Monthly Archives: May 2011

Learn to Raid in Cataclysm in 3 Easy Steps, Part 1

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Getting reacquainted with raiding in Cataclysm is one of the best things I’ve done in of World of Warcraft in a long time.  The game I used to love is gone, and I am having to learn a whole new game.  Downranking, healer rotations, resist gear, tank-and-spank fights, and automatic Decursive macros are long gone.  Gone, dead, and mostly forgotten.

The old raids I was used to were simple. If someone took damage, you healed it as quickly as possible.  Healers watched lifebars more than their avatars.  But this newfangled contraption Blizzard introduced in Cataclysm through is confusing.  It’s not even close to the last time I was a regular raider back in BWL/AQ.  Needless to say, I had to step up my game if I wanted to succeed at raiding in Cataclysm.Lesserheal and Ragnaros

I’m sure I’m not the only one in this position.  Cataclysm offered veterans a revamp of the game they had fallen in love with years ago, and despite Blizzard’s loss in subscribers, I know more than a couple of people who stuck their heads back in WoW’s door to see what was new.  Part of that investigation is invariably going to be checking out the raid environment.

I’m the kind of person who needed a process to get ready for Cataclysm raiding.  If you’re trying to get started with raiding, then I hope the three steps I came up with to raise my game help may help you out in some way, too.

In a nutshell, the steps go like this (I’ll go into much more detail below):

1.) figure out what your deficiencies are, 2.) read as much as you can about how to fix them, and 3.) tweak your addons and UI to cover any gaps you may have.

Step 1: Self-Evaluation

The first thing I did was sit down and think about my biggest weaknesses as a raider.  Note, that’s me, not my character.  Mana regen, throughput, and all those other wacky in-game things are easy to fix: get better gear.  That’ll happen.  No worries.

The things I needed to focus on were about the person behind the avatar, the one controlling the Dwarf.  Without knowing what deficiencies you have, you’ll never be able get that better gear.  All the shiny purples in the world won’t help you if you can’t move out of the fire or notice when one of your Hunters gets clipped by a Squall Line and needs a Leap of Faith back to the group.

So the first thing you need to do is give yourself a good, thorough once-over.  Think about what problems you’re having in raids, in 5-mans, in PvP, and really focus on what frustrates you and why you get frustrated.

Was it really the keyboard not responding?  Was that death really RNG?  Did that Orc’s Ashkandi straight up whoop your Zin’Rokh?   Are Warlocks OP and Rogue stunlocks unbeatable?

No, not at all.

When I did my evaluation, I came up with two main weaknesses as a player.  The first of which is that I despite playing my Priest from 80-85 and getting him 350+ geared before the end of December, I didn’t really have any idea what a Priest was about anymore.  My understanding what rooted firmly in BWL raiding days, not today.  And the second weakness was my situational awareness.  My buddy (and raid leader) consistently points this out to me, and has for a while, but it never really sank in.  I don’t see things as they happen around me.  I focus so intently on what I think I should be doing that I ignore and block out what I actually should be.

So think about where you are as a player, and once you have that knowledge in hand, you can set off to fix them.

Step 2: Study, Read, Talk

Once you realize what you need to work on, the next step is doing something about it.  For me, that involved making sure that I read every single word I could find about my class (Holy Priest) and the raids I’d be doing.

My first stop, as always, was Elitist Jerks’ Priest Forum.  I’m not a huge min/maxer, but I want to be the best I can be.  Unlike EJ’s community, I’m more about practical applications of healing rather than theorycrafted numbers.  The compendiums the EJ community has put together for each spec/class is astounding, though, and you’ll be missing a great deal of consolidated information if you don’t read through it.  Just remember, EJ is for high-end raiders by high-end raiders, and they will show you how to eke out an extra .5% off of spells and abilities through math and optimal conditions.  Listen to them, but also keep your own raiding situation/composition in mind, too.

In addition to EJ, I read quite a few MMO blogs.  I have always been a huge fan of World of Matticus and their sister forums PlusHeal.  There are few better Healing communities out there.  In addition to that, I’ve recently discovered Stories of O and Oestrus.  There’s a lot of good information there, as well as at Restokin, WTS Heals, and Life in Group 5.  You also might want to check out Murloc Parliament, The Bossy Pally, and the weekly class and raid columns at Wow Insider.

Also be sure to check out their blogrolls for more class-specific reading that can really help you out.

