NBI: Poetry Slam 2015 (and Seven Sins) Round-up!

The NBI for this year is just about finished and it sure attracted a number of blogs I've not previously followed, swelling my link numbers from 59 to 107! I also managed to get a few participants (because I'm not as awesome as orignal host Syl) for this "Gold" themed poetry slam, and would like to thank everyone that participated. Hope the NBI was a good experience for all and I'll be seeing you around in the blogosphere. :)

In the meantime, you should give all the entries a look:

Randark's Bioshock Haiku
Donnalbain by Braag Son of Balin (who it posted on the forums - scroll down)
Braxwolf's Ode to Gold
Murf's Bar with a Coin
Izlain's Shutdown Gold
Pixel Money

For those interested I also compiled a small results list from the final "seven gaming sins" talk-back challenge and had 19 people reply. Of them:

11 - Don't mind sexiness in game
14 - Have a large backlog of games
16 - Opt out of non-rewarding or non-enjoyable acts
10 - Help strangers
4 - Yell at people when angry
2 - Stalk people out of hatred
15 - Get envious
6 - Kick or avoid weak players

Make of that what you will and thank you to all those who responded!

NBI: Screenshot Safari! #NBI2015 #NBI2015Safari #Selfie #Flight

It's time for my final screenshot for the NBI Safari! This is me and my shadow wolf mount, flying through the area of Spinward Rise in Neverwinter Online.

Technically, I think it could fit in any of the available categories but I'm going to go with #Selfie. =)

Selfie - its me!
Heroes or Villains - I'm a hero!
Landscape - With an awesome view behind me!
Epic Achievement - I'm also flying... kinda (shh I'm actually falling)!
High Fantasy - I'm riding a wolf made out of shadows, jumping about on a floating a earth node (flying island)!
The Scariest Place - This fall is near certain death, if I don't time my evade right.

Yes, I'm so awesome I can "evade" falling damage. :P

Anywho while I'm talking about airborne silliness I've been hearing a lot of noise about WoW killing flying because it "skips content". It wouldn't skip content if they simply had flying enemies. In Mabinogi if you get hit in the air your mount is summoned, you take falling damage, then you have to deal with whatever cluster of mobs you just fell into and in that game two regular enemies can easily destroy you (depending on player skill).

Better still is Perfect World where elves have wings, humans ride giant, flying swords and a bunch of quests actually lead to magical floating fortresses guarded by all manner of flying foes. Given that a good portion of the game is in the air it has some pretty good aerial (and by extent, underwater) combat. Guess what I'm trying to say is flying wouldn't be skipping content if you just put content up there. Oh well, Blizzard should know what it's doing. It's been doing it a long time after all. Right?

Today I Smiled: Eurovision 2015!

Short post full of  music links in-bound!

One of my guilty pleasures is watching the song contest that is Eurovision, and for those of you who don't know what it is I think this image sums it up nicely. :P

Because fire solves everything!

Yes, that's a guy singing and performing on a flaming piano. As expected there were also hot ladies, angry ladies, a fat lady, and even a bearded lady assisting the hosting since she won lost year.

There was also all sorts of music: from Israeli Club Dance, to Russian messages of peace, to songs that sound similar to something else, and as usual a couple of WTF entries.

My personal favorites of the night were Voltaj from Romania and of course Guy Sebastian from AUSTRALIA (included for the first time ever)! For a country not even in Europe I'm amazed that he did so well. The ultimate winner was Sweden though, and I had no problems with that as I quite liked his song too. You should give it a listen! :)

NBI 2015: How to avoid becoming Dormant

I dislike having "dormant", non-updating blogs on my blog roll. While it's true that my personal restrictions of "if you don't post in 3 weeks you get culled," on this matter are likely heavier than any other blog (I'm letting it slide for this NBI month) - I thought that I'd give some advice on how not to go "dormant" in the first place.

On those possibly rare occasions when you do feel like sitting down and just typing up a storm, put on some instrumental-only tunes and...

TYPE YOUR HEART OUT.

Personally all my posts now spawn in a notepad document before going anywhere near the internet. When I feel like typing, I find this method works best since there's no logging into a site, no needing a network connection or formatting issues to worry about just yet. All that matters are the words.

Sometimes I get an idea to type about something else so I separate out a section which serves as a possible title for a future post. For me, my "possible new content" goes above all the other stuff I've already typed about or am currently typing about (it's an organization thing). Don't forget to save and store a backup of this file regularly - doing so covers your bases as Contains Moderate Peril discusses in his blog backup post.

