get, it's been a wonderful chance to meet and spend time with a bunch of great people who share my enthusiasm for The Secret World. I love you guys!

I often find myself like Neo in the Matrix. No, no, I don't think of myself as the promised one. What I mean is, despite the fact that I thoroughly enjoy playing MMOs, and I appreciate the efforts at world building by the developers, I can't help but see the numbers flying past in the background. That's why I truly find little difference between, say, a rogue and a mage. They serve the same purpose, to make the health bar of the bad guy get smaller. Everything else is special effects.

I have made great friendships through games (and blogging) that I never would have, if not for these activities. And I am grateful for those friendships and experiences. But when I say the activities are trivial, it's exactly what Arcadius said: "It’s all vanity and chasing the wind. Sound and fury . . ." In the end, we haven't fed the hungry or created world peace. We've played games and argued about it.

These worlds created for and by us are so ephemeral. Stop paying that subscription or walk away from the game, and what do you have to show for the hours and years you've spent? Memories, maybe some long-distance friends, if you're lucky. Not much else. But we continue because it is worth the stress relief and enjoyment we get from playing.

Thank you to all my commenters for providing your perspective and insights throughout the year.

And last, but of course not least, I want to thank my gaming partner, the light of my life, Scooter. If you guys think I am exasperating online, imagine what it must be like to live with this opinion monster. I love her—madly, desperately—and I am grateful for her unwavering support. It's been a great year! Here's hoping for many more.

~~~

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Secret Monday: Slaughtered

This somewhat delayed post is brought you at the behest of my BtV crewmate, Galactrix, who doesn't want to go a week without an update from Secret Mondays and the Knights of Mercy.

As I mentioned last week, the only thing standing between Double D* and the Gatekeeper is the Slaughterhouse, which Tententacles had graciously volunteered to tank for us. After making some plans on Twitter in the morning, Fire Team Bravo met up outside the Agartha portal at 8:30 CST and plunged in. Tenten tanked, of course. And I healed while Scooter, Ocho, and Syp brought the pain. We made short work off the first boss, Psychoassailant. Well, after wiping once or twice.

NKL-107 was a different story. This boss is notorious for being the hardest in the Elite Dungeons. Reading up on the forums, there are, of course, people who say he's not that hard and the rest of us just need to learn to play. Those people are assholes. Of course we need to learn to play. However, just because they may have figured it out already doesn't give anyone the right to belittle other players looking for help. Not that I think NKL needs to be nerfed or anything, but it is weird that this fight seems more difficult than the rest of the Elite dungeons, by a wide margin—including the rest of the Slaughterhouse.

Anyway, I had been through the dungeon at least once with LoneStarBelle and members of Beyond the Veil, led by Galactrix. The tactics we used were different than what Tententacles was accustomed to. Tenten's strategy involves ignoring the adds (here I am assuming you are familiar with the fight) until NKL goes into his kill-everything plasma burst, then drag the adds into the "meatlocker" at one corner of the room. This seems like a viable tactic at first. But then we always seemed to get too many adds and a few would break loose and kill the healer, or one of NKL's other abilities (10,000 Volts) would one-shot the tank and then the healer. We tried many times to do it his way; Scooter said it was about two hours.

We then attempted to use Galactrix' method. I may not have explained it very well, having only seen it in action once or twice. But it involves having a second tank drag two or three adds off right away and shut them down with DPS in the meatlocker, then rinse and repeat until most or all of them are kaput. In this method, little damage is done to the boss until the adds are all out of the way. This also seems to delay the plasma burst boss ability until near the end of the fight, but that only be my perception.

In both strategies, controlling the number of active adds at any given time is critical. Too many adds can overwhelm the tank's ability to keep aggro, and the healer is usually next in line on the aggro table. I don't know for sure, but the 10 Kilovolts one-shot may hinge on the number of active adds, as well.

In any event, we were unsuccessful in bringing down NKL-107 on Monday night, even after Mogsy stepped in to tank, with a minor shuffling of roles. We'll make another attempt this coming Monday, if my KoMies are willing.

This week's Mon de la mode is brought to you by Aten Glitch, the amazing new fashion sensation that renders part or all of you invisible. Yes, as you can see, donning my Desert Dress Casual shirt led to the disappearance of my elbows. And you know it was real because even my shadow had no elbows. This was seen by my compatriots and was verified by Tenten on his own character, Chucho.

*Dex-y and Dortmunder

Secret Monday: Cast Off Works of Darkness, and Put on the Armor of Light

I wasn't going to write about Secret Monday because I felt like I was barely on last night, but Ten Tentacles and MMO Gamer Chick inspired me. Scooter and I finished two of our last three Issue missions on Dex-y and Dortmunder, just as the rest of the Knights of Mercy were coming online. For Dortmunder, I still needed Darkness War Elite, and both Dex-y and Dort need Slaughterhouse before confronting the Gatekeeper. With Thanksgivukkah this week, our schedules are a little wonky, and Scooter bowed out of the KoM speed-record-breaking trip through Darkness War. I felt a little bad getting help from my friends and then not sticking around, but my departure did make room for Ocho to join the group for a breezy Ankh run.