And if you’re really feeling frisky, get on Twitter and talk to the bloggers themselves.  They’re all generally nice folks and are always good for some conversation.  While certainly not comprehensive, Psynister has a really good list of WoW bloggers on Twitter compiled you can follow and start from there.Dwarf Priest in Merciless Gladiator's GearAfter you’ve had your fill and learned a few things about your class that you didn’t know already, it’s time to learn about what you’re getting yourself into—the raid environment.

I used to go to TankSpot to watch videos and learn encounters.  I even started there this time around, too, but Aliena’s videos are not only obnoxious, they leave out important information, are very poorly structured, and (thanks to my raid leader for pointing this one out) consist of their first kill, not refined fights.  The strategies offered in the videos are often harder and more complicated than necessary.  I’d stay away from TankSpot if I were you.

The one I’ve had the best luck with lately came from a guildie who was pushing it.  If you’ve never visited LearnToRaid, then I suggest you go there.  The videos are a lot clearer than TankSpots, and I’ve not had a problem with any of the strategies.  In fact, it was a slightly altered L2R strat for Al’Akir that got us our first kill not long ago.  Just be aware that they focus mostly on 25-person encounters, not 10, so you’ll have to adapt any strategies accordingly.

The distinction between 10 and 25-person raiding is significant to note because most video guide sites work predominantly with 25s.  Don’t worry about it.  Some fights vary in difficulty depending on raid size, but the general strategy is the same.  Just watch and learn the basic mechanics, and then experience it for yourself.

Some sites like WoW Insider do guides for raids, but they’re few and far between, honestly.  I like to read them when they get posted, but they’re often too late to really be effective with the plethora of other guides out there.  Nonetheless, reading any guide can help you refine not only your strategy, but playstyle by seeing what others are doing.  So if you ever see one, give it a shot.

You can also find kill videos on all the major guild websites and by Googling for it, but kill videos are neat to watch, but don’t really help out until you know the basics of the fight.  Once you do, hit as many of them as you can, but if you’re just diving into Cataclysm raiding, you’ll want to make sure you hit one of the beginner’s guides first.

Step 3: Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel

This got a little longer than I intended, so instead of critting you even harder with my epic Wall of Text, I’ve decided to break this intro to Cataclysm raiding into multiple parts and give Step 3 (Addons and User Interface) its own post.

Are you a raider, new or veteran?  Do you want to be?  Either way, leave a comment with your thoughts about getting into World of Warcraft’s endgame content.

Getting Reacquainted with Raiding

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When Cataclysm came out in December of last year, I jumped head first back into World of Warcraft.  I’d been an on again/off again player for a long time, mostly because of my work schedule.  I just couldn’t commit to something else that was vying for my time.  During December, I leveled my Priest, geared him as well as I could in the month before I went back to work, and said that I would occasionally log on to raid as time allowed.

Time did not allow.

I made 2 raids between January and May.  But then my semester ended, summer began, and my guild moved to a 2-day raiding schedule.

I can do that!

Unfortunately, there’s a problem: the last time I was actually a “raider” instead of a casual who sometimes hopped into a raid group was way back at Level 60 with 40-man content.  My guild killed Nefarian when we were 60, got Skeram in AQ40, and then lollygagged around instead of pushing any further into AQ or Naxxramas.  The Burning Crusade wasn’t much better for me—I focused mostly on PvP with the exception of my weekly Karazhan runs or Zul’Aman PuGs.  And Wrath of the Lich King was, well…Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?

So now, for the first time in a long time, I have both the desire and capacity to raid.  My RL friends have set up a relatively successful 10-man guild, so I’ve stepped into my Priest’s mooncloth slippers again.  The first run was Bastion of Twilight, and despite the two runs earlier this spring, I generally have no freaking idea what’s going on.

I’ve forgotten how to raid.

For a long time, my raid leader’s biggest criticism of me as a WoW player is that my situational awareness is—to put it bluntly—nonexistent.  I focus so intently on the life-bars I’m supposed to keep full until I forget that there’s a little polygonal dwarf standing smack-dab in what he’s not supposed to be standing in.

The night wears on, we kill some bosses, I get some explanations, and we move into what is supposed to be a progression night of wipes on Cho’gall.  Third or fourth attempt, though, and we kill him.  This was a Monday night.  “Great,” we say, and excited chatter spills across Vent.  Then we collect our loot, chat for a little while, say “See you Wednesday,” and log out.

Wednesday comes around with a new reset of the raids, and we one-shot Cho’gall.  And I loot my Tier11 shoulders.  Again, “awesome,” we say and move into BWD and get ready for Al’Akir on Monday (who we got into Phase 3 on our first night of even seeing the fight, which was pretty good.  We were able to get him this week, making us 11/12 bosses in T11.).

