Archive for 'Op/Ed'
Op/Ed: Ashley Richardson is the Real Scammer
by Ian Ashley Richardson ran for president of alphaville government, and lost. She cried foul, that the election was apparently “rigged”. Is there any PROOF behind that? That is all she says, put-downs about the current Alphaville Government Administration. Her whole campaign was against scammers and mafias. She even promised to Oust them from Alphaville. [...]
Full StoryAnd the Alphaville Herald Endorses…
It is customary for a newspaper to endorse candidates at election time, and several sims have asked us if we intend to endorse a candidate in today’s election. Picking between these candidates is not an easy task. Both are eminently qualified and capable, but both are also flawed in non-trivial ways.
Full StoryT. Liam McDonald blasts EA: “Pull the Plug on TSO Now!”
In a passionately argued article in MaximumPC magazine, columnist and game critic T. Liam McDonald has called EA to task for its unstructured game design, maintaining that it leaves nothing for users to do except “mischief and sex”. Indeed, McDonald argues that this has plagued TSO from the very beginning: “When I first covered The [...]
Full StoryOp/Ed: Grudges, Trashing , And Tagging Oh my!
By Kahuna12 I?m sure by now you?ve all heard of the Armone and X-Mafia families, which are currently allied in Alphaville, and the Black Hand Mafia in Alphaville, which is allied with the Blazing Falls Syndicate. If you read The Alphaville Herald, they you probably also know that there has been longstanding tension between X-Mafia [...]
Full StoryEditorial: Stop the Cheetah-Deleting Madness!
As the dispute between Polie Bear and Nick spins out of control, we have to ask ourselves: why on earth did EA take sides in this and exacerbate the problem? In effect, the dispute between Polie and Nick is a dispute between two 14 yr old friends (sometimes best friends, according to Polie). Whatever the [...]
Full StoryLondon Times Essay: Griefers and Group Formation in Alphaville
by Peter Ludlow About two months ago I was asked to write an essay for the Times of London on my thoughts about the situation in Alphaville. What The Times wanted was something that recapitulated the BBC Online article about how letting people be what they wanted led to anarchy. What they got from me [...]
Full StoryOp/Ed: Stop Blaming the Techies!
By Anonymous B Enough is enough. After reading several posts and comments in this blog, I just had to chime in and say you people are badly misdiagnosing the failure of TSO. TSO is not failing because of EA tech people, it is failing because the suits in marketing and legal don’t want it to [...]
Full StoryEssay: The ESRB game rating system is broken
By J I recently wrote an article for the Alphaville Herald on how I believed that Electronic Arts had misled the Electronic Software Rating Board (ESRB), as well as consumers and parents alike, about the rating of their popular MMORPG, The Sims Online. My criticism was met with a variety of comments from readers of [...]
Full StoryOp/Ed: The Case Against an Adults-Only Server
By Lady Julianna Contrary to proposals made by Urizenus in recent press interviews, I think age-segregated servers are a very bad idea. The game would die if Maxis were to create an adults only server.
Full StoryOP/Ed: TSO Failure Analysis
By Kiss I?m a 44-year-old Manager for a company that develops simulations and software for the military and have been playing TSO since Beta (November ?02). I have never been a member of any of the Mafia?s, never received or given an enemy link other than to play with my friends, and have pretty much [...]
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