2005-12-14 15:10:42.706377+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments
Interestingly, there were several forums in which the topic of "gold farming" in World of Warcraft recently came up, which lead to Leo sending a tale of a scam played out in Eve Online.
[ related topics: Games ]
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#Comment Re: made: 2005-12-14 15:24:46.951248+00 by: Dan Lyke
I also offer up excerpts from an email I sent in one of the other discussions:
The reason you don't make meaningful connections in Guild Wars? My amazingly shallow and uninterested in anything 12 year old nephew plays, as do the rat boys (17 and 21), but the latter play solely in PK arenas.
I've got one friend who's in his 40s who's played out WoW, and who talks about some of the collaborative aspects and his guild, but even there I don't get the feeling that there are lasting friendships being built. And he liked "Sideways", saying "I know lots of people like that", whereas I saw it as a movie that tried to make the people that I would feign death to escape from at parties sympathetic.
Which brings me back to building lasting friendships through virtual communication. I've been looking around at flight sim stuff, because money's tight I haven't actually sprung for MSFS2k4 which would let me fly with some of the folks I've been talking with on message boards, but there are one or two discussion forums where I've been trying to look for answers and information on helicopter flight.
And I'm finding the same issues that I have in making social connections in real life: Either a shallow set of interests, or an amazingly unrounded collection. From "Sucks that Flight Simulator aircraft don't have missiles" to "I don't know whether real aircraft do X, I just fly the simulators", my overwhelming and increasingly reinforced impression of game players through simulator exercisers is that they're largely people divorced from reality.
The open source flight simulator forums are far more interesting, possibly because the people participating there are willing to actively take control of their environments; FlightGear just isn't there yet unless you love to tinker.
At some point I became aware of the movies and media that my nephew was consuming while he was living with us, the stuff aside from the computer games. You know those horribly cheesey Saturday afternoon two guys who just stepped out of LA are allegedly mercenaries or treasure hunters or somesuch in the third world TV series? Or movies like "XXX: State of the Nation"? I know people who film those things, and they're fun to hang out with, but I don't have anything in common with the people who *just* watch them.
If you step back from the interactivity, which can blind you for a while, computer games are basically that genre. The people who make them can be interesting, the technologies involved are fun, and that lends a certain hope that there'll be depth and meaning and connection there, but in the end, much like a stale donut, we'll end up asking "why did I just consume that?"
#Comment Re: made: 2005-12-14 16:16:00.04652+00 by: meuon [edit history]
I think it depends on your own personal reality. Mine's pretty good, so I don't feel the need to create a game avatar to do things I wouldn't or can't do. Your reality is pretty diverse and rich as well.
Still, it's fun to plug the force feedback joystick in and blow some virtual things up, even when I have a real arsenal as well. But I can't spend that kind of time mining virtual rocks and building up a virtual empire.... when I could be applying the same efforts to the real world, with real results.
Gotta build a Point of Sale system today, my credit balance is low, and if I do this drudge work, I'll get paid before Christmas. Just in case there are "Pirates" between home base, the customers and the bank, I'm piloting my big black F150 frigate class warship.. stealthily well armed... of course.
OK, so my personal reality is just a little tweaked.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-12-14 17:19:03.413191+00 by: ebradway
The people who make them can be interesting, the technologies involved are fun...
In the early 80s, my parents bought my brothers and I an Intellivision. I quickly found myself bored of exploring the games and wanted to do more. I convinced my parents to buy me a Commodore VIC-20. Within six months, I was making my own games. I used to play games more to explore the technology and elements of game play. I don't play much anymore, except to kill time.
However, I am attracted to simulations where I get to build something and play with how it works. Total Annihilation was like this. SimCity is pretty good. I used to really like SimFarm. Now, I'm looking at writing cellular automata simulations running inside a geospatial database. Sort of like SimCity, but with real cities!
#Comment Re: made: 2005-12-15 00:02:06.739281+00 by: flushy
I've played muds for years.
There are a few people that I still talk to. I have email addresses of old guild mates that I ping every now and then, but then again, unless I've sat down with you and had lunch a few times a month, then it's just that much easier to stop that communication if my life gets too "busy".
A lot of us have shared bread together (solid and liquid). that still means something.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-12-15 11:35:57.708513+00 by: meuon [edit history]
"A lot of us have shared bread together (solid and liquid). that still means something."
Word.