Beardly Dedication

Press NDA Lifted

There has been a lot of confusion in the last 24 hours as Zenimax has lifted the NDA just far enough to allow a bunch of press outlets to post stories.  Massively crafted a really poorly worded tweet stating that the ESO NDA Had lifted.  Even though they followed up almost immediately with a correction stating that it only applies to the press and media beta…  it has caused massive amounts of confusion.  As a result there are so many video leaks going on right now, a good number of them seem to have an axe to grind with the game in general.  I am still very firmly under a gag order but I feel that is a bit of a disservice to the game as a whole.

Most of the albeit scathing reviews of the game seem to be missing the general point.  I feel like right now a lot of people are going into this game with the expectation of it being something that it is not.  This is the problem of a broad game like The Elder Scrolls.  Every player has a certain way that they want to play the game, and if their chosen game play isn’t supported then obviously it is a horrible game.  Apparently there are players out there who legitimately do nothing but steal stuff from stores, or players who do nothing but kill quest giver NPCs.  These are just a few of the fringe game play styles that I have seen mentioned on the more public forums that certain fragments of the population are up in arms over.

Thing is… the game seems to be selling extremely well.  The game has firmly been on the top 10 best sellers list on Amazon.com since releasing.  So lots of people still have interest in the game despite the sour grapes reviews that are coming out.  At this point I feel like Zenimax needs to open the flood gates and let the actual fans who have been sticking by the title speak for it.  This is not an insignificant number of players mind you, but each of us is bound by the same NDA gag order, and unable to say a single thing in defense of the title.  Keeping the NDA in place, and stating that there will not be a fully open beta before release… only serves to give the public the impression that the game has something to hide.  The game has absolutely nothing to hide, and I look forward to the day when I can talk about it without hedging everything I say in grand generalizations.  The video I linked above is my favorite of the batch of “reviews” and Dan Bull seems to “get it”.

Forest Temple that Isn’t

I have still been plugging away on building my “Forest Temple” and posted some photos the other day yesterday on the EQ Next Reddit.  Turns out my name is a bit controversial.  I am building a temple in a deeply forested region of the Pingo island, so to me that is a Forest Temple.  But apparently to a lot of people that has a specific meaning, which is the Forest Temple from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time.  I am just too old for this to have a significant meaning  to me I guess.  Ocarina of Time came out when I was in college, and while I played it and enjoyed it… it really didn’t imprint on me as being anything more than a fun game.  A Link to the Past is my Zelda game and the one I hold up as the pinnacle above all others.  For me the Zelda franchise is best in its 2D form.

So to clariify… I will try and come up with a better name for my place, because I don’t want to give the impression that I am trying to build “The Forest Temple”.  At this point I have massive amounts of resource farming to complete the temple.  I want to do one more floor and a ramparts area at the top, as well as build out the undercroft more fully.  Right now I am planning on moving the craft machines from the porch area to the undercroft.  I hope I can unlock the paint tool because I think with that I can help to age the temple with little bits of mossy grass on the stone.  I also want to do some work to make things more intricate, but i figure over time I can work out the fine details. I posted an album of pictures of my most recent progress.

Beardly Dedication

This is one that my wife suggested so I am running with it.  Early my Sophomore year in High School I started growing a beard, and unlike my friends who were cursed with the inability to do so… I was able to grow one rather successfully.  From that point until today I have only been clean shaven twice… and both of those times were horrible mistakes.  Granted I vacillate back and forth between a full beard and a moustache/goatee combination… but for the majority of 22 years I have been proudly dedicated to beardom.  Basically my beard started as a way to make me look older, because I suffer from a baby face.  If I were to shave right now at age 37… I would look like I was about fourteen.  Well maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is not a good thing to say the least.

The first time I shaved my beard was during my Junior year.  I was completely smitten with a girl who barely knew I existed.  I asked her out to the prom and she accepted, but she really pressured me to shave off my goatee at the time.  I should have stuck to my guns, because quite honestly nothing about that night was worth the pricetag of shaving my beard.  I did not realize I was mired quite so deeply in the friend zone as I actually was, and at least if I had my beard I could have stroked it while pondering the situation as she danced with someone else the majority of the night.  Beard stroking apparently is a legitimate thing, and it actually spurs on mental activity.

The second time I shaved it… I did it mostly by accident.  I took off a little too much from one side while trying to even out my beard.  Rather than shaving down to a goatee, I decided that my wife had never actually seen me clean shaven.  At that point we had been together five or six years, and she was polite about it… but told me to grow it back as soon as I could and to never do it again.  Apparently the beard suits me, either that or she couldn’t handle the fact that she looked like she was married to a teenager.  I figure at some point when I do actually want to look younger I can instantly loose 20 years by shaving, or at least this is my planned exit strategy.  The actual secret to my beard is more akin to the fact that I simply hate shaving and will do whatever I can to avoid doing so.  At one point this year I was sporting a beard that would make the guys of duck dynasty take notice…  but that was more a test of just how long I could let it go than anything else.