08 May 2006
by ryanin Gaming
Under what is quite possibly the stupidest headline ever written by Wired (“Who Shall We Kill Tonight”) is the story about the AP-AOL Games poll that showed 40% of adult Americans play video games. Now, aside from the obviously vested interest in inflating that number, why is this such a surprise? The article’s example is a 29-year-old graphic artist, someone who would spend a considerable amount of time on a computer and would be drawn to that platform for entertainment. And, at 29-years-old, squarely in my generation, this gamer is someone who, like me, probably grew up during the high-points of gaming to date: Commodore, Atari, SNES, Doom and the advent of online gaming. We’re a generation weaned on video games and the generation that brought those games and platforms into the homes of our families.
The really interesting point in this article, which I’m not certain was correlated in the poll, was the amount of TV that this group watches. I know I share the feelings of the illustrative quotee in the Wired story when she says: “I watch less and less TV. I turn it on and the shows are just idiotic[.]” Every $REALITY_SHOW_N that pops up is one more nail in the coffin of my advertiser-funded television viewing. Even the news is idiotic, with placed ads, no objectivity, and the integrity of a ruble.
Link to Wired story
20 Mar 2006
by ryanin Gaming
They have Lemmings for the PSP! Man I love that game.
Lemmings Plunge Onto the PSP – Kotaku
02 Mar 2006
by ryanin Gaming
That would explain the damn lag! As one of the new million subscribers since the last report came out, can we get some new servers?
Notice that WoW captured 1 million new subscribers in under 3 months? Those are some impressive numbers.
Link
10 Feb 2006
by ryanin Gaming, Technology, Uhm... yeah
“Let’s be fair. Whether it’s five, 10, 15, 20 years from now, the concept of driving to the store to buy a plastic disc with data on it and driving back and popping it in the drive will be ridiculous,” Moore said. “We’ll tell our grandchildren that and they’ll laugh at us.” – Microsoft VP Peter Moore
Some people already knew that, Pete. Why is it news? And why, when some VP of the Week at Microsoft says stuff like this, does the hugely popular game company doing it not even get mentioned in the article?
Link
(Sidenote: This post brought to you from Opera; if someone can tell me how to change the coloring on Bloglines, I’d consider switching.)
23 Jan 2006
by ryanin Gaming
Ok, this is a confession/rant. I’m a WoW addict. I would play all day, every day if I could. The fact that I don’t is a testament to myself of my own committment to things other than WoW. (Note, others may disagree; this is not about them!)
That said, I couldn’t have cared less that Blizzard made this contest in the latest release for servers to compete in order to earn the right to have a new instance opened on their server. That is, until I realized what they had created. What they created was insanity. Thousands of people logged onto the server to see the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj open; I happend to be lucky enough to be on that server. My wait went from 20 to over 800 in a week. Let me repeat that: I’m now waiting for over an hour to log onto the server for which I pay monthly fees to use. Now, in the FPS world, this isn’t an issue usually because I can go to a different server and take my character with me (see BF2 for a good implementation). WoW doesn’t allow that. If I want to go to a different server, I have to start over.
So, last night, as the gates got closer to opening, the whole realm decided to take a crap and start crashing. Granted, the whole realm didn’t go down. No, you had to be lucky enough to be in specific areas. Half the world disappeared around 11pm, which is when I found a place to log off.
I see on Slashdot today that it only got worse from there. The whole thing was a disaster from a technical and PR standpoint, with a few dozen other servers to go.
I work on a web app in real life, I get how hard it is to scale, I really do. That said, Blizzard has been doing this for over a year and knows what kind of traffic they have to deal with. Building a contest that could foreseeably increase the load on one realm should have been managed ahead of time. Blizzard eventually disallowed new accounts to be created on Medivh, but only a few days prior to the contest closing. The patch should have done this. The sharp uptick in people on the realm has made the point of spreading users across servers worthless. Blizzard actively encouraged people to create level 1 characters and run then cross-country to the gates. The response of porting players under level 30 away from the area should have been unnecessary in the first place. It’s not a purely technical problem; it’s a change management problem (man, someone at work would die to read that).
