We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

Chances are that when you read this I’ll be flying over Siberia on my way to the Land of the Rising Sun. What crazy foreign adventures await me? Hopefully nothing too crazy as I’m looking forward to a couple of weeks of sun, rest, good food and ultimate geekery as I drag my wife around Akihabara, forcing her to translate my geek speak into Japanese so I can communicate with the local otaku. Of course, maybe something cool will happen to me, like getting into a fight with a ninja. Not a real ninja mind, cause they’d kick my ass, maybe just a small child who’s dressed as one. Yeah, I reckon I could kick a kid’s ass and earn the respect of my parents-in-law as I do it. Karate chop!

Adventures In Japan Await

I have every intention of continuing to post articles when I’m away (I’ve even set up a few pre-written ones on timed delayed release to keep you folks entertained) but chances are they will be a bit less frequent than I usually manage. They will also likely be a lot more orientated towards funky things in Japan and I’ve already got a few ideas for articles about the more geeky side of the country that I hope you will enjoy. じゃあね!

Those Germans, they’ve got a word for everything. Reisefieber (pronounced “ri-zé-fee-ba”) means “travel nerves” or, quite literally, “travel fever” and that’s exactly what I’m feeling right now. Tomorrow I head off to Japan for a two week holiday and, although I’ve been there several times before, I still can’t help but feel nervous. See, I’m a worrier. I worry about absolutely everything. Am I going to get sick? Will I forget to take something? Will the pilot be drunk and try to fly the plane into the sun resulting in a gigantic firey death for everyone on board? You get the picture.

A few years ago I went to see a phycologist who specialised in cognitive behavioural therapy as I was suffering from acute insomnia. I couldn’t sleep at night because I couldn’t stop worrying about not being able to sleep at night (clever huh?). I clearly remember my first visit to him. I marched into the room, sat down in front of him and, after being asked what the problem was, declared “I have trouble sleeping!”. He looked me straight in the eye, raised his $200 an hour eyebrow, and replied “So what?”. It was the best money I ever spent.

Last year I tried to go for another stint of CBT with someone else (my previous saviour had moved on, probably looking for something a little more fulfilling than curing middle class young men of insomnia) to try and resolve my travel issues. Maybe these worries are just too deeply seated but unfortunately we never managed to make much progress. What became abundantly clear though was that I have what’s referred to as “catastrophic thoughts”. No matter what, I will always, without fail, imagine the absolute worst case scenario possible. My brain is a wonderful thing.

In times like this, I’m comforted by a famous quote:

“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”

- Winston Churchill

It’s a great quote and helps to put things in perspective. Most of my worries are either actually very insignificant or things that haven’t even happened yet. A worry is just a thought, it doesn’t exist in itself after all. I, personally, need to learn to control my thoughts and rationalise them, looking at them logically and not letting my emotions take over. Basically, I need to become a Vulcan.

So what’s the moral of this story? I guess it’s “don’t worry about things that haven’t happened yet”. Or something like that

Anyone else a worrier?

I was considering not bothering writing this article because, quite frankly (and sorry if this ruins the conclusion of the post for anyone), all of the EVE Online iPhone apps I’ve found are absolutely, utterly terrible.

As every regular reading knows, I love my iPhone. I mean, I really love it. Not just in the way a man loves a fine cigar, but completely in the way that a man loves a fine woman. So throw in my borderline obsession with MMORPGs and you’ve got a person who scavenges the App Store daily looking for MMO apps to play around with at every spare moment. So suffice to say I was pretty chuffed (British word, meaning ‘happy’) when I discovered not one, not two, but three iPhone apps for EVE.

EVE Tracker

It doesn’t work. Yep, that’s right, it doesn’t. Even. Work. I cannot for the life of me get it to accept my API key. I’ve tried creating new keys, manually typing them in, copying and pasting, and even using the built in web site parser tool (which doesn’t work either). It’s a complete dud. Very frustrating because I’ve spent the last three weeks trying to get it working.

iClone

It doesn’t work. Starting to sense a theme here? When I click on the button to add my API key, it crashes out. That’s even less impressive than EVE Tracker which at least let me enter my API key before refusing it. What is it with these apps?

Capsuleer

Capsuleer Screenshot

Yay, it works! It’s already beaten the other two apps by simply functioning correctly! So what amazing things does this app allow me to do? Well… it lets me see my pilot stats. OK. It shows me what skill I’m currently training. Uh-huh. It shows me what skills I already have and know I have. Right. It shows me ‘headlines’. Great… Don’t get me wrong, these are quite handy things to have, I suppose, but the app didn’t exactly me blow me away in terms of functionality. I was at least expecting to be able to view any and every skill (not just the ones I have) and perhaps even view certificates and create training plans. Such a shame. At least it’s free. That’s a bonus right?

Maybe I’ve just been spoilt with the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory but I can’t help but feel very disappointed with these EVE Online apps. I know they’re free and made by amateurs but still, I was expecting so much more. Maybe that’s my fault. I’ll just stick with EVEMon for now and perhaps, if I ever get enough spare time, contemplate making my own.

Let’s face it, the day-to-day grind of any MMORPG is pretty dull. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing quests or crafting, the hint’s in the name, it’s a grind. What interests us in MMOs, however, is the bigger picture. Rewards, status, social occasions, large scale events, they are all inspiration and incentives for us. We don’t necessary enjoy the act of the build-up but we certainly enjoy the achievement.

I guess it boils down to the old adage “no gain without pain”. I doubt anyone really enjoys the act of putting foot in front of another to trudge up a snowy mountain but I’d bet they very much enjoy the feeling when they get to the top. However, in order to accomplish these goals, we need to put in the effort. It’s not about being lazy, no, we just need to be inspired and incentivized in order to be motivated. Most MMOs do this through itemisation, titles, and opportunities (such as accessing new areas, dungeons, raids etc) although some use more abstract incentives as part of their bigger picture.

