I imagine it’s going to take me a good week to get all that done. I won’t be making any posts this week so no one feels compelled to come read an archived post and click a bad link (yeah right).

So, if you have a link to my previous domain: jaded alt.com make sure that you remove or update said link. If you’d still like to link to me (or a past article) you can just add wordpress in there like so: jadedalt.wordpress.com.

If got dropped on this site (and hopefully the front page) protect yourself and don’t click anything to an outside jadedalt domain. Everything you need should be here, run a search if you’re looking for something in the archives.

I’ll post an update when I can report an all-clear, until then <3.

Although there is a nice smoky darkness that hovers around your almost cartoonishly bright abilities shooting off left and right

the background that hangs on the edge of your periphereal vision keeps grabbing my attention. There is so much detail and variation that you can’t help but stop and looking as you run along to your next mob to kill.

Each landscape has its own distinct flair, providing the backdrop that separates each Act from the next.

In particular, this scenery from the end of Act II helps fill out the story, to make it a real and pervasive threat, and not just a continuation of mob bashing that is so easy to fall into when playing Diablo.

Dungeons also fit into themes, having their own finishes and touches to pull you from story to story, which is a trademark of Diablo, but so wonderfully executed that I felt that it deserved a highlight.

So far I’ve only spent significant time on my Witch Doctor, who has the greatest range of creepy critters to take down their foe

And the whirling dervish of death, no it’s not just the Barbarian (as my husband pointed out WHIRLWIND!) but the Monk, a wonderfully sturdy tank.

And although I would’ve loved to highlight the beautiful videos, I would hate to ruin that experience for anyone!

Whether you blog, are thinking about it, or decided to join during the event, everyone can enjoy a new blog to read, so pick one and get cracking!

Last updated May 29, 2012.

Newbies

Multi-Game Focus/MMO Industry

MMO Juggler,   To Infinity and Beyond !,Kemwer Game Blog,Ravalation, The Incidental Analyst, Funsponge.net, Bloodthorne,Aggrolicious, Warrior Needs Time Badly, Wasd wayDiminishing Returns,Wynnie goes Free to Play, Brazokie’s Blog Space,Casual Aggro, tl-dr, The Poison Mushroom, The Blue Haired Geek, MMO One Night a Week, Gaming for Introverts,  /con mmob, Gaming Abroad, Backseat Game design, Casually Vicious, The Frugal Gamer, This Roaring Silence, Crafty’s Corner, Game Delver, Noob Raider, The Altoholic, stnylan’s musings, commentarilies, Inside the Magic Shop, Beyond Tannhauser Gate, Stabby McStabStab, The 10th Level of Gaming Hell, The Mighty Viking Hamster, The Butterfly Gamer, Why I Game, Ald Shot First, Beyond Reproach

Anarchy Online

Sephora’s Closet, Donovan Drones

Diablo III

Click to Loot

Eve Online

Raspberry Jammed,AntiPlasmaFrequency, toastmansblog,Warp to Zero,EVE All Night, Omens of Onterion, Eons and Eons Away, Horrible Ball of Fire, Red’s Roid Rage

Guild Wars 2

White Charr – A Guild Wars 2 Blog,My Staff is Bigger than Yours, Malefic Incantations, Mistress of Illusions, Divinity’s Reach, Trippin Tyria, MMOARprz, The Diverted Muse, Giddeon’s Hammer, Wald’s Wanderings

Lord of the Rings Online

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Runes of Magic

Saali in Taborea

Starcraft II

Adamant Nomad

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Conveniently Placed Exhaust Port, SWTOR from scratch

Team Fortress II

TFScribbles

World of Warcraft

Not Too Heavy,Unliving a Death Knight, Deathstomp, The Ruminations of a Death Knight, That Was an Accident!, World’s End Tavern,Altaclysmic, Dreadblade, Priest All The Things!,WoWMarketeer, Healing Mains, Flask Half-Empty, Goetia’s Letters, Big Numbers!, Image Heavy, Gaming Brew, Battlemastered, thenotsonewnoob, Auction House on Farm!, Argus or Bust, A Warlock’s Motivational Webguide to Dominating the World, Warcraft Street, Unwavering Sentinel, Bad Tauren, Musings of an Altoholic, Neurotic Girl, Geo’s Ironman Challenge,  Scattered Thoughts, Gnomegates.com, Renai Hunter

