My Chrismas list!

Books -

The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King
The Wheel of Time - The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan
The Wheel of Time - Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan

iPod Nano

Stainless steel frying pan
New slippers

No video games... I hate games as presents! I always make it clear that I will do all my game purchasing on my OWN!

Whats on your list?

Naked man jumps to death... recieves parking ticket!

I don't stray from gaming too often... err well I don't try anyways, but its 5 AM in the morning and this just cracked me up. Partly because I've had friends that visited DC and got in a good bit of trouble over parking tickets. This story from the Washington Post is just odd.

Cut and pasted for your enjoyment.

"A naked man darted from a sport-utility vehicle into a downtown Washington office building at lunchtime yesterday and then jumped to his death from the eighth floor, officials said.

The man double-parked in the 1000 block of 15th Street NW about noon, bolted from his still-running gray Jeep Cherokee, dashed past a crowd on the street and ran into the lobby of an office building, witnesses said.

Police were still trying to identify the man yesterday and to determine why he jumped. Witnesses also were trying to sort out what happened. The man had no apparent connection to the building, according to people who work there.

"He didn't even have shoes on," said James Crouch, who was working as a temporary security guard at the building. Sitting behind the security desk, Crouch first saw the man from the waist up and thought "maybe he was a rather strange jogger. But then I stood up and saw the rest of him."

The man told Crouch that he was "handicapped," asked him for 50 cents to make a phone call and then spoke incoherently, mumbling something about his father, Crouch said.

Then the man ran to an elevator. Minutes later, he emerged from a stairwell on the eighth floor. The fire alarm had been set off, presumably by the man, and the office doors on that floor were open as people began to file out, witnesses said.

The man pushed his way into one of the offices, where he said "excuse me" several times while charging toward a window, witnesses said. He smashed the glass and jumped through the window, falling onto a parapet between two buildings. Some downtown workers saw him fall.

D.C. firefighters and emergency medical service personnel arrived at the scene, and police quickly cordoned off the block.

Workers in the eighth-floor office said they had not seen the man before and did not believe that he had ties to the offices there. They didn't hear anything he said other than "excuse me," a witness said.

Before it became apparent what was taking place, the city's parking enforcers reacted to the abandoned SUV, which had leather seats, Maryland plates and no sign of clothing inside. They slapped a ticket on the windshield."

Pepsi Online

Good read over at Virgin Worlds.

Best part is the picture! No game, other than World of Warcraft, could illustrate the point better!

How To : The key to the World of Warcraft Auction House

This is a cut'n'paste of my response on Tobold's MMORPG blog about the World of Warcraft auction house. Find the article here.

Controlling the market is key. I have the items I watch and I will buyout and low sellers and undercutters. Then I will repost at my price. I usually can bully out the undercutters because they are usually aren't dedicated AH watchers. They got some cash and that's all they cared about.

My keys to AH riches while still playing the game are as follows...

1. Pick your poison and stick with it. Don't switch back and forth between multiple items unless you really want to waste hours in the AH. If you are a disenchanter... stick with it. If you are a miner... stick with it.

2. Own the market every login. Take the few minutes to buyout every undercutter. This is tough at first because you probably will take losses on some purchases, but you are ensuring your future market.

Don't be afraid the mail people if they constantly undercut you. Don't be mad at them! Explain to them that you would like to purchase at a set price and see if they will stop using the AH. It is MORE profitable for them to sell lower to you because they are NOT losing money on AH fees.

3. Don't flood the market. You have bank space... SO USE IT! If you find the market empty and a demand for your goods you will have the "stock" in the bank to fill up the market... and usually you can charge a bit extra.

30 minutes a day can make you 100 gold a week easily and I've proven it time and again. Just the question of what to buy/sell... I'll let you figure that part out.

After T-day update!

I am back home from Texas and all my T-day happenings and here is the update of what happened while I was gone. Lets begin:

What sort of gaming did I get done in Texas? Not much that is for sure. The CZee, AT&T gaming/net cafe, was poorly managed and I will write up; Mouthing Off 5 - Piss poor net cafes

Whats in my gaming future?

1. Battlefield 2 : Special Forces - Initial impressions are good, but I'll have to dig into the expansion, so expect a better impressions post on this $30 expansion to an already good game.

2. Call of Duty 2 - I was getting good before I left for Texas and I hope to return to prominence. Sadly, I can't dedicate the time I wish I could. I also plan to knock out some more of the single-player campaign.

3. Counter Strike : Source - Renewed interest to get some CSS in, but not too much.

4. The Hidden - A half life 2 MOD that my boys at MWHQ.net are playing, so we shall play and we shall gank some newbs.

5. Day of Defeat : Source - Not only Call of Duty 2, but DoD : Source! I paid for it so mine as well get at least 50 hours of gaming out of it.

Update: 12 May, 2009 - Edited post, removed broken links, and applied labels.

Texas

I'm in the big state of Texas from the 14th until the 24th and I just so happen to have found some internet access.

During my down time away from training I am reading the book Smartbomb, a very good read for any gamer, and I'll have a review when I get back to normalville.

Update: 10 Nov, 2006 - Edited post and applied labels.

Poll shows Star Wars Galaxies NGE plans not popular

Star Wars Galaxies NGE seems to be taking a beating not only on the message boards, but in random internet polls. Discount the validity of such polls and pass it off as just "whiners who haven't tried it yet", but there is a lot of people talking.

