The Site 

Is the site loading any faster?  I sat in the browser dev tools and watched the timing and errors when the site loads and have made some changes.  Ads were an especially egregious offender, posting a ton of errors in the console because ad brokers are lazy dirtbags whose only concern is to shovel the maximum amount of garbage at users… so I turned off ads.  The ~$200 a year ads bring in isn’t a particularly motivating factor for me in blogging.

I fiddled with some of the side bar items and I changed the pagination settings to load fewer posts on the main page.  I had that set to 10 posts which, given how many images I have been shoving into posts these days, might be asking a lot.

So things seem to feel a bit better.  But then Yandex hits me with its weekly report that red flagged slow server performance and… I don’t know.

The actual core of my problem seems to be my chosen theme, named 2012 because that was when it came out.  WP.com never updates or maintains their themes.  They view them as disposable and look at you like you’re crazy if you aren’t changing up your theme annually.  They also detest the early 2000s view of blogging, with side bars and blog rolls and all that.  It is annoying.

I have considered upgrading, for at least a year, to a business level account.  That would allow me to have a staging version of the blog where I could test new themes to see if I could come up with something to replace good old 2012.  But nothing has broken yet.  Things are just slowing down.  So my sense of urgency isn’t there… though part of me really wants to get ahead of what will no doubt be an real problem eventually.

One Year Ago

Blizzard made Cataclysm Classic free to try out, once again suggesting that they couldn’t even give that expansion away.

I reflected on Wrath of the Lich King as Wrath Classic closed out, then turned around and pondered my history with Cataclysm.  I was wondering how to even approach Cataclysm Classic and its launch day.  The group, which had been idle for a bit, started doing some warm up instances.  The game itself slid smoothly into the expansion.  A week into the expansion I had hit level 0, which maybe pointed out things were not as smooth as I had initially guessed.

Daybreak announced their Teek and Tormax special rules servers in EverQuest, part of the 25th anniversary celebrations.  They went live soon thereafter.  EverQuest also started offering level 50 boosts… which seems kind of odd because they already had level 85 and 100 boosts.

Meanwhile, in my EverQuest starting points tour I made it to Butcherblock and Kaladim, then went to Faydark to visit the elves, then visited the completely redone Steamfont Mountains and Ak’Anon.  After that I left Faydwer behind and went to Rivervale.

Enad Global 7 itself put out its 2023 report, during which they reported zero on the job injuries.

In EVE Online Capsuleer Day became Capsuleer Month as the game celebrated its 21st birthday.  We also got the MER and I looked into the destruction, starting off on the shuttles kick in Uitra and listing out all 392 systems that had exactly one loss in April of 2024.  I regret nothing.

I was also wondering about Hilmar’s Three Body Problem obsession, since he suggested that was at the core of Project Awakening, which later became EVE Frontier, the crytpo blockchain scam game.

I did a Friday bullet points post about the EVE Online extended universe, with a look at the upcoming Equinox expansion, EVE Vanguard, and Project Awakening.

In Valheim I was persisting in the Mistlands and managed to finally find an infested mine.  Then I started in with sap extractors and the Eitr refinery… which you should totally not build near anything flammable!  That helped me gear up as I started my search for The Queen.

Speaking of flammable, the Ashlands also arrived in the Valheim.  It was so hard core in mode that I wondered if it would kill interest in the game.

Zwift raised its monthly subscription to $20 and I said good-bye.  Internet spaceships I’ll pay that much for, but not a stationary bicycle app.

I hit level 45 in Pokemon Go.

There was a quote of the day post about the ongoing tribulations of Lars Wingefors and the Embarrassment Group.

And in my Telephone Tales series I wrote of the Edify special business unit and the tragedy of putting dumb people in charge of an otherwise viable company.  Then there was the very long post about the move, much of which I wrote back in 2006 or so.  I was then on about how I was on the wrong side of the conflict between IT and the telephone ops team.

Finally, it was Memorial Day once more.

Five Years Ago

As the Blapril event came to an end I did a post about my top five most viewed posts over various points during the life of the blog.  After that there was the usual summing up of the event.  I also joined in and did my gamer profile again and did that “have you ever” quiz thing.

Daybreak was changing up the plan for the Rizlona and Aradune progression servers they had planned for EverQuest.  They launched, but not without the usual issues and overcrowding.  They also finally merged the Fippy Darkpaw server into the Vox server after its nine year run as a progression server.

Blizzard revenue and margins were starting to look up and we were getting hints of a Diablo II remaster.  However, BlizzCon 2020 was not going to happen.

The instance group made its first run into Zul’Farrak.

