I call these Off Week Updates out of tradition now, I’m sure of it.

So coming off of a draft that’s been sitting in my draft folder since June 25th, let’s begin.

So, going back as far as freaking early June, I’ll touch upon what I missed that whole month, starting with the Age of Wushu Guild.

Grindstone (Age of Wushu): This will come as no surprise to those that are actually IN the guild, but this took the hell off, surprising me and everyone who I tried to get to play, but hated it. Starting from nothing more than me asking a few online friends to sign up for the account so they could “verify” the guild, this steamrolled into the most successful guild I’ve ever started. Note, I say “started” and not “ran”. My name is in the leader slot, but I am not the sole person in charge of the guild. A MAJOR shout out to Wyn, Zaik, Maolai (a.k.a. Nate), Khezu and many others who have built a strong community and laid down the hammer when appropriate. Wushu is a very harsh and unforgiving game, but with us, it becomes a lot more livable… as long as you’re not causing trouble. We have a Raidcall and forum set up for easy planning and communication, and if you’re still on the fence about joining, check out the review here and the guild info here. And yes, I still have a few codes to give away.

Sidequest: Dragon’s Prophet:  Talk about a game with all of the potential and none of the execution. How can a game with ridable dragon pets, action combat, and seven different breast sliders be a miss? By calling itself an open beta, and having more bugs than an alpha build. If they fix about…. everything this game could really be something, but right now, it’s half-fun, grindy and kinda ugly mess. The “Saga of Daisy Hornboobs” stream clip on YT got me a hell of a lot of views, though… from Russia. Not sure what happened there.

Defiance Review: Defiance remains a split in opinion, as the console players never really dealt with a modern MMO launch before, and they did NOT handle it kindly. I still feel Defiance, as a whole, does the MMO Shooter correctly, even if a bit more effort could have been put into progression and gear upgrades. It’s a fun game I occasionally step into, even if I’m not outright looking to grind the arkfalls for a shot to have my avatar made into a TV show character. I would like to see more of the TV synergy take place, as the show is pretty interesting to watch. Even if I have to wait a whole year before the next season. Maybe the game will tide me over… It’s a fantastic opportunity to expand the universe during the off season.

The Viewership Survey: I don’t entirely know what possessed me to make this, and even if, as many have said, that 100 responses is a good pool of data, I’d much rather know what the general consensus of the near 1000 replies I’ve gotten actually is… unfortunately, and entirely too late for me, as the survey shot up to over 500 responses when it was opened, that in order to see all the data gathered, I have to pay a monthly fee of roughly 25 dollars. Even if I were to pay for one month and cancel, would it really be worth it? This SITE costs about 25 dollars, and that’s for the entire YEAR. Rest assured, I WILL do a full post regarding the responses, but I’m letting it sit for a bit longer until I can afford to toss out the money for the data.
One thing I have to remark on now, though as the text responses have been misconstrued on occasion. The final question: “What do you feel is the best way to support MMO Grinder?”  seemed to believe by a few responses that I was “asking for money”. That’s totally not the case. There’s a reason I included two options that require no form of investment whatsoever. “Support” doesn’t mean “monetary support”. It’s a way to say, “Hey, I like what you do. Let me help you out.” Many people, at least 87 out of the first 100, are perfectly fine with just letting the ads play. I know ads in videos are a ridiculously hot-button issue right now, with arguments ranging from “they mess up my connection” to “they’re annoying” to the most bafflingly deluded and self-righteous “I shut them out because the media has too much control and I’m taking it back!”
Listen… I seriously don’t care if you’re blocking them or not. Ok, I CARE because blocking them means the view doesn’t count toward getting any revenue, but I’m not so deluded to think you owe me anything.
Lewis’s (Linkara’s) video about ad revenue rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and I understand why, but the basic gist of the message was, “Let them play if you want to make sure I get paid.” Some people don’t realize blocking them doesn’t count as a monetized view, and that’s basically his was of saying, “If you like me, support me.”
When it comes to me, and even the reason I asked the question, is because I wanted to see if I was annoying too many people by adding more breaks. Blip highly encourages and even favors shows that place as many as possible, as they are getting paid as much as we do. People SERIOUSLY don’t understand how much the difference the number of ad breaks make. When I see people argue, “Oh, they’re grubbing more money, when it’s only a little bit more.” “Little bit”? Try double, even TRIPLE.  Blip has even noticeably been paying out less. Videos that would net me $50 barely scrape $20 with the same amount of views of videos made last year. I hope it’s not too unreasonable to place one or two breaks into a half-hour show, in areas that make logical sense (Usually after Music, and Gameplay or Community, depending on Video length.) I’ve edited the show in a way that lets me do that. And I won’t place breaks on shows like Sidequest and Backtrack whenever possible. (There’s a bug occurring randomly on Blip videos that will automatically add an ad break on any video over 5 minutes, and it won’t allow you to edit or remove it. This happened with my first upload of Infinite Crisis, but should be fixed now… I hope.)
LSS, use ad blockers if you want, but if you want to support me, make an exception for this site or my Blip… if you STILL can’t, for whatever reason, my videos usually go up on Youtube shortly after they’ve debuted on TGWTG. (Keep in mind, I get ad revenue for people who visit THIS site, too, and these ads are far less intrusive.)

