The Washington DC area is weird. I’m sure that normal children riding a school bus have arguments about the superiority of this cartoon figure over that, this advertised snack product of empty calories and grease over that, and so on. In the quiet hamlet where I came of age, children on the bus would scream “Yeah? Well, Republicans RULE!!” “Nu-UH, Democrats are the best!”

I’m trying to decide where politicians fall on the spectrum between cartoons and empty greasy calories.

Anyway, the OOC channel in an MMO is not unlike a school bus. Playing anything besides WoW is like being a Yellow Bus Democrat during the Reagan/Mondale election.

If you have watched people debating the existence of god in open chat, you are aware that nuance is not possible, but the pithiest and swiftest typists can get in a few zingers before the CSRs show up. So why does the question of superiority in MMO goodness never rise above “you suck- no you suck - no your mom sucks” level? Why does the question of superiority come up at all? You never see scrapbookers having face offs over “clean design” versus “ornamentation.” No. Scrapbookers are all together in one corner making fun of golfers. That is because golfers suck, a trick these so-called athletes learned from their mothers.

I can understand the defensiveness on the part of the people who have chosen the home team game to build friendships, create guilds, and acquire multiple characters with maxed levels and crafting. But why the psychotic rage on the part of the people who have invested maybe two hours in a new game, and decided they liked their old game better? Why the need to announce it in a crowd full of people who, by their very existence in the channel, probably have a different preference? And why is it that I have to hear it at least three times a night?

I’d turn off the OOC channel, but then I’d miss the existence of god debate. Last night, god was winning, but Puerto Rico and Oregon hadn’t reported yet.

Google gets in the act. GoogleSpaceBook!

Wonder what this will do, if anything, to the walled gardens.

FWIW, my vote is “not much.” Look at internet dating - you have eHarmony and Match, and you also have Jdate and Atlasphere. (The latter is a site, with a dating service for people trying to live their lives by Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Wow, a dating service for those who say they’re into open marriages, but later turn out to be less enthusiastic when they get moved to the back burner for a younger sex toy?) Look at internet news. You have the CNN, the BBC, and yet people read Matt Drudge on purpose. Just saying, sometimes people want to specialize.

Random thoughts:

-LOTRO went from a great game for me to a great game, period, sometime in the last three months. I’m not the only person to notice, given that I now face a queue to get on my server. Even the queue is well done, making me wish that every queue on earth was this good.

- Speaking of queues: My new phone number used to belong to a deadbeat named Deborah. Creditors call literally dozens of times a day looking for her. The problem is, there are no humans calling. It’s all robo-dialers. They wake up every napping life form in the house, they rattle off the number *I* have to call to speak to a person at warp six and hang up before I find a pen, and if I ignore it, they call back. When I do call the number, I wait on hold - remember, they called me - for up to twenty minutes, ultimately to be argued with by someone who thinks I’m Deborah and pretending to be me. I had one guy ask me to prove I wasn’t her. With what, my psychic web cam? Deborah, you stupid whore, the next time I get a call at 7 AM, it is ON.

- Part of my job these days is tracking the levels of interest in upcoming titles so we can get ahead of the curve and create guild page themes. Interestingly, the games that win all the polls are not the titles that I see on the most new guild/clan sites. As a side note, years ago I write a rant about the board warriors who create guilds for unlaunched games. I don’t mean statements of intent from existing guilds, I mean entirely new groups. These “guilds” would have ranks, and award points for forum actions, and have meetings, and virtual practice sessions, and often fall apart entirely before launch because someone started sleeping with the guild master’s wife. I found these drama whores pitiful at the time. Now I still snicker a little, but given the total inability of the human race to choose a name that’s rare enough to score the URL, I’m willing to cut people more slack.

- Speaking of sleeping with the guild master’s wife, isn’t the internet old enough now that we can all automatically translate some of the conventional conversational openers? For instance, “I haven’t connected with anyone the way I connect with you” is an incomplete sentence. It ends with “but the night is young and I’m still sober.”

