Four screenshots. That's all it took for me to buy Planet of Lana II

I usually don't play puzzle-platformers. I think Child of Light was the last one I played. My Steam library is a graveyard of city builders, strategy games, and the occasional RPG that have swallowed months of my life. If you told me yesterday that I'd drop money on a side-scrolling adventure about a girl and her cat-like companion, I'd have laughed.

Then I saw this post from The Indie Boss Bluesky this morning.

Four screenshots. Hand-painted environments. A dense forests, alien ruins, light cutting through fog in a way that made me stop scrolling. I didn't know what game it was. I didn't care. I just needed to see more.

Turns out it was Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf, the sequel to Wishfully Studios' 2023 puzzle-adventure. I'd never heard of it. It's sequel, Planet of Lana II, launched yesterday, March 5th. I had zero knowledge of this game's existence before this morning. None whatsoever. No trailers watched, no previews read, no wishlisting on Steam.

I looked it up on Steam. 10% off for launch. I bought it before I even watched the trailer.

Sometimes your gut just knows. You see something and the decision is already made before your brain catches up. No research, no review hunting, no hemming and hawing over whether it's worth the price. 

Four screenshots of a world that looked like it was painted by someone who actually cares about beauty, and that was enough.

The joy of figuring it out: what the Merlin taught me about EVE Online

One of the things I’m genuinely enjoying right now is rediscovering how much of EVE Online lives outside the actual game play.

What?!! I hear you say. Bear with me a second...

In EVE, skills matter, obviously — but they’re only part of the equation. The real learning happens in the fit and in how a ship is meant to be flown. Lately, that’s been my trusty Merlin, and figuring out how to lean fully into its brawler nature instead of fighting it. Short-range blasters, afterburner over speed tricks, scram and web to keep fights close, and a solid shield buffer so it can sit in the pocket and trade blows. I’m training into the guns and support skills that make that setup work, and paying attention to why each module belongs there.

That process — reading, testing, undocking, exploding, tweaking — is where the fun is.

Seriously! That might sound like a chore to some, but it's allowing me to learn the game nice and slow. At my own rhythm.

In EVE, your ship doesn’t reach its potential just because your skills say it should. It does when the fit makes sense and you fly it the way it was designed to be flown. Now go back, and read that last sentence once again, cause it says a lot about the game.

I’m pulling all of this together into a more detailed post soon, in which I'll be digging into the Merlin itself, the modules and fittings I’m training toward, and how brawler and kiter tactics actually play out once you’re on grid.

But for now, I'm heading out 12 jumps, getting myself a new skill in order to use my new Tech II blasters!

Fly safe!

EVERPSACE: You've just been promoted to Space Optimizr!

Yesterday, I got a DM from Michael of @everspace_game promoting me to Space Optimizr and Alpha pilot. It's been a blast of fun ever since!

Expect more updates on my progress!

The 5-Bullet Weekly Wrap-Up

Artwork is "Sleeping Beauty" by Exidium Corp - via ArtStation.

I've been reading and following Tim Ferriss for a number of years now, and I'd figured that I'd leverage his idea of the "5-Bullet Friday" and do some weekly wrap-ups.

What I'm reading - "Robots and Murder: The Caves of Steel/ The Naked Sun/ Robots of Dawn"
I've finished rereading "The Caves of Steel" and am halfway through the 2nd Robot novel. As always I loving the literary style taken by Asimov and his strong dialogues. But I can't deny that the little (and sometimes major) technology fumbles aren't pulling me out of the story from time to time. Still, I'm enjoying the story and the concept of AI and humanoid robots.

What I'm listening to - "The Dual Universe Soundtracks from Maxime Ferrieu"
I've been following Novaquark and their Dual Universe game development for a little over two years now. In their most recent newsletter, they mention the release of six new tracks. I've got to say I'm loving the ambiance and galactic breadth of the track - perfect for immersing yourself in a good sci-fi novel.

What I've recently purchased - "LG Black 27" 5ms HDMI Widescreen LED Backlight Monitor"
It's been quite sometime since I've wanted to upgrade my current monitor. So at the end of 2015, I made the move and purchased the gorgeous 27MP77HM LG 27" monitor and haven't looked back! The previous 23" monitor I had for the last, what 4 or 5 years, now seems tiny in comparison. And the new monitor allows me to plug in both my PC and my Xbox360. Call me a happy camper!

