The idea for Game Scribe came from the repeatable story content in Guild Wars and the then-forthcoming repeatable public quests in Warhammer Online.  I figured that with instantly repeatable story-involved content I could pull a character narrative with pictures out of the mission or public quest.  The reason, I felt, that I needed the instant repeatability was to make sure that the actual story could be translated to a reader.  In other words, the pictures and narrative had to be consistent with the actual story experienced by the players.  New single-shot content would not give me that flexibility.

I couldn’t bring myself to take the necessary time involved for the Guild Wars missions I had already experienced multiple times, and Warhammer Online was delayed nearly a year since my idea sprang from the ether.  However, with a new lifetime subscription from my good friend I did bend the idea to work with Lord of the Rings Online, and I, LOTRO was created.

It was a departure from what I wanted because Lord of the Rings Online story content was not always repeatable and definitely not as accessible as Guild Wars missions or Warhammer Online public quests.  So, gameplay was slow.  I had to take a million screenshots each session, and I had to constantly spoil myself on many quests to make sure that I would not miss any crucial moments.  I used FRAPS to take constant screenshots every 6-10 seconds in addition to the in-game screenshot button.  I got some really, really beautiful shots from Lord of the Rings Online included in my post (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

I outgrew the buggy Blogspot interface, and headed to Wordpress, where I created Game Scribe.  I decided that instead of focusing just on Lord of the Rings Online (or one game), my new blog would open up to a multitude of games.  Game Scribe had Audiosurf, Deus Ex, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, Team Fortress 2, and Warhammer Online posts.  The only “rule” was that the post generally had to be about an actual play session, but in-character narrative was not required.

The problem was always time.  Normal people usually play until it’s bed time, TV show time, time to go, etc.  I had to make sure to log off 15-30 minutes earlier in order to go through hundreds of screenshots every session.  I often would accidentally turn FRAPS off, or just forget to load the screenshot program during a fantastic session.  Plus my MMO playstyle was going ultra-slow.  Guildies were speeding by me to the “end game.”  It was both a blessing and a curse to stop and thoroughly smell all the content nuggets that the writers painstakingly put into the largely ignored quest text.  All this weighed on me too heavily.  I could not find the balance necessary for my fun, which is why I play games in the first place, and good posts.

I am very proud of some of the pieces I created. 

Ravric, my Captain from Lord of the Rings Online had a vanilla heroic voice, but I tried to make him flawed in that he was easily annoyed at the lesser Free Peoples.  This was my favorite post because I was able to incorporate random events (a happenstance grouping) in to the post, and I was well along with Ravric’s voice.  This is by far my favorite screenshot posted for Ravric.

In Team Fortress 2, I tried to create a style and voice for each character.  Unfortunately I only had time to get the Soldier, Sniper, and Pyro.  Being a fan of the TV show, The Unit, I tried to add in soldier slang for the Soldier’s posts.  It never got to anything I was happy with.  However, the Australian slang (some madeup) I did with the Sniper I always thought was fantastic.  The Pyro I decided was more of a samurai, unfearful of death, than the suicide bomber most peg him for.  I took a lot from one of my favorite books, the Hagakure, and filtered them through the Team Fortress world.  My favorite for each voice is probably these three posts, and my favorite Team Fortress 2 post is this one.

By the time Warhammer Online was released, I had my method for creating posts down cold.  I needed a voice for my Zealot.  I decided to create a faux-bible since there was an overarching story continued through multiple Chapters.  The aptly named Book of Crows would be an (un)holy book written by Ravious, the Zealot of the conquest of the Empire lands.  This book was in turn being published by an Empire historian well after the Age of Reckoning, and would have commentary on some of the passages.  This was my favorite post.

While I considered the Team Fortress 2 posts normally the best, my favorites were the Warhammer Online posts.  I felt that the Book of Crows was a great idea, but the playstyle required was brutally hard.  Public quests turned out to be a shadow of what they could have been, and my guildmates were flying through the tiers leaving me far behind.  I basically had a choice to either play the game for fun, or play the game for Game Scribe.

