Archive for the year 2003
Halloween in Alphaville
Lot’s to complain about wrt TSO, as with any other MMORPG, but I thought I’d weigh in with some happy on the party we had on Halloween night at our home, The Church of Mephistopheles, in Alphaville. I think it shows something about the potential for the medium once one gets away from all the [...]
Full StorySWG is a silly silly place
Game Girl Advance, has linked an excellent article concerning the failings of Star Wars Galaxies to do nearly anything right. Please take a moment to read The Mystery of Star Wars Galaxies. On another note, I continue to stand in awe with the rapidity with which essays and observations like these are popping up, it [...]
Full StoryHow Inane can these Jobs Be?
One of my sims (Doctor Legion) foolishly took a job in a robot factory. Now he/she/it is hounded by M.O.M.I. for absenteeism. And there is no obvious way for Doc to quit. Today was the last straw; Doc was standing outside Doc’s store relishing a 50 grand sale of goth items, when the car pool [...]
Full StoryEven Worse than I Imagined
Well, the pets and jobs have come to Alpha, and the transition has been an absolute technical nightmare. I’d have to guess that Alpha has been down half of the time (just a guess). The problem is that people are unable to enter the city and or properties. Alpha is down again as I write, [...]
Full StoryThought Experiment (part1)
A while ago I was brainstorming a VR idea with a few friends and eventually have the wherewithal to write the ideas down. The concept is yet to be fully fleshed out so I’m posting the text below and would love to hear commentary and rumination about the structure and so forth. I will be [...]
Full StoryThe pets will help. Not!
A lot of Alpha denizens have told me that the game will improve a lot when the pets and jobs come online this week. Sorry to crush your hopes, but that isn’t likely. I’ve been in Test Center for a while now and have seen it all. The pets are fun for a week, but [...]
Full StoryRight on the Money
Nick McCrea has put up a wonderful article about his appropos reactions to the current state of the MMORPG industry. Please saunter on over here and have a gander. Nick is the first person I have encountered to have hit the nail on the head when he describes what I, and many others, have felt. [...]
Full StoryDibbell’s chat with PayPal
In the Oct. 17 entry of his web log, Jullian Dibbell has a hilarious transcript of a phone conversation with PayPal in which he presses them to explain why virtual goods cannot be covered by their Seller Protection Policy, while say tickets to a football game are. A lot of you will have read this [...]
Full StoryReview of On the Internet, by Hubert Dreyfus
Forthcoming in Teaching Philosophy Peter Ludlow (aka Urizenus) The first time I saw a talk by Jacques Derrida, he was expounding on a claim (which he attributed to Heidegger) that the sign of a great thinker is that he has but one thought. I think his point was that leading intellectual figures can take one [...]
Full StoryAn 8-step Program for Saving TSO
Maxis thinks this is just a computer game, and while it is a computer game, it is not just that. One immediately sees the problem here. The move from the offline version of the Sims (which was the most successful computer game ever) to The Sims Online (which has been a massive disappointment) is arguably [...]
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