Welcome to the new face of Nerfbat! I’ve sold ownership of the Nerfbat.com domain and its contents to a new management team with a vision for the future of this website. I will continue to post at least once a week, but you will also see two new faces from the game industry on this blog. That’s right, Nerfbat has gone from all Ryan Shwayder all the time to include two new notable industry figures, who will introduce themselves shortly. I hope you enjoy the new, more prolific Nerfbat conglomerate! More about the acquisition after the break. Continue Reading »

I’m going to be playing in the Novice League at Navin Skating Rink in Marlborough, MA starting next month. The games start at 10:00PM on Fridays from February 13th on. You can sign up for the season or per game. I’ll also be at the Advanced Intro Clinics on Tuesdays. They’re trying to expand from 4 to 6 teams, which is why I’m fishing for more people. Would like to see someone sign up!

You’d think someone like me with a background in community would have signed up for Twitter a long time ago. Alas, I withheld until I could stay away no longer. I still don’t quite get it. It seems like a blog without the expectation that there will be substance in a post. Anyway, QforQ’s post finally prompted me to sign up. My name on Twitter is rshwayder.

First off, anyone who wants to add me to their Xbox Live can feel free to do so. My gamer tag is my last name (if you can’t figure that out, you’re either a bot or you aren’t intelligent enough to be my Xbox Live friend). Secondly, if anyone has NHL 09 and would like to get on a team with me, please let me know. I’m starting one up tonight with a couple guys from work, but we could use more.

4 years ago today, I converted Nerfbat.com from its original format into a blog. About a year ago, I fired up this shiny new theme you see today (remember the old school theme?), and relaunched the Nerfbat Forums, which are still going strong. Thanks to all of you who have made both the main page commentary and the forums a great little community, and I look forward to writing more about MMOs and game design over the coming year. Feel free to provide suggestions for things you’d like to see on Nerfbat in 2009 (e.g. do you even care about the podcast, or should that project be abandoned?).