Since then I have chosen fun, but I still miss it.  Luckily, Ethic allowing me to write for Kill Ten Rats mostly filled that hole.  Someday, I might return, but only if I can better balance the work with fun.  Until then it will just have to remain in my head.

–Ravious
Remember Sammy Jankis.

Developers: why do you not have multiple guilds? This is not even innovation; A Tale in the Desert launched in 2003, and most of that game was two coders. Doing so could have solved the guild problems that Burning Crusade created through something like this, which is how all major projects are done in A Tale in the Desert.

One guild might leave all at once for a new game. If you are in seven guilds, and at least four are staying, you have far more reasons to stick around.

: Zubon

The Ayorthians think before they speak, and often conclude, after lengthy meditation, that nothing need be said.
— Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted

Many times I type a comment or post, spend a while editing and revising, re-consider the original topic, then decide the world really does not need to hear it. This is presumably how one squares the logorrhea you see here with my being a restrained introvert (or, as Kendricke put it, “the driest MFer in the world”).

If you have noticed that I have not been posting as much lately, rest assured: I am still writing a lot. But you know what high standards MMO players have.

: Zubon

This way, if you want to buy something from Amazon.com you can and we will get a tiny portion for the referral. If you don’t, no big deal. Don’t click on the Store tab and you’ll never see it at all. If you want to buy something and support us at the same time, you can if you choose to do so. I would frequently hand pick things I feel would be of interest to our readers, so it would not just be random items.

In fact, I will add the tab for a short time so you can preview it and see what it would look like. Check it out and let me know what you think.

At the risk of being called a hypocrite, how do you folks feel about that?

- Ethic

I don’t write nearly as much as I used to and since Zubon writes so much (and so well), I have turned into a reader of my own site. I actually find I enjoy it that way. I would love to see a few more writers here but with the situation being as it is, I must leave the contributors to their own desires of when and what to write about. Therefore, we end up with a few people that write something once a month. This is all fine with me, but I thought I would turn to you folks that come here for some feedback.

What is the main reason you come here? What would make you come here more often? Do you feel the number of posts per day is enough or would you like more? What about the quality of the posts, are they meeting your standards? What subjects are you most interested in, game play or game design? Should we add more writers or should I start writing more?

What I would like to see in the next year? I would like to contribute more personally. I would also like to see one or two new regular enjoyable writers added during the year. The people we have here I very much enjoy reading but I’d love to see more posts from some of the quieter folks. I want to add even more banners for the top of the page, that is perhaps my greatest joy of this place.

Finally, we are here because of you - the readers. If there existed no readers here, there would be no writers (besides me that is). Tell me what you want from us!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and also for coming back to visit so many times over the last four years. It has been a real pleasure and I hope we can continue to entertain you folks now and then over the next four years.

- Ethic

Say the RMTer talks to 10 or 20 people in a day, and waves 100K gold or XX Ectos or a rare miniature in front of them. Some of those people “take the bait,” and then the RMTer tells the player some song and dance about how, to prevent them getting caught for the transaction, the company will “place the gold directly on the player’s account.” Most people reading this will say, “Yeah, sure they will!” and laugh, but surprisingly enough, some players believe it, and they turn over their account credentials. 

While I personally believe that most MMO blog readers (especially the highly intelligent Kill Ten Rats readers) “wouldn’t fall for that trick,”  it is amazing that this problem is so widespread.  Gaile has a great point that I usually forget to take in to consideration when thinking about the gold farming business: the phisher is doing this all day long.  Statistically, they will find that one born every minute.  Anyway, in the hopes of helping a little public service announcement I thought I might pass that on.

In other news, it seems the that the ArenaNet Community Team had a two week break for the holidays.  Could this be because they won’t be getting another long break for awhile due to upcoming projects?  Hopefully that flood wall breaks soon enough.

–Ravious
…and his Desert Eagle .50

: Zubon