2009 is coming to a close, so I feel I should probably blog a little bit here about my year and where I’ve been and where I’m going. This year has been a big one for me, but admittedly I haven’t blogged here much. 2009 has probably been the least productive blogging year for me on Cuppytalk. Fortunately, where I’ve slacked here I have made up for it in other areas. This year I started doing some freelance writing and editing for sites such as Demand Studios and Mahalo, and also started up a blog (The Border House) with a few other bloggers about feminist gaming. I’ve been far more active on Twitter and Tumblr than I have here, but what can you do. I’m still not entirely sure what to do with Cuppytalk at this point in time. More on that later.
Everquest II:
This year I spent a little bit of time in Everquest 2, but not much. After going to Fan Faire 2009 in Vegas, a few of us had a rekindled spirit for EQ2 and started up new characters on Antonia Bayle. I was pretty invested for a short time, and joined up with a great guild – but alas, I only made it to the high 30’s. There seems to be something about EQ2 that prevents me from having a desire to log on past level 35. I wasn’t alone though, as the big group of people that I was playing with ended up quitting as well. Will I return to EQ2? I’m going to predict no on this one. I just don’t seem to stay enthralled with the game.
World Of Warcraft:
WoW continues to be the only MMO that holds my interest for any length of time. Luke and I started out this year playing pretty heavily with friends on the Malfurion server, but after people’s interest declined and our guild fell apart in the lapse between expansions, we found ourselves nomadic. We have returned to play casually on the Proudmoore server and I still alternate between running dungeons, fishing, and questing on Pawtopsy (my main) or playing random alts. I have such a special place for WoW, being that I know all the lore and I love the characters and the story. The only game I’m looking forward to in the next year is the Cataclysm expansion, so that says a lot about my interest level in any other games. Sad, I know. I love WoW still to this day.
Second Life:
I am still having a lot of fun exploring randomly in Second Life. I love the unknown in SL, I love wandering and discovering new things. I am constantly overwhelmed and blown away by the level of creativity in this virtual space. I started a Posterous blog dedicated to just screenshots from my travels. Second Life is really a beautiful, mysterious, and intelligent place to be. I’m still antisocial and I still don’t talk to anyone while I’m there, but I’m working over that hurdle. I really do have fun when I’m playing around in Second Life.
Other MMOs:
I bought Aion and played it for two gaming sessions and never logged in again. That was the biggest waste of 50 dollars I have ever spent. I logged into the Blue Mars beta once, and could barely run the client on my gaming PC, so color me unimpressed there. I also played MMO tourist in other MMOs like Free Realms, Runes of Magic, Wizard101 and LotRO, but didn’t stick around long in any of them.
Single Player Games:
This year, I tried to play a couple single player games but I didn’t stick with them long. Dragon Age is still calling my name, but I didn’t get very far before getting kind of bored. I don’t know what’s wrong with my lately but my interest level for games has been tiny. I need to rekindle it somehow, but I”m not sure how. I also played a bit of Torchlight and enjoyed it, but never bought the full game.
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So what’s next for Cuppytalk? Well, I still feel that I have plenty to say about the gaming/virtual world/social media industry, and I still think this is a good place for that. I figure that most of my feminist viewpoint blogging will occur on The Border House, and everything else can land here. Expect a mixture of RL, virtual worlds/Second Life, MMOs, gaming, and a new focus on casual games. The majority of my blogging lately occurs in the casual and social games segment of the industry – so you may find some thoughts about that here as well. I’m really going to aim to post 4 blogs a week here, and hopefully I can keep that up.
Here’s to a great 2010 everyone, and I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday. 
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
