There were two drama’s this week that I got sick of really quickly.

The first thing was an article on Elemental by PC Gamer. Pete from Dragonchasers has already covered most of my feelings about Elemental, so I’ll leave it at that.

The second was the whole buying used games is piracy debate (and I’m using that word ironically). This whole thing was pretty off target, in my opinion. When I read Tycho’s post, I put the emphasis on the intent part of the statement and went on with my day. Then I got home and found half of the blogs in my RSS were talking about it in a completely different way from the way I understood his point. Since I’m so slow to post though, Tycho has already explained himself, so that’s that.

Moving on to more interesting stuff.

I’m reading the latest Mass Effect book, Retribution, and enjoying just as much as the prior two. This has started me jonesing to be back in that world, which is good because I still have DLC to finish. I had stopped playing halfway through the Firewalker DLC, so I finished that as well as the Kasumi missions. I was a bit disappointed that there was no real dialog on the ship with Kasumi outside of the missions, she does say some things, but she’s similar to Zaeed (which makes sense, but I was hoping for more). Her loyalty mission was still pretty fun though. I’m playing Overlord now, it’s the biggest DLC so far, and has a good mix of ground and driving sections.

I hadn’t originally planned to, buy I ended up buying SC2. Not to say that I was never going to buy it, but I had planned to wait until the sequels were out. I blame nostalgia and Twitter for my failure in self-control.

The funny thing about playing Star Craft 2, is that it has made me want to go back and play Dawn of War again. Ten years (or more) ago, when I played SC1, I’d never heard of Warhammer 40k, but now playing SC2, the similarities are is striking.

So, I’ve actually been playing a lot more DoW2 than SC2. I bought the Chaos Rising expansion during the last Steam sale, but hadn’t fired it up yet. Mostly this was because while I really enjoyed the original DoW2 campaign, the multi-player wasn’t as fun for me. This left me feeling a little cold towards the game. So I was pleasantly reminded of how much of actually enjoyed the single player when I fired up the expansion campaign. I’ve also started to enjoy the multi-player, I had a good night of CPU stomping in 2v2 with Oakstout, and I’m looking forward to trying Last Stand with Jayedub.

MMO-wise, I’ve just been dabbling. Played a little Champions yo check out the new update, popped into LotRO to get my house out of hock and catchup on my maintenance fees, and the rest of my time has been spent in STO. I made Vice Admiral, got my Discovery-class refit (my favorite looking ship in the game), and made Attaché in the Diplomacy ranks.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve also been writing quite a bit, but I’m having trouble publishing. Several times, this week, I’ve finished posts and just found no inclination to publish them. Apparently with venting, it’s enough to write it that I don’t need to share it, and honestly you’re not missing much.

I am curious though. If you blog, how much of what you write do you publish?

This is making me think about the dozen plus unfinished articles in my drafts folder. I really need to do some fall cleaning and either trash them or finish them.

Miscellany
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15 thoughts on “Miscellany

  • August 27, 2010 at 7:28 pm
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    If I write it, I publish it. I can count maybe .. two or three posts that I have removed after time, out of the 6 years I’ve had my web site and the 1500+ posts. I don’t have any rough drafts. I think it’s because I don’t actually THINK about what I write, I just write it. I’m also not one of the technical writers out there discussing the gaming industry to any great length (that’s not to say I don’t have my opinions about it all, I do) which I’m sure has a great amount to do with it.

    • August 27, 2010 at 8:41 pm
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      I supposed the topic does make a difference. Most of my recent stuff that I did and decided not to post was usually about gaming industry news, whereas the fiction is only still in draft because it’s not done.

      Thanks for sharing.

    • August 28, 2010 at 9:28 am
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      Heh same as Stargrace here. I usually sit down with the intent to post and 99% of the time I do. I have a couple of draft posts saved up but they’re more ideas or sketches than actual posts.

      I never let whether something’s been said before stop me, unless it’s been said to death recently and I have nothing substantive to add. But then my blog is very consciously and intentionally sub-titled “musings and commentary” so anyone who stops by expecting cutting-edge news or indeed cutting-edge anything is probably in the wrong place.

