Suboptimist
I’m not quite a pessimist. I’m more of a suboptimist.

It turns out that unlike, say, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online is a bitch and a half to theorycraft. An entire cottage industrycottage industry, where people research and cite eachother’s research, has formed to figure out on our own what Turbine, Inc won’t tell us: the numbers behind the gameplay/damage/healing mechanics. I haven’t finished reading through all of it, but it’s easy to glean that at least at this point in the game’s existence, damage is tied to player-character “initial stats,” i.e. agility, might, etc., as opposed to gear-based stats like +damage and +crit. Where the game system really shines, however, is in the stat buffs the party gains from skill chains. I’ll shut up about that now. Even I’m not sure what I just said.

I guess the gist of what I’m trying to say is that I like Lord of the Rings Online. It’s an interesting take on the MMO genre. Mechanically, it’s nothing new, but the quest-driven gameplay and the incentives given throughout the game for players to stop and smell the frakking roses rather than race to the level cap is a nice change. I’m playing two characters: a hobbit minstrel and a man hunter.

Last night I managed to get a pick-up-group together to explore the Hobbit lowbie zone, the Shire. The Shire is a pretty neat zone. The zone layout is right out of Tolkien’s descriptions. There a bunch of little villages throughout that in typical Turbine fashion have nothing to do game content. A bunch of stuff is there to encourage exploration. Pictures below.

In other, non MMO-related news, I have been hired to work at the Center for American Indian Languages on the Shoshoni documentation/maintenance project. It’s only a few hours a week, but I will probably supplement it with the work at my dad’s firm.

Let me lead into this post by saying that Baldr, slain by Loki, has risen from the dead. The nations of North rejoice, for the long nights of winter are over. That means a post about gaming. Also, it means a freaking long post. Get ready

I am not sure what it is, but somehow whenever summer approaches World of Warcraft rears its ugly head to taunt me once more. Last summer I went and purchased the Burning Crusade expansion immediately following my last exam, despite swearing before God and Man that I would never, ever touch the filthy substance ever again.

I destroyed the discs last winter, or at least I thought I had. As I went through an old disc carrier, I found them. There they were taunting me, like a cold beer to a recovering alcoholic. I promptly destroyed them…for real this time. This leads to the subject matter of this post: my love affair with Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games.

I come to this having played several MMOs. I probably haven’t played any one for more than 9 months at a time, but I think the number is approaching five. I have come to some conclusions about the effect MMOs have had on my gaming tastes and why some MMOs have appealed to me more than others.

The Reverend and I have had this conversation many times. In his words, it has ruined the single-player gaming experience. While my own assessment is less dire, I see his point. Today I turned on Mass Effect to play through again. I did something awesome. I also had nobody to share it with. That is the beauty of the MMO. Your experiences are shared with others from around the world. When your guild (or linkshell or kinship or corporation…) are down, you’re down. People see the effect you’re having on the digital world, and they even benefit from it. The feeling of playing a game with others is hard to duplicate. Single-player games, while I still love them, aren’t designed this way.

In an aside, yesterday the Reverend and I walked into a game store to realize how disconnected we are with today’s gaming community. The store was filled with kids half our age buying Madden and Halo 3. I have only completed a few titles since I started with MMOs. The Reverend has completed less than I have. There are games on the shelf he and I don’t even recognize. I can’t help but wonder if this disconnect is somehow associated with the rise of MMOs. Daedalus should get on that.

Moving on, certain MMOs have appealed to me more than others. Despite what I said at the beginning of this post, World of Warcraft was really an ideal game for a host of reasons:

· 1) I am familiar with the Warcraft backstory, having played all the single-player titles.

· 2) The backstory is deep and compelling. It’s not some chitzy, generic fantasy tale.

· 3) To a reasonable extent, the gameplay is relevant to the overall story.