The idea is that it allows you to type out more than a single post in one sitting, but DO NOT post more than one or two a day. This eventually gives you a backlog of stuff. As an example, if all goes according to plan when this particular post goes up then I would have a backlog of around 30 posts waiting to go.

That's potentially 30 days (if I was a daily poster) of me slacking off from typing anything and more than enough time to recharge my batteries, as it were, for another type session in between. Imagine how much that can stretch out if I only posted 3 times a week? They don't even have to be superb quality or long posts - just something to keep the site "alive".

When you also realize that you can automatically schedule blog posts to post themselves, you can then do amazing stuff like continuing to post while you are actually away on vacation without any internet access (which I did earlier this year).

Be like Batman. Preparation is the key.

There is a small caveat here though: You should know which posts are time sensitive and act accordingly. For instance it wouldn't make any sense if I posted this after the NBI is already finished. Just use common sense and you should be alright.

Other on-going NBI activities:

Join the NBI 2015: Poetry Slam!
Browser Boasting Week 2: Critical Annihilation
Contains Moderate Peril still looking for NBI guest posts!
Talkback Topic #2: Early Access and Kickstarter
Murf's Screenshot Safari
Gaming Discussion
Jeromai's Writing Prompt: Screenshots of Non-Existent Things

NBI: Region-Locking Games

You might have heard than En Masse has blocked half the world from playing Tera. From this, Jeromai from Why I Game has setup a NBI writing prompt and I thought I'd participate - so you can totally blame him for this post! :P

My thoughts on Region-locking:

Speaking from a guild with members all across the globe, region locking sucks. It makes it so much harder to find MMOs that we can all play together on. While we play many games, we're still looking for that one that will cater to all of us as many free shards of Ultima Online did so many years ago.

Devil's Advocate section:

If a game is so poorly designed that it can't handle world wide participation then I suppose a Region Lock is necessary. Rubber banding and general lag is not a good feeling in any MMO, though my personal experience is that I more resistant / can put up with more of it than other players that like to vocalize on general chat.

I suppose in PvP games it would make things pretty frustrating too for the lagged out person, while those with good connections would just get bored from the easy kills / annoyed at you giving the enemy team free points.

Your in-game encounters with folks from different countries, good or bad (any cultural tendencies that you’ve noticed)?

What? Jeromai is asking me to be racist? Ok, if he insists! Haha just kidding, douche bags are spread among all types of folk across the world (especially in games that allow PvP). That said there are also really nice people that I've encountered over the years, some of whom joined my guild - the ones that share our view always trying to help people and abstaining from PvP.

We've had members from Australia, Canada, all over the USA, Thailand, Belgium, Holland, England, Ireland, Singapore, Finland, Brazil, Lithuania, Germany, Slovenia, Israel, Croatia, Portugal, Turkey, and Georgia (the country, not the state).

The most eye opening talk for me though was with our Israeli guild mate. We voiced our concern for one of our English guild members years back when there was a terrorist bomb attack near where he lived. While he was ok, the Israeli guy was just like, "It's like that everyday here."

We lost contact with him after he was conscripted into the army, which is obligatory when he turned a certain age, and have never heard from him since.

Other on-going NBI activities:

Contains Moderate Peril still looking for NBI guest posts!
Gaming Discussion
Talkback Topic #2: Early Access and Kickstarter
NBI 2015: Poetry Slam!
Murf's Screenshot Challenge

NBI Talkback: GamerGate and Unfinished Games

For completionists sake I'm answering the first two NBI Talkback questions today, because I like to think that I can be both early and late at the same time. :P


NBI Talkback #1: How did #GamerGate affect you?

While it changed Izzy for the better, let Mr Luvvaluvva find more gamers, made WolfDragon feel ashamed, scared Rambling Redshirt and Starshadow and made Belghast and Liore paranoid, I'm afraid I'm in the "it had no effect whatsoever" camp along with Randar, Isey, Partybusiness, Tyrannodorkus and Jeromai. Sure a lot of people posted stuff about it when it was in full swing, but having my entire feed of people talking about something I didn't quite understand? Basically I just ignored all of it as like Tobold says, it's just "feeding trolls".

Since it's actually an NBI topic this year I thought I'd actually try work out what its about though, and guess what?

I still have no clue because it's become so many things. Too many. Whatever identity it was supposed to have is now lost on me and I am pretty much back to not caring as, from my perspective, it just looks like internet arguing.


NBI Talkback #2: Early Access and Kickstarter - Do you support unfinished games?

