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Home, News, and Stuff...
Hectic! |
2007-03-09 |
I haven't posted a lot lately, I know, but I have been terribly swamped with my hectic life. First off, I have fully entered the mid-term of my two grad courses and while I am learning a lot and having fun, there's a lot of work to be done (including another big research paper and a group project!). Things are ok on that front as long as I keep pressing forward and keeping up with the readings.
I'm laying off of the handbag business a bit. It doesn't mean that I won't make any custom orders or anything, but it does mean that I won't be as gungho about advertising the business, doing interviews, or marketing to shops for wholesale. The business I was dealing with in Richmond dropped the custom bag order thing, but I'm thankful for this. It was really time-consuming work and I honestly couldn't give her the attention she needed to run a business off of it. It's the best for both parties. I get to the bags when I can, though I think the rush for the Christmas Season last year really burned me out for a bit.
I hit 70 on my priest when I had the chance, and I'm working on my shaman, because apparently Blizzard thinks it's "S.M.R.T." to remove PVP survivability from a cloth-wearing healing class without coming up with viable alternatives or replacements for the nerfs they're imposing. This is what happens when developers don't play the games they make kiddos ;) I almost promised myself I wouldn't bitch about it here, seeing as how that could be perceived as burning possible bridges with other game industry developers. But seriously, I'm not going anywhere, and if I ever needed to leave Mythic, I wouldn't be focused on the game industry anyway, because I feel it lacks engineering standards and maturity. People just want to throw games together without thinking about the proper way of doing it. It's why so many studios fail and some just scrape by.
On another note, the "baby fever" has hit me finally. There's two friends at work who are pregnant now and one who gave birth last Fall. I'm starting to feel left out, though I have to keep reminding myself I'm only 27 (28 in May) and it's not as if I'm really running out of time (yet). Maurice and I will hit our 2 year anniversary in August. I figured that's a good a time as any. There are a few things that scare me about the baby thing though:
1. What if I'm a bad mother? I'm always so nervous around other people's kids.
2. What if we can't afford it and have to foreclose on the house? Living in NOVA with a house and a kid is expensive. I'm not sure how we'll do it given our current bills and daycare costs ($350/wk right now).
3. Will I ever have time to finish grad school? I figured I could probably handle one class a semester as long as Maurice helps out with the kid at home...
4. Will I lose my job? How will my responsibilities shift once they find out I'm going to have a 3 month absence? Would I ever have a chance to advance in my career again?
Those are all selfish fears, I admit it, but they are valid and I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
Well, none of that jibber jabber is anything pertaining to gaming, so I can see how a few readers may not care about it, but it's important to me ^_^ !!! |
[Comments (20886)]
Warhammer Press Coverage |
2007-02-01 |
There was a big press event in the area last week for Mythic to show off its products for 2007. Naturally, Warhammer was a big one to show off. We're still a ways out from release, but it's good to see so many people enthusiastic about it already. Well, SOME anyway. Palomides.net guys will never be satisfied with anything :P
Anyhoo, there was tons of press coverage of the event, some even with videos! I'm going to link to a few if anyone is interested:
Curse Gaming
Gamespot
MMORPG.com
Warcry
Pretty much everyone had something extremely positive to say about it. It's nice to see it. Honestly, we work here all day and stare at it ALL DAY LONG and it can sometimes remove optimism when you work so many extra hours on a product like this. I wish I were able to go to press conferences like this, because I'd kill to talk about the game with people... but that's the old team lead in me, which is why I guess I'll keep chugging along at RVR tests every day ^_^ |
[Comments (8052)]
Players Always Whine |
2007-01-31 |
I've been playing a lot of WOW lately, probably more than I should. I try to get school work done, but with only being in the semester 1 week, there isn't much to do! I've been switching back and forth between my priest (64) and my shaman (24) to grab rest exp and hopefully move forward toward 70 at some point.
The thing that kills me the most about reading both boards is hearing the same complaints from the players:
"We are horrible in PVP! We can't stay alive!"
"ZOMG we are teh weaksauce!"
"Blizzard hates us!"
