jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2728 Posts

http://hothardware.com/articleimages/item1817/big_wow_front.jpg
"Blizzard Entertainment is offering a series of special charity auctions featuring server hardware originally used during World of Warcraft’s early days. We’ve since upgraded the game’s infrastructure with the latest technology to offer an even better player experience, but these 'honorably discharged' server blades are now unique collectors’ pieces. The net proceeds from the auction will go to benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital."

Totally awesome to get your hands on one of these servers. For the plaque and historical nature alone. I imagine they wipe the drives before they ship them though :)

source:

http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Reitred-World-of-Warcraft-Server-in-Pictures/


Claptrap just wrote all PC gamers a love letter outlining what 2K plans to do for the console version of Borderlands 2. Its significant and it seems like they are treating PC gamers like they should, it seems the Borderlands 2 port won't be a hacked up console game.

http://www.borderlands2.com/loveletter?x

I am actually considering if PS3 is now the best choice or not, the PC list of features seems pretty awesome. I find it heartening to see companies actually caring about PC gamers again. Awesome trend.

The one feature of the PS3, allowing split screen multi-player with my friends is a hard feature to pass up, but the PC only features are really great too.


Figured it would be good to ring in Saint Patricks Day with a free phone & tablet game for Android and iOS called Lep's World. Yeah, the name ain't great but the game is pretty fun.

The game is a serious clone of Super Mario Brothers. Its cool because as I play Lep's World I am reminded how much I love Super Mario Brothers and how much I want to play it on my iPhone.

Lep's World is a side scroller where you are a Leprechaun trying to collect your lost coins from your pot of gold. Instead of the Leprechaun getting a fire flower, he can collect acorns he can throw at enemies. In the typical Mario fashion, Lep can hit bad guys on the head. Some enemies have spikes so the only way to dispatch them is to shoot them with an acorn.

100 coins nets you an extra life and points can get gained by hitting blocks and killing enemies. One difference in Lep's World is that you have a life meter of three shamrocks you can refill by finding other shamrocks that move very similarly to mushrooms. Another difference is when you stomp on the grubs that operate a bit like a Goomba they leave behind a coin, acorn or shamrock. Nice.

At the end of each main stage is a castle level and I expected a boss fight a the end themed appropriately. Unfortunately there was no Leprechaun Bowser.

Level 2.1 starts off strangely by you being chased by a hornet and becomes a runner game. So far, it was just level 2.1 and the level wasn't hard it was just out of place. Kind of adds to the games charm, if not a totally random addition.

Many of the sound effects seem to be lifted straight out of Zelda. When you pick up a pot of gold it sounds eerilly like when you pickup an item in Zelda. Many of the other sound effects seem like other Zelda effects as well. Fun to hear them, they really brought me back to the old days.

Overall this game is a huge Mario clone but that didn't bother me as it was so much fun and most of all its totally free. Have a great Saint Patricks Day this weekend and if you want to increase your mood for green, snag Lep's World.


Blizzard just dropped the launch date for Diablo 3 of May 15th. Pre-order already made and I am marking my calendar.

Is this a game on your radar?

News:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2012/03/diablo-iii-launching-may-15/1

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/d3/


BioShock is one of those games that builds a world you feel immersed in from the start. Playing the game I really got into the character and mood of the game and it was very creepy. As far as the start to a game goes, BioShock does it better than most ive experienced. I started with the PS3 demo and then was given the full meal deal from a friend on my cake day.

100% full disclosure, ive never completed it. I haven't completed it because I can only play it in 10-20 minute increments. The game looks fantastic, has a interesting plot device and the game mechanics are good its just that ... I don't want to exist in that world doing that stuff very long. I find it interesting enough, the political flavor and spin, its just that I don't want to be in a game world where bloody ranting lunatics are trying to kill me every waking second. The game is like a Halloween Haunted House for most of the game it seems and my personal style dictates I only visit Haunted Houses on occasion.

Its unfortunate because this game has such a strong following and they have said how rad the entire game was and the story that took them through it. Then again, I will most likely finish the game, it will just take me 50,000 10 minute sessions.

Anyone interested in SkyoShock aka BioShock Infinite? That game doesn't look quite as "psycho clown circus" but it does seem to still have some insane elements.


The State of the Ghost 1.0

If people like these kinds of posts, ill keep them semi-regular and to the point about Cheerful Ghost and what direction the site is headed.

