Ten Years of Twenty Sided

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Sep 1, 2015

Filed under: Landmarks 136 comments

Today is September 8036, 1993. It’s also the ten-year anniversary of this site.

I thought for a long time what I should say to mark this occasion. This is a pretty big deal. Ten years ago I was 34 years old. I was half the programmer I am now and I didn’t think of myself as a writer at all.

Eventually I decided to write a post talking about the idyllic pre-colonial internet that existed before the Eternal September. I could talk a bit of internet history, which would dovetail nicely into personal history, and then bring it back around by talking about how this community is a lot like that long-lost world. I got a couple of paragraphs into this project when it started to seem very familiar. Did I already do a post on the Eternal September? Maybe somewhere deep in the archives there was an old post about this? Maybe I mentioned it in the Autoblography?

So I did a little search and found that yes, I have indeed written about the Eternal September before. But it wasn’t “deep” in the archives. It was one year ago. And the post was the nine-year anniversary of this site. So not only had I written on this topic, I’d actually done this exact same concept for a post, with the exact same through-line. It’s actually a pretty good post. Better than this one, at any rate.

From this, we can conclude four important facts:

  1. My memory is failing with age.
  2. While I’m getting better as a programmer, I don’t seem to be improving much as a writer.
  3. My memory is failing with age.
  4. I forget what #4 is.

Since I’m apparently incapable of coming up with anything newEven that ‘bad memory list’ joke is a re-run., allow me to re-package something old and offer you that.

No wait, someone else already did…

History, in Bulk

Chris Wellons emailed me a few weeks ago. He had lots of gracious things to say, and if I’d been thinking ahead I’d have thought to get permission to quote some of them. But since sloth and incompetence is the order of the day, I’ll just sum up: He took the D&D campaign – the very campaign that was the origin of this very site – and compiled it into an ePub format. This is more convenient, since you can take it with you, and have the whole thing in a single document instead of having it spread out over 84 blog entries. He also compiled it into a single-file HTML form, if you have more old-school sensibilities.

The version Wellons put together should have significantly fewer speling erorrs, typo, bad, punctuations, poor phrasing, and grammars. Although you could probably achieve a similar effect by simply inserting strings of random characters to the whole thing. This was some of my earliest writing work. I wasn’t very good, and I didn’t have the external motivating factor that comes from knowing that my work will be read by thousands of people. Thanks to Chris Wellons for the hard work.

The whole thing is about 75k words. That’s a small-ish novel. A little larger than the typical young adult novel but a little shorter than the fancy ones they make for grown-ups. Even after a decade, it’s still likely the largest single series I’ve ever done. (Although Mass Effect might top it in the end.)

Within a few days of that, reader kittsville put together a collection of the DM of the Rings images, for situations where you want access to the comic but don’t want to step through the blog posts.

Did You Know…

The more you know... what? This is not a complete sentence or thought! 'The more you know, the more it hurts'? 'The more you know, the more you forget'? I want to know more about what happens when I know more!
The more you know... what? This is not a complete sentence or thought! 'The more you know, the more it hurts'? 'The more you know, the more you forget'? I want to know more about what happens when I know more!

Some fun stats and trivia about the site:

  1. At the very start of the blog I had a few dozen posts to start with, but I didn’t want them all to have the same timestamp, because that looks weird. So I spaced them out by making their timestamps a day apart. I don’t actually know the real, actual start date of the blog, but the first post is dated September 1st.
  2. The blog has been running for 3,652 days, and there are 4,294 live posts, which works out to about 1.2 posts per day.
  3. As of this writing, there are 328,212 comments. That works out to roughly 90 comments a day, or a comment about every 16 minutes. I’ve read them all.
  4. Actually, sometimes I do miss comments. I read everything from the moderation queue. (It would be impractical to try and read everything by visiting each individual post and looking for new comments.) This lets me see every comment from every post in one huge feed. However, if there are more than 50 comments between now and the last time I refreshed the pageWhich is often the case when I wake up in the morning. then the new stuff will be broken into two or more pages. If someone just happens to post a new comment at the exact same moment that I move from page 2 to page 1, then comment #50 will get shoved from page 1 to page 2 at the same time and I’ll miss it. You can see these instances must be rare. It’s only possible about once a day, and only when the once-every-16-minutes comment appears when I change pages. I probably only miss a few a yearAnd many of those I find through context. If I miss Bob’s comment, I’ll likely discover it when I see people reply..
  5. As I said above, the D&D campaign is the longest series on the site at 75k words. The Autoblography is second at about 65k words. The Mass Effect series (including the unpublished partsDear people of the future. When this post was written, Mass Effect Retrospective 11: Ilos was the most recent entry) currently stands at 50k words, and I haven’t written about Mass Effect 3 yet. I predict it will be longer than the Autoblography, but I don’t know if we’ll exceed the D&D CampaignI know it sounds reasonable. If Mass Effect 1 and 2 took about 25k words each, then Mass Effect 3 will take another 25, right? But actually, Mass Effect 1 took 30k words, Mass Effect 2 stands at ~20k. And given that I often use the early games as a launching point for talking about the later ones, I’ll likely have already spent a lot of my ME3 commentary by the time we get there. But whatever.. We’ll see.
  6. The database for this blog is ~300MB. The images take up about 750MB. That sounds pretty skewed. Shouldn’t the images be a couple orders of magnitude larger than the text data? Well, yes. But for most of the lifespan of this site I stuck to sparse, tiny images. It’s only in the last couple of years that I really started pushing for more pictures. These days a post might be 16k of text and 300k of images. That all sounds really small to me now, but I remember five years ago it was a nightmare trying to do regular backups because the data was “so big” that phpMyAdmin or my internet connection would time out or choke on it.

There’s an old half-joke about observational stand-up comedians that as they become more successful, more and more of their material is focused on airline travel and staying in hotels. But that works in a lot of other domains as well. If you write a personal blog, then the path of least resistance will turn it into a blog about blogging. And if you’re really successful, then it might even become a blog about how you’re too busy to blog.

I’ve tried to keep that sort of nonsense to a bare minimum, but if there’s ever a good time to blog about blogging it’s when you’re already blogging about your blog. So let’s do that.

Blogging about Blogging

Not pictured: A larger circle around the whole thing labeled 'pictures of cats'.
Not pictured: A larger circle around the whole thing labeled 'pictures of cats'.

Simple, right? Except, no.

The “people” in the blue circle are implied to be the people who already read your content. The problem is that the blue circle is of an unknown size and location, and you have to find it by making content and seeing if people like it. The green circle needs to keep getting bigger, because eventually you’ll have said everything you have to say about the topics you know now. And just to keep things interesting, the red circle usually wanders around unpredictably. So finding that sweet spot in the center of the diagram isn’t always easy, and you can’t even guarantee that it exists today.

I’ve done what I could and I’m grateful for the success I’ve found. I hope you won’t begrudge me a gentle reminder that I’ve got a Patreon going these days, if you’d like to support the blog directly. Also there are those share buttons below if you’re more a fan of indirect support.

