Thom Brinkman

Thom’s Thought Transmission : The Controversy Conundrum

Feb 032012

We, gamers especially and computer users in general, are always depicted as giant nerds. A few weeks back during SOPAgate, The Daily Show showed footage of Congress saying that the representatives did not know much so they asked some nerds. More and more though, we ‘nerds’ are getting in the news beyond the negative and/or sad stories, like claiming that video games are the cause of a shooting (which in most cases they are not, but that’s another debate). Recently, I saw 2 news items relating to Star Wars The Old Republic and MMO’s, one a bit negative if you ask me, the other quite positive. Here’s the scoop, and my personal flavor of opinion on top of it!

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Thom’s Thought Transmission: My honeymoon is over

Jan 252012

by Thom

You might have noticed, or not noticed at all, that I did not do a column last week. It is in part to do with the subject of today’s column of course, but most of it was me burying into my exams because university sometimes needs that extra time spent. But what it boils down to, I was burned out on the game. I could not be bothered to play. I played some other games (Hearts of Iron 3, a World War 2 strategy game, and World of Warcraft respectively) instead, while mulling over what was keeping me from the game. Now I am playing again, and I shall tell you the small lessons I have learned over the past week about burnout and The Old Republic, so you might know what to expect if you ever encounter it, or what you might do to counter it.

More Thom’s Thought Transmission after this conveniently placed break!

Thom’s Thought Transmission: Pegging patchnotes

Jan 112012

by Thom

Patch 1.1 is right around the corner, and needs some analysis by yours truly. The most important part to remember, is that there will be no introduction of guild banks coming. And personally, I hope it will take a long while before they get introduced into the game. Why you might ask? Because I find it terribly amusing to hear Carla rant and ramble about it on the podcast. I know, ain’t I a stinker?

More Thom’s Thought Transmission after this conveniently placed break

Thom’s Thought Transmission: Do references break your immersion?

Jan 042012

by Thom

First, happy New Year everybody!

Now, on New Year’s Eve, I went to my regular watering hole in town, and they had karaoke. So at some point someone was singing Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and it blew my mind when I read the text along. (Almost) everyone that knows that song, knows that “Space may be the final frontier, but it’s made in a Hollywood basement” is a direct reference to Star Trek. The next line “Cobain can you hear the spheres singing songs off station to station” is of course about Kurt Cobain, but the line after that flabbergasted me completely; “And Alderaan’s not far away, it’s Californication.” Until this past Sunday I never heard this Star Wars reference in that song, and now I will never not hear it either. In today’s column, I am going to talk about cultural references regarding Star Wars The Old Republic.

More Thom’s Thought Transmission, after the break!

Thom’s Thought Transmissions: What do you care about?

Dec 282011

by Thom

On a whim, and as a special ‘last column of the year’ gift, I decided to ask some people on the Corellian Run Radio Facebook chat to give me some questions to give my personal unabridged opinion on. And it turns out it can give great insight to my own views! So, order up; reader questions!

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