book review

So. I finished Echoes of the Fourth Magic the other night.

Gotta say that I'm truly impressed. It was a fresh take on a post apocalyptic society.

I don't want to say too much and give anything away for those who haven't read it. If you haven't, I highly recommend that you do. The hottest geek I know told me to read the series, and damned if he wasn't right yet again.

There are two things that I really liked the most about the first book in the series and have me ready for the next.

The first is the way that Salvatore tied the old world to the new. This includes everything from the hold overs from the dead world that went before, to the speech patterns of the various races that were inherited from the few who came forward. It provides a nice solid background to the characters in the story and makes them feel like they fit in the places he's put them.

The other thing I liked, which will likely be a topic of future musing, was the main protagonists view of war and violence. Despite my road rage and the general joking about that I do, I'm actually not violent in the least. I unleash my temper through words and vent out the angry grr feelings by imagining horrid things and then throwing them away. I'd never actually do any of it because violence is... well... eww.

It's abhorrent and does nothing but beget more violence. We're a primitive people, genetically, and our biological urges haven't caught up to our super ego imposed societal mores. (Re-reading that, it looks dreadfully pretentious and vaguely along the lines of one of our all time favourite subjects of pokeage... so... it stays.) The point is, we're still rather base creatures. Prone to fighting and given to vengeance.

It's a hard urge to overcome and I battle with it every time some halfwit in a toyota cuts me off. But, battle it I do. And so does our hero in this novel. That, more than anything, is what endeared the story to me.

Yeah, we can make the world better... but we need to start with ourselves first.

Note: I no longer have a ton of time to read, as I've managed to wrangle myself all kinds of obligations for my time. So these will happen whenever I manage to finish a book. On my desk to be read (and waiting to be pulled out of boxes) there are currently at least 14 books. So bear with me. I'll get to them all eventually.

The Blizzardification of the Gaming World

I was talking with a brilliant and rather delicious friend one day about making video games. A subject which I know nothing about, but about which he knows a TON. The very great advantage to having a few friends in the gaming industry is that when I can get them chatting about what they do, I learn a lot.

One thing that he mentioned that stood out in my mind and has been really making me think for several months now is how things have changed in the gaming industry since WoW hit it so big. Gaming talk has started to revolve around WoW and Blizzard and that model. No longer abstract and gamey, it's now all WoW this and WoW that.

The phenomenon that is WoW has taken over and seeped into every aspect of the gaming world.

This is a problem.

Not because WoW is a bad game or anything. For what it is, it's really great. It has its appeal and that's all good. It doesn't appeal to me, but that's just... ya know, me.

So why is it a problem? Because in their desperate race for power and glory, game designers have forgotten one thing. They forgot to hook up the doll. (2 points for getting the reference.) No really. The problem is that WoW has become the benchmark for so many people. It has become the standard by which success is measured.

Unfortunately this is an inaccurate and fallacious measurement. It's like the view that women who read a lot of romance novels develop about sex and relationships. It isn't normal. And it sets standards that are unattainable.

So what happens because of this? We end up with a lot of games that are clones of WoW. They're out there trying to make it WoW, but different in the hopes that they'll hit on that mystical combination of variables that gets them the nine million subscriptions.

Grimwell wrote a great bit about it in his blog with regards to venture capitalists and what they look for when investing in game ideas. I agree with him on a lot of points there. Since he was focusing on the business end of things though, he neglected to mention how this burning desire to hit the million sub mark is hurting the gaming industry in other ways.

That way is the players. We're being hurt by this WoW cloning machine. Games are getting a little cookie cutter and boring. All these new games coming out that should be good and fun to play because of the ideas behind them are losing. There isn't a lot of market for the same game over and over with a different paint job. Well, except for Madden... but that's another fluke.

Eventually there are going to be so many games out that are boring copy cats of WoW that people who play MMOs are going to lose interest entirely and look elsewhere.

SOE down!!

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Okay, it isn't really. Just some updates and such.

So check out the fluff Cal and I have posted for your viewing pleasure.

And don't expect an updated blog entry until later today. I'm having too much fun making up downtime haikus with Coyote.

