When Publish 57 notes came out, I got a few flames over the names of some of the new stealable items. Which frankly I accept because to be honest, I wasn't fond of some of the names either. So why didn't I change them? Well, I couldn't come up with something better. Yup, it's that simple!
Naming things or characters is probably one of the worse design challenges for me. First of all, I will think about a totally cool name in French but that sounds unbelievably cheesy in English. I also like the names to actually mean something and be relevant to the item/character they will be attached to. This translates as a lot of time spent searching name databases or trying to make up names that sound badass.
What actually got me posting this was watching our new flock of EMs going through the pain of trying to name their EM and RP characters. Some of them were ICQing me, banging their heads on the wall saying how they had spent hours/days just trying to come up with "the right name". And I could totally relate to that pain because every time I write a new quest or create a new item/reward, I go through that same headache.
Added to this is the fact that many players have a Ph D in nitpicking and will eat you alive for naming things the wrong way. I wish I could remember the details of a case a few years back where a certain resource used for crafting was the source of major flaming. Turns out the Dev had named it the wrong part of whatever the resource came from and players gave him hell saying this is not what is used to make this. This other part is! I thought it was silly to fuss over that, but that stayed in the back of my head.
While I don't believe in allowing ourselves to be bullied into basing content on fear of flames, I do believe that gaming can have educational value. People memorize the names of their "cool" items in game and it's well worth putting a little extra effort in appropriately naming stuff.
And so when I added the resource to the cocoa tree, I ended up spending quite a bit of time reading up on chocolate fabrication and cocoa trees to find an appropriate name for the resource and what it would look like. Same for the appearance of the tree itself. Ditto with the spider webs from the Halloween event. I didn't want to just plop a web deed as loot, that seemed a little lame. But paying a visit to my best friend wikipedia, I learned about gossamer and spinnerets and the rest is history.
Sometimes though, the names have hidden meanings, are meant to give people a smirk or are little winks winks. In UO, you will from time to time run into known characters such as the famous Barton who became legendary thanks to a very bratty Atlantic player. Many of you also ran into slimes named "a j wilson" after a game critic that had given UO bad reviews. Some are a bit more subtle, such as the Warren, the upset ghost (specter) of Ultima Underworld (Stygian Abyss) which was a wink wink to producer Warren Spector.
The problem is how much time spent picking names is justifiable? If you're half as picky as I am, an hour can have gone by and you're still nowhere near having found a suitable name, especially for characters. I shudder at the thought of ever trying to come up with a name for a baby! So sometime, when you see a lame name in any game, know that there are 3 probable reasons: a) the author has bad taste, b) the author gave up trying to come up with something l337, c) you have bad taste :P
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Comments
When programming, one of the things teachers always tell their students is the importance of commenting what you are doing. Some people would get utterly pissed for losing points for not commenting enough a script that was otherwise perfectly functional. As I only had a few scripting classes as part of the game design curriculum, I didn't realized the importance of those couple lines until now.
Designing in UO is very different than other games I've been on. Here we're jacks of all trades. We do world building, designing, decorating, storytelling and a heck of a lot of scripting. In fact close to 3/4 of our work is writing code. Problem is, this isn't like a console game where you normally have the engineers assigned to handle all the coding on specific levels and where once the game ships, that's it nobody messes with the code anymore (aside from a possible patch or two). In a MMO, and especially UO, it's not because you worked on this code today that someone else won't be using it next week or in 5 months from now. And as new content gets added or modified, properly commenting scripts takes a whole new meaning.
Ten months ago (dang has it really been that long?!) when I started on the UO team, I didn't have a whole lot of scripting experience. So this has definitely been quite a learning process. As such, I relied heavily on the work of my predecessors not only as inspiration but also as an educational tool. It's not just about how they did it, but often why they did it this way instead of that way.
What would really make me cry is opening a script with 1500 lines of code, not a single comment, funky variable names that mean nothing and function names that are even more meaningless. I will have to leave my opinion about naming conventions to another post, because I have quite a bit to say about that!
Luckily for me, there were also quite a few scripts that were little gems of comments. "This function does this". "I've handled it this way instead of that way (which would have seemingly been the logical way) because (insert reason here)". Or simple things like "this script is being attached to (...) by (...) and does (...)". And "I'm returning an integer instead of the object because (...)" or "I've added this block here to deal with an exploit where players (...)". Yes, this last part I've seen in plenty of scripts!!!
You cannot begin to imagine how invaluable those little comments are even for yourself. I go back on some of the earlier scripts I wrote and if not for my own comments I would be asking myself why the heck I did it this way. It saves so much time to not just sit there trying to figure out the logic. It can also spare others the pain you went through trying to figure out how something works next time around. By this I mean you tried to get something to work for days/weeks and finally realized that passing this type of variable will not work because the value is actually assigned elsewhere and totally bypasses what you are doing. Adding a one-liner comment saying: "note that this variable is handled by included script/function (insert name here)" will make you very popular with the next person to fiddle in this script.
