First Post

For those coming from other blogs who know me, one of the few things I loved about living in Virginia was the ability to talk shop about gaming. Personally, I am a man obsessed with puzzles, with figuring things out. And gaming is a natural extension of that obsession, not just figuring out how to break a game (which I've done), but figuring out what happens behind the game, the decisions behind it, the way the mechanics work, and all that happy crap. Most people find it intensely boring, which is why I treasured the friends I had in Virginia so much. Any one of them, I could sit for an hour and do nothing but analyze one minimal portion of a game, why it was there, whether or not it was powerful, its impact on the game.

Now that I live in St. Louis, there are precious few people that I can discuss this with, and nothing really fills that void aside from babbling about it randomly on a blog. That's kinda what these things are for.

Like with my other blog, there will be some ground rules:

The blog is about the games, not the companies. While there will, on occasion, be ribs thrown directly at game designers, I realize more than 99% of gamers out there that a lot of these decisions are hard. Anything I say here is not meant as a direct indictment of any game designer, even if it might come across that way.

This blog is meant to cover gaming on the whole, but obviously, it will more directly cover my experiences, primarily the current game of the moment for me. You'll find a majority of the posts now focusing on poker and World of Warcraft, because that is what I play right now. I'm sure things will change in the future.

Finally, this blog is meant to spark discussion, but not arguments. This is a pretty dictatorial thing on my behalf. If I think you're flaming me or another poster, the post is gone. Plain and simple. You're welcome to disagree, in fact, I hope you do, but keep it within the confines of discussion.