Play! that Funky Music

Ok, now this I don’t get, and I’ve actually spent a few minutes trying to get it.

As featured on the World of Warcraft front page this week, Play! A Video Game Symphony is an orchestra playing music from video games like Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Silent Hill and others. Three gigs are scheduled so far: Chicago, Stockholm (sold out) and Philadelphia.

I checked out the Chicago ticket prices: cheap seats $35, pricey seats $125, with a range of options in between. The $125 seats include a meet and greet with the following:

– Arnie Roth, Music Director and Conductor of PLAY! And The Chicagoland Pops Orchestra
– Rony Barrak, guest artist (percussionist) sponsored by Electronic Arts
– Yuzo Koshiro, One of the composers of Shenmue
– Jeremy Soule, Composer of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
– Jason Hayes, Composer of World of Warcraft
– Marty O’Donnell, Composer of Halo
More special guests to be announced!

I gotta say, I enjoy in-game music as much as the next guy, but I’m not downloading it from game sites and listening on my iPod. In fact, I don’t know anyone that does or would. To actually pay for a ticket, logoff the game, MISS A RAID and DKP, I dunno … seems like quite a commitment.

Maybe this sort of thing appeals to the roleplay crowd, otherwise I have no clue.

You figure it out, you explain it to me.

Think of All the Unborn Alts!

Have you been wondering when character creation will be allowed again for the realms it was previously disabled on? Good luck with that! Originally promised to be answered last Friday, then Monday, then Tuesday, each day came and went without a word. Who knows when or if we’ll ever see one now? I’m sure I’ll burn in hell for saying this, but I am truly starting to miss Sony. They didn’t give a shit about you, and you knew to bring the lube, but at least you knew.

LFGLBTG

Lots of fuss about the Warcraft guild that was pitching recruitment to the GLBT community. (OMG, you noob. That’s Gay Lesbian Bi Trannie, GLBT. I know. It’s hell trying to keep up with the evolving language of Internet Acronyms.)

Here’s the report, from In Newsweekly, and the gist of it is that Blizzard said they couldn’t GLBT-recruit, and I can understand Blizzard’s position on this: the potential for problems (directed against the niche guild) and mature-themed public conversations is too great.

Why can’t the GLBT people just explain to recruits in /tells that many of them are GLB or T and leave it at that? Some guild explains that to me, I’d thank them and wish them well. There’d be no hate, no hard feelings, but I doubt I could keep up with the acronyms … or the Brokeback Mountain discussions.

Anyways, the absolute best comment I’ve seen about this whole issue is over at the Poindexters … the 10th comment down, by Tess, a game design blogger herself:

On another game once, a woman was invited to join our guild, and she asked if her husband could come along. She warned us that he liked roleplaying gay, and some people didn’t understand. We laughed, and told her that we had RL gays in the guild, so it was no big deal at all. She was, needless to say, quite relieved.

(emphasis mine) Heh. Just think about that.

I wish I would have been in that guild. I could have gotten a lot of mileage out of that situation.