On a side note, while you should always be professional in the comments you write in your scripts, some humor in good taste is never a bad idea. I like stumbling on the random comment that will make me smile, smirk or flat out lol. Speedman had a cute one that was more of a John Steinbeck wink, wink in the mace and shield glasses script where the first comment line read "Of Mace and Men". In one the Champ Spawn scripts, rather than giving one of the functions a bland "choose random players to give the scroll to", the comment was along the lines of "now the fun of picking some lucky dogs". In one of the buff scripts, the function where the buff was actually given to the player had "Beef me up, Scotty!" as a comment. Another that made me giggle (because I have a really silly sense of humor) was the "Ph4t L3wT, gImM3!gImM3!" comment where the reward was being generated on a boss monster.
In short, you should always comment your work. It shouldn't be a novel. One or two lines is usually more than plenty for a block of code. But it will do wonders for you and the people who will need to go into stuff you've done, especially if you had to handle something in a non-traditional way. The occasional smart humor is plus. Just remember that moderation is always in good taste!
Designing in UO is very different than other games I've been on. Here we're jacks of all trades. We do world building, designing, decorating, storytelling and a heck of a lot of scripting. In fact close to 3/4 of our work is writing code. Problem is, this isn't like a console game where you normally have the engineers assigned to handle all the coding on specific levels and where once the game ships, that's it nobody messes with the code anymore (aside from a possible patch or two). In a MMO, and especially UO, it's not because you worked on this code today that someone else won't be using it next week or in 5 months from now. And as new content gets added or modified, properly commenting scripts takes a whole new meaning.
Ten months ago (dang has it really been that long?!) when I started on the UO team, I didn't have a whole lot of scripting experience. So this has definitely been quite a learning process. As such, I relied heavily on the work of my predecessors not only as inspiration but also as an educational tool. It's not just about how they did it, but often why they did it this way instead of that way.
What would really make me cry is opening a script with 1500 lines of code, not a single comment, funky variable names that mean nothing and function names that are even more meaningless. I will have to leave my opinion about naming conventions to another post, because I have quite a bit to say about that!
Luckily for me, there were also quite a few scripts that were little gems of comments. "This function does this". "I've handled it this way instead of that way (which would have seemingly been the logical way) because (insert reason here)". Or simple things like "this script is being attached to (...) by (...) and does (...)". And "I'm returning an integer instead of the object because (...)" or "I've added this block here to deal with an exploit where players (...)". Yes, this last part I've seen in plenty of scripts!!!
You cannot begin to imagine how invaluable those little comments are even for yourself. I go back on some of the earlier scripts I wrote and if not for my own comments I would be asking myself why the heck I did it this way. It saves so much time to not just sit there trying to figure out the logic. It can also spare others the pain you went through trying to figure out how something works next time around. By this I mean you tried to get something to work for days/weeks and finally realized that passing this type of variable will not work because the value is actually assigned elsewhere and totally bypasses what you are doing. Adding a one-liner comment saying: "note that this variable is handled by included script/function (insert name here)" will make you very popular with the next person to fiddle in this script.
On a side note, while you should always be professional in the comments you write in your scripts, some humor in good taste is never a bad idea. I like stumbling on the random comment that will make me smile, smirk or flat out lol. Speedman had a cute one that was more of a John Steinbeck wink, wink in the mace and shield glasses script where the first comment line read "Of Mace and Men". In one the Champ Spawn scripts, rather than giving one of the functions a bland "choose random players to give the scroll to", the comment was along the lines of "now the fun of picking some lucky dogs". In one of the buff scripts, the function where the buff was actually given to the player had "Beef me up, Scotty!" as a comment. Another that made me giggle (because I have a really silly sense of humor) was the "Ph4t L3wT, gImM3!gImM3!" comment where the reward was being generated on a boss monster.
In short, you should always comment your work. It shouldn't be a novel. One or two lines is usually more than plenty for a block of code. But it will do wonders for you and the people who will need to go into stuff you've done, especially if you had to handle something in a non-traditional way. The occasional smart humor is plus. Just remember that moderation is always in good taste!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Troubled Waters
I was having a heated debate with a friend of mine regarding the quality (or lack thereof) of recently released MMOs, upcoming ones, expected expansions and so on. It was interesting seeing how our opinions differ now that I'm on the inside compared to how similar they were when I was on the outside.
