Author Archives: Foton

Star Wars Really Isn’t a Lifestyle

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Apparently, I will be the only person on the planet at work tomorrow. I honestly don’t mind single-handedly propping up the world economy so the rest of you stiffs can enjoy yourselves at the multiplex. Over at Foton’s Office, I’ll be answering the phones, finalizing sales presentations, doing a little artwork, probably filling out a few payroll tax returns, too. Seriously. I. don’t. mind.

Wired has an e-article today about Star Wars fans and their — how to say? — compulsive devotion to the series, including a fan tattoo site, an R2 builders’ club (I’m not making that up), and an online toy museum, whose poor curator is well over his bandwidth allowance with Geoshitties — no doubt thanks to the mention in Wired.

Also, some other Star Wars related articles in the left sidebar, as well as an article about p0rn bloggers. It’s a hellish industry. P0rn, not blogging. Not that I read it. I’m guessing.

If you still don’t have your wardrobe finalized for tonight’s midnight showing, TK409.com’s Do It Yourself Star Wars Props can help. Most of these look pretty time consuming — I recommend you stop wasting time on the net and get going. DO IT NOW!

About those props, if you’re a jedi, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency has a short list of Embarassing Things That Might Happen to You While Using a Lightsaber.

I would have thought the fact that you’re carrying around a plastic toy would be embarassment enough. Learn something new every day.

E E E

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As you all know, this E3 thing is this week. HA! Did you know? I was only vaguely aware because I read the better blogs.

But here’s what I was wondering. Do players, y’know, just gamer people, go to this thing? I’m thinking they do. This strikes me as far too much of a commitment to a hobby than I’m willing to give. Is it me? Am I wrong?

Everything’s leaked on the net two hours after it’s finalized anyhow, so how could there possibly be any unheard of, unseen shiny?

Nevertheless, plenty of blogs and news sites are covering the amazing! must-see! fun of an industry media event convention, including one blog, that I won’t name, with a fucked newsfeed that sends all their old posts as new material every time my feed reader refreshes. (Ever hear of adding your own feed to a reader to check that it’s operational?)

Best coverage that I’ve seen is Amit’s of These Damned Machines Are Killing Me. Of the myriad sites providing wall-to-wall, he’s one of the few that isn’t just pumping up the punctuation on press releases and doing a reblog.

Sure hope the food gets better for him, brave lil trooper.

Gotta Walk Tall in the Wild West

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Today I checked the Guild Wars front page which I haven’t done since the game went live. I assumed they wouldn’t ever update it because, y’know, no monthly fee. Since the server farm has been up and operational every time I wanted to play, they’re really under no obligation to change, update, fix or explain anything.

In my own mind, no monthly means we’re not married. I can walk away, they can walk away.

In many ways, this is my kind of relationship.

I know they had some blahblah about pushing new content every so often, but who believes that anymore? But there it is, in black and gold, in less than a month they pushed new content. Crazy. (The 5-16-05 news item because ArenaNet doesn’t believe in permalinks either.)

The rest of it is standard front page schtick: guild of the week, contests, press coverage, yawn, but one item caught my eye … Name Alert System. You can, in fact, report offensive character names via email. Damn.

I was enjoying the whole Wild West, lawless, Deadwood feel of Guild Wars. You’re on your own in this world, cupcake. No GMs to whine to, no official/moderated/corporately-sanitized (I hereby lay legal claim to the adjective “corporatized”) message boards to spam, no recourse WHATSOEVER.

You fuck up, you’re annoyed, you’re offended, game screws you, tough shit.

On paper, that sounds bad, but hell, there’s no monthly fee, the server farm is always open for business, I have no complaints.

I’m not a frequent petitioner in any game as it is; I think the only petition I ever sent to Blizzard was “hi, boats are broken. thx.” The authority-free world that I imagined of Guild Wars (and maybe is, the email addy could be a junk folder for all I know) was tremendously liberating.

It’s just the NPCs and us. There’s no one here to save you now.