Welcome back to ‘Tied the Leader’ fair gamer. After months of silence, this gaming forum is back in business with a vengence and new suit of armor – recharging shields, even. I am terribly sorry to have been away.
Did’ja miss me?
Didn’t think so.
Nevertheless, this Overlord is back in the saddle of his stunt-fighter in the blogosphere – looking to start some flame wars and then sort them out with an iron fist and a wireless mouse. Over a year ago, this column took an uncertain step into the public eye of the gaming community with a few things to say about our shared favorite pasttime.
The response was, and always has been, amazing. Gamers are infinitely passionate about their craft. They are still the Unsung Sportsmen [and Women]. The people who lended their ideas and comments on this forum were as much of a driving force in sustaining the flow of rants and war stories as the blogger who kicked off the discussions [that would be me]. If you had been a Constant Reader of ‘Tied the Leader’, Year One; I say my truest Thank You. If you just found this place, pull up a chair. The old content is still there, albeit beaten around the block and hung up wet by several Content Export applications.
Yeah, I don’t know what that means either.
Update your bookmarks and make yourselves at home again. For ‘Tied the Leader’s birthday, we have rebuilt the stage from the ground up. Of course, when I say “we” I mean Arlo. That’s Arlo Bryan Guthrie to you. He’s the man behind the new skin. Come to think of it, he was the man behind the old skin. He was also the first person I ever knew who said “Did you read my blog?”
Give him a shout out or a freelance gig. Why don’t you?
As for THIS blog, the Mission remains much the same. This column is about the gamer more than it is the game. We’ll talk about the architecture or the innovations of a game from time to time, but games grow old. Some of them become predictable, or even tedious, before you can finish them. It’s the people you meet through a game that makes it replayable to the ends of the earth. It is the communites that grow out of the best games that infect your imagination and introduce you to the true essence of people who project themselves into the grid using a controller, a microphone, and a carefully chosen avatar.
The Gaming Community exists in an uncharted wilderness. My goal is to hack into the bush and sort the good guys from the bad. Consider me your cyber-anthropologist, armed with a text editor, a Warthog, a newfound Squad of Nerds, and a seemingly endless supply of time on my hands.
Now. Allow me to inform you about one thing you will NOT be seeing any more of at ‘Tied the Leader’. No more rants about Cheaters. The topic will be discussed in broad strokes, to be sure. What boils the blood is always good motivation to lend figertip to keyboard. You will not, however, find links to a Cheater’s Gamercard. You will not see their silly little three-month Gamertags mocked. They will not be made examples. They will not be celebrated. They will not be reported. When you shine a spotlight on a Cheater, you give them exactly what they want… Attention. Instead, we can talk about them behind their backs [in uncertain terms] and let them fade into obscurity like a boy band from the last season of reality television.
This is to be a column to celebrate the very best gamers. It’s about clans like the Panic Attacks, a bunch of ass kickers whom our Gunslingers just can’t stop bumping into on Xbox Live. It’s about sprawling communities like 2old2play, whose fearless leader was kind enough to drop the velvet rope and allow this Older Gamer to enter the Paradise of their impending CON – despite my unforgivable tardiness in buying a ticket through intended channels.
And, as always, Tied the Leader is all about The Gunslingers. That’s how this blowhard of an Overlord practices the standards that are preached around here. You know what standards are, right Gamer? Things like sportsmanship, fair-play, kindness to one’s fellow geek? Those guns can be hard to stick to when are you are trolling the Internet in search of an armed combatent with whom to spar.
Even the Gunslingers have a new home. And they ain’t even had no birthday. At last count, there were over 80 of us. All of us, one from many. You can take away my ClanMatch, but you can’t deconstruct my clan.
So there. This post is almost as pointless as the very first ever post under the name ‘Tied the Leader’. Sometimes, you have to come full circle to begin anew.
wow, this is so..shiney, and new! It even has that new blog smell. Excellent work Alro on the skin, and Deej, here’s to another year! (Has it really been one year? Jeeze.)
