December 2009 Archives

Okay, if this doesn't make you squee like a teenager at a screening of "Twilight" I don't know what will.

I was playing around with the old Stumble Button (first masturbation joke I get, and I'm pullin' this blog over) and ran into something that I am both thrilled and angry over.  Thrilled to bits for having had StumbleUpon to run into something so awesome, and pissed as all get out for not having found it ealier.  Apparently, though, it's fairly young, not even a year old yet, but I am now on a mission to educate every geek who hasn't found it yet.

This, my geeky loves, is "Batman and Sons".  It is a webcomic that is about one Batman, sometimes known as Bruce Wayne, and his trials and tribulations having to raise 3 incarnations of Robins and a future replacement, Terry. 

You know, there are a lot of people who make fun of gaming addictions, and hell, I'm one of them.  Of course, that's like the pot calling the kettle black all things considered, but you know, I still get out of the house.  I still cook actual food.  I have married an actual live human man.  I dress in funny clothes on weekends and pretend to be in the Middle Ages while said husband dresses in armor and beats people with sticks.  As much as I game and would probably chew the foot off of whomever told me I could never game again, I still feel rather proud of Super Husband and me for managing to balance gaming and life, even if at times, gaming wins over things like art projects.

Thing is, though, we know someone who is as bad as all the anti-gaming groups want you to believe.  He's a great guy, but he does nothing else but World of Warcraft.  That's it.  Oh, I shouldn't say nothing else because he has finished school.  He's got credentials out the ass for computer programming, but it's a little hard for him to find a job since he has no car since he spent every extra cent from student loans on his gaming rig.  It also doesn't help he has no teeth from all the junk food and Coke he lives on.  He hides it well under that unkempt beard, but you know, most potential employers are put off when you reek because you haven't bathed in days. 

Now, granted, he is a worst-case scenario for the single gaming addict.  And, you know, I truly hate when people hold those like him up as examples of why "gaming is evil".  Look, some people for some reason - maybe it's their predisposition for being anti-social or have an addictive personality, I don't know - get sucked into that fantasy world.  It's easier to meet people that way and easier to talk.  Real life is damn hard and damn scary, so yeah, I can see why some people might hide away.  (Gods know there are times I've wanted to do that.)  Is it healthy?  Nope.  Is it advisable?  Nope.  But, is it what all gamers are like?  Fuck no, and screw those who say otherwise.  Those are the very people who have never gamed in their lives.  Just like assholes who want to ban movies or books they've never seen or read.  Knee-jerk conservatism.

However, I will say, if he was just by himself, I might care even less.  I still don't think it's healthy, and as a friend of my husband's, I do wish he'd try to better his situation, but if he were alone, there's not much I can do.  He's a big boy.  He makes his own decisions, and he's got to figure this shit out for himself.  We can point it out, but until he sees it himself, it's all just words.  Problem is, he's not alone.  He lives with his parents, and they don't like it very much.  And, that's where it becomes a problem.  If you're only hurting yourself, then, well, that's your choice, even if we think it sucks.  If you're hurting yourself and others, well, it's kind of selfish and cruel, but unfortunately, it's not something a gaming addict sees.  They see their gaming as their only outlet and get very offended if you suggest it's a bad thing.  They're not hurting anyone, right?

Yesterday, a lady who'd been helping us at the spa was telling me about her husband.  She says to me, "He's playing World of Warcraft which is this huge online game..." 

I grinned at her unconsciously.  She got slightly offended, but then I explained that, sweetie, you have no idea how aware I am of such things.

Anyway, apparently, she is a WOW widow, to the point it almost caused a divorce.  Yes, it's like Oprah, but not as insipid.

Thing is, she doesn't mind that he plays, but she does mind that they have to schedule their family life around his raiding schedule.  I can see that.  She's not a gamer.  She's not even really a geek.  She likes the occasional console stuff that the kids share, but nothing beyond Guitar Hero or something.  Normally, I am wary of a non-gamer marrying a gamer because typically, it doesn't bloody work, but it sometimes does if the spouse is at least accepting of the hobby, which she is.  She never once said to me that she wanted him to completely stop.  She just wanted him to find some self-control.

