Category: General

There was a time in which I loaded up MMOs just to be a part of an online world. For me, it was just an extension of my text-based MUDs. Yes, there was loot and levels to lust after in those games, but there were no raids. It was so rare to have a full group that you may not be aware of mechanics like maximum group size until you had played for hundreds of hours. There was nothing to do at max level except hang out, or maybe join the coding team and make new content. Today, end-game raids are the only reason I bother installing an MMO.

Continue reading I wasn’t always a raider

One of the more important court rulings of the year for the residents of the internet came Friday, mostly unheralded. For those who do not recall Lori Drew, she was prosecuted under federal hacking charges for violating MySpace’s Terms of Service (“unauthorized access”). In reality, she was being prosecuted because her ToS violation was related to a girl’s suicide, but the government’s theory in the case held that anyone who violates any ToS has done pretty much the same thing as hacking into a bank or airline’s systems. So if you have ever been banned from any site or game, or done anything that would cause you to be banned if you were caught (does anyone know your account info? Oops…), you would be up for federal criminal charges were you ever politically relevant. Because anything bad must be illegal.

After conviction on some charges, the judge indicated that he would be dismissing the charges. (Layman’s observation: it might have been more efficient to do that last year, before letting the trial happen, although I understand there are rules and processes and such.) That took about two months to become final:

The reasoning of the opinion is that whatever unauthorized access means, it cannot mean mere violation of Terms of Service without more. Such a reading of the statute would render the statute unconstitutionally void for vagueness because it would give the government almost unlimited power to prosecute any Internet user and wouldn’t give citizens sufficient notice as to what of their Internet conduct was criminal.

That “final” link has discussion and the text of the ruling. In this case, it took about three years to get a legal ruling that you cannot (successfully) (in the long run) prosecute (persecute?) someone for being bad or doing things you do not like. There needs to be a law against it.

: Zubon

This post is specifically about a language claim, but it applies more strongly in politics and is common to argumentation online and off. I have mentioned before the problem of believing things without evidence, but you should also be aware that you may be dismissing obvious counter-evidence because it inconveniently disproves something you wish to be true. Insert here why your game is already awesome because it will be awesome, its present state be damned.

It is vitally important that you want the truth more than you want any particular claim to be true. Once you are willing to sacrifice truth in favor of some claim, that hole has no bottom.

: Zubon

She does not mind being in the basement for hours on end. She minds being locked in the basement for hours on end. Open the door, pay attention to her for 30 seconds, and she will happily go back to the couch to nap. If she is not alone in the basement, she may never feel the need to leave.

: Zubon

We here at Kill Ten Rats aim to combine promiscuity and sexuality analogies with MMOs wherever a feasible connection appears.  Not as blatant as some in the industry, but we still have goals to maintain.  William Dobson over at Massively discusses the requirement for an MMO to have a beta with his article No beta, no thanks.

It is an understandable premise.  Playing an MMO is something more than a casual flirtation such as pushing a bomb in silly hats toward a base or shooting zombies on your lawn.  It’s an intimate experience  requiring a higher level of attention with what we would argue is a greater reward.  So when our companion video games require us to leave money on the bedstand before getting our hands in to the gameplay, it is justifiable that the expectations are laid out.  It is not just money though; sometimes days or weeks of play before are required before getting in to the end game.

Still most MMO players want the virgin experience with a new MMO, as awkward as the coupling may be.  If they could wait awhile longer until after that big maturation patch, the quality would be greater.  Yet, there is always the feeling that something might be lost when not surging forward with the crowd.  No one wants to do whats already been done (and done a lot on the MMO blogosphere).

It’s no wonder that betas have become a zone of safety for both parties.  The player can try the MMO without exposing herself to that uncomfortable moment when the thought crosses her mind that it would’ve been better not to wake up with the game on her hard drive.  The MMOs can unabashedly proclaim that the experience will indeed be awkward, but full bloom adventures are just on the horizon.  It can be comfortable education for both sides.

–Ravious
in the bushes

There seems to be a roughly 50/50 chance that gaming will go well. If I am playing alone, there is only the potential frustrations with the game itself, so my rate of enjoyment is more consistent, but multi-player games add all the things that can go wrong with other players. I’m calling it 50/50, my wife might guess lower, I would guess higher when I am on new game high (and exploration beats frustration).

If things go well, I will probably still be “on” when we finish. I go to bed with hobbits or pyros scurrying about my skull. With any luck, my wife is still awake, which can help flush games out of my mind in ways we do not discuss on family blogs. If not, I lie there, buzzing, unable to sleep. The plotting is fun, but work the next day may not be.

If things go poorly, they are likely to continue to. Even nights that go well head in this direction. If the marginal utility of playing is still high, keep playing! And you keep going until there are wipes, idiocy, or whatever drives down your utility from playing. Then the everything is ruined forever, and you can do naught but whine on your blog about it. Whine whine whine. So the night ends on a low point, and because we are most affected by beginnings (probably a stretch of waiting of group followed by a while to get rolling, followed by a while to try to fall into a groove) and endings (when it rolled over the cliff), the whole thing is a debacle.

Should I just stop gaming after 8pm, so nothing can send me to bed in bad state A or B?

: Zubon