What I've got my eye on - "G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2"
So now that I've got a bit more real estate in terms of visuals, my next upgrade to my old 7 year old PC gaming rig, is upgrading my RAM from 8GB to the maximum allowed by my mobo, a whopping 16GB of RAM, thus DOUBLING what I currently have. The only issue, the price: a big fat $470! Ouch.



My most popular tweet over the last week - "The one about activating my EVERSPACE Forum account"

EVE Blog Banter #68: If I show you my rig, will you show me yours?

They say "Better late than never..." Well that's all fine and dandy, but it makes for a shitty first impression. Or in this case, for a shitty re-introduction. I wanted to jump back into the  EVE Blog Banters, my child of yesteryears, who's all grown up and soon turning six, with a BANG! But the Blog Father is bit rusty, and three days late will have to do!

Enough ramblings (damn, I AM getting old!).

Friday Video: James Cameron's Avatar The Game - Walkthrough

All I can say, is that it looks great. That's it though. It just looks good. Then again, I'm really hoping to be surprised by this game, and how the leverage the movie assets and all. My only other question is PC or console? With my current rig, I could probably run it fairly well. What do you guys suggest?


[Official Game Site]

Starcraft II, Supreme Commander II & the games I'm looking forward to

With the "New Gaming Rig Project" coming to fruition this week-end, I've been looking forward to getting a few new titles that I'll now be able to run on this speedy silicon calculator. Whether currently available or up coming most of these games were beyond the capacity of my ol'P4 PC, and so I had stopped 'looking' for new games. This all changes after this week-end.

Listed below are a few of these games.

• Supreme Commander II
• Dawn of Discovery (Anno 1404)
• Demigod
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

And up coming:

• Torchlight
• Starcraft II
• Diablo III
• Star Wars: The Old Republic

There's also a bunch of Xbox 360 games I'll be asking for my birthday (which is next month) and Xmas! Some of these are

• Modern Warfare II
• Borderlands
• Brink
• Section 8
• Halo: ODST
• Halo Wars
• Halo: Reach

So, what about you?

Out with the Old, In with the New: A PC Upgrade Story

Before I get into the details of the new rig I'm about to put together, let's take a trip down remembrance lane.

I first heard about EVE Online sometime circa 1999-2000. At the time I was working at IBM and had jut gone from a Mac to an IBM PC300 tower. I could run Diablo at an average setting, but that machine wasn't what you would call a PC Gamer's Dream Machine, far from that! Really far... as in far far away in an other galaxy kind a distance.

Fast forward to 2002, when I finally got EVE and put it onto that machine, I believe it ran at about a frame a minute. And I'm being generous here! Suffice to say, this gamer needed a better rig. And so began the quest to build myself a PC. After reading profusely various computer power user magazines and books, I finally put together a decent system (at the time). It ran a P4, 500Mb of RAM and a Radeon 9800 Pro (after an early upgrade from a 9200).

Over the next few years, the system would see some much needed improvements, as well as an unforeseen mobo replacement. The last major upgrades being a replacement of the 9800 Pro for an XFX GeForce 7600 GT, 256 MB DDR3, 580MHz, AGP 8x and then maxing out the P4 with a 3.2GHz. Suffice to say when the system finally failed a few months ago, I was in need of a much better gaming rig!

Which brings me to earlier this week, when I finally placed my order with NCIX.com. Having discussed my needs with a few gaming buddies at work, and after getting the advice of Mathieu Bourgie (@MathieuB), author of Hardware Revolution, I finally placed my order for the following:

• AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition Dual Core 3.1GHZ 7MB Cache
• Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 PCI-E16 2PCI SATA2 RAID 1394 HD Sound GBLAN
• G.SKILL PC2-6400 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-800 240PIN Dual Channel Memory Kit
• XFX Radeon HD 4870 750MHZ 1GB 3.6GHZ GDDR5 PCI-E 2XDVI HDCP
• Corsair VX450 450W ATX 12V 33A 24PIN ATX Active PFC 120MM Fan
• Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB 7200RPM 32MB Dual Proc SATA 3.5IN
• Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64BIT DVD with Win7 Upgrade Offer

Add that the 3 items I'm keeping from my old PC:

• Antec SX1040BII Black Performance Series II SOHO File Server (without the PSU)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB Hard Drive
• Plextor PX-716SA 16x DVD DL SATA Burner

Before placing my order, I checked for the best pricing using PriceCanada.com and then using NCIX's price matching, was able to save $60! Too bad for NewEgg.ca which doesn't offer price matching!

Everything shipped last night, except for the processor. Hopefully it'll be on its way soon!

