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Drama Mamas: The case of the lingering ex
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. How do you handle moving on from one intense relationship to another? Dear Drama Mamas, [...] My first love, of nearly six months two nights ago told me, for the second time, that she had just wanted to be friends. And that a long-distance would never work out for her. A few days before the relationship ended for the first time, I could tell it was over. I just didn't want to admit it to myself. She was the first person that showed me just how special ERP could be. The first girl to ever trust me enough to be "naughty". There were many partners of hers before me, though she had constantly assured me that what she had with tens of others had meant next to nothing to her. She broke off all relations with these guys and girls to show me she was committed to me and only me. She was very clingy, and it didn't bother me one bit. I enjoyed having her around most of the hours of every day we played together.
Storyboard: Private party
Ms. Lady and I were in the midst of roleplaying in Star Wars: The Old Republic, and it was going well. As it so happened, this particular bit of roleplaying involved her pureblood Sith lord doing the Sad Sith Dance and singing the accompanying song. Explaining why this was a logical step in the scene would require a whole lot of explanation of the characters involved, and I don't think you really want to read me waxing poetic about my characters for a thousand words. (If I'm wrong, please, do tell. It'd certainly make for several weeks of easy-to-write columns for me.) It's enough to know that there is a Sad Sith Dance and accompanying song. The important point is that just like the song says, voices carry. When said Sith was exiting the cantina, he found that there was a small crowd of people on the upper floor, people who hadn't said anything but could have very well been listening in. And that brings to mind the issue of privacy in roleplaying, something that you both strive for and try to avoid at once because of the nature of the interactions.
The Perfect Ten: Types of loot that get me excited
Loot's not something that I see discussed much these days among MMO players. It's probably because loot's been around since the beginning of online time and is such a staple that we'd only really notice it if it went away completely or if the object in question were a major game-changer for us. Random loot from mobs is a reward mechanic that is bordering on archaic, having been supplanted by dependable quest rewards and barter vendors that give us the gear we so desire. Of course, now we've come around the weird circle to the point that dropped lockboxes hold interesting loot, but we've got to pay for the privilege of seeing what's inside. But let's not go there today! Instead, I'm going to share with you the 10 general types of loot that still get me excited while playing. They will shock, amaze, and radically reshape your life, as long as you've had a recent brain wipe and are awaiting brand-new neural instructions.
Drama Mamas: Falsely accused of public cybersex
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. This week's letter comes from France, which shows just how universal WoW drama is. Dear Drama Mamas, I recently transferred from a bottom-of-the-charts server to a high-rated one, and after a few raid as un PUG on my new server I found a guild that fitted me perfectly. I was recruited as a main tank, for Firelands and oncoming 4.3. The first weeks were idyllic: tons of raid, even with HM (I was 3/7 normal mode before my transfer). I learned a lot and worked hard to progress. I was the only woman in the guild but there wasn't a problem for me, as I consider me IG as a player and a tank above all.
Storyboard: Red light
When it comes to roleplaying, we've got more than our fair share of elephants in the room. Things we all know are taking place, that fall under the same aegis as the rest of the hobby, but things we don't really want to acknowledge publicly. Partly because you can have good roleplayers, people you know and play with, who have some less-savory elements lurking in the background. It's hard not to notice that a fellow roleplayer is cliquish, isolationist, and condescending... but it's very possible for a friend to be heavily into erotic roleplay (ERP) without you realizing it. And it needs to be talked about. It needs to be addressed, because there's something strange about the entire roleplaying community pretending that it doesn't exist. From a combination of factors -- squick, inappropriateness, and just plain disinterest -- we've allowed a shadow community to grow up in the space around roleplaying, with the tacit hope that if no one mentions ERP as if it were a part of roleplaying, it'll just go away and we can go back to what we were doing before. Before I go any further in this column, I'd like to note that some stuff in here might be squickworthy. It's the nature of the beast. Please tread carefully, and I apologize in advance to anyone skeeved out.
WWDC Interview: HansaWorld
Neil Ticktin (Editor-in-Chief, MacTech Magazine and MacNews) interviews Erik Elmgren of HansaWorld at WWDC 2011. Erik was kind enough to tell us about their thoughts on the announcements on WWDC, and how it will affect their plans moving forward. TUAW and MacTech Magazine teamed up to speak to developers at WWDC 2011 about the keynote and how Apple's new technologies will help them and their customers. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll bring you those videos here, MacTech.com and MacNews.com. Also, check out the free trial subscription offer for MacTech Magazine here.