In any case, it’s been a good ten years. Thanks to Josh, Rutskarn, Mumbles, and Chris for being a part of this. Thanks to all of you for showing up, having smart things to say, and sticking with me even when the red circle and the blue circle didn’t always line up. It’s an honor.

 

Footnotes:

[1] Even that ‘bad memory list’ joke is a re-run.

[2] Which is often the case when I wake up in the morning.

[3] And many of those I find through context. If I miss Bob’s comment, I’ll likely discover it when I see people reply.

[4] Dear people of the future. When this post was written, Mass Effect Retrospective 11: Ilos was the most recent entry

[5] I know it sounds reasonable. If Mass Effect 1 and 2 took about 25k words each, then Mass Effect 3 will take another 25, right? But actually, Mass Effect 1 took 30k words, Mass Effect 2 stands at ~20k. And given that I often use the early games as a launching point for talking about the later ones, I’ll likely have already spent a lot of my ME3 commentary by the time we get there. But whatever.



From The Archives:
 

136 thoughts on “Ten Years of Twenty Sided

  1. Gary says:

    Hey Shamus, I’ve been reading since DMotR #20 or so. I just wanted to say thanks for making this site, it’s one of my main bookmarks, no longer what computer I’m looking at. I love reading your new stuff, and I love finding references to your old stuff (some of which I read again because it’s so interesting).

    1. BLAMM says:

      Same here. I usually just lurk, but this seems like a good time to shake your virtual hand and say, “Thanks.”

    2. allfreight says:

      Dude, you should really read #1 through #19….

  2. Brian says:

    So, subscribed to your patreon today (before this post went up.) I’m glad I did — I really like your thoughts, your style, and your content. Keep it up.

  3. thatSeniorGuy says:

    Hey all, first post on the site. I’ve been reading Twenty Sided since … I actually have no idea, because this site has been part of my life for quite a while now; I’ve been reading since at least before the first season of Spoiler Warning. I just want to say congratulations on your 10 year anniversary. I wasn’t there for all of the first 10, but I will be for the next, and for however long this site runs.

    1. Galad says:

      Come to think of it, I’ve also been around since before Spoiler Warning. The way I came here was through the escapist, probably posting stolen pixels. Then at some point, at a Christmas break, when I was feeling particularly unhappy with being stuck with family, I found DMOTR. From then on I’ve been a regular here. :)

      Also, nice to know that, the one time I felt like leaving a comment on a thread from years ago, at least Shamus has read it. Some of the comments on the blogs are a short story in themselves, he probably has a way to speed-read them. Any chance we could .. dunno, get profiles maybe, so we can check older comments we’ve left and if anyone has replied to them?

      1. Trix2000 says:

        I tried to determine when I started reading here, but I couldn’t remember even the exact year, let alone the month.

        But it had to be somewhere in the 2007-2009 area, since that was when I was heavily getting into online content (college, you know). DMOTR was my gateway drug (and the campaign kept me reading afterwards).

        Here’s to another 10 years!

    2. Nydus says:

      Hey, a fellow lurker like me! My first post on this site as well and I found it through DM of the Rings 7-8 years ago. Really liked the programmer perspective articles which made this site stand out, so became a regular visitor. Congrats Shamus and co, and thanks for all the great content.

  4. Jokerman says:

    Thanks for everything Shamus, also i should also thank the butterfly effect that brought me here 5 years ago.

  5. Mr. Son says:

    I love your site, and I love your writing. I enjoy your sense of humor, and you’re generally good at explaining things I don’t know about in a way I understand. Yours is one of the most mannerly online communities I’ve seen, and even when I disagree with things you say, I still find you to be quite reasonable about it. I’ve been following you for years, and unless you have an abrupt shift in form, I expect to follow you for as many more years as you’re able and willing to give us.

    Thank you for ten years! :D

  6. MrGuy says:

    Congrats on the 10 years! One of the highpoints of my week when I get a new post and a new thread of comments to overanalyze. :)

  7. MrGuy says:

    Also, to actually talk about the contents of the post…

    Mass Effect 1 took 30k words, Mass Effect 2 stands at ~20k. And given that I often use the early games as a launching point for talking about the later ones, I'll likely have already spent a lot of my ME3 commentary by the time we get there.

    I think you’re forgetting ME3 has The Ending. Also, it has Some Kid Died. Also, it has Kai Lang. I’m feeling like that’s 20k words right there. Maybe 30k. Maybe 75k by itself…

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Indeed.Once those flood gates reopen,youll easily manage to overshadow those 75k words with nothing but that alone.

    2. swenson says:

      It’s been three and a half years and I still have to stop myself from ranting about ME3, because if I get started, I can go for hours. Not to other people, I can usually restrain myself to a few snarky comments, but if I’m on my own time, just ranting to myself, it can get ugly.

    3. Alexander The 1st says:

      Not the mention The Wrap-up, where you try to tie together the other ~70K words into something that hopefully is clearer than the game itself. :p

      1. Trix2000 says:

        This is what I’m expecting might push it over, as it wouldn’t surprise me to find an entire extra post or two dedicated to the series as a whole.

  8. Zagzag says:

    I still think of Spoiler Warning as something fairly recent compared to the site as a whole, since it started around the same time I started visiting, but that’s really no longer the case.

    I know it’s not actually hosted here, but do you have any kind of estimate of how large the combined seasons of Spoiler Warning are compared to the text and images from the last decade?

    Thanks for the last decade, and here’s to the next!

    1. Josh says:

      I don’t know the filesize of the videos on youtube itself, since it re-encodes them to its own format (used to be FMV, but everybody’s jumping off the Flash ship like it’s the Titantic at this point, so I’m not sure what they’re using now).

      However, the combined file size of every finished episode, in their pre-upload format, is 692 GB. This is from the start through the Arkham Asylum season, and includes a few of the archived hangouts we’ve also put up on the channel. The largest season, in terms of file size, is Skyrim at 76.2 GB (which is larger than all of the special episodes combined). The smallest is Bioshock at 3.74 GB, but only by a small margin over Mass Effect 1’s 4.07. Despite being the third longest season (weighing in at 16:39), Fallout 3 is only 7.09 GB in total size, compared to New Vegas’ (our second longest at 20:10) 46.1 GB and Skyrim’s (our longest ever at 21:38) previously mentioned 76.2 GB.

      Going by Shamus’ numbers, Spoiler Warning is 659 times the size of the entire blog, and 2,307 times larger than all of the words Shamus has ever written to it.

      1. Peter H. Coffin says:

        YouTube *seems to be* (based on my shabby poking at it) using mpeg4 called something else, and using a playlist of individual parts of videos (a couple of seconds long each) that it calls for segments from just soon enough that it can play the next bit. Which is how it can dynamically adjust resolutions so smoothly for bandwidth conditions. If 1080 is coming in too slowly, it notices in about a second and can start pulling from 720’s list or 480’s instead.

        1. James says:

          or when your internet is somehow throttled so badly 144p

        2. I found DMotR. Read through it. Then over the LPs. Around when Stolen Pixels started. But though I thought to follow the blog I never got to it regularly. I’ve liked it very much, have got back to some past Spoiler Warning seasons, looked at suggested links from the past that looked interesting. I read the autoblography, which is great and I wish I had read when I was young.