The fact is a number of new MMOs have failed despite a strong start and a lot of hype. Some expansions failed to deliver on revenues and player retention while other games have postponed themselves into oblivion. You have to ask yourself why do we always seem to miss our deadlines? Why do we cut corners or deliver stuff (too often) sub par or not to the level of reasonable expectations? Is it bad management? Incompetence? Cluelessness? Carelessness? Some dumb suit/corporate noob making decisions on stuff he doesn't know jack about?
Sometimes, it is indeed a bit of a mix of all of the above. But in truth, most of the time it's just that shit happens. Every time you think you've got a smooth sail ahead, you end up running into a freaking iceberg. If you're lucky, the iceberg just grazed your ship and with some paint you cover the scratches and you're as good as new. But often times, you hit it head on and next thing you know, you're taking water from every side. Fight hard as you may, sometimes there's just not enough escape boats. That's when you hear of games closing and projects being canceled. There was just no saving it. It was taking too much water and you have to make the decision: do we cut our losses and save who/what we can, or do we all go down with the ship?
Some other times, the ship doesn't sink despite a mighty blow. The crew will work around the clock, pull every trick imaginable, do whatever it takes to see that it reaches the shore. It will be banged up, battered and look like crap, but it will have made it. Was it worth saving though? What's the point of a cruise ship that no one will set foot on? I mean, you could take another year and pull the whole fixer upper but are there any funds left to do that? How about the crew? After weathering such a bad storm, a few people will think twice about setting another foot on that deck. And if despite all that you manage to pull through, there is the real possibility that by the time you're finally ready to launch, your potential customers will say "bah, the whole cruise ship deal is so last year!" Too bad you were wallowing neck deep in troubled waters then.
There are never any certainties in game development. Sometimes things simply go your way. You've got wind in your sails and everything is a joy ride. Other times, it's just one squall after the other. As a "sailor" myself, I can empathize with crews who have seen their own ships go down or are struggling to keep it afloat. I know how much blood, sweat and tears gets poured into it.
Whenever you start a journey, you can never know how far it will take you. The (must see!!) miniseries From the Earth to the Moon is a fine example of what game development can be like. Obviously, the series isn't about video games, but it shows how many unexpected hurdles you need to overcome during development process. How even the tiniest mathematical error can cause major setbacks. And that at times, only a near catastrophe can give you that much needed second wind.
I'm blessed to be part of an amazing crew, with a captain I respect and a ship I love. She has withstood her fair share of storms and God only how many more await us ahead. But I have good faith that she and we will take each other home safely.
The fact is a number of new MMOs have failed despite a strong start and a lot of hype. Some expansions failed to deliver on revenues and player retention while other games have postponed themselves into oblivion. You have to ask yourself why do we always seem to miss our deadlines? Why do we cut corners or deliver stuff (too often) sub par or not to the level of reasonable expectations? Is it bad management? Incompetence? Cluelessness? Carelessness? Some dumb suit/corporate noob making decisions on stuff he doesn't know jack about?
Sometimes, it is indeed a bit of a mix of all of the above. But in truth, most of the time it's just that shit happens. Every time you think you've got a smooth sail ahead, you end up running into a freaking iceberg. If you're lucky, the iceberg just grazed your ship and with some paint you cover the scratches and you're as good as new. But often times, you hit it head on and next thing you know, you're taking water from every side. Fight hard as you may, sometimes there's just not enough escape boats. That's when you hear of games closing and projects being canceled. There was just no saving it. It was taking too much water and you have to make the decision: do we cut our losses and save who/what we can, or do we all go down with the ship?
Some other times, the ship doesn't sink despite a mighty blow. The crew will work around the clock, pull every trick imaginable, do whatever it takes to see that it reaches the shore. It will be banged up, battered and look like crap, but it will have made it. Was it worth saving though? What's the point of a cruise ship that no one will set foot on? I mean, you could take another year and pull the whole fixer upper but are there any funds left to do that? How about the crew? After weathering such a bad storm, a few people will think twice about setting another foot on that deck. And if despite all that you manage to pull through, there is the real possibility that by the time you're finally ready to launch, your potential customers will say "bah, the whole cruise ship deal is so last year!" Too bad you were wallowing neck deep in troubled waters then.
There are never any certainties in game development. Sometimes things simply go your way. You've got wind in your sails and everything is a joy ride. Other times, it's just one squall after the other. As a "sailor" myself, I can empathize with crews who have seen their own ships go down or are struggling to keep it afloat. I know how much blood, sweat and tears gets poured into it.
Whenever you start a journey, you can never know how far it will take you. The (must see!!) miniseries From the Earth to the Moon is a fine example of what game development can be like. Obviously, the series isn't about video games, but it shows how many unexpected hurdles you need to overcome during development process. How even the tiniest mathematical error can cause major setbacks. And that at times, only a near catastrophe can give you that much needed second wind.