According to Tenten and Mogsy, the conversation after I logged off turned to the Augment system and the enormous grind for AP it is. Like me, Mogsy is not really focusing on it right now, because she is not finished with the regular ability wheel either. While I am sure there are obsessive fans who will have their Augments complete before Tokyo opens, I believe the developers' intent is for the Augment system to serve as a point sink for the foreseeable future. That is, player characters will not need to be decked out in full top tier augments and gear to do well in Tokyo. Missions in Tokyo will also be a significant source of points, so players will have the opportunity to fill in their aux and aug wheels organically rather than grind specifically to get them.

Props to Tilty and crew for fixing a few quality of life issues and player requests in the latest patch, including the proper stacking of disassembled mats, weapon skins in the Secret Store, and (ironically) hiding weapons out of combat.

Mon de la mode was not that avant-garde for me, as I spent the evening in Exorcist garb, even though I was not the group healer. Thanks to Mogsy for the top pic, and Tenten for the one directly above. Also, thanks to Maric and Thermic for filling out the DW group.

Tenten promised to tank a Slaughterhouse run next week for me and Scooter. I'll likely heal, rather than DPSing as I did for DW. Then I am planning to do the Healing version of Gatekeeper, since I did DPS on LoneStarBelle. I think I will also research a bit more prior to meeting him, so I can optimize my build and strategy ahead of time.

Secret Monday: Just What Are These Venetians Up To?

Ermagerd, 500th Post!!

Because of busy weekend activities, Scooter and I didn't get around to running the new Scenarios until last night. As it was, even though normally we're online quite a bit earlier than the rest of the Knights of Mercy, it didn't work out that way last night, and we basically only had time to organize/empty out inventories before starting the big event. The usual suspects trickled on and we formed like Voltron. Able team consisted of Tenten, Syp, Ocho, Scooter, and me. Baker team was headed up by Mogsy, with Grace, Pagan, Pid, and Mr.Mogsy in tow. LOL We have such awesome Matrix names. We seem to have divided up this way a lot lately, I think Able works well together, and I appreciate them putting up with my occasional noobishness. (Noobality? Noobosity?)

In any event, Able ran through the normal duo version of each Scenario. In case you haven't done them yet, they are roughly the same Scenario in different locales, find and protect two or three groups of survivors from several waves of nasties, at either the Hotel Wahid, the Franklin Mansion or the Castle Dracula. We did OK, getting Silver for the first two, and Gold for the Castle, once we had a better handle on how things flow. As Tenten said last night, "Any Scenario you can walk away from is a success." But considering we were running a group of five through a Scenario supposedly tuned for two, saying the scenarios are difficult is an understatement.

Needless to say, the Scenarios require yet another re-analysis of one's deck and talismans. DPS used to "all attack all the time" in Elites and Nightmares will find their health woefully inadequate, since normal group mechanics don't apply. Tanks won't have too much problem, but may need to up the DPS ante and grab a few self heals. This is definitely where a hybrid "Unity" build will be handy. Healers probably already know they need to switch it up.

But even with that understanding, the Scenarios are difficult. So much so that the forums have blown up with criticism of the design that Joel Bylos himself has seen the need to respond. Unfortunately, his response was tantamount to "L2P nubs," which the playerbase didn't take kindly to. I pondered it a bit after having run through last night, and here's my thought: these Scenarios are supposed to prepare us for Tokyo. Much like Elites, the Gatekeeper, and Nightmares, players will not be able to stroll in and Pwn the content the first time through. Where would be the fun in that? The gear (Augments) and skills necessary to excel in the Scenarios is contained in the scenarios themselves. Purple 10.4 gear would probably help, too. Perhaps a fully augmented team with plenty of experience will have not trouble with it, but folks going through for the first or the tenth time will not be so fortunate. Nor should they be.

Not that I don't have issues with the Scenarios. The whole thing reminds me of The Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland, a ride touted as a grand new thing with random variable elements that meant no two trips through would be the same. Except that all the random elements were dressing, and some were so complicated that the ride frequently broke down and remained closed for hours and even days. Eventually, the variables were pared down. Not that it's not a fun ride; I go aboard whenever I visit Disneyland. But from a rider's perspective, I don't think it was that innovative, and Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion are still my two favorites.

So far, we only have one basic Scenario: Round up survivors and protect them from the angry hordes. The scenery changes and there are other variables, but it's all the same ride. I have to assume there are more waiting in the wings, because even with random weather and other variables, I can't imagine this holding anyone's interest for long before it turns into an unpleasant—yet unavoidable—grindfest.

For those of us who have not completed the Ability Wheel or the Skill Table, the Scenarios and Augment system present a dilemma: where to devote SP and AP. If my theory of the scenarios requiring Augments for major pwnage is correct, I don't know if it would be better to perfect and Augment a Scenario Deck or continue plugging away at the Wheel. One hundred ten AP can go a long way around. I also have yet to find out if the augments are permanently tied to individual abilities, or if they As Magson elucidates in the comments below, Augments can be swapped in and out like talismans, weapons, and abilities themselves. Of course I prefer the latter case, because 110 AP is also a lot of points to waste on an accidental misapplication.

All in all, though, I think the Scenarios are a great addition to the available activities in The Secret World. I just hope that Funcom quickly builds on this momentum. Again as Tenten has said, "Welcome to Venice, bitches."