I would like to thank the people who wanted to help me do so. As you can see some content related to the game has already been pushed out. The pictures ended up on my G+ profile.

Yesterday I was looking over my GoG.com account and browsing the games they have there. GoG is a nice little DRM free game site. Actually, this interview with the guys behind it explains it a lot better:

Now why would I introduce this to a update post? Well the fact of the matter is, I believe this site might become vital to the future me and gaming. The video above explained that they don’t only provide older games, they also make sure they work on newer systems, like say Win Vista and 7. Which is great! Anyways, I’m feeling myself sucked into gaming again, and will be wanting to relive some good old classics, that I either played with a friend or for some reason didn’t own myself.

Because of this above, I want to state that my future income via Flattr (social micro donations, for mah awesome blogposts!) will be dedicated towards buying these games. Which reminds me, I came across a small game (via Flattr) that’s currently in Alpha, that I’ll be trying out and reviewing within the next 2 weeks.

The differences and similarities between Guild Wars 2 and World of Warcraft

The addiction, even if I only spent one weekend in Guild Wars 2 during the beta, I felt a very similar feeling to how I felt when I was addicted to World of Warcraft. And addiction can be a bad thing if not handled correctly. In March I got back to gaming, about 2.5 years after I stopped gaming all together. Something in Guild Wars 2 brought out the same feelings, that I’ve not had since then.
Even these past few days, after the weekend was over, I’ve felt the urge to play even if I know I can’t.

The hardcore, the dedicated player side, of the games. I was into hardcore raiding in WoW, I was one of those whiney bitches thinking they made the game TOO EASY raiding wise. When I played Guild Wars, and GvG (8v8 man PvP) some of the matches I loved the most, were the gridlock type of games, because it brought out a sort of intensity, and if one team screwed up their timing once they were screwed. What I really enjoyed when playing GW2 was that you had to be on your toes most of the time. You couldn’t leisurely lay back and play. I guess you can, to an extent, but if you played as well, you understand what I’m getting at. I loved that it was hard, and complicated from start. It might end up taking a strain on me on release, but I truly believe that I will love the game because of this. In WoW there wasn’t much of this, you could mindlessly do most of the things, even raid at the end of my reign and that gets quite boring.

Questing in GW2 will be completely different from what you’re used to as a WoW player. Remember running around a city to find all the quest givers, only to realize you can not fit all the quests into your quest log because it’s limited? I did this so many times before WoW upped the numbers of quests you could pick up. With GW2 you will not need to worry about such nonsense! Unfortunately, if you’re anything like Jesse Cox, you might get disheartened by this new way of questing. A quest line does have a tendency to steer you in the right direction and make sure you get to where you’re going, one way or the other. Without any standard type of quests this might get confusing.
For me heading into GW2 I knew so much of the way that the game lined up with the Renown Regions (the little heart for “quest areas” on the map), and the other progressing dynamic events that I was quite comfortable with it. I can imagine that if you’re not quite prepared for it, it can be overwhelming.

Player vs Player, in WoW you’re used to, if you’re playing on a PvP server, always be ready for an attack and that you’ll be running into enemies from the “Other side” that you will have to choose how to encounter. “Will he attack, or will he not?”. In GW2 there is not enemy except for PvE related stuff in the PvE world. And there is no room for dueling. You will not have to worry about Fridays and Saturdays being Gankvale fest. (Stranglethorn Vale in WoW was a very popular place for higher level players to attack lower level players during the weekends.)
In GW2 there’s something called World vs World (vs World), WvW. Where you on your Home World is fighting two other worlds for the glory and honor of that fortnights fighting. 3 teams, in what becomes what I would like to call a MMO-RTS-RPG. You need to get siege units out in the field and strategy will be involved so that’s where I see the real time strategy coming in, I know it’s not typical.

Playing with your friends on different servers. In Guild Wars 2, even if you and your friends choose a different server to play on, this will not stop you from playing and questing together. You can visit a different server and play there as a guest. Only thing you will not be able to do is join that worlds WvW, for somewhat obvious reasons.
You will also be able to  transfer to another server as your home server for money as in most other MMO’s.