          And that’s bad news. 85% sites I start to follow die soon after. I am Some Nick I Should Think Out The Eater Of Webs Or Some Other You Are Doomed Title. SNITOTEOWOSOYADT. That doesn’t sound any good.

          One of these days I’ll start the Free Radical novel.

          Also I like the Spoiler Warning shows. Very interesting comments by everyone and many instructive. Thanks for everything!

          P.S. – Something I find curious: I have subscribed to SW in Youtube as well. I see “SW uploaded six videos”, then two or three SW chapters during the week, then “SW uploaded six videos”, then another two or three SW chapters. Are being scheduled that far ahead or is some oddity with Youtube?

          P.P.S. – I had clicked to answer here but then forgot what I was going to say or decided it was meaningless, then no reply below and reloaded before checking if there’s a cancel button and I see it at the bottom for a new comment then it appears as answer here. Apologies for wrong placement.

        3. Zak McKracken says:

          when using youtube-dl, I usually get .mp4 files, so I’d guess that what youtube uses. Haven’t looked up which codec they use but I’d assume it’s some somethingsomething264 thing. Some videos arrive in different containers. I suppose they were changing formats at some point and did not convert the entire content immediately…

      2. Steve C says:

        The last Spoiler Warning episode, Knights of the Old Republic EP2: Carth O-Nasty on youtube was:

        44.6MB @240p (FLV)
        62.5MB @360p (MP4)
        205.5MB @720p (MP4)
        304 MB @1080p (?)
        578 MB @1440p (?)

        1. Josh says:

          Well that tells me that either youtube compression is waaaaay better than what I’m using or they cut the bitrate by an obscene amount (probably both frankly), because the raw episode on my PC (at 1600 x 1200 pixels, approximately the same total as 1920 x 1080) is 2.77 GB.

      3. Mephane says:

        There are browser plugins that allow the download of Youtube videos, and they show most of them being .mp4, some of them .flv, though the latter is getting increasingly rare.

        1. Veylon says:

          I’ve had nothing but trouble with the plug-ins. I much prefer the standalone youtube-dl (it also downloads from many other sites) which runs from a command line.

          1. Steve C says:

            That looks interesting. Too bad it is just a command line. If someone built a GUI around it I might use it.

  9. Toasty Virus says:

    I started reading when you did your Champions Online LP whenever the hell that was, but it’s been a wild ride so far and may it never end! Thanks.

  10. Arstan says:

    I’ve been reading this blog for about 2 years, and read it through, from the start. Congrats on 10 year’s mark, I reaaaly hope we get to see 20, 30, 40 etc marks too))))

  11. Dreadjaws says:

    *tear drops*

    It’s been an amazing ride since I started reading, and I always love your stuff. Here’s for another ten years.

    But seriously, I really miss Stolen Pixels.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Second.

      I like the words and the vids,but I prefer your pics most of all.After all,it was dmotr that drew me in here in the first place.

      1. MrGuy says:

        So, this seems like a good thread to yank on. How did you come to find yourself here? What was the hook that got you to this site?

        My immediate hook was Stolen Pixels. Which I found courtesy of The Escapist. Which I started reading primarily for Zero Punctuation. Which I found courtesy of a mention on Penny-Arcade. It’s a strange world…

        1. Syal says:

          I got here when an internet search for webcomics brought up DMOTR, back in 2008 or so. Then archives revealed a completed D&D campaign, some neat worldbuilding ideas, and the same opinion I had of Last Exile*, so I hung around.

          *Which was going to be an awkward shoehorn into demanding an article on Kino’s Journey, but it turns out there’s been one for eight years. But there’s still no article on Boogiepop Phantom so I’ll demand that instead.

        2. Ahiya says:

          I got brought in through DM of the Rings. I was looking for a good campaign group and it filled that niche for a bit. I’m still looking for a good campaign group, but at least I got introduced to webcomics and this website.

          I would love for Shamus to start doing comics again. He’s got the knack for making images and words go well together in surprising and funny ways, which a lot of people have trouble with. I’m not a huge fan of video but more comics would be great.

        3. Daemian Lucifer says:

          I found it through irregular webcomic.Someone linked dmotr there,and I liked it.And irregular webcomic,I found through casey and andy,when there was one of the crossovers.And that place I found out when someone linked it on celestial heavens.And that place I found when looking for new maps for heroes of might and magic 3 and 4.So it was a long chain of arbitrary links.

        4. Theminimanx says:

          My memory of when I found the site is a little blurry, but I’ll do my best to remember it.

          I think I first found this place through Darths&Droids. The guys who made it mentioned that they were inspired by DM of the Rings, so I checked it out. I marathoned it and then forgot about the site.

          Around the same time I started reading Shamus’ column on the Escapist. I noticed he had a link posting to his blog, so I checked it out and noticed: “Hey, this looks like the DMotR blog! Maybe this guy has more cool stuff!” And so I stumbled on the wealth of great content that is Twenty Sided.

          I know this was sometime near the end of 2011 (wow, has it really been that long?), because I remember reading the 2011 Dénouements.

          1. Wide And Nerdy says:

            I had a very similar experience. Only it was “hey this is the guy who did DMOTR.” then “Oh this is the guy who did Stolen Pixels” then “Oh that name looks familiar, didn’t he do a column at the Escapist?” then “Wait, thats Shamus Young on Spoiler Warning?” and finally “The Spoiler Warning guys do a podcast? I need to just go to his blog from now on.” So yeah. Over and over and over again.

            At which point I finally, finally decided to start reading his blog regularly as opposed to consuming specific products.

          2. Sleeping Dragon says:

            Though I don’t remember exactly I’m willing to bet that’s how I got to the site too. Darths & Droids has been in my bookmarks for a long time and it sounds like something I could get linked to by people I know. That or someone else linked me to DMotR and I got to D&D from there? I went on several archive binges so I can’t even say what content was being posted when I started reading the blog…

        5. James Bennett says:

          The story of how I discovered this site is amusing in how convoluted it is.

          The story begins back around 2008 or so. I was in a dreadfully boring temp job and l spent a lot of time slacking off and surfing the internet instead of working. Among my list of regular webcomics was The Order of the Stick. Either because I was bored, or because I was confused by the plot of the webcomic, I started reading the forums for that webcomic.

          At the time, everyone in the forums was obsessed with a little wiki called TV Tropes (warning: TV Tropes link). Every discussion thread was peppered with phrases like, “Belkar really is a Magnificent Bastard,” and “I think this is Roy’s Crowning Moment of Awesome.” (Warning, those links were also TV Tropes links).

          I wanted to know what all of these crazy people were talking about, and I wanted to waste time at my not-so-great job, so I started binge reading TV Tropes. That sites magnetic pull and impressive time-wasting powers proved to be a valuable ally in my fight against boredom.

          I noticed that the site had a section for Tropes in Tabletop games. Being a huge D&D nerd, I naturally gravitated towards that. In that section of the site one work of fiction popped up again and again in the lists of examples, “DM of the Rings.”

