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Blog Like its the End of the World Day.

Gamers: Fighting change with a cry of “Boom! Headshot!”

Image © Funcom,
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures

Much like my other half, I’ve been spending the few scant moments of free time I have each week with Age of Conan. While I won’t dive into gushing technical details I will simply say a few quick things:

1. The game is gorgeous, and I seem to be able to run it on good setting without bleeding edge tech. I can’t wait for DX10 Support.
2. The music and sound design is nearly perfect. The music runs the gamut from moody and lonely to grand and sweeping. The sound effects are marvelous. Two words: “crunchy snow.” I even have the music playing in my car.
3. The game-play is quick and addictive but still has depth to it. Quests abound! I’ve not grown tired yet.
4. Adult approach for the WIN! Blood and Nipples (trademark pending). It’s what you get when grown-ups make a game for grown-ups. Despite all the brouhaha over the inclusion of nipples (in the prudish US) or Blood (in the squeamish EU), the game is doing it’s best to be realistic and cater to decidedly adult audience; Crazy things like, when you stab people, there’s blood and that women actually have nipples. Oh the horror!

Now, all that being said, the game has it’s issues: it’s got a memory leak, of course. It’s got unfinished areas (though not anywhere near as bad as things like we saw in places like the Kojani area of Vanguard). It’s got classes still being tweaked and balanced, [...] Continue Reading…

I want my Uber Dagger of Whiner Killing, now, now, NOW!

Image © Funcom, Age of Conan:
Hyborian Adventures

If you are at a restaurant and someone’s child falls to the industrial carpeted floor, wailing, screaming and crying loud enough to shatter crystal and turn beet red in the face–would you call that acceptable public behavior?

When you (if you do) watched that ridiculous sweet-sixteen “reality” t.v. show, especially the episode where the lady bought her daughter a brand new car and she started crying and yelling about how she wanted it AT her birthday party, now NOW, and OMG HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!!11–did you barely restrain yourself from wanting to choke a brat?

If you answered no to the first and yes to the second and are a MMO/MMORPG player who often pitches a fit because you don’t get that dagger you always wanted, may I suggest you take your brow and beat it against your desk until the common sense is pounded in?

Honestly, in the past few weeks playing Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, a supposedly “mature” game, the amount of hissy fits, temper tantrums and all around screaming and crying has left me flabbergasted. Supposed adults turn into mewling, vicious sulky teenagers bandying insults about because they lost a roll for a piece of pretend equipment in a pretend world, twenty minute debates over who uses what weapon more, and thus, should have had said weapon they didn’t get until it deteriorates into a NO UR MOM argument. I am just about eye-lid twitching here ladies and gentlemen.

Protip: [...] Continue Reading…

Dear MMORPG Players:

Excuse me, have you seen the rainbow trout I keep on my butt?

I seem to have misplaced seven pounds.

The internet tells me that I have lost the equivalent of a decent sized puppy, a brand new baby, or a modest sized rainbow trout fish.

I blame the wii fit for this.

But it can keep it, I really don’t want them back.

Dear Internet; I will not be your sweet old lady.

Dearest Internet,

I have been your biggest fan since I comically discovered you ten years ago via dial up and a horrid little three letter program that first lovingly melded me with you.

I admit, when I started I was truly clueless. I believed that the only way to connect to the World Wide Web was through this three-letter-program and that the internet stopped after a few sites and chat rooms.

You were a little unkind to me at first, since I was terribly naive. No one told me then about the dangers of giving out uber personal information, crazy mo’fo’s behind the screen and drunk men with Transylvania accents calling me at four in the morning to discuss their ex-wives.

But I learned internet, I learned.

It’s been a pretty good ride, internet. You’ve given me friends that I have had for so long that I don’t find it terribly odd that for some of them? I have no idea what they look like, but wouldn’t dream of calling them anything other than friends. I have learned more than I thought ever possible. I have witnessed history through you, I have touched human lives, I have been moved, I have created, loved, laughed and dreamed through you.

And it’s also been a pretty tough ride, internet. You’ve shown me the true meaning of fair weather friends, of back-stabbing and instability. You’ve given me stalkers. You’ve shown me the limits of what can be stuck into human orifices. You’ve shocked me with sexual positions involving [...] Continue Reading…

Poop. It’s in your shoes.

Or: How to know whether or not you are ready for a pet.

How to know whether or not you are ready for a pet. from M. Pence on Vimeo.

The Wii Fit. It will make you jog your jubblies out of your underwear.

Nine days ago we became the proud parents of a wii fit. It came into our home smelling of that delicious untouched-by-sweaty-geek-hands plastic, pure white and gleaming in it’s cute little board shape.

Nine days, Shawn and I have been doing Yoga and jogging and strength training and hula hooping and boxing and did I mention jogging? We jog. Yes. Us. It’s the most wonderful little package of awesomeness that we’ve had delivered to our front door yet. (Minus the new camera of course.) I have always been the self conscious sort that disliked, greatly, going to a gym. This prevented me from doing several things that I’ve always wanted to do, and I thought that I was doomed to a life of envying The Junky’s Wife and her Yogagasms.

Lo’, there was a Shawn, and Shawn purchased for us a Wii fit, and I can seriously say that I see the two of us working out almost every single night. It’s been nine days and I’m not tired of it. I don’t mind the little computerized animated wii fit board reminding me that I’m overweight–it’s not doing it in a manner that’s counter productive to encouraging. I don’t mind the female trainer even though her mouth doesn’t move at all with the voice over, and I don’t mind that I can’t do everything all at once. It will come in time.

For the past nine days I have slept like I have never slept before. I don’t remember far back enough [...] Continue Reading…

When sparks fly.

Some of you might already know that I’m a member of Payperpost.com. Payperpost.com is a company which connects bloggers and advertisers together, helping both sides make a little pocket change. Bloggers get paid to review websites and promote products, advertisers…well, they get advertised.

Some time ago, the company behind Payperpost decided to come out with SocialSpark. On the surface, SocialSpark appears to be exactly what Payperpost is. Advertisers and fellow bloggers can pay you to review and write about products and sites. But that’s just the surface, SocialSpark is a vast improvement on Payperpost’s original idea.

The focus has turned greatly toward building and creating a sense of community within users. User’s can comment on profiles, visit blogs through profiles, see recent posts from blogs, thumb up and give props to their favorite users, send private messaging and so, so, so much more.

Here, I’ve chosen to link to my own personal profile on SocialSpark to give you a taste of what things look like: SocialSpark: MPence.

As a PPP blogger, I really dig the new 2.0 look to it as well.

The only cons between Socialspark and Payperpost that I can see is the difference of Terms of Use. If you are a member of Payperpost and getting away with more risqué blog writings that may include strong language or adult subjects, SocialSpark is not as accepting. If you co-blog with some one, co-authors blogs are not accepted by SSpark as they are with PPP.

I am a member of SocialSpark, despite the fact [...] Continue Reading…

Stop playing games with your crotch.

A video plea to those female gamers in MMORPG’s. You know the ones; we’ve all passed them stripped naked in towns begging for gold.

Stop playing games with your crotch from M. Pence on Vimeo.