We Have MOVED!!!

Alrighty everybody, I have the site in good working order and we’re ready to make the move. Our new home is Game by Night. It’s a blog similar to this one but more open in format and, if I can say so myself, much nicer looking. If you enjoy reading this site, please visit us there. We offer an RSS feed as well as email updates, so be sure to update your information.

Fellow bloggers, I’m not asking anyone to, but I’d sure appreciate any help you can give in spreading the word and updating your link here on the side bar. Also, if you’ve been kind enough to link to me on your blogroll and I haven’t returned the favor, please let me know since I’d certainly like to.

Thank you all for your readership here. I’ve had a lot of fun. We’re just beginning over there, in the darkness, with a little introduction to a game I never expected to see. Come visit, won’t you? See you on the other side!

Quick update

Hi Everyone,

The site is almost done! I have a layout I like and have customized. All of the placeholder sites are in place and waiting to be filled. The main things I have to finish up have to be done in photoshop, which takes a little bit of time. Pretty much all of my free time is going into tweaking, fixing, and creating at the moment, so I haven’t been able to play many games to write on. That will change soon. I’m hoping to have the site done tomorrow. For now, hang tight here and I’ll let you know when it’s done!

IMPORTANT: Fires of War is moving!

Since the webhosting sale was ending pretty quick, I decided to jump at the opportunity and signed up for an official domain name and hosting space. That means something very significiant for this blog.

First, once I have everything set up, the content found herein may be lost. I haven’t quite learned how to transfer things over or if that’s even a possibility given how I’m going about this.

Second, Fires of War itself will be discontinued. Many of you may recall that I posted a goodbye letter not too far back. All of the reasons that I stated in that posting were true. I felt like I lacked ambition and really much to discuss. It’s a bit of a funk that has something to do with feeling limited by the context which I’ve built for this space. Fires of War is an mmorpg blog. So, naturally, non-MMO posts seem a little out of place. More than that, the name “Fires of War” is fitting for a Warhammer blog but a little out of place for a normal gaming site. After all, the name doesn’t really scream “gaming” does it?  If I saw somebody going to firesofwar.com, I’d think they were going to an Anti-War website before anything else. That’s not really what I’m going for.

My next dwelling will be more open in format. I even intend to have a separate page for short fiction, as that is another hobby of mine (not that I’m expecting the majority of my traffic to care about it, really).

That being said, it’ll pretty much be a name change for most of the people who are used to reading here ;-). I’ll be posting about some console stuff and other things in the media, or really anything that I find interesting, with a central focus on gaming. Think Darren’s Common Sense Gamer. Of note though, is that I may change the voice you’re used to hearing in my writing a little bit. I tend to limit myself from time to time here simply because I have an established readerbase that has expectations from me.

Interestingly enough, I should also be bringing a new voice into the picture from time to time. A good friend of mine, Ryan from The Game Seers podcast has signed on to be a contributer. There’s a couple of other people I’ll be talking to as well.

Along with all of this, I’ll be dropping the handle of “Raegn.” The truth of the name? It was an RP throwback from my early WoW days. After all, how cool would it be to have a name that said “reign” but different?! It’s not my chosen handle though, so transitioning into that.

So, as you can tell, a lot of things are changing yet in the most important ways remaining the same. A move to our own domain will be a good thing. We’ll lose some readers, initially, sure. That’s unfortunate but I’m hoping that most of you will follow along to our new home.

And the name of that home? GamebyNight.com (no, there’s nothing up there yet ;-)). I’ve also registered DungeonRunOnline.com too, so who knows what I’ll do with that.

I won’t turn this into another, “So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!” post if for no other reason than we’re not moving yet. There’s preparation to do. I would anticipate I’ll have the other site up and ready by about the middle of next week.

Looking for advice…

Hey Everyone,

It’s been a little silent around here for a few days! One of the reasons for this is that I’ve been looking into getting the blog moved to its own domain. I have to be honest though, I’m really just fishing. I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m searching for web host reviews and trying to guess which one will be best. Right now, 1and1 Hosting is winning with a 6 month payment plan at about $4 a month. They’re offering 300GB of monthly transfer space which sounds good. But, hell, like I know any better. I’m pretty sure it’d work for the site now but, like any blogger who wants to invest in his site, I’m hoping to expand.