Dude. I was just about to give up on you. Was starting to think that you would be another 360 casualty.
The new skin looks great. Been here for part of the year, and can’t wait to see what the next year brings to us. Thanks for all the work Deej….
Thanks for the kind words, Deej and everyone else. He did leave out one important thing to note: this design isn’t finished. There’s still a few things that don’t quite work or even look very good yet, but I’m still working diligently on it.
I’m proud of Deej for enabling this community to form (even, if as a casual gamer, I don’t quite understand it). And I’m proud to have had a chance to build this new avenue for TTL and the Gunslingers.
Welcome back guys…you have been missed. Thanks for the mention too.
And Arlo, it isn’t that you are a casual gamer that impedes the understanding. I fall into the hardcore end of the pool, and I still don’t understand it (but I sure embrace it with both arms).
I don’t suppose you could add an RSS 2.0 feed to your blog, could you? My feedreader is absolutely rebelling against your atom feed, no matter how much I assure it that it’s a perfectly legit feed…
_
I thought there was some weird glitch in my browser which meant your new entries weren’t displayed. I kept clearing me cache! lollipops.
Anyway, get back to work.
:P
Fozma.
The new blog rawks – Thanks to Arlo and of course to Xerxdeej for the awesome posts! It wouldn’t have made it a year without your brilliance ‘Deej.
Cheers!
I absolutely love the new skin. Reading this blog has always been a blast, being a part of the clan has been even better. I’ve only been in for about 6 months and it’s been the best damn time on LIVE. Can’t wait for new articles.
Glad to see you’re back!
Nice to see you guys are back in full force. I was begining to wonder if the old blog was going to be updated. Good luck with the new stuff.
Please let me know what I can do to get you all fired up about something. I’m more than happy to grease the keys, so to speak. Did I tell you about that clan that said blogging is for sissies? Not only that, but that all vehicles should be taken out of Halo 3? That they don’t take skill? Seriously, I’ve got to tell you about them sometime.
Good to have the blog back.
Hey DeeJ,
Good thing you started a new site, cause I just found out my work blocked your old one. After a few crazy months, I’m starting to play Halo 2 again, shoot me an invite if you’re doing some customs (Hogtied esp.). See you at 2o2con!
Good to see ya back.
I’ve been lurking around here since the beginning. Love reading your comments and hope to join in on some dialog from now on.
Feel free to send me an invite (anyone on here). I’m part of the honorable clan of the Big Red Ones. Check us out here
New friends! Fantastic. Nice website, BRO! I tracked your overlord to the Bungie forum and picked a fight. We hope to interact with you…
Thanks for posting.
Thank god for Louis Wu directing me to here.
I went to your old blogspot, pr0n out the butt. Pun intended.
Hey, Jim:
http://blog.tiedtheleader.com/rss/
Proceed with caution though:
* It’s only RSS 0.92. Textpattern does not [yet] support RSS 2.0.
* It doesn’t yet validate. There are too many funky characters in the old Blogger posts. As soon as there are enough posts and the feed validates, I’ll put this link up on the site and in the meta tags.
Thanks for your patience, everybody. And if you find any other bugs or just plain old fucked up shit, let me know.
Sweet! I’m so glad our sites are rounded out now. Great job Arlo! Order has been restored to this galaxy and once again, we can look forward to insightful pontification on the part of our Xerxmeister!
I can’t believe some complete asswipe pr0n’d out the original Tied the leader blog. What kind of moron would do such a thing?
This blog is spectacular Arlo. Obviously little tweaks here and there, but you definitely earned your Beer!
Cheers mate.
Great job guys. I love the new look…. feels more war like without all the purple. lol
The old blog is swept away. I am terribly sorry to anyone who had to see what the hijackers pur there. We don’t negotiate with terrorists at TTL.