Hi, my name is Shawn and I’m a recovering fanboy.

Yes, it’s true. I used to think Guild Wars and ArenaNet could do no wrong. Everything about the game was perfect and I didn’t want to hear anything to oppose that mystical fantasy. When people would complain about how the game sucks because it’s instanced, or ZMG!1 it caters to PvE only, or PvP only, or whatever, it actually physically upset me sometimes.

Well now I realize that a) there are better games out there and b) attaching yourself to only one game is unhealthy. Not only that, but when you surround yourself with only one game, it closes your mind to the whole reason you play games in the first place: to have fun and experience new things. You can’t experience new things if you’re locked into the same farming run day in and day out, and you can’t have fun if you’re getting upset and flaming people on forums because they used the name of thy holy game in vain.

Are you listening, Warhammer Online fanboys?

Seriously, you people are the absolute worst. The game hasn’t released yet, a select few are actually in the beta right now playing the game and they are under NDA to keep their mouths shut, and you’re defending the game like this? Wha? Hengh?

This is simply a case of those people who want to claim they were into something before everyone else. “I used to play Warhammer pen and paper before all of this even came out” or “My dad invented Warhammer”. Shut. Up. First of all, you’re 14, so you didn’t play Warhammer pen and paper in the 80’s. Second of all, this transparent attempt at being an early-adopter is a waste of your time because no one believes you. I don’t care about your love for the Greenskins or whatever other buzzwords you read about lately. The game hasn’t released yet. The developers haven’t gauged player reaction yet, which will inevitably change the game a few months after release. You will cry when it’s released and you will cry again when they make all these changes to appease the initial crying.

Not only that, the word on the street is it will be heavy on the PvP (even though this isn’t entirely true, but people are idiots, which is the main point here anyway), so this means the bloodthirsty little 14 year olds whose entire lives revolve around killing another character on an effing computer game will finally have a place to call their own. At least until they find out the game sucks.

Rule #1: you can’t please PvPers. There, I said it. Let’s look back at GW for a second as an example. Once that game became so heavily PvP-oriented with tournaments everywhere, the forums turned into a Chuck-Norris-teabagged-your-mom-i’ll-eat-your-soul mess. I’m so sick and tired of complete idiots ruining my experience in a platform that is supposed to be fun and a change from normal life. If I wanted to interact with morons all day, I’d go work customer service at Walmart.

Take it from a recovering fanboy: you’re only going to embarrass yourself when the game ends up sucking. Right AoC fans?

I think about PAX every single day, probably at least 10 times each day. Last year’s event pretty much helped me make up my mind that I wanted to pursue gaming journalism for real, and not just in a free podcast I did twice a month. Being within that element in a professional setting really did it for me. This is what I need to be doing.

That makes this year’s even even more special. When I realize how far I’ve come in regards to these dreams, it’s overwhelming, sometimes. This will be my first time going to PAX as something other than “just” a gamer and I can’t wait.

In other news, I’m in the process of developing an easy way to capture all “grey water” in my house to recycle in my garden. I already have a rain barrel for capturing rain water, but now I’m capturing water from one of my sinks, too. Next is the kitchen sink, because without a dishwasher, I waste a lot of perfectly good water doing dishes. Using that water on my garden will help save water (and money) tremendously. So the agenda includes eventual collection of all grey water into usable garden water and the installation of another rain barrel. Then for next year, more garden area! I just wish my yard wasn’t so shady.