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Posted By: TPJ
Posted On: 05 December 2011 - 02:28 PM

Path of Exile: We've Got 6 Beta Keys to Give Away

If you haven't noticed, there has been a lot of interest and activity for Path of Exile, a new third-person RPG modeled after the Diablo series. Grinding Gear Games, a small studio in New Zealand, has been working on the title for the last few years and is ready to expand their beta testing group.

The Amazon Basin has been given 6 beta keys to distribute to worthy folks interested in helping put this title through its paces. You can expect eye-candy galore, an extremely flat learning curve, and bosses with enough attributes to choke a horse. The coolest part? The game is free to purchase as well as play. No monthly fees, folks. Not only that, but the game also does not force server splits based on regions. Everyone in any country can play with anyone else in any country. That alone is worth the (free) price of admission.

Here's how you can get your hands on one of the beta keys: reply to this thread with your best haiku. It must be Path of Exile related to qualify. If you're not familiar with the game, do a little digging. I don't have to tell a bunch of gaming geeks how to do online research, right?

The six best haikus will get keys. Now get writing!

Comments: 13 :: View Comments

Posted By: Sailboat
Posted On: 22 November 2011 - 02:32 PM

What is the Amazon Basin?

You know, it's funny. The Amazon Basin started out defined by what we were NOT: No PKing, no cheating, no hacking, no duping. My understanding is that other than that, initially, TPJ included anyone who agreed to those principles and wanted in.

In creating (and maintaining) a "safe haven" in the Lord of the Flies environment of Battle.net, by excluding the "bad guys," perhaps it's inevitable the Amazon Basin drew in people who were the good guys. People who wanted to cooperate, people looking for friends, not just high player count games. But the safe haven also allowed people time to think, and we also seem to have attracted people who wanted to think about and analyze the game.

And in giving everyone a place to post their thoughts in written form, TPJ permitted the development of real community by the community-minded, and technical analysis by the analytically-minded, and soon enough all sorts of other interests began to flower.

Perhaps it's predictable with hindsight -- gathering together people self-selected for cooperative play led to an organization characterized both by cooperation and playfulness. Providing a place for fair play appealed to fair-minded people. Allowing people to write about complex and subtle games brought in people with complex and subtle minds. Some of the people who came here just wanting to form teams found themselves wanting to do more than that, to form an organization, a community. Others have written some of the best guides gamers have produced. Others have written stories and poems about our shared interests, told jokes, and shared far more than just drops and gear.

This was all well under way back in the Jurassic when I joined the Basin -- I'm an inheritor of the process, not a founder. In fact, I'd heard about the place, and thought it sounded interesting. But what had kept me from getting involved, curiously enough, was my feeling that the Amazon Basin people had their own thing going on and I didn't want to "horn in" on their thing and make it my own, like an uninvited houseguest taking over the place.

But I was wrong. That's what this place is for. Use the towels. Raid the fridge. (Just remember everyone else is sharing the same fridge!) At every step, I was encouraged to be myself and to participate as much as I wanted to, because this place is nothing but electrons without its people.

The Amazon Basin is us -- YOU -- game players who have come together to have fun in positive ways, not just to avoid the negatives. We have the potential to be more than just the sum of our parts -- and we have some pretty good parts!

Comments: 17 :: View Comments

Posted By: TPJ
Posted On: 24 August 2010 - 09:08 PM

Happy 10th Anniversary, Basin!

Even though our actual 10th anniversary date has recently come and gone, I figured we still needed to make a note of the occasion here on the boards. The Amazon Basin's actual tenth anniversary (August 11) was celebrated in style during ABCon X in New Orleans with some great Basin folks at the Red Fish Grill right on Bourbon Street. The following day, a nice chunk of us set sail from the port of New Orleans for Cozumel. Again, we had a great time. The whole Con this year was decidedly smaller in numbers, but no less fun than any other.

Still, TEN FREAKING YEARS! That's like, a scrillion online years, isn't it? The Basin is still going strong. We've still got some great people helping run this ship and countless others having fun along the way. Case in point - the net result of our last fund drive is that we are now paid in full at our server host for the next two full years and still have some cabbage in the bank for incidentals. As usual, some Basin old-timers stepped up with huge donations and lots of new faces contributed to make this fund drive a monumental success.

Another extremely cool Basin event happened while in New Orleans that I'm happy to report: two Basin members who met through this community got engaged! That makes two engagements this year between Basin members! I think Basin Nation is taking on a whole new meaning, don't you?

Happy 10th anniversary everyone, and thank you.

Teep

Comments: 34 :: View Comments

Posted By: nlx3647
Posted On: 23 August 2010 - 11:14 PM

August 23rd Server move

The server team will be moving all the Basin forums and data from our current server to a new one. Some downtime is expected, but a webpage will remain up to inform users of the status.

Thank you for your understanding and patience,

NLX3647

Comments: 18 :: View Comments

Posted By: TPJ
Posted On: 20 July 2010 - 02:53 PM

July 2010 Basin Fund Drive

It's been 14 months since The Amazon Basin's last fund drive. Since anything over a year's worth of funds is considered a pretty big success, I'd say you folks did a pretty damn good job last time. For that, I thank each and every one of you. You keep this place running. You keep it ad-free. You keep it open.

