New Developments

There's been a lot going on since the last time I posted, both in my life and in the world of gaming, though it didn't seem like it at the time it was all happening.

First, work took a turn for the uber-stressful, just as temperatures hit record levels back in Arkansas. The past year has probably been the most stressful I've worked in television besides my very first year as a producer, and if something doesn't change in the next couple of months things are going to get hairy.

On happier topics, I'm starting another D&D game with some PhD students from my wife's theatre program.  Once my other game finishes the heroic tier in a couple of months I'll turn over DMing duties to another player in the group. I'm debating whether I want to stick with the group as a player or if I want to set it aside completely and focus on my other game.  Considering the time and stress I'm dealing with at work, it'll probably be better not to try and two too many things at the same time.

My latest Kobold Quarterly article, "10 Reasons Why Your Character Should Be Arrested" was published in their big summer issue.  I had originally thought to write a series of articles about in-game laws and ways DMs can use it in their games, but instead stuck with one article that hopefully provides a lot of grist for the game-making mill.

I've also been raid-leading in the Firelands on WoW, and really like the new content Blizzard has put out.  The dailies are fun and interesting, with a lot of variation and some really good carrots at the end of the stick.  My only gripe is one of the achievements that has you kill a handful of different named fire elementals near Mount Hyjal:  all four spawn one after the other if they're killed, or despawn after ten minutes if they aren't and reappear an hour later.  One person can only get credit for killing them, which means the one who starts the whole chain (a fire hound named Kelbnar) is almost always gibbed before I can get to it, and I've been sitting waiting to kill him for WEEKS with nothing to show for it.  I'll eventually set aside time to just camp him out with some helpful guildies, but finding that time has been difficult to say the least.

And then, during all that craziness, Blizzard drops that bomb that they're going to have a real-money Auction House in Diablo 3.  As far as bombs go, this one might just be a Gamma bomb, leaving nothing but green in its wake.

And by green I mean sweet, sweet cash for playing video games.

I plan to write more about the idea when there's more real, solid info out there explaining how it would work. After all, at this points it very well could wind up going the way of the WoW Dance Studio.  If it doesn't though, it could mean a revolution in the gold-buying market and for avid game players.  I don't think I would ever be able to play enough Diablo to pay my rent, but I certainly think it'd be possibly to play enough to pay for my WoW subscription, and possibly even the next expansion.

And for the people complaining about how it'll ruin video games, I give Exhibit A:  PLEX cards from EVE Online.  Pandora's Box was opened a long time ago, and the internet is doing just fine.