“Of my friend I can only say this. Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most human”
Issue 114 – Welcome back, you “girlie and weak” gamers! It has been an interesting week for all the talented writers that were kicked to the curb by AOL last week. They quickly learned that while their employers had no support for their livelihoods, the gamer community demonstrated unfathomable support. Nicely done, everyone! It’s pretty extraordinary when you have so many people that have never met each other come together like we saw this past week for Blizzard Watch and Massively OP.
I also just want to point out that there is a new boss fight in WoW that is a play on Hans & Franz and I freaking love the fact that it exists. The Hans & Franz characters bring back some old college memories! The header image is also fitting as SNL celebrates 40 years this year. The next WoW Patch (6.1) is due out on the 24th and Blizzard promises some Overwatch news at PAX East this year (which is in Boston, March 6-8). The interesting news was slow, which is why this post spans about 10+ days. All the big news is probably withheld for PAX East. Hopefully there is still something in here that you hadn’t heard about. KCGO
My Rating: [rating=4]
(Click here to read this review on Goodreads)
I really like the modern, dystopian twist to classic fairy tales that Meyer has created in these novels. I’ll admit that when I was just starting Cinder that I didn’t think I would enjoy it despite the fact that I was slightly intrigued by a cyborg Cinderella. I initially thought that each book was an independent retelling/re-imagining of each classic tale, however when I discovered that all the books are connected and continue Cinder’s story, then I became much more interested.
Scarlet is the second book of the series and, as you may be able to ascertain from the cover, is a re-imagined Red Riding Hood. While it was fairly obvious to me which part of the Red Riding Hood story would become entwined with Cinder’s story, there was still sufficient mystery and intrigue to keep me reading.
So far this has been a fun series to read and I’m looking forward to Cress and Winter. I would recommend it to anyone that might enjoy a fun twist on some beloved fairy tales.
Issue 113: I am going to rant a bit in the intro; if you don’t want to see the horrible things I think about AOL, you can probably skip this paragraph. If you haven’t heard by now, AOL has shut down three of my favorite gaming blog sites: Joystiq, Massively and WoW Insider. Some troglodyte in the upper ranks of AOL has made the ignorant decision to further ostracize AOL and shutdown these sites and fire 150 people; and ultimately left millions of faithful readers reeling in disbelief. There was nerd rage the likes of which the world had never seen. The beautiful irony is that the brilliant writers that were unfairly dismissed have a plan to persevere and we will soon see new weblogs pop up; AOL on the other hand will die a miserable and deserved death (finally). Make sure you take a moment to thank all the extraordinary writers for Joystiq, Massively and WoW Insider!
**Phew** I’m glad that’s out of my system. So let’s get back to talking about the games we all love. The former Massively and WoW Insider folks are already working on making a comeback. The first bit of new content for the current WoW expansion has been unlocked, unexpected news from Sony and more news from all of the great and valuable MMO news sources out there that deserve better than they often get from the corporate ass-hats that leer over them.
I have to share my moment of nerdy personal triumph. Lately I’ve been using Twitter more but mostly to try to elicit responses from celebrities that are often quite vocal on twitter. I’ve been successful a couple of times but the most recent acknowledgement really had my geek ovaries tingling:
If you haven’t figured it out, Peter Mayhew is the actor that donned the Chewbacca costume in all the Star Wars movies in which he was present. A few weeks ago he was admitted into the hospital with pneumonia and the flu. He was absent from twitter while he was recovering and I was glad to see he had recovered. I did not expect him to actually see my tweet, let alone favorite it.
I could get so much more accomplished if I only had minions!
I am beyond upset with the folks at AOL (who, ironically, haven’t been relevant since the 90s). I just read devastating news on Massively.com that AOL (or some VP at AOL that performed a “Ghostcrawler nerf” to Joystiq’s budget) will be shutting down Joystiq and all its affiliate sites. This includes Massively and potentially WoW Insider (though I have not heard anything officially posted by the WoW Insider staff).
Massively and Joystiq have been my primary go-to sites for gaming news and they are my primary sources for my MMO Times posts. The gaming industry is booming and will only grow bigger as gamers have children gamers (like me). This is a mistake that will have rippling affects, but I guess AOL is use to making ignorant mistakes.
A petition has been started and you should head over there and sign it immediately. There is also hashtags for twitter that you should start using immedately: #SaveJoystiq, #SaveMassively.
Hopefully there is some organization out there that still supports gamers and the gaming industry that might be willing to pick up these sites and not only give us our community back but give the great writers at Joystiq/Massively/etc their jobs back!
Update: Unfortunately WoW Insider is also going away. It is a solemn and lonely moment; however Adam Holisky (writer for WoW Insider) just tweeted this (there is hope):
Well, now that this is over, yes, we’re getting something else set up. Not sure where, but something else. More soon.
— Adam Holisky (@AdamHolisky) January 30, 2015
/endsoapbox
I could get so much more accomplished if I only had minions!