Any game can meet points 2 and 3. No other game can (at this point) can meet 1. Now, let me draw a comparison between WoW and another MMO I played, EVE online. EVE is a fun game, no doubt. It has a rich, deep, compelling story. If you were to print all the available lore off the internet, it would probably fill a standard sized novel. That said, EVE doesn’t do anything with it. The game lacks context. Global PVP is unmotivated. Simply put, there is no reason for players to be fighting. In WoW, PVP (as well as PVE) is motivated by a larger storyline of a tenuous armistice between the Horde and the Alliance, with certain areas where things flare up.

People have told me that it’s not necessary for a game to connect everything into the backstory. Well, sure, but something like PVP should be. I mean, in real life, there are things that happen by themselves. But if you work in some military capacity, you’d expect, say, the war in Iraq to play some role in your day to day affairs. MMOs should operate in a similar manner.

So, the question is this: what will I play this summer? Vanguard? Lord of the Rings Online? EVE? RF Online? Just single player games? I don’t know. Right now, I am kicking around LotRO and thinking of maybe trying RF online. I have reservations though. First, LotRO is designed that, strategy aside, you constantly feel like you’re zerging the enemy. RF online? Well…Korean…

EDIT: I’ll be switching themes a lot until I find something I like and is modifiable.

Mine is a blog featuring seasonal fare. Enjoy this last frivolously-themed post, as I start school next week, and the site will likely become another journal of my adventures in linguistics.

A few days ago I posted a conversation between Dan and me. In case you were totally blown away by what we were talking about, the topic was the age-old role-playing game, or RPG, in this case we are discussing computer/console RPGs, not pen-and-paper. There are several sub-genres of RPGs. Among them:

Western RPG: Typically played on the PC. This is probably why I prefer them, since I was introduced to them first. Usually they are set in a high fantasy setting. The game mechanics are borrowed from pen-and-paper games, such as dice rolling. Character customization is usually very robust, and character leveling is slow. In combat, position and movement are stressed, given the genre’s wargaming roots. Notable titles are Baldur’s Gate, A Bard’s Tale, Ultima, and Neverwinter Nights.

Japanese RPG: This is probably the most popular sub-genre of RPGs. Typically played on game consoles. The games are a little more scripted, and the gameplay is very cinematic in nature. Developers usually develop their own combat system, though may borrow elements from previous games. The player is usually given a pre-made character to play. Like traditional Western RPGs, the combat system is usually turn-based, but the positions are fixed. Combat is usually randomized, which is a holdover from when the console hardware did not permit rendering enemies on screen. Notable titles: Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Lunar.

Tactical RPG: Over time, this became one of my favorites. Neither the East nor the West has an absolute monopoly on this genre, though it was probably invented in Japan. It walks the line between role-play and strategic wargaming. Notable titles: Disgaea, Fire Emblem, Fallout: Tactics, Final Fantasy Tactics, and the upcoming Luminous Arc, and possibly Mass Effect.

Action RPG: A relatively newgenre focusing less on turn-taking and more on reflexes in combat. Notable titles: Diablo, Fable, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, and a few of The Elder Scrolls games.

Recently, Dan and I have been struggling to get each other to play certain games. He has been trying to get me to play a traditional Japanese RPG. I have attempted to play a couple of RPGs produced in Japan, but none of them have been traditional. I played Kingdom Hearts, but that played like an action RPG. I also played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Fire Emblem, but those are tactical. I had an interest in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles but that was action and cooperative. Perhaps it is hard to find a game to use to ease myself into the JRPG. Enter Eternal Sonata, game taking place inside Chopin’s dreams hours before his death.

I downloaded the demo over Xbox LIVE last night before heading out to see a movie. When I came home, I decided to start it up and give it a shot. The world of Chopin’s dreams features an engaging and fun battle system that walks the line between action and turn, stressing the importance of position and ability rotation.

The character models feature exquisite cel-shading (I am a sucker for cel-shading) and the environments are lush and colorful. Even if the game doesn’t feature what I love about Western RPGs, I would be willing to play the game simply for how beautiful it looks, especially when played in 720p on my PC monitor. I think this will end up being a very successful release for the Xbox 360, and perhaps an opportunity for me to discover that character customization and dark high fantasy settings are not necessary to enter the world of role-playing.