          So, naturally, I followed the link and binge read through this hilarious new webcomic that I had discovered. I was sad when I found out that the run had ended and he wasn’t making any more, but then I started reading the blog and I noticed that there was a lot of cool content on here. I read through the programming posts. I read the campaign log (and it gave me some cool ideas to try in my next D&D campaign).

          So thank you for ten years of amazing content and thank you for helping me to kill time at my crummy temp jobs. (I have a much better job now, though I still manage to find time to waste on the internet. Oh well.)

          1. Ivellius says:

            I’m 90%* sure I also found this site through Giant in the Playground, though in my case I think someone linked the comic directly. Given when I started following, the comic can’t have been finished, because I remember when Darths & Droids began shortly after it, but it had to have been mostly completed because I don’t remember checking it obsessively like I do now and following along with it. Or maybe I just kind of forgot about it for a while and came back after it was finished. I certainly binged some of it?

            Regardless, I remember which roommate I had in my undergrad when I was reading here, so it had to have been by 2007.

            (*Could have been WotC forum? Had to be somewhere nerdy, and that’s the only other one I think I frequented at the time.)

        6. Dreadjaws says:

          I found this website almost the exact way as you did. Though instead of Zero Punctuation I had started with Jimquisition.

        7. ngthagg says:

          I started reading early on in DMotR. Someone in my gaming group mentioned it, and we all gathered around a computer afterwards to read through all the strips thus far (there weren’t many yet).

          I got hooked by the Terrain project. Right from that first screenshot of white lines on a blue background, I was hooked. The unlimited possibilities of computer programming, with an expert to give me a guided tour? Sign me up.

        8. Zak McKracken says:

          Order of the Stick -> something else -> the guy who did the Doctor-Who comic where all Doctors mee -> DM of the rings (while it was still running).

          Then I got into a more serious phase, life-wise, quit reading most webcomics, even including Order of the Stick (I should not have) but this site stuck.

          I don’t have a bookmark for this site but every browser installation I use every once in a while knows exactly what I mean when I type “sha” or “twen”, or sometimes just two of those letters :)

      2. Wide And Nerdy says:

        Same about DMOTR. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating on the ten year anniversary, I read most of DMOTR in one night skipping sleep (I want to say everything that had been published at that time which was nearly everything) because I was at probably the lowest I’d ever been just emotionally, and the comic turned it right around. It was a night of nonstop laughing and it made me realize that good stuff could still happen and maybe there was stuff to look forward to.

  12. Da Mage says:

    I can’t remember how I learnt about this site (maybe escapist, but it could have also been from another forum), but the first things I remember reading was the programming blogs from pixel city. What interested me was I found the site right as I was learning graphics programming at university, a field/topic that I have gone on to do research in.

    Considering that was 2012, it means I’ve only been here for 3 years, but it is now a daily viewing and I read/listen/watch nearly everything (except spoiler warnings on series I have no interest in).

    Thanks for all the content, and heres to another 10 years….when we will be no doubt downloading this blog directly into our implanted computers, while we play Fallout 5 in VR and watch Josh kill all the NPCs.

  13. Daedalist says:

    I’ve been with you since DMotR #1. It’s been awesome to see you and the site grow over the years. Congrats on the big anniversary!

  14. Neko says:

    Congratulations, Shamus. Now please make another 10 years’ worth of posts, to make it a nice round natural 20.

    1. MrGuy says:

      We’ve definitely passed some sort of Constitution check by now. Or maybe Will. Definitely not Intelligence, though…

  15. Deadyawn says:

    Been sorta lurking for nearly five years now. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been around for all that long but that’s about a quarter of my life that I’ve been coming here regularly. So when I put it like that, that’s a pretty long damn time.

    It’s always a pleasure to drop in here and find some small refuge from the insanity of life.

  16. Hal says:

    That’s pretty neat about the D&D campaign compilation. In another lifetime, you could have turned that into an official campaign setting book and made tens of dollars off it. Just imagine!

    Congrats on the anniversary. You’ve definitely carved your niche well.

  17. Ivellius says:

    Congratulations on the anniversary.

    I’ve been coming for…I think eight years now, wow. I believe I found the site in 2007 when someone linked DM of the Rings. It was amazing.

    Despite not being a programmer and not even really being interested in the stuff, the blue circle on my end has expanded to be “whatever you write.” I didn’t start watching Spoiler Warning until The Walking Dead, but I think I’ve caught every season since then. This site has long been a permanent bookmark on whatever computer I’m using, and I check it daily.

    Best for the future, Shamus.

  18. somebodys_kid says:

    Thanks for carving out this little corner of the Internet that is largely devoid of the rage and nonsense that the rest of the Internet is known for.
    This is my favorite corner of the Internet, and here’s to ten more years!

  19. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Youve mentioned cats!Therefore:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwNjCW6Hbpw

  20. Daemian Lucifer says:

    I thought for a long time what I should say to mark this occasion.

    Well,its perfect time to start DM of the Hobbits.

    1. Hal says:

      . . . Yes. Yes, we need this.

      1. Sleeping Dragon says:

        It would be… precious…

    2. swenson says:

      I DIDN’T KNOW I WANTED THIS BUT I DO

      1. MrGuy says:

        I never asked for this!

        But yeah, I’m asking for it now.

        1. Wide And Nerdy says:

          So how does that work? I mean I want it to happen but lets think.

          We supposedly have 14 players? 13 dwarves and a hobbit (because the DM once again won’t let anybody play Gandalf).

          -OR-

          This is the prequel where the DM from DMOTR was a player* and Gandalf was his character in that game (leading to him using him as a GMNPC later). He still has his habit of long winded exposition and dull lore building but delivers it all as his character. In fact some weeks he can’t make it because he’s too busy writing more lore for his character to spout when he does play.

          Then another player is a Dwarven King in Exile who takes the leadership feat to have 12 dwarven followers. Cares about gold and land. Not items so much.

          And the third is a Hobbit who finds himself quickly regretting his character build so the DM has to hook him up with some magic items every now and then to keep him happy?

          *And thus the game has a different DM

          1. Henson says:

            The dwarves are played by the DM. The humans are played by the DM. Everyone who is not Bilbo is played by the DM. There is only one player.

            It’s about a regular guy’s struggle to endure his DM-friend’s insistence on playing a tabletop campaign, despite never having DM’d a tabletop game before. Spoiler: everyone loses.

          2. Ahiya says:

            This would be great. The dwarves in the book really don’t have much personality, and Thorin literally being the only important dwarf would be perfect. lol

            1. Wide And Nerdy says:

              Good point. I hadn’t really thought it that far through. I was more about handwaving the abundance. But having them all act interchangeable and having people forget their names and stuff could be funny.

          3. Richard H says:

            I don’t remember what kind of system they were using in DMotR, but your Bilbo concept would be an excellent jumping-off point for making jokes about how stupid thief skills are in various games. (I have a particular hatred for 2e’s percentile dice thief skills because they’re generally unreliable and the subtext seems to be that you ought to just fast-talk your DM into letting you skip rolling them.)

