Richard Hasselt

I guess it has something to do with the time of the year.
Somehow most of the year i am pretty happy playing whatever i am playing, however when i gets towards that last few months of the year it seems as if i am getting bored/unhappy with the games i am playing and start looking for new games to play and jump from one to another.

Don't know if it is just me or if other gamers have the same thing :)

So i have been looking and playing (and trying) lots of games, lately and one of my favorite places to check for games has become kickstarter.
There are quite a few games that have caught my attention and i can't wait to check those games out.
Here's just a few:
Wasteland 2 - http://kck.st/yDcMry
Shadowrun Returns - http://kck.st/HgUlMj
Project Eternity - http://kck.st/Sl7W7K
Star Citizen - http://kck.st/RXG0Z8
Shadowgate - http://kck.st/VsUwJ9
Sui Generis - http://kck.st/PkmGrD
Limit Theory - http://kck.st/WivH2X
Elite: Dangerous - http://kck.st/YN6rVC
The Infection Simulation - http://kck.st/RdYtVP

Other than that i have been getting back into some of my "old" games like The Sims 3, Darkstar One, Freelancer and of course the Steam sale left me with many games to play...
I am also having lots of fun in Sleeping Dogs, always like these open world kinda games and i think it is one of the reasons why i actually play MMO's, just to get that feeling of an open (big) world to explore and adventure in.
I have also been looking at some browser games like World of Steam (Beta), Drakensang Online and Battlestar Galactica Online.

At the moment i just can't get myself to play any of my MMO's, although i did play a little WoW just to check out Mists of Pandaria but other than that it's mostly singleplayer games i am playing.

Another thing that might have contributed. was the fact that i (re)discovered cycling during my summer hollidays and started cycling a lot and enjoying it a lot, that got my mind off of gaming and i didn't play much the months after that (hence the long period of me not gaming/blogging).
Until a couple of weeks ago the weather was quite pleasent to be cycling, but with the cold weather lately i guess my interrest in gaming got back :)

Now to get into my huge backlog of games..

Most of you have probably by now heard of the layoffs at BioWare/SWTOR.
Eventhough it was expected that after a succesfull launch (some) people would  lose their jobs, lots of people get hired on contract base, it is never an easy thing. Especially when it happens to a game or company you like.

However some of the layoffs for SWTOR are somewhat unexpected, especially when you hear that, basicly the guy that put SWTOR out there, the lead community guy, Stephen Reid is one of them.
Stephen Reid was/is for me the face behind SWTOR and to see him go feels really wierd.
It really makes me wonder what is going on here.

I have never been a big EA fan so when EA got their money grabbing hands on BioWare it definitely got me worried. Maybe i am seeing things that aren't there or maybe there where other reasons, but i can't shake the feeling that now EA basicly owns BioWare and most importantly their (very) succesfull IP's (Mass Effect, Dragon Age and a Star Wars license), they don't care that much for BioWare as a company and i wouldn't be surprised to see BioWare dissapear under the EA banner.

I really hope i am wrong, i am a huge BioWare fan and i really hope BioWare manages to stay independent under the EA banner, but i guess only time will tell..

I do wish all those affected by the layoffs the best in their future jobs and thanks for putting out such a great game.

And to however is going to replace Stephen Reid: goodluck, you've got some big boots to fill.

Another thing i noticed was quite a few people posting on twitter that they were going to quit playing SWTOR now because of the layoffs, well i don't know, you want to quit playing SWTOR because you don't like the layoffs... Well guess what, if everyone stops playing there will be even more layoffs.

I often hear (read) people say they want the good old days of gaming back, that they really want some "old school" gaming.
Well maybe i am getting too old but when i think old school gaming i am thinking about dying and losing everything having to start over.
A game having 100 levels, you manage to get to level 99, you died and had to start all over again from level 1 with nothing than what you started with at the first place.