I found this strip (also from June of 2003) rather pertinent.

From the accompanying post:

I read the new Harry Potter book, all nine hundred or so pages of it, before I went to bed that day. I got it early, passing the mailman wearing the wizards hat, pushing down a little girl. I drove home with the book in my lap, singing a song which could not be transcribed, because it was the audible form of joy.

I have seen it discussed - is it good? Who cares. It’s not like you get a new Harry Potter book every day, you have to treasure this shit. I don’t slink home from the solar eclipse and be like, well, I’ve seen more invigorating natural phenomena. I know now the dark depths and dizzying highs of true fandom, and don’t fuck with me about this because I’ve got a nine hundred page hardcover in my grip. I’ll bat your head clean off and start running for first. First what, God only knows. I guess it all depends on where I kill you.

Dan’s blog is down, so I am submitting this Final Fantasy 11 experience for him. We often exchange interesting stories about our experiences in the virtual world. Here we go:

So I have this FFXI friend, a mithra [a feminine race in the Final Fantasy universe] actually played by a woman. She’s just a level or two ahead of me, so we’re in the same range to party together for experience. She’s a dark knight, a DD, so the party invites aren’t always very common…and so she often asks (well, tells) me to organize a party so she doesn’t have to find a tank. Tonight I actually wanted to party, so I went ahead and organized a group with her help. It was a good party, I dinged to 69, and we played for two, maybe three hours (I’m sure you know how easy it is to lose track of time).

Anyway, sort of toward the end I sent her a /tell commenting on how rare and nice it is when the same group of people sticks together for as long as we did. She agreed, adding, “especially for a Saturday night.” I said fortunately I don’t have much of a social life and she asked if I wanted hers. I said I’d take part of it and she said I probably wouldn’t want it because it pretty much consists of guys hitting on her. I gave a modest laugh, something like a “Heh,” more as an interjection than because I actually thought it was funny. Seeing that she wasn’t offended, I facetiously asked, “Why, are you hot?”

She laughed and said it was a funny question and she didn’t know how to answer it and she asked what I considered hot and seemed to be enjoying herself and so I kept joking around along the same lines and before long she got all serious. She said my original question (about being hot) was tasteless and immature. Well, at first I was pretty sure she was overreacting a la Marquette, but after further criticism (as with any argument with a girl in which I’m not necessarily wrong), I started to feel bad and apologized profusely.

It felt very strange because I was still playing the game while talking to her. In other words, my character was defending her while I was defending myself FROM her. It was one of those kinda rare instances when we both looked past the characters on the screen and were communicating with each other. And I couldn’t believe how much I wanted to preserve my relationship with her, as much as I would with any friend I’d known since last September or whatever. It was also ironic because I usually enjoy being free of that kind of drama when I play video games.

Anyway, we finished the party and everyone left except us. If you open the attached image [below] you can see us standing at a confrontational distance. We were there, in that exact position, for literally 10 minutes arguing. Just as if it’d happened in person, I was terrified of moving my character a single step. I actually started laughing at how ridiculous the whole thing was. It was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life and it didn’t even happen in “real life.”

We may submit this to the Daedalus Project.

I was perusing the Onion today looking for entertainment. Here are some of the things I came up with:

· Dog Befriends Roomba.

· Top Causes of U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq.

· Iraqi Constitution.

· Child Disciplined for Wasting Yarn. I feel guilty for finding that funny.

· Northern Irish, Serbs, Hutus Granted Homeland in West Bank.

· Anyone who has ever bought a used textbook understands Highlighting in Used Copy of Plato’s Republic End on Page 17.

· There were a disproportionate number of these in my high school.

