Six Degrees NBI2016 Edition

This week, I am doing something a bit different for my 6 degrees post – I am looking at Newbies.  Since this is the first Friday of the Newbie Blogger Initiative, I decided I wanted to cover some of the newbie bloggers in my degrees post.  So far I’ve only identified 5 new blogs that have signed up but I’m sure more will be coming along throughout the month, but I’m gonna focus on them and then one from my regular link list.  Here are the 6 blogs I am looking at today:

Six Degrees of June 3rd, 2016

1. Just East of West
2. The Wild Core Chronicle
3. Pleasant Gamer
4. I’m Not Squishy
5. Shadowz Gaming Blog
6. Ravalation

Just East of West – Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

Vagrant Zero over at Just East of West talks about not having a “home” MMO. Currently playing “casual” games, he’s looking for something to bridge the gap between now and Legion. It seems a lot of people are in the same boat. August just isn’t that far away and to get started in a new MMO at this time can lead to a dilemma once Legion comes out.

Another issue which he’s dealing with has effected us all at one point or another…namely not having the horsepower in your computer to play a game at the level you want. This Has given me headaches since I started playing PC games. There’s always something new to get so I can play the next game at better settings. I struggled mightily for years – building my own PC and updating the CPU or the GPU or the hard drive or the RAM or the motherboard. It’s a never-ending struggle to stay at the top of the heap. New components are always coming out and of course they are far superior to what you currently have. I finally gave up on the cycle and purchased a laptop. At least I could get what I want and stop worrying about the next best thing because…I can’t update – problem solved.

In any case, I wish Vagrant Zero luck in building a new computer…and lots of fun (I always enjoyed it till it became frustrating) and hope he finds the game(s) that will carry him through to Legion.

The Wild Core Chronicle – Starting Novel Number Two: Reflections

Wow – this is an interesting post that I feel a bit unworthy of commenting on. EGrey is writing a novel…no…rather, he is writing his second novel. That’s a pretty cool project to undertake. I’ve always wanted to write a novel, but never set aside the time or build up the courage to get going with one.
From the post, it’s obvious that EGrey has a good idea of what he’s doing. He’s got characters, concepts, backstory, and themes already thought up and laid out for the novel and since this is his second work, I figure he knows what it takes. I wish him lots of luck with this endeavor and plan on seeking out his first novel to add to my reading list.

Pleasant Gamer – Minas Tirith – It’s a Climb

Zyngor over at Pleasant Gamer may have last posted a few months ago but it is still relevant to gamers today. I for one find it interesting since I have yet to reach Minas Tirith in Lotro. But before going into his experiences there, Zyngor talks about the headache of dealing with the Lotro servers and consolidation…things did not go smoothly and many suffered from the inept method of migration. When will game companies learn that they need to WORK to keep the players rather than just expect them to stick around?
In any case, with the consolidation accomplished, he moved mostly to Landroval which is where my “main” is at (I still haven’t risen above level 20 for any of my characters). And now that he has got all his characters organized he’s working on the 1000 level challenge, which is something I had not heard of before. Apparently the challenge is to get one of each class in Lotro up to level 100. That certainly sounds like an accomplishment. At the time of the post, he was 68% complete and that was a couple months ago…I wonder where he’s at now. In any case, I’m glad to have him aboard for the NBI this year.

I’m Not Squishy – A Love Affair with MMOs

Over at I’m Not Squishy (which is a pretty cool name for a gaming blog), Kluwes talks about their history with MMOs starting with Club Penguin and Runescape through to League of Legends, Guild Wars, and Trove – quite a nice diversity of games there. As is often the case, game cost and number of friends playing make such a big difference in what games we chose to play. For me, if it were not the Alea Iacta Est in WoW, I wouldn’t have spent time in Eve Online, Rift, or many of the games I’ve played…They even introduced me to League of Legends though not many of them play there.
In any case, it’s good to see how Kluwes came to where they’re at in gaming and it’s good to see a new blog to add to my RSS feed – welcome to the NBI Blogosphere.

Shadowz Gaming Blog – NBI2016-#1Witcher and why I like it

Shadowz posts about The Witcher series of games. While many of us have been playing Witcher 3, Shadowz is a completionist and has gone back to the beginnings of the series and started playing Witcher 1, and I applaud that dedication. Speaking of which, he attained the Dedicated ranking on Raptr for that first game. And as far as dedicated, he’s even hunting down the books that the whole series is based on. I’d have to say that I’ve played a little Witcher 2 and I own Witcher 3 but haven’t got to playing it yet…another one of my backlogged games. And I can totally agree with the assessment that real life can be overwhelming at times. Gaming in moderation can go a long way to getting out of the everyday doldrums and let’s me focus on the immediate troubles of the quest I’m on or winning the game I’m playing, so it’s good to see that others do the same for the same reasons. Glad to have Shadowz aboard for the NBI this year.

Ravalation – NBI 2016: Some initial directions

This is the only blog this week that’s not a newbie, but Ravanel Griffon is a supporter of the NBI, and he actually is an alumni (like myself). Ravalation went through the NBI as a newbie four years ago and he shares a link to his experience…so cool. In this post, Ravanel highlights the NBI, how to sign up, where to find NBI supporters, and provides some idea of what the NBI is all about.

Being on holliday for the first week of the event will cut into the posting, but he’s looking forward to the 5th NBI just like I am.

Roundup

With this being the first week of the Newbie Blogger Initiative, I wanted to highlight a few of the blogs that have just started out.  As with every week so far, there is a diversity of posts and I love it. I highly recommend giving a look to all these bloggers and check out what they have to add to the conversations around the blogosphere. In fact, you should check out all the new bloggers from the NBI.

Morning Ramble 2.114