Author Archives: Foton

Nature Abhors a Vacuum

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A few years ago, I noticed an interesting phenomenom in online gaming; although it will be more conspicuous in the guild ecosystem, I have observed it also in the general populace.

One drama queen will be slain and finally, BLISSFULLY, is out of my gaming life, but, like lopping off a head of the hydra, another drama queen will arise to take the former’s place. After careful analysis (five minutes of drunken thinking one night), I concluded this was because nature abhors a vacuum.

Every stage must have a drama queen. WHY? I do not know, but drama queens are drawn to captive audiences like flies to shit. God love ’em.

Back in my EverQuest life, when I belonged to a high-end raiding guild, we had to endure a nightly live performance. For you noobs out there, a high-end raiding guild is like smoking EverCrack with a pressure cooker. I wasn’t really PLAYING EQ anymore, it was my second job and I was working it. Every night we had an assignment, and if it took two hours to complete (rare), I would get a full night’s sleep. If it took until 5 the next morning, then I got zero sleep.

I played with the same people every night, in just a handful of zones, killing the same handful of boss mobs, usually for zero personal reward, other than the reward of a job well-done and a guildmate pleased with his/her/its new elite lewt. (I am making that up … after about six raids, I was over the “helping others” thing.) Most nights we logged off barely speaking to one another.

Along the way, we recruited this druid, female (maybe), who, initially, was a valuable addition to our numbers. As time went on, my patience began to wear thin as she was CONSTANTLY chattering away in guild channel about her nonexistent sexual relations with her husband (did I need to know that?), what weird ass p0rn she had looked at while at work, or what her dog was doing at any given moment. And! she would end every sentence with lol.

Few days of that shit and she went straight to my ignore list. Sure, there were some embarassing moments when it was obvious that I had /ignored a guildmate, but the peace was well worth making up some bullshit lie why I hadn’t heard her seven responses to my question in a public channel.

Eventually, a few other guildies /ignored her also, to get some respite from the prattle, and it got so prevalent, that we had to arrange a system where we took turns taking her off ignore and reporting if she ever said anything important. I rarely took a turn — I couldn’t be trusted.

Fast forward a few weeks and the guildleader admits defeat in trying to reconcile The Ignorers and The Ignored. So he shitcanned her (after three hours of makeshift psychotherapy –comforting her while she sobbed, ranted, then sulked). W F E. Thanks for stopping.

NOT EVEN ONE WEEK LATER, one of our clerics starts up on the guild stage. How come she’s not the cleric lead? She’s just bitchy lately because she’s pregnant. Her hemorrhoids are so painful, she can’t sit through a whole raid (unless there was cleric loot coming up). Christ.

After a few weeks, I was begging for death.

I realize now that it IS too much to ask that we just play the game. Nightly dramatics, courtesy of the Queen Collective, are mandatory.

It’s always open mic night online. *insert sarcastic clapping*

Bipolar Toons … The Mystery Solved!

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We had an interesting issue arise in our SWG guild recently. Not interesting to me, of course — as a seasoned gaming hag, I’m all over this shit early. But, it was fascinating for our guild noobs to witness. Fascinating like a freak show is fascinating.

One of our members was pulling a psycho, bipolar, disassociative personality routine on us. One night, he/she/it was cooperative, rah rah for our side and all that. Next night, moody, sullen, wondering when the hell we’d get off our asses and fetch him/her/it some uberness.

Needs to up the thorazine dosage?

Wrong. (You ARE new around here, aren’t you?)

It’s obviously the Dual-Driver Syndrome. (I should also mention the rare, but not unheard of Multiple-Driver Syndrome — three or more drivers for one toon. There’s more drama with one of these hoes than a trailer park with hourly rentals.)

Whenever I run across DDS toons, I like to have a little fun with them at their expense. Once I’m sure I have Driver2 on the hook, I “remind” it that it owes me virtual money, or promised to help complete an annoying quest, maybe even a powerlevel for my alts … all courtesy of it.

It’s the perfect crime because, unless Driver2 wants to confess and claim no knowledge of such an agreement between the toon and me, it is trapped into doing my bidding. All night, every night. Until Driver1 gets back and asks me wtf kind of crack I’m smoking.

This latest DDS toon was being driven by this woman and her RL boyfriend. The woman was roleplay married to this other toon which irritated the hell out of Driver2, the boyfriend. Naturally, each time I knew it was Driver2, I made sure to chat, in a very conspiratorial manner, about the intimate exploits (all made up, of course) between the toon and the fake husband.

Driver2 held out for quite a while, refusing to confess, until I finally tired of my prank and asked the toon, “When was it that you and (fake husband) were going to meet irl again? It was soon, right?” (ffs, just confess, mf’er.) Driver2 logged soon thereafter.

In yet another one of those instances where I am so right I frighten even myself, turns out it was true … Driver1 and fake husband did have a RL hookup planned. She admitted as much to her RL boyfriend and he dropped her like a disease-ridden whore.

I would feel guilty about my small part in this drama … if I had a soul left.

I think it got nerfed a few years back.

Riddle Me This, Riddle Me That

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Tonight, I went googling around the various gaming info sites, trolling for new material … I’ve grown weary of reliving, in technicolor horror, the daily dramas that are my gaming life. Even Diogenes took a day off here and there. Probably.

Anyways, I googled myself right into an article just chock full o’ subscription numbers, break even points and renewal figures. (the horror, the horror) Which normally I would hate — it’s not MY job to worry about MMOGs staying afloat, after all. It’s Their job.

This analysis of MMOG subscriptions is more than just an exercise in mathematics. The author wrote an adequate history of The Bigs, et al, and drew some interesting conclusions about the saturation of the market, competition, blah blah … *snoring noises*

City of Heroes is doing better than I had realized. (why? why??) Shadowbane, no shock here, is not doing well by anyone’s standards. That they have ANY subscribers is the true mystery, but the author doesn’t address that end of it. Probably that part IS my job … well, hobby, since I don’t get a paycheck for this.

Apparently, some gaming think tank (I’m not making that up, there is such a thing) was hired by Anarchy Online’s Funcom to rescue them when they started bleeding subscriptions out of every orifice. Cute name, (which they explain on their site ’cause they’re that geeky), although after I read through their manifesto, I get the sneaking suspicion they should have named their tank “Mephistopheles”.

I don’t even know ANYTHING about these guys, but anyone spending that much time in bed with game developers cannot be good for my gaming enjoyment. I can’t imagine Lucifer’s think tank would ever tell a client “Listen. Your game sucks. This isn’t rocket science. Build a better mousetrap, and the world will come.”

And to think I can make up that shit on the fly. And for free.