This was one hella long year. I began the year working, as I had for the previous three+, for Slashdot.org as their games editor. Two months later I was one of the lead bloggers at Massively.com, a gig that would see me through to my first E3 and a bunch of other far-flung industry events. Interesting times don’t even begin to cover it … but that old Chinese curse seems like a good way to describe a long and strange year. Below is a month-by-month rundown of my best content here on the site. Hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane, just as we did at the end of 2007.

As I said last year, the ongoing conversation that this site has become is one of my favorite parts about maintaining a commentary blog. Thanks for the opporuntunity to chat with such interesting folks!
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I’ve gone ahead with a cunning plan to do a video instead of a regular blog post for my next-year prognostications. Unfortunately, it’s the first time I’ve tried to do this in a setting like this, and as a result it’s taking longer and running into unforseen difficulties. No shocker there, but it won’t be up for a bit yet.

That whole ‘unseen difficulties’ thing made me think that I should link to T=Machine, which recently posted two of the most thoughtful discussions of the MMO industry I’ve read in some time:

• Does it lose money when you do that? Then don’t do that! – A discussion of MMO business models and pitfalls. Stuff Raph and Co. have been harping on for a while and a great argument for the kool-aid I drank early in 2008.
• Customer Relationships and Support for Online Games and MMOs – Variations on themes Sanya’s been putting out there for some time now, and well worth a readthrough.

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A year ago, at the close of 2007, I threw out some prognostications about the coming 12 months. Those months have now passed and it’s time to pay the piper. Just as with last year I’m going to grade my predictions on a straight pass/fail basis; percentages are for actuarials.
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I finished up another gallery I thought you might find interesting to take a look at. This one was shot the same week as AGDC 2008, just a day after the conference ended. Myself and Elizabeth from Massively took a good hard look at DC Universe Online, and I shot a bunch of fun pictures to accompany the visit. Check out our trip to SOE Austin.

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Earlier this month I mentioned that I’d gotten my photos from my Mythic Entertainment visit tagged up; downtime this week let me square away a few more Flickr sets I thought I’d share:

• Photos from Gen Con 2008. A few of the EVE and Champions Booths, and a fun picture of Cryptic’s unique advertising off the Con floor.
• These photos are from my blogging-focused trip to E3!
• And these photos hail from AGDC 2008, just a few short months ago.

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As you’ve probably noticed, not only have I been straying from World of Warcraft to play Lord of the Rings Online, but EverQuest II as well. Heading back to Norrath was probably a foregone conclusion for me, but I found myself more and more thinking fondly of my days adventuring with good old Ostimak.

You have to understand … as much affection I have for all of my mains (Grodimil, Hackworthe, Amak, Jacob’s Ladder, etc.), I’ve been playing Osti for more than two freaking years. On top of that, almost all of my time with that character has been spent playing with good friends, two of whom in turn I’ve known for something like half of my life.
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We all know why NC decided to closed TR, there’s no deep mysteries there: not enough people. Too much money spent, too little reward, and embarrassment all around for what turned out to be a bad call on the Garriott brothers. Who could have known? Two years ago when I wrote about Richard’s ‘post-relaunch’ talk at GDC everyone was entirely optimistic, and I even though it had a chance as of the end of 2007. So, the reasons behind NC’s closing decision aren’t obscured.

What is obscured, or was for me at least, was the context. The conditions under which they made that decision. The realities of the rest of the world vs. our little bubble of online gaming here in the states. Within that bubble I float in a particularly small subpocket of like-minded, passionate gamers with a love for all things online. The context around me is frustration, annoyance, and generally surly attitudes about what we see as the abuse of a perfectly valid community.

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