Nah, i definitely don't want those days back, i think i am pretty happy with what gaming evolved into, i think i like the WoW generation of games.
Don't get me wrong i enjoyed those days of trial and error trying to beat a game by playing the same levels over and over until i finally managed to beat that last level, but i am also glad those days are over, i rather enjoy the casual gaming we have nowadays, of being able to just start at the beginning of the level i just died in instead of having to start the entire game from the start.

Maybe i am just older than the people making these comments and they are talking about later games, cause i can't imagine (or don't want to) what it would be like to play WoW (or any MMO) with having to start all over with nothing when you die at level 1.
It might be fun for a while but i am pretty sure many will get frustrated and quit very soon.

I do still occasionally play old school games but usually after a few hours i get tired of having to start all over again and i'll just start up something a little more casual/fun.

Like everyone else i am also playing Diablo 3.
I started a demon hunter, which i also played through the beta and enjoyed a lot.
I have to admit i have not tried any other classes, but since i allready had alot of fun playing it i decided to roll one again.

I also got caught up in the launch "craziness" and ordered a collectors editon box eventhough i allready have a (free) digital copy through the WoW deal a while ago, i just couldn't resist the CE.

If you are interrested to add me my battletag is Hauntshade#1937

Eventhough i have yet to play LOTRO, headaches and Diablo 3 got in the way, my issue got dealt with pretty quick by Turbine CS.

After the initial auto response, which i replied to, i recieved an email asking me for my registered email, birthdate and product key.
Good thing i still have the box laying around and for good messure i also provided a key for the digital download of the Rise of Isengard expansion.

All of this took place on (for me) late sunday evening in less then two hours. So kudos and thanks to Turbine CS.

It was pretty easy to recover my password after CS linked my email to my account again, i still don't know what happened but i managed to log into my account and see my characters, so all is good again.
Now to start playing again, i have both the expansions, Mines of Moria and Rise of Isengard but i have not played any of it yet as my character is still very low level, i think my main is only level 28, so there is still a lot of stuff to do.

Yesterday i tried logging into my LOTRO account, i have had a lifetime subcription since launch and decided i wanted to check the game out again as i haven't played in a long time.

When i tried logging in i got a password error, since i wasn't 100% sure i had the right passsword i figured to just use the password recovery, no big deal right?

So i did, after waiting a few hours for an email to arrive (and numerous attempts with different passwords), i decided to try the "forgotten username" option, eventhough i am pretty sure the username was right (i have mails from the codemasters/turbine transfer thing that state my username, but that gave me an error stating that the email has no account associated with it...

I am pretty damn sure that email was right as i use a seperate email especially for LOTRO, but just to be sure i tried my other email adresses with the same results.

Another thing i noticed was that on the email adress i used for LOTRO i had been recieving emails from Turbine right up until Jan of this year on a regular base (you know the storedeals and stuff) and after that nothing.

So that got me thinking and figured either my account has been closed or locked or something by Turbine ( i only played once after the codemasters/Turbine move) or my account got hacked and someone changed the email and password (would explain why i can't log in).
I can find my LOTRO profile and character (or at least i figure it's mine since it's my username and my main character Cynheiddon) on myLOTRO but can't figure out if there was any activity on the account.

So i decided to contact CS and see if they can help figuring out what's going on.
So far i only got one autogenerated email giving me tips to get into my account, basicly saying try password recovery or try the forgotten username thing, which i obviously allready tried..

Anyways hoping to get this resolved quickly.

Who determines you're a succesfull blogger?..
And what actually is a succesfull blogger?

Are you a succesfull blogger when all you do is basicly repost (gaming) news or comment about said news on your blog, especially news you know is gonna attract people (or trolls) to your blog?
Do high visitor counts tell you that you are a succesfull blogger?

Personally i am first and foremost blogging for myself, if anyone who visits my blog actually likes to read some of my stuff than i am glad and happy they do (i actually hope there are a few people out there who like to read my blog. LOL).

