Congratulations to Tukucommin, nmacholl, Sting122, and Melissa Blick for winning the “You can have our stuff” contest. If you haven’t received an email from me about the contest, email me and I’ll make sure you get your prize.

Thanks to everyone who participated! We had an amazing 444 questions during the contest, and 892 newly registered users (219 of them asked a question!)

For those of you who want to stay involved in Skill Training Complete, I recommend following us on Twitter or Facebook. Also read a blog post on the future of Skill Training Complete as well as follow and participate in the EVE Online StackExchange proposal.

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A little background for those who don’t know the origin of Skill Training Complete. There is a website: StackOverflow, which is a question and answer site for programmers. Back around February/March 2010 they announced that they would be providing the software that ran the site as a service for people who wanted to have their own question/answer site. They wouldn’t actually give you the software unless you paid thousands of dollars, but for ~$120 a month they would host the website for you.

It started out as a free beta and I signed up for an account because I thought the software would be great for EVE Online related questions and answers. At this point the person with the account “owned” the data on the website (or they could license it under creative-commons or something similar if they wanted), but they were free to put advertising on their site and make money off it as long as they were willing to pay the hosting fee. I never had any interest in making money off Skill Training Complete. I was willing to cover the expense myself if needed once the service was out of beta, maybe with the help of some donations of the users.

In the middle of April 2010 they (StackOverflow) announced that they were changing the business model. They would no longer be allowing people to run their own websites for profit. But would be creating a process where the internet community could create their own question/answer sites that would be owned by StackOverflow, but all the data would be free under a Creative Commons license.

Existing websites (like Skill Training Complete) have 3 options:

1. Be re-created under the new StackExchange model as a community driven site owned by StackOverflow with all the data (questions/answers) under a Creative Commons license.
2. If the existing site can maintain high enough traffic it can be grandfathered in and left under the old business model of being owned by the creator of the original site with free hosting provided by StackExchange, but no major software upgrades, only bug-fixes.
3. Take a dump of their data and switch to a different StackOverflow clone and provide their own hosting

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What does this mean for Skill Training Complete? In the long term it means that we will need to end up deciding on one of the above 3 options. I’ll give a run-down of how I see each option in relation to STC.

1. There is already a proposal on the new system for an EVE Online site. I would love to see Skill Training Complete graduate to a full StackExchange site run by the community with the support of StackOverflow. The process requires a commitment from the community to get the site created and eventually graduate out of beta to a full blown site. So if for some reason we can’t create the community around this proposal then we would have to go with another option for STC.
2. This option is likely not a good fit for Skill Training Complete because I don’t believe we currently have the traffic to sustain the requirements for free hosting by StackOverflow. If we ever fell below that level of traffic they would shut us down. Also the lack of upgrades to the software is not a good long term limitation. I see this option as only a gateway to option 1 or 3.
3. If option 1 fails to draw the community required to create a full blown StackExchange site for EVE Online questions and answers, or you, the existing STC community, do not want to switch to the new StackExchange platform, I promise that I will move STC to a StackOverflow clone that I can run and host myself.

What can you do to help Skill Training Complete have a bright and active future? Go to the proposal for an EVE Online question/answer site on area51.stackexchange.com. “Follow” the proposal, and help the process by proposing good off-topic and on-topic questions. Spread the word about STC to any EVE forums you frequent, also to your corp or any in-game buddies, we can really use the word of mouth! Also remember you can always follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Feel free to post any comments or suggestions on what we can do to ensure a bright future for Skill Training Complete, either here or on Facebook and Twitter.

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So a few days ago in one of my late night fits of craziness I decided to buy a domain name and create an EVE website, enter: Skill Training Complete

The idea is that people ask questions about EVE and people answer those questions, and the next time someone has the same question, the answer is a quick google away.

There is also a “score” called reputation. I’m giving away a free month of EVE subscription (PLEX) to the people with the top two reputation scores on March 21st. Also other to-be-decided prizes for 3rd, 4th and 5th (and maybe more).

A tip if you don’t think you know enough about EVE to answer questions and win the PLEX: You can also get rep by asking questions, and the more questions you ask the more questions there are for other people to answer, everyone wins!

The site uses StackExchange. Which is a spin-off of the very popular programming site Stack Overflow.

In case it seems like I’m trying to advertise here; it’s true, I do want to get my money’s worth on the domain and the promise of a PLEX, but by “worth” I just mean I want to create a site that people will find useful and when I have an EVE question I can post it and get a great answer.

Edit: Noob Piratebait is now asking questions on Skill Training Complete. Take the opportunity to answer some easy questions and get that free month of EVE.

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I previously blogged about the Studio Cypher ARG. They’ve made some large site update with some ‘training’ tutorials and lots more juicy back story to be found if you read everything.
The major news though is that the company running the game has decided to go with a ‘pay to play’ model. Most likely around $10 a month. It’s more of a two tiered approach as the basic game will be available for free, the $10 is for ‘premium content’ whatever that means.

I will probably pay to play, atleast for a month. Though if possible I’ll probably share whatever clues the premium content generates with the free players, so I’m not sure what benefit there is for them to pay.

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I bought Oblivion when it first came out about a month ago. I played it for about 6 hours that night and haven’t touched it once since. Though I have been playing other games.
I’m not quite sure why, it really is a great game. I’ve got some ideas though.

To play Oblivion I feel the need to turn off all other stimuli. I can’t listen to other music, watch tv, browse the web, or work while playing Oblivion.  With the other games I’ve been playing recently, I don’t feel this need, I can do one or more other things at the same time, so I have difficulty setting aside time to only play Oblivion.

Where I stopped playing after those 6 hours was dying immediately after starting a part of the main quest. Immediate death at the beginning of a long battle sequence doesn’t bode well for my chances of making it through without many tries. So whenever I think of going back to playing I remember that this battle is ahead of me. I could just do some other side quests but I’ve heard tales that if you level up too much before playing the main quests it makes it that much harder so I’m reluctant to go that route.

I tend to get bored very quickly with most games, I think the longest I’ve ever played something is World of Warcraft and Dark Age of Camelot, both for a month or two (reaching low 20 levels in each). I also very rarely finish single player games. Now I don’t think this is my problem with Oblivion (atleast not yet). I’m not bored with the story or gameplay yet.

I guess at some point I’ll get a craving for Oblivion and get back into it. I just feel kinda bad that I have such a great game and I haven’t been playing.

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Games include Leisure Suit Larry, Kings Quest, Full Throttle, Sam & Max and more!

I recently played through ‘The Dig’ which was really fun, hopefully I can get a few of these running in DosBox or ScummVM.

I know this is not very legal, but my response is, once I can pay a few bucks and download a version that works on a modern OS without any hacks then we will talk.

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What is the truth behind The Philadelphia Experiment? Why did Hachita, NM speak backwards last june? Who are the Erasers and what truths do the Cyphers hold? This looks like a cool new ARG which is about to launch, join the discussion: http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14458

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GameSpot has compiled a great list of the top 10 Final Fantasy games, has all your favorites, along with the ones you forgot you loved, or never heard of but would have loved or really disliked but should have loved if you’re going to be a Square fan boy/girl.

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Since I probably won’t get around to writing a full review myself I thought I’d link to a good one and just say that I love this game! I’ve played about 6 hours so far, haven’t played in the last few days but I know I’ll go back to it, pacing myself and playing other stuff at the same time.

Hrm, no real good summary paragraphs in this review to quote here so just go read the review.

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