I'm blessed to be part of an amazing crew, with a captain I respect and a ship I love. She has withstood her fair share of storms and God only how many more await us ahead. But I have good faith that she and we will take each other home safely.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Home, Sweet Home
Or should I say "Snow, Sweet Snow" ? I've been in the US for a little over 8 months now, the longest I've ever been away from home. I knew I was homesick, I just hadn't realized how badly until I got to the Dulles Airport in DC and heard some of my fellow Quebecers speaking French while waiting for boarding. That gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling. But I got griefed a couple times on my way home...
It started great with Mesanna and her hubby Michael dropping my Canuck toosh at the airport. So I strut my stuff to the check in counter to have the agent tell me it's going to cost me an extra $100 for my 3rd bag. I'm like wtf? I originally packed 2 bags but Mom warned me the previous night to bring boots and coats because they were getting pummeled with snow and cold weather. My winter coat being Siberian weather proof is quite large and heavy. The coat and boots took a whole 3rd bag on their own. I give the agent my debit card, mumbling the whole time through. Then I go "Hey!! Wouldn't that qualify as a hand bag? It's not too big is it?" He looked at the (fairly big) duffel bag that contained my coat and boots and says "Yeah, that could be considered hand bag." I "yoinked" my debit card back with a big fat grin for saving that bit of cash. He told me that if I had been travelling beyond Montreal with a 3rd bag, Air Canada would have charged me $240 extra! You can be sure next time I'll make sure to verify how many bags I'm allowed!
So after a very annoying and insanely long wait in line to get searched, scanned and w/e the heck it is that they do, I finally get to my gate and start reading Shaman's Crossing while waiting for my flight. I had been meaning to read that trilogy forever but never seemed to have time anymore. I could hardly concentrate because I was getting all fuzzy listening to other Quebecers waiting. But that fuzzy feeling got crushed within seconds as I realized they were all talking about their flights being cancelled because of bad snow storms. Then listening to the anglophones (not sure if they were Americans or English Canadians), their flights too were cancelled. The incredibly long line of people I had seen standing on my way in weren't people lining up to board. They were waiting for customer service, hoping to find a new flight home. Thankfully, my moment of panic was short lived as my own flight was one of the few that had been spared. It was only delayed by an hour!
When the plane was flying over the Dorval Airport in Montreal, I could see the straight lines of lights outlining the streets and the white blanket of snow that covered the ground as far as the eye could see. I got all misty and felt my throat tighten. I never thought I could be such a girly girl. The flight attendant warned us that it was snowy, slippery and cold (-16 C) outside so to be careful. I was curious to see how I would react to the snow and cold not having been eased into it this year as barely 2 hours ago I was enjoying +12 C in Washington DC. Turns out you don't shed out of your system 30+ years of good old Canadian cold that easily. Not only did the cold not bother me, it actually made me all giddy. I loved the sounds of the snow crunching under each step and how my feet just naturally knew where to land to best avoid the slippery ice.
The one thing I didn't remember fondly is on our way home, some of the areas were still burried in snow, the roads a pain to travel through. I've been here a week and every other day we've had over a foot of snow fall, which in fact translates as 2-3 feet of snow to shovel. I would have been miserable without a white Christmas but I could have done without the shovelling :/
But aside from the pains of winter, it was great seeing again such things as a tot being pulled on his sleight by his mom on the sidewalk, our beautiful snow covered parks and just the general beauty of our old stone and brick buildings, which there seems to be so few of in Virginia.
I'm also sad I will be missing all the cool festivals that will be taking place over the next couple of months in Montreal and Quebec City. I was always a big fan of the Ice and Snow sculpting which can be seen at the Fêtes de Neiges of Montreal and the Quebec Winter Carnival. Montreal in Lights is another beautiful event where they play with lights and snow and ice to give the city an eery look at night.
In one week, I'll be returning (home?) to VA. It's weird how you can quickly become lost in where's home. On my way here, while filling the declaration form, my instinctive reaction was to write my Montreal address. But that no longer is my permanent address. I did my Christmas shopping in Montreal to avoid the tax headaches at Customs, and every time I showed my Bank of America card to pay, the cashiers would automatically switch to (often broken) English. And even though I would keep speaking French to them, they stuck to English. They assumed I was American and took pride in serving their customers in their native tongue. Trouble is, I was starved for French but didn't have the heart to tell them to speak to me in French or they might take it as a rebuke of their language skills and I wasn't going to go in a story of my life to explain how it came to be that I pay in US dollars.
Part of me is looking forward to be back in my own things and (in a sick kind of way) to be back to work. They always said it takes a sucker for punishment to go into game design, I guess I fit the profile! But part of me feels like I've finally come home from a long trip and the thought of leaving again and especially parting from my family, knowing it will be many more months before I see them again really sucks.