Blog Banter #8: The modern re-make of a game

Welcome, welcome to the 8th installment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza normally headed by bs angel , and for this issue by Terry Bosky of the Game Couch. Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's Blog Banter subject is as follows: "Which game would you like to see a modern re-make of and why?" The question was proposed by fellow Banter group member Zath.

So let's see, the re-making a game, that's a big one. Which game to choose from? What to re-make? Modern eh? Allow me to deviate slightly from the question and look at a game that was recently launched. An MMO to be precise. It's an MMO that I had high hopes for, one I had a lot of fun beta testing and covered here on a few times. But it's an MMO that ultimately failed and saw it's server shutdown, it's community disbanded.

This game, this MMO, was SEED.

SEED was a different kind of MMO. One where combat had no place, and where roleplaying was king.

SEED was all about:

• Sci-Fi MMORPG
• Personalized stories
• Social/political gameplay
• Believable NPC's
• 3D comic book graphics

It was not about:

• Combat
• Character classes
• Standard quests

In the MMO genre that's quite an undertaking. It's even more so for a newcomer to the industry. The game was developed by Runestone, a Danish developer about to lunch its first game. And though they had great dreams for SEED, their inexperience in the gaming industry proved too much for their fledgling enterprise.

It's difficulty, and ultimate failure, in becoming a successful MMO had little to do with the game itself. The roleplaying non-combat approach was very much innovative in the MMO genre, and still is today. And with the visual direction they took with cell-shading, this little game had all the elements of a winner. As with many MMOs, they did have trouble with the launch of the game, and it wasn't completely polished when it shipped. But many games today had similar beginnings and yet, were eventually successful. EVE Online being one of those MMOs with a less-than-stellar launch. Not every MMO launches with the roar of a WoW, an AoC or a WAR.

The major obstacle for Runestone, one that resulted in the death of SEED, was its inability to find a publisher and the funding to push the game ahead, as its subscription increased. An important detail in the lifespan of any game, even more so for an MMO which works more like a service than a product, and so which requires more funding in its initial stages.

So to go back to the initial question of this blog banter, what would I change and why, well not much about the game itself. I think that Runestone did a fantastic job in that respect. I just wish that had put as much efforts in finding a publisher willing to appreciate their vision and their leadership in the MMO space. Maybe they did. Or maybe they should have secured such a publisher at the very early stages of the games development. That's the "What".

As for the "Why", well that's simple: a successful cell-shaded Science Fiction MMO with a great lore, where game play would have been focused on roleplaying and not combat. Something that still not available today.

I just wish SEED had had the time to mature and grow to its full potential. We'll just never know.


Blog Banter Participants:

• Lou Chou Loves You: Blade Runner
• Zath!: Sid Meier's Re-Colonization
• XboxOZ360: Eternal Darkness
• Silvercublogger: Paint Me Something Fresh
• Unfettered Blather: Mech my day
• Save in Progress: Earthworm Jim
• MasterKitty's Weblog: Zelda: A Link to the Past
• Game Couch: Tass Times in Tone Town
• Delayed Responsibility: Crossover Triples, Taking You to School

Blog Banter #7: Quality over quantity any day of the week

Welcome, welcome to the 7th installment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza normally headed by bs angel , and for this issue by Terry Bosky of the Game Couch. Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

From CrazyKinux (that's me!): Does every game need to be a grade-A blockbuster title? Would you be willing to play more average games or should every game shoot for the 10.0 rating?

My quick and dirty answer to the first question would be no, give me quality over quantity any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. And these days, blockbuster does not necessarily mean a great gaming experience. Two things are most valuable to me, money (obviously), but most of all time!

The former is easily explained. At $60 a game, I better enjoy what I give in exchange for my blood, sweat and tears. But it's the latter that's really at the heart of my answer. I'm a gamer, I'm a husband, I'm a dad (and definitely not in that order, yes dear I know!!) , and if there's one thing I don't have too much of it's time. So please Mr Publisher/Developer, don't waste it. I have a long term memory and will remember if you try to feed me crap.

Lets take this from a different point of view. Take 10 seconds to go and check your game collection, PC, console, handheld, whatever! OK, you're back? Good. Now, how many of those games have you finished? Far from all of them right? So let me ask you this, would you have preferred having had bought less of them, if the ones you did get were so great you couldn't put down the controller or remove you hand from the k/b? If you had finished all of those. Probably right? I mean, what was so great about that next game that made you put down the one you were playing?

