I feel like getting old involves an ongoing sense that everything is going by faster than expected. I feel like I just wrote a post about hitting 300 million skill points and here I am at three hundred and ten million. (Also I feel like I have made this complaint too many times already, but […]
The ping came through on Saturday afternoon, just past 15:30 my time. I saw it a few minutes after it had been sent out and I almost just let it pass. I was feeling a bit off, I had just gotten up from a nap, and I hadn’t quite shook off the grogginess from that. […]
Week thirty-nine had another set of four titles queued up to launch. The question was, would they shake up the roster the way the four titles from week thirty-eight did? We will certainly get to all of that, but first a review of where the board stood last time around. For week thirty-nine the first […]
I wrote that last binge watching post in August in part because I could see a bulge of shows finishing up for us shortly and felt like I had to clear the decks or just give up on a bunch of titles. Anyway, this is what has passed through our screen since last time around. […]
Before I get into how we wrapped up terraforming on Skeo I do have a few observations on this bit of free content. To start with, it was free. Not only that, but it landed just as we were wrapping up the last planet that came with the base game, Aqualis. It is hard to […]
As we worked through winter and towards the end of year two in our save we finally made a successful run at the skull cavern. There were other things to do during the winter, including tending the greenhouse and the rest of the farm, squidfest, the night market, and the feast of the winter star. […]
I was going to avoid venting about CCP/Fenris being dumb and just do dry “just the facts ma’am” post about the Cradle or War update. Why make the Ansiblex nerf and the company’s low sec, small gang fetish out to be more than it is? But you know who is going all in to emphasize […]
Takes have been coming hot and heavy about the WoW Forever beta since the moment it went live, and I am sure nobody has been asking, “Sure, but what does Wilhelm think?” But you’re going to get my opinions anyway. That said, my takes are lukewarm at best… though, that is probably more due to […]
It is usually a good plan to wait a day or three when Hello Games drops a big update and then launches a brand new expedition for players. I am not saying you have to wait until the Switch finally gets the updates, but the first night out is like any special event. Do you […]
Back into the thick of things with thirty-eight, which had four titles queued up for launch, promising some changes on the scoreboard. With changes almost guaranteed, we’ll make our usual stop at the scoreboard from last week to see where we left off. First out of the gate for the week was Marvel Wolverine. It […]
We’re now about a week past BlizzCon and much digital ink has been spilled detailing out every last item mentioned about WoW Forever at the event. But questions still remain. The big one seems to be “What is WoW Forever?” I’ve been over that one a few times in various locations. It is not WoW […]
It is Friday and there is some random stuff I want to cover just to have it on record. Not that having it on record here is of any importance to anybody besides me… but my blog, my rules. Anyway, I started with three items for this post and then it just kept growing. Nintendo […]
It is Thursday and I am still catching up on what happened last week. That includes checking out Valheim, which left early access on September 9th. The Deep North, the final biome, is now available and the game is complete… save for the patches. I am not too happy about the price increase with 1.0… […]
We left off last time with Aqualis being well on its way to being terraformed. Potshot and I, having arrived with just some food and water built up a base and a terraforming infrastructure to make the place habitable. If there is a flaw in the game play loop of Planet Crafter, it is that […]
While I was away last week Hello Games popped up and finally launched the long expected 10 year anniversary update for No Man’s Sky. Welcome to Cosmos! This was heralded by Sean Murray posting the martini emoji on social media (no doubt a cosmopolitan, or cosmo) for several days before it the launch. But we […]
BlizzCon 2026 is now in the books. All that was said has been recorded. Now it is time to get in some reactions around what went on. There will be months of analysis, but the post-game gut reaction is important too. I am going to go through this in the same order I did back […]
The calendar sweeps forward relentlessly and we find ourselves once again facing elections. No, not those election. We’ll get to that real world pending disaster on our own. Instead I am referring, once again, to the EVE Online elections for the Council of Stellar Management. CCP has put out the first dev blog about the […]