I start the Spring semester tomorrow morning at 08:30 with a class that, for all intents and purposes, I have taken four times previously under a variety titles. The course, Shi’ism, is taught by Prof. Michel Mazzaoui. At this point in his career, his courses, whether on modern Middle Eastern history or the ancient Near East, start in 570 AD with the birth of the prophet Mohammed and proceed along similar lines. In fact, I once took two of his courses simultaneously with identical midterms and finals. This will be fun. I will also start posting more linguistic updates as soon as the semester starts. I would have done so over the break, but nobody would be interested in my reading of Arabic grammars.

Previously on this blog, I have written about the carry-over of real-world prejudices and constraints into virtual worlds, particularly MMORPGs. I had intended to continue on that topic, but I decided to address another (related) issue: gender-bending. As a boy, I always wondered why my peers were so fascinated by the Tomb Raider game franchise. I never found it very enthralling. I was able to understand why female players loved it, with the protagonist being a strong, smart woman, but it took me much longer to realize that male players loved it because the same character had enormous breasts.

Nick Yee of the Daedalus Project reports that male players of MMOs are far more likely to play female characters than female players are to play male characters. In fact, some 50 % of female player characters are likely to be played by males on a standard World of Warcraft server (68 % on a PVP server). Yee cites several possible reasons why males are more likely to gender bend:

-Social gender boundaries more stringent in real-life for men, and in an anonymous space, men are more likely to explore gender roles.
-Female avatars receive more “freebies” and are treated “better” than male avatars.
-Male gender-bending is another form of dominating the female body.
-In PvP games, female avatars are perceived to be weaker and this might give the player a psychological edge against unsuspecting chauvinistic players.

To this I offer two other hypotheses. First, some players, particularly those with more vivid imaginations, live vicariously through their virtual avatars, affording them the opportunity to pretend there is a more awesome world than the real world. I would guess that these players are less likely to gender bend, and I imagine that most women would fall into this category, with a history of being below the so-called glass ceiling, which has a virtual representation as well. The second is along the line of Yee’s second point: some players want to look at something more appealing, so they gender bend. I would say that men are more likely fall into this category.

In my experience, I have generally assumed female player characters to be played by females, and males to be played by males. Gender bending in a game seems weird to me. In fact, I am more comfortable reading novels where the protagonist is an honorable male character, as I like to identify with the character. I can think of few books I’ve read where I identify with female characters. The same goes for games. When speaking to The Reverend about gender bending in games, he told me that his female character in Guild Wars was often given free uberleet gear and such. In fact, he thinks that may have been the initial reason why he was approached by our guild leader. His little brother said he played as a female because he would rather stare at the ass of a female avatar than a male one. He also played a troll, so… Anyway, I thought I would close with the two accounts from Daedalus:

The funniest experiment about ‘not being me’ was to play a female character. Strange how players were nice with me. They start conversations without reasons, gave me items, money or time. Some even died to save me. I guess a lot of MMORPG players are single men, that’s why. [M, Anarchy Online, 34]

I never realized how irritating it can be to have to put up with unwanted advances. [EverQuest, M, 38]

Note: A good summary of all of this, along with a discussion of possible confounds, can be found in this article.

I’ve been very slow at updating. What is it now? 7, 8 days since I’ve updated last? Sorry. Busy, and all, and not in an posting mood. By the way, congratulations to Lameen for finishing his dissertation.

The University of Utah linguistics department generally keeps one or two experts in residence per given discipline (though sometimes several). There is only one expert phonetician, and she is on sabbatical. The next person who could do it, who is actually a phonologist, is also on sabbatical. With whom does that leave us to teach us phonetics? A semanticist. Perhaps this is the reason I don’t like phonetics, as I don’t have an instructor who is very enthusiastic about the topic either. On the other hand, I enjoy syntax, perhaps because the instructor loves what he does, a feeling which influences his students.

My anthropology class is…underwhelming. It has the potential to be interesting, especially considering it deals with the ancient Near East, which is of particular interest to me. However, after we finished our (very brief) section on language, I find myself wanting to put sticks in my eyes after the first of three hours. Perhaps I have heard that Ishtar’s orgasms were compared to earthquakes too many times, or perhaps hearing a Polish woman talking about Sumer and Akkad for three hours is intrinsically boring. I don’t know.

