Unhelpful

Last night, there was another event in an ongoing plot in Asheron’s Call. In the final battle (of this stage anyway), the reward for the person who vanquished the shadow general was a nice set of (heavy) blue Celdon armor. After this event, the Umbris Shadows (which only increased in number as this plot has developed week by week) are mostly gone. You know, because they were defeated. Not a hard concept to grasp. Read more »

Yes, there really are little Japanese girls who play UO, look adorable, type in kawaii speech, and send in their pictures for all to grovel at. And they’re all really female, honest.

I wouldn’t lie to you for the sole purpose of amusement. This is a news site, after all, we’re not here to entertain you.

There should be a test when you log onto the internet. It should involve ensuring the ability to detect subtlety and irony. Failure should result in immediate disconnection.

But no, due to some rather pesky rules, they let anyone on. So I’ll spell it out:

Kiki and Kakori do not exist. Ely did the magnificent writing. The pictures came from… Well, let’s not go there. I created the sig. Wait for the t-shirt.

Thank you. Irony is dead. If you can backpeddle quick enough, you can pretend you knew all along.

Kawaii

Lately, on the news page and the message boards, the topics of the effects of MRPGs on players (particularly children), parental responsibility with out-of-control kids, people who are starved for attention in an MRPG culture that is saturated with people willing to pay it, role-playing evil, the use of attractive female images in marketing, and of course, Japanese holidays.

Kiki writes to explain the strange occurence in a previous update which involved oni, beans, and the like:

hehe for question i can answers!!

first: oni is monster like orc but red and blue. in the winter come in home for after breaking…like robbers not modernized by systems of effect! then setubun to throw out!!! OUT OUT!!! >_<

second:momotaro is come to attakk oni. old man is cold and need wood for hot to fire……. old lady who washing spots peach and it is mototaro!! later to kill demon king!!! for party once even i drss like demon king!!! ^-^ LOOK

second: oni are goned in spring festivl… event to throw out the disengaged from homes with mame… (next month to make bean jam with same beans!!)..it is excite very much with celebrate. (w

so there is oni and setubun and hope to all tales again in coming months!!! bye!!
thx (w

PEACE AND HAPPY IN BRITANNIA!!

KIKI

Well then, that covers Setubun, but what about the rest of the topics of discussion I mentioned?

She sent pictures.

Comments? (w [dead link]

[Pictures included in extention for your convenience.] Read more »

Milli Vanilli strike again, which is doubly impressive since one’s dead.

Mythrandia of Thistledown has the honor of being Asheron’s Call’s first level 10 monarch. Being that she plays an Aluvian character, that’s High Queen Mythrandia to you.

Unfortunately, in the words of a quickly-recalled Barbie doll, “Math is hard”. Except that it’s not. Read more »

I’ve written an article about MRPG design for developers. Hopefully players will find it interesting as well. Some of it challenges basic assumptions about how MRPGs should be designed. Some of it details specific ideas that become more and more feasible as bandwidth and CPU power increase.

Origin, Verant, Turbine, as well as the many companies developing MRPGs currently in production: this one’s for you.

Thinking Bigger: Rate = Distance over Time

[Included in its entirety in the extension for your convenience.]

Read more »

Sometimes, Kakori finds me things that are too weird for words:

OSI ain’t the only ones fucking up Ultima, my friends.

Forgive me, Richard, I have sinned. [dead link]