Wait a second.  Hold up there, partner.

Despite the amazing success we’ve had this past week, I can’t help but think the whole time, “This is my first time raiding in years.  I’m gonna screw it up.”

And a couple of times, I do.  I have sausage fingers, and I bumble my way through a couple of fights (Ascendant Council, I’m looking at you).  But I had fun.  And since most of my guild are my RL friends (or people whom I’ve been lucky enough to hang out with IRL), it’s not like I have to worry about underperforming and being booted.

The raid game has changed significantly since Level 60.  I have a lot of preconceived notions about what a Priest should be doing to heal based on what I used to do (and I used to be damn good at what I did, eventually becoming my old guild’s Priest Class Leader as we moved through progression content), but those don’t work anymore.  What made me so good back then, limits me today.

I can’t just stand and spam “Heal” on the tank, but not just because I’m assigned to be the raid healer (I’m Holy, rather than Disc).  Other classes are better at tank healing than I am, and because I never raided much outside of PuGs or on my Priest between Karazhan and Cataclysm,   I have keep an eye on debuffs, and not just the ones on me—not to dispel, but because they can kill me just as much as their target.  I have to watch for blue fire, purple fire, chartreuse fire, and even red fire (though that last one is surprisingly rare in T11 content) on top of dodging this add and that add, running in on Blackout, and out on Cho’gall’s adherent phases.

That’s a whole lot going on when the most complicated fight I had really ever done involved stepping in and out of line-of-sight to cleanse some debuffs or have one of the other healers step in to heal the tank when “Heal, Rank 2” eventually ran me low on mana.

But, the self-aware (that sounds so much nicer than self-centered, doesn’t it?) creature that I am, I knew that if I wanted to continue my 2-night-a-week hobby, I had to up my game.  So I made a list of what I needed to fix, and set to work on doing it.  So far, it’s worked great.

In future posts, I’ll take you all step-by-step through the specific (albeit minor, in some cases) playstyle revisions that taught this old dog a few new tricks for the Cataclysm raid game.

4 Ways to Treat Writing Like The Job You Want It To Be

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JobsHere’s the thing: you’ll probably never make a living by writing. Even if you luck into selling a manuscript, it’s unlikely that it will even pay your mortgage.

I mean, the last statistics I read say that the average debut author advance was around $5,000 and 80% of novels never actually earn out their advances.

So why even bother when being a career author looks more and more like a pipe dream?

Because you want it?

Well, wanting it isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to suck it up and make things happen. The only way that writing will ever be your job is to treat it like the job you want it to be.

No more amateur hour, no more kid gloves, and no more training wheels. (And no more motivational platitudes, am I right?) If you don’t treat writing like the job you want it to be right now, it will never happen.

Last summer, I finished the first draft of my very first novel by disciplining myself and following these simple steps:

1. Make Writing Mandatory

Lots of writers call this BiC, or Butt-in-Chair.  I consider it “working.”

If you want to sell books, you have to write books. The only way for that to happen is for you to sit down and write, to make time when there doesn’t seem to be any.

Last summer, I gave myself a quota and a timeframe: 2,000 words/day or 10,000 words/week between 8am and noon, Monday to Friday. Sometimes I only turned out 1,200 words or I might have written between 11am and 2pm.  The details didn’t matter. I was actively working every day and eventually finished the first draft at 86,000 words.

Some days, I didn’t feel like writing, but I did. I trashed and rewrote thousands of words.  In it’s current, unrevised form, it is not a salable novel, but it is a novel that would not have existed if I hadn’t treated the writing like the work I want it to be.

So sit down and write. No excuses.

2. Switch It Up

Sometimes, the words just don’t come.  Or, worse, they come, and they’re awful.  They actually hurt the story you’re telling.

One of the surest signs you’re getting closer to being a professional is the ability to distinguish your good stuff from your garbage.

When you begin to see nothing but garbage, stop writing and switch to something else.  Write a short story, another novel, an outline, a blog.  Something.  Take a step back from your darling and give it time to stew.  When you come back–and you will come back–you’ll bring fresh ideas that help the book rather than hurt it.

3. You’re Never Finished

So let’s say you you finish your novel. Heck, let’s say you’ve even revise it.  Millionaire time, right?