Vacation is over and the whole 20 year thing is now in the rear view mirror. Time to get back to it. The words won’t just vomit themselves onto the page. As I mentioned in yesterday’s anniversary post, it was probably a good week to be away, at least when it came to the league. […]
Today is the day I hit the mark. WordPress.com has confirmed. I have been blogging here for 20 years. It is time once again to recap. This post guaranteed to contain at least 17.7% new content by volume. Also, I am avoiding AI and proving it by using my awful Canva banner for this celebration. […]
I do regard people who loudly declare that they have no regrets in life to be a bit tedious. I certainly don’t believe them. Also, they might possibly be drunk… or malignant sociopaths like Marc Andreeson. Still, if you’re putting it out there that there is no decision in life that you might have made […]
Welcome to anniversary week here at TAGN. Come Saturday the blog will turn 20 years old, so I am calling this week the TAGN 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition. Unlike most collector’s edition, this one won’t run you $100. It is free, though it might be deemed too expensive by some even at that price. I […]
Foolishly Potshot let me name the first base we established on the planet Aqualis and I chose to name it Sumatra. It makes a bit of sense when you learn that Aqualis is, as the name implies, a water planet with islands. And, once the theme was set, further islands were christened with with names […]
I did my in character reflections on playing EVE Online back on my actual anniversary date at the end of August. That was an attempt to tie in the lore with the experience of actually playing the game, something which can be at odds. But EVE Online is a game of numbers. Well, any MMORPG […]
Sixty years ago yesterday Tomorrow, on September 8, 1966 for those of you who cannot do calendar math, the first episode of Star Trek aired. I was about one and a half at the time, so missed the premier. But that was probably okay. In addition to being too young to appreciate the series, the […]
BlizzCon 2026 will be arriving at the end of the week. On Saturday September 12th we’ll get the big keynote speech that will reveal the plans for the company for the next year or so. It is too late to get tickets to be there in person. Those sold out ages ago. Also, I will […]
We are back with some more actual video game releases here in week thirty-six. We had four titles lined up for release in the league this week. Surely somebody much have made out with that many titles in play. But first we have to stop and look at where we ended up last week on […]
Blaugust 2026 is over. It wrapped up on Monday and here it is Saturday and I am finally summing up. I used to sum up very quickly after the event. But the gap has grown. Last year I didn’t sum up at all. I was too busy. So how did Blaugust make me feel this […]
I stuck around in Blackburrow until I hit level 14. At that point I felt like it was time to move on. It wasn’t that the xp had run dry or that things had gotten too easy. I could have hung around for at least one more level… maybe as many as three… making decent […]
I am, once again, stuck for milestones to report on when it comes to Planet Crafter because they all zip by too fast. This time, however, it is somewhat our own fault. Last week I reported on how we (Potshot) had made meticulous preparations for our expedition to Selenea, a moon in the solar system […]
The climb to level 80 carries on for us in Pokemon Go. My wife and I made it to level 75 back in May. Now, here at the start of September we have arrived at level 76. Well, I have arrived. My wife managed to beat me there by a good two weeks. The tasks […]
Yesterday saw the launch of the second of the two EverQuest Time Locked Progression servers slated for 2026. The first was Frostreaver, which landed back at the end of May. Now up Lethar, named for Lethar the Black, the dragon boss of the Ashengate North. (thanks Allakhazam) The server is notable for opening up with […]
The Site Blaugust is coming to a close today and soon we’ll be down to just the counting. I managed to over fulfill my quota by just enough to be a hero worker without straying into the Stakhanovite zone. No need to go over by too much. 35 posts seemed sufficient. I didn’t do too […]
Twenty years ago I was born into New Eden as Wilhelm Arcturus. Not literally born. A capsuleer does not begin their journey as an infant. In my past life I was an adult and was chosen to ascend to the status of capsuleer. I know I was chosen… but only because I have been told […]
I trolled people in both the leagues I am in this year by picking Squadron 42 in order to tempt them into a possible bidding war to get it as a counter pick. That didn’t really happen, though it did get picked up in both leagues. And, sure enough, the wisdom of grabbing it as […]