Sponsers

Bio Break, Games and Geekery, The Wild Boar Inn, MMO Fallout, Tastes Like Battle Chicken, Grimnir’s Grudge, Roll one hundred, Dragonchasers, Ardwulf’s Lair, Inventory Full, Jaded Alt, Ark’s Ark, Treymane’s Law, Blog de la Burro, Just One MMOre, DocHoliday’s MMO Saloon, High Latency Life, World of Matticus, MMOGamerChick, Skycandy, Nomnom.info, Hunter’s Insight, Life is a Mind-Bending Puzzle, Berath’s Brain Burps, Epic Slant, Bullet Points, Professor Beej, Journeys with Jaye, Screaming Monkeys, Welcome to Spinksville, Vicarious Existence, Casual Is As Casual Does, StarShadow, I Have Touched the Sky, The Ancient Gaming Noob, Just One More Unlock, A Ding World, Yeebo Fernbottom’s MMO Love In, Stropp’s World, Kill Ten Rats, The Jedi Gambit, beauhindman.com, Blue Kae, Gankalicious- Confessions of an Online Altoholic, Live Like A Nerd, Casual Stroll to Mordor, Tish Tosh Tesh, Casting a Shaddoe, A Green Mushroom, ALT: ernative, Parallel Context, ECTmmo, Avatars of Steel, Tales of the Aggronaut, West Karana, Contains Moderate Peril, The Stories Of O, Levelcapped, LoTRO Fashion, Mister Meh’s Supplication, Malchome’s Mind on Gaming, Nerdy Bookahs, T.R. Red Skies, Wasdstomp, Scary Worlds, MMO Compendium, Shards of Imagination, Lotro Family of Flosiin Nightsong, Ardent Defender, Blog of the Vagabond, Creeping…, Gamer BC, Gamerlady, Psychochild’s Blog, Tiger Ears, Mana Obscura, Sheep The Diamond, Middleearthinitiative, red cow rise, Achievements Ahoy, Too Many Annas, I Rez, Therefore I Am Herding Cats, Distilled Willpower, GWOnline.net, A journey through the mind, The Daily Frostwolf – Druid Edition

PLEASE COMMENT WITH CORRECTIONS. THANKS!

D2 to D3 Comparisons

You’ve got five classes to choose from. Each class has a male/female version. I’ve matched ‘em up with how I felt they were the most comparable, although none feel exactly right if you’re looking for a straight transition.

• Barbarian — Barbarian
• Monk — Assassin
• Demon Hunter — Amazon
• Wizard — Mage
• Witch Doctor — Necromancer/Druid

Skill Tree

It’s just not the same. Check out this recap on how skill trees work. (And if you’re completely new to D3 thanks to the annual pass bundle, check out this series for WoW players turning to D3).

Groups

To play D3 you must have a battle tag, such as Windsoar#1521. You can hand your tag out to anyone you please, and they can add you to their friends list. Like the RealID system, it allows people to see if you are on or offline, where you are (quest-wise) and which toon you’re playing. It also crosses Battle.net, so players in WoW, Starcraft, etc. can track you down and see what game you’re playing.

IF you have friends on your list who are ALSO playing Diablo 3, AND they have a public group, you can enter their “dungeon” from the character selection page. You can also choose to join public games at any time during your dungeon. If you run a public game, others can do the same to you, magically appearing within your dungeon at a whim.

You can also choose to create a private game for some soloing R&R or just to keep your game confined to a friend or two. Those wishing to join you will need permission to enter your game, or you can invite them.

Teleporting & Identifying

No, you really don’t need a book of scrolls in your bag at all times. You won’t start with the ability to teleport. When you reach a certain point in the game (Act I, don’t worry) you’ll be handed the ability and a quest to teleport back to town.

Identifying items just takes a handy right click. You’ll identify it yourself.

Easy enough!

The Smith

You’ll unlock a special and wonderful vendor, the Smith during the first act. Don’t worry about upgrading him. Not only will he follow you from Normal to Nightmare, and Act to Act, but he’s also shareable across all your characters.

The Stash

Tiny but powerful, feel free to share gear between characters with the lockbox next to the inn. (And don’t forget to grab your free potions when you first log-in).

If you haven’t made it in yet, I hope you do soon, and if you are, I hope you’re having as much fun as I am! ^^ Happy Diablo-ing!