So, I’m asking you, well-informed reader, do you know of any good and cheap web hosts? More importantly, any good and cheap web hosts that won’t make me pay for 3 years up front to remain cheap? And also, any ideas on what kind of bandwidth goal I should be shooting for? Unlimited is nice, to be totally open, I’m looking for the smallest investment up front as I can right now.

Feel free to post in the comments but if you’d rather email, you can catch me at firesofwarblog@gmail.com.

Thanks in advance!

Weighing Out Payment Models

I don’t know about you but I’m getting tired of the $15 a month subscription fee. It’s archaic and out dated in today’s gaming market. Thankfully, it seems to be on the way out, what with Blizzard even talking about getting rid of it (that will be the day).

But what are our options if we get rid of it? Micro-transactions, for one. Paid expansions for another. And then, there’s my personal favorite, the Eastern model.

Microtransactions are viable but not ideal. There’s too much temptation to offer “exclusives” to members that pay more. I’m all for allowing people additional customization and other perks, so long as the original game is flush with content. In other words, you should have a complete robust game before microtransactions come into the mix and, even then, the player should never feel pressured to pay. Microtransactions only work when they don’t negatively impact the game of free players.

Paid expansions are an interesting idea but hold the potential to be as expensive, if not moreso, than the normal payment model. Guild Wars proved that it can be done effectively but their expansions were true, full blown, content upgrades. In other words, real expansions and not just moderate patches like what you see emerging in games like Final Fantasy 11. If a game like WoW were to move to a paid expansion model, I think it’d take the FFXI form and wind up costing people more. I’m not a big fan of the paid expansion model.

Finally, we have the Eastern model. I’ve only recently had experience with this payment method and I have to say that I love it. This model involves paying by the hour and is seen widely in China and other Eastern countries. Many people seem to look down on it; however, I fail to see the issue.

To put it in perspective, I recently bought 200 hours on the Chinese version of Aion for a little under $10. Rounding up to an even 10, I’m paying roughly five cents an hour. For that price, you could buy 300 hours of gametime for the standard monthly fee we currently pay. That’s 75 hours a week and almost 11 hours a day, broke down. Great value if you ask me.

Then again, we have another rarely seen model, which is the Lifetime Subscription. I like this option in the same way that I like Guild Wars expansions. Somehow, it’s easier to swallow one bigger purchase than a monthly payment I have to budget for – even if it’s cheap. Lifetimes are valuable in that they provide the option of something to play, without the obligation of dropping a credit card number.

On the whole, I think I’m glad the monthly sub is on the way out. It’s not ideal, in any way, and, in truth, isn’t beneficial to the average player who won’t utilize the same playtime as a more hardcore player dishing out the same amount of cash. I’m not one for cash shops either but I kind of like the option to buy something neat for pennies on the dollar. And I think that’s where we’re headed. Hell, if WoW went F2P I might even come back. Yet, somehow, I think the day Blizzard makes that decision will be the day WoW is officially on the way out.

I broke…

I cracked.

I thought I’d steer clear of it but the temptation was just… too… much.

Like the fanboy I’ve proven to myself that I am, I went out and bought Final Fantasy 11 for the Xbox 360.

Don’t roll your eyes yet. The thing that pushed me to make the buy? The full game and all of the expansions for a mere $14.99 at Gamestop. Even if the game is over 6 years old, that’s a bargain price for arguably the most successful console MMO (only lasting console MMO) ever. And it’s Final Fantasy… come on.

How is it, you wonder? Well, I really don’t know. I haven’t been able to play it yet.

I bought it about six hours ago and it’s been a pretty incredible hassle since. Initially, I figured I’d pop the game in and go except it didn’t turn out that way.

The first thing the game asks you to do is install the PlayOnline Viewer (POL for short — a bloated launcher with email capability) and register for an account. I got done with the registration fine, except I wasn’t going to be able to be home to complete the full game download/update at the moment. So, I shut everything down and went about my business. Unfortunately, when I tried to start the game later that night, I got an “Unrecognized Disc” error. As it turns out, this happens when you don’t fully exit the viewer every time. The only fix at this stage? Format the hard drive. Yeah, my thoughts exactly.

But I did it, losing out on the several Xbox Original games and saves that I’d built up. When that was done, everything seemed to go smooth. Until update time. For some strange reason, I get to about 80% of the way through the update process and get error message POL-0250 which seems to result from server side issues and router configurations. After looking into it, I set my router up with all of the ports they needed (a mere 15-63,000 of them if you’re on a console).