I can see this.  When I met Super Husband, he was huge into EverCrack.  Being a gamer, I was just fucking thrilled he gamed.  Being a girlfriend, I was thrilled he knew when to put it down.  Wednesdays were his raid nights, so I never even tried to schedule anything on those days.  Sometimes there were other raids, but it was understood that Friday was our time, whatever that might be.  It worked, and he still gamed.  But, apparently, this poor woman doesn't have that kind of compromise, and when I told her how we worked it out, she was flabbergasted and jealous.  I found that very sad. 

Granted, yes, I missed classes for an entire week once to play Final Fantasy VII, but you know, I did eventually venture out into the shocking rays of the evil daystar.  Maybe I just don't "get it," but I, personally, don't see why a gamer, even a hardcore gamer, can't make time for other social activities.

And, maybe that's the answer.  Maybe those who get addicted like that aren't always hardcore gamers.  Gamers who have been gamers all their lives seem to be the ones who manage to strike a balance of some sort.  Yes, I know that some of those addicts are lifelong gamers, but it seems like I keep running into those who weren't always gamers but got sucked into the MMO world and never really found their way out.  It's like their psyche has suddenly discovered a new playground, an imagination it never knew it had, and refuses to come out again.  I got the impression that her husband has only ever played MMOs, so it makes me wonder. 

As I said in the previous post, for a long time, I avoided MMOs simply because I know I have the ability to disappear into a game for days at a time.  And, maybe, if I had started them in college that's what would've happened, but being an adult, even an immature one, still requires certain damn boring obligations, like maintaining a job so you have a roof under which to game.  It's a trade off.  Either way, in a weird way, I can kind of understand how one would get to that point.  I definitely have the kind of personality that could spend all my waking time doing things like gaming or chatting.  I've done it.  Lots of times.  The difference is I've recognized my weakness and had to set limitations.  It sucks balls, but that's the way it is if I want to do things like party with friends or go to cons or be inspired to make art or do sexy things with my husband.  As much as I love the gaming, I'm not willing to give all that up.

I'm hoping that her husband isn't either.  Since the divorce didn't happen, I figure he must not be, so there's that at least.

Now, on a complete flip side of that, the devious part of me told her what to do to at least make herself feel better.

See, he plays on a PVP server.  I told her she needs to log in, make a character, level it up, and then beat the crap out of him whenever his gaming annoys her.  Yes, I know that it's potentially turning her into a gamer, but I don't see that.  She's not a gamer.  She is, however, a determined woman.  I can totally see her doing such a thing, and you know, nothing would get his attention like being bitch-slapped online and then finding out it was his wife.  Might open up some communication, who knows?

That, or I'm just as wicked and devious as I've been told I am.

Here I thought I was just, you know, helpful.

So, the point of this post?  Well, I seem to have been confronted with this kind of problem a few times in recent years, and while a little scary, I have yet to see how it's an insurmountable horror that should warrant the banning of all games some feel is necessary to prevent the destruction of our youth or whatever their going rant is.  Yes, for some, the only option might be to give up gaming, but for most, I think it's possible to just sort of retrain one's self into achieving a little more balance.  It's hard as hell, but it's possible. 

I almost think it's the universe's way of point out to me that yes, I will be confronted with shit like this from stupid anti-gamers for the rest of my life, and it's important I have a counter-argument, for instance: "Gee, my brother played Mortal Kombat as a kid and is not only married and has two kids, but when his first kid was a newborn, he was playing Doom 3 with her lying in his lap, and yet she has still decided Jesus needs some of her toys because the three gifts he got from the wisemen were lame."**  (We won't mention that same child once, in some surreal kind of innocence, tied up all of my stuffed animals to the legs of my coffee table like some weird bondage barnyard.  She is a girl after my own heart.)

Besides, I've played games from the time Atari first hit the market (screw you, I'm not old!) until now, and while, yes, I definitely have a twist of mind, I'm pretty sure it's inherited.  My mother is twisted as hell, but she's never gamed.  Take that and put it in your conservative "video games are the evil" ass.




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**True story.  I am a screaming heathen, but you have to admit that's adorably cute, even though I'm pretty sure when she becomes a teenager she'll wonder why Jesus never figured out that he could have totally used that walk-on-water trick to win a few free drinks.  She is my niece, after all.

When we lived on the other side of town, I frequented the Hobby Lobby that was on that end.  In said Hobby Lobby was a geek boy who liked me.  I'm assuming he liked me because after the day I walked in with my iPod on my arm and he discovered it was playing a song from a Final Fantasy soundtrack, there wasn't a time I could be wandering a random aisle and he wouldn't show up.  Most people would find that creepy.  Because he's about 16 years younger than me, I thought it kind of cute and flattering.

