By way of the incredibly talented C.M. Morgan (http://sabledrake.livejournal.com)

THE RULES (for this game of tag):
1) LINK TO THE PERSON WHO TAGGED YOU.
2) POST THE RULES ON YOUR BLOG.
3) WRITE SIX RANDOM THINGS ABOUT YOURSELF.
4) TAG SIX PEOPLE AT THE END OF YOUR POST AND LINK TO THEM.
5) LET EACH PERSON KNOW THEY ARE TAGGED AND LEAVE A COMMENT ON THEIR BLOG.
6) LET THE TAGGER KNOW WHEN YOUR ENTRY IS UP.
7) DON’T BREAK THE CHAIN (not actually a rule ... thank heavens)

Six Random Things:

1. While it's often said that we are our own worst critics, I take that to a ridiculous extreme.



2. I am a garlic lover, and a carboholic: combine those two in any manner, and I am your friend for life.



3. I absolutely adore getting manicures.



4. I have, at various times in my life, dreamt of being an actor, a writer, a chef, a sommelier, or a male escort: I wound up attending plays, reading voraciously, becoming a gourmand, enjoying wine, and chuckling over personal ads.



5. I used to be petrified of being more than a few feet off the ground: living in the City of Bridges, I've tried to get over that, but I'm still afraid of heights.



6. When I sleep, I'm usually surrounded by pillows, and I'm only really comfortable if I'm snuggling at least one of them.

Taggees:
Whosoever reads this and decides to play. :-)

The Tank is my Meatshield; I shall not squish.
He guideth me through the rigors of Perez:
She taketh me safely through Founders Falls.
He covereth my tail:
She leadeth me down the streets of Paragon to my mission.

Yea, though I walk through a phalanx of the Circle of Thorns,
I shall fear no casters: For thou hast aggro;
Thy buffs and thy stance, they protect me.
Thou preparest a plan to save me in the event of mine utter doom:
Thou covereth my head with yours; I'm hurt, but I'll live.

Surely all thanks and praise should be theirs, we cannot do it without them:
so I will praise the goodwill of the Tank forever.

(Amen)

Earlier this year -- August, to be precise -- I had to take a hiatus for surgery. I was out of work for more than a month, and only went back full-time in November.

I am back now, and back playing CoH/CoV. Although I'm no longer working for Massivly, I am still as much of an addict of NCSoft's games as I ever was, and I'm still an altoholic.

There's an intriguing article referenced in this post. It'll be interesting to see what level of -- if any -- discussion comes of it.

Tags: worldview

I'm not going to put this on the official forums, because there's no reason to cause more snark, but some comments about Massively's professionalism in using Vimeo (and in having the video vanish) stung.

We went with Vimeo because it's hosted videos for Joystiq.com -- our parent company -- with no complaints, and we're constantly putting up game previews and videos with no issues. As well, when Vimeo did decide to enforce their policy against the Massively upload, they neither notified us that it violated their ToS nor advised us that it had been deleted. We found out because our team of dedicated click-monkeys checks our site and links on a regular basis, and we discovered that the video was missing from Vimeo's site. When our editor first looked into the situation, her interface showed that we'd never uploaded the video; however, when I checked it, I received the following message: "'Villain Epic Archetypes' was deleted at Thu Apr 17 2:26:31 2008. video game trailer. We have no more information about it on our mainframe or elsewhere."

So no, it's not that Massively was unprofessional, or that we weren't practicing due diligence: this was a confluence of issues that led to an unfortunate situation. While we do regret that our readers and visitors were impacted by the video going missing, we addressed the issue as quickly as we could, made sure that there was a video synopsis so that those who couldn't see the video could at least get the information contained therein, and are actively working to see that this sort of thing doesn't happen again in the future.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me. If it's something I can address, I will. If I can't, I'll bring in a lead. Regardless, we'll continue to do the best we can to keep bringing you the latest, greatest, and best coverage of the MMO industry that we can.

Tags: joystiq, vimeo

NCsoft has provided Massively with an exclusive video of the CoX VEATs for the upcoming Issue 12: Midnight Hour release.

A synopsis and gallery are available here, and here's NCsoft's official announcement.

How cool is that?

--- Edit ---

We've had numerous complaints about the video suddenly vanishing, and I wanted to provide a bit of detail. This information is a duplicate of what I said on the LiveJournal thread and on NCsoft's official forums.

Just to let everyone know what happened, Vimeo deleted the video, citing a policy of not allowing video game trailers. Our senior editor is uploading the video to Massively.com directly, and it'll be available for download within an hour.

At the time the video upload is completed, the links related to the VEAT video will connect to our server and allow you to download the video.

If you can't wait, according to posters on the official forum, it is available for viewing on the European server here

Tags: city of heroes, city of villains, coh, cov, cox, cox issue 12, exclusive, forums, gallery, midnight hour, ncsoft, veat, video synopsis

Or, if you do, make sure you have permissions set correctly.

In other news, NCsoft has provided more details about their NCcoin microtransaction service.

Tags: microtransactions, nccoin, ncsoft

Exclusive I12 material will be going up on the site soon ... and that's all you're getting out of me until it goes live. Speaking of I12 material, did you see Adrian Bott's latest article on additional character slots?

In other news, I'm attending a media soiree tonight, and I'm being interviewed later in the week by the Austin American-Statesman for an article on NCsoft.

Tags: exclusive, interview, ncsoft

If you didn't have the opportunity to view the wedding between Sister Psyche and Manticore on Valentine's Day, we have a retrospective and a gallery at Massively, Samuraiko Productions has -- in as excellent a manner as always -- released a video of the event, and NCsoft provided a comic book commemorating the occasion.

Tags: city of heroes, city of villains, coh, comic book, cov, cox, cox valentine's day, ncsoft, samuraiko productions, wedding

But good heavens, are they funny. Profane, yes, but funny.

And, to tie this adoration to MMORPGs, this link will take you to his riff on Tabula Rasa.

Tags: the escapist magazine, yahtzee, zero punctuation
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: silence