The Old Reader : Is my hunt ended?

My search for a feed reader to replace the soon to be retired Google reader may be at an end. As I’ve previously posted, finding a decent cloud based feed reader has been a bit of a trial. Readers such as Feedly which has gained a lot of users since Google’s announcement are desktop or browser plugin based, and the cloud options such as Netvibes have been completely unsatisfactory. I guess the Google Reader spoiled me a bit.

I am now trialing The Old Reader. This is a cloud/web based reader which is what I want, and it is based on the original Google Reader. It was put together by a couple of guys who didn’t like the changes Google made to Reader a …

Do You Preorder?

The last game I preordered was Age of Conan. At least that’s the last game I remember preordering.

I haven’t done so since, not because of any issues with preordering games, or the games themselves but simply because I haven’t felt the need to do so. Although I have felt a tinge of jealousy from time to time with players getting into the head start periods just before a game officially opens to the masses. Especially when I read blog posts from other bloggers who are all having a fine old time.

I guess the other factor holding me back from the preorder purchase is the old adage never play on launch (or patch) day. That was strongly reinforced with the recent Simcity debacle, but has been …

Darkfall Unholy Wars Announcement

Just received this from Aventurine.

Darkfall Unholy Wars Launch – April 16

Thu, 04/04/2013 – 13:09

Darkfall Unholy Wars will launch on April 16th after 5 months in beta. During beta, we addressed many issues through 8 major updates, did a lot of work on game balance and game polish, increased game performance on all levels, added new features like salvaging, changed the way character progression works through Prowess Points,  -effectively eliminating macroing gains and ensuring that characters progress only by playing the game- added a new role, the Primalist and completed the integration with the Steam platform.

 The Darkfall community who participated in the beta provided the development team with invaluable feedback

…

Such Sad News

I just read this morning that one of my favorite authors, Iain (M) Banks has terminal cancer.  Iain announced it here on his website, you can read his message there.

I started reading his Culture novels a few years ago. I bought Excession a few years before I really got into the Culture, but at the time found it very difficult to follow. I then bought Matter, enjoyed it thoroughly, and went back to Excession and finally got it. Since then I’ve bought a few more of his novels, lately the newest Culture book, The Hydrogen Sonata. Sadly to be the last Culture novel.

Perhaps one of the saddest, or is it ironic, things is that in these books Banks envisioned a universe of plenty, one …

If It Smells Like Spin

An interesting post by Green Armadillo over at PvD about player motivations. Mysterious player motivations actually. In it GA references two games and recent comments made by those responsible for them.

Diablo 3 Jay Wilson made a comment that Blizzard greatly underestimated the usage of the Auction Houses in that game by player.

James Ohlen, the creative director of SWTOR stated that Bioware also greatly underestimated the speed at which players would consume content.

I don’t want to get into debates about the merits of these games or systems in this post, but I do want to talk about why these comments don’t ring true to me.

First of all these comments are coming from two veterans of the computer game industry, and not just that …

I Hate Joffrey

[caption id="attachment_1844" align="alignleft" width="214"] The Turd of the Seven Kingdoms[/caption]

Season 2 of Game of Thrones has just been released here in Australia (yep, that why we’re named as the biggest pirates of this particular show, because it’s just so darn good and they take so damn long to release it here!) and I’m working my way through the episodes. I’m on the last disc now.

But man, the guy they got to play Joffrey, Jack Gleeson, is really good. He makes me hate Joffrey in the series as much as I hated him when I read the book. And I’ll tell you, that was a lot. Every …

The Search For A New Feedreader Continues

Okay. Since the announcement of the Google reader closure I’ve been looking for an alternative reader. Here is my progress so far.

After reading a few things, I headed over to Feedly. I’ve heard good things about this, but there is just one problem. It’s not a web service. It’s a downloadable plugin for Firefox or an app. For one thing that’s not acceptible, for the other I’m about ready to dump Firefox completely. Frankly, it’s a piece of crap. It crashes regularly at least two or three times a week. If the updates are turned on, it crashes whenever something is ready to install. In anycase, a downloadable bit of software is not what I want.

So the next port of call was NewsBlur. It looked …

Does The Repopulation Remind You Of Another Game?

Reading Massively before bed. There’s an article and video on The Repopulation crafting with a screenshot.

Hmmm,

That looks familiar.

Let’s check out the site. Media section right. Yep. Thought so. That user interface shot looks eerily like the user interface of Anarchy Online.

That video grab on Massively’s post. Damn! Not only the GUI dialogs, but the mini-map, graphics, even the icons in the inventory, they all look like AO.

Either these devs are huge fans of Anarchy Online, or…

Or perhaps I’m crazy. What do you reckon?