NBI Poetry Slam

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Internet Dragons

ffxiv 2013-10-07 21-32-57-40

Last night my group wanted revenge for the previous two attempts at Amdapor Keep.  During the day we plotted our path and strategized what we would change, and when our fearless healer made it online, we went into the dungeon once more.  It has been a long time since a dungeon had gotten the better of any of us.  That is one of the odd things about Final Fantasy XIV is that you have a fixed amount of time to finish any dungeon.  For Amdapor Keep we had 120 minutes, and quite frankly we used every single minute of that in past attempts to try and reason through the fight.

On my first run through the dungeon, the group I was with had mastered the first boss encounter, and in the subsequent two runs we had one shot it without much issue.  This meant on attempt two we spent nearly an hour and a half working on the Demon Wall encounter.  For anyone that has played a Final Fantasy game, they will immediately realize the encounter, as it is one of the more legendary ones that seems to appear in most games.  Essentially you have a fixed amount of time to destroy the wall before it destroys you.  In the MMO version, it essentially reaches a point where there is just too much damaging going out to be healed through.

However the little tweaks we employed in the strategy worked well enough that on our first attempt, I managed to get knocked off the side and the group still recovered without a tank to finish taking down the wall.  This brought us forth to new batch of trash… that basically included a version of the boss from Haukke Manor mixed in multiple times within the packs.  I don’t think we actually wiped on any of this trash, but it was some of the more annoying trash I had encountered to date.  Finally we were up against the final boss of the dungeon… that is some form of a black dragon.

It took us 30 minutes of tries but we managed to formulate a workable strategy, and then it clicked in place once we learned the secret to avoiding massive amounts of damage.  With 30 minutes to go we managed to make it through the encounter, this time without losing a player and finish off the boss.  Amdapor Keep is doubly awesome in that it rewards both the currency we need and some fairly nice gear as well.  Over the course of the dungeon our dragoon got a pair of boots, bard a chest piece and I believe legs, scholar healer neck, ring and pants… and alas me the tank nothing but the satisfaction of killing the encounter.  I hope to go back in now that we can hopefully farm the dungeon for goodies.

NBI Poetry Slam

Yesterday one of my good blogger friends Syl posted a call to arms of sort.  Her idea is that we “shake the bonds of srs blogging bzns” and join the ranks of many other bloggers who have written poetry over the subject of games, gaming and MMOs.  If this concept were not fertile enough, she also pinged me over Twitter to let me know that she was expecting an entry from me.  So I realize I am not getting out of this at all.  Warning… just like my blog, my poetry is “different”. 

I spent a lot of time writing poetry in the past, and even participated in more than a few poetry slams at various coffee houses during my high school and college days.  I tend to draw inspiration from beat poets…  but my own brand of poetry is a bit “odd”.  She was expecting a poem about my current MMO crush… Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn… but I chose to draw inspiration elsewhere.

The Tank

born of stone
embraced by fire
Juggernaut standing
with stalwart purpose
and sharpened will

moving slow
into dank crypt
long axe slung
across broad tense
rampart shoulders

leading cautiously
this weary band
of wizened adventure
moving closer
to the maelstrom

with pealing cry
and furious motion
swings bold axe
cleaving flesh
commanding attention

this is my domain
my steely sphere
of present influence
and none shall pass
my constant vigil

Hopefully that will appease the Syl god and she will not sent me furious messages over twitter of disappointment.  I think it is a pretty cool idea and I look forward to reading what other people come up with.  NBI started out with a simple purpose of trying to help out new bloggers, but it has taken on a weird blogging festival atmosphere for the various sponsors.  Its almost like a holiday that lets us mingle together with a shared purpose, and I feel like this poetry slam idea really adds to that purpose.  Syl will be collecting all the entries on her own blog, so it will be interesting to read them all together in one place.

Class of 2013 Rundown

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Sandman Spurned

I am having one of those mornings where I am progressively groggier as the day goes on, regardless of how much coffee I imbibe.  Last night I had another case of simply being unable to shut off my brain.  Upstairs at the keyboard I was falling asleep, but as soon as I went downstairs and laid down… all vestiges of sleep seemed to disappear.  Eventually I got back up, and as a result I am paying for it this morning with a greatly decreased mental state.  I wish I had some grand cure for not being able to think.

Newbie Blogger Initiative

nbilarge

We are just about to enter our second week of the Newbie Blogger Initiative, and it seems to continue to gain momentum as we go.  I really need to find the time to update my class of 2013 blogroll, because at the time I created it we only had 6 blogs in the program, and just moments ago I went to the forums and counted 18.  So in the weeks time that the program has been underway that number has more than doubled.  Remember it is not too late to join yourself.  If you are interested please check out the website and post on the forums.