I’ve been a little down on Fandom Entertainment and their videos since they killed off Honest Trailers Commentary. Yes, it was a pretty niche part of their lineup, but I enjoyed Spencer, Lon, and Danielle… and Dan and Joe back when they were on the team… going in depth on the video of the week. […]
My daughter and I have carried on our weekly game of Stardew Valley and I am happy she has managed to find time to play on Sunday afternoons, which is our regular engagement. We have continued to make progress on the Community Center bundles and are down to needing just three items to close out […]
One of the apparent constants of the universe is CCP/Fenris reworking their new player experience in an attempt to improve player retention. June’s Cradle of War expansion brought with it the latest iteration on that, introducing Exordium, an entirely new region made up of 53 star systems, all dedicated to the new player experience and […]
The terraforming was complete. We had done it. The planet, once barren and hostile, now supported the teeming varieties of life. Fish and bees and butterflies and trees, fish swimming in the water, amphibians on the shores, and dead eyed mammals wandered the lands that were once cold and dead. Also, the big dashboard display […]
Last time around I reported that I had meandered my way to level ten in the game with my druid/warrior combo and that I was now being called on to make some decisions. The game does at least pop up something to tell you what you need to do, even if it is in the […]
We are now heading down the home stretch of Blaugust. There is about a week left in the whole event. If you’ve been diligent in trying to do that “post every day” thing that we still hand out an award for, you might be feeling the strain of having something worthwhile to say every single […]
The Stars Reach early access is something of a “glass half empty/full” story… or maybe it is only a quarter full, if we want to torture the metaphor a bit. Whatever you choose, the capacity of the glass remains somewhat under utilized. If you enjoyed what was available immediately before early access, then you will […]
There being a Fantasy Critic League post at all this week was in some doubt. With no releases slated for weeks thirty-three or thirty-four, it felt like there might possibly be naught about which to write. Not that having nothing to write about has ever stopped me from writing something. But I also have a […]
Back for another binge watching post, now with a new logo designed to antagonize those with any design sense. Canva made me do it. No AI design could be this bad! It has been a while since I did one of these posts and… well, it isn’t like we stopped watching TV, I just stopped […]
I am pretty sure I am doing this wrong. All of it. But even my disregard for video guides about how to play EverQuest Legends hasn’t stopped my progress. I have somehow managed to level up. My pace has been lackadaisical and my dedication to the effort has been pretty limited, but when I find […]
Last time around we had launched into summer with a rework of the crop layout and a mass planting of melons. Melons were planted because we needed one more item for the community center bundle that would unlock the greenhouse, and the choices were melons or pumpkins. That wasn’t much of a choice, since pumpkins […]
Yesterday was launch day for Stars Reach, effectively at least. There are not many games that go into early access that then turn around and get another bite at the launch apple when they decided to exit. Palworld is the only one I can think of off hand that came out of early access stronger […]
We have blown through the age of abundance in Planet Crafter and have reached a point of over abundance. We have too much stuff. I know, I know, inventory management in games like this often makes you feel like you have too much stuff. And we have spent most of our time with the game […]
We are now onto the backside of Blaugust, the halfway point is just behind us in the rear view mirror and a mere two weeks left before things are wrapped up. I have not gone in on some of the group writing projects or weekly themes so far, and I am not going to get […]
As expected there were no titles set to launch for week thirty-three. We have nothing on the calendar until the last week of August. So the same problem next week. I may give next week’s post a pass if nothing happens. But we left off last time with two titles that were still waiting for […]
Brief for specific definitions of the word I suppose. Blog posts, even long blog posts, are brief in relation to The Stand or the works of Robert Jordan. The problem here is that I wrote that title at the top of an empty blog post, so I cannot really tell how deep this is going […]