Not even close.  Now, you need to set that book aside for another round of revision (alternatively, if you haven’t sent it to beta readers, do that) and start on your next project.  Preferably not a sequel, just to prevent burnout.  Work on some short stories to submit for publication, start a new novel, blog about your process.

Just don’t let the habit of writing you’ve developed atrophy.

The old cliche that “writers write” is a cliche for a reason.  When we want to, we write.  When we don’t, we write.  When we have nothing to say, we write about the irony.  When we have no more projects in the queue, we make something  up and call it a project.

What you write next might be craptastic, but it might be the one that gets you out of that studio apartment and off the air mattress.

Keep building momentum.  Remember that everything you work on will not sell, nor will it all be good.  Eventually some of it will be good enough.  You will learn lessons from it all, with the most important being that if you don’t write, you forget how to.

4. Get Your Name Out There

Some people buy from unknowns.  Many people don’t.  Your job as a newbie is to make sure that people know your name.  You have to promote yourself, even if you land the fabled New York Six-Figure Contract.

The easiest way to get your name out there is through social media.  Use Twitter (don’t just shout into the night; actually talk to people).  Blog.  Comment on blogs you like, email the authors, and ask if you can write a guest post their readers would really enjoy.  Set up author pages on Facebook, use Goodreads.  Generally make it so that when someone Googles your name, they see you instead of the famous cat herder you share it with.

Shop around various short stories.  You’ll never make any real income with shorts, but having professional publication credits will get your name to new readers.  It’s about making a brand out of yourself in order to hock your wares to the largest market.

Your books aren’t the product; you are.

Many new writers feel that spending this much time on building a platform/brand through social media and networking takes away from their writing time.  And it does.  But it’s just as important.

Remember when you were a kid and you wanted to be a paleontologist?  Now do you remember the shock when you realized that digging up dinosaur bones was only a small part of the job, that finding research grants, writing papers, and other menial, unglorified tasks made up the majority of the job?

Well, writing’s like that, too.  It’s not all unicorns and cupcakes.  It’s a job, and with that comes the good and the bad.

You Ready?

If all that doesn’t sound like what you want, then walk away now.  The operative word here is job.  This is, after all, “how to treat writing like the job you want it to be” not “treat writing like the vacation from reality it looks like on Castle.”

Writing for a living takes time, discipline, and responsibility well before the first cent is ever earned.  But that first, shiny copper will never come if you don’t put in the effort it takes to chase this dream.

If you do, you’ll finish books and stories, and people will know you’re a professional before you actually are.  If not, you’ll keep on calling yourself an “aspiring” novelist, bragging to the barista about having “a ton of ideas,” and keep poking at the dozen sub-10k manuscripts in My Documents on your laptop.

If you want writing to be your job, don’t you think it’s time you treated it like one?

[Guest Post]: Choosing your genre–or Letting Your Genre Choose You

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Jennifer Willis ValhallaSome writers can write anything. They’ll decide one day to sit down and bang out a Western — because they’ve never written a Western before — and POW! They’ve done it.

Okay, I don’t know too many people like that — any, really — but I know lots of writers who think of themselves that way.

But it’s not so easy to just pick a genre and immediately start writing. Even if the genre you choose is one you read regularly, it might not be the best fit for you as a writer. For instance, I know a writer who just eats up mystery thrillers and romance novels, but what she writes are stories of magic and lore.

I’d never heard of “urban fantasy” when I started writing, so I had no idea how to classify my work. My stories were weird and funny, with a decidedly paranormal bent. But when people asked me what kind of tales I wrote, I had to give the synopsis of each manuscript in question rather than just being able to point to a known genre.

I’m not sure exactly when I heard the words “urban fantasy” for the first time, but it was a revelation. Instantly, I knew where I fit. Witches, wizards, ghosts, vampires, old Norse gods, all doing their thing in a modern, real-world setting. Yep. That works.

I started shopping around my urban fantasy manuscript, Valhalla, and was thrilled to have some early interest from agents. But I was stunned by the feedback I was getting. It went something like this: “This is really good! But it’s reading as Young Adult. Can you make some changes so this fits more firmly in this genre?”

Young Adult? But there was no way my manuscript was YA.

I admit now that my immediate — and negative — reaction was rooted largely in the fact that I didn’t really understand what “Young Adult” meant. I’d assumed the agent was talking about children’s books, or at best mid-grade fiction. I didn’t know how the age groups broke down into different categories — nor what they were called — and so I had unintentionally been lumping them all together.