Everyone has an off day...

But gods is it embarassing when it happens.

Calthine sent me a link to this thread and I have to admit that I giggled. Fortunately it hasn't happened to me yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did at some point. Like the poor person in the thread I, too, have a tendancy to get a little distracted. Forums, blogs, netflix queue (mine's at some 300 or so movies eep!), tv, books, shiny objects... You get the idea.

This made me giggle since I'd just been telling her about an article I'd written (we'll be tossing that up late tonight for tomorrow's downtime) about how I multitask when I heal.

The bad part comes in with the fact that I was actually writing that article during a labs raid.

Okay, so labs is easy right? We farm it weekly (and this week was a GOOD loot run omg), and as such, we usually run through it in about an hour and half or so. Two hours if people are going ld or we're just goofing around.

This last run was one of our really not good runs. There was much badness when we got to Vymenn. This is a little amusing to me just because normally we're so good about it. The very next day, we spanked the Lyceum the way we're supposed to.

So that got me to thinking. What exactly is it that makes a day run so wrong that your raid just totally screws the pooch? I'd love to say that it can all be chalked up to the distracted inquisitor, but I know I'm just not that integral. What is it then? Just too many people woolgathering? A split second off on the pull? It can't be a lack of skill, cause we do it all the time. Perhaps a general klutziness about the entire raid force?

I have no idea really, but it made for an interesting saturday afternoon. Maybe next week, I'll turn off the tv...

More stuff that makes me cranky...

I was raised by my grandparents. They were born in the 30's. So I'm a tad on the old fashioned side. I don't think that my current rant is a matter of generational gappitude though. I think it's just sheer frelling laziness.

What the hell am I talking about?

Parenting.

Or rather the lack thereof.

Examples of the things that annoy the piss out of me about parents today:

Blaming their kid's bad behaviour on music, games, tv, music.

This has to be the biggest cop out ever. Oh my kid beat up that poor person because they played a video game and it's the fault of the video game makers. Umm... Wrong, Kato. It's your damn fault for buying the violent video game. It's your fault for not teaching your kid right from wrong. It's your fault for not disciplining your kid and fostering in them the idea that they can do anything they want and blame it on something else. It's your fault for being a shitty parent.

Allowing their little girls to dress like prostitutes.

This bothers me on so many levels that I choke on the words. No way in hell should a six year old girl be wearing crop tops and leather pants. No way should a 12 year old girl be trying to look like Britney Spears or whatever other slut pop star is currently setting trends. What the fuck ever happened to letting your kid be a freaking kid?

I was hanging with my little five year old son getting mommy hugs and smooches and the little spaz tried to tongue kiss me. I was livid. I was all kinds of set to talk to the teachers at his Pre-K, the parents of the little girls he learned that shit from, not to mention the verbal lashing his father got for not putting a stop to that crap right out of the gate.

I don't care if the kid is 16 or four. It makes no difference. Cause even at 16 a child is still a goddamned child. And our duties as parents are to ensure that our children are protected and grow up able to think for themselves and protect themselves when we let them go out into the world. The only thing they learn by being allowed to emulate skanky chicks or adult behaviour long before they are able to understand the consequences of such, is to be trash.

The early and oversexualization of children is abhorrent. I just want to beat people who allow it.

Child Abuse

This is a lot broader a category than it appears on first blush. It isn't just people beating their kids or locking them in closets. It isn't just sexual molestation, which also makes me damn near homicidal. It's also neglect.

I don't just mean not feeding or taking care of a kid. It also means not taking an interest. Not teaching your kid. Yeah, that goes back to an earlier topic. Not actively guiding and teaching a child is neglect as surely as anything else.

I also classify as abuse limiting your child. Not limiting like giving them rules to follow to keep them safe, but like crippling them by enforcing on them the idea that they aren't capable of doing something. Not encouraging and supporting a child, not instilling in them a belief that they can do anything they set their mind to, or at the very least TRY. I was in Best Buy one day and about choked on my own tongue when some (insert an insult of your choosing here because I won't repeat what I called her) woman looked at her little girl and the movie she had and said: You don't want that, that's a boy movie. Her voice was dripping with disgust and you could just see the little girl wilt under the scorn. I've never wanted to punch another human being so much as I did at that instant.

