Endgame Viable

I can tell from the whopping two comments on my Astellia Online impressions post that interest in this new MMORPG is simply through the roof. (Actually most people probably still haven’t even heard of it, and I wouldn’t have either if it weren’t for a random MassivelyOP article here or there.) The theme of those two comments was something like, “They’ve got to be crazy if they think anyone is going to pay $30 for an unknown Eastern game.” So I thought I’d write a few thoughts on the price point. (785 words.)

Yesterday I decided to roll the dice and bought the $30 standard buy-to-play edition of Astellia Online. I’ve heard that it’s “okay.” But I like the idea of paying a modest fee and having essentially lifetime access to the game. (Its lifetime, not mine, probably.) It's a nice-looking game if nothing else. I paid $30 for Black Desert Online back when it came out, and I haven’t regretted that choice. I only played for a month or so, and haven’t really touched it since, but I appreciate that I can still log in whenever I want to look at it. So I’m applying the same logic here. (923 words.)

I learned something yesterday that isn’t getting the attention that it deserves, so I thought I’d write a blog post about it. Are you sitting down? This is really amazing, so make sure you’re sitting down. You can now change the quest text font size in Lord of the Rings Online. I searched my MMO News feeds to find the all-caps headlines shouting this from the rooftops, but I didn’t find any. I didn’t see any mention of it whatsoever. I was stunned. (604 words.)

I don’t know what we’re calling this Icebrood Saga thing. Is it Living World Season 5? Or is it something else entirely? I don’t know. I’ve seen people calling it Season 5 so that’s probably the label that will stick in the community. It’s a lot easier than “Icebrood Saga.” (I’m certainly not going to be abbreviating it “IS” because I don’t particularly want a bunch of Middle Eastern terrorists showing up on my web site.) (1594 words.)

Even though ArenaNet is dead to me and I almost never actually enjoy playing Guild Wars 2, I decided to log in again. I’ve been hearing some good things about the new Icebrood Saga thingy, so I wanted to try it out. It’s free, after all. That’s the best thing about new content in Guild Wars 2 by far. Also it’s kind of a tradition at this point that I record my gameplay of these Living World episodes. (1425 words.)

I’m back in a “I don’t really have anything to say” blogging mood. I’ve played maybe, possibly, two hours of games in the last week. I played a little bit more of Max Payne 3, and I logged into World of Warcraft for about 20 minutes to check something. I logged in to check that a wonderful discovery someone made in Classic is, in fact, right there in Retail as well. The main thing I don’t understand about the Classic Phenomenon is why people can’t find the same chill, relaxing fun with friends in WoW Retail, creating memories and tales of adventure just like they’re doing in WoW Classic. It’s essentially the same game, it’s just that the time sinks are mandatory in Classic instead of voluntary. (1021 words.)

The inevitable side effect of rediscovering an easy way to listen to new music is the rediscovery of my love to create new music. I’ve been largely stagnant as a musician since around 2000, for various reasons. It’s an extremely time-consuming hobby, at least the way I approach it. Which reminds me, Bhagpuss made me chuckle recently when he wrote: Hobbies settle people. They make life not just bearable but worth looking forward to. It matters that they don't matter - that's the point. If you don't get that then you may (or may not) count yourself lucky. Many, many people don't have a genuine hobby. They don't want one. They don't need one. They feel fulfilled and satisified by doing the practical, purposeful things they need to do. (1640 words.)

This one’s about Hugo, the static site generator. I’ve seen references to it all over the place during this ongoing research project. (Also Jekyll.) It seems to be popular among programmers, for reasons that should become obvious as I describe it below. A static site generator is a tool that takes a series of input files, usually plain text files, and turns them into a big directory of HTML, CSS, and Javascript files. Those files can be uploaded directly to a web server which of course becomes a web site. It works a lot like a compiler, which turns source code into binaries. Thus the appeal to programmers. (1673 words.)

My current thinking is that I should be looking into two distinct blogging platforms. One for the “live” blog, the most recent stuff, where people can theoretically interact and leave comments on a daily basis, and consume an RSS feed. The second platform would be for the “archives:” Mainly static pages of older posts for reference, without much of any interactivity. Regardless of how I proceed with the “live” blog, the idea of a “static site generator” for the older archives appeals to me, or one of the Markdown-based platforms I’ve previously mentioned. I keep reading that Hugo is excellent for this. But before I can even think of going down that or any other road, I need to know how much work is involved in exporting some sixteen years worth of blog posts to Markdown format. (1251 words.)

Welp it’s happened. Now that Blaugust is over, there’s nothing to write about anymore. :) I stumbled upon an episode of Spotify - Landmark on YouTube and sat down to watch the whole thing. It reminded me of two things: Tears For Fears is one of my favorite 80s bands, and a band from which I’ve never bought any of their music. Songs From The Big Chair is peak “huge 80s sound” which I miss from an audio engineering perspective, and I have a great appreciation for the simplicity and precision of the production in that album. There’s very little more than 4 instruments playing at any given time yet it still somehow sounds like a massive production. (1369 words.)