            1. Wide And Nerdy says:

              You’re right. 2e jokes. Its been a long while since anybody did those.

              1. Richard H says:

                I recognize the sarcasm there, but it’s still the one that comes to mind first, probably because it was *so* bad.

                1. Wide And Nerdy says:

                  I wasn’t being sarcastic. I can see how that came off and I’m sorry.

                  The 2e jokes have really fallen off, aside from ThAC0. I think it would be a lot of fun to revisit, but for new nerds to laugh at and old nerds to reminisce.

          4. Syal says:

            I like that idea.

            Trying to build off it: Gimli is the DM this time, and makes everybody play dwarves because dwarves are his favorite class. The players talk him into letting the Rogue be a different class, and he agrees on the condition that the other class be as short or shorter than a dwarf. The old DM elects to make a traveling wizard named ‘Gandwarf’ who is a carbon copy of the wizard NPC from the first game, and everyone keeps forgetting is supposedly a dwarf.

            Every fourth session or so, Gimli can’t make it and his friend fills in (probably Legolas), who then fills the world with nonsense that Gimli has to try to work into the setting after the fact.

            1. Wide And Nerdy says:

              I’d thought about bringing Gimli in as the DM (He mentions having DMed in the strip) but I really like your idea about Legolas sitting in and injecting all the Peter Jackson craziness into the movie*. Truth be told, knowing that Shamus would hypothetically want to use the Hobbit trilogy for his screencaps, I figured we had to do something about Legolas’s presence in the movie but didn’t know what since this is supposedly a prequel but your idea is perfect.

              *I know, its stuff from late in the Silmarillion and from the Lord of the Ring’s appendices mostly, I’ve read it, and that even the new female elf was somehow based on something Tolkein came up with. But this still makes for a nice gag. I also know that it kind of makes sense for Legolas to be in the movies because he’s from that group of elves.

              1. Tuck says:

                Nah, it’s not mostly from anything Tolkien wrote. There are nods to the lore but it’s mostly just rubbish from Jackson and Co. Tauriel is purely a creation of theirs.

              2. Syal says:

                Heck, you could probably do it the other way around; Legolas shows up, sees the party has a hobbit and a wizard named Gandalf, and starts shoving in stuff like the Ring of Power and Sauron to a campaign that was supposed to be a completely different world.

                1. Wide And Nerdy says:

                  Actually I think it works best if its Gandalf/DMOTR injecting the Sauron and Ring of Power stuff because it ties into the campaign he runs later.

                  I could totally see him showing up and saying “Sorry I was away, I had this brush with a Necromancer, then I had to meet with the eternally beautiful Galadhriel my journeys were harrowing blah blah blah . . . ”

                  Meanwhile, Legolas adds Jackson’s heavy action focus and he creates the female elf “total action babe” character as his fiancee. Gimli/DM has Legolas’ fiancee fall in love with one of the dwarves in Thorin’s company as revenge.

                  Meanwhile Gimli/DM just had this simple tale thats basically what Tolkien originally wrote.

                  1. Wide And Nerdy says:

                    I guess the only problem with this is if it takes place before DMOTR, then why do Gimli and Legolas know so little about the campaign when they were originally contributors?

                    I guess because The Hobbit really has little to do with LOTR. Actually the only joke I can think of that would be a problem, Frodo not caring about his reunion with Bilbo, would be because neither Legolas nor Gimli had joined this iteration of the campaign yet?

                    Or wait, they had just joined. Maybe it amused them to watch silently.

          5. Zak McKracken says:

            Guys, we shouldn’t do this or we’ll steal all the good ideas and only make it harder for Shamus!

            => But ooooooh, how I would like this to happen! the movies really invite it, too.

  21. Mephane says:

    Now that we know that Shamus does actually read every comment, imagine the possibilities. Like, for example… damn, I have no idea. I am not so good at this evil scheming mastermind gig.

    Okay, after some pondering I have found one idea. I am not sure if anyone has ever done this before, so there is the slight chance this is some kind of world first. It’s also a very risky idea, because it all hinges on whether Shamus’ RSS feed renders the HTML tags the same way as the blog proper. Anyway, here we go:

    We’re no strangers to love
    You know the rules and so do I
    A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of
    You wouldn’t get this from any other guy
    I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling
    Gotta make you understand

    Never gonna give you up
    Never gonna let you down
    Never gonna run around and desert you
    Never gonna make you cry
    Never gonna say goodbye
    Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

    We’ve known each other for so long
    Your heart’s been aching but
    You’re too shy to say it
    Inside we both know what’s been going on
    We know the game and we’re gonna play it
    And if you ask me how I’m feeling
    Don’t tell me you’re too blind to see

    Never gonna give you up
    Never gonna let you down
    Never gonna run around and desert you
    Never gonna make you cry
    Never gonna say goodbye
    Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

    Never gonna give you up
    Never gonna let you down
    Never gonna run around and desert you
    Never gonna make you cry
    Never gonna say goodbye
    Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

    (Ooh, give you up)
    (Ooh, give you up)
    (Ooh)
    Never gonna give, never gonna give
    (Give you up)
    (Ooh)
    Never gonna give, never gonna give
    (Give you up)

    We’ve know each other for so long
    Your heart’s been aching but
    You’re too shy to say it
    Inside we both know what’s been going on
    We know the game and we’re gonna play it

    I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling
    Gotta make you understand

    Never gonna give you up
    Never gonna let you down
    Never gonna run around and desert you
    Never gonna make you cry
    Never gonna say goodbye
    Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

    Never gonna give you up
    Never gonna let you down
    Never gonna run around and desert you
    Never gonna make you cry
    Never gonna say goodbye
    Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

    Never gonna give you up
    Never gonna let you down
    Never gonna run around and desert you
    Never gonna make you cry
    Never gonna say goodbye
    Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

    1. Shamus says:

      This was doubly painful since the mod queue doesn’t use the same CSS as the front page, which means I can still read the words even as I type this.

      1. Phill says:

        You may read all he comments, but do you also read everything in the site forums?

        1. Wide And Nerdy says:

          Since we’re already broaching that topic. I tend to like to edit my comments over and over again. Does that get annoying? I’ve wondered in the past.

          1. Trix2000 says:

            I am also curious about this, as I have a habit of making small edits to my comments/posts too.

            1. BenD says:

              I often post from mobile and then find that autocorrect didn’t do me any favors, so I also regularly edit my posts. As do others, I hope this is not an annoyance for Shamus in the comment moderation feed!

          2. Shamus says:

            Nope. I generally won’t even notice unless there’s a moderation problem / flamewar and I have to investigate to sort it out.

            1. Sleeping Dragon says:

              Well that’s good to know, I also kinda wondered about it a few times when I decided to edit due to an awkward turn of phrase or a typo.

              Edit: So, here is this great sale on designer shoes/handbags/watches. Also, meet single ladies!

        2. krellen says:

          Shamus does not really frequent the forums; he’s said this before.

  22. Matt K says:

    Congrats! I believe I stumbled upon this site sometime into year 2 as I was linked to your Oblivion article from NMA during the whole Fallout 3 debacle since I really not happy with Oblivion (still am, a lot of BS’s issues especially with quest design seem to begin there) and yours was one of the only true critique of the game.

