The Addon Junkie

Sorry for the long silence folks, I’ve been working my butt off for a Tampa, FL non-profit agency, Hope for Veterans. My old buddy Chance and I have been working on the web site night and day and there’s so much work to do I haven’t even been able to play WoW letalone shoot video or test addons. Hopefully I’ll have the time to start back up soon, honestly I’m kind of losing it without my pastime

The Addon Junkie now has a CafePress Storefront. There’s only a few designs right now but we’ll be adding more in the future. On a related note, if anyone knows of a CafePress alternative that doesn’t charge a bajillion dollars for white printing on dark shirts please let me know down in the comments.

So I’ve received a bit of email and in the interest of not being one of those webmasters who ignores the needs and wants of his readers I’ve made a couple of minor changes to the site. Most of you probably won’t notice most of them, but there is one that is likely to be noticed and I felt the need to explain myself.

Videos now appear “after the break.” For those of you not yet fluent in the terminology of the blogosphere, “after the break” refers to anything that does not appear on the main page of the site, but shows in the full text of a post. You can access “after the break” content by clicking the title, the “more” button or the link at the end of the article – they’ll all take you to the full text. In some cases authors use the break to keep a very long article from taking over the main page, in others it is used to artificially inflate traffic and advertising revenue since people will have to view your page more times to take in all the content. I was specifically trying to avoid that second one since it’s a pretty sneaky and dishonest tactic that offends readers and advertisers alike. So why are the videos after the break now? It’s in the interest of load times, bandwidth and readability. I’ve received some emails saying that my main page was taking a long time to load, especially for people on slower broadband or even dialup connections. I’ve also received a few emails saying that some RSS readers were choking on the embed code. Worse yet, some people were complaining that a separate instance of Flash loads for each embedded video and can bog down slower computers. In the interest of ensuring the best user experience for the largest number of people possible, I’m moving the bandwidth and resource intensive videos to a place where they will have the least impact.

Everything in web design is a trade-off and I am well aware that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” so maybe some of you dislike the new way even more. Maybe this was a bad move. Unfortunately I won’t really know until I try. If you love the change, hate the change, or want to suggest another please let me know in the comments below or feel free to email me at enmaku@theaddonjunkie.com.

Oh, by the way, The Addon Junkie now has a Facebook page! We still need about 13 more followers to get our custom URL and make it official, so if you like what you see here and want to help out, here’s a quick, easy and free way to do so: become a fan!

I have to admit, the entire concept of the TED (Technology Entertainment & Design) conference makes my inner geek squeal with delight and I’ve spent time that I should probably have been spending on videos and reviews watching some insightful and profound talks. The good news is that it still paid off. Jane McGonigal directs game R&D at the Institute for the Future, a nonprofit prediction firm. She’s put a lot of time and effort into studying games and the gamers who play them, specifically MMOs like our beloved World of Warcraft. Turns out we haven’t just been playing games this whole time – we’ve been developing skills. No, not the hand-eye coordination we always told our parents we were developing, and the ability to swing a gargantuan virtual axe through our foes doesn’t translate well into reality. What does carry over is the attitude that we develop through hours of gameplay, the ability to weave a tight social network, the ability to solve problems, and (McGonigal hopes) the belief that we can fix everything.

I can identify with much of what she says in these talks. I’ve always been a bit idealistic, I’ve spent every waking moment at my day-to-day drudgery job hoping for a chance to be “epic.” I know that there is a far greater capacity for greatness in myself and my fellow gamers than the world currently sees or allows and I would give anything to change that. The games that McGonigal’s firm have developed are a bit too “green” for my tastes (I’m not the organic tofu type) but they show an important point: There is a world out there FULL of gamers who have skills, knowledge and the desire to make a difference – give us a chance to be epic and I guarantee you WE WILL.

Full video of Jane McGonigal’s TED talk after the break.

(continue reading…)