A New Gaming Concept: Pay-Pal-adin

As a solo Paladin, I've realized it's hard work earning money... So I'm suggesting a new system I call Pay-Pal-adin... You see, Paladins are trustworthy. For monetary transactions or for protection, people could use a Paladin much like they made use of the pony express.

Let's look at why this is a good idea:

Free Mounts means low-overhead for transportation, the cost savings of which we pass on to YOU our customer..

Rigoddamndiculous Armor levels means you know you’re stuff is safe in our hands.

Need to run from a fight? We can cover you for a whole 10 seconds!

OK in all seriousness, even I have to admit, that paladins are one of the easiest classes to play. Second most hated only to the Rogue. But for a non-l33t player like myself, the extra cushioning sure comes in handy.

Zantarax (Kilrogg)

Ryoko just isn't the same...

Several days ago I learned that the voice actor who portrayed Ryoko on the Tenchi Muyo series will not be returning to dub the character for the 3rd OAV. Petrea Burchard, though some may have mused sounded like a smoker, had a unique voice which I felt lent itself well to the Ryoko character. While it is not known who will replace Berchard for the US release of the Tenchi Muyo OAV3, I for one will miss her unique styling.

We're not doing it for the money... we're doing it for a sh*t load of money!

You know there's one thing that can be said of most cultures out there. We like money. Nay, I say we LOVE money. If money and chocolate were one in the same there'd be people shittin' out care packages a day. OK that was kinda gross.

So what brought this on? Well two things, one friend of mine over at http://www.random-review.com noted how his Google Page Rank has increased considerably. So like any web-entrepreneur he's looking to cash in. Second thing was I caught an interesting article on CNN about Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi" now selling his wares to supermarkets. Super for YOU!

I myself enjoy money but not necessarily the accumulation of a lot of it. I just like to have enough to live on and still enjoy what I do. It's one of the reasons I try not to bitch about my job too often. Your thoughts?

The King of BOHICA withdraws support for the BOHICANS

Microsoft Caves on Gay Rights, Pressured by Evangelical Minister, Microsoft Withdraws Support for Civil Rights Bill, by Sandeep Kaushik (04/21/05)

Now I found this while going through Slashdot and just had to comment. Does anybody else think it's a little odd that a company, known for bending consumers over and taking them up the ass should be so anti-gay/lesbian? What possible motivation could the management at Redmond have for denying people, regardless of sexual orientation, basic legal rights?

I'm not fan of MS, but even I find this type of ultra-conservative action contrary to good faith business. I'm sure there are gays and lesbians employeed and Microsoft's various offices, and I hope they never face persecution.

Leaving an Open Sour(ce) Taste...

I've got to be frank about something, the current war of words between some of the OSS movements notables is just depressing. If you haven't read up, Linus Torvalds recently changed the SCM used to manage kernel development from BitKeeper to Git. Some of this was prompted after Andrew Tridgell (of Samba fame) began discussing how he had begun to reverse engineer BitKeeper.

Having read articles from both camps I've come to the conclusion that nobody was right in this war. (no surprise right?) I agree that Linus probably went a tad overboard in openly berating Tridgell over his actions. At the same time I can concede that the good faith, working agreement between the OSS heads and BitKeeper was that no OSS project would attempt to directly replace it. Now granted, in a forward thinking sense this probably wasn't the best choice the OSS higher ups could have made but that's water the under the bridge. Was Tridgell wrong to reverse engineer BitKeeper thereby violating their working agreement? Probably, but that's his strength in the industry (See Samba).

While I like diversity as much as any OSS/FSF community member, even I acknowledge that sometimes open source isn't the best fit for _everything_ but it does a darn good job. It is unfortunate that this schism is hitting at a time when development is at an all time high. My hope is that this does not fracture heavily the OSS/FSF community any further. Thoughts?

-Note that I use just about everything, Red Hat, Fedora, Debian, Mac OS X (10.3 atm), Windows XP, Windows 2000

A Forward To "Why Do Bad Games Get Played"

This Post provided by Halbarad of #mayhem (irc.gamesurge.net)
Editors Notes in []'s

As a key frequenter of bad games, I wanted to post my
own experiences and thoughts (i.e. rant) on the
matter. In response to Vraxx's commentary on "why
gamers buy bad games," and Rawrasaur's entry on "why
do bad games get made," I thought I would try to take
the middle ground and tackle both questions. Why are
bad games bought, and what makes them bad? The answers
to both questions I think are related in the buyer's
mentality.

