Jeffool.com

I’m very much a person who intends to do things, but doesn’t get around to actually doing them. It’s a large fault of mine. But my latest ‘project’ is to write a bunch of articles about MMOs, and what it would take to get me to like them. See, I want to like MMOs, I really do… But I can’t for a litany of reasons! So, I’m going to write some posts addressing those reasons with one thought in mind: I’m going to dream, I’m going to dream big. No, I don’t think that any of these things will happen, but so what? Like Jeff Freeman says, if I had something to say I’d put up a website. This is a blog.

Note: All comparisons to WoW and Oblivion in the posts will just be for general reference. I’m not a fan of WoW, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. That just means I don’t like it. Conversely, I did like Oblivion…

I’ve written up a list of most of the reasons. My posts will very likely be from this group:

–Massacring MMOs (Or: Born in the M.M.O.)
-Hoofin’ It (Or: “Why the hell does this road go between two deserts; one plagued with mutant rats, and the other with marauders guarding a giant chest of gold, yet they can’t afford good weaponry?” “Will you just stop and ask for directions?” “No! I’m not lost! This road is just fucking stupid!”)
-Sweet Memories (Or: Remember that spot where we first kissed? Yeah, me neither.)
-Mission-ery Positions (Or: Mindless repetition.)
–The Clothes Should Make the Man (Or: Nice suit, everyone.)
-Grinding For Items (Or: No. Just no.)
-PVP (Or: Gimme PVP, or I’ll punch you in the face.)
-Say Something (Or: Can you hear me now? Why the fuck not?)
-One Man’s Journey (Or: How I never saved the world, despite constantly doing just that.)
-Deadly, Deadly Death (Or: This won’t hurt a bit.)
-The End (Or: Well-time orgasmic big bang, or drawn-out dribbling little whimper? Publishers, I know which one you’ll pick!)

Don’t suppose anyone knows how to fix this problem I’m having in WordPress? It seems my ‘links’ section (ideally) on the bottom right doesn’t display correctly in Firefox. It’s showing up as an additional column outside the window to the right of the recent comments, and quite frankly, looks silly out there by itself! Silly links section, get it together!

Apparently Katie Couric doesn’t like Manhunt 2. She was obviously displeased with the idea that the murder was realistically portrayed with knives, glass shards, and other realistic killing devices (as opposed to sci-fi shooters, I guess?) And she particularly didn’t like the idea of combining this with the Wii’s control method. She warns it could not only be dangerous to your kids, but to others as well, indicating it could make the more easily-impressionable kids run out and kill people. Though she read the piece as a toothless parental suggestion with no bile, she came across as having the same level of disgust as she did on her opinion piece of General Mukasey’s possible OK-ing, despite his refusing to rule out torture (waterboarding.) Hey, at least she mentions you have to be seventeen to buy it, even if she does point out ‘some retailers sell it to kids anyway’.

My problem is that she targets the game, and the method of input. I disagree with the priorities of people that consider particular games like Manhunt 2, or movies like Saw, to be problems, but not aspects of the culture in general. My problem isn’t the existence of games where you can kill others (in this case, it’s even self-defense!) Hell, I don’t even care if someone does make Murder Simulator 2020. My complaint is the culture of gaming (game developers and gamers themselves,) that is so dependent on violence as content that it’s largely retarded growth into other areas that games could gain from. And of course this is because after graphics, physics are the next easiest part of programming to improve on. Games are just advancing along the path of least resistance.

Y’know, I just hope that in the end, games can drive people to kill, to love, to loathe, to orgasm, and to regret. Not due of repetition and warping of the player’s sense of ‘normalcy’, but because of passion and persuasiveness. Because after playing the game, the player actually cares enough to act, in some way. Of course, I’d rather players try to save the world…