It's not that I have nothing to say...
2009-08-02
...more that most of it either isn't worth saying, or isn't safe to.
I should be less fussy about what's worth saying. Not like anyone reads it anyway.
Recentrants thoughts that might have become posts:
I think people are unduly harsh on the Alanis Morissette song Ironic, with various rebuttals available claiming that [almost] none of the situations have any irony. Lighten up, people: assuming there even is a true authority on the meaning of words, there are no authoritative definitions of irony that are detailed enough to rule on everything on the song without subjective interpretation. Most of the people in the argument seem to have jumped on the bandwagon without really having any clue what they're talking about, and even the ones with research have a very particular slant on the definitions they cite.
Players of MMOs are an ungrateful and undeserving bunch. No, that's not fair, let me qualify: almost all of the players you ever hear speak (or communicate in whatever medium) about an MMO are ungrateful and undeserving of it. It's generally the assumption that the game is for them, and anything to cater to the other players (massively many of them) is at best a waste of development time that could be better lavished on their psuedo-single-player paradise, or at worst some manner of personal affront to them and attack on their sensibilities.
On a related point, you cannot assume a right to freedom of speech on the internet. Your nation's legislation on the point (assuming it has some) applies only to public forums (using forum in the most general sense), and unless you're going to run your own server, host it yourself and so on (theoretically right up to building your own backbone) all of your outlets on the internet are going to be owned by someone else, who has every right not to let you say whatever you like. Even if you do happen to arrange some site over which you have sufficient control, you can't assume that your visitors have the freedom to read it.
The reason that's a point related to whining gamers is that I quite often see people talking about their right of free speech on the official forums for some or other MMO. The forums are a benefit the publisher provides to the players, but ultimately they own it and they'd be stupid to let you say certain things. (And in fact, I suspect a lot of them are moderated only for offensiveness, things worthy of legal action and so on. Just generally the stuff that no right-minded forum admin lets you post).
There's a guy at LotRO, Orion, who seems to be a designer (a somewhat senior one, if calling people into offices is taken as a sign of power) on the game and has a blog in the personal spaces section of the website. Perhaps he's not the only one doing so: I don't pay all that much attention to LotRO.
I disagree with some of what he says about game design, which is interesting considering that he has so many more levels in it than me. What I really love though is that he's there, on the front line talking openly and honestly (apparently without so much as an edit for SPG) about his work on the game. I think it's awesome that he's doing it and that Turbine (or whoever) are OK with it, and a great shame that so many of his commenters try to use what he says against him.
Some of his defences are almost flame bait - a good example was a player who accused Orion of knowing what was best for players better than they did, to which Orion responds that since players have varied tastes they don't collectively understand what's best for them - but to some extent these things need to be said. It appeals to the sensible and mature players and alienates the selfish and immature ones, and I hope that LotRO's community has enough of the former.
(Of course, sensible and mature players are still going to leave if they don't like your decisions. In fact, they're going to just stop paying without fanfare, whereas the immature ones have a tendency to stick around for months complaining that you're destroyed the game and that they're about to quit.)
By the way, if I'm going to remember/bother to post things in future, there's a good chance it'll be related to online gaming. I'm paying a lot of attention to that these days.
Writing goes quite well. The colleague who had hoped for time to edit the last full-length project didn't have it, but I'm getting good feedback from a friend who's reading it at the moment. Am writing a short story to submit for an anthology. I ought to go back and finish Third Wheel at some point.
That was probably it for the moment. I do still exist.
I should be less fussy about what's worth saying. Not like anyone reads it anyway.
Recent
I think people are unduly harsh on the Alanis Morissette song Ironic, with various rebuttals available claiming that [almost] none of the situations have any irony. Lighten up, people: assuming there even is a true authority on the meaning of words, there are no authoritative definitions of irony that are detailed enough to rule on everything on the song without subjective interpretation. Most of the people in the argument seem to have jumped on the bandwagon without really having any clue what they're talking about, and even the ones with research have a very particular slant on the definitions they cite.
Players of MMOs are an ungrateful and undeserving bunch. No, that's not fair, let me qualify: almost all of the players you ever hear speak (or communicate in whatever medium) about an MMO are ungrateful and undeserving of it. It's generally the assumption that the game is for them, and anything to cater to the other players (massively many of them) is at best a waste of development time that could be better lavished on their psuedo-single-player paradise, or at worst some manner of personal affront to them and attack on their sensibilities.
On a related point, you cannot assume a right to freedom of speech on the internet. Your nation's legislation on the point (assuming it has some) applies only to public forums (using forum in the most general sense), and unless you're going to run your own server, host it yourself and so on (theoretically right up to building your own backbone) all of your outlets on the internet are going to be owned by someone else, who has every right not to let you say whatever you like. Even if you do happen to arrange some site over which you have sufficient control, you can't assume that your visitors have the freedom to read it.
The reason that's a point related to whining gamers is that I quite often see people talking about their right of free speech on the official forums for some or other MMO. The forums are a benefit the publisher provides to the players, but ultimately they own it and they'd be stupid to let you say certain things. (And in fact, I suspect a lot of them are moderated only for offensiveness, things worthy of legal action and so on. Just generally the stuff that no right-minded forum admin lets you post).
There's a guy at LotRO, Orion, who seems to be a designer (a somewhat senior one, if calling people into offices is taken as a sign of power) on the game and has a blog in the personal spaces section of the website. Perhaps he's not the only one doing so: I don't pay all that much attention to LotRO.
I disagree with some of what he says about game design, which is interesting considering that he has so many more levels in it than me. What I really love though is that he's there, on the front line talking openly and honestly (apparently without so much as an edit for SPG) about his work on the game. I think it's awesome that he's doing it and that Turbine (or whoever) are OK with it, and a great shame that so many of his commenters try to use what he says against him.
Some of his defences are almost flame bait - a good example was a player who accused Orion of knowing what was best for players better than they did, to which Orion responds that since players have varied tastes they don't collectively understand what's best for them - but to some extent these things need to be said. It appeals to the sensible and mature players and alienates the selfish and immature ones, and I hope that LotRO's community has enough of the former.
(Of course, sensible and mature players are still going to leave if they don't like your decisions. In fact, they're going to just stop paying without fanfare, whereas the immature ones have a tendency to stick around for months complaining that you're destroyed the game and that they're about to quit.)
By the way, if I'm going to remember/bother to post things in future, there's a good chance it'll be related to online gaming. I'm paying a lot of attention to that these days.
Writing goes quite well. The colleague who had hoped for time to edit the last full-length project didn't have it, but I'm getting good feedback from a friend who's reading it at the moment. Am writing a short story to submit for an anthology. I ought to go back and finish Third Wheel at some point.
That was probably it for the moment. I do still exist.
Comments