RIFT (Episode 44): This surprised me more than I thought it would. While I had no intention of playing it before it went F2P, even with it’s WoW-esque “RIFT Lite” trial mode, I actually enjoyed what I played, and I looked forward to playing it every new day. The problem is… the same issue I have with all World MMO WoW-clones… Once I stop, I can’t bring myself to play it again without serious coaching. I know these are games I can waste entire DAYS playing, and it’s tough for me to rationalize that when I have a show, and other work to do. (Also, Age of Wushu). I could see myself getting more into this game, but I’d need to put a lot of things on the back burner before I started up again.

Sidequest: Marvel Heroes: I was expecting to hate this game because I’d heard NOTHING but bad about it. Hell, go to download the game from Steam, and the most recent news story from Rock, Paper, Shotgun reads, and I directly quote,

“I don’t think I’ve ever written a more negative preview than for Marvel Heroes. There was a reason for that: it was terrible.”

So, yeah, that painted a lovely picture of the game….
Digression: When “Freddy Got Fingered” was released. I was being repeatedly told by people it was the worst thing they’d ever seen. People who thought “Little Nicky” was a good movie. So I wasn’t looking to see it any more than I planned not to. Fast forward to Kuwait, and another Marine picked the movie for our movie night, and we huddled around the Gamecube-attached LED screen that was crudely connected to some speakers and a nearby DVD player. I groaned in protest up until the movie started… I was so expecting it to be the most horrific thing I’d even seen, but while it certainly, without any doubt was stupid, I actually found a lot of things funny. I was so conditioned to hate everything I saw, that I assumed this would be nothing but pain so every joke that landed with me, landed HARD. I remember having tears in my eyes watching Tom Green singing about sausages, while playing a keyboard, paining a picture, and having several sausages suspended from the ceiling by pulleys that were tied to his fingers.
I liken that phenomenon to my reaction to Marvel Heroes. I don’t hate it. I actually enjoy it in short bursts.
I can understand why people hate it though. This buggy and unfinished and they’re calling it an OFFICIAL RELEASE?! I HONESTLY thought it was an Open Beta. I even say so in the Sidequest because I was absolutely convinced that it was.

Warframe (Episode 45): Everything I needed to say about the game can be seen in my Sidequest and the official review on it. It’s always rough doing Arena shooters, because it almost always unleashes the “REVIEW TF2!” crowd. Still, there’s a lot of work and grinding to be done in the game to progress correctly, and it’s a game that undergoes so many changes that my Sidequest and review, for once, talk about drastically different things. Hell, the footage of the map screen and the foundry I provided is even outdated NOW and it’s constantly being revised. I’m just wondering how this is going to fare in the world of the PS4…

Sidequest: Infinite Crisis: I just released this two days ago. Go watch it.

General News:

First off, next episode IS Ragnarok 2. I decided to delay it since it has VERY slow progression, and my normal amount of time spent on it would mean I wouldn’t have much to cover. Still shooting to reach Job Change level, but I don’t see it happening.

I’m considering NOT posting the next episode footage after the credits anymore, for the solid reason I’d swear that’s all ANYONE ever talks about when I make a new video. It feels like the majority of the discussion on the game takes place on the video that came before it. People blowing their comment wad before I ever get a chance to review it in the first place. Clues will still remain though, and I do have a stinger planned for this new ep.

Also, as you MIGHT have noticed, my MMO Grinder episodes on Blip are now available to view in 720p HD. Click the HD button when playing, hit “Full Screen” and catch all the visual jokes and horrid chat conversations you’ve been missing!