Blogger Bonanza: Another Week of Blaugust .

Blaugust isn’t over yet, but with only a week in some change left, everyone is over the hump. This week’s set of links involves a huge number of bloggers across a wide-variety of games. Not only is everyone writing to keep up with the blogging holiday, but they are writing about anything they can literally get their hands on.

Before we begin, let’s journey to Tales of the Aggronaut, where the Sith Lord behind Blaugust himself lists all those blogs who have reached ‘survivor’ status by hanging on to make at least 15 posts. Congratulations to everyone who has made it this far and to those who started, but didn’t quite make it. Not only is there more time left if you choose to keep going, but there’s also no requirement to do so. Keep having fun, everyone!

Onto the rest.

Cross-World Gaming

While many bloggers got their start covering only one MMO, many have moved onto other games. The added perspective and expertise of learning to write about other worlds has only helped most of these writers. Instead of posts tied down to specific games, they can talk about MMOs as a whole, or write in such a way that the information can be applied to almost any game. Here are some great examples from this past week:

• ‘Your biggest MMO regrets’ was one of the writing prompts we’ve seen so far. In two examples of list that I find equally universalizable, Bio Break wrote his four regrets and GamingSF echoed his sentiments with four more regrets.
• In contrast to the regrets above, MMO Gypsy decided to write about what makes her happiest in her MMOs.
• Psychochild’s perspective as an experience MMO developer is invaluable when it comes to his writing about the genre. Recently, he explored the idea of belonging to one or multiple guilds in MMOs.
• In an on-going series, Aywren Sojourner has been taking everyone back to not only the age of physical PC games, but also to some of the MMO genre’s biggest and most important titles.
• Evabee humorously (and quite seriously) compared raiding to doing group projects in school or at work.
• Healing the Masses talked about her needs in future MMOs.
• EverQuest II-specific, Me vs Myself and I thinks Daybreak’s new Prison Server experiment may have broader implications.
• Finishing off this section, the stately Contains Moderate Peril discussed his personal gaming philosophy and why he plays what he plays.

The Secret World

Funcom’s financial situation isn’t looking good, but The Secret World’s most passionate fans aren’t going anywhere anytime soon:

• Star-Fired Beef’s ‘Secret Lore’ series has been going on for some time now. I could highlight it each and every week, but, despite the great writing, it almost always goes over my head. I am sure fans of The Secret World will appreciate it though.
• LFGryph has an excellent post discussing some new features coming to The Secret World in an upcoming content update. As a bonus, there’s also a picture of a ferret.

World of Warcraft

For many, WoW represents their first time or it is the game that convinced them to enter the blogging fray. For others, WoW was a breathe of fresh air to a genre that was beginning to lose its way. These days, WoW is so many things to so many different people, that it manages to be relevant to write about almost every week. Even if I no longer play, I am always open to reading new posts about the game:

• Sagacyte’s Digital Adventures takes us all back to Tirisfal, Silverpine, and the beginnings of the Forsaken (Undead) race. There’s an extra special focus on the zones’ great music.
• Blizzard fan and Blizzcon expert, The Driveling Dwarf has a special guide to surviving the yearly event. He also has an excellent article about his conversion in WoW to filthy casualism after real life has kept him away from being able to raid as hardcore as he had been doing.
• As usual, Sparks in the Horizon reminds us all that, despite its age, World of Warcraft can still look beautiful.

Guild Wars 2

The new expansion may or may not be just around the corner. ArenaNet made an announcement about making an announcement. For now, people are rediscovering Tyria in time for the expansion or taking deeper looks at what the expansion might offer:

• Goobbue Crossing, a blogger and fan of FFXIV, took a second look at Tyria and left it no more sure about purchasing GW2’s future expansion.
• Kateri Morton dedicated two posts to her return to Guild Wars 2. In the first, she remarks about the game’s beauty. In the second, she talks about why she is sticking around this time.
• Lock & Bolt also joined in the Tyria love. In her post about exploring the game, she remarks about how in love she is with it.
• Finally, The Adventures of Xinrae has some final coverage of the Spectral Olympics, including a really fun video of the event.