EnOcean's home automation sensors communicate over TCP/IP, play nice with smartphone apps
EnOcean has long been on our radar thanks to its inexpensive light switches and thermostats, which harvest energy from solar cells and thermal differentials and boast peel-and-stick backs for easy installation. Now, they're getting hooked up for TCP/IP communication, which means in addition to talking to each other, homeowners will be able to control them using any garden-variety web-connected device. The setup will require a small gateway, at which point you can monitor rooms using desktop widgets and mobile apps such as Can2Go that are compatible with EnOcean's radio protocol (ERP). So far, the company's mostly made headway in retail stores and office buildings, but if it has its way, it could be coming to hospitals, college dorms, and (duh) your home.
Wings Over Atreia: Shakespeare in Aion
OK, OK, maybe Shakespeare is a bit melodramatic, but the idea of taking on a role and playing it out on a stage is not a foreign idea -- even in Aion. It just so happens that this stage is not under your feet but in virtual space instead. Besides, I happen to love Shakespeare, so props to me for mentioning him in a gaming column! Now, I am the first to admit that NCsoft doesn't make it easy for a gamer to roleplay in Aion; there are scant few tools to support this style of play. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Despite this dearth, there is in fact a whole community comprised of legions both large and small as well as individuals. These players use personal connections and a player-created chat channel in-game as well as external tools such as the Aion Roleplayers website to bind themselves together and support the community as a whole. So what exactly is roleplay, and how viable is it in the world of Atreia? Exit stage left (past the cut) to define RP, debunk some RP myths, and explore RP in general Aion.
All the World's a Stage: Maintaining your barriers
In-game romances are a staple of escapist persistent roleplaying. Any time you're talking about a group of roleplayers who maintain their persona on a long term basis over weeks, months, or years and enjoy any kind of freeform creative environment, you're also talking about someone who engages in the love story. There's just something about the framework of a love story that brings out some awesome roleplay. It's great. But it can also turn into a nightmare fairly quickly. When you spend hours and hours each week roleplaying side-by-side with another person, you get awfully attached to that other person. And even if you never engage in ERP and keep away from intimate scenes, you're still pretending to be in love. That's just begging for trouble to creep into the roleplay. Trouble that could quickly lead you to a visit to the Drama Mamas. Consider that science hints we think of our characters the same way we think of ourselves. Assuming you're not using your roleplay as a chance to meet someone in real life, then you should absolutely set up, maintain, and enforce some barriers between your romantic roleplay and your real life. Romantic stories can be very rewarding, but these barriers are essential to keeping trouble out of both your real life and your roleplay.
64GB Zune HD launching April 12th for $350, current models reduced $20
Let's just be nice and feign surprise, okay? Good. With that out of the way, Microsoft has announced a 64GB version of Zune HD, due out April 12th via the Zune online store (and later via other retailers) with a handful of color options and a strapping $349.99 price tag. Not to be outdone, the 16GB and 32GB will each receive a $20 cut on the MSRP, to $200 and $270, respectively -- whatever Amazon and Newegg slash beyond that is up to them. It seems "as soon as possible" is the motto for when the price drop is taking place, so if your favorite online / brick-and-mortar retailer isn't yet honoring the extra Andrew Jackson in your pocket, have patience. So now we're left with a v4.5 firmware release date as the remaining piece in this puzzle, but Microsoft promises to solve that riddle wrapped in an enigma "in the coming days." Right. Press release after the break.
All the World's a Stage: Intimate relationships between characters
A goal of much roleplay is to realistically recreate the relationships between characters, even if those characters are under some extraordinary circumstances. These relationships can run the gamut of human emotion: arguments, trust, and especially love. Even though your character may be an elf, dwarf, or troll, you can still take the character through a myriad of "human" experiences. However, it inevitablly seems that most roleplay characters pair up. It's part of many storylines. The growth of romance is a fun story, and often allows roleplayers to put many of their characters' most deeply held secrets on display. Of course, as with many healthy relationships, the romance can eventually grow into sex. Roleplaying sexual relationships has lead to a lot of less-than-savory stereotypes about roleplayers. The Goldshire "cyber inn" jokes and Cybermoon tropes seem like the staple of every roleplay realm's official forums. And there's certainly been examples of erotic roleplay being taken beyond normal bounds. Let's take a look behind the jump and talk about some ways you can deal with initmate relationships between characters, without necessarily turning it into a running joke.
A walking tour around the Roleplaying realms
Someone named wowgossip on livejournal (though I think her character -- I'm assuming she's a woman, though that might be wrong -- is named Mary Sue, like the lead of so much bad fan fiction) is conducting a pretty exhaustive tour of roleplaying on the servers, both good and bad. As is clearly stated, this is not a review -- it's more of a "state of the game" of Warcraft roleplaying, so the good, the bad, and even the ugly are included. She's already stopped by Argent Dawn, Blackwater Raiders, Earthen Ring, and Moon Guard, and Sisters of Elune.The sights range from the disgusting (you get offered to cyber by just being a lowbie and hanging around Elwynn, apparently), to the boring (there is some really, really bad vampire RP), to the fascinating (some of the character descriptions are very well written, and use some commonplace ingame gear to portray a character's backstory very well). There's no judging involved -- it's basically a (pretty) objective survey of what RP players are doing on RP servers lately. Even if you're not an RPer, it's an interesting read (though some of the images and situations are NSFW, depending on where you work).There's more info in a Q&A on the journal, including a plan to possibly do some group RPing, but just the idea of surveying what's out there is cool. There is so much happening on the realms (in terms of RPing and grouping and PvPing), and even here at WoW insider we can only document so much of it. Definitely cool to get another look inside what players are coming up with (no matter how weird or boring or wild) on the realms.