Class of 2013 Rundown

Check them out, add them to your news reader and potentially add them to your blog roll.  Lets give these newcomers some much needed link love.  I have been reading most of these and they are posting some good stuff.  Additionally check out the NBI Info and Articles thread on the forums for a run down of all the sponsor topics that have been posted.

Much Ado About Mathosia

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Much Ado About Mathosia

rift 2013-10-05 17-30-59-77

A few days ago I wrote about the upcoming zone event that had been advertised for Rift, called Mayhem in Mathosia.  So I have to say it sounded really cool, major invasions going on for a few days in certain areas of the world.  I did not have a chance to log in Friday night, but after running around town I logged in yesterday evening and participated for an hour or so.  I have to say overall I am extremely disappointed.  I expected there to be more going on than there actually was.

I wandered around Freemarch did several major invasions and quite honestly the entire time I was wondering why exactly they made a big deal about this.  The invasions themselves felt absolutely no different than the ones that NORMALLY happen in Freemarch.  As far as the loot that was supposedly available, I saw no sign of that either.  The only thing out of the ordinary I managed to get were a bunch of gifts that you could give to the people of freemarch.  I am guessing there is an achievement for giving these out, as it did not seem to really do much of anything otherwise.

Maybe after doing FATEs in FFXIV I have come to expect more out of an event, or maybe I had just worked this up in my mind to be something bigger than it actually is.  In either case I found the experience overall disappointing.  I fear that in order to see any of the loot they are touting you would have to literally grind events for hours… and the frustrating part there is there was a significant amount of time that passed between the spin down of one event and the start up of the next.  The event so far seems like “much ado about nothing”, and while I am sure I will pop in and participate in some of the other zones… it is no longer a priority for me.

A Fitting End

ffxiv 2013-10-06 00-47-28-18

Since the Rift event was a massive disappointment, I ended up back in FFXIV with the guild.  For awhile now we have been trying to get eight players to 50 so we could finish out the storyline.  The final arc takes place over the course of two eight man dungeons, and I really wanted to experience it with my guild members and freshly.  One of our members got impatient and finished things up on his own, since he was the first 50… but he has generally been really good about keeping the surprises silent so we can experience dungeons together for the first time.  Dallian was the last to reach 50 of the 8 man team, and as a result we spent a bit of time last night killing random stuff in Northern Thanalan to push him across the line.

The conclusion felt as epic as this game deserves, and the fact that it takes place over two eight man dungeons and an eight man trial only adds to this feeling.  There has only been one other MMO that I have played that had anything close to an ending, and so far this game sets better with me.  At the end of SWTOR you had a nice clean tie up… that went nowhere… nothing in the world changed around you.  However in Final Fantasy you essentially have completed one chapter of the game, and are treated to a nice epilogue.

This would have been cool enough alone… but the moment you finish the sequence… you are given the NEXT set of quests to start carrying on AFTER the events of the finale.  The peace you just fought for is only the opening act of a much more dangerous tale.  The thing is… while you are playing out the finale, at no point does it feel like anything other than the end of a game.  You are even treated with credits upon finishing the quest.  It feels like finishing any other Final Fantasy game, but in the continued traditional of being the most inappropriately named series… there is nothing final about it.

I am really looking forward to seeing new content released.  It has been rumored that the 2.1 patch will include a new 4 man, 8 man and the 24 man raid content.  If we can somehow manage to keep our entire guild interested… we might someday be able to do the 24 man content by ourselves.  At very least we seem to have a really well balanced 8 man team.  The two 8 man dungeons were a bit of a letdown in one area however.  The 8 man guild hest was extremely awesome in that there was no main tank… and as fights progressed both tanks were equally active.  However in the two Garlean dungeons, there was definitely one main tank and one tank dealing with everything BUT the boss.  After how equitable the division of labor was in the hest, it was disappointing to see it fall back to the old standby of main tank/off tank.

NBI2 – How I Blog

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My Process

nbilarge

This morning I wanted to devote some time to write up a post as part of the Newbie Blogger Initiative.  On the weekends I have a lot more time to allow a post to gestate before actually sitting down to write it.  This morning is no exception, as at this point I have gone out and gathered breakfast, milled out in a game for a bit and finally have sat down to start writing.  As I wandered around in game this morning I struggled to figure out just what I wanted to say, that might in some small way benefit someone starting out in the Newbie Blogger Initiative.

Then it dawned on me… maybe I should write about my process.  I have written a bit about this in the past, but I figure it is always a decent topic to revisit.  On April 26th of this year I embarked on what I like to call a Grand Experiment.  The experiment is that I will blog something every day, and while I have done this a few times… I try my best never to use the calendar to schedule a post.  I feel like the majority of this is an exercise in getting me to write something fresh every single morning.  The results are mixed, I have a stable group of readers but for the most part I am not breaking down any walls as far as readership.