I will take as an arguing point, my own purchase of
two horrible games. Pools of Radiance 2 (which shall
forever live in infamy) and Lionheart (to which is
assigned a slightly higher numerical value in the
circles of Hell)[We think it's 4... we're not sure]. I bought both these games in the
first week of their relative release dates, and
stopped playing them less than a day afterwards. Why
were they such bad games? Technical problems (bugs)
were certainly to blame. But the game interface, the
gameplay, and sudden break downs in the plot were all
also present. However, I was aware of none of these
when I bought the game. And why not? There were plenty
of previews of the games, and much hype. They each had
good high-concept ideas and initial concepts, which
were much reported on. And so, in the rush to
experience these great ideas, I purchased the game
before a final review came out. This is the
fundamental mistake of why bad games are bought. I
wouldn't necessarily call it hype. I would call it,
rather, a failure to live up to the grand ideas they
started from, either due to technical incompetence,
lack of funding, or rush to market.

I guess I'll leave with the rejoinder that I have
learned... do not buy a game based on the previews.
The finished product is what you play, and it is what
you should base your decision around. It sounds
simple... but in the "get it now" mentality of
computer gaming, it's tougher than I thought. But,
that is why, in my opinion, bad games are made. Not
because they have pretty boxes on shelves, or from
some sorry concept from "on high." But because gamers
like myself give them the benefit of the doubt on the
transition from storyboard (and previews) to retail,
which gives them the money to make those same mistakes
over and over again.

Here endeth the rant. [We're sure there's more to come]

Why Do Bad Games Get Played?

Reading a colleague's blog can sometimes provide fruit to tangential thoughts. This is one of those times. Let's face it, not every game is great. Hell, these days, not every game is even good. My friend Rawrasaur took the perspective of the publisher/developer battle in describing why poor games are made. I'm here to provide a spin on why they get played at all.

Coming up will be a follow-up from our resident tester Halbarad but first, my drivle.
There are three key factors IMHO as to why bad games escape our "crappy game" radar.

1) Hype and Marketing
Let's face it, who hasn't been wowed by a well spun print ad, a rave review, or a snazzy TV promo? The Spin Doctors at all your favorite publishers are well versed in only showing you what they want you see of a game. No matter how much we try curiosity usually gets the better of us.

2) Demos
There's nothing quite so tricky as the classic bait-n-switch that is a demo. Giving us a gamer equivalent of a car test drive, the Demo has become a fairly good way of providing a little bit of truth and not giving away too many of the flaws of a title. How many times have you uttered "well the demo was ok, so the real thing HAS to be good!" That's right... there there, we've all been there.

3) Human Stupidity
OK these one is the most blunt, and the least capable of being changed. Let's face facts, sometimes you just SEE a concept and you're hooked. "Big mechs and shooting things?! I'M THERE!" I confess, even my own blind love of certain genres has gotten me into a game that had no place on my hard drive. Sorry guys, you're on your own for this one.

OK I'm going to make a last minute, gender specific addition to 3.

3a) Boobies
Yes, OK I can confess, we're guys, eye candy and especially that of the female variety is too tantalizing for some of us, as many a DOA owner can attest. I know you're out there...

Welcome to my Blerg... Part Deux

Whew, OK so after having taken a quickie test drive of LiveJournal, I decided maybe it wasn't what I was looking for, so enter vraxx.blogspot.com! (Thank you people at Google)

So what is this blog going to be about? Well first and foremost, it's a chance for me to post all the wonderful vraxxisms that I just never got around to posting on Vraxx.com

I'd like to again thank Rawrasaur for creating her Blog, that I might be inspired to make fun of it... Sometimes.

On with the show. Stay tuned for the first full post, entitled "Why Do Bad Games Get Played" with a forward from Halbarad, star of #mayhem on irc.gamesurge.net.

Don't forget to check out all the other Vraxx going's on at Vraxx.com