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Some Assembly Required: Happy birthday Perpetuum!
Welcome back to Some Assembly Required, dear readers. This week marks something of a milestone for Perpetuum, the sci-fi sandbox set in the distant future on a far-flung planet known as Nia. Yes, the mech-based MMORPG has survived its first year (without a free-to-play conversion crutch!), and more than that, it's even grown a little bit. That's no small feat for an indie title in today's overcrowded MMO marketplace, never mind a niche sandbox that's been called a ground-based EVE Online. Join me after the break for a recap of Perpetuum's first 12 months.
Some Assembly Required: EQII's Festival of Discord
Over the last few months, Some Assembly Required has covered features within games (such as quest-building tools, music, and housing) as well as overviews of full games themselves, not to mention some existential ranting on the life and times of the sandbox genre. This week, we focus on another aspect: player events. Most player-created events range from RP tavern nights to full-blown tests of skill to races and scavenger hunts. These events are smaller affairs involving either a group of close friends, a guild, or perhaps even a mixture of a few guilds. However, there are occasions when events can grow larger... much larger. Such is the case with EverQuest II's Festival of Discord. Not only is this a server-wide festival designed and hosted by players, but it is fully supported by Sony Online Entertainment. And let me tell you, SOE has pulled out all the stops! Want to see what this festival is all about or (better yet) make some of these events on EQII's Antonia Bayle server in person? Grab your cloak and join me past the break for a rundown of the festival, its history, and even events yet to come!%Gallery-139023%
Some Assembly Required: Quest building with SWG's Chronicles
What? A tease you say? No I'm... OK, maybe just a little. But that's really not to be helped. If you wonder why we are seeming to delve into Star Wars Galaxies a bit more than other games right now, it is because we have to cover it before the lights go out, else how would you have a chance to go in and explore it for yourself? And the fact that the suns are going to permanently set over Tatooine in a couple of months does not negate the fact that there are some impressive features in the game worth highlighting! Hopefully, by doing so, not only will players be able to take some time to enjoy them while they can, but other developers will get the hint and start incorporating more into their titles. What feature is the focal point of this eighth edition of Some Assembly Required? In case you missed it hidden so sneakily in the title, it's SWG's Chronicles system. You can't define player-generated content any better than with sharable quests created by the players themselves. Sure, other games have quest builders (the question is why don't more?!), but Galaxies has some unique elements. If you have been gone from the game so long that you have no idea what I am talking about, take heart: Today's guide will explore this feature and walk you through exactly how to get started. If you have an active subscription to take advantage of the final months of this epic sandbox, you can hop into game and tinker with Chronicles before it is gone for good. Trust me, it is worth it. Hop a landrover and zoom past the cut for a look at SWG's version of build-a-quest.
Some Assembly Required: Issue #1
Hello folks and welcome to the preview issue of Some Assembly Required. Massively has a whole host of MMORPG-specific columns for your perusal, as well as a few general jaunts that veer off the beaten path to examine several different aspects of our crazy hobby. Some Assembly Required falls into this latter category, and every two weeks either myself or MJ Guthrie will be taking you on various deep dives into the world of player-generated content. What's player-generated content? Well that's part of what makes this venture so exciting. Player-generated content is often seen as some sort of nebulous activity exclusive to sandbox games. Others take it to mean roleplay. Still others see it as unrestricted PvP and the metagame machinations surrounding it. For our purposes, player-generated content encompasses all of these as well as anything and everything that showcases the creativity of both individual players and entire communities.
San Francisco backs away from cellphone radiation law, will distribute common sense instead
Science! It's the heady stuff that keeps the looneys in check and our feet planted on the earth. Back it up with a powerful CTIA lobbying effort and science can even move San Francisco policy. The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that The City's law requiring cellphone retailers to label each device's SAR level as tested by the FCC has been put on indefinite hold, with a watered-down version likely taking its place. Surely, this is yet another example of big business and government colluding to the detriment of man? Not really, not this time. As Joel Moskowitz, director at the IC Berkeley Center for Family and Community Health, and even the FCC will tell you, the SAR value is a poor measurement of radiation intake for consumers: "The specific absorption rate isn't a very useful measure because it's the peak reading on a variety of tests conducted on cell phones to measure their radiation, but doesn't indicate the average amount of radiation a user would generally be exposed to. You could buy a lower SAR phone, but on average it could produce more radiation than a higher SAR phone." Although changes to the law have not yet been formally introduced, they'll likely result in retailers handing out "tip sheets" to customers that explain how to minimize radiation exposure from their new handsets. Ok, you win this time, reason, but we can still debate image artifacting on certain long-form birth certificates... to the choppa!
