Things I wish I knew when I first started blogging. (Part 3)

First off, I'd like to wish everyone a happy new year. After I finish writing this I plan on opening a bottle and leaving lots of drunken comments on all your blogs. <3 I've been busy a bunch lately with all the holidays and getting everything taken care of for college. New term starts on Monday, so after that I will be back to my regular posting and stuff. Anyways, on to the point of the post.

This time I'm going talk advertising on your blog. Specifically, the different types of ads, different ad companies I've used, and what type of ads are best for the type of traffic your blog gets.

How to tell if you're bad at WoW

When you're level 85 with 83,000HP and you camp the level 80 characters at the intro area and one kills you.

Yeah I play a girl. 13/f/cali

[Review] Amnesia: The Dark Desent

Amnesia is a first person survival horror puzzle solver mystery game. It was developed by Frictional Games for the PC and Mac. It's plays a bit like an adventure/explorer game but it's main focus is it's horror theme and survival. You play as a man named Daniel who wakes up with complete memory loss inside of a creepy old castle. The main goal of the game is to figure out where you are and figure out the reason for your memory loss, as well as survive.

This game is amazingly scary. The graphics and environment do a great job of making you feel on edge and never giving you that "safe" feeling other games do to let you calm down. The main character is slowly losing his mind, and it does a very good job at showing it.

Monday! Uh, yep.

Nobody suggested a title for this Monday. Oh wells. Christmas is over with so it's back to regular postings.

I got some pajamas and some other clothes for Christmas. I haven't had pajamas since I was 12, they're awesome. I also got Cataclysm. I'm not sure if my first impressions are good or not. My main is a paladin and every expansion Blizzard redesigns the class and I don't feel like relearning everything.

Flying around Azeroth and riding seahorses is cool though. The new area is really pretty but swimming plus fighting gets annoying. I like how no one even tries to PvP in the water.

Anyways!

I still have my Review of Amnesia coming up, I would have done it before Christmas but it took longer to get screen shots than I thought it would because I was scared. Part 3 of the blogging tips is coming too. It'll talk about advertising types and companies and whatnot.

Pixel Again

Well, Christmas is over for us now. It was fairly decent, from what I recall. I spent most of it highly intoxicated on a combination of beer and red wine. How was your Christmas, everybody?

This entry is just going to be a short one, I'm just showcasing one of the final draft designs of Pixel, or rather a draft of a full body version of her.

Pixel is a ninja assassin pixie who has been shunned and outcast from the pixie society for being different, she has a morbid sense of humor and is very unlike pixies. Plus she's mischievous and gets into all sorts of trouble. So basically she's made it her personal goal to seek out a vendetta against her own pixie kind and slaughter as many as she can in as many creative ways as she can. It's a concept for a game/comic that I'm working on.


Note: She's not nude, that's her attire. It's kind of just a drafty thingy, but feedback would definitely be welcomed and appreciated!]

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy the image and your Christmas and all that jazz.

Pixel's Update

This is an update as the title suggests, as I've been slacking off in the posting side of things. Instead I've been buffing up my artwork for both Springy's blog (this one) and my own blog, KillThePixie. Unlike Springy I'm no good at the advertising and social aspect side of blogging, so my blog basically just leeches viewers off his.

Anyway, I've updated my 'posted by' image for this blog and the general theme, style, banner, etc for my own site. I'll be updating Springy's banner as well at some point, just to make it slightly more aesthetically pleasing. The theme of it is great, and the dice will stay the same... but the text and the spacing of it could use a bit of an overhaul.

Things I wish I knew when I first started blogging. (Part 2)

I was going to something different for part 2, but with the holidays so close I've been busy. So instead I am doing what was supposed to be part 3, now. This is going to cover random tidbits of HTLM and gadgets that can make organizing your layout a bit easier and make things look nice.

Before that though, Suciô Sanchez recommended using Picasaweb to add tags to your images that you've uploaded to your blog so that search engines pick them up easier. I had no idea Google had it's own image hosting and it automatically adds your blog uploads for you. You can sign in and start adding tags right away. Thanks Sucio!

Things I wish I knew when I first started blogging. (Part 1)

This will be a fairly long entry of random things I wish I knew when I first started blogging. Since half my blog readers are bloggers themselves I figured I'd try to share the things that have helped me. A lot of it seem like basic "duh" things, but some won't. I think I managed to split everything I have to say into three parts; Tips on getting your blog noticed, Tips on advertising on your blog, and random stuff.

This first topic will focus on getting your blog noticed.

Monday: The not Tuesday update

I'm not sure where to start this week. This week's title is brought to you by The Game Store Guy. Again, slightly different so I cannot be sued for royalties later. I should really come up with a catchy name so I can make an icon for it or something.

Speaking of that, I got a new banner a few days ago. Pixel made it for me. :D She also made the banners inside each of our posts that identify the author. The blog get's slightly less ghetto each day!

We made a page about us! It's been up in the bar for a while now. You should go read it here. Really go do it.

The Borgias, a Showtime Series

Showtime has a new show coming out, The Borgias. As an Assassins Creed 2 and Assassins Creed: Brotherhood fan, this series really interests me. It seems that it's going to be done in a very similar fashion to Rome, if you've ever seen that groundbreaking series based on Julius Caesar and his nephew, Octavian.

