Paranoia
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Virtual reality helps paranoia patients face their fears
Virtual reality has vast potential for therapy, since it can put folks in stressful situations without any fear of harm. Researcher at Oxford University have demonstrated how effective it can be for treating severe paranoia in patients. The team selected 30 subjects receiving treatment for "persecutory delusions," a serious form of the disease. They were then outfitted with a $24,000 NVis SX111 head-mounted display built for military and other types of training, and placed into typically stressful social locations like elevators and subway trains.
The Daily Grind: How much paranoia should MMOs provoke?
A few weeks ago, SOE's John Smedley suggested that H1Z1's gameplay mechanics and atmosphere are intended make you "scared when you see someone" and that "your first instinct needs to be to hide." It seemed to me that what he was describing was not an MMORPG but the antithesis of an MMORPG. I usually log into MMOs to be surrounded by people, not to hide from them. Even in a game with open PvP, I don't want the entirety of my play experience to be summed up by sheer paranoia, especially a game that features so prominently a crafting-based and presumably social economy. What do you think -- how much do you want the feeling of paranoia and fear of your fellow players to dominate your play experience? [With thanks to SallyBowls and Space Cobra for the inspiration for this question!] Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Road to Mordor: Hacked!
"My kinship had just finished an instance run about a week-and-a-half ago and was in the process of reloading back into the world when I got the message that I was being disconnected because I had just logged into the Brandywine server. Huh? Suspecting the worst, I immediately hit up the Turbine Account page and changed my password then re-logged back into the game, which would boot the hacker offline just like I had been booted minutes earlier. "I was lucky and did that before the hacker had time to switch servers to where my active characters are. Other kinmates have not been so lucky." So goes the frightening tale of Pumping Irony's Scott, who shares this in the hopes that others may avoid a similar scare. Unfortunately, it seems as though stories such as these are becoming more and more common in Lord of the Rings Online, where the worst threat to your quest may not be the eye of Sauron but the malicious intent of hackers gutting your account while you're offline. Today we're going to step off the path for a temporary side trail into the gloomy undergrowth of account security and an MMO under siege.
Roman Abramovich's Eclipse has anti-photo 'laser shield'
If you ask a young boy to spec out his ideal boat, you might hear of helipads, swimming pools, missile-proof hulls, mini-submarines and laser shields. Well, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is one of those people with the time and money to listen to his inner child, and he's gone and put all of the above together inside a $1.2 billion 557-foot vessel of luxury and excess. The Eclipse will attempt to repel paparazzi with a laser system that is said to "detect CCDs" (we suspect they mean it detects the autofocus light), and responds with an intense beam of light that precludes unwanted photography. We don't know how well the automatic system will work, but it must be fun to manually point the lasers at the paps and go "pew pew!" [Via Fark]
Ghostcrawler suggests we play other games
Boredom and burnout is a common side effect of spending too much time with any one hobby. Still, it was refreshing to see Ghostcrawler, the Lead Systems Designer for WoW, recommend that players spend some time with other games. He points out that if you're feeling burned out, it's "not the worst thing in the world to try out some other games -- the past couple of years has been great for them." Of course, he did take the time to remind everyone that there is more to the game than clearing raid content or completing your latest PvP gear set. There are achievements, alts, questing, and tradeskills, to name a few. While this does indicate that Blizzard is feeling pretty confident in their chokehold on the MMO market, it's also a smart move on their part. There are already enough paranoid conspiracy theories out there claiming that the company merely wants our money, and less concerned with product quality than with elaborate plans designed to trick us into playing longer and shelling out more money. In fact, GC said this in response to one of these inspired theories.This reminds me of one of the loading screen tips that urges players to spend some time with their friends outside of this game as well as in it. As Ghostcrawler says, "just check back in with WoW every now and then."