    Bookmarked the site right away and the rest is history. Here’s to another 10+ years and continued success!

  23. Bubble181 says:

    Congratulations on the ten year anniversary!
    Like some others, I’ve been here since somewhere during DMotR, and I can’t remember who or what linked me here at all…But this has been an almost daily visit since. Thanks for all the interesting reads :-)

    As someone else has said, my blue circle has long ago expanded to include the whole of the other two circles. It’s what happens when your writing style is good enough -;)

  24. Fizban says:

    According to the timestamp on my bookmark I’ve been here six years. Feels longer. This is the only blog I actually follow, and Spoiler Warning is about the only youtube-y series I’ve come back to rather than abandoning after a season on a game I didn’t want to watch. You’re all great and I’d be lost on the internet without you, so thanks for keeping it up.

  25. Vladius says:

    Thank you so much for all you do. This site gives me an extra way to feel smart.

  26. JAB says:

    Happy 10th Blogaversary!

    The Venn diagram is only an approximation, of course. There isn’t one “What do people want to read” circle, there’s hundreds or maybe thousands of “What does this person want to read right now.”

    Fortunately, at this point I’d read you writing about the ingredients list on a can of tuna.

  27. Hoffenbach says:

    I’ve been reading this site since around 2007, and I visit it almost every day. You’ve done a great job, Shamus! Here’s to 10 more fun years.

  28. Cybron says:

    Reading the old post about usenet got me sad about it again :(

    My memory is fuzzy but I think I came by the site around 2007. I know it was a link to the DMotR. Despite how much the site has changed since then, it’s still one of my favorite places on the internet. The subjects of your writing have slowly drifted away from my interests over the years, but you have a talent for writing in a way that makes things I should have no investment in very interesting. Plus, you’ve managed to introduce several very other talented people to a wider audience – I really doubt I would have found Rutskarn’s blog otherwise.

    Thanks for doing what you do, and may you keep doing it for as long as you still enjoy it.

  29. HeroOfHyla says:

    I can’t be sure of when I first discovered Twenty Sided, but I’m pretty sure that I remember reading Pixel City as it was coming out? That would have made it my junior year in high school, and that sounds about right. I definitely remember reading Terrain Project from the archives in the computer lab at school.

    PS: More programming posts, those are the best!

  30. Dev Null says:

    A pleasure, as always Shamus. Thanks!

    (Normally I try not to make generic back-patting comments without also having something to say, but I think the occasion merits an exception…)

  31. Duoae says:

    Shamus,

    I can’t remember how I discovered your blog. I can’t remember when I really started reading it. I am younger than you – old people don’t know what they’re forgetting!! I know it wasn’t DM of the Rings and I suspect my admiration was kindled by the Fallout 3 series of Spoiler Warning because I (still) haven’t watched ME1 Spoiler Warning despite watching all of them. (Love to the rest of the Spoiler Warning cast!)

    I’ve loved your blog; the ventures into your past, present, programming and writing (though I did skip the music posts, sorry!).

    I really liked your books! I read the Witch Watch first and then Free Radical and even messaged your Official(TM) Facebook page thing saying so….. Don’t worry, I don’t hold grudges when my idols ignore me. ;)*

    I have been a patreon for a while now and I really don’t regret it at all. Just keep doing what you’re doing – though I would also like a sequel to the WW if it’s not too much trouble!

    Congratulations,
    Duoae

    PS. Oh, and good job on training your replacement for when you inevitably retire. That should cover the 10 or so years I have on you. :D

    *Actually, I’m unsure as to how careful I have to be with these sorts of jokes nowadays – the Swatting threshold seems to have dipped to ludicrously low levels!

  32. Josh says:

    I am absolutely amazed that you have read nearly all the comments ever posted, if this is not hyperbole.

    I have head that some YouTube-rs boast the same thing, but there are sometimes hundreds of comments.

    How do you have the time?

    Please Reply:

    if (reply == false)

    {
    string Batman_Voice = “Or I’ll know you are Lying”;
    cout << Batman_Voice << endl;
    }

    1. Alexander The 1st says:

      I think it ends up a style of speed-reading – since most YouTubers and Shamus will probably read “First Post”-style comments really quickly, just going along as they do.

      That, and YouTube does have those notifications for when someone responds to your comments, so if you ever want to clear those out – say, while you’re rendering video or it’s uploading -, you can usually get it done quickly.

      They may not be *all at once* read as soon as they appear, but it’s a lot less consuming for time than all the games we’ve played – all +40 hours for each one.

  33. Gothmog says:

    My claim to fame is having submitted the very first comment to DMotR I waaay back in 2006.
    I gotta say, Shamus- you’ve come a long way and have much to be proud about.

    My sincerest congratulations.

    1. Zak McKracken says:

      …and you didn’t even shout “first”! Amazing.

      Ahh, those days… Well done to Shamus for educating the Twentysided crowd not to do that anymore

  34. Orophor says:

    Wow. Ten years of content is a huge milestone. Congrats! I started with DM of the Rings in February 2007 when someone on the LotRO beta forums linked to it.

  35. TMC_Sherpa says:

    I think I came here from irregularwebcomic. I know Darths & Droids was inspired by DMoTR so 2007 sounds about right? Maybe it was the other way around and I came in from Fear the Boot, hit Chainmail Bikini, DMoTR and hit Irregular from there?

    Dunno, I’m not good with time. Or names. Or places.

    Make some room on that bench Shamus and we can moan about how there aren’t enough glaives in RPGs these days.

  36. NoneCallMeTim says:

    Ten years. Wow.

    I started reading round about half way through the first part of DMotR. I was in college doing things like media studies which would lead to me being in a career in Internet marketing for several years.

    Now, I am in the second year of a degree in engineering. The funny thing is that I probably wouldn’t have made the career jump comparatively late in life if it wasn’t for this blog.

    Your writing showed that coding and maths could be interesting, and how engineering was about problem solving. This meant that I felt it was something that I could realistically achieve, rather than an insurmountable obstacle.

    So thanks for helping me find a career. Hope you keep writing for another few decades.

  37. Ahiya says:

    Huh. It has been a long time.

    I started reading DMotR during college. Life was amazingly crappy – recursively, unendingly crappy – and I had been shut out of local gaming and comics communities due to personal demographics for so long I’d simply given up. DMotR and Shamus’ other work was a way to keep parts of my life I couldn’t get in person. Twenty Sided was also a gateway to other gaming sites and learning how to navigate online gaming communities *cough*bylyinglikearug*cough*.

    It was also the motivation to start learning how to make good backups – with no internet at home, I had to figure out how to save the pictures if I wanted to read them when not on campus. :)

  38. Macfeast says:

    I first stumbled upon Twenty Sided during my last year of high school, when me and a friend was programming a small D&D game for a project, and I was looking for inspiration, inspiration which I found in the form of DMotR (incidentally, I also found OotS at the same time; Best two-fer ever). The first strip I saw was the one in which Gimli tries to break open Balin’s tomb for loot.

