siblings
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Storyboard: Brother from the same mother
An awful lot of characters seem to be only-children. In some countries this is pretty normal, but it's certainly not normal where I'm living. Pretty much all of my friends and contemporaries have at least one sibling. So it seems a bit odd that your roleplaying characters don't have any fellow family members to talk to. The realistic reason, of course, is that most of us don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about those siblings. And in some cases it's entirely reasonable to say that your character might not know her several half-siblings. But in the interests of verisimilitude, it's worth thinking about this, even if you never want siblings to become a major focus of roleplaying. You can come at this topic from two angles. You can talk about how to handle siblings, or you can talk about the impact of siblings. For this column, I'm going to focus on the former. What are the options for including your character's siblings?
UC Irvine to compare WoW players from America, China
The University of California at Irvine has been granted $100,000 to study the differences between Chinese and American World of Warcraft players, according to the Orange County Register. The study will mostly focus on explaining why American players are much more likely to employ modifications such as Cosmos than Chinese players are, but project lead Bonnie Nardi made some interesting observations outside the scope of this particular endeavor.For example, she noted that Chinese players are for some reason more likely to talk about the aesthetic appearance of the game than are Americans. Whereas American players often play with their children, parents, or siblings, Chinese players are unlikely to do that. "The older generation dislikes video games," she said, and playing with siblings is obviously rare since most Chinese of the gaming generation have none."The vast majority of Chinese players are not gold farmers," she said. "They're ordinary players like anyone. The media has blown that story out of all proportion. Many people think Chinese play for a job. They play for fun." Enlightening stuff. We're looking forward to seeing what else comes out of her research.[Via Ten Ton Hammer] One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