Anyway, let me show you something that came up on a recent Syntax take-home exam. The exam is turned in, so I imagine it is okay to show you. Basically, the question asked students to argue why C-command is needed for binding, not precedence (or the opposite). Some sample data was given, and this is what I want to bring attention to:

His_i yearbook photo gave Tom_i the creeps.

In this example, ‘His’ is referring to the same thing that ‘Tom’ is. To me, this doesn’t work, nor can I think of an instance where this would work. If ‘Tom’ were not referring to the same thing as ‘His,’ I would have no problem with it. Does anyone else find the sentence odd?

On a different note, this is one of the two worst weekends to drive in downtown Salt Lake City. With LDS General Conference going on, the traffic is horrendous. It took me 30 minutes to drive three miles last night, since I chose (foolishly) to drive home through downtown. There is no room in downtown Salt Lake to build a large parking garage or bridge to keep the roads clear, and even if we could, it would ruin the city. The only solution would be to encourage conference attendees to park in Sandy and take the light rail downtown. Somehow, I doubt that would happen.

In my search to uncover a method to the madness of in-game communication in World of Warcaft and other online game communities, I found another person interested as well.

This specialized leet-speak functions in the very same ways that any other dialect might—it includes and excludes
and it is made to fit its purpose. I’m interested in the why and how of all of this. Who does it include and exclude and why, and what is that purpose and how, exactly does it fit it? And, finally, how has it evolved from basic netspeak to leetspeak, in the context of chatrooms to early MOOs to the MMORPGs it currently takes place in?
Studying all of these things may serve to validate leetspeak as something beyond game-talk. I don’t intend to represent it as its own language in the way that Ebonics is a, more or less, newly recognized language. Instead, I want to argue for it as a dialect within the English speaking Internet world. In this way, I am arguing for the importance of gaming and the gaming community as a reflection of our society.

An anthropologist may also find this interesting. Or not. Maybe I am just wasting my time. I think I will go back to the book I was reading about Akkadian.

…But they really aren’t when you add a human element to them, like in an MMORPG, especially a game like World of Warcraft. WoW does a good job at replicating the mundanity of daily living, like having a job and learning new skills to perform better at your job. These are programmed components of the game. While it’s fun to look at the programmed necessity to maintain steady employment in WoW, it’s more fun to look at the social components we bring into the game from the real world. Chances are, if players are kind hearted in the physical world, they will be so in the virtual world; if a player is an asshole in the real world, he will be a prick in the virtual world as well. If a group of players hates the Chinese enough, they will hunt Chinese players down and massacre them. (Thanks to Erin for sending the article).

As anyone who has been to elementary school will know, the new kid is often tormented, criticized, and otherwise [unjustly] maligned. I see the same thing in WoW (which has young players, but has plenty of grown adults, as well). When I was new to the game, I had to deal with the constant criticism of more experienced players. Some of it was helpful, but most of it was downright unnecessary. I learn quickly, so the insults soon subsided. This evening, however, I was playing in a group with newer player who doesn’t learn as quickly. The group was cruel. They didn’t need to call him an idiot, all they had to do was tell him he did something wrong and how he could correct it. After we wiped and the group blamed it on him (I blame the warrior for terrible tanking), the insults started flying and the other players starting calling him ‘gay,’ I told them to f*ck off, and I left. Stupid noobs.

Anyway, that being said, with school starting, I will have less time (if any at all) to do fun things which aren’t school related. I’ve been spending the last bit of the summer doing non-academic things for the most part. I’ve been playing WoW, of course, but have also been reading The Brothers Karamazov, which I figure I will have little time to read once school starts.

There is a great /emote in WoW that allows Dwarf player characters to make the following statement: I don’t drink anymore…of course I don’t drink any less, either.

Anyway, I have nothing that is both interesting and frivolous to say tonight, so here are some great WoW shots: