So I just learned a couple days ago that Belghast died of complications from chemotherapy while fighting cancer. Man, it really shows you how checked out I am from blogging these days, but with the Blaugust event coming up, I stumbled into the unfortunate information. That said, I feel like I need to pay respects, even if its belated!
First, I really appreciate the example of his drive! Blaugust alone really cast a long shadow, and I feel it brought a lot of welcome attention to nerd and game blogging. Long live, Blaugust! I've participated multiple times myself, and he really started a unique community that is continuing on now without him. Honestly, it's pretty cool that the torch for Blaugust 2026 is still being carried! Good on those who are intimately involved. You rock!
Second, when you look at his last post on Tales of the Aggronaut, Man, look at that, he posted right up until the end. Round 7 of chemo, July 1st, a post on PoE 2 mapping, and (as from what I'm understanding) then the next day he was gone. Just floored. His dedication was top tier!
On a personal level, I have two thoughts. One, the similarities between our situations is uncanny in a way. He had a different, more aggressive, type of cancer than I do, but with my own battle going on still, it brings it all home to me. Two, just to be honest, I think Belghast was one of those that I don't know if we always saw eye to eye on things; we ran a bit in different circles; and yet we played similar games and did similar things. He loved MMOs first (much like me) and also ARPG games, but whereas he was really drawn to the hardcore complexity of Path of Exile 2, I was pretty turned off from the game. On the other hand, I could play Diablo IV for what it is and fully enjoy it, but Bel was critical of the game (for what it could be).
People come to the TFN blog for old Wizard101 information, nostalgia, or to be simply entertained by me doing dumb stuff like building Turkey Bases in Dune. The truth of the matter is, if I was a developer for a game that Belghast was playing, he would be one that I'd tune into for more critical opinions on the game that I needed to hear. He was good at what he did, and so yes, a bright light in the blogging community has gone out, and it is definitely notable here on TFN. Sorry it has taken me so long to note it!
Over on Syp's blog today he talks about making multiclass just a natural part of your character's journey in MMOs. It's a great read and I totally understand where he's coming from. I too have a twisting life path that I don't think is entirely finished myself! If I was to look at my personal journey it would twist and turn as I transitioned from Drummer to Songwriter to Dishwasher to Delivery Driver to Poet to Technical Editor to Columnist to Blogger to Community Manager to Game Designer to who knows what comes next . . . all the while, each step along my journey has added a new skill set to who I am.
Syp mentions three great games (DDO, FFXIV, and Realm of the Mad God) as examples. For myself, I've often envisioned Wizard101 as having a sort of going back to school quest line where you can play the game again as a different class of wizard, and indeed, the game already allows you to dip into other school's cards from their trainers, but nothing as drastic as taking my Death Wizard and going back through the quest line again as a Fire Wizard.
It could work. Wizard101 even has a time traveler in it ala the Five BOXES quest, so . . . it might not be entirely out of the question if you work some lore into it so that you could "correct" a few unknown-to-you-but-accidentally-critical errors you made along your journey the first time. And those moments could then award you with special cross-class spells that aren't available anywhere else.
Imagine if you will that because I time traveled and went back to school as a Fire Wizard that now I have access to certain Death/Fire crossover spells, like a hybrid meteor storm spell where the impact also causes skeletal hands to sprout underneath your opponents and now they're also taking damage over time for the next 3 rounds, or a Skeletal Dragon that breathes fire. It sounds super cool on paper! It might even make that crafted multi-class armor you can make just that much better!
Wizard101 has the concept of cross-over spells but they are cross-over spells from the same class, not multiclass.
Some example cross-over spells currently in Wizard101
It's also part of what I'm loving about Runes of Magic right now. I'm a 63 Mage / 61 Rogue / 30 Knight. I can only play as two of those at one time, but the different combinations give me different abilities. The Mage/Rogue crossover gives me Vampire abilities. The Rogue/Mage crossover gives me Telekinetic abilities. The Knight/Mage crossover gives me Wizard Knight abilities. The Rogue/Knight crossover gives me Bodyguard abilities. The Knight/Rogue crossover gives me Lion Guard abilities. It's just such a cool way of envisioning a multiclass system.
