Author Archives: Foton

I Love a Good Caper

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Recently, I was skimming through the various other (*cough*lesser*cough*) gaming blogs and ran across this lengthy, but extremely well told gaming scam from Eve Online.

GOD DAMN, this is a good read and is as fine a caper as anything David Mamet has written, but without the annoying stilted dialogue. Better yet, no legal consequences!

I read some comments about how this is a morality play about “the emotional salience of interactions” (I won’t embarass the poor s.o.b. by linking that) . Am I taking crazy pills here? I don’t even think that is anything, and I do know what all those words mean. If that’s the kind of crap they teach in college in the 21st century, the future is dead.

Usually the scammers aren’t very literate, or literate AT ALL, which makes this story all the more appealing — but ultimately, it is just another scam. He makes no apologies; he asks for no forgiveness. And he certainly doesn’t give a clown’s ass about emotional salience.

There’s a sucker born every minute. And two to take him.

Fate Accompli

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My SWG guild finally got around to firing that whack job we had voted off our island. I couldn’t do it personally (shame that), as real life obligations prevented me from stalking 24/7.

Contrary to predictions from the guild bleeding hearts, the WJ didn’t burst into tears and beg to remain on the island, but instead asked to receive an official guild email re: reasons for the termination … and then promptly switched factions and went off to live happily ever after with a pretend online boyfriend.

W T F

Not wtf about the pretend online boyfriend, that’s almost a daily event in online society, but W T F about getting a guild email outlining the reasons. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t do the snipe job on this, because no fucking way in hell would I take even two minutes of my time to write some bullshit for a whack job. (Although I would probably shorten my response to “fuck that”.)

No doubt in my mind that the WJ is gearing up to start some drama — O M G, I was crucified, and now I’m a martyr, PITY ME!! FLAME THEM!!

Here’s why you got waxed: You suck at PVP, even after WEEKS of practice, I can count on one thing from you … you’re dead before the battle is 30 seconds old. You’re a creep. I’ll go out on a limb and state that 26 year old adults making moves to have a sexual relationship with an 18 year old barely-adult pretend online boyfriend is CREEPY. You became the punchlines to all our jokes, for that and oh so much more.

Take your licks and move on. Which, after consideration, you should enjoy.

Developer Memos: Introduction

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This is the first in an occasional series of Memos to Developers: Things They Should and Shouldn’t Do … although I will warn you up front, these really are in the category of Things I Shouldn’t Have to Write Down. Common sense and all that, which curiously is more uncommon than one might think.

Like, “This coffee is scalding hot, do not place near your sensitive genital area while driving at speeds greater than three miles per hour” or “POISON – DO NOT EAT!!” … and yet we do have to write that stuff down, don’t we?

I get a chuckle from Game Rant sites that do a lot of numerical analysis about break-even points for box sales, subscription numbers to keep a game afloat, how to improve games’ replayability and multiplayer content levels. Honestly, is it the players’ jobs to tell developers what will be profitable and what is “fun”? Isn’t it obvious?

Well, it would be obvious for anyone that actually plays games. Consider that little tidbit the first common sense item. PLAY YOUR OWN GAME.

Play all the classes and races. PvP and PvE with almost no equipment. Level up a crafter. Collect loot and craft components. Try to make game money as a noob. Travel around.

And when you find out how mind-numbingly boring some of your game mechanics are, walk over to the responsible designer’s cubicle and beat him with his own severed limb.

It can be a very effective motivator.