      For me, blogging is a mostly spontaneous thing, and I’ve got enough writing experience to be able to structure things as I go. Equally fortunately for me, I’m known for my rambling (always have been) so if it takes me a while to get to the point… people will either put up with it or move on. It’s not a style that’s popular with everyone, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about whether it’s popular or not. It’s my blogging tone and that’s unlikely to change. 😉

      Say – Kaelin, that was you? Took me a while to figure it out… (<— Aedhien)

      • August 30, 2010 at 4:50 pm
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        Think we already did this on Twitter, but Kaelin is someone else in the kinship. I’m Brynulf there and in the forums. Seeing people talking to Kae in kin chat took an adjustment not to respond. 😉

  • August 27, 2010 at 8:03 pm
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    I’d say that roughly 10% of the posts I start in on never get published. Sometimes they just don’t go anywhere interesting or that hasn’t been said a ton already. Sometimes the tone seems off for the kind of blog I’m trying to maintain. If you dig through my early posts before anyone was reading, you will find some I would not post today (though why in God’s name you’d want to do that, I cannot begin to imagine).

    • August 27, 2010 at 8:44 pm
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      Ever tempted to delete those earlier posts? I totally get what you mean about dropping something because you find you don’t have anything more to add, and keeping a certain tone on the blog. I had a few hundred words that I’d been tinkering with on the whole used games thing, and then with Tycho’s post it wasn’t needed. I also always try to keep a constructive perspective even with ranting about something, which always seems to be DRM.

      • August 27, 2010 at 9:11 pm
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        Oddly, I’ve never really been tempted to delete any of them. I like having a record of all my attempts.

  • August 27, 2010 at 9:39 pm
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    Congrats on making Vice Admiral, I just recently made it there myself, along with the Attache title. I guess those were the two goals I had going into Season 2, now that I’ve achieved them both, a part of me is unsure how to proceed anymore.

    And I publish everything I write. Sometimes, I’ll have a vague idea for a post and I’ll throw together a rough draft consisting of disjointed notes, which I may or may not spruce up at a later date. but in general I don’t usually count them as my writing as it’s more accurate to describe them as simply a jumble of ideas.

    • August 27, 2010 at 9:45 pm
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      Thanks, I’d been waiting on the VA news until I could put together a decent Captain’s Log entry but there’s a big gap I need to account for (plus I’ve been lazy). I know what you mean about being stuck. I’ve finished all of the missions except the STF’s and the Diplomacy grind to get to the First Contact missions is a bit ridiculous right now. Fortunately the first of the weekly episodes comes out this weekend, so hopefully that’ll keep me occupied for a few days.

      You know now that I’m thinking about it, I should start a Klingon alt. There’s some PvE content for the Empire that came out with Season 2 that I haven’t seen yet.

  • August 28, 2010 at 12:39 am
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    Wow, I hadn’t read about that Elemental controversy at all. That’s absurd. Right now, I’m having all sorts of problems with Elemental – it keeps crashing, and it’s running slower than it ought (in my opinion), but Stardock has always done right by me. How fickle consumers are, how quick to see controversy.

    • August 30, 2010 at 4:51 pm
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      The worst part for me was this was coming from (what I thought of) as a decent author at PC Gamer and a pretty high-class site RPS.

  • August 28, 2010 at 12:41 am
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    I have a half dozen posts that I’ve started – banged out a title, maybe the first few sentences – and never finished. But If I write something out completely, I publish it.

    That said, I have very grandiose dreams that I never see realized. I’ve been wanting to write-up little reports on each of the ME2 characters, but have only done Zaeed so far (which sucks, because he’s one of my least favorite).

    Speaking of which, I’m glad you liked Kasumi’s mission – I’m a major fan of heist films, and in turn really, really enjoyed how different her loyalty mission was from rest of the game.

    • August 30, 2010 at 4:52 pm
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      I can relate on the grandiose dreams. I have so many projects and hobbies, it’s hard to every find time to finish them. That probably accounts for 60% of my draft posts.

  • August 28, 2010 at 12:06 pm
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    Looking forward to some DOWII!!!!!

    • August 30, 2010 at 4:53 pm
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      Sorry I missed you last night, but STO’s new weekly episode consumed my evening.

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