I went to an author friend (and neighbor) of mine, David Ward. He took a look over the first few chapters and said, “Yes, this is definitely Young Adult.” He must have read the look of confusion and dismay on my face, because he then elaborated for me: “Teenagers. High school kids, and into college. That’s who this is written for.”

Relief washed over me. I’d been afraid I was being asked to write for eight-year-olds — something I have no clue how to do. Teenagers I could write for. Those years were some of the hardest and most brilliant of my life, and I often find my thoughts straying to that period.

I thought about some of the movies I enjoyed most — “Night at the Museum” comes immediately to mind, as well as action-adventure comedies — and I knew I had a firmer handle on the genre than I’d realized. I don’t like writing about deep psychological trauma, complicated political maneuverings, or horrific violence. My fiction is quirky and punchy, tinged appropriately with darkness and angst, and generally quite “clean.”

So I went to work on rewriting Valhalla as a YA title. The biggest change I made was in the character of Sally. If you can believe it, she was originally written as a middle-aged church secretary, but once I re-imagined her as a sixteen-year-old solitary witch, everything else fell into place around her. There’s definitely a strong cross-over between YA and mainstream, so I have about as many adults as teenagers reading Valhalla right now, and I have no complaints about that.

My genre most definitely chose me. I’d previously tried action-adventure, historical drama, horror, and romantic drama, but YA urban fantasy was what reached out to claim me. While I did have to spend some time learning about — and making peace with — what YA means, I’ve found that if I write to entertain myself and strive to keep both the story and the writing process appealing and interesting to me, this is what comes out.

If you’re trying to figure out where your own writing fits, my advice is to let your material choose your genre, rather than the other way around. It is helpful to write with a particular audience or “ideal reader” in mind, but instead of using of formula for what you hope will be a guaranteed best-seller in this or that trendy genre, take a hard look instead at what you’re producing when you’re writing in your strongest and most authentic voice.

About the Author:

Jennifer Willis AuthorJennifer Willis is an author, essayist, and journalist in Portland, Oregon. In her non-fiction work, she specializes in topics related to sustainability, spirituality/religion, history, and health. Her articles have appeared in The Oregonian, The Christian Science Monitor, Salon.com, The Portland Tribune, The Writer, Ancestry Magazine, Aish.com, Skirt!, InterfaithFamily.com, Vegetarian Times, Spirituality & Health, and other print and online publications at home and across the globe.

In fiction, she focuses on urban fantasy and playful mayhem. Her new ebook, Valhalla, is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads.

[Guest Post]: On the Death of Stargate Universe: a TV Industry in Flux

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This guest post is brought to you by Matt Herron of TangibleMotion.  If you’re not a reader, then I suggest you become one.  Even follow him on Twitter (@tangiblemotion) if you’re feeling frisky.

With only a single episode left to savor in the second and final season of the SyFy original series Stargate Universe, now is the perfect time to examine the factors that led to the show’s cancellation.

The Sad Tradition

By now sci-fi fans expect it. They groan inwardly when SyFy cancels another awesome show, and yet they are not surprised. They saw Firefly beheaded; Dollhouse was murdered in its youth; Caprica went the same way; and the funeral procession for SGU has already been prepared.

The cancellations are expected. But are they understood?

Multiple theories have been posited to explain away the choice to cancel two of SyFy’s original series’, SGU and Caprica. Most agree (even Scalzi), however, that poor network scheduling is the main culprit, particularly the choice to move these shows from Fridays to Tuesdays. They were shucked aside in favor of the guaranteed revenue brought by WWE SmackDown on Friday Nights, which SyFy acquired rights to in 2010.

TV is a business, so it’s no surprise that the network values SmackDown over SGU. New shows still have to prove their worth, while SmackDown came with a Friday night audience. It’s simply bad business to put your best bet on the back burner.

But SyFy didn’t do that. They cut their losses, and SGU had to go. The fans are heartbroken, but the network will survive.

Could SGU have been saved? We can only speculate. Fans of the Stargate universe are quick to rise to SGU’s defense, and for good reason. It is a marked improvement over it’s predecessors. There are no cheesy alien costumes. The characters are likeable and they actually develop as the show progresses. For example, the scientist Nicholas Rush becomes less insubordinate and less secretive after he is left to die on a strange world.
The show also has a noticeable story arc, as opposed to the pre-boxed cracker-jack episodes that are common in other series’ like SG-1 and BSG. This may make it harder to gain a large audience, since someone joining the show mid-season could get lost without knowledge of the back story. But for someone who is a fan of the show from the beginning, the story is engaging and the progress the characters make in figuring out their situation is captivating (finally gaining access to the main system controls of Destiny; pressure from the homeworld that causes tension among different members of the half-civilian, half-military crew; mistakes they make along the way that cause the death of crew members and friends.)