EVE's spies and metagamers
EVE Online is one of the few MMOs where players in guilds (corporations and alliances) have some valid concerns about spies from rival groups infiltrating their ranks. The concept of being a spy or saboteur is a profession of sorts that arose in the game. There aren't any game mechanics that necessarily enable spying or make it into a viable profession, nor are there any rules that prohibit most of these activities. Wes from EVE Tribune recently wrote a piece called "Metagaming", dealing with how espionage can impact rival corporations and alliances in EVE. Wes asks, "Why is everyone so paranoid about spies and metagaming?" then goes on to explain how espionage in EVE works, categorizing spies by their modus operandi:
Demonology 101: the Felhunter
I thought I'd do a Blood Pact on a Warlock's demons and how they'll be changing somewhat in Wrath of the Lich King, but considering there are two other trees to worry about, I've got the next two weeks loaded. Instead, we'll take a short look at one demon each day and see how the new talents and inherent demon abilities change the way you'll be playing with your pet. For today, we'll take a look at my personal favorite, the Felhunter. I love the Felhunter because its cute, scaly, and eats my opponent's buffs and locks them out of magical schools. Out of all the demons -- with the exception of the Succubus -- Warlocks get the most benefit from micromanaging a Felhunter. This demon changes the most significantly in Wrath owing to a few things. The bad news first: currently in Beta, Felhunters no longer confer Paranoia, so in Wrath you'll actually get stun-locked by surprise instead of seeing it coming and not being able to do anything about it anyway. It also loses Tainted Blood, which won't be missed because a Felhunter with a Rogue or Warrior on it is going to die, -475 attack power notwithstanding.
VC Tuesday: A feast of game downloads
One of the most highly-anticipated Virtual Console titles arrives in Japan today, eliminating the need to hunt down an expensive cartridge. Even the somewhat high 900 point price Nintendo is asking is understandable given the nature of the game. That's right, today Japanese gamers can celebrate the arrival of Ninja Commando -- and, according to the ESRB, we could see it soon as well!What? It looks fun. Super Mario RPG (Super Famicom, 1 player, 900 Wii Points) Phantasy Star IV Sennenki no Owari Ni (The End of the Millennium) (Mega Drive, 1 player, 700 Wii Points Paranoia (Psychosis) (PC Engine, 1 player, 600 Wii Points) Ninja Commando (Neo Geo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points) As if four awesome VC games weren't enough, Nintendo of Japan has also made three WiiWare games available: Saikyou Ginsei Go, Blue Oasis, and -- yay! -- Ouchi de Mugen Puchi Puchi! Wow, seven games? Our Wii Shop is officially a joke.
Apple paranoia in action
I'm doing screenshots today and I snap a photo of the iPhone video application. Notice anything missing? Like the actual video? What kind of paranoia prevents a screenshots application from photographing video on a platform that shouldn't be doing snapshots in the first place because it's not set up for third party interaction? Thank you Apple. p.s. I know. I know. It's probably just hardware acceleration.
More Halo 3 footage for your Halo obsessed soul
Bungie has posted a video featuring a behind the scenes look at the creation of the Halo 3 trailer, complete with commentary from several Bungie employees and footage of the orchestra and choir that was used to create the backing music. If, for whatever reason, you can't view the video, here's a quick summary of the content: Amusing quotes if taken out of context: Marty shows early signs of dementia with his paranoid "Where are we? Who is this? What's happening?" sound bite. A few snippets of unseen footage, mainly from different angles of the Halo 3 trailer. This could possibly be proof that the trailer was rendered in real time, although it's very likely that the sound, AI and everything else was pre-rendered. Some more mystery surrounding cortana: dare we say she's gone rampant? A lot of meaningless marketing lines that amount to not much more than hype. Phrases like "dynamic", "real stuff" and "that epic feel" don't tell us much about how Halo 3 is coming along. Overall, there isn't that much new to see here, although if you're a fan of Halo (who isn't?) the video is probably worth a few moments of your time. [Image: Emily Fulford]
