Die, Hippies!

So, yeah. Many a blogger has wondered aloud why WoW (and most MMOs) are basically unparalleled meat grinders of genocide and animal hating. Most quests involve the senseless slaughter of Mob X for the looting of Doodad Z. Wether that mob is a humanoid, animal, or demon never really seems to give us pause. I’ve actually stopped reading quest texts at this point. I just hit the ‘Yeah, Whatever’ button, and then check the bullet list in Monkey Quest to see what I need to do for ‘teh moneys’. Blizzard has apparently decided to have some fun with this, by having us slaughter pot heads out on the Isle of Queldanis.

One of the first daily quests I received on the new island had me killing Wretched Fiends and Wretched Devourers, what would seem to be pretty mean sounding mobs. They surely deserve to taste hot steel for their nefarious deeds! I’m sure they spent their spare time punching kittens and kicking babies! Let the slaughter begin!

Uhh...

Is it me, or does that guy just seem to be sitting peacefully on the beach, enjoying a nice calming view of the ocean? It’s raining, but it’s a nice, peaceful rain. He’s had a tough day and he just really needs to...

Um, die, apparently.

As bad as that is, I eventually found myself waking people up to kill them. You know how much it sucks to be woken from a nice nap, or having to get up in the morning to go to a job you hate? Yeah. At least you weren’t being rudely awoken by a cheapshot to the face, kidney shot to the pee pee makers, and then proceed to fucking DIE. This poor chump was taking a nap next to a corpse. Maybe he was just pretending to be dead, hoping I’d pass him by? Too bad those big stupid Z’s are flying out of your face, or the trick may have worked.

I finish my quest and proceed to head into Magisters’ Terrace, the new 5 man dungeon. Who do I find inside, but my new best friends? A group of them appear to be sucking some energy out of a big crystal. Two are pretty tuckered out; they’ve just sat down and are taking a break. There’s a hookah smoldering nearby.

Some friends have gotten the munchies, and gone over to the green ball of smoke to have a snack.

Are these my enemies? They’re just a bunch of fucking hippies.

I head back outside, determined to make peace. I put away my swords, and take off anything that might be threatening. I don’t have a Flower or my Blue Sparkler on me, so I equip my fishing pole. I figure a hippy would be cool with a real Man of the Land. Perhaps we can come to an understanding, and share a Raw Mithrilhead Trout while we wax poetic on current events.

Or maybe not.

Fuck that. I tried to be cool, but you brought it on yourself, asshole. I come with the olive branch, and what do you do? YOU THROW IT IN MY FACE. Get ready you pieces of shit, it’s fucking ON.

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Non-Fiction II

A headache was forming in a pinpoint behind his left eyeball. Lawrence had been logged into the game for over an hour now, and unless he logged out soon, he wouldn’t even be able to read for the rest of the afternoon. The game left his eyes fatigued, and left his brain feeling like a round hole with a square peg jammed firmly in place.

The loudspeaker overhead droned on and on in Japanese about some Commencement Ceremony, but he had never really bothered to learn the language. His job was monitoring the machines that provided for the addicts, to take their minds off the pain and suffering that was their everyday lives. Understanding the thoughts and whims of his Japanese overseers at the Not Anymore Addicted Clinic really didn’t apply to that line of work. He used to entertain the notion of explaining that the name of their workplace was completely fucked, but when he went to his bosses office, and saw him wearing a tee shirt proclaiming “We Can Care You Your Health For Now!” he just surrendered.

Interactions with the Japanese were always so strange and distant. He really had no idea what the fuck was going on 90% of the time. They would grab him by the collar, shoving a screwdriver into the palm of his hand and begin yelling about something, pointing towards the jyo-sei incubation center down the hallway. It all sounded very urgent, but to be honest he just couldn’t really be fucked at this point anymore. He’d nod, bow, and try to shuffle off, leaving them rambling on in that babble of theirs. If they didn’t follow him he’d chalk it up to good luck, and just hide the screwdriver somewhere before returning to the typewriter at his desk. He had grown fond of just sticking shit under the sink in the bodily waste disposal room. Sometimes they would run up behind him and point to whatever object they had placed into his hand, and pantomime an action. It was all very silly. Eye contact in Japan was apparently forbidden, so he’d stare at his feet, mumbling in English, until they just got sick of it and walked off.

