Month: January 2009

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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

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Matters of Etiquette

I found myself in an unusual position last night (no – not that sort of position you dirty minded so-and-sos!) While on the train home, I noticed that a guy with a laptop sitting across the carriageway had an embroidered logo which identified him as obviously being a fellow WoW player and also a fellow member of the gnome munching Horde.

Conundrum: do I make it known to this total stranger that I a) recognise the logo b) that I also play and c) I, also, am a member of the superior Horde. This is Britain – strangers don’t talk to each other. That’s just not the done thing. On the other hand, just like public school oldboy networks and esoteric and obscure societies like the Freemasons and Aston Villa supporters, being a stranger was second to being part of something larger. Just because you have never seen the person before in your life does not stop you being siblings becauase of your shared experience.

I did have a secondary concern which was this: the logo was embroidered on the back pocket of his jeans. Saying something about it would imply that I had been looking at his arse¹.

In the end, I figured what the hell. He was the one wearing the logo and why else would you do that if you didn’t want to announce your interests and allegiances. Even if he did say “WTF? Were you looking at my arse you pervert?” I figured I was never going to see him again so as we were getting off the train, I simply said “Horde for life, right?” He looked askance at first then grinned and said “Yeah. I tried Alliance but I couldn’t stand it.”

“I know what you mean” I replied and then legged it for my next train as fast my legs would carry me.

What about you? Would you talk to someone because you recognised they played the same game as you? Or has someone stopped to talk to you because you were wearing your favourite Green Linen Shirt?

¹I want to try to explain but that’s just digging a hole I won’t be able to get out of so just trust me when I say it was entirely innocent and circumstantial.

Guild Polyamory

A quarter of your guild leaves the game because of a patch/new game/mass banning/whatever. Now you do not have enough people for the top raids, so another quarter of your guild leaves to join other guilds. Now there are half as many people in your guild, so it does not seem worth logging on as much, which starts the downward spiral until there is maybe one other person on. Players: how many times have you quit because of a shrinking number of guildmates/friends?

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

Of Not Speaking

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

Amazon Store?

I’ve been thinking about ways I can generate a little income to share with the writers here so they can pay some subscription fees or whatever and there is only one way I can think of that doesn’t bother me too much. I am considering adding an Amazon.com store on a separate page, which would be linked on a tab at the top. You’d never see the store if you don’t want to see it, which I like.

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

KTR2K9

Another year has passed us by and it’s time to once again reflect on the goals of KillTenRats. What started as a way for me to vent about the frustrations of MMO gaming has turned into something different. Not my intention perhaps, but what happened to it is just the result of going with the flow.

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 (almost) five years. It has been a real pleasure and I hope we can continue to entertain you folks now and then over the next five years.

– Ethic

Guild Wars – Not Really An Article

Gaile Gray, ArenaNet employee extraordinaire, stole a soapbox to stand on at the Guild Wars Wiki in order to explain why they ban 1000 (!) Guild Wars accounts per week for real money transactions (RMT).

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