So I have a new project in the works and it's related to this website. It's going to take loads of time and the odds of me coming through with it are kinda low.

But here's hoping. :)

I added SEF (search engine friendly) URIs to my reviews to give them a test run.

Instead of /view_review.php?game=Blah the URIs for game reviews are now /review/Blah. I'm gonna give those a few before deciding if they're worth-while to have or if they kill what little search engine placing I have.

I will be redoing the news page at some point so that I don't have to put weird spacing in my message to get the text to wrap around the avatar properly. ><

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TERA Online looks to be a promising new MMORPG with very stunning visuals. Further, the combat seems to be a lot more hands-on than most MMO's. For those familiar with the games, the combat system seems to be similar to RYL or DDO (DDO when in FPS mode). Should be great. :D Or a major let down. We'll see.

I encourage folks to head over to the following website and check it out for yourselves:

http://www.tera-online.com

Also, be sure to register as the alpha/beta could happen at any time.

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I've been watching Aion for several years now and it's FINALLY at the point where it's getting released in the US.

The game is presently in the open beta phase and I have been playing around in Aion for a few days now.

My early feelings about Aion are that is has promise. The combat in PvE is rather fun with the skill chaining and flight is a nice treat (in areas where you can actually fly). There seems to be a multitude of quests to do in the early levels and you'll always have something to do with campaign quests and regular quests ("campaign" quests are essentially the main storyline quests).

PvP doesn't seem to enter the game until around lvl 25 when you can go to the Abyss zone. Aion for some reason calls this "PvPvE" which is fancy-talk for a zone in which you have quests to do but you could be attacked by members of the opposing faction/race (e.g., World of Warcraft's contested zones or Warhammer's RvR zones).

Presently, anyone and everyone can join the open beta as the "subscriber-only" restriction was lifted from file planet. So if you go to the following URL you can get your key and download the game:

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/aion/beta/?_cmpid=fp197

Further information about Aion can be found at Aion's website:

http://aiononline.com

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So I may have been the only one to miss this for so long, or maybe I'm actually not. Who knows? Anyway...I submit the following:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm/media/screenshots.html

The top middle and top right screen shots. Notice anything?

One of my biggest issues with WoW over the years has always been one simple thing: Water.

It looks like it hasn't been mentioned anywhere (as far as I've seen) but apparently with the next expansion WoW is also getting rid of the HEAVILY repeated water texture in favor of something at least a little more presentable. I wonder if the same can be said about the water entry/exit/travel effects. We'll see.

Also the picture of the burning Astranaar (bwuahaha) on the bottom right of the second page shows this change as well. As do the Greymane images.

Upon closer inspection of the images, it seems that water reflections are a possibility in the next expansion as well. For me, this adds a whole new level of immersion to the game that can only be surpassed by adding wind.

I can always hope.

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I'm sure no one noticed, but my website was down the passed couple of days. I didn't exactly plan my host change very well I guess. :D

I'm now on a new, faster, snazzier host so the website should be faster overall. I migrated the site nearly 100% intact; however, I reduced the size of the site by a couple of megabytes as a lot of the data was just junk that didn't need to be there.

One thing though, I accidentally (as in...somehow, not quite sure) didn't backup the reviews that were on my live site. Luckily I kept backups of them but if you notice their ratings are slightly different it's because I forgot exactly what I had selected previously but they should be relatively close.

Enjoy the speed boost. ^^

Weird note.. one of my top banners isn't working. I'll fix it sooner or later.

...OK fixed. Apparently I had copied the Thumbs.db file. :D *noob*

UPDATE: The login issues on the home page and other pages have been fixed.

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