I started this blog in Feb of 2007 but have been blogging way before that, in fact back then it was called a weblog (yes, it was before blogger.com came and it all changed to simply "blog") and was exactly that: a log on the web.
Most weblogs back then were writing about every day life, things happening around them and commenting on it they were almost like an online diary and that is excactly how this blog started, mostly as my online gaming diary as i felt a need to seperate my gaming from my RL posts, most of my first posts are just a screenshot or a screenshot and a few sentences/words.

Nowadays blogging seems to be all about posting the latest news and those type of blogs seem to be called "the popular" blogs.
I do remember some time ago i had a comment on my blog from someone, who seemed almost angry, with the question why i wasn't blogging about Warhammer Online and why i was ignoring it on my blog, which was at that time all the "popular" blogs wrote about, you couldn't go to a blog without reading about it.
And i basicly answered back that i wasn't blogging about it because i had zero interest in the game and was not going to play it and so i wasn't going to blog about it either.
And that is what most of the "popular" blogs still seem to do, write about the latest "popular" thing. GW2 anyone?

I am not a blogger who writes what people want to read, i write about the stuff i do in the games i play (MMO or other) and about the games i have an interest in or intent to play.

I also believe that blogs are not a place for the lastest news on games, there are plenty of other sites for that that do a way better job.

Do visitor counts actually say you are a succesfull blog, well personally i rarely check my visitor count (i am just not interested in it), and the few times i do i can see that most of the traffic comes from google searches related to whatever post google found related to their search, does that number actually tell you that you are a succesfull blog?
I don't think so, it just tells you that people ended up on your blog via a google search.
But just in case you want to know i get anywhere between 900 to 2000 hits a month, but most of those seem to be hits on old posts.

The only reason i check my stats occasionally is to see if any blogger is linking to me so i can put a link back if i am not linking them allready (yes i still believe in the old ways of weblogging and that is to link back).

Do comments actually tell you you are a succesfull blogger, personally i don't think so, i mean it might show you you have visitors that actually like to talk about the stuff you write or you just have a bunch of trolls trolling your posts.
Are those comments from people that are regular commenters on your blog or just the one time troll commenters that want to poke up the fire.

So who actually decides you are a succesfull blogger?
I think the answer is simple: YOU
When you are happy blogging and enjoy doing it you are succesfull, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks or what you visitor count says.
And that is also the answer to the question what a succesfull blogger is: if you enjoy what you are doing and you keep writing posts you are a succesfull blogger.

So why the hell did i post this, well this was brought on by the Newbie Blogger Initiative and eventhough i am not participating in it i still wanted to write a bit about blogging and how i feel about it, hence this post.

I do think this is an excellent initiative and it is always great to see new bloggers.
But i also heard terms of "elder bloggers" and "established bloggers" being thrown around and that gave me somewhat of a bad taste, i mean who decides when you are an "established" or "elder" blogger.
To me there is only the term blogger, you either are or you are not.

Sure i personally might disagree on what blogs seem to have become over the years, but that doesn't mean i am a better blogger than anyone else, afterall it is all about what you want to write about and not what i think you should write about.
Heck when people talk about the "biggest" blogs out there i often disagree, cause i either am not interested in those blogs or just see them as one of those blogs that repost news and that's just the thing with weblogs you often visit a few select blogs that mirror your interests and hey if all you are interested in is the latest gaming news you are probably going to be visiting those blogs that post about that.
Personally i am more interested in reading from peoples own experiences in the games they play (even more if they play the same games i play), more of the diary type of posts (like i do), and those are rare to find.

Now there are probably bloggers out there that will be pissed off by this post, well so be it. I am just stating my opinion here, i am not trying to tell you how you should run your blog.
They may or may not see me as on of those "established" bloggers (probably not), i couldn't care less, the fact is i have been blogging for quite a few years now and do seem to know a little about blogging by now and i definitely am still enjoying myself on my little corner of the web and i do hope that those that do read and enjoy my blog will continue to do so, i really appreciate you being around!