And while I could provide similar and just as well meaning advice on connecting with the greater community of bloggers (that’s kinda the cornerstone of this initiative!) the most important single piece of advice I could ever hope to give an aspiring blogger is this:

WRITE!

Without blog posts, you’re not a blogger. It’s that simple. And while I specified writing (since that’s what most bloggers do) those with a video blog or screenshot gallery still fall under the same constraint of needing to produce content to.. you know… do what you do!

Now, a professional, or aspiring professional would probably take this time to provide you with some guidelines on the number of words in an article, the frequency of producing content, or something else similarly useful. I’m just not that helpful. Blame it on my contrary nature.

I’ve seen successful bloggers who pop up a post once a patch, and others who provide articles several times a day. I’ve seen one-liners (or single shots) and massive walls of text that give your scroll wheel a workout. Blogging doesn’t have to fit into some neat, tidy journalistic ideal of writing. It just has to be.

IF YOU WRITE, YOU’RE BLOGGING

Now what about readers you ask? The fastest, easiest ways to garner readers is to network with other bloggers/readers in your gaming community (see link above folks). Above and beyond that, it’s all about content, and whether people find something useful, enjoy your unique perspective, or are intrigued by your awesome ability to rant.

People don’t have to love you. People don’t have to hate you either. You don’t have to be quirky or informative, or dependable. You don’t have to adopt a personality to blog. You don’t have to start controversy if it’s not in your nature, but there’s nothing wrong with a dissenting voice, a contrary opinion.

The absolute most important thing to remember if you want to start a blog is that blogging is

PUBLIC WRITING

What you write is available to an audience. What you write can affect yourself and others. Writing can attract crackpots and weirdos, nitpickers and naysayers, as well as wonderfully supportive people. As much nasty commentary as you may see over at WI every day, most small independent little blogs like mine get very little truly negative feedback although critical feedback is a wonderful and engaging part of the blogging process.

If you want to blog,

WRITE!

And when you have questions, find a helpful person over at NBI, read some posts about blogging, or give a /wave to the folks at Blog Azeroth.

STOP THINKING AND START BLOGGING!

The Diablo 3 AH will be very different from current expectations now that the rate structure is out. It’s a fair bit more expensive than expected.

I predict that the Diablo 3 AH will be screwed up, or at the very least screwy. But the % fee isn’t what is going to screw this up. The AH will be screwed on all the other fronts… possibly on purpose.

Unlike Windsor, I’m a bit of an AH junky. I enjoy playing the AH in Warcraft and in every other game I’ve ever played, (including the single player ones). To me, playing a game’s economy is simple meaningless fun. But then again I consider everything in a game to be simple meaningless fun.

There are actually three (not two) AHs in each geographical region and currency:

• normal/gold
• normal/$
• hardcore/gold

15% looks to be Blizzard’s cut and 15% looks to be Paypal’s. That’s high. That leaves the player with 72.25%. It’s sensible to start high because adjusting up (whatever the rate) would cause backlash but lowering it won’t. While high, it’s not unreasonable. I’ve been paying 15% sales tax most of my life. Compared to other real world fees:

• eBay + paypal:          ~15%
• auctioneers:              15-30%
• consignment:            20-50%
• Blizzard + paypal:    27.75%

27.75% = {15% of 85%}

Someone said (which inspired this post) that the high fees would result in people buying gold off 3rd party sites like they do in other games. A valid concern, but I don’t think so. There’s very little reason to buy gold off some shady website when the safe and approved method will be easier. The common thread between all gold buyers is they want it easy above all else. Buyers will be the ones dictating where the transaction takes place. I don’t see a lot of room for black market peddlers in D3. The grey market on the other hand…

The One Dollar Fee

There is a $1 fee per item when using the $AHs. $1 is insanely expensive. (As in nobody sane would use it).

I bought and sold 50+ items on the beta for gold. Had that been on the $AH then that would have been $50+ in transaction fees alone without considering the cost of the items themselves. Assuming the seller would have wanted a couple of bucks for themselves that would have meant a few hundred dollars with only 5 characters through the first act… Crazy!

Before the beta I thought fees would be a penny tops, and most likely a fraction of a penny per transaction. I was way off. At $1 real money, transactions will be reserved for the rarest of the rare BiS items where $1 is a negligible portion of the total cost. I won’t pretend to understand those top end transactions because I personally put zero real world value on virtual items. I’m sure they will still happen because they happened in D2, but not in the volume many expected.