Now to one of my best and most addictive parts, the crafting! No more of “Oh no I just spent loads and loads of expensive mats on crafting this one thing and I didn’t get that last lousy point!“, as we’ve all probably encountered at one time or another in WoW. The crafting system in GW2 is based on experience. As you’re gaining experience in the crafting of your choosing your character also gains experience for it’s own level. This also goes out in the PvE when gathering from mining nodes, trees and herbs. Except you don’t need experience to gather from different nodes, just the right tools (which are available from merchants). On top of that, you don’t have to spend all your money on learning new recipes. As you’re leveling your crafting you get the new recipes for your level automatically. On top of which you can use the discovery tab, to find out if different materials can create something new you didn’t know if.

There are more points I could compare the two games, but I’m quite settled here. If you have any comments or insights, your own views on the matter feel free to leave a comment here or anywhere!

Edit: First I’d like to say that the beta event were for pre-purchase orders, and in the past GW have used Beta weekends for all of their user base to help out balance out new expansions. This said, Arena.net already has my money, and I don’t mind that they do.

With a beta, one is to expect certain things, like bugs. 
I’ve heard users explain beta play and getting into betas as “I get to try out the game for free and if it’s shit I won’t bother with it later, yey me”. Which is not something I agree with. In this case most of the beta players had already bought the game, so there’s a bit difference in attitude. Non the less, all of these people need to learn to expect the same thing when it comes to playing Beta, of any game, or product for that matter.

There are a few points of beta-tests to keep in mind, but let us start a few steps earlier:
When games or a product (will stick with a game further in this reference) is developed the developer need help to test the product, the first step is often to just throw an idea someone else general direction to see if it might fly. Look at this as you asking your friend “Should we got out side for a BBQ today?”, if your friend replies, “Today it’s raining, maybe another day will be better” it is definitely not the best time to go for a BBQ. This said, some of the best BBQs can be in the worst weather, fighting the forces at hand and all that, but it doesn’t have the immediate layout for success, and will most likely not bring a lot of people. Exactly this goes for game development as well.

First semi-public tests will be Alpha tests, which most people don’t even hear about for games because it’s so early in development and heavily NDA’d (Non Disclosure Agreement). I have know people to be in those only because I happened to live in the same house. People keep these NDA’s as they should, but it’s also why you don’t hear about it.

Beta-testing. First these are usually closed, for a bit more testing of new things. The main point of Alpha and Beta-tests is to iron out bugs, after all. Which is actually the point I want to get to. If you’re in a beta, it’s to help the developers solve bugs. Complaining about said bugs in the game, the servers or similar, is kinda mean.  The best way to help is usually to report bugs and issues as you encounter them. Suggestions and ideas are often welcome too.

This weekends play of Guild Wars 2 Beta entailed a lot of waiting around for the servers to wake up again. Which sure was a hassle and horrible to wait for, WE WANTED TO PLAY, after all that was why we were there. But when we helped the team, by reporting the error codes we encountered, we’ve hopefully helped them stresstest their servers in a way they didn’t expect for this weekend and now the game at release will be better for it.

You might also be interested in reading this blog post over at Kill Ten Rats, “When beta isn’t beta but really is“.

The minimum specs listed for the game:

Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or better
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3, AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 or better
2 GB RAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800, ATI Radeon™ X1800, Intel HD 3000 or better (256MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better)

The trouble with all the new type of hardware is that that I’m not used to (I knew all this stuff back when Pentium 4 was the shit) what it’s all called. My head did not leap towards it actually being a few different (3 actually) examples. And it turned out that I have the AMD Athlon 64 X2.

But, what I want to find out is, has anyone managed to get the game going on lower specs, to some what of a success? Let’s pool together and find out! I will also put up a post on the forum, when it’s not over populated (will be linked in later)

What are your specs, and how are you experiencing it working for you thus far?

