New

16 May, 2016

I am writing this post on my phone while I sit in my new cubicle at my new job, which is not so much new as it is different, in that I have only moved about 15 yards away from my old cubicle which I left Friday. I moved from an old and dying project where I constantly had to deal with the world collapsing around me to an equally old but at least stable, funded project where I will only be responsible for a straightforward set of requirements.

Of course, due to general buraeucratical issues too numerous and insane to keep track of, I probably won’t have a PC to work on for I expect about a week. I am not complaining about this one bit. There is nobody complaining to me, looking at me for answers to impossible problems, or asking me about what the future might hold for them or their careers. It’s heavenly. And it leaves me with a lot of time to sit here and try to figure out how to type on a phone.

For one thing, when it’s hard as hell to edit your sentences, it forces you to plan them out in advance, which has never been something I’ve been good at. (See every video I’ve ever recorded.) Maybe this will be good for me in some way.

Or maybe I can just find that Bluetooth keyboard at home and bring it with me tomorrow.

In terms of games I have nothing new to report unless you want to hear more about Dark Souls III. I’ve started a new playthrough with a Sorcerer build, which is fun but of course you can never re-capture the magic of that first blind playthrough of a Souls game.

Sadly I have not even logged into a single MMORPG since April 11, although I did at least patch up BDO in the launcher last night. I want to play SWTOR and LOTRO but not until I’m done with DS3. Like many people I suppose, I’m scared LOTRO will shutter before I reach the endgame. I’m still mired at level 50-something in the Mines of Moria, feeling like it’s the slowest leveling game in the universe.

I hear all of the rumblings about the demise of the genre and I saw Aywren’s post about the demise of blogging about the demise of the genre (whose link I cannot insert at the moment because God knows how to do that on a phone), and I guess I am only reinforcing that perception by talking about Dark Souls, but I don’t consider myself a representative sample.

As far as blogging it’s been very light from me because I usually do that in spare moments throughout the day, and as referenced above I haven’t had any of those in the past 6 months or more. Starting today, that might finally change.

As far as MMORPGs I don’t think it’s as bad as we think, it’s just that we’re between cycles right now. And I personally think the genre and its fans are collectively coming to grips with the realization that we can no longer expect WoW to drive the industry. What does the world even look like when Blizzard no longer invents exciting new features to put into its MMORPG? When Blizzard makes a frickin' shooter that attracts MMORPG players? Who knows?

Also bloggers are always attracted to new shinys and once you’ve played an MMORPG for about a month, it’s no longer new.

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