Stuff

Game theory gone bad

Funny little film-clip from The Princess Bride (WMV, 5.5MB)

Old news

“Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives, from day to day, by the small wages which he acquires? We may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean and perish, the moment he leaves her.” (“Of the Original Contract”)

Asked David Hume, and that old debate seems as fresh as ever – at least it’s a constant cause of disagreement among those interested in virtual worlds, e.g. this thread.

So they thought they could mainstream gaming, study it and lay bare all its secrets? Thought they could clean it up and make room for newcomers who would be judged on their merits alone? Well, they thought wrong (‘they’ often do).
As always, the old-timers find ways of remaining exclusive. As is often the case this happens by inventing slang or even entire codes that only the initiated can negotiate safely. Leetspeek had to happen.
Here’s this blog in Leetspeek, courtesy of The l33t Surfer.

Risk-free societies

I’m quite bored with the Disneyworld approach to social interaction strived for by several MMORPGs. I think I’m ready for something more PvP soon – and a bit of permadeath wouldn’t hurt either. Also, it seems increasingly self-defeating to me to instate rules that roleplaying can never be an excuse to violate the be-nice rules of EULAs. I think my dream MMORPG would have PvP, permadeath (or at least something close) and an advancement system which made sure that even newbies could “physically” threaten experienced players. Oh, and now that I’m reading from the wish-list I would also like to see worlds in which choices actually had long-term consequences even if it meant upsetting carefully established gameplay balances. But I guess I’ve ranted on this before.

Jurassic Park

And then you die…

Gore

The Prince of Persia: Warrior Within demo shows the game to be: Excessively violent, too action-oriented for my tastes, and extremely, untastefully entertaining.
The distorted guitars and heavy drums all add to what is perhaps one of the more truly baroque game experiences I’ve ever had.

Free Culture

The SWG EULA makes it clear that:

For any of your Content that is not a Derivative Content, you hereby exclusively grant and irrevocably assign to our licensors and us all rights of any kind or nature throughout the universe to such Content (including all ancillary and subsidiary rights thereto which include, without limitation, merchandising and interactive media rights) in any languages and media now known or not currently known.

This seems a little limited, only this universe? What about parallel dimensions?

Her highness

Okay, no-one’s going to tell me that’s not Princess Leia herself (left side, under the trees). She’s on Naboo, and to think that I sped right past her. The stories to tell one’s grandchildren.

Twinked!

Moving rapidly from frog-fighting street thug into the ranks of the newly rich, I met up with Chek in Star Wars Galaxies. Chek, being accomplished in the arcana of the game’s mechanics was throwing around goodies like credits and a nice hover bike now residing comfortably in the… well, pocket of yours truly. Biking in the sunset I was given a great tutorial and was later taken to see the stately – postcardly situated – houses of certain esteemed game researchers.
Oh, and Chek keeps some dragons around. And I think he is closer to the emperor than he cares to admit :-)

Category: Stuff