Ok so, We all know about fear of change. People fear change. Why is that do you suppose? I heard the phrase yet again today as an admin was discussing plans for changes on his mud. The discussion was taking place with maybe 4 or 5 players and those who were speaking were supporting the change. There was one small voice of dissent. Not even dissent really, more questioning through how would this work, why are you considering this, what about players that want xyz.
Yep you guessed it the dissenter was myself. Sometimes I play devil's advocate, sometimes I truly question why, sometimes I don't like the idea myself. However the issue I wish to bring up is not so much the change as the reactions to the voices against it.
Once upon a time a long, long time ago a group of people got together and decided to make a game that could be played online. This produced a whole genre of games collectively called MUDs. Let's ignore engines, graphics, etc and call all of the MUDs for the sake of this discussion. (Yes that includes things like WoW and most ESPECIALLY things like WoW) Now this group of people made a system and played it and everything was happy and sunshiney because they were all friends. Then the OTHERS came.

This happens in any MUD, one person or group starts it and invites their friends to test it and play. If the MUD is good then these tend to become the first core of players They in turn bring friends who join in, these become the second core. Rinse and repeat to form a MUD's playerbase. The type of MUD does not matter, The genre does not matter. For any successful open to the public game this is how they tend to grow.

Now gamers tend to be fickle by nature. Star Wars may be in today and Shadowrun tomorrow, next week it may be Dragonworld, who knows but one thing is sure. Players like change as long as it makes the game fun. They hate it if it limits their ability to enjoy the game. The problem is the larger the playerbase, the more different definitions of fun you have.

The secondary problem is that for each generation of player, if you will, there are those who stayed with game for a different aspect. Here is an example; the MUD I play the most and have played the longest is very old - over 20 years. The engine has gone through many changes. One of the changes implemented before my time dealt with the ****system.

The old system was - you joined a guild (let's say you are a fighter) You learned all you could there or all you wished. Fighters as everyone knows value strength, so it cost few points to train your strength there. But brain, something which most system fighters have little, costs a lot. So, after a character got all you wanted it to from Fighters Guild, you would quit the guild and then join a new one to learn new skills. Thing is you could never return to that guild so you had to get all you wanted from it.