    Your comics have given me much enjoyment, Spoiler Warning has given me laughter aplenty, and your programming posts have influenced and inspired me more than any programming I’ve been taught in school.

    Congratulations on the anniversary, and thank you for everything.

  39. Sougo says:

    Shamus, congratulations for the 10 years of goodness. I remembered the exact moment in which I found your site: I was reading your Experience Point column on the Escapist about how modding FO3 can change into a completely different game. I recalled thinking: ‘Wow, this survivalist write-up in amazing. I wonder if there’s more stuff like this somewhere.’ Then I found your blog link at the end, stumble on the middle of your FO3 spoiler warning season and the rest is history.

    I just want you to know that even though I rarely commented on your blog, it had become a daily routine for me and I appreciate all the great memories you, Josh, Rutskarn, Mumble and Chris have generated all these years.

  40. Chris says:

    Congrats and love hearing about your insight into programming, writing, video games, family life, or random thoughts. Thanks for all the content you have shared and continue to share. Been floating around & reading your content 8-9 years & will continue to do so until I cannot. Thanks again.

  41. Tony says:

    Hey. Been reading for about seven years. Before the escapist / pixel city but after DM of the rings, which I still recall is what made me read the site in the first place. I can’t actually think of any other website I’ve been following for as long as yours, and the articles within, as well as the cast dice and forewarned spoilers have easily become an integral part of my weekly routines.

    I would just like to thank you for this cozy corner of the Internet, and wish you well for at least another ten years.

  42. Jyizu says:

    Congratulations!!! I was hooked in 2009, with your series on procedural city. I was just finishing highschool that year, and your post both blew my mind and introduced me to a career I had not even thought about before.
    Your blog is fantastic, and I wish you the best in the coming years.
    See you in 2025!

  43. Ravens Cry says:

    Congratulations! I remember when I first came to your site to read DM of the Rings in one long archive binge. I literally fell out of my chair laughing, sliding bonelessly from my seat.
    Good times, Shamus, good times, and may they continue.
    Besides humour, you have a real gift for making the esoteric interesting, and that is something to be proud of. Here’s to another ten years, by which we’ll be reading this via direct input into our brains’ visual cortex.

  44. Rick says:

    Congratulations, Shamus… that is very impressive.

    I think I became a regular reader not long after reading either DMOTR or your Gravatar post.

  45. Hermocrates says:

    I only started coming here fairly recently (as in, since around early summer this year), but I’d like to congratulate and thank you all the same for your 10 years of dedication. I came to this blog via Spoiler Warning via Errant Signal, but I was very quickly hooked. It’s rare to find such a perfect blend of insightful criticism, technical aptitude, offbeat humour, and an open-minded outlook that’s still based in the old-school computer/gamer aesthetics I grew up loving.

    I look forward to sticking around for your next milestone, and beyond!

  46. netzenk says:

    Congratulations on ten years Shamus! I found you about eight months ago, in December of 2014 through experienced points on The Escapist, bumbled into your programming posts (which explained things i knew nothing about in a way that made it understanable and interesting), then gaming posts (because i’m always looking for analysis), then was pleasantly surprised by Spoiler Warning and the Diecast (since I had already been a fan of Chris for a while). Big thanks to the rest of the crew for helping to make this site what it is/ I love this place and its community, and though i don’t post much i love reading through the comments. God bless and here’s to another ten!

  47. Ambitious Sloth says:

    10 years… I started reading here back while I was in high school. Now I’m on the far side of college and it’s been so long I don’t remember when I first started. The only thing I can remember was that the Pixel City series was the first one that I read. And since then I’ve kept coming back.

    10 years ago I was a kid who used the internet mainly for watching Homestar Runner cartoons while having my musical tastes shaped by a collection of They Might Be Giants albums. Now my favorite blog on the internet is written by a man twice my age who also watched Homestar Runner and listened to They Might Be Giants. That’s kind of weird.

    In a good way though. ;)

  48. Joe Informatico says:

    Congratulations, Shamus, on your first triumphant decade! I look forward to the next one!

    I think, like some other commenters, I first came here for DM of the Rings, after it was brought up on numerous TV Tropes pages. I started frequenting The Escapist about a year into Yahtzee’s tenure and noticed both Stolen Pixels and Experienced Points. Even at a time when there was a good amount of intelligent commentary at that site, EP stood out, because among all those commentators focused on the art/culture/gameplay side of games (nothing against them–my own background is humanities), here was a guy technically savvy enough to grok the backend stuff and explain it in a way us laypeople could understand.

    Anyway at some point I clued in the same guy was behind all three, plus had briefly blogged about tabletop RPGs to boot. I was an infrequent visitor to Twenty Sided until about the second or third season of Spoiler Warning, but have been a regular reader since.

  49. Seeker says:

    Shamus, it’s too early to say if you’d want responsibility for the following, but this is the perfect post to say it. Because of this blog:
    * I started programming. I can’t remember which project was active at the time, but reading old Project Frontier posts convinced me, as a junior higher, that I could learn what those mysterious lines of code mean.
    * I took your advice here and did Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days (apparently a dead link now). So, C++ was my first language. You monster. ( I guess I should be grateful for learning pointers?)
    * Bought an old Java reference manual next for $.50. I had no idea I’d appreciate a String class so much (or that I’d miss pointers).

    Rather than continuing in this manner, suffice to say I’m in college studying computers whilst gearing up for an internship next summer (your blog has also taught me to appreciate that school works for me and that it doesn’t work for everyone). Programming is what I–like? More “am compelled by something very loud inside”–to do.

    Thank you for blogging. You don’t talk down to us. You write/explain incredibly clearly. More than just making your programming woes seem understandable, you’ve made them seem like something I could work with, too. You affected my life, and please trust me when I say it’s been for good. I’m so glad Portal led me to Half Life which led me to TV Tropes which led me to Darths & Droids which led me to DM of the Rings which led me to everything else here.

  50. MerryVulture says:

    I just want to pitch in my 2 cents worth.

    Thank you for your time, this site is one of the daily stops in my keep sane journey. I don’t participate much, but I do like to chime in one these special occasions.

    On the subject of how long I’ve been lurking around here, it was some where during DMotR around Rivendell, if my failing memory hasn’t failed me.

    To many more tens of years!

  51. John says:

    Thank you for a year (my time)/ten years (your time) of content. Your writing style is just about perfect for me: I have a father who does custom programming in various C flavors, and your explanations over the years have done more for understanding his job than anything else that I’ve run into.

    I arrived here due to the DMotR, via Darths and Droids, via Schlock Mercenary, via a John Ringo novel involving QED theories that have since been disproved (mostly due to the LHC). If that ain’t geeky enough, I got nothing.

    The webcomic may have been the bait (I love me some snarky commentary on the limitations of RPGs), but it was your ability to make even the most complicated of subjects comprehensible to the layman that got me to stay. Spoiler Warning became a big hit for me, as well, but–in all honesty–your text (and that of Josh and Rutskarn) has been what makes me come back.

    Thank you for enlightening my day. It’s been an heck of a ride so far. Looking forward to another ten years (of both of our times) of content!