Back at his typewriter, the situation wasn’t much better. These addicts were suffering, and he was supposed to ease their pain, but how do you ease the pain of slavery? His brainstorming sessions usually ended up with crumpled piles of paper with the words "log out" typed over and over again. Ever since the Parent Corporation had gained a foothold into the government, all restrictions limiting immersion in their universe were thrown out with the trash. The Chinese government had resisted, trying to cut the ‘net trunk lines that fed their children in a desperate last ditch attempt to free themselves, but the children themselves just rerouted the traffic thru proxies in India or Russia. Wireless was everywhere a land line didn’t reach. The internet was too fault-tolerant at this point, and trying to prevent someone from logging in to the game was like trying to keep someone from breathing. A bag over the head would suffice, but had a nasty side effect of invariably killing the patient.

Those in the clinic he serviced were laughable. There was still this notion that a few clung to, mostly from the older generation. They insisted on saying that they were Not Addicted, members of this silly underground new age religion. The ridiculous irony that they held their meetings in the game itself was not lost on this one.

Lawrence was one of a shrinking fraction of the population at this point. Born with what was lamented early on as a brain defect, he had 'an acute inability to spatially interpret a three dimensional area rendered in only two dimensions'. Every second in the game was a jarring ordeal as he tried to navigate simple doors and walkways. He would spend fifteen minutes or an hour just banging up against a wall over and over as he tried to walk down a hallway in-game. What seemed perfectly natural for 99.8 percent of the world’s population left him flustered and aggravated. He was never able to “lose himself” in the game, so his lack of in-game time raised a red flag with the Parent Corporation, and he became singled out and delegated to the custodial positions; caring for the bodies of those 'able to enjoy the better life that the game provided'. His assignment in Japan was completely out of his control, he just took the ticket and boarded the shuttle one day that would take him to his new life. The entire operation had become fully autonomous, he basically just flipped a switch here or there, and even had a growing suspicion that the switches weren’t even attached to anything underneath the dashboards. Japan seemed to be full of others like himself. He would see them at their desks wearing impossibly thick glasses, faces a mask of determination as they tried to navigate to the mailbox in the game. For many generations, Japan was closed off from the rest of the world’s gene pool, and defects like this would pass along in family lines and multiply. The Japanese were the official sheppards of the new generation; herding the sheep along, and managing everything via remote control.

The Parent Corporation was obligated to run these Addiction Awareness clinics, but Lawrence had the sinking suspicion that they were just a way to wrangle those of the population not even able to log in into still being a part of the bigger picture.

The game had been so promising at first. An immense new universe, limited only in size and scope by server hardware. The possibilities were certainly there. A universe where math itself was part of the very fabric of being. Any equation could be executed immediately, without having to “go find a calculator”, or “sit down to a computer”. The world itself was a computer. Scientists could instantly communicate with one another without the need for peripheral devices such as telephone or email. Everything was completely integrated into just existing. Fully scalable complex models could spring forth directly into being. They could reach out from wherever in the world they were and instantly collaborate with as many (or few) as desired. Telepathy realized, in a very real sense. Translation services, while buggy at first, were integrated. They became better over time, as the community developed them and expanded their vocabulary. The downside to all of this was realized much too late, of course, when the limit of said hardware was discovered. Nobody was bothering to build new real systems, since everything was happening on a theoretical area of space that only existed on magnetic drives in a server farm. The theoretical systems realized in the game world were years ahead of anything in the real world, but they never actually bothered to log out and build any of it. Entire generations of computer hardware were postulated on and improved upon time and again. They just refined the ideas over and over in game.

