I'M NOT DEAD. TIS' ONLY A FLESHWOUND!

Time flies and the MMOG juggernaut rolls on when you're still trying to find your damn modem amongst the multitude of brown storage boxes littering your lounge room floor. 53 simoleons and a piece of virtual dirt to the first person who can tell me which box it currently resides in.

And what has happened since I last put finger to keyboard? Well, a whole damn lot. Serves me right for... well... being me.

EQ2, not content with being upstaged by WoW once again, has decided "If Blizzard can have a couple of their servers offline for 24 hours, we can beat that, newb!". Apparently a minor patch did a very un-minor thing - like wiping quest journals, removing citizenship, and reseting quests that gave access to particular zones. As laid out here, the typical server shutdown soon followed, with a rollback also being put into motion. All servers, right across the board, experienced at least 24 hours of downtime, and as I write this little blurb, a number of servers still have yet to experience the heartwarming cries of "That was my camp, u f4g!".

The motto "You're in our NEW world now" is having a good old chuckle right about now.

***

A fellow called Scott, known to some as that chap Lum and to others as their saviour and bane rolled into one, continues to re-dabble in the black arts and, as observed by some people, seemingly gets closer to the Lum of ye olde (I'd like to think it was me that gave the kick to the behind, what with the "change" occuring soon after I started this fabulous site. Hey, I have an ego to stroke too, don'tchaknow). Naturally, this grates with a few people - namely the rantees. Oh, and those people that don't like dancing too.

Case in point: Scott talks about griefing. It sucks and it's easy to do because of this Interrornet thingy we all use where no one has to suffer the consequences of raping and pillaging the 5-minute-old newbie.

Some child got his diaper in a twist over this, and called Scott names. (Hmm. Is there a name for the psychological disorder in which you abuse someone, make a snide remark about "MMOG luminaries", and yet use the exact same page layout and style created and made famous by the same guy you abuse?)

Scott offers his rebuttal, consisting of a nice serve of "Grow-the-fuck-up-and-move-on".

Of course, does any of this really matter? According to this guy, no, UO is a dead fish.

***

Now that players have had time to prepare their new post-Catacombs Flavor-Of-The-Month toons, Mythic has announced some future plans. A new batch of character customizations will become available, thereby helping you look more individual. Expect only 1 in 6 people to now use the same appearance.

Mythic has also announced an industry-first server cluster feature, allowing players from unbalanced servers to fight in shared frontiers (PvP), and if wanted by the player, shared homelands (PvE). Now, while I reckon this looks pretty interesting, there's;

a) No way I'm changing my name if someone from one of the shared servers also has the same name.
b) No way I'm travelling from Aegir to Moderngrav 3 times just to finally find out which server has been designated by the players as the one to kill Moderngrav redcaps on.

The third plan revolves around instanced RvR areas - said to be one of the most requested features, and something I'll be sure to check out. Yet, am I the only one that sees this becoming the most popular way to RvR and depleting the frontiers of players, just so people who miss the old days of Emain 8v8 gank groups can once again brag over their mad assist-train sk1llz?

***

It's all fun and games until Blizzard/Vivendi pokes you in the eye. And the wallet.

As suggested in the comments, good luck Blizzard/Vivendi on trying to stand the EULA up in court if the people making money in this case never "signed" the EULA. You'll need it. But hey, maybe you'll get lucky. You can score with this bright spark of a judge again.

***

"Online gaming would be great if it weren't for the fact that you have to play with other people."

No doubt that comment could stem from something like this, and is a clear case of why people suck.

For those not shocked and bewildered enough, apparently the game in question was Asheron's Call. The Darktide server to be exact. So yes, people still play there. You may close your gaping mouth now.

Meanwhile, South Bend is about to have a visit from this guy.

Comments

[D-0ne]

Some things never change. Things like Raph’s ego and his inability to accept reality and everyone else’s pathetic attempts to remove the blindfold that is permastitched across the eyes of any mere mortal deemed a game designer/developer.

