Author: Julian

Just as a PSA. Not that I’m the super expert in these things, but in the few years I’ve been RPing I’ve noticed there’s always common mistakes made which can hold back everybody’s enjoyment.

Besides, I didn’t get into that Warhamster thing the kids are playing, and I didn’t get that other one. The Age of Clonan game. So I have nothing to write about except this.

So, basically, it was either this or an essay on the barren wasteland of sociopolitical commentary that is the modern MMO. Hm? What’s that? Oh, you want the 10 steps? Thought so.

Hit this mofo right here.

Continue reading 10 Steps to Better Roleplay

– 20 probably shouldn’t be allowed on the human section of the internet.
– 10 miss his points. Completely and repeatedly.
– 15 corner themselves with their own arguments.
– 5 point at those cornered guys and laugh.
– 30 have arguments which basically reduce to “I don’t like you dissin’ my game”
– 10 think he’s an old fart/academic/smartypants therefore he’s unable to have real opinions of real value.
– 5 think he can’t comment on MMOs because he really hasn’t put in 200 hours in “Barbie Genital Herpes World Online: Arena”
– 3 read, and don’t post, when they probably should.
– 2 guys actually prove him wrong here and there. And Bartle loves it.

Last time we talked about user content, and how it would inevitably have to be brought in, and properly managed. But now we’ll see the other next best thing we’ll surely be talking about in ten or fifteen years: Population Control.

This one is funny because it immediately gets people’s panties in a bunch, and forces them to think. That’s why I like it so much. It’s also a bit more nebulous and theoretical than user content, so we’ll have to draw from a few places in order to offer something presentable. Namely, the history and evolution of both the real world and virtual worlds, human nature and a nice dose of prophet complex.

Continue reading The Next (two) Best Things (pt. 2)

Our playgrounds and virtual worlds are getting larger. This isn’t something that catches people by surprise; it’s pretty much commonly agreed. And they will only get larger and larger.

Donning my prophet hat on, I’d say that at some point -not really far away into the future- these games will become so massive, in terms of their own virtual expanse and number of subscribers, that “business as usual” as it relates to the way these games are managed, just won’t cut it anymore.

Perhaps in 10 or 15 years (no further than that, I’d say) we’re going to see the emergence into the mainstream of two very important things which will shape that generation of games. No, it won’t be the number of polys they cram in there, or how many gigs of VRAM you need on your card to hold all the textures properly, or anything like that. It’ll be something much less technical: The adoption into the mainstream of user-created content and the emergence of the Police Department.

Continue reading The Next (two) Best Things (pt. 1)

“Hi everyone” // “Why do I even bother? Half the guild never replies”
“After thinking it long and hard…” // “I really-really thought about it for five minutes while I was having lunch, but it had been festering for a while”
“…I’ve decided this isn’t really the guild for me.” // “I’ve decided that 40% of the guild are retards, the other 40% are useless and the remaining 20% are people that I have no beef with. For now.”
“I guess the guild changed from what it used to be, and while change is good…” // “I’m not getting my way anymore”
“… for some of us it can take some effort to adapt” // “I can’t be bothered”

Continue reading What we say // What we mean

I mean, really.

One of the huge, huge advantages of being married to a gamer grrl is, when Valentine’s comes around, the ability to skip the flowers, the chocolate, the Hallmark moment and all those other embarassing, passé 20th century moments and get her something she would really love. If said girl … grrl… also happens to have her birthday within a month of that auspicious pagan celebration, well, you can really go for the big guns.

I wall-hacked her heart and captured the flag of her love by getting her one of these. It looks really good compared to the old Cantankerous Radiation Tube, it has tons more screen real space on the sides (which is nice, because she can finally tell when she’s being flanked and killed, something that happens an average of ~7 times a day) and it looks really neat on her desk, which I’m told is very important.

Guild Wars looks really nice in it, which is quite fortunate because that’s basically all we’ve been playing since around last July. It would have been heartbreaking had it looked bad. Like giving her a card that says “Happy Valentine’s Anastasia” when her name is really Denise, Beatrice or Her Unholy Grace Xinissa, Reaper of Agony (yes, she roleplays too). Would have been an awkward moment.

And yes I got one of them for me too, put it on the same card, and had them delivered at the exact same time, but dagnabbit that is not the point here. The point is that gamer grrls deserve only the best. She’s happy because she has a great new toy. I’m happy because she’s distracted and I can keep courting all those other tons of women I have. Well, I don’t really have, it’s more of a thing in progress. I mean, I was thinking about it. In a dream I had. Only once, yeah.

P.S.: Newegg, you rock, but tell the UPS guys to take it easy with the LCD panels, hmm? Mine arrived with a nice bump and crack on the plastic side, and if you tilt it you can hear something small and loose on the inside. It still works by the grace of Cthulhu.