At 60 bucks a pop, I'd rather get a gourmet dinner then a buffet. I'd rather savor each digital byte, then to force feed myself tons of polygons and pixels. So please, lets add some variety to the diet here!

So quality over quantity , and that means originality over pre-digested oatmeal.

To answer that second question, no I'd rather you take your time and aim for something original, tasteful. I'd love to be surprised Mr. Developer, which these days rarely happens. I'm not necessarily asking for a perfect 10, but lets have some diversity.

__________________________________________________

Blog Banter Participants: Zath!, Delayed Responsibility, Silvercublogger, weblog.probablynot.com, Crazy Kinux, Gamer-Unit, Unfettered Blather, MasterKitty, XboxOZ360, Omnivangelist, Lou Chou Loves You, Game Couch

An Exploration Tutorial Video

This is a full blown steal from Morphisat's post, but I had to add it to my videos and guides. Please visit his blog and shower him with comments to make up for my rip-off. I owe you one mate!



[EDIT: There's a better quality version available for download here. Thanks!]

Finding Agents and increasing your Standings in EVE

Finding good agents is an activity which is at the core of the EVE Online PvE game play. And since you need a standing of 0.5 to join your faction of choice and participate in Factional Warfare, I thought it would be a good idea to provide a list of resources that are helpful in finding the best agents.

Whether it's to increase your standing, or to get better loot and rewards, finding the best agents maybe something that's a bit of a mystery to new players. Here below I've listed 4 great resources to help you do just that.

• How To Find An Agent in EVE Online, courtesy of The Ancient Gaming Noob
• The Path of Acceptance..., courtesy of Van Hemlock
• Video Tutorial: Finding Agents, courtesy of EvE Cast
• EVE-Agenture, a great site to help you find agents

Sites to quickly find Agents:

• EVE Agents - EVE-Online Agent finder
• Eve tools - Mission agents custem search
• Agents DB

The EvE Cast video tutorial is also available on YouTube for those who don't mind the low quality. I do recommend that you download the original which is of better quality and thus easier to follow - your choice though. Here it is below.

As for increasing you agents "effective" standing (not the faction though), make sure that you've trained the following 3 skills to level 5 for the best results: Connections, Negotiation and Social. You'll see a dramatic increase. There are plenty more Social skills to train, but with these you're off to a good start!

Out of Eden: Space Siege Trailers

For a guy who's currently unemployed, let me tell you that I'm keeping myself quite busy! And though a lot of my time these days is spent thinking, breathing and living the life of an EVE capsuleer (besides all the RL chores that keep popping on the endless list - you married guys know what I mean!), there are times when I'm doing geek stuff which isn't related to EVE. Really!

The following video is one of those things that catches my attention. As the title of this post suggests, this is not related to EVE. I'll use the "Out of Eden" prefix for anything and everything that is not related to EVE Online, because I'm a neat freak and like to have things in order!

The two trailers below are of Space Siege, an upcoming RPG from Gas Powered Games; the same guys behind the Dungeon Siege (DS) series and the recently Supreme Commander RTS (which I haven't played). I've been through all the DS series and really like the style and approach they've taken. Though the original DS was simplistic in its approach, I liked the fact that your character would increase in skills depending on the type of combat it used. It was simple, yet effective.






Now the fact that this new game will be space-based is a real bonus. Don't get me wrong, I really like the Fantasy settings, but Science-Fiction has always been the preferred setting - whether it's in movies, books, video games or RPGs. So I'm really excited about this game. I'm currently reading Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson (and highly recommend the Malazan Book of the Fallen series), but if I look at my bookshelves, most of it is filled with sci-fi stuff - I. Asimov, F. Herbert, R. Heinlein, A. C. Clark, KSR, S. R. Donaldson - even the RPGs - Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, Core Command (all from DreamPod 9), Traveler or Robotech. Though I do have a lot of Tolkien and Forgotten Realms!

Since I devote a lot of time to EVE, I like my other games to be easy to pick-up and start playing. So I'm looking forward to this one! What other games keep you Out of Eden?

Blog Banter #3 : Games you should play to get to know me

Already a month has gone by since the last Blog Banter. How time flies when you're having fun!

This month's banter is on the topic of "What game(s) would you suggest someone play if they wanted to get to know you better?"

In my case, we're definitely talking about multiple games even though one takes most of my time these days - EVE having the honour.

Now let's see. What games help you understand who I am? What have been the games which have brought me the most pleasure over the years? Would that help me pick games that can define me? Let's make a list and see.