Apparently it stars Oscar winning actor, Jeremy Irons stars as the manipulative and cruel Rodrigo Borgia and his quest for Pope. I doubt you'll be seeing any of Ezio in the series, but I'm interested in seeing if Caterina Sforza appears and if so, how she's portrayed. This also makes me wonder if the show's creators were fans of Assassins Creed 2, or if it was just a coincidence.

From what I've seen of the trailer, the series also seems to have the older brother of Cesare Borgio who was not seen in Assassins Creed: Brotherhood and it was suspected that Cesare murdered him. I'll be interested in seeing how they go about presenting this series.
You can watch the trailer for the new 'The Borgias' at the link below.

'The Borgias' on Youtube.

GSL 3 Final Match Results.

oGsMC [P] 4 vs 1 TSL_Rain [T]

Round 1: oGsMC
Round 2: oGsMC
Round 3: TSL_Rain
Round 4: oGsMC
Round 5: oGsMC

Ea Games Sale!

Here's a bit of good news for those of you who own an iPad or iPhone and enjoy playing games on them. EA Games has officially dropped the price of almost every one of their games down to 0.99USD to celebrate the holidays, and that's over seventy games! If you haven't logged into the iTunes app store within the last few days then you might want to go take a glance while you still can, because with the games usually costing between 5-10USD this is one hell of bargain. In this entry I'll be listing my five favorite iPad games currently on sale from EA, in no particular order. You can also click on their images to be taken directly to EA Games' game info page.

Kratos announced for Mortal Kombat (9)

Following in the foot steps of the Soul Calibur series, the newest Mortal Kombat game will feature the 3rd party character Kratos from the God of War games. He's fit with his own move sets and fatalities, and comes with a God of War themed stage. He's been announced as PS3 exclusive and it's unknown yet if Xbox will have it's own unique character.

You can watch the trailer here

As for the game itself, it takes place after Mortal Kombat Armageddon and during the time period of the first three games, although with a different scenario. It will feature 3D graphics but play on a 2D plane. It's rated M and be available on the PS3 and Xbox360 with PC as a possibility.

Mortal Kombat plans to hit stores April 2011.

Lexulous

If you don't know what Lexulous is then chances are that you've been living under that rock for a teeny bit too long. And unless you're lichen then that isn't terribly healthy. But I'll explain what it is just for those potentially unhealthy lichen-humanoid hybrids that could inhabit the internet. There are a lot of weirdos on the internet nowadays, after all.

Chances are that you might know Lexulous by its former name, Scrabulous. It's a neat little online game that's not unlike Scrabble, with its own community website. The game was added to Facebook as an application way back in 2007 and quickly became the most popular game on Facebook. Then in 2008 it got taken off Facebook and the website was shut down due to copyright infringement laws. Yup. Hasbro, the owners of Scrabble, were pretty much pissed. This was probably because they didn't think of the idea themselves, as they were too busy making twenty million retarded variations of Monopoly that nobody cares about.

Anyway, later that year Scrabulous won back its rights to keep the game if it changed the rules and its name. Thus Scrabulous became Lexulous and returned to Facebook as one of the most popular and more mentally stimulating games available. Now you can even play it on most phones, including the iPhone! There's no Droid support yet though, and the iPad runs it in iPhone view but the chances are that they'll pick up on that and make updates and changes soon.

So if you're after a good old fashioned word game, or some poor soul to terrorize with vicious winning streaks, then check out the links below.

Lexulous community site

Lexulous on Facebook

Follow the Pixels

Pixels represent many things in life but for the majority of us gamers they tend to represent the crappy graphics of yesterdecade versus the '1337' graphics of today. Unfortunately these were also some of the best games that were ever created, in a simpler time filled with simpler people and less demand. Nowadays it's all about who has the most pixels and the best graphics, most gaming companies don't give two tosses about the storyline or the length of the game.

Hello, I'm Pixel and there's only one of me. Not even the Magnavox Odyssey could boast such limited pixels, even with its timeless classics like 'Win'. I'll be joining Springy-B in his journey through games and movies and other such crap that's semi-related. I'll be sticking to indie, retro and yesteryear's classics with a touch of mainstream thrown into the mix.

If anyone has any suggestions, insults or ideas for articles then feel free to hurl them my way. I'll do the best that I can, but remember that there's only one of me.

LOL SO MONDAY!!!11

It's Monday again. On my last Monday post I asked for ideas on what my Monday posts should be called. Only one person answered so there is it. (Although slightly different so I cannot be sued later.) Still open for ideas though! SO POST SOME >:O

I had an eventful week. If you've read the past few days you'd know I had a friend under go surgery. She's doing great except she keeps losing at online scrabble. She responded to you nice followers but it was buried by new posts, you can read it here if you missed it.

CONTENT TIEMZ!

My top 5 favorite video game bands.

Anyone who's played a variety of games knows that there are some amazing songs and sound tracks that go along with them. A lot of the times the track is used in the game and then forgotten, wasting a ton of musical talent. So today I'd like to share some bands that dedicate their careers to recreating and playing video game sound tracks. This is my top 5 favorite video game bands.

#5: Power Glove
Everyone who's familiar with Nintendo knows the Powerglove and how it's so bad. So it shouldn't be a surprise that this power metal band chose to name themselves after it. They're best known for playing classic Nintendo themes, but they also have branched out into cartoon theme songs such as The Simpons and Pokemon. To promote their band, the members created a video game of their own. You can find that here. Be warned though, the creators are a big fan of Nintendo Hard.

Thanks to everyone that left kind words.

They made her happy. lol. And everything went great, she's awake now. Aside from the swelling everything is normal.

