Category: General

Hello, my name is Ravious, and I am a persistence addict.  I try and play other games.  The one’s sitting solely on my hard drive.  The ones with no boundaries.  They are great games that I ignore.  But, to me, they are meaningless trifles when I can etch my accomplishments into a monolithic server farm one dead rat at a time.

The latest to fall was King’s Bounty: Armored Princess.  It was a truly excellent game for the hour or so I played. It was also pretty much free.  I know that I will enjoy it more if I play it more, but its pleasure is passing.  Any lonely accomplishment I will gain will be between, myself, and my Steam wall.  The game already lets me cheat by giving me a dragon anyway. Continue reading Persistence Addict

Anyone have screenshots that measure up to real life? I know we are just primates who react with “ooh, ah” sounds to fire and shiny objects, but damned if the Vikings don’t still have us all beat for awesome. (Carl De Souza with the winning images.)

While some commenters there are down on the second Up Helly Aa picture, as LotRO players know, yes, you drink tea before heading to war. Before a big fight you drink tea, eat an entire rack of lamb (or cram bread), and show off your shiny tokens. Those are the best buffs in the game. Even the ancient Vikings knew that.

: Zubon

Hat tip: Agitator

Today’s Wikipedia article of the day is “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and Keats is a relevant figure for MMOs. He was a candle that burned brightly and quickly. His odes constituted a new form of poem, although those not immersed in poesy are unlikely to see them as much different from other forms. His works are known more for an effusion of passion and imagery than technical perfection; some say his best works are marred by unbecoming lines, and others debate whether controversial lines “work.”

If you’re not getting the connection, your link on that last one is “bug or feature?” “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is an old favorite that exhibits this well. There are several points when you might pause and ask whether a line really works, either in its content or its form. To my mind, some of them work just because of that — “More happy love! more happy, happy love!” succeeds only to the extent that you accept a narrator effusively overcome by the moment. On content, do we really want to celebrate eternally unfulfilled desire? If Epicurus had a hell, that would be it, but there is a Romantic ideal in teetering on the verge of satisfaction. There many ways to take (or not) the last two lines.

As an MMO player, if you have not read “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” you really ought. Someone pick a tune, and it could be our national anthem. That eternally unfulfilled desire? That’s what you are paying for. Those frozen lovers are your treadmill, always on the verge of ecstacy, never quite reaching it, where joy is found in the endless almost-attaining. The world is static, unchanging, with events clearly happening but never actually resolving. There is an eternal spring, and the silent pipes play on.

: Zubon

For anyone who does not believe in poetry-based “controversy,” (1) this was bleeding-edge stuff in 1819, and (2) like you have never seen a forum explode about whether changing Rogue positional damage by 2% will completely ruin the game.

MMOs are supposed to be virtual worlds. But just because it’s virtual, doesn’t mean it’s a simulation. In the real world, we have ugly people. Sure, we try to make ourselves look better via nice clothing, diet, or by using make-up and photoshop, but none of that is necessary in an MMO. You can make yourself look however you want, and everyone wants to look good.

For all the multitude of options you have in the Star Trek Online character creator, you can’t make a big fat “Scotty” character. Few MMOs actually let you be ugly or unattractive. People want their MMO to have a simulated economy, or simulate the process of building a star-ship, or simulate the weather. But MMOs are not simulations, they’re more like action movies.

In an action movie, everyone is beautiful. Something interesting is always on the verge of happening. There are no bathrooms or tax-collectors. The entire world in an action movie exists for the sole purpose of being an interesting setting for the main characters. The boring, ugly, and annoying aspects of life are minimized or ignored. The real question is, do players actually want a virtual world or do they really want the action movie they’ve been getting?

I’m not sure if a strange inverse-nostalgia lowered my expectations to the point that not being physically poked in the eye was a plus, but the open beta seemed far better.
– Zoso

: Zubon

Today is Community Manager Appreciation Day!  Thank you to all of the CM’s that we hound mercilessly.  I do not envy your job of having to walk the line between the screaming yang of your fans and the cutthroat yin of your bosses and marketing, but you do it day in and day out.  Thank you for supporting us gamers, and being our advocate when we need it most even though we don’t see most of the work you do.  Thank you for being our friends when you could easily wall us out for non-gaming related activities.  Thank you for sticking with us through our worst when our rabid bile gets caught in our throats and you hold our hair while we grace the porcelain seat with o… well you get the idea.  Thank you, community managers.

–Ravious
two score and five we came alive

This just in from Interplay, regarding the “upcoming” “Fallout” “MMORPG”:

This MMOG will have many unique features that we will disclose before launch of the public Beta in 2012.

Hey everyone, guess what? We will open up for beta testing in 2012! Save some time for beta testing in 2012! We only started work on this in 2007, give us a break! Unless the Mayan thing is true. In that case, nevermind.

-Ethic