The $1 fee will almost assure that real money will not be the common currency used in game. It will be gold or if gold devalues to the point people consider it worthless, (very possible) a defacto currency will crop up like the old SoJ from D2. Which (if it happens) likely it will be one of the ingame commodities since they can be bought and sold for real money with a 15% cut rather than the $1 base fee. But the big ticket items won’t use the in game AH much except as the final cash out.

The Awful AH Interface

The Diablo 3 AH interface is TERRIBLE. It’s hard to make something worse than the default WoW AH but Blizzard managed it. There’s plenty of interface ideas they could have used from WoW addons but instead they made it worse. Blizzard is taking a cut of everything which stunned me. The AH also has a limit of 10 simultaneous listings with no ability to cancel a listing. It appears to have been purposely designed to be awful. It fails in every conceivable way.

Given all the problems with the AH it will encourage people quickly to find other ways to trade. Since you can trade gold/items directly to other characters (exactly like in WoW) that “other way” is instantly obvious.  Enter the grey market.

I expect that a website will pop up to facilitate trades between individuals. Even a simple forum of WTS/WTB listings would be enough. It won’t take long for something more complex to pop up even if it’s just a Craig’s List clone… (Only if there is real money to be made.) Blizzard has no way to stop that short of banning trades all together which obviously will piss off a lot of people so Blizzard won’t do that. My personal guess is that all the discussion around the $AH and how it affects the industry will be moot.

Inflation in Games

Every economy has some sort of inflation even especially the virtual ones. You’ve certainly seen it if you’ve been playing WoW since vanilla where 1000g was a lot, but now is just a crafting tip. Virtual economies suffer from inflation in particular. It’s a case where millions of people are constantly injecting items and gold into the economy with a neglible amount being used up or removed from the economy. In D3 has it a bit worse. The number of people willing to sell virtual goods will be magnitudes larger than the buyers. That’s a recipe for hyperinflation.

Taking Blizzard at Face Value

However this all might be on purpose. It wasn’t hyperbole when I said the AH seems to be bad on purpose. Everyone (including myself) believes that Blizzard wants to make money on transactions like eBay. But there can be an ulterior motive…

Blizzard has stated officially that want to make enough money to pay for online infrastructure necessary to maintain the game. IE They don’t want to lose anything by maintaining servers indefinitely on a one time game sale. (A quote I dismissed at first as being corp fluff, but I wish I could find again).

If instead Blizzard’s goal was to destroy the black market then purposely designing hyperinflation into the system will accomplish that rather elegantly. Under hyperinflation, in game virtual items will still be valuable in comparison to other virtual items and gold. But in comparison to real dollars, gold suddenly becomes worthless or really close to worthless. But worthless has a huge upside to Blizzard. If it’s worthless then shady black marketeers have no reason to sell it, and all that account hacking and other crap Blizzard spends millions on each year disappears. If it’s worthless, Blizzard manages to sidestep all the significant legal, tax and criminal (money laundering) issues this raises across a large number of jurisdictions.

On one hand the entire AH system appears designed to be bad. On the other, I can’t imagine Blizzard leaving money on the table.  This is a head scratcher for me. I really don’t know which way it will go. Either way there won’t be large quantities of transactions. $1 is a stupid price point for quantity and max listing of 10 isn’t much better. Blizzard won’t make a lot at $1 a piece without quantity which they seemed to have gone out of their way to reduce.

I guess how it all goes depends on drop rates. Blizzard fully controls drop rates so they control the economy. Hyperinflation or no, Blizzard has positioned themselves to either make millions with a new source of revenue or save millions by reducing what they spend on dealing with hacked accounts.
Note: Do NOT run a balance on your Battle.net account or have $AH sales go there unless you know exactly what you are doing. You will regret it otherwise.
A lot of people will assume =wrongly= you could use the $AH to add WoW time via your Battle.net account. You can’t and it will upset many, many people when they cash out into Battle.net and have nothing to spend it on. To buy WoW time you have to Paypal it out of D3 then Paypal it back into WoW. And if you are going to do that you might as well skip the steps and pay for it via your credit card or however you used too instead. (BTW Cashing out Paypal to a bank account is free.)