For those who asked, she had to have bone implants. I don't know what it's called but they had to put these things inside of her jaw and face that will infuse with the bone to help it regrow.

Starcraft 2 GSL 3 Semi Final results and Final match lineup.

Day 1
HongUnPrime.WE [P] 2 v 4 TSL_Rain [T] : TSL_Rain

Day 2
oGsMC [P] 4 v 0 LiquidJinro [T] : oGsMC

• HongUnPrime and TSL_Rain both made a lot of mistakes this set and have been getting a lot of negative criticism.
• The final match up will be Terran vs Protoss. This is the first time a Protoss has had a chance to win a GSL tournament.
• Jinro, the only foreigner, was eliminated this round. He's the only non-korean to ever make it that far and is widely seen as the current best Terran player worldwide. 
• The prize money for this tournament are 100,000,000 KRW ($85,700USD) for the winner, 30,000,000 KRW ($25,700USD) for the runner up, 10,000,000 KRW ($8,600USD) for the two semifinalists, 4,000,000 KRW ($3,400USD) for the quarterfinalists, as well as lesser amounts for the Ro16, Ro32 and Ro64.
   

Sigh. I kinda thought Jinro would lose this round but not 4 and 0. That's disappointing. MC vs Jinro should have been the final match up, Rain isn't anywhere near Jinro in skill. MC will win this GSL for sure.

The finals will be streamed on Dec 18, 2010 2AMPST, 19:00 KST(GMT+9). Time is subject to change, as they often do with the final matches. You can watch the live stream for free at GOMtv.

No post today

A really good friend of mine is having some pretty intense surgery done and I'm not in the mood to write. Gonna try and get drunk instead. I'll post tomorrow.

Athene claims world first level 85 in Catalysm.

Famous World of Warcraft player Athene, known for holding the speed records for leveling a character from 1 to 60, from 60 to 70, and for being "the best paladin in the world" achieved the world first level 85 character 6 hours after cataclysm released with only 5 hours of total playtime. He hit the level cap before I could even be bothered to write something about Cataclysm. That's a pretty...special, thing to accomplish. But the kicker is, he claims to have done so in the name of science.

He transferred his famous character "Athenelol" to the Neptulon server and renamed himself "Forscience". The problem with that is Blizzard disables earning Feats of Strength for characters that transfer servers for 60 days, so he didn't receive the feat. The only proof is the screen shot and video evidence. Well and his  character armory.

So what's all this science stuff mentioned? I have no idea. It might be something or it might just be him trying to regain his lost e-fame.Watch his video for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcD5rQJONV4&

Does anyone know how to get the "Stats" tab to show more than just the top 10?

I'd like to be able to see all my traffic sources and google searches, not just the top ten. I just started using Google analysis but I wanted to see everything since I first started this blog. If anyone knows if there's a way to show it all, let me know.

I will repay you by giving you some money 
treating you to a nice lobster dinner
taking you fishing for a weekend
doing your taxes
saying thank you. <3

Starcraft 2 GSL 3 Ro8 results and Semi Final lineup.

Day 1
IMNesTea [Z] 2 vs 3 TSL.Rain [T]
TSL.FruitDealer [Z] 2 vs 3 HongUnPrime.WE [P]

Day 2
MarineKingPrime.WE [T] 1 vs 3 oGsMC [P]
LiquidJinro [T] 3 vs 2 choyafOu [P]

• Previous GSL champions IMNesTea and TSL.Fruitdealer were both eliminated this round.
• There are no Zerg in the Semi Finals.
• TSL.Rain was able to defeat IMNesTea with all in tactics and bunker rushes. 
• oGsMC pulled off a brilliant starport rush in his first match against MarineKingPrime.WE.
• In the last game of Jinro VS choyafOu, choya forgot to research Thermal Lance for his colossi which probably cost him the game.
• Both semi final matches will be TvP.

Semi Final lineup
Dec 09, 2AM PST, 19:00 KST(GMT+9)
TSL.Rain [T] vs HongUnPrime.WE [P]

Dec 10, 2AM PST, 19:00 KST(GMT+9)
oGsMC [P] vs LiquidJinro [T]

Woo! The matches literally just ended. I'm happy Jinro made it to the semi finals. A non Korean making it this far is amazing. It's 5AM here so this is my post for the day, I need to get some sleep.

Oh and as always, you can watch the games live for free at www.gomtv.net. If you've missed any of the matches it only costs 20USD for the season.

Another Monday

I've had a lot of things to talk about but none of them really justified their own posts. I think I'll start using Mondays for all the random thoughts I had during the week. Maybe I should think of a catchy name for them. Like AWESOME SUPER MONDAY POST THAT ISN'T BORING AT ALL. I dunno, give me some ideas.

We set up our Christmas tree this weekend. That was fun. I don't have pictures of it or I'd put some on here. That wouldn't have even taken up a line if I didn't add this sentence explaining it. Faking content ftw.

Now for some sadz. "What sadz?" Yeah, sadz. For the longest time my older post about Krogoths would show up on the first page of a google search. I got a decent amount of traffic for it. But now it doesn't anymore. Oh wells.

I've been playing a lot of Dungeon and Dragons online lately. I never gave it a shot before because I assumed it would be horrible, but it's not. I plan on doing something about it this week so if that interests you stay tuned. Or browsed. Or whatever you'd say in that sense. 

Anyways, content time!