For now, I won't dwell on it. I'm off to Mount Royal to do some skating. With luck, I'll get to do some skiing too, some snow angels and maybe even get away with ganking my brothers with snow balls!
It started great with Mesanna and her hubby Michael dropping my Canuck toosh at the airport. So I strut my stuff to the check in counter to have the agent tell me it's going to cost me an extra $100 for my 3rd bag. I'm like wtf? I originally packed 2 bags but Mom warned me the previous night to bring boots and coats because they were getting pummeled with snow and cold weather. My winter coat being Siberian weather proof is quite large and heavy. The coat and boots took a whole 3rd bag on their own. I give the agent my debit card, mumbling the whole time through. Then I go "Hey!! Wouldn't that qualify as a hand bag? It's not too big is it?" He looked at the (fairly big) duffel bag that contained my coat and boots and says "Yeah, that could be considered hand bag." I "yoinked" my debit card back with a big fat grin for saving that bit of cash. He told me that if I had been travelling beyond Montreal with a 3rd bag, Air Canada would have charged me $240 extra! You can be sure next time I'll make sure to verify how many bags I'm allowed!
So after a very annoying and insanely long wait in line to get searched, scanned and w/e the heck it is that they do, I finally get to my gate and start reading Shaman's Crossing while waiting for my flight. I had been meaning to read that trilogy forever but never seemed to have time anymore. I could hardly concentrate because I was getting all fuzzy listening to other Quebecers waiting. But that fuzzy feeling got crushed within seconds as I realized they were all talking about their flights being cancelled because of bad snow storms. Then listening to the anglophones (not sure if they were Americans or English Canadians), their flights too were cancelled. The incredibly long line of people I had seen standing on my way in weren't people lining up to board. They were waiting for customer service, hoping to find a new flight home. Thankfully, my moment of panic was short lived as my own flight was one of the few that had been spared. It was only delayed by an hour!
When the plane was flying over the Dorval Airport in Montreal, I could see the straight lines of lights outlining the streets and the white blanket of snow that covered the ground as far as the eye could see. I got all misty and felt my throat tighten. I never thought I could be such a girly girl. The flight attendant warned us that it was snowy, slippery and cold (-16 C) outside so to be careful. I was curious to see how I would react to the snow and cold not having been eased into it this year as barely 2 hours ago I was enjoying +12 C in Washington DC. Turns out you don't shed out of your system 30+ years of good old Canadian cold that easily. Not only did the cold not bother me, it actually made me all giddy. I loved the sounds of the snow crunching under each step and how my feet just naturally knew where to land to best avoid the slippery ice.
The one thing I didn't remember fondly is on our way home, some of the areas were still burried in snow, the roads a pain to travel through. I've been here a week and every other day we've had over a foot of snow fall, which in fact translates as 2-3 feet of snow to shovel. I would have been miserable without a white Christmas but I could have done without the shovelling :/
But aside from the pains of winter, it was great seeing again such things as a tot being pulled on his sleight by his mom on the sidewalk, our beautiful snow covered parks and just the general beauty of our old stone and brick buildings, which there seems to be so few of in Virginia.
I'm also sad I will be missing all the cool festivals that will be taking place over the next couple of months in Montreal and Quebec City. I was always a big fan of the Ice and Snow sculpting which can be seen at the Fêtes de Neiges of Montreal and the Quebec Winter Carnival. Montreal in Lights is another beautiful event where they play with lights and snow and ice to give the city an eery look at night.
In one week, I'll be returning (home?) to VA. It's weird how you can quickly become lost in where's home. On my way here, while filling the declaration form, my instinctive reaction was to write my Montreal address. But that no longer is my permanent address. I did my Christmas shopping in Montreal to avoid the tax headaches at Customs, and every time I showed my Bank of America card to pay, the cashiers would automatically switch to (often broken) English. And even though I would keep speaking French to them, they stuck to English. They assumed I was American and took pride in serving their customers in their native tongue. Trouble is, I was starved for French but didn't have the heart to tell them to speak to me in French or they might take it as a rebuke of their language skills and I wasn't going to go in a story of my life to explain how it came to be that I pay in US dollars.
Part of me is looking forward to be back in my own things and (in a sick kind of way) to be back to work. They always said it takes a sucker for punishment to go into game design, I guess I fit the profile! But part of me feels like I've finally come home from a long trip and the thought of leaving again and especially parting from my family, knowing it will be many more months before I see them again really sucks.