  52. Lord_Bryon says:

    Long time reader, mostly lurker for comments, but congratulations on ten years and may there be many more to come.

  53. Tegler says:

    Congratulations on your tenth blag year.

    Like many others I found your blog through DMotR, and I started Reading/Lurking around Spoiler Warning Season 4.

    Keep up the good work and to many more years of blagging to come.

  54. Mathnygard says:

    Happy birthday, blog.

  55. Dude says:

    Man, you make me feel old, Shamus. Ten years already.

    I have to ask. Collectively, the Mass Effect series the one you’ve written the most about. What’s the series you’ve written the most about besides that? Elder Scrolls? Assassin’s Creed (counting Spoiler Warning posts)?

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      I think its either skyrim or fallout.

  56. RTBones says:

    Happy number 10. With heartfelt fondness…

    This is the very model of nerdist geeky gaming blog
    From the rantic to pundantic leaving gamers feeling quite agog
    At twists of plot the devs forgot to explain with any clarity
    Or maniacal mechanics driving players to insanity
    Plot holes revealed without the sheild of journalistic charity
    And then explored with much adored Cuftburtian hilarity
    In short a tiny port wherein we lift a veil of gaming fog
    This is the very model of nerdist geeky gaming blog!

  57. 4th Dimension says:

    I done goofed so I must tell you all.
    Previous day at work I opened thhis post and opened the nine year post too. At the end of the day the tabs were still open when I locked my computer and went home. This morning I opened the site again to read the comments, only I ddi a boneheaded thing. I closed this post and read the nine year one without noticing it’s not this one.
    And I mande a bunch of comments thinking it’s the 10 year celebration. I did find it strange that few guys kept saying 9 years but I made myself not pay attention, I wasn’t interested in their posts anyway. And I replied to a bunch of one year old posts as if they are new.
    So I reopen this post thinking to check if there are replies to my posts, when I notice that the second page is seemingly gone (9th year comments split into two pages). Did the comments get deleted. Wait none of these comments look like the ones I read. The moment of horrible realization. … Noooo that can not be true. Open the 9th year post, and it unfortunatelly is.
    I’m such a doofus.

    I have been on this site from my uni days I think. Allthough I can not find what was my earliest comment. it’s alos probably that I have been lurking for quite a while before commenting too.

    Anyway to another 10 years so I can again deface the 2014. aniversary post.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      And thanks to your goof,I now saw Galad’s link.Dear god,turbofolk is everywhere!

      Though I must admit,that video is awesome.So here it is again:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3sJB2tcoJY

      Oh,and for those that dont know what turbofolk is,and think its usually as good as in that video,for the love of your ears,dont go searching for actual music in that genre.Its baaad.

      1. 4th Dimension says:

        That video did make my day, and Picard playing a flute and Riker playig the trompet in time with the music and appropriatelly considering the musical instrument used takes the cake.

        As for the turbo folk I don’t like it too but than it’s probably better to say I don’t like the culture that comes with it. And the fact that the toppic of 99,99% of songs is love and unfaithfullness. Relly people doesn’t anything else happen in your lifes?
        It did achieve one thing, create enough jobs for songwritters and music makers so the rockers and pop singers from 70s and 80s could make a living while not performing as often. I should also note that I don’t really have much of an issue with actual old folk made before the 90s, which had quality coz not anybody could be a singer with their own songs. And you can sing those songs in company and expect most of the people to be able to pick up the tune.

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Hey,they do sing about a third topic as well!

          Basically,modern rap topics(money,women and alcohol),only with worse music.

          1. 4th Dimension says:

            To be fair that song looks psyhodellic enough to be something made by Rambo Amadeus specifically to parody turbofolk.
            But yes this is the kind of complete collapse of morality that I often (maybe wrongly) associate with this genre.

            Interesting thing about that video is the description that has little to do with the song except to talk about a movie describing the decade where the song might have been popular. An it’s highly politically charged.

      2. Wide And Nerdy says:

        And that made me think of this.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtmbzJNPsaQ&ab_channel=gazorra

        Star Trek TNG has a lot of great clips that seem really out of character for the show when viewed out of context. Gazorra is awesome.

        Also, thanks for the turbofolk.

  58. The Mich says:

    Congratulations Shamus! Thanks to you for having this awesome blog, it’s such a pleasure to hang out here :)

  59. Slothfulcobra says:

    I’ve been playing through ME3 for the first time because of your blog, and I can definitely see you not having as much to say about it. It’s so shallow compared to the games before it. Sure, there’s a lot of controversy and criticism about it, but most of it books down to the game being really underwhelming.

  60. Rob says:

    I don’t usually comment but I read every post and I pitch in a patreon. It’s been a blast reading your stuff, thanks for keeping at it. I seem to find myself in the centre of the venn diagram no matter what you post about. Also, you might enjoy that I often quote “Shamus, my friend from the internet” when discussing things like video games. I get a few odd looks with that one. Here’s to another year!

  61. Aanok says:

    Been reading you for a few good years now and the blog has always been, at the very least, bloody interesting.

    Here’s to ten more!

  62. Zak McKracken says:

    Wow, the first DMotR page is still collecting trackbacks!

    Question: Is that something that needs to be turned on explicitly or why haven’t I seen any of those in ages below other articles? I can’t quite imagine that none of the more recent articles was interesting enough to still get some.

    Another question: How exactly are they generated? I never quite got that…

  63. Dan says:

    Happy anniversary Shamus.

  64. Joey Palzewicz says:

    “As of this writing, there are 328,212 comments. That works out to roughly 90 comments a day, or a comment about every 16 minutes. I've read them all.”

    That, above all else, is why I love TwentySided, Spoiler Warning, the DieCast, and everything else you and your friends do here. That’s dedication right there.

    Keep being awesome!

  65. Blue_Pie_Ninja says:

    I remember the first time I found this site was probably towards the end of last year, where a friend and I were arguing about Quake 3 for some reason, and found your site from there. Plus it is one of only a few sites about videogames that isn’t blocked at school :P

  66. TrishEM says:

    Oh good golly. I’ve been following the blog for a couple of years, after stumbling across DMotR somehow, and only after reading the comments to this post tonight did I finally realize that there are also forums. Did NOT need another time magnet!

  67. Rosseloh says:

    Cheers man, I’ve been around here since 2009, and I don’t see myself going anywhere, either.

    Here’s to another 10 – whether I’m still using a monitor in 2025 or we are virtually interacting from our hover chairs or something.

Thanks for joining the discussion. Be nice, don't post angry, and enjoy yourself. This is supposed to be fun. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked*

You can enclose spoilers in <strike> tags like so:
<strike>Darth Vader is Luke's father!</strike>

You can make things italics like this:
Can you imagine having Darth Vader as your <i>father</i>?

You can make things bold like this:
I'm <b>very</b> glad Darth Vader isn't my father.

You can make links like this:
I'm reading about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darth_Vader">Darth Vader</a> on Wikipedia!

You can quote someone like this:
Darth Vader said <blockquote>Luke, I am your father.</blockquote>

Leave a Reply to swenson Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.