This method worked fine - for a while. But then people got bored. There were still many players, but the old ones had few challenges. New ones however were just learning the system. So when the MUD Admin decided to change to an engine that used a 3 guild path system (Yes, I am cutting out a ton of stuff here ) Some players thought it a great idea. Some probably SAID they thought it was a great idea because they are the usual sycophants one gets around any Admin type. Some said the idea was lousy, some said nothing at the time.
The change was implemented. The Mud lost some first and second core players, but kept quite a few. Thing is they also gained some new players. Well the first change didn't work so well or maybe it did, and some just became noisy about what they did not like while others stayed quiet and played the game they loved. But Admins know only what they hear, so more changes went in and more and more. Most of the old core left. Most of the second core left. Eventually the mud went from 30 players at a time to 10.
It happens. Now there is a new crop of players. Most of us are used to the NEW way of character development. Honestly, I like it because it takes less time to build my character and it allows changes in guilds to occur and for me to benefit (or sometimes lose out) because of the fact I am still a member of all 3 guilds. If the admins add a new weapon skill, I can learn it. Yes it happens because new areas added to the MUD frequently add new weapons, same with spells etc. Some do not like it. Most of those who did not left. Some noisily, most just faded away.
That is the nature of gamers most of us tend to just leave and go find a new game. One we like. Maybe one that is in the current popular genre.
Let us examine this same phenomena with RPG based MUDS. There is another layer if you will added to the mix. This is the layer of player interaction affecting the playerbase. They tend to develop initially in the same way, a core group that invites others that brings in others. Some players are skilled at RP, some are not. Sometimes new players have totally different ideas than the storylines than a group has followed in the past. Some are good some are bad. One never knows until one has tried them out.
If one gets the chance. Because you see each new player changes the MUD a little with their characters. On an RPG MUD they bring their own storylines, their own character quirks, and most of all the own player's perceptions of what the MUD is. Sometimes, not knowing the old way is beneficial, sometimes not.
So when an admin starts talking about changing the whole system it sometimes frightens off the new players who have just started liking it. Sometimes they have ideas. But the thing is they are new players, not part of the sycophantic group nor part of the 'inner circle' the primary core has most likely become. The group with the highest level of boredom. So when a new player makes a suggestion it is frequently met with a united front of the old players shooting it down. This usually manages to make the new player feel like an outsider. Comments like "WE like it as it is, WE think it should be this way, WE all agree," Serve only to push the new players away from the main core. If the attitude toward the new players is sufficiently off putting then they will most likely go elsewhere feeling that they are not welcome or wanted.
Think about it. If you were in a group that you had joined recently and everyone was standing around discussing what color to paint their meeting room. The old members wanted it blue because it had always been blue. Some of the old members secretly want it green, but figure if the president of the clube says blue then blue it is anything to stay in good graces. Some say nothing, they really want it purple or pink or yellow, but they figure there is no use saying anything because anything they say will be ignored anyway, then you as a newer member say "I like beige."
The core group turns and says "It doesn't matter what YOU think WE like blue." Now to the old members the core issue is the color. To the new member the issue is not the color but the vehemence and disdain with which their opinion is treated. The obvious drawing of lines of us and them and the new member has just been called one of THEM, nor referred to as one of us. Since the club is voluntary, would YOU stay in an environment where people treated you as if you had no valuable input? Would you remain in a place that is afraid of you not for any reason other than you may bring a change to their comfortable and boring interactions. Would you remain where you are not wanted, where you are 'not one of us?' Next time you wonder why the playerbase is so small, look at how you and the rest of players treat new players. The answer may lie there.

In case any of you are wondering why my now playing list is so long. It is because I am finally playing games again. You see I stopped for a while. It is all the Gamecube's fault, sort of. Now don't get me wrong I like the cube. There are some great games for it. One of them is Darkened Skye. Ok so the skittle bit is kinda lame. But honestly the game is not easy. As a matter of fact parts of it are damn hard. I had hours of play into it. I was going to finish it! I was in the final zone (I think) Heading for the last bits needed to complete. I put my card in and fired up the game to be greeted with "Corrupt file" I checked the cartridge. Yep, it was damaged. Every game on it was trashed. I was at theFinal boss battle in Forgotten Kingdoms 1.I was nearing the end game in Forgotten Kingdoms 2. Ok I was only at the part that sucketh mightily in Dark Alliance, but I had spent a lot of time figuring everything out on my own up until then. (If you don't know what part this is you have not played the game. If you do. I would welcome approximate number of tries before you passed it.) My town in Animal Crossing was gone, My Sonic games, Baten Kaitos, Tales of Symphonia (I had completed that one but was taking one of my branch points to try and complete some of the side quests) All gone. I really did NOT feel like starting over on all of them. Sob I was JUST getting my groove back in Prince of Persia. I even made my daughter sit up and pay attention to her old decrepit gamer mother. (Yeah, she may have stolen the Sonic Queen title from me but NO ONE in this house can beat me in any POP.)

I finally got over my anger at the machine. I am now on Disk 2 of Baten Kaitos . I restarted both Forgotten Kingdoms. I am back at the part that sucketh mightily in Baldur's gate. My town is weedy but rebuilding. I have not yet restarted Darkened Skye. I will, but I think I will finish off some of the others first. I backup my cartridge now. After I beat some of these other games, I will sit down and take on Darkened Skye. Just me and it. This time I will NOT allow the machine to wuss out on me. I have a backup.

Once upon a time a gamer joined a strat game on a morpg that has servers all over the world. Here is a short discussion of what happened

The tone of the linked article is not what I would like but the issue is a real one. The gaming community is worldwide. Morpgs require teamwork in some way. Not all members of a server speak the same language. So What should we do? Withdraw into our own little English/French/Spanish only world or seek a solution?