Obviously, I get a little tense about children. My maternal instincts are definitely in overdrive and always have been. I see people who use their kids to hurt an ex and I just want to beat them. Kids are one of my hot buttons. The possibly psychological causes and ramifications of this are not lost on me and I can make fun of myself for it, so it's unlikely I'll go postal any time soon...

A heaping helping of humilty...

I made a new friend recently and was directed to their site...

Browsing through that site alone was impressive, but rolling through some of the linked blogs and pages was indeed a humbling experience.

I like to tell myself that I'm a writer, and to be absolutely technical about it I am. I mean, I'm doing it right now. I write everyday. Most of it is drek and I don't do anything with it.

There are times though, when I feel like a little girl playing dress up with mommy's clothes.

Today was completely one of those moments of "Oh my gods... I'm so completely deluding myself." Fortunately, rather than having the urge to just throw up my hands and find a new dream, I'm thinking it's really about time to get my happy white ass in gear and start writing for real.

People only really need a few hours of sleep a day anyway... right?

Things that make me twitch...

Legends of Norrath

I hate this game with a particular purple passion. No really. I freaking hate it.

I don't understand it. It makes me feel stupid. The AI cheats like a total bitch.

But I can't stop playing it. It fascinates me. The cards are gorgeous, and there's just something about it that calls to me. I don't know if it's because I can't let the AI sit there and be victorious or what.

Whatever it is, I can't stay away from it.

Typos

Mine, other people's, the ones in professionally edited and published novels... I don't know why. It isn't like it really matters. But for some reason it's like that little scab you have on your knee from when you tripped over that ginormous freaking, grand canyon sized crack in the sidewalk. It just sits there and makes my teeth itch and I have to correct it.

I've gotten a bit better about it lately. Mostly cause I have a friend who now does it on purpose sometimes just to eff with me. Or refuses to fix them because he knows that I'll sit there and twitch about it all day. Yeah.

Celebrity Bullshit

Who. The. Fuck. Cares. Seriously, I don't give a rat's nasty stinky ass what the hell Britney or Paris or whatever other skanky ho who passes for a famous person is doing.

I pick up way too much of this by osmosis for my personal happiness. I get the obsession with celebrities and all, but I don't share it. I've got better things to do with my time.

Although I will admit to getting a massive giggle out of the Oscar de la Hoya in drag pictures. Now, I just need to figure out who he is...

People

Alright, not all people. But a good portion of them. There are some massively useless people who work in my office. I would cheerfully pit roast them.

There are also some ridiculously pretentious and annoying bastards out there who make me (to borrow a good word) stabby.

There's a whole lot of other crap, but those are probably the top of the pile.

I'm going to go back to sleep now... I mean work. Really. I know my eyes are closed, but this is TOTALLY my working face.

My cats are magpies...

They very nearly didn't make it to their first birthdays.

Picture this. 5:30 in the am (which is simply an ungodly hour and which I should not see except on my way to bed), and I'm in the shower. Washing my hair and trying to wake up.

I hear a little "tink" from out in the bathroom and immediately think to myself, oh hell. I peek around the shower curtain and there are two very guilty looking little fuzzballs. One on the counter and one peeking around the door. I look at them, they look at me. Then the little toe chompers dash out of the bathroom as if Cerberus were after them.

I hurry up and finish my shower and get out to look in the sink. Sure enough, one ring. The other three that I wear on a daily basis are no where to be found. I mourn their loss down the drain and start thinking about what I want to do with the cat corpses. I consider cooking them, decide it's too much trouble and decide to just huck em in the dumpster and then start mentally spending the money I'll be saving on cat food and litter.

I wander downstairs, half dressed and cursing enough to peel the paint off the walls. In the kitchen, on the floor, there sits a ring. That's right. The little bastards took it off the counter in the bathroom and carried it down to the kitchen and then WENT BACK FOR MORE.

