Commentaries

Regrets are something I don't linger on. My general feeling is that even you could change the past, minor changes in your past history could have drastic changes where you are in the here and now. Wanting to undo past regrets indicate a desire to completely screw up your life. There's not much point lingering on things in your life that didn't happen.

That being said, the current upcoming lineup of video games leaves me wanting. Spore and The Force Unleashed were complete duds, and the only title I'm looking forward to is merely an expansion to a game I've spent way too much time playing. This has left me pining for games past that I've never had the chance to play. I find myself regretting not having played some games so long ago. Fortunately, the current lull in quality titles has opened up an opportunity to catch up on titles I've missed.

Okay, so I don't really hate fishing. It's just that I've never found it to be all that much fun. In fact, I haven't tried to fish since 1991. In my experience, the act of fishing has been made up of long, mind-numbingly boring stretches of time, broken up by brief frantic moments of failure (assuming I even get a fish to bite). And no, we're NOT talking about my history with the ladies...

Having said that, I'm constantly amazed at the idea that including fishing as a profession/hobby/waste of time in an MMO sounds like good, clean fun. Let's take into account that moments feel like dog years when you're sitting in front of your monitor waiting for something to happen (like watching Windows XP boot). Now, let's take an action such as fishing, and do it on the computer. Can you see where I'm going with this? If it's boring in real life, it's really going to suck in a game.

Okay... I should have seen this coming. Picture this: A group of developers and producers break away from a hugely successful gaming company. The hype factor for their first game release is totally over the top. By the time the game comes out, it's a complete mess. Company folds, end of story. Does anyone remember John Romero, Ion Storm, and the ugliness that was Daikatana? Yeah... it's like a recipe for failure.

So how did Flagship Studios fail? Here's my take:

Last weekend at Blizzard's World Wide Invitational in France, Blizzard announced the "Blizzard Authenticator", a hardware dongle that provides "Two-Factor authentication" security to World of Warcraft.  The device immediately sold out, and on it's first restock, sold out again.  Obviously, this is an in demand item.

It never fails.  You’ll be on a forum for your current favorite play, pouring out your insights on improving the game, and then you make an ill-fated reference to “realism.” As day follows night, the fan-bois will then rush to be the first to parrot some permutation of the over-played line “it’s a game, not RL.”  At that point, you have a choice;

The following is a piece I wrote for CoxNewspapers last spring:

It happens quietly at first. A guy knocks on the door and then enters the house carrying his weapon of choice. No, it’s not the latest in ballistic firearms; it’s his computer, monitor and anything else he can think of that might give him an edge over his fellow gamers. Then, a few more friends arrive, carrying their own gaming rigs and suddenly, the house is teeming with energy and conversation.

Pssst. Come here. I have an axe to grind. In fact, it's a +4 Axe of Kiss My Ass and I have a burning desire to wield it on every person who feels the need to complain about whether a game is really a roleplaying game (RPG). Over the years, I've had countless debates with people over what defines an RPG. Some people will swear on their D&D handbook that if they can't create a character from scratch, then it's not really an RPG.