Basically it all can be summarized as, “Making games is HARD!”. Which of course we all know is bullshit. We all know being critical of others is really, really, really easy and that combined with teen angst, drama queens, know it alls, and anonymity, creates a feeding frenzy of what can only be described as infinite nerdom in a drunken stupor.

The original EverQuest got PvP right. Player versus player that involves me standing over the virtual corpse of another player belongs in first person shooters. Roleplaying games and player versus player should involve virtual peen length as deemed by player’s accomplishment versus environmental accomplishments. Yee who can recruit, organize and strategize the best wins. Being the first to slay the dragon is an accomplishment and that’s player versus player in an RPG. Emoting azzrape over the top of “whocaresanyonecouldhavedoneit” is not player versus player in an RPG.

Have any kind of day you like.

[griefers]

It's cute how you blogosphere nobodies start idolizing me the moment I toast Lummy on his crappy default Wordpress.

Lum would use his old format, if he could. I think the fact that a 24-year old accounting major and part-time "griefer" is more adept at PHP and MYSQL than Mythic's main database programmer really speaks volumes as to why the US MMOG industry is "not ready for prime-time".

Sincerely,
Surly Bob
http://www.griefers.net

PS: Your site is painful to look at.

[Cosmik]

I'm not sure on what planet being called a child, and worse on other sites, is seen as "idolizing", but hey, as long as your drugs ease the pain, right?

Meanwhile, on this planet, I couldn't give a fuck as to the color scheme or font or whatever the fuck else of my site. I don't come here to make pretty pictures. However, I guess it's a bit of an issue with your ego, hence the need to rip off Lum's old layout.

Ph34r those MYSQL and PHP skillz.

[Azaroth]

Hahaha. Oh man, Surly is getting owned all over the internet. It'd be truly funny if it weren't so predictable.

[griefers]

You have an interesting definition of "getting owned", Az. Next time, try not being such a sniveling coward and pick a fight with me on a board where some people will actually see you get humiliated (again).

http://boards.powergamers.net/viewthread.php?tid=16528&page=3

Everyone check out this thread where I pwn Az 10 different ways! COMEDY GOLD!

Sincerely,
Surly Bob
http://www.griefers.net

PS: Just thought I'd remind you again that I'm an accounting major. I have job skills. When I go for a job interview, I wear a suit, not a hairnet! If I ran a runuo shard, I wouldn't have to beg 18-year olds to code it for me!! It must really hurt to see me on top after you tried to "take me down a peg" with your WTFMan "friends". DOES IT BURN, YOU LITTLE SHIT??

I'm truly having a "Merry Christmas" thanks to all of you internet idiots! :D :D :D

[Surly Bob]

I can read you like a book, Az. You're contemplating making an update on your blog about me. You see that your messageboard will be down to zero posts a day by 2005, and you desperately want a controversy to keep your little aborted domain on life support. DO it, man. You'll be playing right into my hands. Link me, you peon. You can't resist. I fucking control you. You are my bitch.

[Azaroth]

Holy fuck... I knew you had problems, but this is insane.

[Hesiod]

Surly,

Since you're in such a fluffed up frame of mind, would you care to list your accomplishments? I'll help you out, there are none, you are a sorry excuse for an unintelligent troll. Accounting major? Who gives a fuck? Great, you could be in school for physics, doesn't make you Stephen Hawking. Accounting was sad before your ass laid claim to it. You're nothing but a troll and a poor one at that. Refer to the above... what the fuck have you done to deserve this ego? I ain't seen it.

[Azaroth]

I was also wondering what exactly he meant by "on top", but, of course, I also didn't really care enough about him to ask.

[Main]

I agree with you, completely. Done.

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Thanks for the post!

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Very well written!

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Loved your post.

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All the best.

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Holy Jesus!