WoW Insider's top ten WoW stories of 2007
We had a gigantic year at WoW Insider-- from January 1st to December 31st, we've posted over 4,500 stories here on this very site, about nearly every facet of the World of Warcraft (and you guys didn't slouch, either-- we had over 150,000 comments on the site in 2007). We've reported on everything from hearthstone soaps to Norweigan mooses, and everything from Arena PvP to Zul'Aman. We've posted guides, rumors, insights, jokes, and everything else we could find connected to this game that we all play (17 hours a week on average).And seeing as 2007 is just about to end, we figured it would be fun to take a look at the year behind us, and list the top ten stories that we reported on during that time. From comedic to controversial, these ten stories run the gamut, and they also comprise the most important news that happened in the World of Warcraft this year. As a staff, we collected all of the biggest stories of the year, and then rated them from one to ten.So click the link below to finish out this year, and check out WoW Insider's Top Ten WoW Stories of 2007. Before the year ends, let's take a look back at what happened in Azeroth and the culture surrounding it.
All the World's a Stage: Drawing the line on ERP
All the World's a Stage is brought to you by David Bowers every Sunday evening, investigating the mysterious art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.There are some people out there who use online games as a venue for their erotic fantasies, from husbands and wives spending some imaginative time together online, to complete strangers flush with desire and looking for some sort of satisfaction in each other. Most of these people who try out Erotic Role-Playing (or ERP) in WoW realize the need to keep it private; they do whatever they do in private chat channels, where it stays their own affair. But there are a rare few who take ERP to an extreme: they form a guild whose whole purpose is to engage in ERP, and proceed to garner a largely negative reputation for themselves. They wear their suggestive guild name like a sign above each of their character's heads, as if to draw as much attention to themselves as possible. Their members indulge in various sexual fantasies, some of which may even be extremely distasteful and objectionable, played out in an environment where everyone is encouraged to "explore" with one another in anonymity. Obviously, the moral danger here is that young people may be tempted to wander in, way before they are mature enough to understand or deal reasonably with what they experience there. We generally assume adults to be responsible for themselves in such matters, but children may very well be confused and curious, even willing to lie about their age in order to unravel such adult secrets. Indeed, ERP is a subject matter that the vast majority of players do not want to see -- least of all parents who like their kids to grow and learn from their interactions with others within the game, or at least have a safe and fun experience. Therefore, roleplayers of any sort have a responsibility to keep the public environment clean and safe for all who play there, and for the few involved with ERP guilds to do otherwise is dangerous and unethical.
All the World's a Stage: Oh the drama! -- When to "/ignore"
All the World's a Stage is a weekly column by David Bowers, published on Sunday evenings, investigating the explorative performance art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.We've talked before about roleplaying as an art form, whether you think about it as acting or puppeteering, fiction or improv, there's definitely something creative going on here. But like any art form, roleplaying is best when it means something; that's to say, when it expresses something ultimately "true" about human experience, and perhaps even illumines the minds and hearts of the roleplayers in some way.Roleplayers all want to achieve that creativity, of course, but one problem often stands in our way: it's a rare work of art that really works for everyone. That's why the regular old art world is such a complete mess -- one man's fingerpainting is another man's post-modernist masterpiece. People constantly disagree about what subjects make for acceptable art, whether some art pushes extremes too far and becomes obscenity, and whether real art actually requires talent and skill. One person may curl up with their favorite Jane Austen novel and read it for the 10th time, while another may come home from the comic book store with the epic adventures of the Bone cousins. Each story conveys very different things to the reader -- but then the people who want to read these stories are looking for different things to get out them as well. Each form of storytelling speaks its own language for its own special audience.We have the same problem in roleplaying. To illustrate, imagine there's a teenage boy going through public school and not getting along with his peers very well. When he roleplays, he plays an intimidating character who likes to try to get in your face, pick a fight with you and insult you to show how very powerful he is. That power fantasy may be very annoying for you and me, but for him it really means something. That's not to say it's high-quality art by any means, but nonetheless, his feelings are important too, and he has his right to play a character on an RP server the same way we all do. It's just that for us, the "/ignore" command starts to look really tempting every time his sort comes along.