Now, I'm a kind and generous and forgiving soul. So, instead of killing them, I've now decided that I'll just go ahead and maim them a bit. After all, I've gotten one back and a little leniency is in order now. Over by the door at the bottom of the stairs is another ring. Pull the blinds at the sliding door onto the porch aside and there is the last missing ring.

At this point, I quite simply can no longer be annoyed and give myself over to laughter and give them full amnesty.

And on a side note? Home grown radio commercials are really really bad. * shoots the naughty store ad in the head *

Back to things that...

Piss me the hell off.

Last time it was entitlement. I could probably continue to go on and on about that. It's everywhere and it's a disease that is destroying our society... But onwards!

Drama whores. I probably could just stop there, but I'll go on a little bit.

EQ2 is a game. G-A-M-E. It's there for fun. It's there to help you forget about the crap you deal with everyday in your life and provide a few hours of escape and imaginative fun. Of course there are people out there who take it too seriously, just as with all things in life. Then there are the people who try to ruin it for everyone else.

Every so often you'll run across someone who seems perfectly normal. Then BLAMMO!!! Out of freaking nowhere the shit hits the fan. The real reason that someone goes off the deep end doesn't really matter. It's the made up reasons that create the drama.

The people who are known as women online and seduce and romance guys and get presents and such out of them... Surprise! I'm really a man and don't you feel dumb now?

The bored wife who cybers everyone and their dog until her husband finds out and pitches a fit and forces her to quit the game or lose the cushy lifestyle... Suddenly turns into the uber bitch from hell and tells everyone that she was thrown out of the guild and forced to leave because people are stabbing her in the back.

It doesn't matter who or what. It only matters that they do everything they can to make everyone around them miserable and ruin the game for everyone else.

I hate this crap. It interferes with my fun and it's just too much real life invading my escape.

I know it's hard to avoid drama and such when dealing with any living being (please note I didn't say intelligent cause most of them are shit stupid). It's my own fault for playing games instead of reading books. I love my MMOs (bite me, I'm not saying MMOG so don't even start) and will continue to play them. I still just want to throw stuff at the stupid drama whores though. Fortunately, I've still got my books to escape from my escape... Which, in retrospect, is a little wrong, but oh well.

omg I won EQ2!!!

Again!

I finally got my little provisioner to level 70. I now have a level 70 inquisitor (okay, I cheated there and leveled her up to 68 as a templar, first, but it counts!) and a level 70 provisioner. I've finally reached the end of the... what? My defiler? My tailor and alchemist?

Hell.

So much for being done. Evidently there are still more things to accomplish and goodies to accumulate. So, why is that I'm willing to go through the whole thing all over again? Cause there's stuff I want.

That's a major reason these games suck us in and keep us playing. Goodies. Or if you wanna be fancy about it, incentive. We stick around for that next shinie, that next level, that next piece of class armour in our neverending quest for a matching set of armour, that uber spiffy weapon... whatever. Even the people that we play with.

It doesn't matter what it is, but it's there for everyone. A bit of carrot to keep us coming back and striving for something.

The problem of course comes from balance. If it's too easy to obtain, we won't want it (unless you're one of those lame arses who buys their crap for real world money because you're just too damned lazy or have too much disposable income for your own good). Conversely though, if it's too hard, we'll lose interest and go elsewhere.

From a player's perspective, I would think that this would be the biggest obstacle facing a game designer. How do I make the game challenging enough to keep people wanting to play without making it so hard they give up in frustration. How do I make it easy enough that the lazy, instant gratification tossers will stop their whining or go play WoW. How do I balance the classes just right so that no one feels too anally violated or too godlike (yeah that one is a real kick in the pants).

They walk a fine line, that's for certain. In the end, you're going to have some stuff that most people aren't going to want to bother with, like raiding, and you'll have a small percentage of the game population striving for that aspect. You'll have people who go the easiest routes possible. Then you'll have the majority of us who dabble in all aspects of the game (dear gods soloing with a defiler is an exercise is masochism).

Whatever that undefinable thing is that draws people into a game (alright, so it isn't really all that undefinable, but damnit it sounds better my way!) EQ2 holds it for me.

So I'm off to try and win EQ2, again, on my defiler and tailor. Too bad they aren't the same character * sob *

There are a few things...