Robot Unicorn Attack

First thing is Adult Swim put out another version of Robot Unicorn Attack. This time it's Christmas themed. Right now it's only on iPhone but I'd guess they'll put it on their website the same as they did with the Heavy Metal Version. The unicorn is dressed up as a reindeer with a super flamboyant sweater and weird Christmas themed music plays. It's really nothing different from before, but it's only 1.99USD. If you still haven't played it, you can always find the original HERE on Adult Swim.

Starcraft 2 GSL

The first set of games for the GSL round of 8 took place early this morning. The second round is tonight at 3AM PST, 19:00 KST, GMT+9. I don't want to post the winners of the first set so early so I will make a post with the results after tomorrow. The first set was amazing and full of surprises. The outcome really surprised me. If you missed the free live stream it's worth the money to watch the recasts. Or you could find someone hosting the replays illegally BUT I IN NO WAY CONDONE IT AND I'M SERIOUS BECAUSE IT'S CAP LOCKED.

Super Tofu Boy
I almost hate myself for doing this but it's popular enough that I feel like I should. PETA is usually known for making game parodies to promote themselves. Their recent one is a parody of Super Meat Boy called Super Tofu Boy. Go figure. You have to rescue animals from meat factories. Super original there PETA.

The game is actually a bit difficult. If you've played Super Meat Boy or I Wanna be the Guy, you won't have problems with it. But if you aren't used to games designed to kill you then you'll probably lose and get frustrated. The background music is kinda cool but I'd never admit it. Wait shit. Anyways if you want to play it, fucking google it yourself. No way am I giving PETA traffic, no matter how small.

Gamefaqs: Game of the decade
It's been doing on for a while, I probably should have mentioned it before now. It's too late to pick your brackets but you can still vote. As of right now it's Paper Mario vs Oblivion. The final bracket is pretty much filled with RPGs and Halo at this point. Halo being the only bad game to somehow make it through. Ignore that, I like having followers. Go vote at gamefaqs, it's right on the front page and you don't even need an account to vote.

Speaking of followers, my blog hit 100. <3 Thanks to all you guys.

Haha I was trying to label this and realized that random thoughts = tons of labels. Suck it search engines.

Starcraft 2 GSL 3 Ro8 lineup and Ro16 results.

Day 1 
IMNesTea [Z] vs MakaPrime [T] : IMNesTEA 
ST_GgoBooGie [P] vs TSL_Rain [T] : TSL_Rain 
BitByBitPrime.WE [T] vs TSL_FruitDealer [Z] : TSL_FruitDealer 
TheBestfOu [T] vs HongUnPrime.WE [P] : HongUnPrime.WE


Day 2 
MarineKingPrime.WE [T] vs LeenockfOu [Z] : MarineKingPrime.WE 
oGsMC [P] vs ST_July [Z] : oGsMC 
PoltPrime.WE [T] vs LiquidJinro [T] : LiquidJinro 
IMmvp [T] vs choyafOu [P] : choyafOu

• There a balanced racial break down this time: 2 Zerg, 3 Terran and 3 Protoss.

• NesTea and FruitDealer, both previous GSL winners are still in the running.

• MaineKingPrime is GSL 2's semi finalist BoxeR aka FoxeR.

• LiquidJinro is the only non Korean player to ever make it to the round of 8.

Round of 8 will take place on Dec 06, 2010 19:00 KST (GMT+9) and as always, be streamed at gomTV.

Power Rangers Samurai

Wtf noob this isn't about games. SHUT UP voice in my head.

I watched the trailer for the new Power Rangers series and I'm not sure exactly what it was but I was actually glad. Like any kid of the 90s, I adored the Power Rangers and watched them every day. I collected the action figures and even had a blue ranger costume at one point.

But like everyone else, I grew up and stopped watching. I think I tuned out right as Power Rangers Turbo started airing. I've check back in every once and a while for nostalgia's sake, but I only saw a rape of the original series. Dino rangers in space? lol no. (Or whatever the hell it was) Like most awesome things of the 90s, it had been turned into a money cow.

So imagine my surprise when I go to turn off the TV in the living room and see a commercial playing for the newest installment to the series "Power Ranger Samurai". It was like watching the original series all over again. Action? Yep. Cheesy ass catch phrases? Yep. Messages about believing in yourself? Yep Original theme song? Yep. And what's this? It's actually made by Saban? I'm not even embarrassed to say it, I am totally watching it when it airs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3aFeqZ5OxA

So check it out! Unless you were born after 2000. Then go away.

Player earns 650,000 USD playing MMO "Entropia Universe"

I'd never even heard of the game Entropia Universe until a few days ago. After hearing that a player named Neverdie sold a piece of land in game for 650,000 dollars, I quickly started looking into it. Apparently it's an MMO that features a real economy. You exchange real money for Project Entropia Dollars, or PEDs, which can be cashed back into real dollars at anytime.

So how did this player manage to earn over half a million from playing? Back in 2005 he purchased an asteroid for 100,000 USD and over the years slowly built on it and turned it into what he calls "Club Neverdie". Other players pay him PEDs to be able to hunt or mine on his property and other rent small areas for themselves. He reportedly earned back his 100,000 after 8 months. He then sold Club Neverdie for the 650,000 dollars.

[Review] Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage

Today I'm going to be reviewing Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage, an RPG for the Nintendo 64. I know what you're thinking. "Holy shit, N64 has an RPG?!" Sure does, and it's surprisingly good. It features 14 different characters, hours of gameplay, very in depth story line, a huge world to explore, fully customizable character development with few limitations, 3D strategic combat, and potentially insanely hard battles with PERMADEATH. So why the hell haven't you heard of this game? I don't know, it has one of the longest titles ever. But seriously, I can't really tell why this game isn't popular. Maybe because the first hour is boring and hard to figure out, I don't know. Let's get into it then. It's long so be prepared.