- I have to go buy an Xbox. I know, poor me. I’m dreading it, though. I’m one of those people the Wii was made for; I always act like lifting the controller really high will help my character jump over things. Don’t even talk to me about Mario Cart. But my company just borged a thriving Xbox community site, and if there’s one thing I believe about community, it’s that without being of your community, you’re just an empty suit skimming the surface. So, I guess I gotta learn about consoles.

- Speaking of empty suits skimming the surfaces, this was the best headline EVER: Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens.

- Is everyone in the USA registered to vote? If not, why not? There are a lot of Supreme Court justice seats coming up for the next presidential pickings. This one MATTERS, kids.

- Speaking of the Supreme Court, I will bet cash that the concept of virtual property is going to hit that august body in the next five years. I am willing to bet cash because no one will bet against me on that one.

Sorry, been a slow news day for awhile now.

I am filled, FILLED I SAY, with loathing for Verizon, Sprint, Long Fence, moving in general, and above all, Maryland. But I finally have a real internet connection, my yard is beagle proof, and really, Maryland is pretty nice except for the weird smell of Yankee you get this close to the border.

It is in support of one of my favorite Yankees that I herald my return to blogging today.

After all, it’s not his fault he lives in Pennsylvania.

Kwip, of NeenerNeener.net (once a fairly large gaming news and funnies site, now an equally funny blog site), has for several years now rallied his gaming friends and acquaintances to raise funds for a cure for multiple sclerosis. His beautiful and sarcastic spouse, Kwipette, is their official spokesmodel. I’ve had the honor of supporting the cause for the last few years.

This year, I have no swag, no betas, and no bully pulpit. All eight of you with nothing better to do at work are awesome and all, but not exactly a multitude. What I did have to spare were my Warhammer shirts, worn expressly to do the Warhammer demo at tradeshows and for no other purpose. So I donated them.

But there’s no point in a charity auction if no one knows to bid. Fortunately, I have friends.

Some lily-livered people I shall not name were concerned about the reaction from the studio. “Piffle,” I said, or I would have said if I were the kind of person who said “piffle.” And in fact, I was entirely correct, because I got a lovely email almost immediately. So now the winning bids are effectively doubled in their donation value.

Then one of the people at GuildCafe said in a sad voice that basically, winning the auctions was for rich people. So Kwip and I cooked up a Clever Plan. Every little bit helps.

Anyway, do me a favor and send the links to Warhammer fans in your social circle. Thank you. I now return to my exciting life and its next round of “who the hell packed this box, a drunken gorilla?”

Hell, I could do better typing one handed than this stupidity. Hey, that’s an idea for a blog post! (Please note - I think… okay, I hope… the writer was trying to be funny. The intro to the piece gave the impression that he was trying to offer serious advice, and certainly that’s the way it was taken by a few people who should have known better.)

1. Don’t be a condescending hose beast. All hobbies are, at their most reductive level, an idiotic waste of time. Very few people have a hobby that will make money, cure cancer, house orphan tree rats, or anything besides pass the time in a pleasant manner for the hobbyist. Before you talk about “gaaaming” in a tone normally reserved for “licking tooooilets,” ask yourself if your hobby is feeding starving children.

2. Pick your battles, and be specific. Your problem isn’t really with gaming, or the game. Maybe you’re pissed at how much time each session takes. Maybe you walked into the room naked and slathered with maple syrup and your mate didn’t notice. Perhaps you want your own four hour block of time to waste as you see fit. Could be your partner thinks “child care” can be done while logged into the game and you disagree. That’s all fine. Articulate your real problem instead of launching a wide ranging diatribe.

3. Ask questions. The games that have the highest spouse aggro usually can’t be quit on a moment’s notice, no matter what brand of maple syrup you used. Before you try dressing up in condiments, ask your mate to explain a few rudiments of the game. How horrible would it be to care about the hobbies of someone you supposedly love? At least learn enough to appreciate little bon mots such as “spouse aggro.”