I went out and explored a bit in our old Minecraft world and we started tinkering around in a new world.

CCP was celebrating 17 years of EVE Online.  They also gave us PLEX trading in the companion app for… reasons.  We got the candidate list for the CSM15 election and the Forsaken Fortress update that made Upwell structures easier to kill.  Then there was the MER which showed mineral prices starting the rise and ratting numbers starting to fall.

I correctly predicted Burn Jita was unlikely to happen.  I also was looking to earn some ISK.

Out in space were up north defending structures in a couple places.  That led to the GEF moving to Cloud Ring for some action for fights.  We even got to fight in Notoras, the best system in low sec.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was announced, which sounded great.  It was later delayed.  There was also a promise of more Grand Admiral Thrawn from Timothy Zahn.

The regional groups forming in the US in response to the pandemic were starting to look like some post-US strategy game.

Ten Years Ago

A bucket list item achieved.

There was another Newbie Blogger Initiative, for which I wrote a post.

The whole World of Warcraft “flying in Draenor” explosion started when Blizzard announced that they probably wouldn’t allow flying in that, or any future, expansion.  Lots of people spoke up.  I linked to a bunch of them.

It was not a good month for World of Warcraft.  Subscriptions were down to 7.1 million… and then they banned 100K accounts, so make that an even 7 million.

In the Warlords of Draenor expansion itself I was mostly going garrison stuff and pet battles.

Carbine announced that WildStar would be going free to play after continuing poor financial performance.

EVE Online turned 12 years old.  CCP was offering fan site the option of a free account OR receiving a PLEX every month.  I actually attempted to opt-in for the PLEX, but never heard back.  Was that option ever really a thing?  Did anybody get PLEX?  Is the fan site program still around?

The war in Fountain and Delve was over, NCDot had been pushed back yet again, and we were moving back north as our empire contracted.  Entosis stuff was looming.  Black Legion caught us taking a badly planned convoy through KVN-36.

Meanwhile, down in Querious, the Reavers were playing with Ravens.  Up in the north, TNT was moving out of Deklein and into Tribute as part of our Fozzie Sov plans.  And I hit 140 million skill points.

Then Daybreak went for a crowd pleaser by launching a new time locked expansion server named Ragefire. It was such a crowd pleaser that it couldn’t handle the crowd.  In addition to some first night problems, you simply couldn’t log in most of the time.  They worked on a login queue and some zone instancing technology from EverQuest II and eventually opened up another server named Lockjaw to take care of the crowding.

TorilMUD, the MUD on which EverQuest was largely based, softened its death penalty.  A sign of the times.

There was word of a Warhammer Online private/pirate server for those who missed the departed game.

And I was playing LEGO Star Wars on the PlayStation 3 while the freshly minted Imperium was going to try and play H1Z1.

Fifteen Years Ago

I was unemployed thanks to the great mortgage meltdown, which you would think would leave me a lot more time for gaming and blogging.  But the anxiety of looking for a job for the first time in 12 years… and the first time in 20 years where there wasn’t just one out there waiting for me… made for a quiet gaming and blogging month.

Yes, I did start to poke my nose back into LOTRO.  A game where I didn’t have to pay a subscription seemed about right. (I have a lifetime subscription.)  That meant getting back into the swing of the game and figuring out what had changed.

We actually got THE DATE for the release of StarCraft II.  How did that turn out for everybody?  I skipped the whole thing… and have no regrets really.

The Agency came to Facebook, in the form of The Agency: Covert Ops.  A Mafia Wars-like game, without the multi-level marketing aspect, it had its good and its bad aspects.  I liked the puzzles.  The dogs with guns… and the submarine fight… not so much.  Who knew that would be all of The Agency we would ever get?

Meanwhile SOE was transcending bad taste with their EQII PWNZ marketing campaign.  Is it really always better to be talked about?

EVE Online got the Tyrannis expansion, though I wasn’t paying much attention there.  Something called EVE Gate was introduced… later closed and now being proposed again I think… as well as integration with DUST 514… also later closed and effectively proposed again with Project: Nova. Pattern here?

There was some Pokemon fun going.  I was twinking the Pokewalker while our cats worked against me.  The cats won in the end.

We also went to see the Pokemon Video Game Championships in our area.

And the Horde remix of the instance group was wrapping up Dire Maul and Stratholme.  Then, having hit 60, we let the Dungeon Finder guide our way into the Outland.

Twenty Years Ago

Leeroy Jenkins, who eventually became a household name, an achievement, and even a Jeopardy! answer, showed up as the star of the Pals for Life guild’s video Leeroy!!, which was first posted on May 11, 2005.

