Long-time Subscriber

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a long-time subscriber to many of today’s MMOGs not so much out of loyalty or continuing enjoyment, but more so out of procrastination and forgetfulness. In my own defense, the account management webpages are a labyrinth of entering passwords, editing status, entering billing details … who has the energy anymore?

Last month, I went through all my credit card bills and pulled the trigger on everything except my two Warcraft accounts — and I even gave those two some serious consideration. (Ya, Warcraft’s on the bubble until I start seeing some brainwave activity at Castle Blizzard.) FEAR MY CLICK TO CANCEL SKILLZ!

Then, not even one day after the EverQuest accounts went dark, my nephew was on the phone asking why he couldn’t log into the EQ accounts. (I always let my nephews use my EQ accounts to make their own characters. Kinda tough to afford monthly subscriptions on a pre-teen’s allowance so Uncle Foton to the rescue. For the record, I don’t give a fuck what a EULA says about that.)

WTF. He and his friends hadn’t played EQ for months and just after I cancel, they rediscover the joys of kiting and snagging a bargain in the EQ Bazaar? Last I heard, the nephews and their posse of school thugs were kicking it in America’s Army and Battlefield Vietnam. How I wish they would stick with those … which require no monthly outlay from uncles or other sympathetic relatives.

Back to the EQ account management page I went … this time to reinstate a monthly subscription and again, I’m a long-time subscriber who, once upon a time, had a brief two-week vacation from paying the monthly.

Forgive me, EverQuest. I knew not what I did.

A Piano Fell on Her Head

Hot on the tail of yesterday’s post about internet people sharing too much information with the rest of us (us being The Collective Internet of Strangers), a Warcraft player chronicled his recent real life difficulties with his pregnant girlfriend.

He subsequently deleted his post (or it was modded into the Internet Abyss — who knows, mods never explain these things), but thanks to the wonders of the Google cache, it was preserved in all its glory for a Warcraft forum discussion. (No need to check the discussion; it’s just 20 pages of bullshit. The real meat was in the original post.)

The veracity of this story is even more suspect than yesterday’s, but I reprint it here so that all may enjoy the creative skills of a fellow player. This is a little side benefit of the Warcraft servers imploding on patch day … 1.5 million bored people looking to stir up a little trouble.

I must warn you: this story is as disturbing as it is fascinating. I’m like everyone else, though: I love a good felony story.
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