Category: General

Hi, I’m James. I’m new here.

I wish I could say that I’ve been reading KTR for months in between running raids with my 70’s. The reality is that despite being a passionate gamer my whole life, I spent much of the MMO revolution of the past decade watching from the sidelines. Other life priorities at the time. I’m here at KTR because I’m in the process of changing that.

When I play, I’m 40% explorer, 40% achiever, and 20% socializer. I will explore that stupid little cave just becuase I haven’t been in it, and I will run the long way to fill in that empty corner of my map. I may even hurl myself off a cliff to certain death just for the novelty of the experience. (I actually do this on a pretty regular basis, and yes, it sometimes annoys my group.) But I will also take the time to keep my fishing skill up to snuff, because I need to be prepared to kick some ass if I find myself in Stranglethorn Vale for that fishing competition one of these days.

Right now, I’m splitting my time between Azeroth and the Viridian Ocean. “The Viridian Ocean? What’s that?” Puzzle Pirates, silly. It rocks.
Continue reading Introduction

For those of you who have not visited Kingdom of Loathing in a long while, you might want to. The Naughty Sorceress has been moved back to level 13, with new quests for levels 11 and 12. Many things have been revamped and rebalanced. If you have never visited, hey, better-balanced browser-based game for you.

: Zubon

We haven’t had a song in a while. This one speaks for itself, so there will be no extended allegory for gaming.

: Zubon

I think I have something new for you, but Raph has covered similar territory. At the very least you get a new word.

The digger wasp (Genus: sphex) is the unheralded mascot of the grind. When laying eggs, it makes a nest, finds a bug, paralyzes the bug, drags it home, makes sure the nest is okay, drags the bug in, lays eggs on it, and buries the whole thing. When the eggs hatch, the bug will still be there for baby wasps to eat.

The interesting part is that this is all mindless, genetically determined behavior. The sphex has no idea what it is doing. If you were to move the bug while the sphex was double-checking the nest, it would come out, see no bug, and reset its mental programming to go find a bug. Coming upon the paralyzed bug three inches away, it would drag it back to the nest, make sure the nest is okay, and come back out to discover that you have moved its paralyzed bug three inches away again. Reset, go find a bug, hey here’s one! Drag it home, go inside to make sure the next is okay, and come back out to discover…

Wow, you’re a jerk. You just keep moving its objective a few inches away and laughing as it keeps doing the same thing.

Continue reading Sphexishness

Today, you get a bit of short fiction from Eliezer Yudkowsky. Enjoy.

: Zubon

I’ve been sitting on this for a couple of weeks (not literally, obviously. That would be difficult. And weird.) and feel it’s time to share if you haven’t already seen it.

Felicia Day is an actress with a problem. (This is already starting to sound like Jerry Springer!) Actually, she doesn’t have a problem (apart from having garnered the attention of the those miniscule minded microbes who use the power of the intertubes to criticise and ridicule others in sentences of less than one syllable) but she has released the extremely amusing first “webisode” of a (hopefully) long-running series called “Watch the Guild” in which she stars as Cyd Sherman, an all-too-true-to-life character that some of you may identify with. Go to the site, watch the video, sign up for notifications and buy stuff. It’s worth it.

Final thoughts: Felicia has since recovered from her addiction to World of Warcraft and recently managed to escape the lure of the bright lights of Blizzcon but the real question is was it a relationship worth saving or leaving behind? Until next time, please take care of yourself and each other.

I have referred to “changes that would just take 5 minutes to make” before. There must indeed be cases where the fix really is that simple: I remember one case where the problem was a misplaced decimal point. Most of the time, however, the players saying that have no idea what they are talking about. And the developers want to hit them. If the fix really were that simple, it probably would have been done by now, unless the suggestion is also some stupid balance- or game-breaking idea. No, fixing the AI is not just a matter of telling it not to jump off the cliff. That is a complex behavior to teach it, and teaching cliff-avoidance might break half a dozen other things.

Do feel free to continue browbeating developers for having hard-to-modify spaghetti code. Documentation may seem optional when you need to release in six weeks, but six months after release you may not still have the guy who remembers what half the variables mean. The more flexibility you can build in at the start, the better your reaction time will be later.

: Zubon

I’m as happy as a clam can be before being plucked off the sea and put in a soup with other fellow clam carcasses. I have found a new metric.

See, it was about time. The last metric I had adopted was TTC (Time To Crate), and this was years ago. Sure, I still use it. It’s a good one. But it’s been years! I needed a new one, so lo and behold, I found this baby casually skimming the LOTRO boards.

Say hello to my little friend: TTSHF (Time To Start Having Fun) – or, as I renamed it, simply TTF : Time To Fun.

Continue reading My Newest Elusive Metric

People are willing to spend hundreds of dollars for characters, items (useful or fluff), gold, virtual land, “premium” access, privilege and even life-time accounts. But what else would they be willing to part with their hard-earned money for?

I’ve charged people to officiate weddings in some games, I’ve seen artists charge gamers to draw their pencil/paper RPG characters, and I know a few talented writer types that have charged to write cool backgrounds or stories for their friend’s favorite characters.

Would you pay to name a street in a city? How about christening a bar or tavern in some metropolis? What about naming a creature or being able to design a creature? How about having your favorite RPG character immortalized in the history and lore of an MMO?
Continue reading What Price Fame and Immortality?

My wife bought The Last Unicorn for our two year old daughter yesterday, and I watched it again last night after nearly fifteen years.   It is most definitely created for a young audience, but it was one of my first experiences with the fantasy genre close to a quarter of a century ago, and still holds a dear place in my heart.  If you have children, buy it and watch it with them.  You and they will not be disappointed, and you will be fostering the MMO players of tomorrow.  We got our copy for $1.89 in the discount bin.  What a steal!   My daughter awoke this morning, clammoring for more with cries of, “Daddy, watch corn?”

~Cyndre