Lord British assassinated

Back in 1998, I was incentivised to play Everquest all because of a single article I read in a magazine about Ultima Online. It was a story about how Lord British had been killed by a player even though he was deemed to be immortal and the act impossible. The way the article was written made it sound like the most exciting thing ever and I remember imagining rampaging anarchy across a virtual world after its leader had been slain. I desperately wanted to be part of an online fantasy world like that.

Again, a couple of years later, whilst actively playing EQ, I was inspired to push my character forward and hit level 50 after reading about the acts of one particular guild – The Imperial Guard. I remember being told a story about how some player had died in the depths of a dungeon and couldn’t retrieve his corpse so he called forth The Imperial Guard to lay waste to the entire zone and reunite him with his body. Awesome stuff.

I hadn’t really felt inspired by tales like this in a few years until I started playing EVE Online and I read about The Great War. For those of you are unfamilar with EVE, this is an infamous period in which two of the largest corporations and their allies faced each other in an epic struggle to control the entire galaxy.

The balance between pain and gain has undeniably shifted in the last five years and we very rarely hear stories like these any more which I think is a shame. Part of the attraction of MMOs to me, other than the socialising , is the “big picture” and being part of something grand and epic. I mean, isn’t that we all want?

If you’ve got any inspiring stories about MMORPGs, please let me know, I’d love to read them.

The iPhone has changed the way I use the toilet. If you take away anything from reading this article, let it be that. I think about the toilet in a different way now. Before it was just a chore as a result of a bodily function that I didn’t look forward to (OK, maybe I looked forward to it a little) but now, oh yes, it’s something I’m actively excited about all because I have an iPhone.

Cramming in 10 or 20 or, heck, even 30 minutes of “toilet time” has become a great opportunity for me to spend a little quality, one-on-one time with my favourite gadget. And yes, I admit it, I even read blogs on the bog. I can’t help it, my office has Wi-Fi.

Google Reader is particularly good for catching up on all of my favourite blogs. I usually read them throughout the day whenever I have a stolen moment (see above) and then mark them as “keep unread” so I can follow them up later when I get home and write a comment if I’ve got anything worthwhile to say. I love blogging and I love reading other people’s blogs. There’s nothing quite like logging into Google and seeing 56 unread articles awaiting my intimate dissection.

So, tell me. Bathroom, bed, laptop, office, shower, café, top of a mountain or bottom of the ocean – where do you read your blogs?

I’d apologise for the toilet humour in this post but I know you loved it.

I think I’ve started to become complacent. Playing World of Warcraft often makes me feel like an immortal, powerful without limit or restrain. It also makes me feel like I’m surrounded by gamers, playing a game within a gaming community. They are immortals too and it’s no wonder that we don’t share any sort of bond – there is no emotion whatsoever to bind us together, teach us or challenge us.

I suppose I’ve gotten used to the idea that death in MMORPGs now holds absolutely no consequence. I charge into groups blindly, without thought or strategy, simply because I’m looking for that little adrenaline rush. If I die, I don’t care. To say that death in WoW is even an inconvenience is perhaps stretching it. I also experience very little kinship with people I group with and wasn’t until I died for the first time in EVE Online that I realised something: fearing death is a good thing. It’s an emotion and helps spark off other emotions and give us a vested interest in the game.

When I played Everquest I used to bond with almost everyone I played with. We had to because if we didn’t we would likely feel that painful sting of death. The player who ran from gnolls and trained Blackburrow was a coward, the player who sacrificed himself to allow his group to escape was a martyr and the player who pushed his group into the depths of a dungeon was either brave or reckless.

These emotions all stemmed from the fear of consequence. Players had to rely on each other in order to accomplish goals. Tanks had to rely on healers to hold their ground, DPS had to rely on tanks to hold the aggro and everyone had to rely on the Enchanter to stay awake in front of his screen at 2am in the morning.

We’re spoilt now. We have no repercussions to our actions so there’s no need to become a ‘good’ player or bond with your group. Who cares if your comrade dies? Who cares if someone leaves the group in the middle of the dungeon? There’s no risk. And that means there can be no reward.

Unless you’re reading this by RSS you’ll probably have noticed that my site has had a rather large makeover. What, did you think I was going to stick with black and white forever? Now my site features such amazing additions as COLOUR and a BANNER. Wonders will never cease, eh. There’s also some adverts (holy sellout, Batman!) which are only there as I promised my wife that my blog would make her a millionaire. Fortunately I never put a time quote on that promise.

I’m thrilled with the new design and I hope you guys like it as much as I do. It’s certainly a little more colourful and eye-catching than the previous theme. I’m planning to keep on adding plenty of new bits and pieces and expanding on the new design over time to make the site a bit more interesting – I’ve stuck with the old sidebar and footer etc for now but those will hopefully get a makeover too in the not so distant future. I’d also like to take to this opportunity to say a huge thanks to my buddy Espen who put in a lot of hard work creating this lovely design for me. You rock, dude!

I’m aware of a couple of minor bugs in some older versions of Internet Explorer (but then everyone really should be using Firefox anyway right?) and I’ll slowly iron them all out. Recommendation: if you’re using IE6 then upgrade ASAP. It’s just a terrible, terrible browser and filled with security flaws, idiotic bugs and incompatibilities. It’s certainly the (cue Team America reference) Matt Damon of browsers. Anyway, ahem, I digress. Hope you enjoy the new look and if you do notice any bugs or weirdness then please let me know.