The Parent Corporation realized this and silently logged out to issue patents. Everything in the game was technically ‘theirs’ and they swooped thru the financial structures of the real world (what was left) practically overnight. No one had any real money left to pay for these patents, of course, since much of the work that used to be done outside the game had evolved to take place inside. Nintey percent of what happens in an office is just talking heads gathered around a board room table, or brains sitting in front of a computer monitor pushing buttons on a keyboard. Why go to an office to sit in front of a computer when you can do it all in the game? In-game currency had evolved from the early, fictional, copper and gold pieces into honest to god Dollars and Euros, but it was all still just ones and zeros (literally) on a hard drive in a server farm.

The Parent Corporation graciously accepted a position in the government as payment for keeping The Game running. Though global boundaries no longer had any relevance, 'America' was still happy to find itself in charge of everything that mattered. The mighty military of the western world became an online sports team of sorts; endlessly skirmishing against other nations in virtual conflicts, without all the hassle of bloodshed and death. Even the very time system used in the game was what used to be 'Pacific Standard Time', and eventually everyone on the planet shifted their schedules to wake, log in, and conduct their lives according to what time it was in Irvine, CA at any given moment.

TPC encouraged people to find ways to interface with outside systems via the game. APIs were released, and writing apps where someone flushing an in-game toilet would activate the real life waste excretion incinerator unit was smiled upon. That person might move up a level in the game. Someone designing server maintenance routines would be bumped up to the prestigious title of Game Master or some such.

An orange light began to blink on Lawrence’s desk. An addict was stuck in the geometry of the game, and needed help. These bugs, although rare, detracted from the overall immersion for the end users, and had to be eliminated at all costs. Lawrence sighed, closed his eyes, rubbed his temples, and logged into the game. He found himself stuck in the hallway where he had last logged out. The end of the hallway was the teleporter zone, where he could choose where to dispatch his in-game avatar to help the addict that needed him. If only he could unglue himself from this fucking nub in the wall that was sticking out and blocking his path. No matter which way he turned or rotated, he seemed to be running right into it. Why can’t the edges of the fucking hallway just be smooth flat surfaces all the way to the door at the end?!

God I hate this fucking game.

[continue...]

Snorehammer, The Followup

Our comment system sucks right now. The website is going thru a few changes (maybe you've noticed!). The Warhammer Flamefest Preview I wrote last week seemed to hit a few choice chords with our 'audience' here, so I thought I'd take a chance to answer a few key points in a summarized format.

This is not going to become a weekly series or anything; I just wanted to point out a few things that seemed to be glaringly overlooked in my previous rant about Warhammer Online.

1) It was a rant. I believe I said so on more than one occasion. Perhaps the lack of a Gamespot score, the abundance of curse words, or the requesting that the source code be hurled off the White Cliffs of Dover might have tipped you off there.

2) I really don’t give two shits what anyone thinks. This one is going to confuse a lot of people, but you’re going to have to trust me when I say there is really no benefit for me to say anything other than what I feel on this site. I don’t get paid for anything I write here (yet?), and honestly have no animosity towards anyone trying to make a good game. Warhammer is NOT a good game in its current status. It’s not finished, I fucking know that, and yet still people felt the need to point that out like 50 times. Thanks, Detective. You’ve solved the crime. Way to go. People go on to call me a WoW “fanboi” because I’m flaming their precious Snorehammer beta. The irony of that is not lost on me.

5) I won’t have the chance to see if it gets any better since my account was banned. Oh noes.

D) But perhaps most importantly, I didn’t WANT to hate the game; I really just had no other choice. I think on more than one occasion I lamented this fact. The whole first paragraph was how I pretty much creamed my pants on seeing I was accepted into the beta, and how even after the huge disappointment that the beta vomited on me, I WILL STILL SING ITS PRAISES IF THE RETAIL GAME PROVES TO BE BETTER.

G) i actually made it past level 5, asshats. it's called sarcasm.

