So, school starts in a few hours, holidays are over and I'm sitting here, trying to recall what I've done this summer.

First three weeks were really great. Spent the first 2 in Germany with my family in a cabin which was almost a small house. The beach was 100m away but as it isn't really my thing, I had a great time going into the small town nearby and doing stuff there while practising my german. :)

We explored the north of Germany quite a bit, went to Wismar, Greifswald, Soltau and Travemünde among others. Great start on the holiday.

Was in Gothenburg the week after, visiting my cousins and attending Metaltown. Saw some great bands there like In Flames, Soilwork and Sabaton.

Played a lot of Age of Conan after I got back home but decided in mid-july that the game was not enough fun for me so I quit it.

Went to Övik as well and watched Alice Cooper with some friends, guess it was cool though I'm not really a fan of his.

Last month, well, played a few games, Oblivion and Crysis spring to mind as does Heroes III and DotA (with guildmembers). That and trying to ruin F5 ofc while browsing Warhammer Alliance and Futilez guild page. :P

Guess that's mostly it. All in all been an ok summer. A shame AoC sucked I guess but not much you can do about it and WAR's coming in 13 days anyway (at least OB:P).

Much has happened in the past week when it comes to WAR. The biggest news was of course the fact that NDA was lifted 3 days ago and everything associated with that. I don't know about you but when I hear new cool info about a class I think something like: "Hey, that ability is awesome! I want to play that!". Since I firmly believe that you need to focus on one char to get anywhere I have a problem here. :P

Thankfully, GOA confirmed the 7th Sept date here which means that OB is coming upon us in mere 16 days! Can't wait, this sudden surge of news and videos makes me want to play WAR more than ever. It looks very polished now imo and I have great faith in this game. I can see myself playing this for years if it delivers what it promised it will.

The same post from GOA holds some bad news as well, CE-buyers in EU won't get CB or PW. :/

This is bad of both Mythic and GOA since they talked so much about "equal service between NA and EU". It's not the end of the world though and I'm happy as long as they fix a smooth launch for WAR.

Why do some people (mom in particular) believe that you need to "reset" your sleeping habits to normal a week or two before school actually starts. After telling her, for about 2 weeks, that it's not actually needed at all, she decided that 3 days is the absolute minimum amount of time you need and therefore woke me up at 7:00 this morning. I can tell you one thing - I was not happy when she did that. Especially since I haven't slept much the last three days due to a LAN-party that I organized.

I finally went to Orions this monday btw, ofc they didn't have any Deamonettes in the store at the time. >.<

Ordered some though and they'll probably arrive on monday so it's not that bad.

ps. Sorry about the lack of posts this past week. I'd totally forgot about it. :P

Still no definite info if CE-buyers in EU will get into CB, the looks of it are pretty grim however. The update we got from GOA here shows us two things, one good and one bad.

Good:

They are on schedule for OB and release.

Bad:

They don't have their hardware all set up and done yet = probably no CB for us.

Ah, well. Looks like we have to wait to OB or, if we're lucky, 1 - 1½ week before. :/

Times like these are golden for casual games though. Yesterday I remembered a casual game I got a few months ago which is in the same genre as StepMania in that that you shall do stuff and the music dictates the difficulty. Instead of pressing keys in different directions, you're supposed to hit colored blocks and avoid grey ones. The bad thing about StepMania was always the lack of (good) songs, sure you could create new ones but who wants to do that:P, if you didn't like japanese music - you were screwed. In this game however, you can use your own music which makes it superior in my book since you can play it when you're bored and just want to listen to some music. Which game I am talking about? Audiosurf.

My F5 is almost broke from all the refreshing of WHA and guild page while waiting for GOA to decide if we who have ordered the CE in EU will get access to CB, so I thought it was best to find something to do.

I looked at my old games to see if there was something for me to play while waiting and, behold, there was. :P

Haven't played Heroes of Might and Magic III for a while but it's one of those games you never really get tired of. It's one of my first games, bought it in 1998 when I was 7 years old, together with Baldur's Gate (which is THE game). ;)

Now, that screen really brings back the memories. :)

Change.

It's everywhere and everyone wants something to change, whether it's huge changes like moving to a new place or finding someone to love, or smaller changes like getting a new haircut or grab a hold of that new awesome game that's coming out 18th of September.  ;)

Most of the time though, change is something a majority of people are negative about. People generally don't like change, they like it the way they've always done it. It makes them feel secure. Trying new things are scary for some and exciting for others, most of the time a bit of both, depending on what it is and who it is that's trying.

Some people are even more reluctant to change than others, they live in the past so to speak. While remembering and even embracing the past is a good thing, taking it too far can disconnect the individual from the present making him/her seem a bit distant and old to the people living in it. (This seem to happen naturally with age, exceptions exists of course.)

Others embrace the thought of change, making so many plans for what they shall do when they get more money, what they will do when they get old etc. etc. that they forget to live their life in the present. You should definitely have both short and long term plans but, same as staying in the past, taking it too far disconnects you from the present and make you look like you have your head up in the skies.

There's a line which summarizes this pretty well, most often attributed to a survivor of the german deathcamps:

Remember the past, plan for the future, but live in the present!

There's always people who want to change you and your ways of life (most notably your parents;)), and if you're like me and need a hard boot in the ass, most often my own boot but not always, to get something changed then it can be a good thing. Don't let them take it too far though, opinions differ and make sure the change is for the better.

In the end, always remember that change as a whole drives the world forward. Without change, nothing would exist.

PS: Can't write a post with only one nerdy reference in it, so therefore I have to declare this post as an offering to Tzeentch - god of Change. ;)

A guild mate found this hilarious thread this morning and I thought I'd share it with you. Here's the thread and it's made of 100% pure win! xD

5) Regarding the pre-order, Collector’s Edition and the Standard Edition, we are pleased to announce that we will also be inviting our pre-order CE buyers into our Closed Beta test starting next week. There will still be some hardware spec requirements (but they are much lower than our current requirements) since we are still in Closed Beta but we expect that the vast majority of our PO CE buyers will meet the lowered requirements. We gotten a lot of feedback from the community on this point over the last few weeks asking for this and we are now going to make it happen. -MBJ

I don't know yet what the situation for the EU will be regarding this. To be honest this announcement was a surprise to us as well and so we'll need to talk to Mythic, our other partners and our various internal teams to see what is possible under the circumstances. The timetable we were working to appears to have changed dramatically so we'll need to re-evaluate a lot of things and look at where our resources are at the moment. It's Mythic's prerogative to change things - in fact there have been many changes prior to this that we've worked through together - we just need to see if it's possible to adapt our plans to bring things back into line again. As always our intention will be to try and give the same opportunities to European fans as Mythic give to NA fans but we need to see if it is possible to shuffle our timetable to match given the fact that everything is pretty much committed at the moment to gearing up for launch.

I expect we'll be able to announce what we will be doing for the European fans within the next few days. -IainC Goa

*crosses fingers, toes and everything else*