To me the solution is not to set up barriers or isolate people according to the language they speak, but rather to provide an environment in which all CAN communicate. Impossible you say? Not so. Take into consideration game players who are visually impaired. They use something called a speech client. The most commonly used speech client worldwide is Jaws. A gamer with whom I am acquainted lives in Brazil. She uses Jaws with an app that helps with translation from English to Portuguese. Now it is not perfect and honestly she spends a lot of time honing her English skills, but wouldn't it be nice if a gaming company partnered with a translation company to create an interface where we could understand each other?

I don't mean complex communication. I mean things like Leader: "Kasuke go around the west, make noise, draw them off. VerdeLapin you go right and sneak up behind them. Zwei, you support him. The two of you take out any remaining guards." Global cooperation through gaming - Making friends around the world and being able to play with them because you can communicate via the game effectively. Call me an old hippie type if you want but seems to me that might just be one of the first steps to understanding people and cultures - being able to communicate with them.

Of course this is just a pipe dream. Heavens forefend a gaming company actually or ANY company for that matter, actually adding a useful feature to an established product, that may be difficult to track ROI but would earn them respect and admiration of their customers. That might mean the end of the world.

So, I am looking for some item to post an article on on an RPG Site I edit. I go browsing through various stuff and decide to check out the usual female gamer aspect. Somehow I missed this a couple of months ago.September20,2007is the release date.

Shanda Entertainment - one of Mainland China's heavy hitters in the gaming industry - announced that their subsidiary, Aurora Technology, has frozen accounts of male players who play as female characters in the King of the World MMORPG. Aurora stipulates that only female gamers can play female characters in the game, and it requires gamers who chose female characters to prove their biological sex with a webcam, according to the report.

Hmm So, it is not ok for a male to play a female. But is ok for a bunch of people to look at players on a webcam to ascertain they are female? How much will they have to reveal to prove it? (my husband can made a great torch singer one Halloween in one of my dresses) Who will be looking at the cam? What about underage girls and what ensures the security of those webcam broadcasts? Talk about your chances of exploitation and stupid rulings.

Anyone heard whether this is still a req?

Sigh. Yet again Gamespot hates anything typed into the editor here So you may find this blog entry in one of my real blogs. I am tired of reinserting spaces after every word and deleting dashes and quotes and most of all of avoiding words like st*le .

In a Gamespot friend's blog an important question is raised. Why do so many players ask for step by step instructions on stuff? There is another side to this. Why do so many players want to play your game for you? You know the type on online games they walk you through all of the quests not allowing you to do any part on your own, rather giving you all the answers. If they are around while you are trying to figure a section of a game on a console they start groaning and telling you what to do next. I eve have one friend that keeps trying to get me to give her my controller just so she can get me through this one bit. The one time I did that, by the time I got the controller back they had completed all the quests on that level and I was at the boss. I call these people the Lamers.

They push newbies on MUDs to play the game their way. They reduce games to stats. Numbers are not fun for me, stories are. Puzzles are great. Killing stuff just to get xp or items without knowing why is not. I despise the part of Baldur's gate that sucketh mightily (the dropping platforms). I adore games that branch depending on the decisions you make. In other words, I want to play the game MY way. Never mind if it takes me 20 times and I do wind up playing it the Lamer's suggested way ultimately. I learned a lot about the game and I learned what will not work or what results a specific action will produce.

If I want help I will ask for it. If I want a hint I will ask for it. But please leave me to explore games my way and make my own mistakes. AFTER I have exhausted everything I can think of, I will ask. Otherwise please, let me play my own games, it is one of the few places in the world I can really screw up and it has no lasting effect. That is what reset is for.