A few weeks back over on Reddit, in the EVE Online subreddit, the whole place spent about ten days ranting about the evils of multiboxing and how it was ruining the game and that CCP/Fenris needed to DO SOMETHING about it NOW! That is always the way. If nothing else, Reddit carries with it a […]
As I wrote in my previous Planet Crafter post, it is difficult to find a break point at which to sit down and write an update because new things come at you all the time changing the game and advancing your goal of terraforming the world you’ve landed on. It feels like you get a […]
EverQuest Legends launched at the end of July. I stayed clear of the beta and the pre-order stuff. I didn’t want to help test, I just wanted to see the end result. I was, however, committed to the final product. I have been on about Daybreak serving this particular non-hardcore slice of potential fans who […]
I like to have a plan. One might suggest that I NEED to have a plan. A plan, a goal, a destination. Screw the journey, I want to know where we are going and how we’re getting there. I am like this in real life as well. It is probably why I have ended up […]
I don’t think we set a record. Just looking at Steam Charts, No Man’s Sky checked in pretty far behind even the recent peak of the Voyagers expansion. That said, I didn’t think we were going to get there. A few posts on social media and Reddit were not going to get to enough people […]
We are looking at the last big week of releases until September in week thirty-two. We had four titles slated to launch. Before we dig into that however, we need to check the scoreboard and where everybody stood last time around. The groundwork laid down, we can get on with the scoring and releases, which […]
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference –Elie Wiesel Last week the site Aftermath, had what they called Hater Week, where the staff opened up on things they did not like. There were some interesting takes. Some of them I felt in my bones, like the one about how awful Adobe is. I […]
No Man’s Sky turns ten years old tomorrow. I will not review the cycle of hype, disappointment, then eventual revival around the game. I’ve been there a few times before. It is enough for this moment to say that game is very different than it was back at launch in 2016. Still, it has been […]
It is Friday and, as foretold by prophecy, it is time for another look at how things are going over at Microsoft’s XBox Games division. After the announcement of the great layoff, have Asha and Satya solved the problems they set out to tackle? Do they even have a clue what they are on about? […]
I guess you do not technically die in Stardew Valley… but the fact that combat and loss are part of the game remains an aspect I did not expect. But more on that in a bit. Having passed through spring of year two we were on to summer and a new set of crops. That […]
The deal is done. Capital management, unfettered capitalism, and political corruption has won again. Electronic Arts has been acquired by the Saudis in a completely economically non-viable deal that saddles the company with a huge amount of debt that will be used as a boat anchor to sink the remains of the organization once the […]
I will say this; Planet Crafter moves along at a brisk pace. It is also good about laying out the next objective for you and giving you a way to see how fast you are progressing. Unlike Valheim, which I will use for comparison as it represents such a staple of the survival crafter genre, […]
In one of those Repo Man lattice of coincidence moment, I was suddenly hit with a couple of unrelated posts about Monopoly the other day, which is the sort of thing that makes you think… at least think about Monopoly. So I did. Or tried. The first was from Bhagpuss, who brought up the apparent […]
But they didn’t actually announce the expansion itself, which seems odd. They have two posts up covering features of the upcoming Wolves of Mordor expansion, as well as having given MMORPG.com an exclusive interview about the features, but didn’t actually make any sort of fuss about “Oh, by the way, we’re going back to Mordor […]
We’re now past week thirty-one, where we had just a single title ship. But it was a pick AND a counter pick, so at least it had double the impact. But before we get to how that played out, we will start off with how the scoreboard looked before the events of the week hit. […]
Here it is, Blaugust. And of course I remember how to Blaugust! I have been living the Blaugust lifestyle year round since 2020. “What does the ‘Blaugust lifestyle’ even mean?” the voices in my head ask, attempting to stand in for you, the reader, since I cannot hear you… and it is likely you’ve already […]
The Site This month I am going to bring up Warp Point, a site that is attempting to bring back web site inter-connectivity of yore. The About section sums the project up as: Warp Point is both a directory and old school webring collecting independent and personal gaming blogs and newsletters. Its goal is to […]