Another day, another post for the Newbie Blogging Initiative! Before we get started, I’ve had a couple of questions about getting involved. Whether you want to be a blogger (or are a newbie!) or if you wish to sponsor the NBI, just head over to the NBI forums, find the appropriate section of forums (Sponsor or Newbie) and sign up! There’s already some good threads started where brave souls have ponied up some questions. Don’t be shy, we won’t eat you!

The Bard would tell us that our blog is going to be awesome no matter what we call, and in that, he’s not far wrong. Even if you call your blog Home Gardening Tips #101, someone will eventually find your boss articles depending on how you tag and categorize (that’s another article) but shouldn’t you make it easier than that for readers to find you? How many poor gardening enthusiasts are you pissing off?

Taking the time to name your blog is a great exercise for planning out the infant stages of your blogging project and can be a great advertising tool in it’s own right.

A couple of years ago, on a Twisted Nether podcast, I was asked what advice I would give an aspiring blogger, and the first thing that came to mind was the name. I actually set up a blog, theme, first post, and name to boot, but killed it before I ever published, before I ever made a twitter account, or let a single soul know it existed. The name was all wrong for me. At the time that I was setting up my first blog, I played a restoration/elemental shaman, and I started where many do: with a blog that had a class theme.

Class themes are awesome. They make it easy for other people to pop you into a category for their blogrolls. But, the question I mulled, and the one that eventually killed my little blog that never was came to me as I was playing an alt. Did I really see myself as a shaman? And the answer was no. Even now, while I find myself listed as a druid here and there, I don’t really think of myself as a druid blogger, and I have no qualms about writing about Death Knights or Paladins, Rogues or Mages, and I don’t bat an eye at taking Jaded Alt into other gameworlds than WoW when it suits me.

I knew I wasn’t going to play WoW for all time. I knew that I wanted a journal of my gaming experiences, and not necessarily an advice column. I knew I was never going to be a one-class kinda girl. I chose a name that fit who I thought I was as a gamer: in love with gaming, but a bit jaded in my expectations, and a perpetual alt, never a main. Because I chose to go broad in my name, I don’t feel hindered in what I can talk about on my blog.

Of course, there are disadvantages to having a broad name, a name that can handle anything. It makes it harder for other people to pop you into a nifty category. Over the past 3 years, I’ve seen myself listed under various categories: Shaman, Druid, Raiding Guides, Add-on Guides, Guild Leadership.. the list goes on and on. I wouldn’t call my blog any of these things exclusively but it does have hints of all of them. People randomly stumbling across my little piece of the web aren’t going to look at my blog name and have a lightbulb moment as to what they might find here.

I’ve seen bloggers who felt compelled to leave their homes of many years because they’re no longer blogging about warriors, no longer raid, or have switched games. It’s ok to close your blog when you’re done with an idea or project. Some content crosses boundaries more readily than others. If you only talk about the nuts and bolts of a class, it’s likely that you’ve built up a warrior following, and you might not have a lot of readers with interests in alternative games or even alternative classes. It’s ok to say goodbye to your fan base and start fresh.Having a very specific name in these cases may help you put your baby to bed when the time comes, and give you all the advantages of easy categorization.

However, if your blog is not replete with detailed guides on dungeons and classes, closing your doors when you shift focus from a class or gameworld may not make much sense. Lots of players who game have an interest in other gaming-worlds, even if they’re only currently playing one. Others, like myself, play a little bit of everything, do a little bit of everything in their game of choice, and follow a number of blogs on subjects from clothing to raiding and everything in between. Having a flexible name choice may help you keep your readers for the long-term.

So before you take the plunge and pick a name permanently, have a little brainstorming session with yourself. Things to think about as you narrow down your list to your identity in the MMO blogging community:

• Will my blog focus on a class, game, or the industry?
• What kind of a content do I wish to provide? Stories? Guides? Critiques?
• Are you a one-world gamer?
• Do you like reading blogs with multiple focuses in a single game?
• Do you like reading blogs that cover multiple games?
• Have you ever unsubscribed from a blog because it changed class/game-world?
• Do you want to define your blog by what you do or by who you are?
• Will you stop playing/writing if you change focus?
• Are you comfortable closing a blog if your interest changes?
• Would you want to start a new blog (or have several) for different aspects of what you want to write about?