For now, I won't dwell on it. I'm off to Mount Royal to do some skating. With luck, I'll get to do some skiing too, some snow angels and maybe even get away with ganking my brothers with snow balls!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Accountability
This is inspired by a post made by a player who deleted his Companion character after a friend threatened to page on him for attempting to sell it. I'm obviously not going to discuss the details of this specific case, but I would like to share my thoughts with you about these kind of situations.
Case 1:
Imagine you are friends with a former Counselor, Companion or Seer that somehow managed to maintain his powers after the program was terminated. One day, you find out he's trying to sell his account hoping to make a bigger profit due to said powers. What do you do? Do you try to convince him to have his powers removed first? If he refuses, do you threaten to page on him if he doesn't? Do you page on him anonymously? Do you let him make his money then page on the buyer? Do you stay out of it altogether? If you do nothing and the buyer ends up abusing those powers in a way extremely harmful, would you feel any guilt? If/when an investigation is performed and punishment is handed down, if your name comes up should you also be held accountable because you knew and didn't prevent it? Or should you be absolved on the basis that you didn't benefit from it?
Case 2:
A while back, an entire guild was banned, including all linked accounts, for duping an exploiting. Admittedly, not every member in the guild took part in the illegal activities but all of them were fully aware of what was going on. If you were invited to join such a guild, would you? If you joined but neither helped duping nor helped stopping it, was it fair you got banned too? If you broke no rules but just allowed your friends to do so, does that make you accountable? Should you only be accountable if you actively took part in the illegal activity? What if you didn't take part but knowingly accepted gifts of duped items and gold? Would that make you more accountable? What if you didn't accept any actual items but enjoyed the benefits of illegal programs such as scripted ghost cams? When you hear the impact on the victims of your guild's activities, do you feel any guilt?
Thoughts:
To me, this isn't so much a matter of right or wrong as much as a question of choices and consequences. For every situation, there are 3 choices: 1) avoid it, 2) ignore it or 3) act on it. Avoiding is often the simplest and safest solution. If you do not put yourself in a difficult position, you will not have difficult choices to make. Ignoring is the deceptive one, because as proven by history pretending not to see what is happening does not necessarily shelter you from the fall out. Acting on it can be both the toughest and the easiest. The wise will carefully weight the pros and cons of his decision: "I will stop this because... and I accept the consequences." or "I will take part because... and I accept the consequence." The wreckless will act first and think of consequences later.
You are the master of your own destiny. You make your own choices and you will have to deal with the consequences. If maintaining certain friendships require you to betray your values, you might want to reconsider those relationships. That includes the "if you were my friend..." guilt trips. Take responsibility for your own choices.
The holidays are upon us. It's a merry time, but all too often also a tragic time because of DUI. Will you avoid it by not going out? Will you ignore the people who are clearly drunk and driving, hoping they will make it home safely? Will you act by taking away their keys or by being the drunk trying to drive?
It's all about choices...
Please have a safe and happy holidays.
Case 1:
Imagine you are friends with a former Counselor, Companion or Seer that somehow managed to maintain his powers after the program was terminated. One day, you find out he's trying to sell his account hoping to make a bigger profit due to said powers. What do you do? Do you try to convince him to have his powers removed first? If he refuses, do you threaten to page on him if he doesn't? Do you page on him anonymously? Do you let him make his money then page on the buyer? Do you stay out of it altogether? If you do nothing and the buyer ends up abusing those powers in a way extremely harmful, would you feel any guilt? If/when an investigation is performed and punishment is handed down, if your name comes up should you also be held accountable because you knew and didn't prevent it? Or should you be absolved on the basis that you didn't benefit from it?
Case 2:
A while back, an entire guild was banned, including all linked accounts, for duping an exploiting. Admittedly, not every member in the guild took part in the illegal activities but all of them were fully aware of what was going on. If you were invited to join such a guild, would you? If you joined but neither helped duping nor helped stopping it, was it fair you got banned too? If you broke no rules but just allowed your friends to do so, does that make you accountable? Should you only be accountable if you actively took part in the illegal activity? What if you didn't take part but knowingly accepted gifts of duped items and gold? Would that make you more accountable? What if you didn't accept any actual items but enjoyed the benefits of illegal programs such as scripted ghost cams? When you hear the impact on the victims of your guild's activities, do you feel any guilt?
Thoughts:
To me, this isn't so much a matter of right or wrong as much as a question of choices and consequences. For every situation, there are 3 choices: 1) avoid it, 2) ignore it or 3) act on it. Avoiding is often the simplest and safest solution. If you do not put yourself in a difficult position, you will not have difficult choices to make. Ignoring is the deceptive one, because as proven by history pretending not to see what is happening does not necessarily shelter you from the fall out. Acting on it can be both the toughest and the easiest. The wise will carefully weight the pros and cons of his decision: "I will stop this because... and I accept the consequences." or "I will take part because... and I accept the consequence." The wreckless will act first and think of consequences later.