FCC quietly changes guidance on cellphone radiation risks, further isolates San Francisco law
Here's something that'll surely send Birthers and Roswellians into a tizzy. The FCC quietly changed its long-standing recommendation that consumers concerned with cellphone radiation should purchase phones with lower SAR levels -- SAR meaning Specific Absorption Rate or the rate at which at which energy is absorbed by the body. The revision to the FCC website was made last week without any formal announcement. Odd, given the brouhaha created when the city of San Francisco passed a law requiring retailers to display SAR values next to cellphones as part of "right to know" safety campaign. A move that caused the CTIA to pull its fall event out of The City only to replace it with a big fat lawsuit. Here's a snippet from the FCC Consumer Fact sheet about SAR for Cellphones: Many people mistakenly assume that using a cell phone with a lower reported SAR value necessarily decreases a user's exposure to RF emissions, or is somehow "safer" than using a cell phone with a high SAR value. While SAR values are an important tool in judging the maximum possible exposure to RF energy from a particular model of cell phone, a single SAR value does not provide sufficient information about the amount of RF exposure under typical usage conditions to reliably compare individual cell phone models. Rather, the SAR values collected by the FCC are intended only to ensure that the cell phone does not exceed the FCC's maximum permissible exposure levels even when operating in conditions which result in the device's highest possible – but not its typical - RF energy absorption for a user. So why the sudden, unannounced change? Collusion between the cellphone industry's lobbying machine and big gov? Doubtful, the claification certainly makes sense to us. Besides, The Washington Post says no, citing a source familiar with the FCC's decision. Great, case closed then.
CTIA sues San Francisco over cellphone radiation law
San Francisco may have signed cellphone radiation labels into law, but the stickers won't stick without a fight -- the Cellular Telephone Industries Association (CTIA) just filed a complain in federal district court, claiming the new law supersedes the FCC's authority to regulate radio emissions and misleads consumers into believing some phones are safer than others. As we've discussed previously, the CTIA does have something of a point. Every phone that makes it to market is rigorously tested for cell phone radiation levels, and those that pass fall below a specific 1.6 watt per kilogram threshold already. But hey, we're all for bombarding our brains with that much less radiation, as long as our calls stay connected and our text messages arrive on time. If only there were a label for that... Read the CTIA's full complaint at our more coverage link.
Cellphone radiation law to help, confuse San Francisco consumers
Oh San Francisco, you and your progressive ways. The city just passed a law -- a first in the US -- requiring retailers to post the Specific Absorption Rates (aka SAR, the rate at which at which energy is absorbed by the body) in no less than 11-point font right next to any cellphone being sold. Sounds good as far as consumer education goes, right? And a functioning democracy demands an educated and informed electorate. But here's the thing: the jury's still out (just pick your favorite dangerous / not dangerous study to fit your belief) on the effect of radiation at levels less than the 1.6 watts per kilogram threshold set by the FCC. As such, CTIA spokesman John Walls has a point when he says that highlighting the SAR levels might confuse consumers into thinking that some cellphones are safer than others. In other words, consumer education needs to go much further than any retail-shelf placard could possibly communicate. Well, at least the law will keep us safe long enough to walk out the door and trip over a hippie. P.S. The image above is from the "Get a Safer Phone" (note the wording) rankings provided by the Environmental Working Group.
Motorola dominates list of highest-radiation US phones
For anyone who puts much stock in those reports of cellphone radiation causing cancer, we recommend you set down your Moto and slowly back away. Turns out Motorola managed to score the top eight spots in a list by CNET of phones with the highest radiation levels -- as tested by the FCC. The phones are rated by SAR level, which measures the quantity of radio frequency energy asbsorbed by the body per kilogram of organic tissue. Of course, a lot of these phones are nearly a decade old, but the two-month-old C290 makes an appearance, and the list is headed by the SLVR L6 at a whopping SAR level of 1.58W/kg (1.6W/kg is the max allowed). This could have something to do with the light weight of a phone like the SLVR -- though Palm's much heftier 650 managed a 9 spot -- but we're cooking up a few conspiracy theories right now if that turns out not to be the case. In all fairness, the top ten lowest-radiation phone list had a couple Motorola appearances, with the Audiovox PPC66001 leading the group at a SAR level of 0.12. Now where did we put that tin foil hat...[Via Healthbetold]