4. Consider the idea that the problem is you. If you’re the kind of nagging, overbearing, condescending offspring of a whore and a syphilitic donkey that drives a person into a virtual world for entire weeks just to get away from you, screaming will not help and threats of divorce will be welcomed. The kind of trogdolyte that dives into a game rather than admitting you’re hateful is not likely to admit it without extensive therapy, sadly, so this diagnosis is up to you and your therapist.

5. Don’t cut the power. Or anything else that childish. When the power goes out, I grab the one old fashioned wall phone I still own (for just this situation) and I call the power company. If you’re going to try and be clever, make sure your clever plan isn’t foiled by a single phone call. Or plugging the router back in.

6. Do not bring food to the computer. I’m serious. This is my best piece of advice. You cannot have the “honey, I need you to stay off the computer on the weekends” conversation unless you have eye contact with the target. Your mate has to eat, sleep, and use the bathroom. Mealtime is your best opportunity. If you bring your little addict a plate full of food cut up into small pieces so he can eat one handed, your pleas to log off sound like so much “wah wah wah.”

7. Don’t make threats, and don’t whine. If your mate doesn’t stay off the computer on Sunday, or whatever it is you two agreed to do over dinner, what will you do? Decide. And do it.

8. Do not dress up as an elf. Ever. This is just a personal bias of mine. Okay, everyone who has hung out with me in person knows this story, but for the rest of you: Years ago I developed the Pointy Eared Whore Theory. Over a lifetime attending cons and other events featuring people dressing up as characters from fantasy and science fiction, I noticed a disturbing trend. The ones with really good, high quality pointed ear prothestics (elves, Vulcans, doesn’t matter) are total whores. Seriously. Go into the handicapped stall in a restroom at one of these events, and I promise you that you will find something sordid, and someone in pointy ears will be in the middle of it doing something for which governors pay 4300 bucks, and college students do for a box of wine. I remember a ladies’ room at a fan faire in which the stall door swung open, and out slunk a dude in a kilt, followed a moment later by an equally chagrined female in caster robes… followed by a satisfied-looking female in leather armor and pointy ears. Ten years earlier I’d seen a similar scene involving a Klingon, a human Star Fleet officer, and a Vulcan.

As a side note, the people who buy cheap elf ears don’t seem to put out as often, so don’t just proposition random people with the ears.

As another side note, I think that if the males outnumber the females in a Comicon three way, they should use the handicapped stall in the men’s room. I suppose that’s a different rant, though.

We interrupt this bout of packing my household goods (consisting mainly of old mice/keyboards/mystery cables, science fiction novels, and RPG stuff - god, the only way you can tell I’m an adult is from the way I didn’t go dumpster diving for the packing boxes this time) to bring you my pet cause:  http://www.gamersforacure.org/.

MS sucks. Kwip and Becky are great. I’m going to be auctioning stuff and with any luck joining their walking team. Please join the cause if you can, and spread the link if you’re so inclined.

I am, sadly, not part of the Facebook revolution, the MySpace weltanschauung, or even the blogging mindset. I know, this is a weird thing to hear coming from someone who has been running some kind of website splattered with overflowing id since 1999, but there it is.

The thing is, I dislike hanging my ass out on the internet. By “ass” I mean “personal details.” It took nearly a year before I admitted on my rant site that I was female. I was traumatized when I realized that as part of the Dark Side of the industry, I was not going to be able to avoid having photos of my made-for-the-internet face posted. When I got married, I didn’t mention it online, and in fact did not publicly mention my legal name change until I left Mythic… two and a half years after the wedding. I use my real name when posting on behalf of an employer (and when I’m yammering on about anything to do with the gaming industry - the trust of players is too fragile a thing to risk even the APPEARANCE of sock puppetry), but in all other non-gaming forums I use handles. I won’t even post my birthday or geographical location in other online profiles if I can help it.