Again, great post from Syp. If you've got some fun Wizard101 multiclass ideas or examples of other games where this is done well, would love to hear from you.
I am a Game Designer at KingsIsle Entertainment. I have 3 kids, a cat, and a beautiful uber wife. I started this blog because of Wizard101, but really I had been blogging for a long time before that on a blog that's now been shut down.
6- Answer five questions from the nominator
- You have to ban one game for eternity. This game shall never be played or watched again and nobody is allowed to talk about it. Which game do you pick?
You know, countless games fall under the axe everyday that you don't even know about. Games that no one outside of a test market will ever play. This is incredibly evident to me now that I've been working in the games industry. It's such an oversaturated sea of games out there and each one was built by someone with dreams, hopes, and families to feed. Cutting one is harsh, but let's kill World of Warcraft.
Wow . . . saying that was surprisingly easy. I agree with everything Tipa said on the subject.
. . . and then after we kill WoW, let's take out Monopoly, because why not?
- How was your day? What have you been up to? Hope you’re well. 🙂
Thanks, yo! My day is pretty good so far. It's only 8:00am, and I've done my morning exercises, collected all my fishing traps and set new ones in Project Gorgon, read some Twitter, took a shower, ate avacado-filled breakfast tacos, and started typing this blog post. Gotta get to work now!
- If you could take any vehicle/plane/etc. from any game/show/book/whatever to use in our world, what would you pick and where would you go?
I miss you, sweet unicorn ride.
I would take my Free Realms unicorn mount with it's undulating rainbow mane, sparkling hooves, and glowing unicorn horn into every MMO ever and say "behold my greatness" as I rode past every player, and they would say, who was that motorcycle helmeted fairy on the most amazing unicorn ever? And I would become the myth of Thomas Lionbolt, unicorn rider!
- This one’s weird! It’s not a question… it’s an answer! “No, but the raisings certainly belong to this office.” – Find the question that this answer answers!
lul whut?
- What’s your favourite Indie title that you personally love that nobody seems to know?
I mean, I'm over here trying to do my best to raise awareness of Project Gorgon. I do what I can. Outside of that though, let's say Gems of War.
7- Ask your nominees any five questions of your choice, including one weird or funny question
Oh, I'm not gonna do all the nominee stuff . . . but anyone that responds to this blog in the comments can answer these questions:
Combine one super hero with one pop culture icon and one insect . . . describe why what you have created is the most amazing thing ever.
Choose one of these: spiked club with force powers, flame thrower with infinite fuel, or blowgun with self-loading heat-seeking darts. Explain why it's so important to your character.
Have you ever played D&D and if you have, what was your favorite moment in any adventure.
Favorite band/artist and why.
If you could only eat one type of cereal for the rest of your life, but it was absolutely free to do so, what would it be?
8- Nominate 10 to 20 bloggers
. . .man that's a lot of bloggers.
9- Notify the bloggers by leaving a comment on their blog (though, I’d just message them where possible)
It's interesting to take a look at the communities behind MMOs and see what's going on there. Ever since being a "community leader" and eventually a "community manager," I can't help but look at what's happening in games and their social networks.
Discord - The unofficial player-made Discord channel has around 1,200 members. But, honestly . . . I don't know how many people actually use that Discord channel.
Official Forums -- The forums are hosted from their official website and has around 4,650 people registered with probably many more lurkers.
Official Wiki -- This wiki is also hosted from their official website. You can actually access this wiki in game with the "/wiki" command.
Steam community -- The Steam page is always a great place when looking for reviews and news.
MassivelyOP -- MassivelyOP seems to be the main MMO news agency to keep your eyes on when it comes to Project Gorgon. Justin Olivetti is keeping us in the know or at least dropping the name of the Gorgon when he can.
Sandra Powers -- So, she has a Twitter account that I found, but she doesn't post much. There was one post that concerned me, and that was this:
I have a sister with MS, and it is debilitating for her. I certainly hope she's ok.
Connor Brace -- I was happy to see that the Composer for the music for Project Gorgon, which is quite good btw, lives here in Austin, Texas. I should reach out and see if he'd let me buy him lunch!
Community Leaders / GMs / Volunteer Guides:
Not so much a site per se, but just wanted to point out that there is a GM presence of sorts on the game itself and the main one I see while playing is a fella that goes by the name of "Jackncola" -- pointing out his favorite type of drink perhaps?
