Author: Zubon

Let us assume for the moment that you have a better than average guild, and your guild is this good because of how you work together, not just due to a few workhorse players. Even though you and your friends may not be the best players in the game, the way you go about playing, raiding, etc. gets you to your goals much better than those idiots you meet in pickup groups.

This might be because you engage in cooperative alt creation and leveling, have a high degree of trust in awarding loot, maintain a consistent schedule, enforce strict requirements upon guild members, or what have you. You have found What Works, or at least what works for you. What happens when you let more people into the guild?

Continue reading Immigration, Democracy, and Your Guild

Ethic, should we adopt this disclaimer that the internet is not safe? Neither is your favorite MMO:

The other people on the web, including other visitors, our employees, agents, and guests, and anyone else who might sneak in, may be stupid, reckless, or otherwise dangerous. They may be mentally ill, criminally insane, drunk, using illegal drugs and/or armed with deadly malware and ready to use them. We aren’t necessarily going to do anything about it. We refuse to take responsibility.

It is much like rock climbing in that way.

: Zubon

Big hat tip to Overlawyered.

British Columbia has cancelled the fall session of its legislature. Their economic situation is good, and there are not any changes that cannot wait to be implemented in the spring.

Does this remind you of anyone’s patch schedule?

: Zubon

HT: H&R

Civilization IV is very good. If you like this sort of game, this is hereby the premier example, in the way that Master of Orion 3 was not.

That said, the world of Civilization is both idiosyncratically different and eerily similar to our own. Some of this stems from the conventions of the genre: in MMOs, you accept that everyone is wearing six backpacks, and in empire-building games you accept that it can take 80 years to walk through a forest.

Continue reading Civilization IV and Its Discontents

We have been playing mostly offline lately. My wife’s favorite PS2 game is Karaoke Revolution. Mine is Katamari Damacy. We could combine them into Karaoke Damacy, but there are only so many seconds of “na naa nana na na na na na na na na na naa” that she can take before I get stabbed.

: Zubon

[Crusade] For those of you who had not noticed over at Lum’s (I hear he has more readers than we do), David Allen is getting a new game going, Crusade. Honesty points to Mr. Allen for interview responses that amount to, “We wanted to make our version of WoW, for people who like that sort of game but don’t like some of the design decisions.” Maybe this one is the exact shade of Yet Another Fantasy MMORPG for you.

Crusade will be having design journals over at IGN. The first is about character progression and skills. Interesting notion: start with a class-based game, then add use-based skill system, then add an EVE-like real-time study system. This could be either the ideal system that everyone has always dreamt of, perfectly incorporating competing concerns, or else the greatest nightmare of balancing ever.

I have hope.

: Zubon

Optional things like MMOs, sleep, and standing up have gone out the window. My wife has not decided to leave me yet, which is promising. We will see how long that holds up. When you are spending more than a thousand years under continuous attacks from the Aztecs and Emperor Hirohito, you start worrying more about Louis XIV’s cavalry than, say, dinner.

I can quit any time I want. *twitch*

: Zubon

All comments are read and appreciated. They let us know what y’all find interesting. Please feel free to comment on any post, even fairly ancient ones. We get e-mail notification and have a list of all recent comments, so your words on a year-old post will still be welcomed like a newborn child.

Unfortunately, if your name is something like “All Herbal Viagra,” your comments may be caught by our spam filter. You’d be caught by my e-mail spam filter, too, so I don’t know how you get around that without picking a new name. Why would your parents name you something like that, anyway?

Thank you for reading, caring, and helping us kill rats. We love our community.

: Zubon