So Bizarre

http://www.runescape.com

This game has the simplest graphics of any MMORPG I know.

But you know what? It's still pretty darn fun.
It's actually pretty cool, it runs out of your web browser and it's Java based. It's like the first worthwhile Java app I've ever seen. Sorry.

And it's Free.

Think UO without a subscription, and simplified. From what I hear, they've got like 250,000 users, which is huge for a non-off-the-shelf online game. Unfortunately, the idiocy of gamers still saturates this world.

My favorite experience in the game so far has been this:

When you die, you lose all your gear on you, and you have to run to pick all your stuff up before someone else grabs it.

So my guy, Hernia Bob, is fighting goblins. I'm not watching what I'm doing, and I get whacked.

I walk back to search for my stuff, and some kid starts taunting me, saying he stole my stuff and he's going to sell it all in town. I honestly didn't care, I'd only been playing for about 15 minutes, so I started replying in Spanish, like I didn't understand him. He followed me around for like 5 minutes trying to get me to beg for my stuff back, but my replies consisted of:

"?Que paso? ?Tienes mis cosas? ?Donde estan mis cosas?"

Eventually he told me I sucked and walked off.

I really want to learn a bunch of different languages now, just so I can play dumb when folks harass me online. They'll get mad, make sweeping stereotypical statements, throw some racial slurs my way, and leave.

When virtual life jacks with you, sometimes you have to create your own language barriers.

Nos vemos, suckas.

Huddled masses.

A really long time ago, my grandparents on my mom's side jumped on a boat, emigrated from Europe, and arrived in New York city. And stayed there. Later, they met each other, married, and raised their family. They passed away.

I never had the chance to ask them why they came here to the United States. Economic opportunity, freedom, the weather, who knows? Whatever it was, the urge to leave to a supposedly better place was strong enough to pack up whatever was important and light enough to fit in their trunks.

I promise, this is about gaming. I'm getting there.

The perception was that the grass (or the cash) was greener on the other side of the pond.

I've been wracking my brain lately, trying to figure out why the urge to immigrate to online worlds is so powerful. World of Warcraft just broke 2 million subscriptions, world wide. The penetration of virtual worlds is only going to increase. Why?

A couple reasons come to mind.
-The market is now truly global. Where the U. S. and Korea have sustained the MMORPG market until now, more and more countries are becoming wired. Language is also becoming less of a barrier.
-Costs of broadband are decreasing.
-Subscription models are becoming obsolete. Guild Wars is an excellent example of this. I've friends that will spend hundreds on a variety of games, but refuse to spend a single cent on a game with a subscription model.
And here's the big one:
-Folks are realizing that television has very little to offer in comparison.

To this day, in the U. S. at least, the masses are huddled in front of their flickering screens, living vicariously through the pretty people. We are a nation of escapists. And up until now, we've been limited to escaping through the lives of other people, projected through phosphor windows.

In games, the escape is personal. It's a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, with no ending. The escape is better and fills the empty places of our lives more fully.

Gamers are tired of real life. We're tired of school, taxes, nagging, work, debt, illness.

We're tired of falling short in our jobs, our relationships, our everything.

Do I stress over my student loans, or banish hordes of undead? Do I struggle with homework, or lead my guild of 100 people in a wild raid on our foes? Do I work late to please my boss, or log in and mine ingots of solid gold, gold, gold?!

The huddled mass of gamers is emigrating from a country of mediocrity to a New World, where the grass only gets greener when you upgrade your video card. The money is beginning to flow into these worlds. Lives will be sustained from it. It's happened already.

Reality is losing its luster. Whether the migration is positive or negative, it's happened. More and more folks are moving in, calling VWs home.

And soon there will be no reason to leave.

Ninja logging

If you haven't come across the term ninja logging, allow me to explain.

In any multiplayer online game, ninja logging refers to logging on, playing, never sending a message to your friends/family that are currently online, and logging off.

This creates the illusion that you're ignoring them, and for some reason is considered rude.

Ninja logging can also refer to being present in an online group in a game (usually on a quest) and logging off unexpectedly without any explanation at all.

The real life equivalent is arriving in a town where your friend lives, and never calling or visiting, then going back home.

My brothers that play Star Wars Galaxies always used to accuse me of this. I'd log on, play a bit, and log off. Later, they'd interpret this as an action on my part to avoid them. I never had a good explanation.

This will be a gaming blog, probably most directed at MMORPGs, but other games will be explored as well. I'm not shooting for a Terra Nova here, I'm aiming for more from the gamer perspective. I'll develop more of a thesis as I go.

Stuff I want to talk about:
How gaming affects you.
How gaming affects your family/friends.
Dynamics of online games.

I hope to do this with a minimal amount of hype.