Life has taken an unexpected  twist lately. It would seem I’ve turned into a marketing guru over night. I’m surprised at how well my little ventures are doing.

Earlier this month I launched AtheistGamers.com. Content-wise, things are going a little slow. I understand why. I haven’t been giving it my all and some writers are hesitant to lend their name to something Religion-based. It’s okay though, it’s more of a personal project of mine anyways. I just thought I’d allow friends the ability to contribute.

My Minecraft server is dead. 10 slots and I haven’t encountered anyone on in months, but the moment I white-list it to find the cause of some grief the community seems to notice. I’m torn between making it public and keeping it white-listed. At this point of my life I really don’t have time to play daddy and fix everyone’s problems when things break. It seems like I can never just hop on and build something – I always have to fix some sort of grief. The server requires everyone to be promoted to member status before they can build or destroy, so the griefing isn’t as bad as it could be. The only problem is some assholes have weaseled their way through to member status. When I have time I need to weed them out and make the server public again. Might drop the server slots down to 6, too.

My most successful venture to date is CorgiPorn.com. It’s astonishing how well it’s doing. It would seem Tumblr is better in terms of traffic than WordPress. Everyone likes and shares and then their followers do the same. It’s amazing! I’m very proud of myself. I’ll be sure to invest in Tumblr sites in the future.

I launched Triplett Marketing earlier this week. I plan on doing more independent marketing and advertising in the future. At the moment the site is used mainly to promote things my friends and I have done. I was already approached to do an “amateur-style youtube video” for Brisk’s new iPhone game. For my first attempt, I think I did alright. I’ll put more effort into it next time. At least I nailed the amateur-style they wanted.

Most my time is going into my new job at Yahoo. I’m a content contributor there. It’s a really great gig. I get paid per post and I also get paid when my views hit a certain amount.

I canceled my The Old Republic account. Yeah… I canceled it. I love the game and want to play it, but I can’t justify staying subscribed right now. Why pay if I can’t play? I need to cancel World of Warcraft as well. Oh, wait. I can’t. I subscribed to their 1 year annual pass. At least I get a free pony and game out of that deal.

Life is busy, but fun. I’m looking forward to what the future holds.

So, I was approached by Brisk to do a silly little commercial for their new (free!) game on the Apple App Store and Android Marketplace – Brisksaber. Within 20 minutes the following video was conceived. I hope you like it.

Not sure what’s going on. Other admin have reported that the server has been down all day. According to my host’s control panel, the server is still online. I managed to get in for a couple minutes using my Mac, which was odd. I kept falling though the world and it looked like half the world was split in half due to some wacky-ass chunk error. To be on the safe side I restored the most recent backup, but that didn’t help. Still can’t log in. I assume it’s my server host’s fault. I contacted them but have yet to hear back. I’ll update you once it comes back online. Check the Twitter and Facebook for up to the minute news.

If you were one of the few who didn’t play the pre-release, you’re in luck. Patch 1.8 is now officially out. Just login the game using your registered username and password and it will automatically download and update your game. Have fun, miners!

Changelog:

• Added a brand new biome generation code that simplifies life a lot and makes things much more exciting for the future
• Added new mob; Endermen
• Added FOV slider
• Added brightness slider
• Added randomly generated ravines
• Killing a monster makes it drop experience orbs
• The player can level up by gathering experience orbs
• Added randomly generated houses
• Added huge mushrooms
• Using bonemeal on small mushrooms grows the mushroom into a giant mushroom if there’s room
• Rewrote the light rendering to use multitexturing instead of direct colors
• Sky light and block light have different tints, cool colors for sky light, warm for block lights
• Added critical hits that deal +50% damage, plus an extra point to make crits with weak weapons worth it
• If the player hits a mob while falling, they always hit a critical hit
• The game now keeps track of damage sources and types
• Some damage type ignore armor now; drowning, being on fire (but not being IN a fire), falling out of the world
• Ice now only spreads next to existing ice or from coast areas
• Made the explosions prettier
• Made level height depend on a single variable (the level height still is 128, but it’s more moddable now)
• Added sprinting
• Added hunger
• Food is now stackable
• Improved the logo
• Added suspended particles to water
• Added a server list so you can remember multiple servers
• The player regenerates slowly while the food bar is high
• Eating food now takes time + Skeletons hold their bows better now
• Added melons
• Made melons and pumpkins farmable
• Animals that get hurt will flee randomly for a short while
• Pigs have snouts now
• Made a flashier title screen
• Looking towards the sun during sunset/sunrise changes fog color
• Added fence gates
• Added a player list to multiplayer
• Added Silverfish
• Added Cave Spider
• Added huge underground dungeons (stronghold)
• Added underground mine shafts
• Added melon twice, it seems
• Added sprouts for melons and pumpkins
• Added vines + Added iron bars
• Fixed mushrooms spreading infinitely
• Fixed caves generating with too many dead ends
• Removed Herobrine

Today a Minecraft developer tweeted that he has been receiving phone calls on his personal/home phone (in the middle of the night!) from fans asking when patch 1.8 will be released. In the Reddit thread for the tweet, his phone number was posted several times by commenters with a “it was really easy to find” attitude who seem to believe they aren’t in the wrong for posting that information or contacting him.

Don’t do that.

Really, that kind of behavior is not okay and your actions give this community a bad name. The pre-release of 1.8 is already available and I’ve posted how to easily acquire it. If you can’t wait for the “100% official” release, then play the fucking pre-release. There’s no need to start stalking and harassing developers of the game. You bought a game that costs less than a new shirt at Hot Topic. You didn’t buy the developers souls. You’re “gamer entitlement” argument ends here, you ungrateful shits.

Patch 1.8 “The Adventure Update” has been leaked on 4chan. I know what you’re thinking; but don’t worry, it’s a clean file. It’s hosted on the official Minecraft.net servers, most likely put there by Jeb, and Notch has tweeted that he’s okay with people using the leak. It will only work if you paid for the game, so if you bitch that it doesn’t, you’re a horrible person who pirates $20 games and deserve a good spanking.

Here’s how to get and download the patch.

• Download this file: (http://assets.minecraft.net/1_8-pre/minecraft.jar)
• Type %appdata% into your search box
• Click Roaming
• Open .minecraft
• Open bin
• Drag downloaded file into bin
• Click Remove and Replace
• Enjoy patch 1.8 early!

Fellow WoW players looking to preorder on some Blizzcon merch before the convention are in luck. Much like last year, online pre-sales will hit the online store early.

Raiders lucky enough to get their hands on physical tickets may preorder goodies on September 16 while digital ticket purchases, such as myself, have to wait until the 23rd to preorder all the fun stuff.

Last year I spent well over $400 on merch. Pins, shirts, posters, a Horde banner, and even a ceramic Figure Print of Grunty, the Murloc Marine.  You name it, I bought it. Hopefully this year will be much more forgiving on my wallet since the majority of news will likely be Diablo and StarCraft related. I do enjoy both those franchises, but nowhere near the level of my WoW-fandom.

Yesterday Jeb updated his “most likely” release date prediction for 1.8. This time it’s September 12. If course, this estimated release date should be taken with a grain or two of salt, possibly even pepper, since his past guesses have been a little off.

Also, it has been confirmed that the experience orbs introduced in 1.8 will not have any use until patch 1.9. Oh, and villages will be empty of NPC. That’s fucking creepy.

Examiner.com 

As much as it pains me to say it, it looks like patch 1.8 won’t be out on the hinted release date of September 8. According to Jeb on Twitter, the patch needs more than an extra day of testing.

Looks grim to get a release out on 8th. We need more testing, one day is not enough. And we never release on fridays… I’ll keep you posted

Hey, before you all get upset, remember that a beta build with less bugs is a more enjoyable beta build than one with lots of them. I’m all for whatever causes less bitching and whining on the forums post-release.

Also posted on Examiner.com