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Category: Happy Humpday Highlights

November 11, 2009

Happy Humpday Highlights – Stylish Corpse

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Happy Humpday Highlights — Tags: , — 3 Comments

Ah, the middle of the week, which means another opportunity for this positive sun-fest of a blog to direct your attention elsewhere if you get annoyed by my brightly-colored optimism.

This week, I’m taking a look at Stylish Corpse, written by the prolific Ysharros. I actually tracked this blog down via, of all things, Twitter, where I noticed Ysharros was particularly active and engaging with other bloggers I already was stalking. This eventually led me to, what else, stalking her on Twitter and grabbing a look at what she was writing.

The reason why I personally enjoy reading Stylish Corpse is the talent Ysharros has for engaging you for an extended amount of text while still making things personable. This might seem odd coming from an English major like me, but I don’t read some bloggers simply because they tend to overwhelm you with walls and walls of analytical boredom. When I roll through Google Reader, I have as many as 125 things to read at a time, which means you need to be interesting to keep my attention.

Ysharros manages to keep me engaged in long posts by talking about her personal thoughts and ideas about topics which would normally be dispassionate – such as a series of articles of Dragon Age: Origins’ story, or events in MMOs. These are punctuated by more traditionally personal blog entries about life and blogging in general which give me insight into her character. Add to that some British charm, and you have a recipe for a good blog.

Ysharros also has a long history of RPGs and MMOs that compares to mine, so that means the breadth of her knowledge and writing spans many years of grinding, leveling, and killing (both NPCs and players).  So if you’re interested in a blog that can credibly grab your attention while giving you the sage detail of a good book, check out Stylish Corpse. You won’t be disappointed.

November 4, 2009

Happy Humpday Highlights – Multiplaying

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Happy Humpday Highlights — Tags: — 4 Comments

I’ve been really awful with doing these lately! I think the thing is that I’ve had quite a bit of sunshine to post about on Hump Day, whether that’s in response to someone else’s grumpy pessimism or a few thoughts of my own that scream happiness. But I think I’ve got some time now to make sure these come out in the middle of the week as promised – because if there’s one thing that’s always nice for me, it’s getting a boost from seeing someone else get one.

This week I’ll be talking about gaming blog Multiplaying. The folks over at Multiplaying have charmed me ever since they had a WAR podcast under the name Circle of Trust. I think the reason why this happened was because as I listened to them talk, laugh, and generally carry on about games in a non-serious manner, I was reminded of the attitude I take towards games these days – they’re a hobby, meant to be fun, and meant to be played when you had time to do so. The Multiplaying folks also hover around my age group as well, meaning I was able to identify with their thoughts about time commitments to games, juggling other obligations, and generally feeling good about the slow, casual pace of playtime.

Multiplaying is basically a gaming blog that highlights that last point. It’s a multi-author blog so you get a good variance in the voice that comes from it, whether it is about Halloween games, or socialization, or the latest patch on a game they’re currently playing. The overarching theme is the same – casual players’ viewpoint on gaming. The result is an entertaining bunch of reads from players that I think have a good sense of shuffling priorities and real life craziness.

The Multiplaying folks have been constant (and early) supporters of Overly Positive, so be sure to check their posts and podcast out!

October 7, 2009

Happy Humpday Highlight – Bio Break

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Happy Humpday Highlights — Tags: , , — 9 Comments
how to use a Western toilet (Erica's bathroom)
Image by hII!H via Flickr

This week I’m going to be focusing on a blog that has been an advocate of mine ever since I had 2 readers and not over 62 – Syp’s Bio Break.

Bio Break is the expansion of a blog that Syp called WAAAAGH! Blog, which was a blog dedicated to Warhammer Online. Syp’s prolific articles and multiple posting updates garnered a healthy readership as one of WAR’s best known fan sites. When Syp decided to expand his focus to MMOs in general, his readers followed him over to Bio Break, where Syp provides a daily heaping helping of MMO goodness every day.

Perhaps Bio Break’s greatest strength is not just in the fact that Syp produces quality articles that have been featured on MMO frontpages (like 10 Things You Need To Know Before Starting Champions), but that he gives frequent love to other blogs within his sphere of influence. I do know that in his regular features like/AFK I’ve received plenty of pingbacks and perhaps many readers. In the blogosphere, providing a pingback or some love is just the thing that might give you that boost to get to the next level.

As if that wasn’t enough Syp does a somewhat regular MMO podcast with fellow blogger/Massively.com writer Snafzg, and has been known to post about a variety of topics in a single day. This variance in content has been a personal inspiration to me, but it also provides some interesting reading – which is amazing considering it’s all coming from the same person. So if you want to get a break from the normal MMO blog grind, try to take a Bio Break – you won’t regret it.

September 23, 2009

Happy Humpday Highlights – Unenlightened English

by Frank — Categories: Happy Humpday Highlights — Tags: — 1 Comment
Dictionary
Image via Wikipedia

Oh noes! I totally have been slacking on Happy Humpday Highlights lately. I guess there’s just been so much going on that I typically hit my little self-imposed quota for the day to avoid burnout. Well, no more I say! I can’t pass up opportunities to pimp out the other blogs in my blogroll.