As we wrapped up winter of the first year in Stardew Valley, we had a plan for our approach to the new year… which is to say my daughter had a plan and I was kind of tagging along, ready to help implement but mostly leaving vision to her. The longer term goal was to […]
When did I even buy Planet Crafter? Why did I buy it? Steam says I bought it back in November of 2025, purchasing it when I grabbed Forza Horizon 5, which had been marked way down to tempt the last few of us in its target demographic before Forza Horizon 6 came out I suppose. […]
I have a little over two hours into R.E.P.O., which I am just going to call REPO from here on out, so I am clearly not qualified to give anything like a comprehensive review. But I have seen it in what feels like its essential mode, which is with five friends playing co-op on a […]
One of the hard facts that came with the big level cap increase that hit Pokemon Go back in October is that, in order to get to level 80, you will need 50 platinum medals. I don’t need all of those today. My wife and I are on our way to level 75. But every […]
Coming into week thirty we had two titles queued up for release and one title from the week before looking for enough reviews to get on the board. As usual, we will kick off with where the scoreboard stood previously. I mentioned last week how close Cyanbane, Bhagpuss, and Potshot were in score, as the […]
My daughter and I had entered into Winter in Stardew Valley at my last update, and Winter does seem to involve a lot more fishing than I expected. As I mentioned previously, for our co-op game I hold the save and play a bit ahead at times between our weekend play time. But I stop […]
Recently Daybreak dropped a bunch of information, including a few of producer’s letters and, were I looking for things to expand upon I probably could have turned all of that into at least three 1,500 word blog posts. But who has time for that when CCP/Fenris is trolling us with their Ansiblex nerf? So I […]
Having defeated the second main boss Hands down, we had opened up the next set of gated content. Windrose follows what I think of as the Valheim model in that you defeat a boss and you get a new biome type with new materials that you can use to craft new gear and upgrade old. […]
I put up a post on Monday that I had written on Friday afternoon around the Okami plan to “fix” the force projection “problem” by nerfing the Ansiblex jump bridges in null sec. In that post I used a fair share of sarcasm and exaggeration for emphasis. Little did I realize Okami would come back […]
That time is fast approaching. It will once again be Blaugust. The annual tradition for more than a decade will continue. With the tragic passing of Mark “Belghast” Temple, the event’s founder, at the start of the month it felt more important than ever to keep this event going in order to remember him. It […]
On Friday Okami, one of the troika at Fenris dictating the direction of EVE Online currently, put up a long and rambling dev blog about some proposed changes to Ansiblex jump bridges. Introduced back in 2018 with the Onslaught update as one of the three new Upwell FLEX structures, the Ansiblex jump bridge was the […]
We are past the halfway mark of July and August is looming, but we did have a couple of releases here in the summer doldrums of the league. In addition, Fantasy Critic League opened up a new feature that allows a league to have multiple drafts over the course of the year long season. I […]
We are now past the halfway point through the year. So here, a couple of weeks into the second half, and already into the summer doldrums, I thought I might trot out the usual post about how 2026 has gone for me so far on the gaming front. It has become part of my post […]
Early access as a funding scheme for video games has been on my mind a bit lately, if only because a few titles I purchases in that state will hit 1.0 and be live this year. But I’ll get to that further down the page. Early access is… well… I hate to use the word […]
We have once again arrived at that point in the year where the build up to the annual EVE Online Alliance Tournament kicks off. This will be the twenty-second running of the tournament and the regular dip into the New Eden e-sports event will commence soon. As with all thing related to the game, it […]
My daughter and I have been on a weekly play time schedule for our co-op game of Stardew Valley. While I might play a bit during the week in between our time, I try not to get too far ahead and I make sure to stop before there are any events so that we can […]
My post on Saturday morning was a quick retrospective of Pokemon Go and its success over the last decade. But Scopley/Niantic or whatever they are calling themselves this week… they do keep changing their minds on that… had plans for the anniversary weekend. Despite my playing Pokemon Go daily, I am pretty bad at keeping […]