Let me start out by saying this post may piss some people off. If it does too bad. It is my opinion. I am sorry if the incidents mentioned are ones in which you are or someone you know personally were involved but this is the viewpoint of someone who is none of the above. Also please understand that I do not believe that the old leader would perform any of the acts suggested as I believe that person respects the other members of the Union, rather it is a suggestion for people to consider the case of a person who might be of that personality type in other Unions as well. Please note, I mention no names and if any from the board wish to comment on this It would be nice if you did the same, I prefer not to hurt anyone's reputation. That having been stated -

One of the unions to which I belong recently had an interesting occurrence - the leader and founding officer was site banned for the second time. This in and of itself is not unheard of. I do not know the details other than this time the person chose a porn suicide. Why I mention that will become apparent in a bit. But now a new leader is needed.

It seems the old leader selected a person and is notifying tech support. When the members of the Union attempted to hold a vote, we were informed of this. My opinion on this is that any person who is site banned should have no input to the succession of any group of which they were a leader. Think of it this way, when a person is fired from a job they do not pick their successors nor should they. Their emotions are most likely running high. Yet it seems that the site allows, nay even requires that action - at least according to the posts generated by this. Why? What stops the now banned person from handing the site over to a local friend, using their machine and account to log in and performing some sabotage? Forgive me but if Tech Support indeed requires this to be done in order for the Union to survive I must say they are a bit naive.

As for the members, this appointment has been met with some resistance. No one seems to question the selected person's ability, but it seems some think others may be a better choice. The very act of appointing someone is already affecting the Union. It is causing a bit of a rift. Another reason this should not be required or even permitted in cases such as this.
My personal opinion, the leader forfeited the right to pass the Union on to the chosen officer when they made the choice to flagrantly break site rules to end their membership here.

Now as to who and what SHOULD be considered for a leader.

A current officer. The officers have already shown commitment to the Union by stepping up and taking a position of responsibility.
A responsive person. Someone who logs in often and responds. Obviously a person who logs in once a week and has a total of 40 posts in 3 years is not the right person.

A responsible person. The old leader knew they were about to be site banned. Instead of using the bits of time to commit porn suicide, they should have used that to pass off the Union or at least post on the Union what was happening and stating their wishes there. Honestly, the choice made shows an immature thought process and a lack of responsibility to the people who believed in the old leader. The person put their egotistical desire to make futile attempt at notoriety before the good of the Union. It would have been better to ensure the survival of the group they started. It would have been better to ensure the group they began remained alive and united in the cause of the UNION not the cause of the individual. It would be better to be remembered fondly as a person who started something that continued on as a tribute to the founder's vision rather than to their anger.

Now as for the title of this.. Again a person has let down others. They stepped up started something, but when it involves curtailing some of their actions, likes and dislikes for the good of the group they fail. In this case I cannot say the old leader was not willing to work for the Union, but from both the previous banning and this one, they were not thinking of how their actions might affect people who depended upon them. Too often this happens. I have seen it happen on MUD's, forums, and even in the workplace. Some ways in which this manifests are:

Someone has a dislike of an individual and they let that affect their actions rather than consider the contributions the individual makes to the group overall. They either dismiss the person as useless or attempt to drive them away. On MUD's this is particularly self-destructive, for what is a game without players?

They go out of their way to ridicule or insult a person. Usually this is a sign that the leader, site owner, IMM whatever feels threatened by the individual. Eventually this usually backfires as cooler heads prevail. People in general seem to have a tendency to rally behind a person they feel is being treated unfairly. I have seen this result in mass exodus from games, to a mass exodus in the workplace. For the fear there is If the boss is that way toward John now, who will be next on his list?

To end this rambling - I think Gamespot needs to review how they handle situations where a Union leader or Officer even is banned. And I think leaders need to be aware how any action they perform in or out of their Union may affect their Union overall. It is good practice for when you are in a real world leadership position. Remember your public actions reflect upon your followers as much as theirs reflect upon you.