I don’t *hide* anything, but I’m in no rush to get all of my information into Google. I firmly believe that there is a reckoning en route for people who commit every last freaking detail to the internet. When Google becomes a network implanted inside human skulls, and potential employers and lovers just think your name and suddenly pictures of you from summer camp, that one kegger, and the all-night M:TG gaming session pop up, along with your diatribe over the 1H slashing weapon with a 2% chance to crit vs. elvenkind only YOU wanted it to be 3% and for some reason that really, really mattered? So much so that you called the community manager a three bagger who tracks rabbits by scent? Yeah. It’s not going to be pretty.

Anyway, my point… I had one… oh! Yes! My point is that despite a life lived almost entirely online, I am by modern standards an intensely private person, and have spent the last week going back and forth over making this post at all. However, many if not most of my regulars already know, and I feel like I owe an explanation for the silence to the other three of you:

My husband and I welcomed our son, the once and future Nerd King, the Rare Spawn, the Kwisatz Haderach, and the Scourge of the Galactic Empire, into the world on Saturday, February 9th.

Yeah. That’s why I wasn’t drinking at AGC. All that lovely free booze, just gone to waste.

The site will be on a bit of a… hiatus, until I can get back to reading the news and gossip and having informed opinions again. And thank you very much to everyone who has sent their good wishes so far - I have seen all the IMs and emails, but it’s been difficult to respond in a coherent manner. The decibel level that can emit from seven pounds of beady-eyed humanity is pretty astounding. See you all soon.

- You delete anything that isn’t porn, advertising, or one member calling another member a “faggot retard.” If you are deleting things because someone posts that such and such a decision is “poorly thought out,” you are too sensitive and need to not be online. Ever.

- You delete threads more than once a week. Most situations should be handled by locking the threads. Locking allows players to see what it was that got locked (people learn from example), prevents reposts of locked material, and prevents conspiracy theories. If you are having to delete more often because of violations of the porn rule, you need tighter security on who becomes a member in the first place.

- You are constantly revising your board rules. If you have to have fifty rules that all boil down to “play nicely,” either you have an unusually obtuse community (possible) or you are making rules against things that annoy you personally (likely). Take your ego out of the game. If you cannot, you are not qualified to moderate a board.

- You have more than a handful of rules. A board rarely needs more than ten rules, and there are literally thousands of rulesets that at this point you can just cut and copy. The older, the more time tested. The one I usually start with was originally a usenet post.

- You avoid posting something that might cause drama, even though the something in question is most certainly going to be part of the game. Man UP, you chickenshit wimp.

- You whine about how the content of a particular post wasn’t your idea. This usually happens when the CM doesn’t have any balls besides the ones he keeps in his mouth.

- You talk to members in PM for any reason besides acknowledging reports. The best way to start drama is to indulge in whispering, making special friends on the forums, and putting in writing that you like some members more than others. A private message becomes a public post the moment you think it’ll never happen to you.

- You cannot separate your feelings from your work.

- Frank: Your first reaction to a negative post is “impotent rage” or “immediate denial.”

Add your own in the comments; if they sound like global rules to me (as I believe these are), I’ll add ‘em with your posting name.

When you say that the ideal candidate has nine years of experience and will be responsible for your online message, your product’s online look and feel, your communication with customers, your first contact with disgruntled customers, a team of not less than two other people and possibly a dozen, contributing to your marketing strategy, managing live events, and building global partnerships…

…you cannot seriously think you’ll only pay that person fifty fucking grand a year.

[12:02] (name redacted): http://www.moorgard.com/?p=186
[12:02] (name redacted): !
[12:04] Sanya: /peer
[12:05] Sanya: *I* am not going to say anything about MMO players being too sophisticated for peer pressure, given that MMO players also think the slutty elf armor in WOW is hot.
[12:05] Sanya: But still. Words fail.
[12:05] (name redacted): yeah
[12:05] Sanya: I should make this into a blog entry.