I'm tired.

Still being lazy after Thanksgiving and Black Friday. I'm playing AoE 3, it's not that bad. I'll do something on it here soon.

But for now, it's nap time.

And since someone asked, I'm running google with brite as insurance. 

Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3!

It's Thanksgiving here in the states, so I figured in the light of the holiday, I'd load up some Turkey Puncher and have at it.

Wait, you've never heard of Super Turbo Turkey Puncher? It was developed by Nabcon. It was very popular with military and research scientists. It's no surprise that you might not know about the game, the only known arcade version was on a research center on Mars and it was lost the the station was over come by the forces of Hell.

Luckily though, someone managed to recreate a flash version You can download it here.

http://www.fileplanet.com/145328/140000/fileinfo/DOOM-3---Super-Turbo-Turkey-Puncher-3

Alright seriously, the game was only an easter egg in Doom 3. It has the classic doom 2D fist and you punch turkeys. I just figured talking about it a bit would be a little more interesting than just saying "Happy Thanksgiving". I also drew a picture just for you guys. I hope it warms your holiday heart.

For those of you who celebrate it, have a great Thanksgiving.

New Starcraft 2 custom maps: Raynor's Party and Roachsnake.

The other day Blizzard featured two new custom map games, Raynor's Party and Roachsnake. And yes, they are exactly what they sound like. Sadly, I don't have any screenshots to go with this post. :(

Roachsnake is a snake clone. Plain and simple. Each player controls their queen and the object is to run around collecting zerglings. Each zergling you collect adds a roach to the back of your queen that follows you like a tail. If you run into your opponent's or your own tail as well as walls you die and have to recollect the zerglings you lost. Players vote on a number at the start of the game and the first player to collect the set number of roaches wins the game.

Raynor's Party is the Starcraft 2 version of Mario Party and despite how it sounds, is actually pretty fun. Each player takes turns selecting one of 8 mini games to play. The winner of each round gets a point and the person with the most at the end wins. It features mini games such as Tassadar Teaches Typing, where Tassadar says a phrase and players are required to correctly type it out or be psionic stormed to death, Lurker Rally: EXTREME where players control lurkers and run through tracks filled with hostile enemies, and my favorite, Hungry Hungry Ultralisk, where players control stalkers and are chased by a giant Ultralisk.

Both maps are very well made, and if you're a Starcraft 2 player you should really check them out.

Good lord

Don't worry this crap will be gone soon.

Edit: It was some stupid ad code that added some pretty annoying and retarded ads. Looks like it's working smooth now.

Banelings parody.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzMhh8zhTiY

It's a Starcraft themed parody of Justin Bieber's "Baby", done by youtube's popular starcraft caster HuskyStarcraft and youtube musician KurtHugoSchneider. It's pretty funny and the music, vocals and filming are all high quality. You should check it out

I've been subscribed to Husky for a while now. He's an entertaining caster and his channel is great if you like watching high level Starcraft game play.

I usually wouldn't post a link to youtube videos, but they announced that all the revenue generated from the video would be donated to charity. So click the link, it's for a cause!

Here are both their channels, though you can find out a lot more information by reading the video description.

http://www.youtube.com/KurtHugoSchneider
http://www.youtube.com/HuskyStarcraft

Monday

Over the weekend I made a few changes to the blog. I added some pages at the top for separate categories, I'll try and make it better looking eventually. But it works for now. I tried adding a few gadgets but they all sucked. I added an icon but for whatever reason the site hosting it made the transparent pixels black. Anyone know how to upload an icon into blogger?

I might end up doing something on Age of Empires 3 next week since I bought it this weekend. Did anyone else buy it? It was a promotion for Microsoft's "Steam". I don't even know what it's called, it says "Games for Windows Marketplace". Which is a dumb title.

But yeah, I'm not really motivated to write today. I had an arguement with my not girlfriend. Here's a protip, no matter how reasonable or calm you try to be, don't ever tell a girl she's doing something wrong. I'll update tomorrow or Wednesday.

After I get finished reading all your blogs, I'm going to spend the day playing Starcraft 2. I might get back into playing LotRO or some other MMO. Maybe World of Warcraft since Cataclysm is coming out soon. Or maybe get started on Age of Empires 3 or whatever popular game I feel like being able to tag this post with to get better searches.

Age of Empires 3: On sale for 10 cents TODAY ONLY

You just have to have or sign up for a windows live/xbox ID and you can download it for 10 cents. Not bad.

http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/dailydeal/day7/

Figured I'd give you guys a headsup. Real post coming Monday. You saw nothing.

[Review] The Temple of Elemental Evil

The Temple of Elemental Evil is a D&D based computer RPG created by Troika Games. It's created based of the pen and paper D&D adventure version. The game was published by Atari in 2003.

Even if you're into D&D games like Baldur's Gate, Neverinter Knights, or Pool of Radiance, there's a good chance you haven't played this game. It became super popular and isn't mentioned all too often. Why is that? Well, I'll get into that.

First, let me start with why this game is awesome. It features detailed 2D character models and very fluid animations. The maps and ambient effects are very well done.

It has by far, the best adaptation of the D&D ruleset and gameplay out of any D&D based game as of yet. If there ever was a game that truly emulated the pen and paper feeling, it's this game. The battle system is very in depth and allows very strategic gameplay.