Self Hosting

I started my blog back in 2009 and made several conscious decisions when setting it up.  I am a web developer by trade, but the last thing I want to do when I get home is do more web work.  As a result I wanted to keep things as simple as possible, yet retain as much control over my own site as I could.  I had previous experience using Blogger.com and WordPress.com and both felt extremely limiting.  Since I have long had a really solid webhost it was an easy decision to roll my own WordPress.org install.

There are a lot of things you have to consider when rolling your own website.  Firstly the security of your website.  WordPress is without a doubt the most commonly used open source CMS on the planet…  as a result there are lots of exploits floating around.  This means once a day even if you are not posting, you need to log in and make sure none of your plugins or the core wordpress need updating.  This is far more maintenance than most bloggers want to deal with, but doing so keeps you as safe as you reasonably can be.

The tradeoff for the hassle is that you can have more opportunity to brand your website and configure it in the way you want it to work.  As a result I use a large number of off the shelf plugins as well as custom bits of code to build the site that exists today.  As I said in the last post my blog has changed quite a bit over the years, it went from WoW Tanking, to General Rift, to the current game agnostic build.  In all of these times I have not really changed the overall template for the site, just reskinned it.  The template I am using originally was a generic WoW skin, and then over time I have mutated it to where very little of the  underlying template still exists.

Composing

2013-10-05 11_30_32-Untitled - Windows Live Writer

I’m using a little bit of blogception here, but this is a screenshot of me editing the post I am currently working on in Live Writer.  Ultimately when I decided to start writing I wanted it to be as fool proof as I could get.  On a daily basis I simply did not want to fiddle with anything… I wanted to be able to write up a post, post it, and get on with the day without a lot of tweaking.  Early on someone suggested to me Windows Live Writer, and I have been using it ever since.  If you are on Linux I know there are Drivel and Bloglio that work very similarly.  Basically it is Microsoft Word for your blog.

When you first configure your blog in Live Writer, it pulls in all of the style sheets that you use for your posts.  After this process when you compose in tool it looks almost exactly like the final post.  The other nice thing about it is that it manages all the interaction with the WordPress media system, so inserting an image in livewriter with automagically create a thumbnail and a full size image and upload both of them to the media resources section of your blog.  The feature I like the most however is the ability to do Word wrapped images extremely simple allowing you to definte the gutter for the image.  Basically it is a desktop publishing software for blogging, and if you have ever used something like that it feels extremely familiar.

Content

Most mornings I have a thing that I want to talk about, so I just sit down to write whatever that thing is.  However there are some mornings like this one in particular where I sit down at the keyboard and nothing comes out.  Having a process in place for blogging when your ideas run freely is important, but even more so is having a process in place for how to recover from writers block.  There are basically two things at my disposal that I use to help me through mornings like that.

Firstly I have my blog roll, and namely my RSS reader that contains my blog roll and some other industry sites in it.  Personally I use Feedly, but so long as you have a resource to fall back on for reading.  When in doubt react.  Through the course of reading a few posts you should find something that peaks your interest enough to ramble on about it yourself.  I think it is extremely important in this case to not only follow blogs that are like minded, but also follow blogs that almost always take an opposing view.  It is hard to think of things to write in an echo chamber.

Secondly I keep a google doc going with ideas, snippets and various things that I think I might want to write about someday.  I limit myself to only one post a day, and as a result there are often things left on the cutting room floor.  Since I write early in the morning, it is pretty easy to forget what these other things are when you are under pressure to perform.  Having a google doc ready and waiting for you to prune ideas from is a really good thing.  I tend to add to the document whenever I think of something I might want to explore, and then when I use a topic instead of removing it from the list I cross it out… that way I can sometimes revisit old topics if I want to… and I know exactly which ones I have used in the past.

Writing Time

This was the hardest bit for me, was to establish a time when I was going to write no matter what.  Most mornings I get up, shower, make coffee, and then it is writing time until I go off to work.  I usually leave myself an hour or so to find a topic, write about it, publish it, and advertise it on social media.  This has worked fairly well for me, and on the weekend I notice that NOT having a time limit, often causes me to dawdle around and not get things done as efficiently.  Having a fixed amount of time, puts my brain under pressure… and I have always been able to perform better when the adrenaline is flowing.

This works for me… but you have to find what works for you.  I have known many bloggers that wrote as soon as they got home from work, or wrote last thing before they went to bed.  Any time works, but the important thing is that you reserve a bit of time each day to write.  Even if you like to work on super complicated posts that take multiple days to finish… devoting a small bit of time each day will make those posts come easier.  Blogging is a marathon, not a sprint… and it took me a long time to realize this.  You have to put in place practices that keep you posting regular content rather than slinging out posts in short bursts.  The one thing that I have learned… and had to learn the hard way… consistency is more important than content.