Okay, for those of you who do not know I co-admin a PbP rpg board. Lately it has been light on posting for many reasons, but mostly it is just the usual real life getting in the way of some of the members. So, I go wandering off to find some other RPG boards to post on, preferably D&D based with Faerun as the basis so I can keep my mythos straight when the board booms again. First I find a really old one, Has won awards etc. Cool. I join. A few people and I post back and forth. Then it becomes impossible to keep any IC thread going. Why? Because spammers keep posting adverts for mobile phones, porn sites and who knows what else. I send numerous messages to admins and mods - nothing. Seems all authority figures have abandoned the site this year to the users. Only we cannot use the site because of spam. I too reluctantly abondon the site.

Next I find one that opened in May. Cool, I post a character and wait for the accept ot deny message. Nada-over a month later, still nada. As of today last post prior to mine was in May. You think maybe that board is dead after 3 posts?

The next on the list is not accepting new members unless they donate through Paypal, How do I know it is worth paying for if I cannot see the posts? Next, one of my co members and I join one that posted on our board - yeah we let people advert their RPGs if they let us too. The owner is just starting, she accepts us both, starts one post IC and then fades leaving the 3 members wondering what the deal is about this new world anyway. 3 months later I get an e-mail that she wiped all of our characters and if we want to play we have join again and start from scratch. We are not the ones that left, she did. So. what is it with sites lately? People want to be in charge but do not want to do any of the work required? Pity, I had hoped to use fantasy environments to make real world work issues fade in my spare time. Guess that the idiots exist in every venue.

I love games. I love PC games. I have a 56K dial up modem because I live in an area designated as rural (never mind we are surrounded by industrial Parks and malls.) That leaves out Guildwars, WoW,and a plethora of other games that look interesting but are graphic heavy. So, yesterday we are at Target. Chaos Monkey - as my daughter is known - and myself head over to the games after I pick up my flash drive.(The latest solution for the Vista vs the world issue) Some cool PS stuff, we don't have one. Nada for Cube. We laugh at POP on the WII, I am active enough on the cube I can imagine the acrobatics I would do using a WII. Then we head to the PC area looking for something, preferably a dungeon crawler. EVERYTHING we like is online now. Civ, most of the RPGs even a lot of the FPS.Well Target does not have the best selection in general. So tonight when at Circuit City we look again. A better selection But still every one that we picked up and drew our attention was online and p2p.

So I have a question for the game mfrs. What if I lose connectivity? What if I cannot afford the fee and the sftw package. What if I decide the game sucks. And where do 12 year olds get a credit card to play a p2p game online? Sorry but it smacks of double dipping to me. $40,00 for a game and then a monthly fee?Plus upgrades for when the coders change the system on the fly. Maybe Freecell isn't so bad after all.

A month and a half later and Vista and I are still locked in a struggle, I am not certain who will win. The short story is the old 98 machine died. I could not afford the machine I really wanted, so I bought one from Circuit City. Give me a few days and perhaps I wil lrelate the entire saga of the machines. Some parts of it still sets my blood boiling. But here are some of the highlights of the battle on the gaming front:

Vista vs Darkstone Darkstone wins.

Vista vs Revanant Revanant wins (but display must be dropped to 16 to play)

Vista Vs. Final Fantasy VII Vista wins-so farI get to start a new game or load then screen turn black and stays that way.

Vista Vs Prince of Persia 3d Vista wins Movies do not run so far

Vista vs Dungeon Keeper- Vista. Vista laughs at me. It tells me it installed but it did not.

Vista vs.Zmud- Zmud, but must run as administrator

Vista Vs Normality-Vista

Vista Vs Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny-Vista It goes through everything makes a westwood chat directory even, but does not even begin to install Lands of Lore although it claims it does.

Vista vs THQ's Let's ride Dreamer-THQ Darn I had hoped Vista would win that one. don't ask it's a long story. but it loaded.

Vista Vs Icewind Dale-Icewind Dale wins.

Note: Icewind Dale and Darkstone loaded first attempt with no tweaks,driver downloads or researching what was happening through the web or readme files. The rest all had issues that needed to be resolved during installation.So to all you Best Buy employees and others who spout the Microsoft Party line "of course your games will run fine on Vista," you know where you can put it.