Although I’m obviously biased because of my own choices, there is no right answer for how to name your blog. In the end, you have to make the choice that best meets your needs, that provides a platform for what you want to achieve out of your blog. For a last little mental exercise, check out a blogroll, even mine if you wish. Check out the names, click on the links. See if your expectations were met between the name and the content. Ask yourself what you would have named a blog. Can you see yourself with something generic, like World of Matticus or Stories of O, or does your inner blogger cry out for something specific, something that screams what you play, not just who you are like Fel Concentration or Treebound?

In the end, the important thing is to pick a name you love. Then it’s time to get blogging!

Before we get into a lots of nuts and bolts of how to manage your blog, you really have to decide whether you want to blog.

While no one can really answer that question but you, here’s some things to think about as you contemplate signing up for your own writing space.

What It’s Good For

Do you like reading about your favorite games? Do you spend a portion of your day cuddled up with your S.O. blabbing about your recent kill, or even worse, don’t have anyone to talk to about your gaming hobby?

Or you could be that person who swamps their guild forums with every guide and link to every juicy tidbit about your class, patch notes, or an interesting story you read over the weekend. Not that I’m judging you mind… I was that person.

I know I wish some of my great commentators who don’t blog would, because they have such thoughtful, lovely things to share. A blog can find a great way for you to share your enthusiasm, your thoughts, and the resources you love. But even better, it provides you a great way to connect with other players who enjoy doing what you do and love talking about it.

What to Write

The great thing about blogging about gaming, is that the topics are limited solely by your interest and your time. There are hundred of things to talk about, and just as many ways to talk about them. Some general MMO blogging profiles focus on things like:

• Reviews
• Guides
• Artwork/Screenshots
• Development
• Game Experience
• Activities

You can talk about anything from your favorite class to the industry as a whole, and everything in between. There’s always, always room for another voice and another perspective, even on something as seemingly simple as leveling.

For Love or Money

Now, if you want to be a professional writing-type blogger who actually gets compensated for your work, my series will not provide any great pointers. I’m all about the amateur, the fly-by-the-seat of your pants and produce what you love, not what you have to, blogging. However, if you are interested in being paid for writing, I can say with absolute certainty that writing, and writing often is the best way to get yourself a permanent writing position p-e-r-i-o-d.

If you ever want to write for money, it sure doesn’t hurt to write for love first. Pon recently discovered the difference between writing for yourself and for an employer, but I’m positive that writing for herself helped her get that paid position in the long-run. (Warning: Plenty of liberal ranting and cursing!)

Time

Unfortunately, like all other hobbies, blogging takes up time. Fortunately, how much time it take depends on you and what you want to write about. Guides, lovely and useful as they are, are time-killers. Many guide-writing blogs, only write guides simply because keeping their content provided and updated can easily rule out other writing. Opinion columns can be done rather quickly, but depending on the tone, the number of links, and whether or not you have or even want images, time can tick away on them as well. And while I don’t have an internal editor breathing down my neck, for the perfectionist, the aspiring professional, or even the good blogger, you’ll likely need to set aside some time for editing and updating.

With all that being said you set your schedule. You can post every day or once a month. Different formats are likely to produce different results, but it allows you to have a lot of control of how much time or energy blog will take from your regularly scheduled life!

Undecided?

If you still don’t know if you wanna be a blogger, still want to let things percolate a bit, don’t forget to sign up at the NIB Forums for links to additional advice, and a great place to ask questions and get answers from other bloggers. If you have a question specifically for me, write in.

And as a last word of advice: write it. Even if you don’t have a blog, but you have the urge to write do it. Ask an established blogger to take a guest post and see how you like it. You might find yourself contributing so often, that you’ll know you need your own space.

Next time on my NBI series: What’s In a Name? Setting Up Your First Blog

And for the curious, yes, this post’s title is gaming inspired.

For the month of May, in conjunction with a swarm of other bloggers across the MMO genre, I’ll be posting about the nuts and bolts of blogging, the good, the bad, and technical, to encourage you, and you, and yeah, you over there, to take your thoughts, stories, and screenshot folder, and share them through a blog.

I started my own blog in September 2009, somewhat as a whim, but primarily as an archive. What’s more fitting for a historian, right? You see, I had all these memories, experiences, notes, and other random stuff that kept getting posted, lost, and saved in random folders. I really wanted a way to organize my thoughts, my history with gaming in a place that wouldn’t be controlled by my guild associations or through the implosion of laptops.