This week we’re looking at a blog by a friend who writes on a subject close to my heart, and perhaps yours as well. Unenlightened English is mostly written by Kelly, a friend of mine who is pursuing a career as a professor. In another life, if the world of IT hadn’t worked out for me, I’d probably be walking Kelly’s path right now, teaching others about the nuances of the English language, only I’d be a lot more boring, certainly. I mean, can you imagine this blog style being someone’s curriculum? The horror!

Anyway, Unenlightened English is a blog dedicated to teaching English rules and writing tips in a way that helps students and aspiring writers, but also tries to put a bit more of a casual, humorous spin on things. There’s a notion out there that when learning is engaging and fun, it is more likely to stick, so with posts like Illicit vs. Elicit, Compare and Contrast essays, and Punctuation and Quotations, Kelly’s looking to not only boost your language skills but do so in a way that won’t seem like you’re in class.

Even if you have a fairly good command of English, like I do (most of the time), you can still learn something by perusing the topics over at Unenlightened English. If you’re a student, you’ll benefit from the academically focused topics that’ll help you crank out the papers and if you’re a teacher, you might find a creative way to present a topic to your students that’ll help them retain what you’re trying to teach them. Either way, you should pop over and check out the words of wisdom (literally) that Kelly has to impart. You might just come away with something you didn’t know before.

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September 2, 2009

Happy Humpday Highlights – Shadow WAR

by Frank — Categories: Happy Humpday Highlights — Tags: , , , — 1 Comment
Shadow Warriors (Ninja Gaiden Shadow)
Image by BlogDeManu via Flickr

Yeah, I really couldn’t resist. Old school, baby!

This week’s Happy Humpday Highlight, which takes a tour around my blogroll, takes a look at the Shadow WAR blog, run by MMO veteran Andrew. Now, a lot of the friends and readers I’ve accumulated over the past year have been people that I know from the Warhammer Online community. While the number of bloggers that are currently writing about WAR has decreased, a few brave souls soldier on, and Shadow WAR, while it has turned a but generalist, is among them.

Shadow WAR used to be focused on, well Shadow Warrior type posts. The Shadow Warriors have arguably been one of WAR’s much-maligned classes, with lack of love and attention leading to a lot of frustration and issues. Thankfully, Andrew has been there despite that, with inspired posts such as “Even if they can’t make it sound awesome”, which responds to the GOA highlight of the Shadow Warrior, and “What I’d like to call retarded”, which talks about the lack of meaningful buffs to the Shadow Warrior in a particular patch note listing. These may sound like odd posts to be endorsing, considering I’m all about the sun and brightness, but I have a lot of respect for passion and posts that are driven by a sincere love of the class. A lesser person would have rerolled into a more powerful class. Andrew responded by playing a little Black Guard, another arguably underpowered class. Now that takes guts.

Andrew’s blog is also interesting because he has a wide scope of other topics, from other MMOs like Champions Online, to a bit of history and politics, and commentary on other blogs. There’s varied reading to be had at Shadow WAR, and I always like dropping in via Google Reader to hit up the latest articles or simply click in to give him another hit on the site. If you doubt the experience of his gaming that qualifies him to talk on so many topics, one only need to drop in on the MMO history and characters section of his blog, which is a full breakdown of what Andrew’s played. It’s a background that rivals and even exceeds my own, from an MMO perspective.

Shadow WAR’s definitely a good and decent read on gaming. Be sure to check the blog posts there, and on my blogroll – because they’re there for a reason, don’t ya know.

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August 19, 2009

Helpful Humpday Highlights – Up Past Midnight

by Frank — Categories: Happy Humpday Highlights — Tags: , — Leave a comment
camel droop
Image by seeinside via Flickr

So considering I didn’t have enough semi-regular features on Overly Positive, I figured I’d just add in another for those middle-of-the-week doldrums. Sure, it’s only halfway to a weekend that seems more out of reach than hooking up with Jessica Alba or Brad Pitt, but nevertheless, it’s half over.

Helpful Humpday Highlights is going to show my terribly small readership wider horizons than just my optimistic writing. Let’s face it – I’ve got plenty of blogs on my blogroll, and will probably add more, but without a little pimpage, you might not be so inclined to click on them. Well, Humpday will change all of that, starting today.

Today’s Helpful Humpday Highlight focuses on a blog that just got started (again) – although the author has been doing a lot of work to justify her not putting her thoughts on paper. Up Past Midnight is the blog of one Aiiane Miraelia, and if you don’t recognize the name, all you need to do is look at Curse and check all the addons by her. Warhammer Online has benefitted from the talent that Aiiane possesses, in the form of core UI modifications that are a staple of any player’s arsenal – Squared for warband and unit layout and selection, LibSlash as a code library for the basis of many WAR addons, Twister for managing those pesky auras for Knights and Chosen, and much more. With all of these achievements, someone lesser would have been a bit egotistical, but not so with Aiiane, who has remained not just humble but helpful to fellow modders in her community. Aiiane’s got a history in other games too, such as Guild Wars, and the upcoming Global Agenda.

Aiiane writes about a variety of things on Up Past Midnight, including user interface elements, MMOs, and more. True to the blog’s namesake, Aiiane’s night owl tendencies mean that the blog gets updated at odd hours, but it’s definitely worth a read if you want to peer into the mind of a budding programmer. She just got started writing again, so be sure to roll on over to her blog, add her rss feed to your reader, and leave some commentary to encourage her to write – and hopefully get to sleep at a decent hour!

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