Ill try to keep this as brief as I am able :)

A month++ ago I launched Cheerful Ghost to my friends. People seemed to think it had potential and as I listened to your feedback I made improvements to make the site awesome. Based on our small but absolutely dedicated following I can now say that this is the most fun Ive had in gaming in years. Seeing what you guys play and having meaningful dialogs on those games is magical. I wasn't sure it was possible to be part of a community that can rise above the typical douche-baggery and karma whoring that plagues the Intarwebs.

As I have listened to your feedback and whats the most important to I wanted to let you know what I will be working on in the up-coming weeks to continue to make Cheerful Ghost rad-sauce. That said, Cheerful Ghost will not be made or lost on features, it will be even more great if it can grow.

In no specific order, the goods:

The largest and most important thing I will be working on is helping attract people that love video games to Cheerful Ghost. The next set of stuff I will be working on is generally all related to that important goal.

1. We have a fair amount of users that have signed up to the site, posted content and have wandered away over time for whatever reason. People are busy and often times they are not thinking all Cheerful Ghost all the time. With that in mind I am going to add email notifications that are not annoying to gently remind people whats going on. This email will be east to opt-out of and will only go out once per week IF the user has any site notifications they have yet to read. The email will also contain a cool short list of the most popular game conversations since they last logged in. If the user doesn't want to get this, it will be easy for them to opt-out of.

2. A few people have noted they want a "General Gaming" category we all have access to so we can fill up some space with stuff that doesn't fit into a game we have in our lists. I agree, this is important so I am going to add that to everyones list. If you have any ideas to the specific wording of this that will go in all our game lists, let me know your thoughts.

3. I am going to build a system to easily Tweet, Facebook or email a link to your friends that you can use to drive them to Cheerful Ghost. If any of your friends sign-up using this method you will get special trophies and rankings. Think invitations but on your terms and not focused on email only.

4. People have wanted the site to have Platform specific pages for the PS3, Super Nintendo, PC or any other platform we have games listed under. I am going to add this support and a few other bits that will be interesting and useful.

5. Over the coming weeks I am going to figure out how to attract certain game players to Cheerful Ghost from communities I respect. Minecraft, World of Warcraft, Steam and Diablo 3 are some of the people I am going to be talking to.

6. I am going to make a few YouTube videos to help spread the world about Cheerful Ghost. I have some ideas, ill let you know when they are finished.

Id like things a bit more noisy and id like to add more awesome voices to our mix so my focus in the next few weeks will be to grow the community. Anything that gets us closer to that I would love to know about and if you have any ideas, feel free to let me know. Want to talk to me about something else, I am listening.


Unsure if you have seen this. If not, check it out.


I found a free to play MMO off Steam called Realm of the Mad God. It has just about the simplest sign-up process ever as after you load the game you don't need to sign-up for an account, they just start you in a zone to teach you the game and you play it.

http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/ (you can play it in your browser right now)

Immediately I felt at home because of the retro graphics and simple controls. Seriously, this game is pretty simple and its a refreshing experience. You start out as the Wizard class and its a fun class to play. You can unlock other classes by playing the game. Yesterday I unlocked the Priest class.

One thing you need to know is that death is permanent. I died a few times but once you get used to how it all works, staying away from death isn't too bad. I did find that since death is permanent I was playing it safer than I do in other games. I only made it to level 5 and its not hard to get back to that level.

Check it out, its fun a best of all: free.


http://us.media5.battle.net/cms/gallery/079B7R65J42K1319135104614.jpg
I pre-ordered the Diablo 3 collectors edition last week. I got the Starcraft 2 collectors edition and loved it, decided since its not that much more than the box copy of D3, ill get the collectors as well.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/services/collectors-edition/

Comes with: Diablo 3 PC/Mac game, Diablo skull and 4G usb soul stone, Behind the scenes DVD/Bluray, art of Diablo 3 book & the Diablo 3 soundtrack. It also comes with some digital stuff like SC2 avatars and some exclusive D3 items.

Kind of with pre-ordering the game got you into the beta. Id love to give it a go.


http://www.secrettoeverybody.com/images/secret.png
Found an awesome site the other day as I was searching for phrases from Zelda games. Yeah, I do that.

http://secrettoeverybody.com/

The Secret to Everybody site takes phrases from the original games and collects them in screen-shot form for you to view. Very fun.