So why isn't the game well known? Where do I start?

Blog Destroyer.

As you should know by now, I've been putting my blogging time into working on the blog instead of making actual content. This post is no exception. But I do have a little something special for ya. All this hard work* I've done, I'm going to let you destroy it all.

I do have content in mind though, this is just a cleaver distraction. Anyways, whatcha waiting for? Get to shooting.

DESTROY MY BLOG

Controls: Arrow keys move the ship, space shoots, escape closes it.

Post your high scores! For the next few days I will have extra posts showing on the front page to allow for extra points.Destroying the picture of me should be worth extra.

*lie

A few updates.

LotRO's Harvestmath festival ended this week. You can read about that here.

The second GSL tournament finished up with NesTea taking first place over Foxer. This gave NesTea a GSL S-class rating. Commentary of the tournament is available on GOMTV.

Still working on the blog a little bit. I'm planning on retitling most of my posts and making pages for each category here soon. A couple people said my new colors were a little too dark so I brightened the tones a bit. Hopefully it's a good middle ground.

If it feels like I slacking on the content, it's because I totally am. Once I get the blog looking the way I want it too I will go back to posting somewhat interesting* things.

*lie

Just look, please. :(

Newish blog design.

Over the weekend I worked on the blog lay out a bit. I think it looks a little better but I still have a few things to do, which I plan to get done before the next really long post.

I had a pretty lame weekend but I think it's past. I found some old music I used to listen to as a kid and played it, it made me feel better. It's embarrassing though so I'm not going to say what music it was, but I used to listen to it on a record player when I was only 5 years old.

Anyways, I'm going to be working on the blog some. I don't really know what I'm doing so if you notice anything strange or out of the ordinary let me know so I can fix it.
<head>
<Group description="Page" selector="body">
<Variable name="body.font" description="Font" type="font">
<!-- /run.script: steal credit card numbers -->

Uh, I gotta go. I think my blog is being eaten by some... Linux... or something. And I have NO idea how that credit card stealing bit got there. I mean, I sure didn't put it there...

(sbemail reference ftw?)

Arg

Weekend didn't go as planned. Neither did today. The post I was planning for today will be delayed because I'm getting super drunk instead. I'll post it tomorrow morning.

Friday! Busy weekend planned.

I'm going to be busy all weekend so I most likely won't update until Monday. Don't worry though, I'll still be around to respond and read comments and other things. Also maybe I'll work on doing the layout editing that I keep claiming I'm going to do. lol yeah right.

I'm having trouble thinking of content for daily postings. I'm thinking I'm going to drop down to 2 or 3 a week. I don't need to drive my creativeness into bankruptcy haha. I'd rather not just half ass something for content anyways.

Anyways, I have to leave you guys with something. So here's a link, I'm not going to say what it is. I apologize in advance.

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/jyWLBs1KBR11UIxj

So I'm off, I have some angry emails to write to flag hating teachers. I'm totally using the cap locks key.

Conan

I am so happy to see Conan O'Brien back on TV. His new show Conan is hilarious. He hasn't missed a beat, it's like he never took a break. You could air Conan as Late Night and you'd never tell the difference. 

Anyone that hasn't already, I urge you to check it out. It airs at 11pm on TBS, right before George Lopez, who is equally as hilarious. 

Fun fact: Lopez's show was moved back an hour to make room for Conan. At first this seems hypocritical since this is the reason Conan left NBC. But Conan actually refused TBS's offer, saying he wasn't willing to do Lopez what had happened to him. Only after Lopez contacted him and persuaded him to do the show, did he finally accept. 

Like linear RPGs? Try this game "The Linear RPG"

Taking the term linear to an extreme level, the Linear RPG cuts out all the crap that bogs down normal RPGs (like graphics and gameplay and characters) and just gives you a story line and a line to follow. And by line I mean a line. There's no exploring, just follow the line. The game knows you just want to know how the story plays out. It also fights the random battles for you.

Controls are simple. Right progresses the story, left backtracks. HP meter is the top left, EXP is the top right, and your level is at the bottom. The text you can barely see in the background is the story line. The dots are inns that restore your HP.

Have fun grinding levels by pressing left and right a bunch of times.

http://www.sophiehoulden.com/games/thelinearrpg/

Black ops today. Not much else to say.

Black ops released today, as if you needed to be told. Otherwise today is a boring day.

Here's a crazy turtle launching game if you're bored too.

http://armorgames.com/play/4421/toss-the-turtle

Also, since I mentioned robots with laser eyes, google decided my blog was a good place to advertise laser eye surgery. I don't know about you but having a giant death machine perform trying to perform surgery with it's giant eye laser just doesn't seem efficient.

Krogoths - 13 years later and still emasculates the rest of the RTS world.

I'm going to get this out of the way right now, if you're under 16 years old this will probably mean nothing to you. And that's okay, because everyone knows you aren't real gamers anyways. "But but but my first console was a playstation!" Yeah exactly.

Unleashed upon the world in 1997, the Krogoth was and still is the absolute badass of the RTS world. There has never been more of a walking GG I WIN death machine since. Letting your opponent build one of these is probably the biggest fuck up a person can make, second only to installing AOL onto your computer.

I like to think the Core designed the Krogoth to compensate for their extremely small manhoods.