Funnily enough, I’ve found that others have found some small kernel of value out of all that miscellaneous meanderings. Some people just seem to like, well, me (or my screenshots!) And through this process of sharing I’ve discovered a whole new world, or rather, a tiny segment of the larger gaming community that also shares my need to share and helps provide tips, advice, and musings about the game-worlds that they enjoy.

So this month, I open the curtain behind Jaded Alt, and take you on a micro-tour of the decisions that have gone into making my blog mine as well as some general advice (that I’d wish I’d had!) about starting and maintaining a blog and a web presence. If you have a specific question, leave a comment, or send me an e-mail. Take a moment to visit the whole host of gaming bloggers who will be providing advice and thoughts on blogging, and ask yourself:

Am I a blogger?

Special thanks to Syp over at Bio Break for organizing the hordes, and Greg “Rackham” Moran of The Jedi Gambit for the lovely graphic!

Tera was an interesting game. They claim the first responsive MMO-combat system. While it isn’t the only game I’ve seen that requires you to watch the beady glint in your enemies eyes to block, dodge, and run, it is done rather well. The game can be played with mouse/keyboard or a PS3 controller, and I’ll admit I was a bit worried about how the controls would work when I first jumped into the game. However, the swivel mouse movement (similar to Skyrim) was pretty responsive and I found it easy to get a hang of the differences in movement/combat faster than I’d thought.

Because it was a stress-test weekend, I had difficulty getting more than one character made, so I focused on a lancer, the shield-wearing tank. Resources are the standard health, mana and stamina, although stamina plays a different role in Tera than I’ve seen elsewhere. As you fight, your stamina gradually diminishes, and so too does your ability to regenerate health and mana on the battlefield. I honestly didn’t play long enough to see how far my stamina would stretch, but in general, I hate returning to town/camp, and am a bit leery of the mechanic over time.

To be honest, I don’t really understand the premise of the game beyond: we discovered a new island and all the evil happened. Hopefully that storyline will develop a bit more as you get further along in the game. I had a hard time with the color palette which consisted of a ton of pastel colors, and seemed rather bland, even with the nice variety of critters they had running around.

Personally, for a Tera-like experience, I think I could find a F2p system that I liked just as well. It didn’t engage me as much as I’d like, although I will say the epic L20 battle as an introduction to your class was pretty cool.

Fortunately, by that time, Diablo had stopped tossing me Error messages for log-in, and I was able to run around a bit. I started with a demon hunter, which is similar to an amazon. While I’ll compare these to earlier D2 characters, the game-play has changed a bit from 2 to 3. Stat allotment got tossed, and now your character will automatically granted stats on leveling. However, the tree-system has changed quite a bit, and in a really interesting way.

There are base skills which unlock at certain levels. As you level, each of these base skills can have up to 4 variations. In addition, also unlocked as you level, different glyphs become available that allow you to change the “flavor” of each skill, such as type of weapon damage, etc. Skills/glyphs can be changed on the fly as you move throughout dungeons, and all in all (I maxed at 11, I can’t tell you much beyond that) it looks like it’ll provide a lot of variation.

Each class also has a set of skills specifically for defensive purposes. With the demon hunter, in addition to my standard snaring shot, I also got a trap that would snare enemies, I could turn invisible, or cartwheel my way out of reach. It made the burn and kite that is fairly standard for Diablo games a bit more interesting, as I had to choose which defense I thought would be best between standard runs and the final boss.

Another interesting side-note is the, well, side-notes. When you kill new enemies you get this fancy new button “New Lore.” It’ll pop up good ol’ Deckard Cain to talk to about the beastie, which I thought was a fun touch. And no more hording little red and blue spellbooks to identify your items or get back to town. /cheer

I also had some company for a bit with my one of my guildmates, and the group-play works out seamlessly. I remember setting up LAN connections with the hubby so we could destroy the minions of darkness in D2, and while it was easy enough, it took some prep time. With the new battletags, inviting other players to your dungeon is as easy as sending a group invite in WoW. Battle standards allow you to catch up with your friends mid-dungeon, even if you’re just running back to town to sell.

All in all, if you’ve played Diablo in the past, the transition will be simple enough. It’s still a point and click system and it’s heart, although instead of 1-4 being potions, you’ll now have some extra abilities. The mood is still dark and dreary, with the standard demon/angel motif we know and love.