Kill Ten Rats

In our continuing, sporadic monitoring of Web 2.0, we note a news story with Eugene Volokh’s comments on an arrest for failure to Tweet.

“We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message,” [Det. Lt.] Smith said. “By not cooperating with us we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk.”

I must confess that I too, having no Twitter account, did nothing to stop the problem. I apologize to anyone who has been damaged by my lack of 140-character updates. Ethic, however, is Tweeting.

: Zubon

While I am enthusiastic about consumer choice, I am displeased with the number of competing game management programs out there and their assorted exclusive deals with various games. I am not quite to the point at which I will skip buying a game because it is not available through a given distribution network, but I am tempted, especially when some have online multi-player only through some other service, which may not be the one I used to buy it. I don’t need more log-ins, and I don’t need more networks sending me e-mails and pop-ups to suggest buying more things from them.

As our cell phone using outside the US know, interoperability is not a strong point here. We finally have it with most instant messaging and text services. Come on, team, let’s get our game networks linked up.

: Zubon

Auto-update is a wonderful feature for content management systems. Steam will update my games while I am not paying attention. Several other producers have similar updaters. These are great. If I need to plan ahead or budget time, I am less likely to play. PC games will benefit to the extent that they resemble console games: push the button and it works.

An absolutely necessary feature is that the game can update itself without my babysitting it. Give me an “Update now?” button and otherwise leave me alone. If I need to manually re-start the program several times, I am going to get bored and wander off half-way through; that other company over there has games that work when I click them, and I only have so much time to wait today.

The worst version of this comes from games that update patches successively, instead of automatically bringing you to the latest edition. As they say on the internet, FAIL. Update, apply, update, apply, update, apply… This can be acceptable if it is one-click, so I can let it run when I go to bed. This will not be acceptable if it goes through a lengthy version of that when I want to play.

The worst offender I have seen is a game still in beta. I appreciate that they have frequent updates, but it updates one patch at a time, and each needs me to click, “Yes, download”; “Yes, install”; “Yes, finish.” It might also ask me to manually re-start the game after each “finish,” but I don’t remember because I stopped thinking about those clicks one day when I tried to get through about 10 patches. I have spent far more time downloading and updating that game than playing, and if just getting the game on my computer is that tedious, my hopes for the game itself are low. I understand that different guys program different things, so one system does not reflect another, but if your game is already not fun before I even play, that is a bad sign in the same way that a lousy, non-skippable tutorial is.

: Zubon

Here’s a simple solution to curb the inevitable overpopulation of Jedi characters in SW:TOR. We’re already expanding on the lore as it is with those weird new classes, so what’s one more spot on the leopard anyway? Just add this bit:

“The venerable Jedi knights search far and wide throughout the galaxy in a constant search for force-sensitive individuals. Those with the ability are brought in to be tutored and trained in the ways of the force, and are able to wield impressive powers that put them above most other living beings in the galaxy. Training, however, is grueling and in order to safeguard the purity of the force and keep their numbers manageable, all new Jedi initiates undergo a cleansing ritual in which their testicles are removed.”

Let’s see how many go for that once it’s made canon.

Since no one reads blog posts in the U.S. today anyway, I figured I would show my appreciation for all the MMO devs that no one ever thinks or hears about… Bud Light style.
Continue reading Unsung MMO Heroes

Since no one is reading on Thanksgiving anyway, let’s serve up one of those song posts that no one cares about. As is often the case, this is a break-up song. We have relationships with these games, their communities, and our guilds, sometimes far more emotionally involved and dramatic than our romantic entanglements.

This one goes out to all of you in on-again, off-again relationships with your game of choice. You just keep going back to him, don’t you, no matter how abusive the relationship may be? At some point, you have to accept that the dream has died and move on, no matter how much time you have invested. That investment is never going to pay off. Don’t worry; you’ll find a new infatuation to keep you company, and here is Michelle Branch to sympathize while you’re on the rebound.

I’ve been searching deep down in my soul
Words that I’m hearing are starting to get old
It feels like I’m starting all over again
The last three years were just pretend
And I said

Goodbye to you
Goodbye to everything that I knew
You were the one I loved
The one thing that I tried to hold onto

Buffy fans may recognize this from the end of “Tabula Rasa,” an entirely appropriate use of the song.

: Zubon

“Zubon, don’t be so hard on yourself about the song posts. No one cares about the other posts, either.”

No, don’t run away. Really. I know I’m coming across as the nerd in the corner who insists on some stupid technicality, but I object. I am a nerd, and I might be cornered, but this is no technicality.

Lore matters because we are human and, as such, we ask questions. Some of these questions (most, in fact) we ask to ourselves. We keep them in our heads and rarely ever ask them out loud, lest we are cast with the lot of cornered nerds. In the context of our games, the questions are plain, but powerful; Why is this here? Where did it come from? What does it do? What does it mean? How does it relate to what I’ve seen before and what I’ve yet to see? What happens when it’s used? Why are they fighting? Why are they friends? Where do they want to go with this?

There are more, but that’s basically the genesis of lore right there. Sure, it’s easy to dismiss or underestimate the importance of lore depending on one’s focus. After all if one goes through an encounter with the sole goal of acquiring a particular reward, those questions do not matter. Item acquired, goal completed, move on to the next.

Continue reading Why lore matters

“Cat-people get +5 Agility.” It is a simple sentence, something you could expect from a dozen YAFMMORPGs. If your game has yet to release, how can you express it without being meaningless or getting into an endless cascade of information? (Or perhaps the endless cascade is a good thing for promoting your game, and you can turn this one thing into months of web site content.) Continue reading Context