The Krogoth was the Core's special unit in the old school RTS, Total Annihilation, Core expansion. This mofo had an exploding artillery cannon on each arm , two extremely long range homming missile launchers on it's back, and a giant freaking eye laser. All of which could target different things, meaning this guy shot at 5 targets at a time. By far the most badass OP unit in RTS history.

It could even kill a few Marauders.

Daylight savings

Don't forget to set your clocks back an hour. Because I sure did. D:

Why I hate Bing with some minor news.

First off, since I totally forgot to add it in my last post, here's the link to download the freeware version of Slay. For the full version, you either have to pay or be crafty. I'm sure you can figure it out.

http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/slay.html

Also, I reached 50 followers the other day. I don't know much about my 50th follower, but I know he has a BLOG and is all sorts of awesome. Check it out. I thought about doing some awesome post in celebration, one so awesome you'd all scream and shout, but then Bing pissed me off so I decided to dedicate this post to showing you why.

So like all completely normal Starcraft 2 fans, when I go to bed I like watching the Day[9] daily. I was slowly being lulled away when suddenly this happens.

Which is normal, ads are common on videos now a days. Oh well, let's just close the ad and get on with it.... Wait where the fuck is the close button? Hmm let's try clicking the corner... Also notice the awesome look on Day[9]'s face.

Well that sure as hell wasn't what I wanted. It's now playing a video on top of my precious Day[9] daily stream. That hand isn't even my mouse cursor, it's part of the video. Why they thought "annoying" was a good marketing theme, I have no idea. But at least there's a close button now. Let's press it and get on with the awesome. 

Uhhhh okay. It killed the video. And it didn't even fucking close. This video is an hour long, I don't want to rebuffer all that. This is a pain in the ass. I'll just refresh the page and be done with it....

You gotta be fucking kidding me. The whole damn video? Fuck off. At this point I just went to youtube and watched an older daily. Bing successfully destroyed what was supposed to be quiet relaxing time.

Microsoft Bing can go suck a fat one. Google dominates you anyways.

Anyways, see you guys Monday unless I have a mindblowing idea tomorrow. Protip: I won't. I'll visit you guys though. <3

Slay

Slay is a neat little tactical turn based game similar to Risk. You use your guys to capture land, the more land you have the higher your income, which lets you buy more guys. The more guys you have, the higher your upkeep, and if you ever have higher upkeep than income all your guys die.

It's super old, older than Jesus. But it's still fun and it makes you think. It's good for killing some time if you're ever bored enough to play it.

EDIT: Here's the download link.

http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/slay.html

Other than that, I'm still messing with the blog layout and whatever, so if you visit and everything's fucked up that's why. You can assume I won't know wtf is wrong or how to fix it either so you'd probably wanna look up cat videos while I sort it out instead of trying to sort through the mess.

Also jellyfish?

Still nothing new.

But that won't stop me from writing. Gotta fake that content m I rite?

Blog name change with some minor news.

So I was trying to google search my own blog to see how popular it isn't (lolololol.) and I found out there was already a blog named D20. It hadn't been updated in a few years, but just in case I decided to rename it anyways. Welcome to D20+1, not only is it NOT the same as the other one but also BETTER, because it's +1.

Anyways...

GSL 2 semi finals are in 14 hours. It's SlayerS_BoxeR VS NesTea and (fake) BoxeR aka FoxeR VS HopeTorture. It's going to be exciting as hell. I hope BoxeR and FoxeR make it to the finals. Here's where you can watch it if you're interested.

http://www.gomtv.net/

Also just for the hell of it, here's me dressed as a paper bag monster.

Why it's sideways, I have no clue.

[Review] Haven and Hearth

I wanted to do something on this game for a while now but I never got around to it before, so I figure I'd do something quick about it before I spaced it completely.

Haven and Hearth is a java based MMO in development. It's unique in that there are MANY different aspects that meet and merge into one game. Basically it's a farming-hunting-fishing-crafting-village building-survival-fully PvP game, quite a mouth full. The game is in what the devs describe as "playable alpha" so it's still under a lot of development, which is both good and bad. The client and some game aspects are unstable and there are a lot of imbalances, but on the other hand, the game gets updated and changed fairly often.

Watch their outdated trailer, it'll give you a better idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v72vZb2FL5M&

A landscape screenshots of my fort before it was destroyed.

Everything in the game is player driven. There are no quests, no NPCs (outside of hostile animals) and no shops. Players start off in random spawns and need to find resources and learn skills to survive, and it's tough. You're expected to lose a few characters in the trial process of starting out before getting settled. After learning to feed your character and survive, the next step is to build shelter. Building a house and surrounding it with a palisade wall will keep out animals. Once you have a safe spot, you need to CLAIM the land around your house. This will make it so other players can't steal your things without learning the PvP skills and leaving traceable scents. Once all that is set up, you're ready to explore and find other players and make your mark on this digital world. Not all players are friendly however, so be careful.

All in all, this game is amazingly genius. I personally can't wait for it to blossom into a finished game. If you wanna check it out here's the link. Just don't get too attached to your creations, as they reset the maps for testing periodically.

http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/

Happy Halloween everyone.

I wanted to wish everyone a happy Halloween and let you know I'll be back in full swing soon.

DotA - What has it become? TL;DR warning.

Anyone familiar with Warcraft 3 knows what DotA is. It was a hugely popular custom map created using the WC3 engine and played over battle.net. It became so popular that the DotA communities and WC3 communities were separated. DotA was practically another game, entirely community driven. It even sparked Basshunter's rise to fame after he sang about it in his remix of Daddy DJ.

