update 11.26.09

Damn, this sucks. I've been having some problems with Google lately and am waiting for a response back from them for almost a week, and it's making me not want to post on this blog anymore. It's very discouraging, but I don't want to get into the details. Hopefully, I'll be able to figure things out(at least for my sake) and use this as a chance to make the real gaming site I've been promising for so long. In fact, I've been spending a lot of my time here lately to make that vision come true. Although, like I said, there are still some things that need to get worked out.

I've actually been ready to do a review of Torchlight for awhile now but to be completely honest I've been too discouraged to actually do so. That and I've been coming over a sickness that is finally starting to go away. I also plan to do a review for New Super Mario Bros. Wii and possibly a few other games(I'm not naming them at this moment) that I have in mind, that is, if things get back up off the ground and I start doing reviews again. Oh, and next on the planned list was an article talking about Torchlight mods and actually linking some of the better(and maybe some of the worse) ones.

I know this is a lame way to justify my absence, but I hope it will suffice nonetheless.

Finished Torchlight!

Yeah, I know it's sad, but I just finished the campaign of Torchlight for the first time. I was using an Alchemist on easy and now I just made a Vanquisher on Hard. I want to try all the characters at least once and on varying difficulties before I review the game, so don't expect the review for at least another week lol. Be sure to check the Games I'm Playing for my status in Torchlight, as I'll be updating it a lot with character status and what not.

In other news, we're finally starting to organize things a little better for TorchlightCC. Hopefully we can get things going along soon and pump out this mod.

Team TorchlightCC

Well, it's official. I'm now working with a handful of other people on a Torchlight mod project called TorchlightCC. The intent of TorchlightCC is to bring an episodically released campaign that explores both a deeper plot as well as a deeper world than the original Torchlight. Using the tools that Runic Games has provided, as well as a free wikispace page to organize(which can be found here), we're going to be working as a team over a long period of time trying to conceptually design TCC, as well as follow through with it in the editor. My specific role in TCC is to design levels(both conceptually and in the editor) and to work on character concepts(basically creating a clear idea of who the character truly and what their role is in the story, as well as developing them throughout the story). Though I'm probably going to be using this blog a lot to post updates on TCC as they happen, you can always be sure to monitor our wikispace page if you want to see the latest progress.

Torchlight Editor Released!

If you can't tell already just by reading the title of this post(or some of my tweets), I'm pretty damn excited. Wanna know why? That's right, the devs for Torchlight finally released their editor to the public for us to make and share mods. As I'm writing this I'm downloading the file(21%) and to be honest, the only reason I'm writing this is to kill some of the time. I plan on talking more about the editor in a future post and I'm actually talking with someone on working on a team project mod, so we'll see where that goes.

And just cause I feel like it I'ma post a link!

Torchlight Forums

Too Much On My Plate...

Lately, I feel like I've just got too much to deal with. Aside from my messy personal life I've got this blog and now a ton of games are coming out that I've been looking forward to for months. And the saddest thing is, I don't know how I'm going to get to them all anymore. That and I've been trying to learn how to create things using programs lately(kind of trying to figure out what's right for me), and I'm just feeling overwhelmed. Phantasy Star 0 comes out Tuesday and I still haven't finished Layton, or much of Torchlight for that matter. This is sad. Maybe I can pick up the pace tonight, but for once I feel like I've got too much to look forward to. Is that really a bad thing?

Serious Writing and the Future of Ravenis

Well, yet again I haven't been writing much on this blog. Though I really feel like I should be honest with you, the readers, to some degree. I'm somewhat at a crossroads where I really don't know where I want to take this blog. It seems like the reason I haven't been writing much is because I feel like I'd rather be writing about something deeper than just video games or other things along those lines. For those of you who don't know me personally, I like to do a lot more writing than just on video games. I write about philosophy, psychology and I'm currently doing some writing for a couple of books/short stories. It's just, I don't know if I want to or if I should take that writing to this blog. I made this blog with the intention of having somewhere to post game reviews and articles catered towards that specific audience, and I would hate to alienate readers by discussing more serious topics. I seriously don't know what to do and can't make up my mind at this point. Part of me feels like this started as a gaming blog and should always stay that way, while another part of me feels dishonest for having a blog that only focuses on a part of my life that can even seem minute when you look at the big picture. One solution I came up with was to make another, separate blog for my other writings, with nothing held back. Though it's clear that I can barely maintain one blog let alone two, so I'm not entirely sold on this idea. Another idea I had has more to do with my future plans of making this a real website. I thought that maybe I could have a website with different categories for people to read, but I still don't think that really solves anything either. The final, and most realistic idea I've had is to make the gaming website that this blog was initially intended to be. I didn't want it to just be me, but I'm also not looking to make some sort of large, upscale user content based website like gamefaqs either. I figured having a team of writers and maybe some editors would allow me to cover all the latest gaming news, reviews and theory across all platforms. But that still leaves me wondering what to do with my other writings. Well, I figured I'd make this post and see what everyone else thinks. Be sure to comment and leave any suggestions you might have.

11.01.09 update

Well after a hectic month and an extra long, crazy weekend I think it's time I start paying attention to this blog again. I wish I could make some sort of promise like, "I'm going to make sure to post every day all month." or even every other day, for that matter, but the truth is I really can't say what's in store for me in the upcoming months either. That and sometimes writing is the last thing in the world I want to do. Though rather than use this update to vaguely mumble about some ideas I got brewing up in here I'm just gonna post a link to a really cool article I stumbled upon recently. The article is about a prototype USB drive that uses bug protein to store about 50 terabytes worth of data. Check it out if you don't believe me.