"There's no reason to have [insert class here] on a 25 man raid, here's the mathematical proof from my doctorial dissertation as to why..."
No matter what board you're looking at, everyone feels the same way. To me, this is comical. I've always been happy with the class that I have chosen, but it takes me until about level 20 to really decide if I like it or not. I didn't like the Warlock or the Hunter. Pet classes simply are not for me. I love the Priest, and will take her to 70... and no, I'm not fracking respeccing from Shadow/Disc. And now I'm pretty convinced the Shaman is going to see 70, perhaps before my Priest!
The thing is, players are never satisfied. They always want "more" from the developers and expect it "yesterday" not six months from now. Any attempt to communicate with the players just leads to further frustration as they twist your words to sound villainous. I try to watch every step I take... so usually when I peruse boards such as Palomides.net or JeuxOnline, I refrain from actually commenting about the game. It is a fruitless effort and there are better people to handle that kind of task (Sanya, Missy, Richard). So when I hear the Shaman complaining about how their boards haven't seen a "blue" in months, I giggle inside... because in reality, even if there were blues all over the boards, they would just find something else to bitch about.
In other news, if anyone knows anyone working on Blizzard's graphics code, could you please for the love of god ask them to create a command that lets us turn off the sky dome in Hellfire Penninsula and Nagrand? It's killing my laptop... kk thx la~ |
[Comments (5)]
Are we ready yet? |
2007-01-20 |
Maurice linked me to a CNN article announcing that Hillary Clinton is making a bid for the Presidency. But are we, as a society, really ready for this kind of leap? You've got a nation that is still full of racists, religious nutters, and sexism. Hell, I'll never earn the same amount of money as any man simply because I do not possess a penis.
Men view a woman in power as a threat to their so-called "manhood." They feel weakened and shamed if a woman holds authority over them, so imagine how most of this country would react if a woman were to take the reigns of one of the world's largest super powers. It is my opinion that our nation hasn't evolved to that level yet. I'm glad that people like Hillary and Obama are trying to push those limits. Hopefully one day they will break, but in the meantime, they're just going to be wasting a lot of money trying to launch national campaigns for the Presidental post. |
[Comments (19255)]
I miss big battles... |
2007-01-12 |
Since reaching 60 in WOW, I've been doing a lot of PVP simply because there isn't anything else to do when your guild isn't too keen on raiding with the expansion around the corner. Why bother raiding those zones if we're all going to be rushing to 70 in a week eh? Totally a valid issue, of course. But what kills me about WOW's PVP is that it seems so... I don't know, "Quakish?"
I spawn, run out, maybe get a shot or a heal in and then die. Most of my issues have to do with my lack of a solid set of gear. I have crap compared to many of the people in higher tiered armor in the Horde of our battlegroup. But still, it kills me to sit there and think "Well shit, I'm worthless here!" And then it dawned on me: I never felt like this when playing Camelot.
Then I had my second epiphony... I really miss Camelot's RVR. I miss having 200+ people rushing Snowdonia Keep for one of the Albion relics. I miss feeling like I was actually in a battle for my kingdom and doing something remotely useful that would have an impact on the game. I could hinder my enemies by capturing and holding their relics... I could bolster the abilities of my own people with those very relics as long as I could keep my grimy, zerging, human hands on them.
What good is PVP if all you do is run into an arena, quake it out, and exit with very little influence done to the game world around you. Woohoo, I got a token and a couple hundred points to spend on armor that will be obsolete in a week! That's not enough though. Players need to feel like they're DOING something to get a real sense of accomplishment out of the effort. I believe this is why you have 10 people immediately going AFK in the Alterac Valley caves as soon as the game starts. Why bother? What's the goal for players to meet once they've gotten all of their warlord armor and no longer need honors or tokens?
Camelot offered that and more. You could have your sense of personal accomplishment with the Realm Rank system (which didn't fracking decay, mind you), but you could also have that sense of realm accomplishment by razing towers, pillaging enemy realms of their relics, and holding territory in the frontiers. One group of players could make a serious impact on the game, or at least coerce the enemy out from hiding.
