No really, you haven’t? I thought it’d be big news by now. ;)
I hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving, full of family togetherness, warm food, and live Rickrolling. As for me, I’ll be spending it with family on my girlfriend’s side. They’re not making traditional Thanksgiving food, but going with delicious hot pot instead.
Eating random things on Thanksgiving has become somewhat of an unofficial tradition. Throughout the years, I’ve had rotisserie chicken, potstickers, pizza, rice, noodles, and even a peanut butter sandwich. Last year, a power outage knocked out the entire neighborhood. It’s hard to cook without heat or light, so I had to settle for basic elementary school food.
On the flipside, I’ve had traditional food only twice. The year before last, my friend Ethan invited everyone to his house. And then five years before that, my friend Tina invited me to her house.
While I understand that some people blow a gasket if they don’t have turkey or apple pie, I’ve never found it absolutely crucial. Historically, the pilgrims didn’t even eat this stuff. What’s more important is the time spent regrouping as a family or congregating with friends. Thanksgiving should be about people and relationships, not the menu
My goal is to always spend Thanksgiving with people. If I ever end up sitting on a couch by myself on Thanksgiving, I’m going to be a sad, sad man.
Okay, if you haven’t heard about this story yet, here goes. Richard Bartle, one of the authors of the original MMO game MUD (or Multi-User Dungeon), has been playing the new expansion for WoW. He’s not too happy with a certain quest: “The Art of Persuasion.” Said quest requires the player to use a Neural Needler to basically torture a sorceror.
Here’s what he said in his blog:
I’m not at all happy with this. I was expecting for there to be some way to tell the guy who gave you the quest that no, actually I don’t want to torture a prisoner, but there didn’t seem to be any way to do that. Worse, the quest is part of a chain you need to complete to gain access to the Nexus, which is the first instance you encounter (if you start on the west of the continent, as I did). So, either you play along and zap the guy, or you don’t get to go to the Nexus.
I did zap him, pretty well in disbelief — I thought that surely the quest-giver would step in and stop it at some point? It didn’t happen, though. Unless there’s some kind of awful consequence further down the line, it would seem that Blizzard’s designers are OK with breaking the Geneva convention.
It seems to me like if you don’t like torture, you could just choose to not finish the quest. So what if the game requires this quest in order to access the Nexus. Such is the price of a clean conscience.
When you play Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row, do people complain that they can’t finish missions without stealing weapons, destroying property, and murdering people? Rather, when these games are attacked, the most common response is to call the attacker an idiot for not understanding the difference between fantasy and reality. This is called a double standard. We don’t complain about the lack of a peaceful solution to Grand Theft Auto’s missions because we expect there to be violence and we understand that it’s fake.
There is arguably more violence in World of Warcraft considering Azeroth suffers three wars, a demon invasion, an undead scourge, and characters like Garona (tortured), Blackhand (beheaded), and Blackmoore (enslaves foster son, rapes teen girl, kills wife). Buildings are razed, demons pulverize towns, and necromancers raise the dead. I’m pretty sure raising a mob, roaming the countryside, and killing those who don’t speak your language breaks the Geneva convention too.
But torture. Oh how dreadful!
What an odd experience. I’m sitting in Borders right now, whittling down the hours before my flight back to the west coast. I have my backpack (which holds the laptop that I’m using to blog right now) and a hoodie (because it’s cold). But earlier, when I was walking through the graphic novel aisle, an employee walked up to me and asked for my ID saying: “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
After I showed him my California driver’s license, he had a look on his face that said: “Oh crap!” But he tried to play it off and said to me in a rather ghetto way: “Aight, you cool.” I know Asians look young and everything, but is it that common for kids to play hooky in the financial district of Philadelphia?
Yesterday was pretty disorganized, but it actually ended well. At around 5:00, we went to the industry mixer at the hotel lounge. We met some cool bloggers, indie developers, and a few awkward design students. Today, Ryan and I ran into a few of these people again. It was nice. I will be adding them to LinkedIn.
We attended a panel in the morning about the state of the industry. There were representatives from both the legislative side (ESA) as well as educational side. It was interesting to hear their opinions about the direction of games in the next 5-10 years. Basically, companies are moving toward different pricing models (micro-transactions, deluxe packaging) to curb piracy. Also, to remove the middlemen (i.e. GameStop) who buy used games, the industry will be moving toward digital distribution.
The day wasn’t without hilarity. During the panel, one guy kept complaining about Sony’s decision to remove backward compatibility. The conversation went something like this:
Random Guy: Sony sucks! Why should I buy a PS3 when I can’t play PS2 games on it?
Panel: Well, I can’t speak for Sony, but I assume you still have your PS2. You can just keep it plugged into your TV. Sony cut out the backwards compatibility to trim the fat and try to lower the price of the PS3s.
Random Guy: Yeah, but what happens if the PS2 breaks down? I’m already on my second PS2.
Panel: Well, you can buy another one.
Random Guy: But what about when Sony stops making PS2s? How will I play my PS2 games?
Panel: When that happens, there won’t be any new PS2 games to play.
Random Guy: Sony sucks.
I’m all for retro games. But I really don’t understand why this crazy fan was complaining to people who have nothing to do with Sony’s business decisions. How often do you hear people complain that they can’t find an NES on store shelves to play their old NES games. Retrocon is right across the hall. In a few years, they’ll have spare PS2s there.
Hit the jump for today’s photos.
In my last post, I was sitting in a conference hall waiting for a screening of Uwe Boll’s Postal movie. The man himself was supposed to be on hand for questions. We waited an hour and he was a no-show. In fact, there was no movie. Wow. What a terrible day to have a conference.
The good news is that I finally got my conference t-shirt. The jackass that was there yesterday was nowhere to be found. The new guy was a lot nicer, and didn’t act like he was on drugs. The main conference hall also had about three times the number of people as yesterday. Most of them are middle school kids blowing their wads at all the FPS games on display.
An acquaintance of mine from the adult industry once told me that when he goes to adult conventions he laughs at the crowds of fans who are so easily enticed by the spectacle of porn stars. That’s because he’s an insider. He knows it’s all fake. It’s an industry. I feel the same way about this conference. There are hordes of kids who don’t know anything about games but are totally amazed. The rest of us understand that the demos are designed to show off graphics cards, the designers are trying to gain visibility, and the vendors are trying to get sales. This whole exercise is just one big joke. And unlike TGS or E3, there are no announcements of tech demos behind closed doors.
Well, hit the jump for Day 2 photos: