So recently I have been having trouble staying asleep. I am sleeping anywhere between 3-5 hours, then waking up out of the blue. I managed to sleep last night, but I think it's because I wore myself out partying and playing Rock Band.

On Friday, I had an appointment with my doctor. He took two vials of blood, but perscribed me some Lunesta to deal with the symptoms until we can figure out the root cause. The likely culprit, is of course, my thyroid. It runs in my family so I would not be the least bit surprised. Thankfully it is easily treatable if that is the case.

In more "fun" news, the weather was decent enough today that I went out for a ride on my motorcycle. I went all the way to Snoqualmie and back twice, in addition to doing a little exploring around the edges of Seattle and around the Snoqualmie area.

I ride pretty fast on the highway, and while the State Patrol still frowns upon it, they pull over motorcycles much less often that cars. Of course, motorcycles are more difficult to tag with radar, so that helps too! In any case, I was doing about 79 on my way home the second time, and I noticed a patrolman up ahead. He was cruising along with traffic, not staked out in a turnout. I slowed down a bit, but for the most part the patrolman was going quite fast himself, and forcing cars out of his way by tailgating until people moved out of the way.

Instead of freak out and go 60 like people normally do, I just hung back a bit letting him sort of push everyone out of my way as well, as attempting such things on a bike is beyond foolish for obvious reasons. In any case, so I worked my way up to 79 again, and the cop was quite a ways ahead. All of a sudden I see something large and white whizz by me two lanes over and slow down to pace me. I look over, and there is a second patrolman giving me a dirty look! Hahahaha... I had to try so hard not to laugh. I gently but noticeably throttled down until I was going about 70, and he sped off to join his comrade.

When I got to the end of the bridge I saw why they were in such a hurry. They had someone in a white Mustang pulled over, with four police cruisers as backup. Hmmm... the driver was not being arrested so I am not sure what was going on, but the second patrolman was going about 90 to get there. So, yeah, that dirty look was hilarious, but I'll need to be more careful.

I doubt I would have been pulled over anyway, as they either need to pace you, which I would immediately notice (as I did this time once he got near me) or get you with radar. It is extremely easy to spot patrol cars on a motorcycle. Still, I'll never forget that dirty look. Once he pulled off I started giggling inside my helmet.

So I finally got in to DarkFall.

The game itself is amazing. The few clan-members able to get in with me, have spent the last couple of days exploring. Even after over two solid days, we have only managed to explore a relatively small portion of the map. I am trying not to let my experiences with their terrible billing system sour my enjoyment of the game itself.

I already have some fond memories of the game. Last night I decided to mount a solo expedition. This is incredibly dangerous so I left most of my valuables in the town bank. I came across terrifying hill giants, fellow elves who were anything but friendly, and seemed to have fallen to worshipping a dragon; a disgusting swamp with a mysterious hole the diameter of a football field which drops down to a hidden lair, a portal which I did not enter but marked for later investigation, various treasure chests, an island full of undead amid crumbling ruins, and finally a volcanic cave which I could not enter due to undead giants guarding the entrance.

The world is huge, and there is so much to see, with so many hidden secrets. I have a feeling that by the time anyone manages to see most of the sights, the world will have expanded. There are nearly 100 cities and hamlets to be claimed by the players and I found a few of them in my travels. We are worried that "all the good ones" will be taken, but the more I explore, the more I see exceptional cities still lying unclaimed.

Hopefully my clanmates still trying to get in the game will be able to do so soon. I know those cities won't wait forever.

In any case, I am off to see where that portal leads!

Posted by Aventurine moments ago:

Update 5.49pm GMT

After addressing a couple of early issues the servers have been running very stable for several hours and we have a large number of players in-game right now.

It’s normal to expect more issues to surface in the next couple of days. We postponed our scheduled maintenance of 10am GMT for later until we can gather some more data and address anything that comes up in a patch later tonight.

We’re aware that some areas are experiencing sync issues for some players. This is a high priority issue that we are working to address as soon as possible. We know the cause for it so it shouldn’t take very long. We will keep the servers up while this is being fixed and we will bring them down for a patch later tonight. For now, players can move away from starting areas to improve their experience.

We have processed the problematic accounts that were never charged but received a successful pre-order notification. Only a small percentage of these were successful and we found out that this is because most of them contain incomplete or incorrect account information. We will try this one last time again tomorrow morning European time, and we’ll open up account management later tonight for these accounts to be able to correct their account data and credit information before we reprocess them. If anyone does not want the pre-order to be processed, they should remove their credit card information from their account. After this is concluded we should be able to open up sales for more Darkfall copies.

That’s all for now, we’ll keep you updated with anything new that comes up.

The Darkfall Team

FAIL.

Aventurine, I have been patient. I have been infinitely patient, in fact. Over the months and year, I have understood that you are a small company and that we can not expect the things from you that others expect of large companies. The long development cycle, the lack of updates: I accepted everything because there are literally only thirty people in the company.

I've managed to never, not once, become angry about anything you have done until now. Then why am I angry, now? Clearly, the one advantage small businesses should have over large, is their level of customer service. Yet, the above statement implies it is somehow my fault that my preorder failed?

Well, one advantage of having a nifty brain such as mine, is that I clearly remember the preorder process, and I clearly remember entering all of my information. I also clearly remember coming back at a later time to check on it, and noticing that some of it was missing after the fact. Furthermore, the fields that had missing data WERE NOT EDITABLE, strongly implicating issues with the preorder code. I was then unable to fix the erorrs. How is this my fault?

FAIL. FAIL. EPIC FAIL.

Two "free" days in-game is not going to cut it when everyone is a full day ahead of me in securing their clan city.

Here is how things SHOULD have gone down. Give those people with missing information the benefit of the doubt. Send emails to them notifying them, that they are geting their two free days up front. Within these two days, their billing information needs to be corrected or the account will be suspended until valid information is given.

Then, everyone with a valid preorder gets in. Everyone is happy. Most of everyone ---i.e. the non-idiots--- updates their billing information without a hitch, and there is no PR fiasco (aside from the usual).

Simple right? Not if you are Aventurine.

Excerpt from a previous post:

"I can tell you right now, it is a BAD idea for any bank to be getting skittish with lending for vehicles. Vehicles prices are not subject to wild market fluctuations like the housing market. Their value is expected to depreciate and is not viewed as an investment. Their value is not tightly tied to the market, but more derived from parts and labor. When the market crashes, your 2005 Honda Civic doesn't plummet in value along with it. Because of this people do not "flip" cars, or "sit" on cars waiting for the price to go up, or any of the other inane things that people do with assets that appreciate. They are a purchase, not an investment. Banks (and by line of effect, consumers) are burned by people using borrowed money to make investments. When all parties involved expect the asset to appreciate, and it's price plummets, that is a problem. When all parties involved expect the asset to depreciate, there are very few surprises, and loan terms never have to be speculative."


Lack of lending for cars, exacerbated the problem of no one wanting to buy a new cars lead to the current situation with the American car manufacturers. I practically called it with the above paragraph, months in advance. Well, that quote and this one:

"Our economy runs on lending, when lending stops, spending stops, when spending stops, paychecks stop, which leads to less spending and lending."

Darkfall comes out today!

I still don't know if my pre-order was successful. Too many people were ordering at he same time so they had a few problems with their pre-order server. I got a confirmation email but my card was not charged. It's been a while since I have been so eager to have someone take my money. I know, weird.

In other random news, I nabbed a new keyboard and mouse. My old friends Sticky and Clicky finally crapped out on me so I splurged on a Logitech G11 and Razer Lachesis. That brings me to a total 26 programmable keys into which I can put any series of keystrokes, mouseclicks, and built-in delays. Before I had zero, so it was pretty much a geek-gasm for a few hours while I just played with it.

Next weekend it is new monitor time. Blinky needs to go, as well. OK, it's not blinking, but I couldn't think of a good name for it. I've had it forever. It's big, ugly, has three bad pixels, and I am sure the backlight is not as bright as it used to be. There are a shit-ton of excellent, gorgeous 24" widescreen HDMI 2ms response time 1920x1200 resolution for under 400 bucks. It is the best time to get a new monitor that I have seen in a very long time.