Sony unveiled the PlayStation 3 in a pre-E3 announcement while Microsoft announced the XBox 360 on MTV.

Pokemon Emerald, the final third generation Pokemon game and the last GameBoy Advance Pokemon release, arrived in North America.

Forty Years Ago

The Empire Strikes back, arguably the best movie in the whole series, debuts.  Or, as I sometimes think of it, the last great Star Wars movie.  I’ve been at least somewhat disappointed with everything since.

Most Viewed Posts in May

1. Skype – Gone but Not Forgotten
2. Interlude in Lothlorien and The Great River
3. The Blizzard WoW Classic 2025 Road Map includes Pandaria and New Vanilla Progression Servers
4. Arrival in Helm’s Deep
5. Stuck on the Level 47 Requirements for Pokemon Go
6. Andor and What Makes for Good Star Wars
7. Enshrouded and Chopping Down that First Shroud Root for the Second Time
8. Zuck Giving up on VR with Legs for AI Chatbot Friends
9. The Imperium Announces an Invasion of Insmother
10. Cat Catching in Enshrouded
11. Sting 64-bit US Server Opens Today While Transfers from the LOTRO Dark Servers to Begin on May 28th
12. Learning to Ride in The Wold

Search Terms of the Month

eve online imperium coalition
[That’s the one I write about]

imperium news
[Seems pretty dead these days]

twilight imperium
[Not that one]

cloud imperium games
[Definitely not that one]

cloud imperium games jobs
[Good luck with that]

imperium galactica
[An oldie]

imperium galactica ii
[Still pretty old]

dune imperium expansion
[Hrmm, don’t know that]

imperium real estate
[Wonder what they sell…]

imperium press
[I bet I can guess what they print]

imperium of man
[Uh… sure]

movies like imperium
[Daniel Radcliff fan?]

Game Time by ManicTime and iOS

• LOTRO – 47.60%
• Pokemon Go – 21.15%
• Enshrouded – 17.30%
• EVE Online – 9.71%
• Balatro – 3.83%
• Stars Reach – 0.42%

As one might expect, LOTRO has been dominating my play time as I have been driving through Rohan for the back half of the month, while EVE Online received a boost this past week with war and move ops and all of that.

Balatro

I am kind of stuck getting any deck up to the blue stakes level.  I need to watch some videos to improve my strategy.  Or just play a lot more.  The one thing about Rogue-likes is that simply playing more means more chances that you’ll get an optimal early setup.

Enshrouded

While the group didn’t do much in the game, the whole Thralls of Twilight update did layout a bunch of new stuff to get into once we find the time.  And the slow move forward has let me spend more time exploring the terrain we have around us.  Oh, and base building began in earnest.  More on that later.

EVE Online

War were declared… again.  I had been mostly idle in New Eden this month, tending my PI gardens and going on a defense fleet now and again.  Then the Imperium decided to invade the region of Insmother, and off I went.  I made it to the front lines and helped blow up one or two or a dozen things, while the enemy hasn’t done much to push back.  But we’re not really into the teeth of things yet.  Things may heat up when we get within bridge/jump range of their stager.

Lord of the Rings Online

Having fun fun fun in Rohan… which doesn’t quite rhyme… but it doesn’t have to if it is true.  Is that correct?  Anyway, I have made it across the breadth of Rohan, seen Helm’s Deep, witnessed the siege (which I still have to sum up in a post), and have even wandered into Fangorn.  It feels like it is time to start moving towards Gondor.

Pokemon Go

Did pretty well this month.  I was close to hitting level 48, but couldn’t quite get there.  I need a couple more friends to level up and I’ll be set.  And then, of course, there is the issue of the level 48 tasks to deal with.  But that will be a post of its own.

• Level: 47 – 97.7% of the way to 48
• Task Status – Done!
  • 10 souvenirs from buddy – 10/10
  • Earn 300 hearts with your buddy – 300/300
  • Walk 200km with your buddy – 200/200
  • Walk 25km a week for eight weeks – 8/8
• Pokedex status: 878 (+7) caught out of 1,008 in the Pokedex
• Pokemon I want: Carnivine, a missing Sinnoh entry
• Current buddy: Bisharp

Coming Up

There is a war going on in EVE Online, so I’ll be doing some of that.  Probably a lot of that.

Then there is getting to Gondor in LOTRO.  More new places.

The Steam Summer Sale will arrive at the far end of the month.

Dune Awakening will finally ship.

And isn’t Nintendo shipping the Switch 2 in June?  Mario Kart World is on the list for titles next month.