I’m a connoisseur of fine gaming drama. For those just getting started with game drama, a few general rules:

1. Above all else, the drama cannot involve me. If drama impacts my gaming in any way, then I have to deal with it, and I hate that. It is imperative that the drama is swirling around others.

2. Truly fine game drama usually involves the mentally-unhinged coming unglued. If you can watch this as it actually happens, that’s a rare treat, my friends.

Naturally, I will provide a contemporaneous example. (I’m THAT good.) Over on my Star Wars server, a few months back, this player introduces himself on the server forums … you know, one of those “Hail and well met, good citizens of Server X” and all that kind of shit. (I think: wfe. anyone auctioning good loot on the trade forum?)

He announces his intention of hosting player-run events to provide the good citizens of Server X with the immersive content they so richly deserve! (wfe) He has already hosted many such events on two other SWG servers and, lucky us, will do here also! (The ex-EQ skeptic in me is immediately suspicious.)

And he hosts one battle event, with some success, and then hosts a fundraiser event, to aid in running even more events. (Ex-EQ skeptic becomes more suspicious.) He raises funds to the tune of 22 million+ credits, but can’t host any new events for a while because he is building a player city, to be an event-friendly arena.

Then, he’s leaving the game for a while because he’s getting a RL divorce. (Did we need to know the details?) Then he’s back sooner than he expected. Then, he’s quitting because the development plan is so disappointing. Then he’s back again. Then he’s in love with some game chick. (Ya, like I didn’t see that coming.) Then they’re on the outs. Then she has to call a CSR to have a talk with him allegedly because he doesn’t know when to go away.

C’mon, you have to know what comes next, right?

Then he’s in love again, this time it’s for REAL. (wfe) Now, they’re going to get married, and of course, he has to annoy me with his forum posts about how much in love they are and shouldn’t we all just be so happy for them both? (omg, go away already.) But wait! Before I can be annoyed by his posts about the glorious ceremony, he gets upset with the current mayor of his town and wants to take back control. Which he lost because of his “I’m leaving” “I’m back” “I’m leaving” “I’m back” mania.

This is where the drama starts getting good. He starts hurling obscenities at the mayor on the forums and demanding that either he or his candidate be elected instead. (omg, up the dosage on the thorzine.) So, the current mayor does some snooping around on his two previous SWG servers and finds out that this is the same psycho behavior he displayed over there. (gee, ya think?)

By now, the players that were excited about additional roleplay content (not me) are wondering what happened to all that money they donated to his fundraiser and demand some accountability. Being the forum whore that he is, you might think he would address this immediately, right? Probably in some psycho, meth-induced break from reality sort of way, but a response nonetheless.

You’d be wrong.

He posts this excrutiatingly-long write-up about his roleplay wedding and then says he’s taking a “break from the forums” for a couple of weeks and will address everyone’s concerns then. (BULLSHIT WARNING!!) I can hardly wait to see the series finale on this one. My money’s on “I was diagnosed with cancer and had to eBay the virtual money for a cancer operation”.

As you should know by now: there’s a sucker born every minute … and two to take him.

A while ago, a rumor was circulating around the SWG boards that Sony had outsourced its CSR program to India. I never saw any official word on this (as in … That is a bald-faced lie, Love, Sony Online Entertainment), but just between you, me and the doorknob, I would not be surprised.

An example of my latter day experiences with Live and In Virtual Person CSRs:

Some assbangers were feign+training my SWG guild in the toughest dungeon in the game (Death Watch Bunker .. this noob pissroom can’t come close to the craziness of old world Guk, but, yanno, this is Bore Wars). So, naturally, my guild (FOOLISHLY) thought that notifying the CSRs in live chat might elicit some response, as this was a sleepy, uneventful evening during the week. What the hell else do they have to do with all servers up and the chat room just has a few “how do I change my eye color at the initial character select screen?” people in attendance?

I should point out, in all fairness, that if my guild (and more specifically if *I*) had access to a master smuggler also, I would have feign+trained their asses so hard, they would still be cloning. I’m that kind of an “eye for an eye” guy.

CSRApu tells our guild rep that a CSR will be there shortly to investigate. (Holy shit, maybe that India thing is just a rumor.)

About a dozen feign+trains later, and an additional 9 Super Battle Droids dropped into our camp, no CSRApu. (O where o where can he be?) Eventually, cooler heads prevailed … wait, scratch that … a more pragmatic head prevailed (me), and I decided that I wasn’t going down without taking most of the assbangers with me.

Which I did. Shame that.

Here’s the happy ending, though … we did receive a partially-coherent response to our CSR tickets — thanking us for playing SWG and assuring us that “someone” was investigating our report and there would be repercussions for such assbangery.

O yes, there most certainly would be repercussions for assbangery. Not in my lifetime, but possibly in my next lifetime.

So I have that going for me.

Continued from Sony’s Vortex of Evil — The day after Sony makes their grand announcement that they won’t be fixing any of the shit they fucked up in the last year until they pump out their first SWG Demon Expansion, they post (with much fanfare and hoopla) that SWG players can sign up to beta test said Demon Expansion, The Jump to Lightspeed.
 
Of course, not everyone will be chosen.  (O no!)  And I must be at least 18.  (O no!)  And they want to install some spyware to crawl up my computer’s ass to check my system.  (Check here to always trust content from Sony Entertainment!  ya, right.)  But I can be among the first to TRY OUT SPACESHIPS and LIVE THE STAR WARS DREAM!  (fuck you.)
 
These are the same people that in one fell swoop decimated my SWG PvP guild the previous day, along with many other PvP guilds on all the servers, and now they’d like a hand in beta testing the expansion that killed PvP?  These fuckers are like Tolkien’s Nazgul … neither living nor dead.
 
Frankly, I’m not sure they even need beta testers.  It’s not like the product that emerges DIFFERS IN ANY DISCERNIBLE WAY from the beta.  This is a company reknowned for their lack of response to the public.  Why in the world would they be interested in input from those of us that know, and at times have loved, their game?  In short, they aren’t.
 
They need beta testers?  I need a Sony paycheck first before I’d waste time checking their code.  They can take their Demon Expansion and shove it up their collective asses.