Do you play travian? Covert recreation?

Work *HURR!*, what is it good for!? Absolutely nothin'!

We were having a discussion over here about why people play the browser game travian (I wonder if I should link to the game - google would probably like that, but I'm morally disinclined).

At this point someone said people basically play it at work and play against co-workers. I had this reply

So not as a genuine recreational activity, but instead as a way of making rec time at work?

That kind of gets into the 'the only show in town' crowd draw, since there are specific requirements for what games can be fitted in (obviously you can't sit down for a session of fallout at work, for example!). So a game like travian is one of the few that can meet those requirements - thus it's the only show in town (or one of the few shows in town).

It makes me think there should be some new word for recreation at work - covert recreation? Basically games designed around filling the niche of what you can get away with at work AND also recruit your fellow coworkers?

Free to play mmorpgs, early adopters and you

This little bottie went to market and this little bottie went free to play...

Quite a few people out there seem to get in a tizzy about games that are brought out on a subscription basis, but then a few months or such in become free to play.

When really this was planned from the start (barring the game being wildly successful in getting subs and keeping them, then they'd maintain a sub system)

The fact is a 'free' mmorpg is better advertising than a television advert and FAR cheaper. What sort of advert do you sit in front of, watching it for hours? 'But it's entertaining!'. Well, maybe you found the old spice advert mildly entertaining - were they giving that away for free?

The reason for subs at the start is a fairly standard business practice, if not commonly acknowled amongst the punters. Remember when playstations or ipods or whatever first came out, they cost alot, but then the price goes down?

The fact is, there are people out there with disposable income (and sometimes not so disposable income) that want to be the first to get some new thingie!

They are the early adopters. They are a way of quickly recouping alot of money.

So instead of thinking "Oh, how long is it before your new mmorpg gives up having a subscription, huh?" as if you know the condition of the industry, realise your not ahead of them, they are several moves ahead of you.

Life Game, a draft, #1

Okay, so this blog obviously stretches over into philosophy and here's some thoughts on a better real life future, basically through a model or game.

The central idea is simply to grow edible vegetables for yourself. Yeah, been said before. But!...

The idea is that the more you can supply your own vital need (ie, eating - unless your a vampire, in which case see my vampire section...) the more you are politically free to make long term choices, instead of making short term choices for survival/food reasons, but which may undermine your long term values.

It's not a binary state - instead the more you can supply your own food, the more you achieve this status, where you can choose a long term agenda without short term threat swaying the decision.

Further the idea, should one agree with the notion of it all, is to also grow plants (like suger snap peas, beens, etc) in small containers and offer these plants (along with a note on the general philosophy described here) to people. Because just looking after yourself, although glamourised in capitalist society, simply isn't enough. It's just really effective dividing and conquering. I mean, if you wanted to divide people, how would you do it? Well, certainly one thing you'd do is encourage them to only look after themselves. And seriously, how well do you know your neighbours? (ps: If I actually get posts from people who know all their neighbours, I'll start looking into whether alot more people do than I think - but for now, I think most people are cut off at that level).

So, that's the draft. I've put off writing anything on it for trying to word it right, so I quit trying to be perfect on the first try and instead atleast wrote something on it.

Obsessive compul-optimised

I'm looking at the the thread here

As I say in the comments, I wonder if a game that does not end/have a final win condition actually exacerbates obsessive compulsive dissorders in people?

It either goes one way - you don't care, because you can't finish it anyway. Or it goes the other way - because there is no end to get excited about, and because you must get excited about something (rather than "don't care"), even a second faster in progression somehow becomes all consuming important. Much like some people have an overwhelming urge to touch every fence post as they walk, or align all their mug handles in one direction, or they become horders (oh wait, that's a bit too close a parralel with a mmorpg, isn't it? Not even an analogy anymore...)

MMO: Forced Friends

Humphrey the fun loving bear....LFG

I don't know if I'm grasping a trend out there where people say 'It doesn't feel like an MMO!'. They particularly say it if solo play is viable.

What is actually interesting about being in the company of other players all the time?

Is it like a cult thing? The more members your cult has, the more real or meaningful it is?

Otherwise, what's interesting about having other people hanging around? Beyond it being a chat room that happens to have monsters? That's a chat room, not about playing like groups of people get together to do in sports. Though semantically they will say it doesn't feel like a MMO and that doesn't actually contain the word player in the acronym, so maybe it isn't self contradictory. They just aren't interested in playing, they just want a massive chat room?

Though really I'd say it's just classic highschool (and beyond) need to be socially domineering "You play our way (Oh yeah, we'll pitch that not as 'our way' but 'The way the games meant to be played') or you can't play the game at all.......ah......*lights up cigarette*, oh yeah, pay off time...made my idiosyncratic perception a world standard...oh yeah! *puff puff*"