I just have to make it through work tomorrow...

So, I'd like to explain for a moment why I sometimes act the way I do. The way I am choosing to do this, is to simply open a window to what goes on inside my head at any given time. Generally speaking, during normal day-to-day activies, a large portion of my brain is thinking about something else. Because of this, I am rarely 100% "present." I tend to be easily distracted because I have a hard time shutting down this side of me. A recent development from this "other half" can often consume the attention of my entire brain, causing me to seem highly distracted.

So, here is the most recent item that has this part of my brain continually busy:
( Click Here to expand the monster... )

I really want to go back to the gym now that I no longer have overtime every week, but I really do not want to deal with all the New Year's Resolutions.

New Year's Resolutions are just another reason to procrastinate, and I already have plenty of those. ;)

What the hell? So we've all heard of 'Darkfall'. They released that 17-minute video a while back. They have been swearing up and down beta was starting "soon" for a couple of years.

I have remained pretty neutral while everyone else and their epeen have taken extremely polar positions; shouting either "OMG MMO MESSIAH!" or "VAPORWARE!" I've taken the stance of, I'll just check in every 6 months or so... This is convenient, as it allows me to always see something new, rather than the same stuff every time I drool over the page. It also allows me to not die of anticipation, angst, boredom or a combination of the three. Finally, it is what has allowed me to stay neutral.

I get sick of people treating an indie developer as if they should behave with the same modus operandi as Ubisoft or EA (Both of whom kill my soul a little bit each time they release a game I end up buying...). What does everyone think; that five people get together, spend a few thousand dollars, and automagically shit out millions of lines of code and a warehouse full of servers to make the next big MMO? Yes I suppose I am defending them to a point, but within very reasonable --- and neutral --- limits.

We're talking about a small team creating a massive, seamless world. These relatively few people with meager resources are putting together a full scale MMO. Of course it is going to take them nearly a decade. Of course the graphics and animation will be a little dated. And, yes, I fully expect the game to feel a bit "rough" and "unpolished." Do I care? Fuck no. Sparkly graphics quickly lose their charm.

Some of my favorite games of all time were released with graphics years out of date, clunky interfaces, and a host of other issues not found in "polished" games. Yet, the gameplay was so amazing, I quickly forgot or adapted to the quirks and immersed myself eagerly. Will Darkfall be another one of these games. I cannot say. So, to those disparaging Darkfall on purely aesthetic grounds, I am nothing but pleased that I will not be interacting with you when I finally get to try Darkfall. Yes, try. I'm just going to give it an honest chance. No game deserves more or less.

Well, the "European" release date is January 22nd. Yes, that is in less than a month. This is a solid date and not some "soon" or "sometime next year" fluff, but a solid date. I think I might just have to tip a bit to the "OMG MMO MESSIAH!" side (not too far) and whisper, "Darkfall is coming..."

Also, I'm immediately wondering how to fool their servers into thinking that I am playing from a European IP Address without violating any local or international laws...

In any case, I imagine the European release can not far precede the North American. I could be wrong, but if history is any example, that is generally how things go. I am hoping it is sooner rather than later. Seeing the date officially posted with my own eyes, does have my anticipation and angst meters twitching with a little life.

While I can feel the excitement wash over me, it is more like the excitement one might feel exploring an unknown cave. It might be awesome and full of loot, it could be utterly boring, or worse yet, a bears den.

Time will tell.

Whoever this chick is, she is on my list of awesomeness.



I found it on fail blog, but honestly, this is an epic win for her.

I'm not one to preach monogamy, but I think that if two people enter a relationship under a certain agreement, and that agreement is monogamy, then it should be respected.

Good for her, for not taking any shit!

Ok, enough is enough. Yes, the snow is pretty, but I've had enough. I have already missed two days of work, and it looks like I am going to miss tomorrow as well. I get paid by the hour so I can NOT afford this shit!

I've lived in a desert, an arctic climate and the midwest. There is a reason I chose Seattle. Mostly it's because Seattle is an awesome city, but there is also a lot to be said for a temperate climate!

Let it rain.

Let it rain.

Let it rain.