But, we are running out of cash. We have enough to pay our server payment on July 25th, but not enough for the August payment. I hate bugging people about this type of stuff, but it's the nature of how we run things here. We've always been ad-free. Most everyone agrees that they'd rather put in a few dollars here and there than have to plaster advertisements in our home. I feel that decision has been the right one as it's kept us apart from the masses of other sites out there. We're unique in that respect, and proudly so.

Plenty of people aren't in any sort of financial shape to be sending off donations right now. I completely understand that. If you're one of those folks, I'm not asking you for help. I'm asking the person next to you that can afford to help a little. If you can't, you can't. But if you can, please help us keep this place afloat by heading over to our donation page and using the PayPal link. If you don't have a PayPal account or are an anti-online payment person, my address is on the same page. You can definitely snail mail me a check or whatever. Either way, you'll be helping The Basin out.

As always, Amazon.com purchases though our Amazon.com Associate Program link will help as well. A percentage of everything you buy after following that link to Amazon.com will end up in our bank account on a quarterly basis. It really does help over the course of a year.

And again, I thank you folks for making this place what it is.

Comments: 33 :: View Comments

Posted By: TPJ
Posted On: 01 February 2010 - 04:27 PM

Server Upgrade Complete

With much thanks to NLX, our server is now sporting a sweet oil change (using a synthetic blend), the worn timing belt has been replaced, the burnt out tail light was fixed, and a fresh coat of paint has been put down. All in all, it's better than new!

As part of the process, our set of forums will all undergo a revamping of their own. We've skipped the last few updates, even letting a major upgrade slip by. The boards will go from 2.3.5 to 3.0.5. The changes are not just cosmetic. Much of the underlying code and functionality has been completely rewritten and greatly improved.

The Main Boards have been upgraded and the new skin has been applied. There are some tweaks to be made to the skin, but it is functional. I'll be fixing the missing color components as I can.

NLX will continue to upgrade each forum as his time allows. When the boards are down for upgrade, visitors will see a message indicating they are being upgraded. Each upgrade shouldn't take longer than a day, with many taking only a couple of hours. Please bear with us as we bring our forum software up to date.

Thanks everyone.

Comments: 7 :: View Comments

Posted By: TPJ
Posted On: 22 January 2010 - 03:32 AM

Basin server going down soon

Marty will be taking the Basin server down in the next day or so. The outage may last 2 or more days. The planned outage is to do a pretty large amount of updates on both Linux and the forum software.

Please pass the word so we can avoid panic when folks are unable to reach the boards.

Comments: 27 :: View Comments

Posted By: TPJ
Posted On: 30 June 2009 - 09:31 PM

Follow The Basin on Twitter

Those of you on Twitter can now follow The Amazon Basin. (@theamazonbasin) What currently is a singular voice for The Basin will hopefully turn into a central repository for gaming news as well as information from each of our guilds.

Comments: 9 :: View Comments

Posted By: TPJ
Posted On: 27 May 2009 - 04:41 PM

Basin Fund Drive 2009

Basin folk -

I come to you, defenses down, with the trust of a child.

The donations received from our fund drive in October of 2007 have all been spent. Unfortunately, The Basin is pretty much running on fumes. If any of you are in a position to lend a financial hand, I'm hoping you will help. It would be nice to receive enough to keep us up for another year as well as ensure a hassle-free ABCon.

The best way to help is by making a donation to The Basin by way of PayPal. You can do that on our Donation page. There are also links to subscription-type donations that are taken care of through PayPal.

Most of you know the drill by now, but if you don't, here's the skinny: The Basin operates solely on donations from people like you. We do not throw banner ads all over the place, nor are we part of Google's AdWords system. This place is run as it always has - advertising free. Your donations keep it that way. Our operating budget is used for things like our server at GoDaddy, the checking account, software, business filings, and taxes/fees. All said and done, we probably average about $160 a month in expenses. This fund drive is the primary way we generate funds to sustain ourselves here. But keep in mind, no one is required to donate. If you don't have the money, don't beat yourself up about it. No worries. We know that not everyone is in a financial position to offer help. But - there are those who can help. Those are the people we hope to reach with this message.

Thanks all.

Oh, and pass the word, will ya?

Comments: 34 :: View Comments

Posted By: TPJ
Posted On: 06 March 2009 - 03:20 PM

Main Board Warning System Now Live

The Amazon Basin's Main Boards today enabled a forum-wide Warning System to help track reported posts and problematic users. The system was discussed at length by members, officers, admins, and moderators to ensure everyone posting on our boards - regardless of stature or rank - would be judged evenly and fairly and by the same set of guidelines.

It is our hope that this new system will prompt more users to renew their faith in the 'Report This Post' links, knowing they will be looked at more carefully and may result in administrative action. If everyone participates correctly in the new Warning System, The Basin administration is sure the signal to noise ratio on our Main Boards will improve quickly.

Everyone is urged to read the details and to ask any questions they may have.

Comments: 0 :: View Comments

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