Category: General

Over in the funnies section of our blogroll, Order of the Stick sure has taken a dark turn over the past couple of weeks, hasn’t it? That latest one is particularly jarring when you mix the strip’s normal tone (which Xykon is maintaining) with what is going on there.

For those of you who have not been reading Order of the Stick, I recommend it. You can see the first strip here, and you have a few years’ worth to read as you catch up. I read a few hundred in a weekend, and if you have never watched an entire season on DVD over a couple of days, it is awesome.

: Zubon

Raph asks, Is Text Chat Corrupting Our Language? I agree with his answer and direct you here for an understanding of why. The letter that Bob Yates transcribes is not some off-the-cuff IM — it is a representative letter to a head of state. I will fully grant that more stupid things are written today than ever before in history. This is because more people are writing today than ever before in history. A century ago, a 50% literacy rate would not have been bad. Now anyone with a two-digit IQ can get on LiveJournal, MySpace, and Blogspot to tell you all about what her cats did today (LOL!) or how he wtfpwned that n00bz0r pally (cmn l2p). Our language has been corrupt for centuries, we just have slightly different forms of degeneracy these days, combined with better records of it.

: Zubon

Yes, I am a daily reader of a blog about linguistics. I read a lot.

The industry is stuck in its comfort zone, too. Commenters on yesterday’s post successfully covered most of my thoughts, so I will direct you there. Same thing: we need to experiment and sometimes stumble to learn. Heartless, amongst others, is hoping for that comfort zone to implode:

We really needed a big, AAA title to fail miserably trying to follow the old “release now, fix later” mentality.

Our own Nicodemus is predicting that we are on the upswing of a boom-bust cycle in MMOs, so maybe we will see that creative destruction in action soon.

: Zubon

You know what your problem is? You’re too good. You have found what you are good at and stuck with it. You are the best tank out there, and you have been tanking for your guild for three games now. Everyone relies on you for that. You leveled a (feral) druid alt, and you tried a mage, but the playstyle is uncomfortably different and you’re not good at it. Why be a lousy mage when you could be a great tank?

You are stuck in your comfort zone. You need to go out there and fail. Try a lot of things. A lot. You will be lousy at most of them and you will do dumb things. But a few of them will really work for you. Maybe you are not such a bad rogue once you stop trying to play the class like a tank. Maybe you could be the best healer ever because you know exactly what the tank needs. Maybe you find that one type of PvP is fun, or you miss racing games, or that small publisher made the best little niche game you have ever seen.

That’s the entire basis a major component of our economy: failure is easy to recover from, but success is rewarding and lasting. That is why your game has a light death penalty: try everything, even dumb things, and you can find something new and fun. And if not, if nothing is better or is even a viable alternative, you are still the best tank on your server. You are accepting that role consciously and knowingly, rather than just clinging to the familiar.

: Zubon

Crap, I don’t have do that, do I? I’ve been playing a mage or a healer since like 1999.

Some conversation about independent MMORPGs has started in my last post, mostly about getting exposure and getting the word out.

So here is my challenge, if you are working on or starting an independent MMORPG, drop me a line. Tell us about what you are working on and what your goals are. Get on the radar. No, I won’t ask you about the super secret stuff you should be keeping under NDA, but I will talk about you.

Be careful if you ask for my opinion though, I’m a mean old ogre and very critical!

So, what are you working on?

PS: I’m interested in non-game virtual worlds, as well as any MMO style projects going on in the academic and “serious games” sectors.

Anyone that keeps up with what I write, or has had a chance to read MMO Evolution, knows that I have mixed feelings about the online game industry. On one hand, I am very annoyed, irritated, angry, and my panties are in a bunch about a lot of the things going on in the industry. On the other hand, I still hold a glimmer of hope that there are passionate and creative people out there that are not satisfied with the status quo, and are striving to make a change.
Continue reading Doom and Gloom…

I have not really been playing MMOs much for the past three months. I went on a trip for a week and had lost the urge when I came back. I am reminded of Heavy Metal and You, in which our protagonist gives up smoking for a couple of months then finds himself unable to stand the taste of them. “How did I get started on this?”

One thing is that there is nothing new under the sun. I have already killed that rat twenty thousand times, although sometimes he was named “goblin prowler” or perhaps “rock monster.” Rats, wolves, and giants usually do about the same things, with different models and different number values. It is the problem of procedural content: you may never run out of missions in City of Villains, but eventually you realize that the newspaper only has four or five options, and half of them are pretty much the same. “Guys, do you want to beat up Archon Fontaine, steal the plans from the Council, or beat up Archon Morena?”

Continue reading Piercing the Veil and Losing the Monkey

I am taking the weekend off, so instead I direct you to one of our dear friends, the most influential blogger on the internet, who explains why these here tubes are so full. Excerpt:

For a mere moment, think about that. No web. And they don’t care.

As a note, a similar analysis applies to goldfarmers. “Americans are too lazy to play their games, and they will pay me to do it for them?” Yes, Americans will pay you to help destroy the games they play. Who cares if you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? You can get a lot of gold while it is alive, and people keep breeding those geese. Apparently, we think it is a feature not a bug if you can reach up the goose and just yank eggs out. Keep reaching further, and if you yank out a vital organ, well, there will be Yet Another Fantasy MMORPG published in a few weeks.

Has anything helped the gold sales industry more than WoW mount prices? The World Bank wishes it could cause as much money to be sent to the developing world as WoW does.

Continue reading This Is Why We Cannot Have Nice Things

A few people at IMGDC asked me about my background, and a few others I have met recently at some other events wanted to know what I have worked on. My answer is usually “nothing you have ever heard of”, but I *have* been around for a long time, just under the radar. But really…what have I worked on? What the hell was I doing in the early 90s? What is so amusing?

Continue reading Turning on the wayback machine…for your amusement!

I have seen several posts and received several messages about that lawyer from Florida. Fox even gave him air time. I encourage you to deal with him as you would any other troll. Ignoring the bad eggs and blocking them from your life is the only way to make them go away.

This is the opposite of Voldemort. Saying his name grants him more power (publicity). Resist the urge. Don’t feel the need to mention every time the monkeys at the zoo fling poo — that is just what monkeys do.

: Zubon