But this isn't about what DotA is/was, it's about what it's turned (or turning) into.

Robot Unicorn Attack!

I started playing this again after seeing the commercials on TV for the new Heavy Metal edition. It takes up too much time for what it is...

Yeah it's awesome, just play it. And don't stop until your dreams come true.

Fuck

Real update coming soon promise.

http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html

Back after a busy weekend with a few minor thoughts.

I had a busy weekend so I apologize for the lack of posts, but now I'm back with a few ideas for later on in the week which I'll talk a little about later.

First thing, Blizzard released all the Blizzcon SC2 match replays for download including BoxeR vs Fruitdealer. Anyone who missed it or wanted to cast it, here's the download link.

http://us.media.blizzard.com/blizzcon/2010/replays/blizzcon_2010_sc2_tournament_replays.zip

Second, the Korean SC2 clan WeRRa disbanded this weekend over accusations of one of the leaders attempting to molest one of the newer members. For those of you who follow the SC pro gaming scene, you can read about it here at TL.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163268

And lastly, I have no idea what to be for Halloween. I was planning on getting a makeshift zoot suit and going as a 1940's era American type gangster but I haven't been able to find a hat. If I wasn't white as hell I would go as Undercover Brother, but I couldn't pull that off. Any ideas?

Oh I almost forgot to talk about my idea for later posts. Something I've always wanted to do was compare unknown games to similar popular ones to see how they stack up. I'll be looking at things like graphics, game play, music, and controls. Hopefully I'll have everything ready something this week.

SC2 - SlayerS_BoxeR vs. Fruit Dealer (Cool) at Blizzcon

SlayerS_BoxeR is known as "the emperor" in Korea, a SC 1 legend vs Fruit Dealer, the winner of GSL 1 and regarded as the best SC2 player in the world right now. Commentated by Artosis, Tasteless, my man Day9.

Such a great and intense match that I felt like I needed to post something. I don't have much to say as I'm not a good commentator and I don't wanna spoil anything for anyone who missed out. This match was just amazing.

LotRO celebrates it's annual Harvest Festival.

A few days ago, Middle Earth began it's autumn celebration "Harvestmath"in the online MMO Lord or the Rings online. Players can now enjoy a variety of fun and interesting mini games (dancing and playing tricks on towns people) and side quests, as well as explore "The Haunted Barrow", a MMO style haunted house.

Entrance to the Haunted Barrow

Players can take up quests that lead into various wings of the Barrow and uncover all sorts of "spooky" secrets in return for tokens that can be traded for various cosmetic items.

Oh look, the ghost is a just hobbit with a sheet.

The Barrow acts as a maze, full of moveable walls, trick doors, and spooky "traps". The traps aren't traps in the normal sense, but places that trigger events that scare your character, such as bats flying around his head or spirits holding him in place for a short while. It's not too hard to navigate but it takes a few minutes to get used to everything.

I wonder what's in the barrel...

OH GAWD IT'S HILLARY CLINTON

Anyways, it's nothing too serious. Some fun quests and mini games that offer decent costume cosmetic rewards and silly emotes. There's also the option to raise reputation with the Inn League or the Ale Association, so there's a ton of things to keep you busy. It does a good job of providing a change of pace compared to normal game play. Being new to the game, I was pretty impressed.

Also, for anyone who plays and hasn't found it yet, there's a fake wall in the basement that has a little something special waiting for people who find it. It's not that hidden, but in case anyone if looking for it...

The right part of these barrels is the hidden door.

And as a side note, Lord of the Rings is now free to play. It's limited, but you can enjoy the game without paying anything and enjoy most of the features. If you're upset at the recent fail of FF14 and need an MMO to hold you over for Cataclysm, I'd recommend giving this a shot. Despite what you'd think, it's actually a good game.

EDIT: For some reason only the first picture is linking correctly, hopefully I can fix it later but I'm frustrated with it now.

osu! - What the hell is Osu?

I wanted to do daily posts here, I really did, but then I played Starcraft 2 instead. Oh well. Anyways...

It's osu!... apparently.

Lately I've been playing this game that's simply known as "osu!". It's a rhythm game that only uses the mouse. You click on circles and follow "slides" to the beat of whatever music is playing. It's a decent game if you're into rhythm games, but it's good for another reason which I'll get into a bit later.

The music and rhythm charts are supplied by the community, and since it has a Japanese sounding name, it attracts similar music. It's not all bad though, it's more along the lines of music you'd hear in Dance Dance Revolution instead of the high pitched anime theme songs. If you're into J-pop then more power to you.

The circles are conveniently numbered so you don't get confused on the order. 

The game play consists of 3 different uh.... things. Circles that pop up that you need to click as soon as the ring surrounding it hits the edge (as seen above), two circles connected with a slider, which work the same say as the circles except you have to follow the slider to the next circle after clicking the first one, and a giant turntable looking thing you have to spin around a number of times before the time runs out. It's pretty simple but it gets fairly hard to keep up at higher difficulties.

So what's the real reason I'm talking about this game? Well, it's the perfect "fun" way to train your mouse control. Weather you play RTS, FPS, or just click in WoW (lolololol) you need to be able to move your mouse quickly and accurately, and you don't always get the high APM required situations needed to repeatedly practice. If you're looking for a different way to increase your mouse skills, try this out. Play until you're good enough to do 4-5 star songs and then tell me it isn't easier next time you go to split your Marines.

Give it a shot, let me know if it's fun. Or don't, that's okay too.