Final Fantasy XIV

The buzz over Heavensward has calmed, but FFXIV is a game that never hurts for content and its first major patch of the expansion continues to loom. Eorzeans across the blogosphere are still writing about the many, many things there are to do in the game. I don’t think I will ever catch up, honestly.

• In a follow-up to last weeks Hello Kitsune posts, here are two more: one on a newly purchased home and another on gardening in said home.
• Pizza Maid has an excellent family photo album featuring her FFXIV family in their Moonfire Faire outfits.
• Sagacyte’s Digital Adventures also had a chance to show off their beach body.
• Beyond Tannhauser Gate took some first steps into FFXIV this week.

WildStar

When Carbine Studios announced the Free-to-Play relaunch for WildStar, many people reacted by saying, “Oh yeah, that game does still exist.” Ever since, WildStar has been regaining some of its pre-launch energy. Its most loyal fans – the ones who never left – found new reasons to write about the game again. A host of newer fans, either returning after the launch gold rush wore thin or trying the game for the first time, decided to check it out too. F2P may not be the right move for the game, but it has re-lit the fires that went dark when WildStar failed to deliver on the overabundance of hype it managed to accrue.

• Light Falls Gracefully starts off our WildStar love with a hands-on of the new player experience for the game’s current beta.
• Regular WildStar blog Moonshine Mansion discusses the game’s interesting Contract Killing system.
• Inventory Full finally took the plunge down to the surface of Nexus in this hands-on first look.
• Sparks in the Horizon also joined in on the WildStar love. She details the changes to the game’s payment systems and discusses her excitement over the new players they will hopefully bring.

Other Worlds

Here are a few posts about other MMOs or non-MMOs that many of us may be interested in:

• She Rides Dragons took a break from dragons to review Dirty Bomb. She’s enjoying it too.
• Tales of the Aggronaut takes us all the way back to the halcyon days of Hellgate: London.
• Speaking of taking us back, Gamers Decrypted posted about the PvP in Asheron’s Call recently in this promising, on-going series.
• Adamantly Complacent’s love of Diablo III seems to be growing stronger. Take a look here.
• Ever the darling looking game, Trove has remained on Pleasant Gamer’s radar since last Blaugust.
• Aeternus Gaming has an ambitious project for Heroes of the Storm.
• Speaking of Heroes of the Storm, Cannot Be Tamed has a great set of tips on playing my favorite hero, Nazeebo.
• Is Bio Break a good girl or bad girl? Find out in this excellent post on Star Wars: The Old Republic.
• Speaking of is or isn’t, is Ravalation a bear or a woman? In Lord of the Rings: Online, you can be both!
• In another post on The Lord of the Rings Online, Knifesedge talks about taking down some of the game’s roving threats.
• Stylish Corpse and End Game Viable both tackled Project: Gorgon this week. Stylish Corpse talks about the game’s reward of experience for dying, and End Game Viable reflects on installing the game over a year ago.

Screenshot Safari

Fans of my own blog may recall a special holiday event I ran for this years Newbie Blogger Initiative. For the event, I challenged other bloggers to write posts featuring a single screenshot and a description that fit it to one of several themes. It was a huge hit and had a great turn out, but more than anything else, it taught me how important screenshots can be. This week, I wanted to highlight a few posts that highlighted some great screenshots:

• Gaming Identity starts us off with some really lovely screenshots from The Elder Scrolls IV: Skyrim.
• In a post spanning Rift, WildStar, Guild Wars 2, and Trove, Nerdy Bookahs has some excellent screens from these recent adventures.
• Static Refresh celebrates the return of a popular Guild Wars 2 screenshot hashtag with some screenshots of their own. They are all gorgeous, of course.
• Psyche Plays also had a lovely screenshot from Guild Wars 2 to show off.
• Moonshine Mansion ends the screenshot bonanza with these shots from WildStar.