While I don't pay for any computer games for myself (it's a self imposed rule) as I get plenty gifted to me and know that there are enough F2P titles out there to keep me entertained, I will never purchase an Early Access / Alpha / Beta / Kickstarter as a gift for any of my friends unless they have it on their wishlist.

I feel that ultimately it all comes down to a matter of personal preference and have no issues with Dev's selling said "products" or "ideas of products" if people are willing to pay for them.

The closest example I can think of is something like this: You can sell a car without wheels. Some people will pay you for that, as there are still many parts that are usable. However, just because of that I don't want to assume that all my friends want a car without wheels - no matter how shiny the paint job is or how new the model.

NBI: Join the 2015 Poetry Slam!

In keeping with tradition of the past NBIs, I'm inviting all the NBI participants from newbies to vets alike to participate in this year's official NBI Poetry Slam! Yes, our usual host, Syl of MMOGypsy is sadly unavailable this time around but hopefully seeing all your entries will encourage her swift return! :)

Rules:

-This Poetry Slam ends on May 30, 2015 as it gives me the last day of the NBI to post up a link to all your entries! Just like all previous Poetry Slams, there are only winners in this competition. ;)

-All entries can be as long or short as you like. Free verse, classic rhyme, limericks, haikus, screenshot poetry, song lyrics, abstract poetry, all are fair game. Unleash your creativity! Then put it up as a post in your blog and either post links of your contributions in the comments below or at the NBI 2015 Poetry Slam thread on the forums. While you only need one entry to participate, you are free to put up as many as you like, just be sure to link all of them.

-The topic for this year is: "Gold (or whatever gaming currency you like)!" How you get it, spend it, want it, hate it, throw it away, use it as decoration... anything. Real world currencies are also valid as long as it still pertains to it's use in-game, buying games, paying subscriptions, etc.

-Try avoid using the Spandau Ballet song. :P

I look forward to reading all your entries!

Other current NBI activities:

-Moderate Peril's offer for you (newbie NBIs) to guest post on his site is still available! Don't be shy!

-Gaming Event Setup Discussion! Have your say in both the forums and on Izzy's blog!

-Talkback Challenge #1: How did Gamergate Affect you?

-J3w3l's Gaming Grudge Match: This week is Agar.io.
Consume and be consumed by horribly named (PKs) cells in this competitive game!

-Murf's Screenshot Safari!

-Jeromai's Impromptu Writing Prompts (found at the bottom of the post)!

[Technique Demonstration for NBI Newbies: I won't be updating my blog for a few days so this post remains at the "top" to try get more exposure.]

Newbie Blogger Initiative 2015! #NBI2015 #NBI2015Safari #HeroesorVillains

It's that time of year again for people who are thinking of starting up a blog, are currently blogging, or have lapsed in blogging to hop in to / continue to ride / or get back in the saddle and join the Newbie Blogger Initiative 2015! Despite the name it's actually open for all ranges of blog experience as one of its main purposes is to create a community for game bloggers / vloggers / podcasters / and the like to interact and support each other.

Personally speaking, it's also a great way to get an injection of traffic on your site plus you get to find many other blogs (new and old) to link to for reading purposes. To that end I'm lifting my usually strict cut-off point in my blogroll this month to welcome all the new blood, wayward sheep, or new found veterans to reinforce my current count of 59 links. This also means you can also expect out of the blue oddities like hashtags in the title apparently.

If you want to get involved simply do any or all of the following (which I totally stole from Syp @ Bio Break):

• Stay in touch with the official NBI Twitter account!
• Read the latest announcements on the NBI forum.
• If you’re a new or lapsed blogger, then you’ll want to register on the newbie blogger check-in. We use this forum to keep track and promote blogs, so having your link on it is incredibly important.
• Sponsors (veterans) have a sign-in as well, and if so desired they can put themselves out there to be a direct mentor.

One of the neat things I've always liked about the NBI are the events that the sponsor bloggers come up with, and Murf has wasted no time in getting the ball rolling with his #NBI2015Safari, a simple screenshot contest. Since this post is technically interrupting my Neverwinter Online Vigilance Quest tutorial I thought I'd get in early in the "Heroes or Villains" category with a pic from that game - featuring the only enemy that actually requires 25 players to work in synchronized tandem within a time limit to achieve victory.

Tiamat!

Lastly, I just realized that Contains Moderate Peril is offering a chance for up to four newbie bloggers to guest post on his site! For people new to the whole blogging thing believe me that's pretty good - try not to let that opportunity slip by! (For other sponsor blogs, please advertise this too).