I know that I am not, and mainly I’m laughing it off. Honestly I’m not even sure if my computer will handle the game, but it will be a very interesting weekend! Non the less…
If my computer decides to fail, there is the option to turn to streams. People will be live streaming the beta event, and I have a feeling they won’t really be quiet. Guild Wars 2 Live has prepared for 60 hours of streaming goodness! You will want to be there if you’re not in the game but interested in it.
Make sure you’ve installed your client, try to log in and you’ll see that your account is set but there isn’t any beta event currently active, so you can’t actually log in. This was a great thing to find out that everything works as it should.

In my previous post, I had 5 points that I shared with you to survive the weekend. Let me check if I’ve got everything prepared:

1. What do I want to do this weekend? I want to play with my guild mates from Guild Wars, we’ve already prepared on and decided that we’ll be playing on Augury Rock. Yes!
   However I have not decided which race or profession to play, but I believe I’ll know when I log in. It’s likely to be Necro or Elementalist.
2. Caffeine and Snacks! I have snacks, loads of it. And I’ll likely be finding me some caffeine tomorrow, but which type? Energy drinks? Just plain coke? Coffee? That far I’ve not gotten yet. Might also try and prepare something easy made food wise.
3. Take Breaks during the weekend. Do I have to?! But I don’t want to. When thinking about it right now, I know I will not want to take a break while I’m playing, while the sensible part of me knows that… fresh air is said to be good. We’ll see how it goes.
4. Prepare for the new experience and awesomeness. Considering how long we’ve been hyping this, how much I’ve been talking to IRL friends and new online friends within the GW/GW2 community, I’m set, ready and gone!
5. Socializing deluxe with dynamic events and so forth.  Partly prepared with Guild, hoping to see some other awesome Europeans that I already know, or know of showing up on the same server as me (Augury Rock!). I’m so looking forward trying out the dynamic events!

Have a great weekend, and expect various updates from me, either here on the blog or on Twitter.

ESports is so much more than just the players, it’s also about the people creating the events and all the amazing casters (people who broadcast commentary for the game play) out there. During the past month or so, I’ve slowly been nudging my way into this community again. I currently follow casters like TotalBiscuit, HuskyStarcraft and Day[9] either via YouTube (linked) or Twitch.tv.

Twitch.tv  features video from the top gaming personalities, players, tournaments, leagues and commentary, in addition to the most active and interesting discussions around video games.

Through their streaming you will either earn money via ads or subscriptions (from users who’ll then get it ad free). This is a great concept, and an easy way to get support from your fans. Neither of this is really a micro-donation, but it’s close to it. Which leads me on to talking about the actual use of micro-donations.

This weekend there’s going to be a StarCraft II tournament in Stockholm, DreamHack EIZO Open. They are having their Fan Award partly funded via Flattr, which is a micro donation service. According to DreamHack’s website it will work as the following:

We at DreamHack have already put in 10 000 SEK to guarantee a great start to the award, you decide who will be get the money by voting for your favorite player by using the social micropayment system Flattr. Flattr has also sponsored another 18 000 SEK that will be shared out among the audience in Stockholm who can use it to flattr their favorite players.

Sign up to Flattr today and flattr your favorite player to vote for them, you can also donate funds to the award via Flattr!

Wow, i wanna flattr, vote and donate to the award! How does it work?
If you are on the event, you got a voucher, just do as it says!

If your at home:
1. Go to flattr.com/register. If you sign up with Twitter or Facebook it´s a 5 second process.
2. Add some funds to your Flattr account with your credit card or PayPal.
3. Flattr your favorite players to vote for them here!
4. To be extra awesome, you should also donate via Flattr to the award here!

 

If you’re into the StarCraft II scene, and know some of your favorite players are going to be at this tournament? You can vote for them as well, straight from home!

How can eSports actually benefit from micro donations, when there’s already services like Twitch and YouTube for monetization?
I believe that most fans want to support whom ever they are a fan of, both in terms of spreading the word and if they can help out with money. Not all people can afford setting up a subscription on Twitch, or sending PayPal donations ala $10 or €10. These would be the normal restraints.
Unfortunately I feel that there might be a fear, and genuine concern that your followers will pay you less money because they can skimp it down to €2 a month split between all their favorite people. This is true and very understandable. The average monthly is higher than €2 (I haven’t seen any numbers in a while) and a lot of people are significantly higher. There’s also donations through Flattr, in this case, which can even it out.