You are the master of your own destiny. You make your own choices and you will have to deal with the consequences. If maintaining certain friendships require you to betray your values, you might want to reconsider those relationships. That includes the "if you were my friend..." guilt trips. Take responsibility for your own choices.
The holidays are upon us. It's a merry time, but all too often also a tragic time because of DUI. Will you avoid it by not going out? Will you ignore the people who are clearly drunk and driving, hoping they will make it home safely? Will you act by taking away their keys or by being the drunk trying to drive?
It's all about choices...
Please have a safe and happy holidays.
Monday, December 8, 2008
The Highway
Democratic societies always pride themselves in the fact that the people have the freedom to choose what they will be, who will lead them and which direction their community should evolve in. They essentially promote the right of the individual to be happy, to be prosper, to simply be... And then we enter a virtual world and all of a sudden, everyone becomes a dictator. Anything that isn't going my way needs to be removed. Why?
The Felucca vs Trammel saga is without a doubt the one with the most visibility, but it's hardly the only one in the "my way" category. Every time new content is added or a subgroup of the community voices its displeasure with the state of things, someone will come up and say "who cares? your class/profession/facet shouldn't exist anyways. You guys suck!"
And this isn't even just the random flamer. A lot of people genuinely feel that if they and their friends do not actively take part in certain activities or mini-games, those are a waste of resources. Some people feel that people who take part in mini-games such as gardening, cooking, house decorating, raising fishes in their aquariums or even using the checkers/mahjong game boards in UO are silly, wasting their time and completely missing the point of UO.
Says who?
What is the "proper way" of playing UO or any other game for that matter? Bashing on monsters 24/7? Killing every player on sight? Strip mining every vein in the land? Role-playing your little heart out? Out-talking every banksitter in Sosaria? In my book, as long as they are having fun, aren't ruining the game for others and aren't breaking the ToS, then they ARE playing the right way "for them".
The fact that you do not enjoy or agree with a certain playstyle shouldn't justify you trying to destroy it. The fact that development time is given to a subgroup you do not care for doesn't mean you should feel cheated it wasn't devoted to yours instead. Every cell and subgroup of the community needs its share of love or it will wither and die. The assumption that by killing a facet or playstyle will get people to migrate to yours is flawed. Cutting your leg off isn't going to cause for a 2nd head or a 3rd arm to grow, it will simply make you crippled. A healthy body is one where every organ and limb is equally well taken care of.
It's not because I love meat that I'm going to try to coherce vegans into being like me. Live and let live. The richness of a community comes from its diversity and the respect of our differences.
The Felucca vs Trammel saga is without a doubt the one with the most visibility, but it's hardly the only one in the "my way" category. Every time new content is added or a subgroup of the community voices its displeasure with the state of things, someone will come up and say "who cares? your class/profession/facet shouldn't exist anyways. You guys suck!"
And this isn't even just the random flamer. A lot of people genuinely feel that if they and their friends do not actively take part in certain activities or mini-games, those are a waste of resources. Some people feel that people who take part in mini-games such as gardening, cooking, house decorating, raising fishes in their aquariums or even using the checkers/mahjong game boards in UO are silly, wasting their time and completely missing the point of UO.
Says who?
What is the "proper way" of playing UO or any other game for that matter? Bashing on monsters 24/7? Killing every player on sight? Strip mining every vein in the land? Role-playing your little heart out? Out-talking every banksitter in Sosaria? In my book, as long as they are having fun, aren't ruining the game for others and aren't breaking the ToS, then they ARE playing the right way "for them".
The fact that you do not enjoy or agree with a certain playstyle shouldn't justify you trying to destroy it. The fact that development time is given to a subgroup you do not care for doesn't mean you should feel cheated it wasn't devoted to yours instead. Every cell and subgroup of the community needs its share of love or it will wither and die. The assumption that by killing a facet or playstyle will get people to migrate to yours is flawed. Cutting your leg off isn't going to cause for a 2nd head or a 3rd arm to grow, it will simply make you crippled. A healthy body is one where every organ and limb is equally well taken care of.
It's not because I love meat that I'm going to try to coherce vegans into being like me. Live and let live. The richness of a community comes from its diversity and the respect of our differences.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Wishing Well
Memories usually seem to consist of our best and worse times. The bad memories, no matter how hard we try to forget about them, they just seem to have a way of crawling back up to the surface. The danger with those is allowing them to dictate the choices we make in the future for fear of a repeat, making us sometimes miss out on great opportunities. On the flip side, good memories are the ones we like to revisit. But just like bad memories, they can be dangerous. When we dwell too much on the past, we fail to appreciate the present for what it is and constantly compare anything we get to what once was. So the question you have to ask yourself is was the past really all that great?