As previous posts about the game have indicate, Potshot and I have been playing Windrose, the co-op survival Caribbean pirate title. But when I mention both of us I feel like I need to distinguish who is really playing and who is kind of along for the ride. The other day when I logged in […]
After a fairly quiet time in week twenty-seven, week twenty-eight was set to at least shake up the roster a bit. We had three titles set to launch, including one that was counter picked. With that on the line, we need to stop for a second a review where things left off last time. While […]
This past week, on July 7th, Pokemon Go hit its ten year launch anniversary, and it has been quite a ride. Launched during the year that the Pokemon franchise was celebrating its 20th year, the mobile title, a rare departure for Nintendo, which prefers to keep such titles exclusively on its own hardware, was an […]
It has been a bit since I looked in on Stars Reach. That was largely due to both the random availability of access and the fact that things were being reset often enough that starting from scratch had ceased to be interesting. But since they announced that early access was coming soon the team has […]
If you’ve been a reader for a while you knew this post was coming, the annual summing up of the Steam Summer Sale, which will be over by the time this post goes live. In the midst of industry upheaval, with XBox laying off thousands… again… while charting an almost surreal path for growth, and […]
As my post on Monday suggested, it has been something of a slog to get through Expedition 22: The Swarm. In an attempt to… I don’t know… make us spend more time playing I guess… the whole thing was gated by a community milestone, Countermeasures, that took six weeks to complete. Was that six weeks […]
All of this is going to fall on Asha Sharma’s head, whom The Aftermath described as Microsoft’s pain sponge. But I want to inject a reminder that Phil Spencer, who got to retire happily after years of huge bonus payouts, was on the XBox leadership team for a decade and personally ran the place from […]
I will be interested to see, at the end of The Swarm expedition, if Hello Games decides to use this time delay gimmick again… because The Swarm is still going and the Countermeasures milestone is still active. We’re close to being done, sitting at 96% when I checked earlier this morning. But we have also […]
The news came on Friday morning that Belghast of the Tales of the Aggronaut blog had passed away. Bel was a long time pillar of this little corner of the internet I call home, regular and reliable and somebody who worked to bring us together. On hearing this horrible news I felt the need to […]
For week twenty-seven we were expecting only one release, so it was all down to Rhythm Heaven Groove to make something happen on the scoreboard. But before we get to what came to pass we have to see where we left off last week with scores. That was where things stood and everything was quiet […]
Back in 1976 the two hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, from which we in the US mark the start of our time as nation (despite a few details, like those British troops who seemed to be against the whole proposition), was a big deal. A really big deal. Seriously, it felt like we […]
It is Friday and time to catch up on some bits of news from the co-op survival corner of the game-o-sphere. At least relative to the titles to which I pay some attention. In fact, this set of titles are all ones I have played for at least a bit as documented here on the […]
I was digging through the in-game and web stores for EVE Online the other day looking for an option to buy a neural remap. I did not expect to find such an option. I merely wanted to confirm that here in 2026, nearly 15 years after CCP introduced an in-game cash shop, neural remaps were […]
I left off last time with the end of summer with reference to the Moonlight Jellies event and my daughter and I moved on the autumn and the change of crops. Because we are playing co-op and I hold the save, we tend to play together only on Sunday (though we did sneak in a […]
The Site I have been looking through my WordPress achievements again. That I earned these two is probably no surprise. These two likely go together because while I usually press the publish/schedule button too early… everything is a first draft here on day one of it being published… so I do often go back and […]
Potshot and I were out exploring, seeking out the place where the next of our quest update points was marked on the map and… I kept dying. A lot. Like an embarrassing number of times. I was snuffing it with a regularity that was becoming a hindrance , getting knocked off in nearly every battle […]