If I’m participating in the eSports community, how can I use Flattr to my benefit?
This is always important when it’s about money, be clear about what you’ll do with money if you’re asking for it. If you’re already successful enough through ad-revenue, say like TotalBiscuit and the Yogscast, maybe you could say specifically where you’d use the money from micro donations, maybe you would collect it to a charity you appreciate, or fund a tournament/fan award of sorts yourself.

What I’ve seen in the Flattr-community is that people appreciate transparency when it comes to your received donations. Especially among the successful people (there are users who get between €500-€2000 a month) I have seen that communicating back to your fans about what you’ve earned via micro donations will
1. Remind them that the option is there,
2. Give them positive feedback that you appreciate the support,
3. Gives you the opportunity to find more people who might be interested in trying it out, thusly helping yourself and other people in the community.

Some of the most successful cases have been people who’ve already been successful in their field. The greatest examples are Podcasters from Germany, WikiLeaks and some Open Source projects. I’m hopeful that this can become something awesome to use for casters, competitors and organizers alike!

There’s already people lined up to support people like Huskystarcraft, CynicalBrit/TotalBiscuit and Day[9]tv.

As I final note I would want to say: If you do sign up for Flattr and hope to get money from it, tell people about it. Add the links to your info, add your stuff to the site so it shows up in the catalog. And keep your fingers crossed!

1. First you want to prepare  for what you want to be doing during this weekend. Focus on PvP or PvE? What profession and race do you want to play?  Do you want to play the personal story, tag tail some people? Maybe find some new people to befriend even before the Beta Event, to play with?
2. Stack up on caffeine and snacks! Choose your poison. I recommend having a few bottles of water as well. Gamers might not be known for being healthy but choosing some of the healthier alternatives might actually improve your experience this weekend.
3. Remember to take a few breaks during the weekend. Even if you would love to play the entire weekend it might not be healthy for you, and could possibly lessen your experience. When you get too tired and haven’t gotten any fresh air for a while you will not experience it in the same way as a fresh mind would. At least crack a window, okay?
4. Expect a completely new experience from anything you’ve ever played before! We already know Guild Wars 2 will be new and just amazing. You can prepare for this by watching YouTube videos, or reading if that’s your cup of tea. If this is the first you’ve heard of Guild Wars 2, check this video out of why you should be interested.
5. Prepare for social experience from hour 1. With the previously mentioned new experience that this game will bring comes a new type of MMO. This time you’ll be working together with other people constantly and not fighting each other for mobs or loot. All kills count towards your common goal, and you have your own loot table. You might just end up with having made a bunch of new friends.

Also remember: This is Beta, and you can expect bugs to attack you. Make sure to report your experience to the team (Either in game, or via beta forums for the weekend) so they can work out the kinks, after all that’s what we’re here for.

You can expect me to return with more Guild Wars 2 content here on the blog in the coming weeks and hopefully years.

cc-by *saxon*

Combined with listening to successful YouTube stars, such as Felicia Day with The Guild and gaming related channels such as The Cynical Brit TotalBiscuit, and my own lack of blogging I started to put a few things together. In interviews that I’ve listened to they would reveal the “big secret” to their success. The person I’ve heard explain how and why most often is TotalBiscuit. Basically it comes down to 3 things.

1. Focus on something you want to do or enjoy. Your topic of choice
2. Whatever you chose to do, make sure to update regularly (uploads on your YouTube channel, post on your blog, publish pictures, whichever it might be.)
3. Be yourself, don’t try to be like someone else. Just because they are successful doing something a certain way doesn’t mean that will work for you. Your biggest shot is being yourself and gaining followers who like the way you do things.

So, where do my own revelations come in to this? My thoughts go along these lines:

Preferably your followers should know what type of content you will be providing them with as well, regularity helps here. For myself I realize that I might have lost parts of my following because I’m a bit of a jack of trades, and my interests switch quite a lot. Over the past 3 years as a blogger I have also been experimenting and exploring what type of writing I want to do.

This doesn’t mean you should focus or be putting out one type of content only, but should try to be clear about what would be mixed in. My niche can very well become that I’m diverse.