If the audience for a good original sci-fi show is out there (and it is: SG-1, BSG, Lost, Heroes, Fringe all make further proof unnecessary), then why did SGU get the axe? What did SyFy do wrong?

The Shift to Online Viewing

What I’m going to call the online shift theory is touted around the sci-fi fan geekdom as the main reason for many a show’s cancellation, SGU and Caprica included. It goes like this:

“Sci-fi fans tend to be younger and technologically savvy, and so among the earliest adopters of new technology. We got DVRs first and stopped watching our favorite shows live. We were the first users of Hulu and iTunes, and sci-fi fans were torrenting new episodes illegally before most people even knew such a thing existed.”

And the reason, the theory continues, is that since the ratings systems doesn’t count online and not-live DVR views (when you skip commercials) properly, the ratings are poor for sci-fi shows and eventually the network drops the show.

Craig Engler, GM and senior vice president of Syfy Digital, wrote an article on Nielsen ratings and online viewing for Blastr, an “imagined by SyFy” blog. He writes, “There’s some truth to what’s being said, but there are also lots of misconceptions and things people overlook when the topic comes up.”

He goes on to explain how Nielsen ratings work, why DVRs that allow you to skip ads are a “bigger issue” than online viewing, how online viewing is counted, how sampling works, etc. You can read the article in it’s entirety at Blastr, but this is what it comes down to:

“Overall I don’t think there’s any evidence to support that Nielsens are wildly inaccurate or especially harsh on sci-fi shows. And sci-fi shows are actually canceled no more frequently than other genres. The reality of TV is that most shows fail, in any genre. That’s endemic to all entertainment businesses. Most movies aren’t successful, most books don’t become best-sellers, etc.”

In other words, the Nielsen ratings system isn’t great, but for now it’s good enough for the TV industry because they need some level ground to negotiate with advertisers on.
So the shift to online viewing doesn’t have that much of an impact. But if you factor in the tech savvy audience, the move to Tuesday nights, and the non-cracker-jackness [Note from Beej: Best Phrase Ever, Matt.] of the writing, it is really no surprise that SGU was cancelled after all.

A TV Industry In Flux

Engler does provide a few caveats, or back doors through which to escape from the unpredictability of the TV industry. First, he writes that Nielsen plans to unveil a new ratings system that includes online viewing:

“Later this year Nielsen is going to roll out a new rating that combines TV and online views for shows that run online with the same ads as on air, and that may entice more advertisers to buy their online and on-air ads in sync. Until they do, there is a real business need to track them separately.”

This seems like a good thing from the perspective of the online viewer. But it will only work if SyFy’s online viewing option evolves. Because the current online viewing option that SyFy offers on Hulu is not up to par.

In the case of Stargate Universe, for example, episodes can be streamed on Hulu. But as of now, the week before the final episode is to air, only the twelfth episode is available on Hulu. That leaves multiple episodes that the frequent viewer may wish to see that are unavailable on the only online service that brings SyFy revenue.

The missing episodes can be streamed on alternate streaming services, but they don’t do SyFy any good since they are not paying SyFy for their use.

It seems sensible for SyFy to create their own streaming portal, instead of going through a third party. If what the fans believe is true, then SyFy has a large, tech savvy audience just waiting for a decent online viewing alternative. If SyFy also manages to sell the deal to their advertisers, then they could capture the shift to online viewing before it overtakes on-air TV viewing.

The pattern is laid out, the audience is looking for it… and until SyFy takes advantage of the situation, sci-fi fans will continue to see good shows die young and full of potential.
The second and most important caveat Engler mentions is that online viewing is gaining worth as we speak.

“The TV and online industries are both in massive flux right now, and that will continue for a long while. Five years ago, online revenue for TV shows was counted in pennies, and now it’s counted in nickels. Hopefully it will get to quarters in the next few years, and then online viewing might really start making an impact on the ability of TV networks to renew shows.”

In other words, online viewing has increased in worth to advertisers 500% in the past five years. There is no reason to suggest that this will change.

Indeed, SyFy would be daft not to take advantage of the online viewing market while it’s still affordable.

Perhaps Stargate Universe could have been saved, if the industry were in a different, more tech savvy shape than it currently is. Things are changing, though, and if online viewing (including DVR’s, on-demand, etc.) becomes the norm, it’s a whole different ball game.