I’d like to thank the following websites for mentioning my brand!

• ROLEPLAY @ James The Bard
• MadBrewLabs
• Wizards.com D&D Forum
• ENWorld.org
• Wikipedia
• NZComputers.net
• 3POINT75 – Even if my name is incorrect
• Critical Gamers

Thank you!

Did I miss your website? Let me know!

More Aion Closed Beta Events

The next two Aion closed beta events are on the horizon. Soar into a closed beta event by entering one or both of these two upcoming weekends.

Third Closed Beta

• Thursday, July 2, 2009—Noon PT, Monday, July 6, 2009
• Asmodians, levels 1-20

The third beta event features the Asmodians. Asmodians are a fiercely loyal, brave, and hardy people who are not friendly to outsiders. Their skin is pale or dusky, and their eyes have adapted to low light by gaining an otherworldly glow. The feathers of ascended Asmodians are dark in color.

Customers who preorder are guaranteed access to all beta events, so if you haven’t done so, preorder today.

Fourth Closed Beta

• Friday, July 17, 2009—Noon PT, Monday, July 20, 2009
• Asmodians and Elyos, levels 1-25, and a first taste of the Abyss!

The fourth beta event features both the Asmodian and Elyos races and allows access up to level 25. For the first time, Aion players will get to experience the infamous Abyss, an unstable rift between the two shattered halves of Atreia where the center of the Tower of Eternity used to be. Get ready for a whole new MMO experience with PvPvE—epic battles with hundreds of Elyos and Asmodians fighting both each other and the AI-controlled Balaur!

Preorder today to guarantee your access to the fourth beta event. Once you have a beta serial code (or have preordered), log in to your NCsoft Master Account to activate your beta serial code and to start downloading Aion. We’re looking forward to seeing you this in Atreia.

There you have it. Get your beta keys now if you want in on the next two events!

Wait. What?

So, apparently, as according to “Big Download“, Blizzard is discontinuing the infamous LAN mode, and instead requiring only a single player and Battle.net mode. Apparently, Blizzard will be upgrading Battle.net to include future technology, to include things like achievements and statistic ratings.

This, in my humble opinion, is a poor, poor choice. Here’s their reasoning.

We don’t currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy. Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we’re encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We’re looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.

No words needed. Pump this into your skull!

How to promote your website by blogging

In today’s internet most people already know what a blog is. The everyday man and woman is familiar with blogs and even see4 them in the News and on TV. Blogs are common place now, and that is a good thing for everyone.

Even further, blogs are looked at by Search Engines, like Google and Yahoo, as high demand articles to index. This means your blog will be rated higher if it continually gives the search engine up to date articles.

Blogs are easy to use, easy to make and interesting to look at

The biggest attraction to blogging was how easy it was to setup. Most blogs were created or hosted on websites that normal people could access and just start typing. Over the years, blogs got better and more refined as a whole. Today, most people use WordPress or Blogger, among others, as the basis for their online entity.

I use WordPress, thus I know firsthand how easy the software is to use and what it can do. Yet, I am still shocked at what I find people doing with WordPress. It’s so vast and powerful that you can almost indefinitely make anything out of this simple, effective blogging platform with little work.

Even better, blogs are extremely friendly to the viewer. Links are uniform, in most cases, are titled efficiently and just plain looks good. Top that off with the ability for the creator to use pre-made templates, or interfaces, and not only will you have a pretty website, but you’ll have one unique to your style.

So, with all of this praise going towards blogging software, are there any downsides? Sure. Everything has it’s ups and downs.

All internet software is able to be hijacked in one form or another. Bugs are constantly updated and holes fixed. While it’s possible most people won’t have any issues with their favorite blogging software, it’s almost possible that some will. WordPress is updated constantly to increase the security of the writer and the reader.

I’m sure in the end something else will come along and take over the crown of statute that blogging carries. Hopefully it won’t be too soon, and even more, hopefully it rightfully takes the top by actually being a better suite of tools. I doubt we’ll see the dismissal of the blog anytime soon.

So, what do I do?

Here are some good tips to remember when blogging when trying to get traffic, or hits, to your website:

• Link to other blogs relating to your topic. Be sincere about your comments and trackbacks and you will go far in getting traffic.
• Write unique articles about your topic. Even if they are short, if they are your own writing and add to the conversation, then you will succeed.
• Post in forums relating to your topic. Add to the discussion, and point people to your website in the thread.
• Record videos or audio about your topic and post it on your blog. Video and Audio are weighted more than text in most places, if they are proper and concise.
• Be sure you follow Search Engine Optimization techniques.

Lastly, it never hurts to pay for advertising. In all honesty, this is the most effective and true ways to get traffic. You don’t even need to pay much in most cases — sometimes only a couple cents per click!

Please comment to let me know what you think.

We went to the animal shelter here in Puyallup, WA and picked up these two kitties. We love them so much. The big fluffy one is Betty and the little one is Tabby. We’ve had Skittles for some time now, so he thinks it’s his house. He’s already starting to like his new family, though.

There is a sad story, however. We had to put our 15 year old kitty to sleep. She had cancer, was rotting and couldn’t digest food anymore. I miss her quite much.

This is dedicated to Sissy.

If you haven’t heard yet, “Joystiq” is talking about the Mythic/BioWare convergence that’s goin’ down.

As expected, Warhammer Online didn’t turn out very pretty — I know; I was there. I wonder if this is the cause of Mythic’s merge into BioWare (which I love. Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: The Old Republic). Check ‘em out here.

I wanted to thank “Online Massively Multiplayer” for featuring me in one of your recent posts!

They write about the upcoming release of AION, September 26th 2009. Go visit their website and leave your comments and appreciation!

Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. I hate them for making me wait so long, but love them for giving me bits of love! Check it out.

Part One:

Part Two:

According to “BigDownload.com“, Left 4 Dead will be getting some major updates soon.

Interestingly, they’ve already announced Left 4 Dead 2 and have been advertising it on their website and at E3. However, that’s not stopping them from releasing the SDK (A tool useful for third party developers to make custom content for games) and a giant patch for add-ons. This should make the game infinitely better — literally!

Hopefully we’ll see some sweet mods for the game in the near future.