Waiting For Rez: 100 Posts

This will be the 100th post on Waiting For Rez. I had completely different plans on what I was going to post today (another impressions piece for Black Desert) however realizing this post will be a kind of mile marker for the blog, I thought I would go a different direction. A little over a year ago Massively was shut down and Massively OP was born and in the middle of those two events I decided to start blogging. I was already considering it having discovered Bio Break and other popular MMO blogs but the threat of Massively going away for good was the catalyst to get me started; I wanted to continue conversing with the community surrounding MMOs.

While there was certainly a period of silence I am still blogging today and I’m proud of reaching the 100 post marker. So I thought I would provide a few links to some of my favorite posts over the last year. Most of them I like because they’re funny (or at least I think they are) but a few are significant for other reasons.

Crafting in ESO: Writ Certification Part 1

This is by far the most popular post on my blog; with the launch of ESO on consoles my daily views skyrocketed because of this post. And while I have no reason to believe that everyone who visited the site read through the post let alone anything else on my blog, I think I did a good job with this guide. If I remember correctly it was also the first post I had featured on Global Chat, a column produced by Justin Olivetti at Massively OP. Sadly there was never a part two. I meant to follow it up with a similar post on the other half of writ certification but I never did. Now I would have to read my own guide to remember how the process works!

Welcome to Coldharbour

Another post on The Elder Scrolls Online. This was just something silly I put together using some screenshots I took during a return to Coldharbour after the revamp. It really was an improvement on the tutorial experience but rather than a standard impressions piece I decided to do something a little different.

Invariably Variable

You can probably skip through most of this one. It was one of the “here’s what’s going on in my gaming life right now” posts that I referred to as the “State of the Rez.” But definitely get to the part about the Sandbocolypse and sending my grandson back in time. And the Bree-800 series cyber-economist. I should turn this stuff into a popular film series.

Movement Progression in Trove and the Value of Flight in Draenor

I think this post sums up why I loved Trove so much last year and it was also one of those moments when I really started thinking that, despite my enjoyment of the theme park model of MMOs (see Invariably Variable), there really was a lot of stagnation in the way they were designed without enough innovation that fundamentally affected gameplay rather than changes that were nothing more than grafted on mini-games.

Eleven Years, Dancing Cheek to Cheek

I wrote this post for my wife last year for our eleventh anniversary. I wanted to write down our story like my Grandpa had for his wife, kids and grandkids. The longer we’re married the more remarkable I realize she is and how blessed I am to be married to such a strong, gracious woman.

Beard and Soul

I enjoyed writing this post even more than I did making those bearded characters in the game. And while I was being a little tongue and cheek  I really was impressed with the facial hair options and the character creator in general in Blade and Soul. This was one of those MMOs I never expected to try let alone to enjoy as much as I did but it really is a great title and the more bearded men we get balancing out the number of busty women and fluffy tailed children the better.