I caught a screenshot of him in game one day when we were having a party. He had boosted his character size up to double that of a normal character.
Quite the presence in the game . . . Literally!
Twitch
As for Twitch streamers, it looks like Uncle Retro and Straggiz take the lead spot for a "regular" streamers. Both seem like really nice older guys. I can relate. lol. Both seemed very worth of a follow if you're into that scene and both seemed to upload their streams to YouTube as well.
YouTube
YouTube is an interesting beast since it's kind of a deluge of different players, but there was a really nice "Let's Play" from a couple of guys named Battle-Ax Theater. They just wrapped up a nine video series with their final thoughts just two days ago. I appreciated that they bleeped out the swear words . . . um . . . at least for the first 12 minutes.
Blogs
I hunted just a few pages deep on Google trying to find a few bloggers that had written a touch on Project Gorgon. Most had only written one or two posts, but I found what I would call an invested few (and familiar names to me) that made at least three posts or more about the game.
The Ancient Gaming Noob -- Wilhelm seems to have last played the game back in March 2019, but has also mentioned the game in passing. Good stuff here as always.
Inventory Full -- I just discovered Bhagpuss's blog from the recent Blaugust. He seems to have really given the entry part of the game a good go and thoughtfully wrote about his experiences. I'd love to see him write more about the game.
Bio Break -- Syp hasn't written much about the game since March 2018, but what he has written is highly entertaining. He's a true professional.
Endgame Viable -- UltrViolet has a great handful of posts on Project Gorgon. Again, as with all these bloggers listed, it's a great read. Very well written and thoughtful.
. . . and me . . . hi.
Podcasts
A little digging has shown that currently there doesn't seem to be a dedicated podcast for the game; although, it was really fun to listen to the folks at Control Alt Record when they discovered Project Gorgon. They were clearly in love with the game and unfortunately the honeymoon didn't last longer than just a couple of episodes:
Other:
This isn't a social media site, but since I've got a big encyclopedia of links above, might as well include this: Gorgon Explorer. This tool pulls directly from Project Gorgon's database library and adds new functionality like the ability to plan out your "build."
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Most of the podcasters all had the same reaction that I had about the game play. There's just something really satisfying about this game. It's hard to describe unless you play it. They all talked about that horrible Loot Box UI pop up. It's all a blend of rants met with the highest of compliments.
And that's something funny I've watched myself do when I try to tell someone that I'm playing this game. Every time I buffer the conversation with things like "look, the graphics suck, but . . ." or "it's super grindy, but . . ." "There's no mounts or housing system yet, but . . ." or any of the other qualifiers one might put before talking about the game.
I wish I didn't need to do that, but I guess I do. Especially given the amount of games that are out there that you could be playing instead. For me, it's the core game play. It's smooth and addictive. The plethora of skills is the game's strongest point. I certainly am not done with the game yet: too much to do and I'm still having fun.
Speaking of addictive, dang, the loyalty of the small Project Gorgon fan base is HUGE. All the old Asheron's Call players that flocked here is a thing of beauty. They loved their game. They miss their game. Project Gorgon is its natural evolution but yet a totally different game.
My end thought is . . . I guess I don't think the majority of these people care about the social aspects of their game. The Vocal Minority flocks to the Global chat in game, the forums, and the in-game events, and that's enough for them. Everything else is . . . great . . . but I just don't think these fans are also fans of the fans if that makes sense. They just want to play the game and when they go hunting for information, they want to find it as fast as possible.
The vibe I get is "Less talking, more playing." That isn't necessarily a bad thing.
If you have more sites that you know of, please feel free to share them in the comments. Would love to hear about any and all.
Thank you all for joining me with a week of blogging. I finished up my week's worth of blog posts yesterday, and I'm quite happy I joined in Emy's fun!
Included in that recap is a challenge to participate in another week of blogging sometime in the December 2016 time frame . . . I'm game! (Emy, you will certainly need to remind me of this and chastise me if I say I can't join in when you do this again.)
I think my favorite moment of this challenge was not the daily activity of thinking, "what's on my mind today, and can I smoosh that out into a meaningful blog post," (that was a close second), but actually spending some time getting lost into Emy's YouTube channel in the process. Watching her translate her adorable dog's barks was hilarious, and the Christmas videos were very heartwarming.