I’m disappointed, I really am. I expected a lot more from the game and from Blizzard. They’re very smart people; I hope they realize that all problems aren’t solved with sys admins.
22 Jan 2006
by ryanin Gaming, News, Signs of the Horsemen
I know I’ve posted on him way too much already, but this couldn’t go without comment. Jack Thompson, the same crusader who thinks that he’ll sue his way to infamy, has started a new tack; gamers are involved in a “masturbatory activity, meaning senseless self-stimulation”, but one that’s an affront to God. In a letter to MetalGearSolid.org’s, a forum where a gamer recently made his suicide threats reality, Jack decided that what really needed to be said at a time like this was “Sad, sad for all of you.” Only, he wasn’t expressing sympathy for the loss of a community member. No, he was sad that the gamer who had committed suicide had chosen a thing “not of God.” (See the whole letter here)
Yep, gamers are evil, and not in the selfish, shoulda-done-something better for an hour. Nope, they are actually Evil with a capital E because they decided to do something ungodly. Between insulting the entire board and the memory of an far-too-dead kid, Jack decides that now is the time to insinuate a little Jesus into the argument. The extended entry has a letter to Jack; it does contain some coarse language.
More
06 Jan 2006
by ryanin Gaming, Signs of the Horsemen, Uhm... yeah
I read this article twice looking for the joke, then realized there isn’t one.
…IRS advisers specializing in the arcane field of barter income recently offered the opinion that any trade of one virtual item for another–gold pieces for thick leather, uber drops for plat–could very well constitute a taxable, income-generating exchange according to the IRS’s rules on barter.
This is insane. Just because some people sell these things on eBay doesn’t mean that I should have to pay tax on a virtual item, given to me for free by a virtual character and sold (at below market value) to a virtual, non-playable character. I don’t buy or sell MMO items, why should I be taxed on them? And how exactly am I bartering with a virtual NPC? The NPC is not open to bartering; it’s programmed to give me the equivalent amount of coin for the item that the same code gave me for free. Isn’t that a gift?
But, government being how it is, it will take years and millions of tax dollars (in the form of salaries, trips, and meals for IRS staff) to find out that, in fact, it is not feasible to do this. Either that, or the questions in TaxCut are going to be hilariously sad. “Has your MMO character increased in experience level more than 10 levels? If so, please refer to page MMO-34 for a table that calculates the relative worth of the increase in level.”
Terra Nova: The Taxman Cometh?
23 Dec 2005
by ryanin Gaming
I’m rebuilding my computer as one of my Christmas break projects, a long overdue cleaning of the system. And God bless Season Days!
19 Oct 2005
by ryanin Gaming, Politics
Quick follow-up. Ars Technica has a great summary of the events along with some new details.
The Penny Arcade fans have banned together and worked up a detailed account of Jack’s activities. One of the forum members has reported the entire incident to the FBI, including the detailed report (forum thread here [NSFW language]). The letter has also been sent to the Florida Bar Association who has already once reprimand Thompson in 1998.
Disbarment might be a pipe dream, but it’s one more step on Jack’s way to the bottom. By the way, search for John B. Thompson on Google for some hilarious reading.
18 Oct 2005
by ryanin Gaming, Politics
I’m going to stop apologizing for it and just give into the farce that has become Jack Thompson. (Note to certain readers, it must be something about the last name.)
Jack has now faxed a letter to the Seattle PD (where PA is located) asking that the authors of PA, Gabe and Tycho, be arrested. Of course, he got their website wrong, but that doesn’t detract from the fun language and defamation suit he brought on himself. He accuses PA of extortion and criminal harassment, both of which I’m pretty sure require evidence in order to prosecute.
Jack, you have made yourself a public figure and, as such, are open to a whole level of mockery and satire the likes of which you obviously are unable to deal with. “I Hate Jack Thompson” T-shirts are not harassment, they’re hella-funny. I highly recommend you crawl back under a rock and bother us no more. Cops are smarter than you pathetic, emotional pleas and insinuations. They’re not dumb enough to arrest people who donate money to sick kids in the name of the person falsely accusing them of crimes.
gamepolitics: BREAKING NEWS: Will Seattle’s Finest Be Raiding Penny Arcade?
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