Which HTML5? - WHATWG and W3C Split

I just came across an article that is going to make my future web work that much more difficult: Which HTML5? - WHATWG and W3C Split. Just when the browsers were getting closer to being on the same page, this shits happens. Rrrrr!

Gone Digital: My Dragon eats my Asura

So this past weekend was the final beta weekend for Guild Wars 2. It was also the first time during open beta that the asura and the sylvari (and their respective starting areas) have been playable. I have been waiting for the asura since they were announced as a playable race.

After updating the client Friday night, I jumped on to make my asura. I rather quickly went through the character creation process and hence Talsen was born. He ran around talking to NPCs and exploring his world. He helped out a couple people in need (i.e. quests). Then about 15 to 20 minutes in, something that had been creeping around the back of my mind burst through to the front: my Dragon wanted to be played. It was with only slight reluctance that I logged out of GW and started up Secret World. I say slight because even though I have waiting a long time to finally play an asura, the character was only going to be around for the weekend then wiped. I figured that my time would be better spent on a live character then a temporary one.

So the rest of the night saw Raszagal running around with some of her companions (can't say friends since they're Illuminati). We ended the night after several sound defeats by the boss of the Darkness Wars dungeon.

Gone Digital: Off the Island

I finished the main story line for Solomon Island (SI) last night. The last tier was pretty interesting. It was the first real branching point that I've seen in the game so far. Being a huge HP Lovecraft fan, I've loved the whole Lovecraftian atmosphere of the island, and the main story dealt with it quite well. I was really torn between the two options I had at the finale but ended up choosing the one that fit my character's outlook.

I have only repeated 3 or 4 missions so far and then only to get enough xp to open up the next Dragon mission. I plan on work on it tonight then heading back to SI and finishing off the few remaining missions (that I know of). I will also most likely run through Darkness War (the Blue Mountain instance) several times to try and get better gear before I head to the next main area, Egypt I think.

Dive Into: Node.js et al, Part 2

Well, since Connect (and hence Express) removed the compiler function sometime after the tut I was using, Sass is not wanting to play nice with Express. And since I was not able to find a replacement middleware module easily, Sass has been replaced in my project with Stylus.

Other then that, things are proceeding nicely with the learning.

Dive Into: Node.js et al

So, Monday I started my latest new endeavor: learning node.js and some of its associated libraries. This foray is an extension of my main endeavor: creating a multi-user interaction site. The current overall project is for the kingdom building parts of my Kingmaker campaign. The present iteration of the builder is mostly done (80%). The kingdom map part done, but the district building has only just begun (5%).

The various libraries I'm trying out are Node.js, Nowjs, Express, Jade, CouchDB, and Sass (maybe). One of the starting points for learning all of this was this example app and the one mentioned in the article. Between these two examples and by watching some tuts on YouTube, I had a decent basis for starting. So, we'll see how things go.

Game On: Small World

Today our usual lunch gaming session had our Pathfinder Kingmaker game replaced by Small World. Even though I had never played before I decided to pick it up on Amazon after hearing Glen mention he and his family liked to play it as well as having watched the Table Top. I must say it is really fun. I'm looking forward to playing it again, hopefully with more people. Maybe I can convince people to go again Friday at lunch.

Halfway Point

Halfway through the week with Little Man being at Grandma's. Kind of strange not having him around. Mom calls every night before she puts him to bed for a quick rundown of the day's events. Needless to say, he's having a good time spending time with everyone up there.

A Week Away

Well, yesterday Riley went to spend a week with Grandma, my mom. He has spent a couple days with her before, but this is the first time it's been a week. It's going to be rather quiet around the house for the next few days.

Angela and I finally managed to have the time to watch the "Hatfields & McCoys" mini series. It is just too adult for us to watch with Little Man around. We only got through the first two parts and will watch the last part tonight. I have to say that it's been a really intense and good show. I knew growing up that their feud was huge but never realized the extent of it until now.

Secret World is plagued by yet another bug; this time it's the chat system. I grouped with Brandon this Friday night for a little while, but most of the time we had to chat through Steam rather then in-game since SW's chat was completely fucked. It's really sad and disheartening to see a really good game marred by issues that should not exist. I can understand (but not accept) issues with their missions since some are not like those you would find in other MMOs. The chat system on the other hand should not have ANY issues. I'm not talking about linking items in chat or even filtering chat but generic chat functionality. When no type of chat is working between two people (not group, tells, or even local says), something is seriously wrong. After ~15 minutes of trying to get things working, we finally said "screw it" and logged to go eat. I really hope Funcom gets their act together and fixes these serious issues or SW will be a past issue for me.

Brave and Other Mentionables

Yesterday, Angela and I saw the movie Brave. I have to say, I enjoyed it a lot. While it is not my favorite movie of the year so far (that goes to The Avengers), it still ranks pretty high. I'm not going t say anything about it since I don't want to give anything away, but Ang has already decided she's going to pick it up when it comes out on DVD.

I will mention a couple of movies coming out later this year that we saw previews for before the movie. First, is Wreck-It Ralph. It's an Disney animated move about the bad guy from a video game not wanting to be a bad guy anymore. It looks pretty funny.
The second one is a movie that I've been very anxiously waiting for since it's announcement: The Hobbit. No matter how many times I watch this trailer, I get chills when the dwarves sing "Misty Mountains Cold". Can. Not. Wait.

Gone Digital: Pulling Back the Curtain

Friday was the first day of early access for Secret World. Needless to say, this weekend was full of exploration and attempting to turn back the tide of evil (pun intended). After having played through the starter area several times, I skipped the cut scenes I had seen before. I was a little miffed that they decided to complete change the model of at least one main NPC and completely remove another along with her related mission. Her removal makes some of the references made by other NPCs about her harder to piece together as being about the same person.

The main issue I (and many other players) have is the several of the missions are bugged. How the hell did these get past the betas let alone the internal testing? I have had to make a (short) list of missions I need to go back and complete when the game is updated later today/tomorrow for  release. Luckily you can invite people on other dimensions (aka servers) to your group and are temporarily moved to their server. This is one way of dealing with the bugged missions. Because, lo and behold...the bugged missions are only bugged on some servers! Seriously? How the hell is that even possible when all of the servers supposedly have the same code base!? WTF!? I did not partake of this method of getting bugged missions done nor did I petition a GM to force complete the bugged step of missions X. Instead I made a list and plan on trying again after each patch until I get them done.

This is definitely the buggiest (?) launch of a MMO that I've experienced with the exception of Anarchy Online. Hey, look! Another Funcom game. Age of Conan (their other MMO) suffered from a buggy release too, but I didn't have the problems I had with AO or SW. Seeing a trend here? Funcom puts out games with good concepts but is seriously lacking in the QA department. I absolutely love Secret World as a whole, but I can't stand shoddy programming/testing.