The result? No change. The servers are up, so that shouldn’t be it and I’m at a loss.

Quite simply, *eyeroll*. I will give this game another few attempts over tomorrow. Depending on what happens, FFXI may find itself a new home on my shelf.

Update: Well, I got it to work. The fix? Returning my router to factory settings and older firmware. So, by disabling port forwarding and re-enabling my router firewall (with no exceptions), it worked. Kind of backwards, isn’t it?

Don’t be alarmed…

A preparatory post was put up by accident earlier this morning. At this time, Fires of War is safe and sound.

Gon’ Get Married or Gone Honeymoonin’!

Hi Everyone,

The time has come! Tomorrow is my wedding day and for some strange reason my fiance still sees fit to take the big walk with me. The chain is being attached to her ball come the morn (yes, I’m the ball) and we’ll be whisked away to Disney World for the week after.

As much as I hate to be away and hold onto my Aion, Vanguard, and DDO comments for so long, Mickey’s calling and I can’t ignore the ring.

I’ve been pumped full of adrenaline since this morning. The funny thing is, I’m not nervous about marrying her or having cold feet. For some reason, after the rehearsal I haven’t been able to shake this tickly feeling in my stomach. I’m scared and excited and can’t wait to be someone’s husband.

One funny thing happened this morning during our baptism (neither of us had it done before but each had always wanted to, so this made the perfect opportunity). Here’s how it goes. You’re in a pool in the front of the hall. The pastor puts his hand in front of your face and another behind your back. When he says the word, you bend your knees and lean back into the water.

Yeah, except I guess I suck at leaning because I went back too far and almost pulled the poor guy over. I got myself up, thankfully but not without a little embarrassment. Yeah. I suck at leaning.

Anyways, I’m off to the jewelry shop to pick up Mrs. Raegn’s ring and then off to spend the evening with my dad. Wish me luck on getting to sleep!

Aion Tonight… Tomorrow?

Just a quick update. I’m downloading the Chinese open beta version of Aion at the moment. Hopefully, I’ll have it up and running tonight with the English language fix. Expect a report this week! 🙂

Richard Bartle Encourages New Writers and Offers New Insights

For those wondering, this is the login screen of a MUD (aka MUSH)

If you’ve followed any of the Richard Bartle controversy in the past months, I encourage you to read on.

In response to my post the other day and subsequent response to his comment, he stopped by today to share a little bit more of himself. I wanted to share it with everyone so we could all see him in this light. If you think about it, he’s doomed to be criticized for whatever opinion he shares and that’s really an unfortunate thing. His comments today earned him more respect from me and I’d imagine they’ll do the same for you. Check it out.

I wasn’t intending to be condescending, and apologise if I came across that way.

Actually, I kinda was intending to be condescending to art snobs who refuse to see what’s before their very eyes, but I wasn’t intending to be condescending to players. Players are what make MMOs what they are (that dedication in my book, “to the players”, is genuine).

Sadly for me, there’s a preconception among many MMO commentators that I’m somehow aloof to the general player population. I don’t know how that came about, but it’s there. It means that anything I say which gets out into the public domain is viewed first and foremost with this in mind. I’m deliberately massaging my own ego, or seeking legitimacy, or trying to recapture past glories, or lording it over people.

I don’t want to be in this position. I don’t want to be relevant. Other people should be way ahead now, so when I read their articles I think, “wow, why didn’t I think of that?”. Here’s the thing: they probably are there already, only we don’t hear about them. I only have to post on a blog read by fewer than 100 people and I’m torn to shreds. Other people are probably writing great stuff elsewhere, but they’re not noticed because there’s no “young gunslinger taking down old-timer” kudos in it.

I urge you, if you see something you like, that takes MMOs in a new direction, that says something that makes you think (you don’t have to agree with it – so long as it makes you think), then please give it publicity. Then, you’ll have people who genuinely deserve your praise, not someone who is merely where they are through an accident of history. I’d much rather potter away in the garden shed of my blog than have scorn poured on me every time I open my mouth on the subject of MMOs, I can assure you..!

Richard

 

Thanks again for stopping by Richard.

———————
equip bracers
You equip Bracers of Banded Empathy.
<worn on wrist> Bracers of Banded Empathy (Powerful Magic)

exam bracers
Bracers of Banded Empathy
[AC| {85} RESPECT (+3) UNDERSTANDING (+3)]

nod
You nod assuredly.
quit
Fare the well!
—————————