Games that I've particularly liked over the last, say 10 years:

• Diablo II (RPG)
• Neverwinter Nights (RPG)
• Dungeon Siege (RPG)
• Battle Realms (RTS)
• Homeworld (RTS)
• Halo (FPS)
• 1701 A.D. (RTS)
• Gears of War (FPS)
• Mass Effect (RPG)
• EVE Online (MMORPG)
  
• Starcraft (RTS)

As I mentioned in the last Banter, I've spent a lot of time in EVE over the last 2 or 3 years. But I still give these games a few hours once in a while. There's something about these games, even replaying them for the nth time, that does something to me. Brings me joy and a sense of accomplishment many other games don't achieve.

I've purchased and played many more games since I started gaming back in the late nineties; as one can see from my collection. But the games above hold a special place in my heart. And I guess if you want to know who I am, you're going to have to go through these.

Which reminds me that it's been a long time since I last played Homeworld. Now if you'll excuse me...

Blog Banter is a group of bloggers passionate about anything and everything video games. On a monthly basis we get together and write-up a series of articles on a specific subject and then link to each other. The brainchild behind this idea is fellow blogger Hawty McBloggy (aka bs angel). I just love her quirky articles, always uncovering interesting and fun stuff. A must read!

If you're interested in participating, just contact bs angel for more information. Enjoy our stories!

Blog Banter #3 participants : Silvercublogger, The Average Gamer, Game Couch, thoughts and rants, Delayed Responsibility, Boom Stick Brigade, Boom Stick Brigade 2, CrazyKinux's Musing, Gamer Unit, Draining Souls.net, 8-Bit Brigade, Zath Games Tech, Arm the Flag, Lou Lantos, Hawty McBloggy

EVE Online reviewed in GFW latest issue

It's not every day that an MMORPG which is about to turn 5 years old get a review in a mainstream gaming magazine. Well EVE did just that in the March issue (#016) of Games for Windows -The Official Magazine. In the Updates section (on page 83) they review Trinity an 8 out of 10 score. On the plus side they mention that visual update that came with the patch is simply gorgeous and that there's new content. On the down side, they complain (with reason) that the agent missions need an overhaul. Couldn't agree more with this review. Unfortunately, they mess-up the DirectX version saying that the overhaul bring DX10, though in reality, Trinity is DX9.

As well, they review a a series of PCs as part of an Ultimate Gaming Machine competition, and one of these PC, the one from Commodore Gaming, has an EVE Online skin.

Quite cool to see EVE still getting some press after all these years! Guess CCP's hard work over the years is paying off.

Blog Banter : Rehabilitating the gamer in you

Happy New Year to y'all!

First post of the Year! Wow, this makes it the fourth year of this blog. 2007 was an amazing year for the CrazyKinux's Musing. I won't go into details today as I plan to do so in a later post, but just to give you an idea, I had almost 55,000 visitors this past year (over 80,000 page views), which is almost 10 times as much as 2006. Let's see if we can do better this year.

Back to this post!

You're probably asking yourself what this blog banter is all about.
Well, Blog Banter is a group of bloggers passionate about anything and everything video games. On a monthly basis we get together and write-up a series of articles on a specific subject and then link to each other. The brainchild behind this idea is fellow blogger Hawty McBloggy (aka bs angel). I just love her quirky articles, always uncovering interesting and fun stuff. A must read!

The links to all the participant's articles can be found here and if you're interested in participating, just contact bs angel for more information. Enjoy our stories!

The subject of today's blog banter is New Year resolutions (as it pertains to gaming). The subject was chosen about a week ago, and I've been thinking all week about what mine was, but I just couldn't nail it. Then I figured it out, I'm a gamer with a split personality. For me there are two types of games: those you play on a PC, and those you play on a console. I've written a few articles about this in the past.

The split is as follows: FPS, Racing and RPG/FPS are games I prefer to play on my XBOX, while RTS, RPG and MMOs are games I can only enjoy on a PC.

Now over the last few months, I must admit I had been neglecting my XBOX 360. It would've been gathering dust, were it not for my daughter's Baby Einstein DVD's. I had to do something about it. Things weren't right. The console/pc balance was off, my gamer equilibrium was all out of whack.

Things needed to change.

Over the holidays, I gave the XBOX a good kick in the butt. Loaded Gears of War and ripped through some Locust Horde! Played some more Halo 3 and gave Mass Effect a quick spin.

Which brings me to my resolution for the year and the subject of this post. It's all about balance. Wax in, Wax out. Ying and Yan. Chi and Li. PC and Console.