People are sick of changing with no promise that when and if things get better in Star Wars Galaxies that they won't just up and change it again. No amount of bribing or promising from the Star Wars Galaxies development team can sell this vocal crowd.

It is human nature to despise change and Broken Toys has a good discussion why.

Smedley spins the Star Wars Galaxies NGE

Next Gen has an article/interview up with SOE head honcho, John Smedley. (bad link, removed)

" 'We got a lot of feedback about what was wrong and what wasn't. We saw early on that people weren't satisfied with the combat, so we decided to try something pretty radical.' "

Hold on here... the MULTIPLE complaints from BETA TESTERS didn't give you a clue before you launched the game? Chalk one up for not caring about the feedback from beta testers. Another reason professional beta testers should be used to initially test an MMO. If you are paying them I would sure as hell hope you were listening to them.

"The original design of the game was very much influenced by the Richard Garriot (Ultima Online) and Brad McQuaid (early EverQuest) schools of MMOG design. That is to say that the very best experiences in the game would come from massive time investment, trial and error and endurance of hardship. The rewards that come from that are significant but highly exclusive."

I was around on day one and early on they were staying as far away from the EQ model as possible and stealing only the skill idea from UO. Massive time investment, trial and error and endurance of hardship... three keys to avoiding making EQ2 (oops).

"Along those lines, it was incredibly difficult to become a Jedi. In fact, the mechanism for which it is accomplished (which was secret for a long time) is that a character has to master five specific professions (out of more than 20), and those professions were selected for that character secretly by the game at the moment of creation. The player never knew which specific five would unlock the Jedi path. It was an incredible time sink, to say the least."

Bad decision to have Jedi in the game as playable in the first place. You don't decide to place the game in the "old" movie timeline and then destroy the immersion with a thousand Jedi running around. Jedi should of always been NPC only... or even better... special event characters. The new "force sensitive" class is going to be overplayed... welcome to Star Wars Jedi Online!

" 'It's mixed. It's very positive [feedback] from the people who are actually playing it. And we also have the expected push back from the people who haven't actually logged in to try it," says Smedley. "Once people get in there, it's overwhelmingly positive. It's the "the sky is falling" crowd on the forums that's still going to take some converting. I understand that. These are big changes.' "

Maybe... just maybe... people are sick of you redesigning the game they've invested so much time into. Not to say these changes aren't needed, but not understanding why that vocal minority is RIGHTFULLY pissed is a sure shot to alienate even more players.

"There's a quote about the original design of Galaxies that says it was too much like living the life of Uncle Owen (the moisture farmer) and not enough like the life of Luke or Han Solo. We want to deliver more of the heroic Star Wars experience."

Actually early on Star Wars Galaxies was all about being Stormtrooper #245 or a moisture farmer. Not everyone wanted to be a hero... they wanted to live among heros. Sadly most players want to "change the world" when they are playing an MMO. Unfortunately this is not possible and making classes that stand out in the movies detracts from the immersion factor. Not everyone in Star Wars is a bounty hunter or Jedi, but in Star Wars Galaxies NGE it will be quite the opposite.

My suggestion for Digg

Digg.com is a great tool. It takes control of the news and puts it in the hands of the users. Everything on the site is controlled by the users. Submissions only make the front page through the repeated "digging" of the user base. Comments on storues are moderated and sorted by the voting of other users.

The problem is that many features of Digg are lost on the new Digg users. Many only use the site for quick links to news articles or spam the submission queue with every story they find. This is fine because of the very nature of Digg, but so much can be done to educate the many new users and make it a better site!

My suggestion comes from and is inspired by countless video games. The idea of a "newbie tutorial" that must be completed before a users sign up is complete and their account is activated.

The tutorial would walk the new user through the following...

• What items to look for in a story before submitting it. Is the story recent? Is the story related to the category it is being submitted under? Is the link direct to the source or is it through another website? Many other questions could be asked of course.
• Next it would walk users through the actual "digging" for stories. It would need to explain how to look past the front page and get into the many submissions and explain how stories get to the front page.
• Finally the tutorial would walk the new user through how to moderate and rate comments. This is by far the most overlooked area of Digg currently. The tutorial would provide examples of good and bad comments and the user would have the chance to rate each comment in order to receive an activated account.
  

This tutorial could also be available for anyone that has signed up within the last 6 months; which has been Digg's greatest period of growth. I understand that not every Digg user comments, submits, or even "diggs". A lot probably come just for the quick links, but an account is not required to do this. If they sign up for an account they should understand how to use the site. Lack of knowledge or lack of initiative... a tutorial would help.

Update: 6 Nov, 2006 - Updated post and applied labels.

Star Wars Galaxies NGE video

OK back to gaming for a bit. There is this video floating around showing off some of the new combat in Star Wars Galaxies New Gamer Experience. What I gained from the video.

1. Collision detection does not exist for projectiles.
2. You can not dodge incoming fire as it tracks directly to you after being fired.
3. Click... click... click... my wrist is hurting already.
4. "Hide behind the boxes kid"... ROFL... and get shot over and over. The illusion of using your surroundings is almost there.

Conclusion

People jumped way off the deep end when they got their hands on this thing at AGC and heard the rumors. Hype is a bad thing that is starting to kill this announcement. I still feel its what the game needs, but they need to refine it more.

I could possibly have all these systems wrong with no hands on experience, but I like to stir the pot.