Oftentimes, when he'd happen to check me out at the register, he would ask me, "Do you play World of Warcraft?"

My usual response was, "Dude, I have a life."

Well, I had been tempted many times to try it because, as everyone knows, they've become the AOL of junk mail CDs.  I can't count how many of those "Free 14 Day Trial" CDs I've thrown away.  And, I did that because, say it with me, I have a life.

Or rather, I choose to have one.  You see, I also know my limitations.  I obsess very easily over games.  My obsessions are okay if the games have a conclusion, but MMORPGs don't really have that.  You can get all the levels and armor and achievements, but they will always add more.  It never really ends.

The other problem is I don't like the general public in my fantasy.  14 year-old trolls piss me off.  Not because they're rude or crude or socially unacceptable, but because I know little bastards like that who would never pull that shit in real life because they know I would smack them like the little bitches they are.  The anonymity of the internet can really blow during those moments.

So, I resisted MMOs for a long time, much to the pouting of Super Husband.  When he met me, he was so damned thrilled that I gamed that he was filled with much glee, but my lack of MMO experience definitely left me a little lacking in his eyes.

Well, several months ago, he convinced me to try one of those WOW trials. 

I have to tell you, playing with Super Husband was tres fun.  I realized that as long as I played with people I knew, the whole MMO thing wasn't so worthy of derision.  It was like an advanced version of two-player.  I was digging it.

But, we hit another brick wall: the subscription fee.

The solution? Runes of Magic.

Look, guys, I have to tell you, I've read all the "it's nothing but a WOW clone" reviews, and they always miss the vital important aspect of that fact: it's fucking FREE.

We don't play MMOs enough during a month to warrant a monthly subscription, and I hate to tell you younger gamers out there, but when you start getting into things like student loans, mortgages, and insane needs for things like food, utilities, and a really nice theater system, suddenly things like WOW subscriptions are just silly.

Yes, Runes of Magic is a WOW clone.  So?  Seriously, it's still fun.  It's still pretty.  It's still FREE.

Funnily enough, that wasn't what inspired this post.  What inspired this post was another MMORPG that runs along a whole other vein.  This would be Dungeons and Dragons Online.

Now, this started out as a subscription game that was choking mightily against the tidal waves of EverCrack and WOW.  But, unlike other struggling MMOs they figured out that there was a way to appeal to the rest of the world who wanted to play without having their credit cards charged.  They decided to go free and offer certain items, races, quests, and services for a cost.

Some people might shrug and think, "What's the point?"  The point is they still have a massive amount of content for those of us who can't let an MMO take over our lives, but if we find we're getting more and more immersed, we can either take a subscription or just buy things to enhance the experience.  And, in a completely awesome move, you can earn points when you solve quests and actually use them to purchase other quests.  So, yeah, some quests you can only get with real world money, but at least you don't feel ostracized for playing free.

For those who like to gripe just to hear themselves gripe, this is very much not a WOW clone.  Sometimes, I long for the ROM interface, like ease in following other players in a group or the leveling system, but the differences have their own advantages.

DDO might be a little on the hard side to level, but you don't have tedious collection quests to fill your leveling time.  Most leveling is done with actual quests!  What a concept!  I wasn't so sure about some aspects of the controls at first, for instance, it's rather hard to follow your group members.  However, that's all balanced out because, well, when you're in a dungeon it's just you and your group.  No other random players to kill your intended target forcing you to wait through a 2 hour respawn timer.  I gotta tell you, that's hella nice.  And, when you're done with the quest, you hit a "finished" button and you go back to the entrance and are able to hit town and collect your xp.  Damn convenient if you ask me.

Then there's the obvious bonus in that you only get loot out of treasure chests or NPCs, so there's a definite lack of those shiver-inducing questions like, "Where does a goblin in a loin cloth hide a long sword?"  Um....eeeeeeewwwwwww...

Despite what most players will admit, most MMOs have a definite forumla, and it's a formula that works.  You have gathering quests to extend the playing time and give you mindless leveling.  You have massive raids to enhance that whole social experience of the game and actually affect the challenge levels. 

