Failure

I haven't written much at all of late.  I've  been biking a bit, and messing around with my computer a fair amount since I was victim of an "update" that destroying function.  I've got lots of excuses/reasons, but ultimately I have lacked the discipline.

 

I think part of the problem is that I have lost passion for my work.  I don't have a vision for what's happening with my characters, and I really don't know where they are going next.  That hadn't been a problem in the past when they were doing exciting things, but one of my characters is just really boring right now.  Should I focus on the interesting part of the story and come back to the hum-drum?  Or should I force myself knowing that most of what I throw down will be rewritten in a year anyway?  Having little to know experience to draw from I'm really not sure what to do.

 

I do know one thing though, I need to get writing again.

Limits

I have about two hours of game play video on my hard drive right now which I'll be going through when I get a moment.  I don't really have time to do it though.  If this was a normal game I'd just play and play, flying through the levels as fast as possible.  But I'm really enjoying this slower pace.

 

If that doesn't make sense to you allow me to contextualise.  I'm taking video whenever I play DDO, and trying my hand at a "vlog" of sorts.  You'll be able to find them all on my YouTube page, which should be linked on the left.

A Typically Rough Start

Today's the day, 9/9/9.  DDO goes free to play.  I thought about staying up until midnight last night to try the game out, but instead went to bed 'cause I was tired.

I was up pretty early this morning, say 6:30, so I thought I'd get an early start.  Sadly there was no new information on the site, and I'd already read through the old stuff.  So...  I still had my DDO client installed, and my Turbine account was still active from playing the LotRO beta, but that's where I'm stalled.  I guess I need a product key to proceed, and there's no way for me to get one since they took down the ten day trial a few months ago.

I spent a few moments this morning reinstalling FRAPS 'cause I've thought about doing a video journal about DDO.  Perhaps in the styling of WoWHobbs, but we'll see how that works out.  I suspect I won't have the time to commit to such an endeavour.

UPDATE:   13:30 - The DDO site is down for maintenance, so I'm assuming the information will be available soon.
UPDATE:  14:30 - The site is back up, but it keeps crashing IE8 when I try to fill out the form.  I'm assuming there's a volume issue, but who knows.

UPDATE:  14:45 - The latest news on the launcher is that they are having volume issues so I guess I'll have to wait for this to work.
UPDATE:  15:00 - This is too broken for me to even bother trying.  I'll come back with the rush is gone and their servers are capable of the task.

UPDATE:  15:45 - Looks like the site is finally working.  I got my new account set up without any trouble.

I and took the time to make my first character; Ellenoir Fonce, a rogue as per my norm.  I took a video of the whole thing which I'll edit together later on.  So far so good though.  It's pretty cool that the rogue is classed as challenging to solo, no game balancing here.

Back in the Saddle

A quick spot of math tells me I'm up to about 18,000 words now which puts me at around 14% of a typical book in this genre (according to these guys).  I have no intention of setting a word count goal, I'm intend to write until the story is done.  I doubt that will take me 125,000 words, but you never know.

 

It's been a bit difficult to write lately.  There simply seem to be a lot of things demanding my time.  That may relax as we edge towards winter, and back into the routine of work and school.

DDO: The Low Down on the Download

I finally found a link for the client download for DDO last night.  I think it took an hour and a half for the high resolution variant to come in.  I can't play yet 'cause I don't have an account, but it's installed, patched, and seems to be working (Win7).  I guess I have 6 days to read the user's manual before I can make my free account.