http://www.benisontheinter.net design + usability + games Mon, 01 Sep 2008 01:45:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en So they did it. Gomp and Homp, mage clones extraordinaire, reached Outland today. Mere hours later Homp had hit level 60 (with Gomp purposefully behind with 40% of a level to go). And that was it, really. The big goal. The Refer a Friend system ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/31/dear-warcraft-diary-a-very-special-twelth-edition/ The mages hit 56 last night, figuratively inches away from Outland. They are now embarrassingly undergeared and completely broke. Really looking forward to hitting those quests in Outland to get the decent green quest rewards... For the moment I'm not really sure where they'll be spending their time. ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/29/dear-warcraft-diary-part-eleven/ A very profitable weekend for all the characters I'm leveling. Silvio's 70 druid helped the Omplettes and Colin's warrior through Uldaman and Zul'Farak (two instances I had never seen before). Didn't get a lot of mage gear but the run gained me just shy of 5 levels and ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/25/dear-warcraft-diary-part-ten/ Had my first "please run this instance with me with your overlevelled character" moment last night. I realized that the staves my mages had were disgustingly out of date, and I needed to get something a little better. So Colin and one of Mark's friends ran the Omplettes ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/19/dear-warcraft-diary-part-nine/ What a week! My mages are 33-Going-On-34 and their XP meter isn't really slowing down (plus they're autolevelling my Warlock in the process). /played is at 32 hours. According to my math once they reach 38 they will have completely paid for themselves just in the levels ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/18/dear-warcraft-diary-part-eight/ We had a totally rad baby shower for Jhonen this weekend! There were like hundreds of people (estimate!!!)! And lots of food and some totally amazing presents. The standouts (if you ask me) (please, nobody be offended by these selections, as I am fickle, tired, and kind ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/18/baby-shower-success-get/ This Recruit-a-Friend system has been pretty incredible! Juls, Jess, and Jack (THREE-J) have all been playing a little, and we've got our characters ready to start running instances. The triple XP thing is impressive! Your average quest will bring you in about 80% of a level, and ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/11/dear-warcraft-diary-part-seven/ Day one of The Great Recruiting was a disturbingly powerful success (for Blizzard). Ended up playing some new characters on our server and it was pretty awesome to behold our group (which incidentally will be well balanced for instances!). We have a Dwarf Hunter named Bedrest (my wife ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/06/dear-warcraft-diary-part-six/ Hooooooolyyyyyyyyy Crap. I've sent out invites to some friends. Let's look at this objectively: For each person you refer who upgrades to a retail version of World of Warcraft and purchases two months of game time, you will be able to give a character on the account you sent ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/05/dear-warcraft-diary-part-five/ I watched the opening cinematic for World of Warcraft for the first time today in at least three years. I'm happy to report that the cinematic still looks incredible, and it does a pretty great job of making you want to really play the game and eventually become a ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/05/dear-warcraft-diary-part-four/ Fortunately for my future self, I pre-ordered and successfully received a Collector's Edition of Burning Crusade when it dropped in 2007. Interestingly enough I did this using Best Buy's website! Note also that on their website you don't deal with employees! Anyway, when the expansion was released, ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/05/dear-warcraft-diary-part-three/ So I ended up keeping Warcraft offline from January 2005 until November of 2006. By far the longest lapse in my subscriptions. My wife and I were about to have our second anniversary, and she had said on more than one occasion that I was never to play ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/05/dear-warcraft-diary-part-two/ When World of Warcraft went Beta, I stayed up all night for several nights playing it. I played a Dwarf Priest. Looking back on it now I'm pretty sure I didn't know about training on even levels or talent points. I just liked walking around, seeing Iron ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/05/dear-warcraft-diary-part-one/ Back in March, The iPhone Developer Program Sucked. They've been adding people into the developer program proper pretty much since the day the iPhone 3G came out. I have some great ideas for some games that DO NOT USE THE FUCKING GIMMICKY TILT SENSOR but I'm not really ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/04/the-iphone-developer-program-no-longer-sucks/ I want Time Travel to be a major part of my life. Maybe not like For Reals time travel, which by all accounts is probably impossible -- at least if you want to go backwards -- but I think that Capital Tee Time Travel is one of the most ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/08/04/i-want-i-want-i-want-me-me-me-part-one/ So it's been a while, yeah? The news:Sold the Vespa!Jess is still pregnant, but apparently Jhonen is ready for deployment.Been playing WoW again! Playing on Farstriders with Pewpewpew (Gnome Warlock) and Ouchdown (Undead Mage). Hit 30 for the first time! About to hit it for the second time. ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/07/28/hey-guys-whats-up/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Oh god I want this, originally uploaded by bburbank. I went by the local vespa dealer today. They had one of these in stock, in the color I wanted. ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/05/29/the-sign-read-75-mpg/ So Metal Gear Solid 4 is coming out in 3 weeks and I'm more excited for it than I've been for a game in a long time. Seriously I'm frothing like a thousand blue planets here. This might just be residual excitement*. It also might be my ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/05/20/metal-gear/ Here's some stuff. Some stuff that my kid will not understand that I understood as a kid. Some stuff that, should I mention it, will probably sound like somebody saying "color television" or "talkies" or "programming with punch cards." It didn't occur to me how much of ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/05/18/some-things-my-kids-will-not-understand/ It is without question my favorite Zelda game, and probably my favorite Nintendo game. I was thinking about it because the guys at selectbutton were talking about it (again), and I was particularly moved by this post: There's something impulsive and wilfully, blithely destructive about Link's actions in LA. He ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/04/18/time-to-play-links-awakening-again/ So Rivers Cuomo is doing this thing on youtube where he's trying to get yonder internet to participate in a giant collaborative songwriting project. That's kind of neat! He's up to step 4 (arrangement), where you have to lay down some beats using the provided chord progression to ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/04/05/re-lets-write-a-sawng/ I've had this nasty flu that made me shiver awake at night even though there was not an ounce of cold in the room. I was reading a blog this morning and somebody mentioned the JR Yamanote Line and I felt extremely homesick, which was weird since I've never lived there, ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/04/03/home-sick-homesick/ Day/Night cycle requires Day/Night music duh. http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/03/29/night-leap/ This is for a long night after a long day. http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/03/28/more-music/ I made what I guess is my first for reals chiptune. It's called "Beat It Out Of You." It's CLOSE to what I want in sup blocks, but not exactly right. That said, I think I'm getting to the point where I can make MilkyTracker do exactly ... http://www.benisontheinter.net/2008/03/23/new-song/