DDO is a different kind of MMO.  Well, of course it is, it's based off of a table-top gaming system, and they try very hard to keep that feel.  Instead of a a small group of people gathered around a table trying to beat down the latest quest, you have that same small group meeting around an online network.  There's something to be said for that small group experience, whether your members are local or spread across the world.  There's an immersiveness to it that's lost when you're beating the hell out of a boss in a dungeon and some level 50 wanders by and smacks it for you.  Going into a dungeon setting and knowing you are the only ones there and all your decisions affect your group and only your group, and damn, where the hell did the cleric just go?  Yeah, it's a special challenge on it's own, and that challenge only adds to the fun.

And, that's the thing about DDO, while there are drawbacks in comparison to other MMOs, it finds other ways to shine.  Is it perfect?  By no means.  (Ya'll, seriously, no quick button for targeting enemies?)  But, it manages to salvage the fun times of table gaming and bring it to the computer screen.  Other MMOs like WOW or ROM can't really be compared if only because they are so different which makes them likable in their own rights.

MMOs are starting to feel a little cookie-cutter in their attempts to clone the WOW success, and they do offer something new when they can, but it's nice to find an MMO that has its own style.

DDO is unapologetic, nor should it be otherwise.

Repeat after me, gamers: variety is the spice of life.

Now, go play outside.




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Admittedly, I'm finding the very non-JRPG feel of MMOs really added to their appeal.  Yes, I cut my gamer teeth on JRPGs.  Yes, I still love said style of games as evident in my ardent drooling on all things Final Fantasy, but the non-linear aspects of the ARPGs are very nice.  Besides, sometimes, you just want to set fire to that random cow. 

So, yeah, if you are blind - which would make the internet really interesting for you - there have been some changes about.

We have a two year contract with GoDaddy, and in celebration of the GoDaddy/SucksPress +50 to Hacking combo, we have changed blogging software.

Now, the dust hasn't settled yet.  The text on the old entries are kind of screwed up and the pics are gone, but hey, at least it's up and running.  Beggers can't be choosers and all that wise-cracking jazz.

Either way, enjoy the new look; ignore the random changes; feel free to offer suggestions that most likely will be ignored...but I love you anyway.



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As I said on Crochet Cultist, I do not take back my curse on the hackers.  I only hope they find repentance in their hearts...problem with that is they have no hearts.

To the baby-rapers who keep hacking my blogs,

I hope you die while be slow-roasted over a fire made from the smoldering bodies of your families.  When you awaken in that special ring of hell built only for soulless bastards such as yourselves, I hope that you find that eternity for you will mean being forcibly violated in various tender orifices by red-hot, sharpened objects while you teabag Satan.

Sincerely,

Papermasks

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You keep asking if I'm bitter.  I don't know where you keep getting that idea.

Well, I left Blogger because I wanted to be able to use my own domain names that were generously bought for me by my husband, but didn't think I could.

WordPress blows.

Now, recently, I found out, Blogger does have an option to keep the blog under my registered domains, but it's kind of a process.  So, since the boy has Schola tonight, I'm going to hope that maybe we can get it sorted over the next few days, and that maybe, just maybe, I won't have to physically move the blogs again.  Supposedly, it'll just remap to my domain.  Could be interesting considering my old Blogger accounts haven't officially closed.  I might have to re-copy all the posts I've written since moving to SucksPress.

Once again, folks, bear with me.

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If Blogger doesn't work, I'm going to just sit and cry.

Oooooh...preeeeeettyyyyy....

.....

Yeah, that's about it for the moment.

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Thinking of a guest blogger for this as I haven't played it yet, but I have drooled on it. Does that count?

I've had my blogs on WordPress for about a year now, and let me tell you, it was fine for about half that time, but about six months ago, it has become nothing but a hackable nightmare.

Both blogs have been hacked.  Both have been rendered unusable on several occasions.  Hell, this blog was dead up until an hour ago when Super Husband loaded a patch.  Either way, I've about had it with this host.

Look, blogs are nothing without readers, and my readers deserve to have regular updates.  I can't do that if the host of my blog gets hacked so that a) the blog goes down completely or b) the blog is up but the ability to edit it is rendered useless.

I'm. Sick. Of. It.

So, yeah, I'm looking for another host.  Super Husband seems to think there is free blogging software out there, but at this point, I'm willing to pay $9 a month to keep both of my blogs running with a complete domain mapping service.

I'm sure all two of you will agree.

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Christ on a cracker!  I haven't had this much trouble since my roomie convinced me to get AOL.  Some people think of it as a carrier of viruses.  Nope!  It's a virus with babies!