Last year I felt that maloki as a blog was established well enough among my followers and it was time to expand to writing more in English instead of Swedish and to write more about tech I updated and changed the tagline from “Tankar & funderingar” (“thoughts & musings”) to “… now with a splash of tech” as an attempt to give people a heads up on what was going on. Later on, most recently, I added gamings (instead of just writing it as gaming) to that tagline.
This was a good choice for me at the time, partly because I was communicating with a lot of people who were not native in Swedish, or even knew the language, who were interested in reading what I had to say. Also I really like writing in English. Don’t worry, I’m still going to stick with English.

How do I take care of my followers then? With the 3 points I previously stated in mind there’s not really much I can do other than, be consistent, with regular updates. Give you guys an idea of what I actually will be providing, when things change toss out an update. If I for some reason will be too busy I should let you know in advance or during, not 4 months after.

I will be covering topics that can be categorized under Games, Lifestyle, Politics and Tech. Which is quite wide, but it feels just right for me.

Their pre-sale starts the 10th of April, which is my birthday. Unfortunately I’m studying right now, so I won’t be able to afford a new computer (which I need) and the game in time for that and probably not the final release either. The digital edition isn’t that bad, but I really wish to get myself the Collector’s Edition. I’m a big Guild Wars fan, and have the previous Collector’s Editions from the original game and first expansion. Look at this:

Here’s where you come in, help me make my Happy Birthday! (This also applies to any family members who want to figure out what to give me!)
You can do it in different ways,
– Flattr (why?), either help me by Flattring this blog post, or going to my profile and send me a donation via Flattr. No, let me make it easy: press this Donate button!
– Or you can comment or try and get hold of me via @kinkymal on Twitter, or Marie on Google+ for other options. (PayPal, direct transaction or other suggestions)

With Flattr I’ll get any money donated before the 31st this month the 10th! Which is perfect.

What will anyone else get out from this?
– I will be writing about Guild Wars 2, it’s a given, even if it takes a while to get my hands on it. As of yet I haven’t written about it here on the blog, but to be fair it’s only been up again for a little over a week.
– I’ll update anyone on the progress of this wish for my birthday.

My hopes are that I’ll eventually be able to record vodcasts of some sort, and maybe help out around in the GW2 community as well. As you can see I’ve already started writing about and doing videos with my friend Vidde (video below, where she explains why it’s in Swedish.) about Terraria.

Thank you in advance, and the button is right here below here:

Flattr itself is a micro payment (or as I prefer to say, donation) service. You pick your flat-rate each month, and go nuts with it! You can support any number of things each month and not worry that you’ll spend too much money, anywhere between €2-100 each month.

I wanted to sum it up with a list to give you an idea of the possibilities with Flattr:

1. Flattr every single song uploaded on Soundcloud, everything on Github, and all tweets on Twitter! There are other examples like these for lesser known sites like: GoGoYoKo, Libre.fm, among others.
2. Find out how much money you’ve earned or have left to spend, in your own currency.
3. Choose to share your Flattr activities with everyone on Facebook in your timeline, in this way you make it easier for your friends to find out what you like to support.
4. Discover music or videos, that you can play right there on Flattr.com and if you want to you can support them.
5. Thank all of your supporters each month via a personal e-mail.
6. Support a bunch of Charities and Non-profit.
7. Subscribe to things you like a little extra for longterm support. Maybe it’s an app you use all the time, or a service? For me it’d be something like a ticket app on my phone, and DuckDuckGo on the web.
8. Earn money to spend on Flattr by shoping, either via the browser extension aFlattr or Socialvest!
9. Auto-flattr listened to podcasts via the iPhone app Instacast, or decide to after you’ve listened to it.  (Personally waiting for similar support on Android, hopefully in Beyondpod)
10. Support Wikipedia by flattring any and all articles on there. Account is curated by Flattr, and the money is given to Wikipedia via PayPal, or similar.

Now remember, these things are just the tip of the iceberg of Flattr related awesomeness. If you feel I missed something super important, it happens, feel free to leave a comment. If you got any questions, same goes there!