Emy, if you're reading . . . you really should do more videos. You've got a knack at that. :)
Hopefully the benefit for you all was catching up with me and seeing where my brain is at when I'm not thinking about KingsIsle all the time. (Ok, let's be honest . . . I really am thinking about KingsIsle 90 percent of the time . . . it's hard not to get sucked in when you're checking forums and getting pinged on Twitter every day about something.)
Consider this an invitation to join in for anyone that reads this blog . . . with any luck we'll have a little more warning next time to plan, and if that's the case, I'll be making a post to declare my intentions to POST POST AND POST SOME MORE during that week!
Along those lines . . . I don't know if Belghast has intentions to run another Blaugust this year, but if he does . . . you should all consider joining in that as well. A week of blogging is fun, but a whole month of blogging is truly an exercise and could be rewarding too. Last year I won a copy of Terraria for participating (which reminds me . . . I still need to write about that game hehe)
(continuing along with the #OneWeekDailyBlogging challenge from Emy . . .)
Yesterday I stumbled upon a blog that was linked to by the former Creative Director of Roblox, John Shedletsky.
My jaw dropped.
A blog . . . about wood grain . . . in Roblox? Sure enough, I followed the links and visited the site, and this is a real thing! I present to you, Wood Reviewer Roblox.
Now now . . . it may seem incredulous at first I admit, but before you simply push Wood Reviewer Roblox into the meta-joke categorization of having blogs on the Internet about very esoteric topics, like odd QR code placement, Awkward Stock photos, and old people posting on Facebook . . . KNOW THIS!
He's serious, and I love it.
I've written about Roblox before and my youngest son right now plays this game a whole heck of a lot. He loves Roblox with a passion, and we've spent more money on Roblox for him than I'm willing to admit. In other words, I'm writing this as being someone highly invested in the product of Roblox.
My son doesn't care about wood grain direction in Roblox . . .
Probably 99 percent of the people who play Roblox don't care about the wood grain direction in Roblox . . .
. . . but Wood Reviewer is invested like a Dev, and I dig that. These are the types of details that artists at video game companies are passionate about, and in a game like Roblox where people of all ages are learning to build worlds and think like Devs . . . YES . . . this topic is exactly what's needed.
I took it to an Internet search and found a great thread about Wood Reviewer on Reddit . . . what is up with the wood grain memes? I, for one, hardheartedly agree with poster IWantGoreinPF: "ssshh... WoodReviewer is our hero... that we don't need. Let us praise his efforts"
I raise my morning glass of water to you, Wood Reviewer! I shall never look at Wood Texture the same in Roblox. Job well done.
Now . . . dear reader . . . ask yourself this question . . . if you were to write an entire esoteric blog about something that bugs you in a video game, what would it be?
Hello all! I received a challenge from the one and only Emy Anemsalok . . . Community Manager extraordinaire . . . to join in the #oneweekdailyblogging challenge that she and her cohorts dreamed up. Whew, it can be tough to blog these days for me, but I always enjoy a challenge (and I really loved Blaughust last year, so consider this my warm up I guess lol).
With that, my friends, why don't I catch you up on all things Tom.
1- YouTube! If you didn't know, I have a (kinda) weekly playthrough of Wizard101 going with my buddy Morgrim aka The Art of Warlord. We're deep into Mooshu now and in a couple of episodes I predict we'll be in Dragonspyre.
2- Work! Work has been incredibly taxing lately. I lost my cohorts Leala and Julia :( and I've been scrambling a bit ever since, but I'm starting to find a new groove that I hope carries on to bigger and better things . . . like maybe a new KI Live next week?
3- Book 15! What the what? I thought for sure "Where's Book 15 of Pirate101?" would be etched on my tombstone, but you know what . . . the team pulled it off and I can't wait to really get my feet wet in the content. I will be taking Thomas (my witchdoctor) and Pedro (my Privateer) through a 2-boxed adventure into Valencia 2. woot!
4-Other gaming! I know it's hard to believe that I play other games than Wizard101 and Pirate101, but I do. I've preached it before, but it's good to be a well-rounded gamer.