So my resolution for this year, my goal, is to balance my gaming time between my PC Gaming and XBOX gaming. Between EVE Online and my other PC titles. Don't get me wrong, the main focus of this blog will still be EVE Online. You'll just have a chance to read up on what else I'm playing. Maybe a few articles on how an EVE FPS would look like. Or which current RTS would lend it itself well to EVE.

So there you have it! I've been rehabilitated and am all the better for it. How about you? What's your New Year's resolution?

What kind of gamer are you: PC or Console?

I have an XBOX and a PC, and have a good number of games for both. I used to play games on my XBOX a lot more in the past, but as time goes on, I find myself more and more doing so on the PC.

In the end I have to admit that I'm a PC Gamer. Consoles are great, and the XBOX 360 is a sweet piece of gaming machine, one that I might, make that will, get eventually - Gears of War and Mass Effect anyone.

I was looking at my Gamespot profile earlier today, and realized that I not only owned more PC games than XBOX games, but that most of my tracked ones and the ones on my wish list were also PC games.

And that's largely the results of the types of game I like to play: one MMORPG in particular (EVE not to name any), as well as RTSs and RPGs. Most of the FPS games that I play, I do so on the XBOX. Don't ask, it just feels more natural to me.

There are three gaming magazines that I read, "EON" (subscription), "PC Gamer" and "Games for Windows - The Official Magazine". For someone so into EVE as I am, E:ON is a godsend! Such a fine piece of journalism, short stories and informative articles on game play. PC Gamer is a magazine that I'll pick once in a while, only if it has an article on an up and coming game I'm interested in - or when they have those "Build your Dream PC" special issues. As for GFW magazine, I've bought all first three issues, and so far I must say I like what I see. I think Microsoft is finally stepping up to the plate and acknowledging how important PC as a platform is. And GFW is a huge step forward.

So how about you? PC or console? And whatever the platform, what gaming magazine to you read? Please feel free to use the comments to voice your opinion.

Gaming: Computer Games Magazine to Launch New Publication

It looks like we'll soon be getting a new gaming magazine dedicated to MMORPG. Indeed, the folks behind Computer Games magazine will soon release MASSIVE Magazine. Personally I'm very much for this, and will certainly check out the first issue.

From the media kit they offer, it seems they know pretty well their audience and have done their homework. SO far so good.

About MASSIVE Magazine:
MASSIVE Magazine is the ultimate guide to the world of massively multiplayer online games. It covers the games and culture with a progressive and breezy editorial style produced by the top writers in the industry. Issues of MASSIVE will include features on the games, their communities, guilds, profiles of top players, and other features that will make the magazine a part of the MMO world.

Plan of Action:
Aggressive promotion campaign scheduled at Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and all other retailers.
Included DVD with demos
Rate base: 100,000 on newsstands
Bigger size: 9"x—10.875"
Newsstand price $5.99-compared to similar publications which are $9.99-this will be a great deal!
Plan to go quarterly starting January 1, 2007

Our Readers are Your Customers:
Reach over 5,000,000 gamers
Typically male
Average age is 26 years old
Average gamer plays 22 hours per week
source: www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_demographics.html

Congrats to Nick Yee (from the Daedalus Project) by the way, for being quoted as a source - that's what good research is for.

Over the last few years I've slowly reduced my number of magazine subscriptions from about 7 to currently 2 (well actually 3 if you count E:ON). And with all the blogs, gaming sites, web 2.0 sites and others that I read daily, it would have been impossible to read all of them had I kept all my subscriptions. Now, with a magazine geared towards MMORPGs, I'm glad I didn't.

Gaming: Windows Vista review on Gamespot - Part 3

The third part of the Windows Vista review, Windows Vista Part 3 - Networking and Security, has been available for sometime now.

Some of these security features will make for a welcomed improvements of XP. And the various new (updated) protocols that Vista will support will be interesting to have if the improvements they claim to add are actually noticeable to us users and not just to testing softwares.

Gaming: Windows Vista review on Gamespot - Part 2

The second part of the Windows Vista review, Windows Vista Part 2 - Navigation and organization, has been available since mid-last week. This time they go over "Searching" where we learn that Vista will use meta-tagging for easier and faster searches. The article also covers "Organization" and the new "Explorer" interface.

Overall things should be faster to find and Vista takes away some of the difficulties of filing numerous items. It's a shame WinFS won't make it until after Vista ships as this would provided an even better user experience. Guess you can't have everything at the same time.