Q) The final copout comes from people claiming the game is for a more mature audience, and that I just don’t ‘get it’. Hate to shatter your dreams, but I’m 32 years old. I've grown up and moved out of the country. I don't want to crush your achievements, but you aren’t the epitome of adolescence riding your Huffy ten speed to McDonald's to work the drive thru. Game-wise, I’ve been in and out of guilds, and usually am one of the few that actually do shit and get shit done. I’m the guy on vent telling you (and probably your mom in the background) to shut the fuck up, or the one you send messages to asking how much DKP you have because you’re too retarded to figure it out for yourself. Learn to spell, or don't bother replying.

Z) Last point that needs to be addressed is apparently that YES OMG I PLAY WOW. SO FUCKING SUE ME. Thank god that’s out of the way.

All that said, here are a few more points that maybe just need to be clarified.

RvR

Boy oh boy I really hope they get this right. I really hope that War Is Everywhere. Because if not (and right now it’s not), then this is just a more sucky version of WoW. People love to complain about WoW’s pvp system (or lack thereof). Go for it. I certainly won’t call you names. It’s instanced. It’s silly. I don’t really do it. I roll on PvP servers so I can kill night elves that /wave to me as they’re trying to mine adamantite ore. That’s about as far into it as I get. Maybe I’ll AFK an AV to get welfare epix. But not really. To me the whole implementation of WoW’s pvp isn’t worth even hassling with. If Warhammer gets this right, it would be huge, it would be fun, and I could really see it being a positive draw for many people. THAT SAID, the amount of RvR I PERSONALLY EXPERIENCED (which I fucking said, if you actually go back and read the thing) pretty much amounted to me trying to solo my way from Tarren Mill to Southshore. Everyone (for some fucking reason) seems to remember TM vs SS as the golden era of WoW PvP. Try being the only one on your team. A lot of the perceived ‘fun’ drains out of the equation. That is what I experienced, and if you go back and read my paragraph, I believe I said “I honestly wish I could really go into detail here but I never made it more than 4 or 5 feet into the "RvR Zone" for the area without having 40 people jump into my asshole and proceed to cut their way out.” It was my honest wish to test it for you whores, but I couldn’t and stated thusly.

Combat

Borning, Boring, Boring. You can cry about it all you want, but I’ve played it, you haven’t, so I wonder who has more experience with it. QQ More.

Talents / Tactics

It’s different. Whoopty do. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it, and pretty much said as much.

General “Feel” of the Game

I would play it, then log out, and not want to log back in. The WoW beta (which, yes, I was in), never made me want to even log out. Yes, there was stuff like invisible mages that you could hear cooking up a pyroblast that you knew was going to kill you, but you persevered, because it was fun. I trudged thru every quest I did in WAR because I felt like I had to get a past the crap to where the game got fun. It never did. MAYBE I JUST DIDN’T REACH FUNTOWN. If Funtown is where the fun starts, though, the dev team needs to eliminate the road leading there, and make it the beginning zone. Why we should endure shit content to reach the good part is a design flaw I've never understood.

Graphics

I touched on this. It looks bad. IT’S BETA. YES, I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN. THANK YOU CAPTAIN, PLEASE BE SEATED. Graphical polish is one of the last things to go in. Holy shit, it isn't a newsflash. I have an $800 video card, and a machine capable of using it, so it's not that i'm toning down graphical sliders or anything either. The animations and textures will be fleshed out, duh. I hate to use the W word, because it turns on the nerd-rage faucet, but the WoW beta was much cleaner. Like, retardedly cleaner. They had their art style figured out already, and were putting it in as they went. Maybe this dev team is just using placeholders everywhere, and will go back and recreate every texture the weekend before launch. Whatever. Maybe when I get home I'll post a screenshot to make everyone shut the fuck up. I erased the game from my laptop, so I can't do it from here. It wasn't fun. God, I wish I could just make you people understand.

For those still not happy, I really don’t know what to tell you, so I’m going to put it in here really big so you can’t miss it as your mousewheel melts with the fury of scrolling to the Flame Box at the end of the article:

I HOPE IT’S A FUN GAME, AND I REALLY LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING THE FINAL PRODUCT.

But seriously, I’m not going to hold my breath based on what I’ve seen.

I hate you all.

Love, Iso

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