Unhelpful

Monday, March 27, 2000 - 6:07 PM

I was reading a site called Women of Asheron’s Call. Figuring this was going to be really good, or really bad, I decided to poke around a bit.

My first reaction was “this site has some interesting information and content”.

The second reaction was “am I a Woman of Asheron’s Call?”.

I started playing female characters in Ultima Online about halfway through my association with that game. I don’t play digi-sluts, dominatrixes, or helpless maidens waiting for a hero. I play characters that happen to be female. My experience is that I am more likely to be treated as a human being than competition needing to be crushed. More importantly, it’s interesting to play a fantasy game and be what you cannot be. If there was a role-playing game that allowed you to simulate working eight hours a day in an office job, or that allowed you to pretend you were posting long-winded rants on the internet, or one in which you did things like changing the cat box, doing laundry, and paying bills, it wouldn’t appeal to me - these are things I can do. “I don’t need to play it, I live it! Experience the adventure of my life! Delusion Online, the first offering of MyIPO.com!”

This being a fantasy game, I think we’re supposed to have a vivid enough imagination that we’re willing to live up to the hackneyed cliché that “nobody on the internet knows you’re a talking frog unless you tell them”. Taking that as a given, I can play a well-adjusted female in a game, and be a well-adjusted man outside of it. I don’t play to flirt or to start meaningful love relationships with anyone. For that matter, I don’t play games to talk about real life. I can do that at my leisure outside the game, be it on the net or off it.

So to get back to the point: I am a Woman of Asheron’s Call, and I am a man. If you can’t deal with that, that’s your problem. Hopefully when I send them my entry for their Fashion Parade, they’ll be open-minded enough to agree. [Page is Netscape unfriendly, works in Internet Explorer]

Sadly, the invented domain MyIPO.com actually exists. At least it’s not an e-venture where you sell yourself for stock.

“Delusion stock falls 5 and 3/8ths after low first quarter health issues.” [dead link]

There’s a very interesting account on CoD about a player who was summoned by dark forces and forced to make a choice that may very well affect upcoming plot developments.

Normally, something like this is the sort of thing that I’d take with a grain of salt…

…except last night - before this story was published - a member of my allegiance told me the same sort of story, but with minor details and a different choice. I won’t spoil it for you here, out of character, on an editorial page.

This is what you wanted: the ability to have an actual impact on the plot. Now that Turbine has accomplished this, OSI can feel free to copy the idea. Other games’ features, after all, are the primary source of their ‘in development’ ideas.

hot to assimilate [dead link]

Ether Dragon weighed in on the issue in a fashion that leaves only one question:

Where can I get one of those outfits?

(Note: if the above message has expired, don’t despair.)

Kakori’s favorite beasts. Listen to them purr. [dead link]

Enormous festering spires of darkness even more awesome than the Tou Tou lighthouse. Beautiful colored lighting. The Drudge Fashion Show.

All of these changes paled in comparison to one innocent line in the build notes:

Hand-to-hand combat is easier versus moving targets. You will “stick” to your target more.

They neglected to mention that this applies to monsters, too. All of them.

The jury’s out on this one. On one hand, it makes the Direlands more dangerous, which is a good thing. On the other, melee warriors - the “human shields” of mage and archer distance fighters - have to retreat a lot earlier in combat with powerful creatures. So much earlier that it’s best just not to stop to fight at all. It’s not bad thing to have “sticky monsters”, they just need to replace Crazy Glue with Elmers.

Whatever your opinion, whether you think all monsters should stick until every PC has 45% vitae while shivering naked and poor at the lifestones or that your 185% burdened mule with 10 run should be able to outrun a pack of twenty angry Olthoi Soldiers with impunity, now is the time to speak up, because they’re listening.

[Update, 3:55pm - There's a new thread for comments.]

By about 6:00pm Eastern, you should be able to log in again. What can you expect?

Content and eye candy.

New developments in the storyline during each major patch have become par for the course from Turbine, and that’s a good thing. This has been one of the things that sets Turbine’s offering apart from that other game. If anything can be inferred from the latest news, there are lots of high-level group challenges looming.

We’ve also been able to consistently look forward to new eye candy each patch. This time around, we’re getting improved 3D lighting effects, drudges are pissed, and golems get more polygons. This is amusing, as Turbine left it up to players to decide which creatures would get a high-fi remix. Drudges are an obvious choice, being excellent newbie food, yet still able to command respect at the Ravener level. The other choice, golems, confused even the designers:

I’ve noticed that in the polls running on the fan sites, “Which creature do you think would benefit most from a high-polygon make over,” Golems consistently come in second, next to player avatars. I’m curious as to why this is. They’re supposed to be just a bunch of rocks and slabs.

What’s interesting here is that despite feeling that golems weren’t the best way to spend artistic energy on, they did it anyway. Not because Microsoft pushed them, not to divert attention from a serious public relations gaff, but because that’s what you wanted.

There’s a lot more here, including the ability use extended characters, dagger fixes, a fix for the 1-9 quick keys not working after inscription, the ability to gather water from fountains, numerous other bug fixes, tweaks and improvements, and perhaps most significantly:

Creatures have a level-up effect now. Level up a bunny today!

I suppose it’s significant if you’re a powerlevelling penumbra shadow with a taste for perchers, anyway.

Turbine respects you in the morning. [dead link]

Anyone can make an enormous festering pile of a website.

Sometimes design is what you don’t include. Often, you need to throw your hat over the wall before you can motivate yourself to do your best.

Here’s the wall: The 5k award. Start climbing.

Less is more. [dead link]

The usual suspects have had a lot to say about a so-called “secret island” in Asheron’s Call that lies in the Inner Sea, more frequently referred to it by its ancient Empyrean name, “that big lake between the direlands and the mainland”.

Relentlessly shaking down his readers for more information has yielded loads of information, almost all of it contradicted by other submissions. Roughly half the submissions were talking about other islands in other bodies of water. Luckily for Leonardo DiCaprio, the very first nutcase he met gave him the correct location of his island; Dr. Twister hasn’t been so fortunate - he obviously isn’t attracting the right brand of nutcase.

In order to clear the air, a helpful member of Sentinel cadre submitted this:

First, this Island is not unknown. It was open during beta, but closed when released to retail. Some sentinels used the Island (or used to before Twisty started all this) to hold people in a safe place that are having portal stuck issues. Basically there have been times when players get stuck in portals and won’t materialize. When we find people that are in this condition, we portal them to another area, and hope they materialize. In the extreme cases where someone doesn’t materialize after 4 or 5 tries, we would usually teleport them to this Island and for some reason they appear. We’ve been asked to now stop this practice since Twisty thinks it’s a great conspiracy, and have been told that MS will be looking more closely as to why people would be able to materialize on the Island, but not anywhere else. The long and short of it is, we used the Island to transport people that we were helping, only because no one else could interfere with our work. We of course would have found another “secluded” location after this Island was opened, but we are now giving up bringing players there to help them recover from this issue.

Summary: Dr. Twister’s getting excited about the AC equivalent of jail. How fitting.

Keanu and Leonardo, together at last! [dead link]

Hug, tickle, entertain, flirt. [dead link]