For all the crap some players may give Mythic about TOA or any other new additions made to the game in the past 4 years, it still has the better PVP system. |
[Comments (16)]
Meredith College and the Mascot Wars |
2007-01-10 |
When I was in high school, I really thought I wanted to teach French. I looked at several college teaching programs, but I always ended up looking at Meredith College, a women's college in my home state (NC). Many women in my family have attended Meredith, and my little high school mind just couldn't fathom going anywhere else.
In comes reality. You grow and change so much after high school that you are pretty much a completely different person when you graduate. I didn't even make it in 1 year before I regretted the decision to sign 4 years of my life away to a Methodist women's college in the South. I still regret it to this day, and wish like hell I could hop into the Tardis and return to a time when I would have accepted the NCSU application than the Meredith one. There are three distinct things that changed in me:
1. I became more involved with computers and began puttering around with Visual Basic and C++.
2. Online gaming was becoming more available to the general population, and I got to know a lot of good people through Subspace, and EverQuest.
3. While I love the French language, I did not love other people's children or the way that the public school system in NC functions. It was beginning to frustrate me more than excite me about the prospects of teaching young minds.
All three of those things led up to me deciding to strategically plan a way for me to get the fuck out of that hellhole. I couldn't stand any more of the stupid "Cornhuskin'," pearl-wearing, hair curlers, pajama-wearing bullshit anymore. Yes, it was a women's college, and yes, I'd have to take a guess that most of the people that go there are going simply to find themselves a sucker over at NCSU to marry them before graduation so they can pop out kids and do absolutely nothing with their lives beyond that.
The CSC department suffered greatly from the lack of funding. We couldn't even get a small sum of $100 to get a Linux box up and running. I was even accused of hacking the library by using its Telnet entry service. In short, the college focuses on the more frilly, girly aspects of our supposed lot in life. Apparently we are supposed to either paint, teach, sing opera, or play a musical instrument.
I'm sorry, that just doesn't jive with me. Neither did the "Angel" mascot, which has been the hot subject of debate this week as the Board of Directors announced that the mascot would be changing from "Angels" to "Meercats" or "Medusas." Swarms of students have landed on Savetheangelmc.com to write letters and comments of protest to the college's president. I think they're overreacting, which I think is a 100 level course offered at the school actually...
The point of the mascot is to make your athletic team appear to be strong, fierce, and worthy of opposition; however, "angels" doesn't really invoke those feelings. Instead, when I hear "Meredith Angel" I think of those stupid Precious Moments dolls you just want to smash with a sledgehammer. I think of cute puppy dogs and fuzzy kittens crawling all over me, licking me, and tickling my inner child. "Medusas" says, "I'm going to come across this field and kick this soccer ball up your ass."
Maybe at some point the college will actually grow out of its old "southern belle" mentality. It looks like the board is trying to do that, but some of the daddy's girls college students don't want to see that happen. Pity. At least it leaves more room in the industry for strong, independant women if we keep the 1950's Donna Reed clones on the "Angel Farm." |
[Comments (11196)]
To Hardwood or not to Hardwood? |
2007-01-05 |
Ugh that is the freaking question... I've gotten quite a few quotes, all of which frighten and confuse me, because I was under the blind assumption that hardwood flooring didn't cost nearly as much as these estimates coming in.
But should I do it? Would sinking $8,000 into the house ever be paid off? We bought the house at $420k in 03/05 along with our neighbors for $415k. They've moved, but put their house on the market for $420k and then dropped it down to $399k three months later (which happened to be this last week). That pisses me off, because these jerks are going to make it so my property value drops. Next time an appraisal is done, it won't appraise for much higher than what we bought at because of the idiot neighbors.
So the real question is: will we ever see a return on the investment? The fancy web sites found through my elite googling show that you'll get up to a 10% increase in your home's value. But is that true? I am not so sure. Will I magically be able to sell the home for $428k and get that money back? I'm sure my deck will pay off at least... sigh. But at least the deck was within our budget.
Any advice is highly appreciated, because the poor guy that gave us an estimate needs a response soon (tm). |
[Comments (5)]
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