Just recently I've been playing Legend of Zelda Windwaker. Said what? That old game?! Yup! It's one of the only Legend of Zelda games I've never really played much of, so I decided to give it some time. I was sailing around this morning placing pearls from the first three dungeons.
I've also been playing a lot of Dungeons and Dragons Online.
I know you've heard me talk about this game before, and if you didn't know, I have a blog dedicated to this game called the Stormreach Sentinel. I debated killing that blog and just blogging about my adventures over here on TFN, but IDK, I kind of like how everything is neatly compartmentalized to one game over there.
In fact, I've made 16 blog posts on my Stormreach Sentinel blog since March. I'm playing a necromancer (of course) and have been having a blast. You know what stopped me in my tracks though?
5- Physical Therapy! I've been going to physical therapy about twice a week to work on my leg muscles. That left leg of mine really atrophied after being held straight for 3 months and I've got a lot of work to get it back into shape. I've been doing a hour or so of exercises every day, and it really kind of killed a lot of my extra blogging time in the mornings.
All of that, coupled with a fantastic trip to Disney World / Universal Studios last week has kind of taken a lot of my attention away from my old TFN blog here.
Hopefully this daily blogging gig this week will help kick start me a bit.
Well well well . . . looks like it's the 31st of Blaugust and I survived! Hurray!
I'm going to use this opportunity to take a look back at the month and reflect a bit while predicting the future. Here's a quick summation of what happened on the Friendly Necromancer during Blaugust:
Changed the focus of my blog and removed myself from the list of official Wizard101 fansites.
Modified my blog look (which is still a work in progress)
Made actual progression on Angus, who was blocked forever in Celestia.
Talked about and played Hearthstone, Guildwars 2, Wizard101, Pirate101, Lord of the Rings Online, Badland, Little Big Planet, Heroes of the Storm, DC Universe Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Everquest, and World of Warcraft.
Talked about a couple of ideas like daily quests and gear swapping
Made a couple of discussion point posts
Hopefully it's been a lot of fun to read along and catch up with me. Personally I had a lot of fun in Blaugust discovering other blogs who were also participating.
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Shoutout to Mama Needs Mana, who came here and posted a couple of times. I really like her writing style and it's good to know there's someone just as awful at MOBAs as me.
Shoutout to Jaedia from Dragons & Whimsy, who also stopped by to say hello on Day 1.
Shoutout to Jaromai from Why I game, who dropped by to talk a bit about Gear Swapping in GW2. Good luck with the raids in GW2!
As always, shoutout to the awesome Wizard101 and Pirate101 communities that offer their support each and every day: Adventures of the Spiral, Mercs, Petnome, Edward Lifegem, Chrissy, Central, flash33, Paige, Ditto, Stars of the Spiral, Leala . . . all y'all that I failed to mention . . . thank you for the retweets, comments and general support. It's hugely appreciated.
Shoutout to Team Spode!
Shoutout to all those who make these games! Good times are had every single day thanks to the hardwork and magic you pull out of your dev hats everyday. Thank you.
. . . and last but not least, thank you to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut who hosted the event. The list of bloggers participating was astounding and herding those cats is a lot of work. Thanks so much!
(Shoutout to any I might have missed LOL -- feel free to berate me in the comments)
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So, what this exercise has taught me is that August is a strange month. It starts out with oodles of time and then whittles away to nothing toward the end, which makes it harder and harder to complete this goal successful. I could keep a daily blog again, but to do so it has to become a higher priority in my life and something I think about every day. Will I keep a daily blog now? Um, most likely I will *NOT* be posting everyday, but I think I will be posting with increased frequency now. (especially when compared to very dry years like 2013 and 2014.)
Hopefully I can continue to grow and change this blog and gain a few new readers along the way and make a few new friends while keeping my old friends informed of the goings on of The Friendly Necromancer.
I've got a few loose ends to tie up from this month of blogging like . . . will I build a viable Friendly Necromancer deck in Hearthstone? Will I ever actually play Heroes of the Storm? Can I make more top memorable locations posts for the Original Guild Wars, LOTRO, etc.?
Looks like I can't stop posting just yet! ;) (Besides, I haven't even told you guys about me playing Final Fantasy 13 again -- it's a good story.)