That just piss me the hell off.

I'm not talking little annoyances like the guy in the office with the ridiculously loud voice. I'm talking things and people who make me want to track them down and vivisect them.

That's right. Jack Thompson! (Alright. Not really. I just threw that out for Mads *blows a kiss*)

In actuality this is probably going to be a two day rant. Today it's all about entitlement.

I loathe and despise the entitlement attitude that the vast majority of the world seems to have with every fiber of my being. I hate it the way raiders hate casuals and soloers hate everyone.

What set me off this time was a discussion about fluff items in game. Can you freaking believe? Something that has no effect whatsoever on your game play. It's a triviality at best, and yet there are people out there frothing at the mouth and whining like little bitches about this.

Mind you, these people will whine like little bitches about any and everything. The biggest whine is that SOE deliberately excludes people. Especially people who aren't American. Contests are thought up with the sole and express purpose of blowing off any customer who doesn't live in the US. My response to that? Bull. Shit. And quite frankly it blows my frelling mind that you are actually that shallow and self absorbed and CHILDISH to really think that a major company, located in the US, would seriously sit down at a meeting and ponder all the ways they can tell the rest of the world to go eff themselves. Grow the hell up.

What set me off? Fan Faire cloaks. That's right. People who preregistered for Fan Faire and managed to drag their pasty white arses out to the desert to sweat and suffer from sun exposure got a little fluff item just for going. It's pretty and purple (WOO!) and it shoots off fireworks. Wow. That's a frelling game breaker right there. Stop the goddamn presses! That's gonna swing all the raids. EVERYONE NEEDS ONE!!! Oh wait. Not everyone made it to Fan Faire. Well, hell. Everyone should get them anyway! Cause that's just elitist and exclusionary and just flat out rude. If everyone doesn't get it, no one should.

* boggle * SG-01, who is a rather lovely and sweet boy, came from overseas to go to Fan Faire. Gods only know how much it cost him. I called in favours, begged, borrowed, and sold off one of Radar's kidneys in order to make it to Fan Faire. It isn't exactly like I flashed my tits at SOE and got a spiffy little item just by virtue of living in the boil on the ass of the US or anything.

And yet there are honestly people out there in the world who still think it's all about them. The people who made the effort and sported the cost of getting out to this event and supporting their game and the company who makes it shouldn't get anything as a gesture of thanks or appreciation. You know what? My 5 year old is more mature than that. People like this make me sick and honestly make me fear for the future.

This whole "give me," "I deserve," "I am owed" mentality is truly frightening. It's a rampant freaking disease. Instant gratification and self absorbed behaviour is becoming the norm and it's throwing society down the toilet at a rapid little swirl.

Grow. Up. Not. All. About. You.

* twitch *

On turning 30...

I wish I could say there was something profound and life changing about it.

But yeah. Not really. Today is just like any other day. I don't feel wiser or old or anything else that is supposed to be attached to the mystical 3-0. Just isn't blowing my skirt up.

I may very well be defective.

On the other hand... In the month or so preceding my induction into the land of grown ups (yeah, right) I have come to the decision that it's time to stop messing around and go back to school so I can get a real job. Cause this working for 15$ an hour crap is old.

I've also been giving serious thought to my love life. Or perhaps lack thereof. It isn't that I don't know what I want. I do. I'm actually quite thoroughly and completely certain of what I want... It's now a matter of getting the courage worked up to do something about it.

So... yeah. 30 is really no big deal. Maybe 40 will be...

Summer is officially over...

It's labour day and the kiddos are back in school.

I always had to go to school on my birthday because it oh so conveniently fell after labour day. Such a freaking bummer.

As I stare straight into the face of 30, I'm looking back at my life and wondering how the hell I made it this far. Then I wonder what the hell I've done and come up with the answer: Not enough.

So it's time for some changes. I'm going to go back to school (or try, at least cause there's no law says they have to take me) and get an advanced degree and actually start doing something with my life. I think I've screwed around at this whole work a job I don't like and barely get by thing far long enough. It's time to get serious.

So I'll be leaving behind childish things... Except for games. And maybe I'll hang onto that whole soulmate thing too...