There are a number of things that make something great, often a combination of the right elements at the right time. But put that same something in a different setting or at a different time, and it may very well turn out not to be so great after all.
As a child, there was this great big park a block away from my house where I used to play with my brothers. It was huge! And there was this great river running through it surrounded by swings and slides and all sorts of fun things for children to play with. My brothers would tease me all the time, threatening to throw me in the river. The river was so wide and so deep, surely I would have drowned!
I was about 6 yo when we moved from that house. In my early 20s, I was driving by the area and decided to do a little detour by the park I so fondly remembered. When I got there, at first I thought I was at the wrong place. You see, the huge park that I remembered was really a small park on the corner of the street. The great big river was a small pond that ran through it. It was barely a meter wide and maybe 2 feet deep. There were 2 slides, a sand square, 2 sets of swings and a couple benches.
I was sad and disappointed to see it with my grown up eyes. As a child, it had been a great almost mythical place. As an adult, it was just small, bland and dated. I wish I had not gone back. I wish I would have just kept the wonderful memory of it and not today's reality of it.
People often say "I wish we could go back to when..." thinking they would be happier if they did. This is especially true in UO. Like many players, I wasn't happy with AoS and I had mixed feelings about Renaissance. But would I really be happier on a pre-AoS, pre-Pub 16 or pre-Renaissance shard? On some fronts yes, on others hell no! Globally? I don't know.
The old days were great, no question about that. But it wasn't just the game mechanics that made it great. It was mostly the people, the different mentality, the different era. Times change, people change and expectations change. It took me months pre-Power Hour to GM Mining, and that was with me mining every night for hours non-stop. I won't even talk about how long it took for smithing and lockpicking. I loved the difficulty then, but I would hate to go through that today. I was never fond of having to use reagents to cast spells. I cannot bear the thought of going back to no LRC. But I miss the Seers and Counselors, the slew of player run towns and RPers galore of old. More importantly, I miss the people who have now moved on to other things.
Bottomline, you shouldn't live in the past. It's ok to learn from the mistakes of the past and take some of the good from it, but not dwell on it. You HAVE to look to the future and you have to evolve into something else, and hopefully something better. If you wish for the past long and hard enough, you may just get it. But once you do, you will likely realize it really wasn't what you thought it would be and all you will have accomplished is tarnish and maybe even shatter the fond memory you once had.
There are a number of things that make something great, often a combination of the right elements at the right time. But put that same something in a different setting or at a different time, and it may very well turn out not to be so great after all.
As a child, there was this great big park a block away from my house where I used to play with my brothers. It was huge! And there was this great river running through it surrounded by swings and slides and all sorts of fun things for children to play with. My brothers would tease me all the time, threatening to throw me in the river. The river was so wide and so deep, surely I would have drowned!
I was about 6 yo when we moved from that house. In my early 20s, I was driving by the area and decided to do a little detour by the park I so fondly remembered. When I got there, at first I thought I was at the wrong place. You see, the huge park that I remembered was really a small park on the corner of the street. The great big river was a small pond that ran through it. It was barely a meter wide and maybe 2 feet deep. There were 2 slides, a sand square, 2 sets of swings and a couple benches.
I was sad and disappointed to see it with my grown up eyes. As a child, it had been a great almost mythical place. As an adult, it was just small, bland and dated. I wish I had not gone back. I wish I would have just kept the wonderful memory of it and not today's reality of it.
People often say "I wish we could go back to when..." thinking they would be happier if they did. This is especially true in UO. Like many players, I wasn't happy with AoS and I had mixed feelings about Renaissance. But would I really be happier on a pre-AoS, pre-Pub 16 or pre-Renaissance shard? On some fronts yes, on others hell no! Globally? I don't know.
The old days were great, no question about that. But it wasn't just the game mechanics that made it great. It was mostly the people, the different mentality, the different era. Times change, people change and expectations change. It took me months pre-Power Hour to GM Mining, and that was with me mining every night for hours non-stop. I won't even talk about how long it took for smithing and lockpicking. I loved the difficulty then, but I would hate to go through that today. I was never fond of having to use reagents to cast spells. I cannot bear the thought of going back to no LRC. But I miss the Seers and Counselors, the slew of player run towns and RPers galore of old. More importantly, I miss the people who have now moved on to other things.
Bottomline, you shouldn't live in the past. It's ok to learn from the mistakes of the past and take some of the good from it, but not dwell on it. You HAVE to look to the future and you have to evolve into something else, and hopefully something better. If you wish for the past long and hard enough, you may just get it. But once you do, you will likely realize it really wasn't what you thought it would be and all you will have accomplished is tarnish and maybe even shatter the fond memory you once had.
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