I’ve suddenly reawoken a craze for something that is very bad for my hard drive (only 4 GB left). Machinima. Been surfing around and downloading strange movies. Being lazy to link to stuff, I will just leave things in the hands of everyone’s leet Google Skillz.
Red vs Blue is always great, though lately I’m finding it harder and harder to follow as they rattle on in their rapid fire accents and nearly identical voices. Still have some pretty brilliant bits.
I rewatched Roosterteeth’s Panic series (based on FEAR) and it’s a great short. Hilarious, and not as open-ended as RvB, just a nifty tale.
This is a must-watch. The Revenge of Dr. Mechanico. It’s a CoX machinima! It’s short, sweet, and kinda funny. And they weren’t even CoX people, they learned the game from scratch just to make it.
http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=3203
There’s been a bunch of people using Neverwinter Nights to make movies. I took a look at Bloodspell and Consanguinity.
Ehhhh- is about all I can say. I admit it, I’m a graphics snob. Maybe NWN2 will help. NWN 1 just looks very very dated, and ruins my enjoyment of the voice acting and relatively interesting story.
Bloodspell looks pretty good in terms of character-wise, and while some of the initial voice acting is lame, there are a couple of shining stars. I liked the actor playing The Master, he really sounded serious and into what he was saying. The premise is also quite interesting. Alas, the characters and animations are wooden dolls with none of the charm of Final Fantasy 7, so it’s rather difficult to watch.
Consanguinity has very nice camera work and use of music. It takes the lazy way out by using subtitles instead of voice acting, which is both a minus and a plus in my book. Minus because it’s lazy, plus because it makes it more comic book-like where the reader provides their own voice, and minus again because the subtitles flash by so fast it’s impossible to set any mood or pacing, and minus once more because the dialogue is uber-lame in the first degree. Its saving grace is that the camera work and scenes are not too bad, and it gives you the “I can do better” inspiration.
I downloaded this big movie Desolate, that I want to watch but didn’t have time to finish. It looks pretty arty for a Halo flick, really nice landscapes and camera angles. Not much of a riveting story though, which was why I could turn it off after 4 minutes and run for work.
I also want to watch Arachronox the movie, but trying to find a clean download for it is a major pain, it’s so durned big.
Haven’t been brave enough to try any Sims movies yet. They look kinda scary. But I’m just the rare person that just didn’t buy into the Sims craze. What’s so cool about the dang social scene anyhow? I tried the original once (pirated version while they were still around, heh) and went –duh-? This is exciting, how? Some bimbo talking in symbols and funky sounds, and going to the bed, going to cook, going to the toilet, going to work…Zzzzzz. SimAnt was more fun.
One thing I do want to see is (*gulp*) World of Warcraft movies. And possibly screenshots. For some reason, I’m guilty of looking at some of the screenies and starting to admire the art. It’s cartoony, sure, but I’m starting to dig the blend of colour, it’s like a very rich acrylic blend that you find also in typical fantasy art and/or minis.
Since I refuse to lose my soul to this evil phat loot game, and detest the idea of its gameplay (gimme 49 horse tails), actually playing the game is out of the question, unlike Guild Wars wherein the really-nice art is just one impetus to eventually support the very elegant, new and innovative game design.
So I’ve hit upon the idea of admiring the thing from afar, since everyone and his mother is playing the dang WoW anyhow and take millions of screenies and make hundreds of videos.
Problem is, I haven’t been brave enough to download any yet. Not sure which ones are good, and which ones are just meh. Wonder if there’s a review site somewhere?
I’m also starting to get –the- itch. Oh yea, 5 days before Nanowrimo, and I’m starting to consider attempting a machinima. Using CoX would simplify stuff.
As Dr. Mechanico demonstrates, the emote capacity of the game engine is pretty good for expression of emotions. The graphics level is pretty enough that I can stand watching it – though it may melt my card trying to render it. And we even have editable demorecord capability. Not to mention, the costume creator in CoX is the most powerful thing on the market atm, no two ways about it. Heck, with supergroup bases, you might be able to even make your own movie sets.
Only tough bits would be, in no particular order, voice-acting, finding actors to move models around, getting a story, cutting and pasting the bits of audio and video and jiggling them around, and oh, actually the whole process of shooting and producing the whole thing. :P
But it sure is tempting.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Cien Anos de Soledad
Humans --- an essentially hopeless bunch.
As a conclusion to my little experiment, I changed the search comments on my AR/traps corrupter to "Term contracts negotiable" last night.
Did a mission, started towards the next. Ninja invite. Joined a team of three masterminds, which meant I didn't have to use my secondary at all. Acid mortar came up whenever it recharged to up the total damage, but any other damage dealer (brute, corrupter, stalker) could have fufilled the purpose of bumping up spawn sizes and adding damage. The question in my mind was if I was invited because they just decided to grab anyone in their range, or were they under some delusion that a corrupter could provide some kind of buffing they didn't need in the first place?
This morning, logged on, started towards my mission. Another invite came. Joined a team doing the PTS arc fighting Shivans. This time I had to work my secondary more, but basically I just spammed flamethrower on Shivans flopping on the ice slick (fun!). Shivans were also vulnerable to lethal damage, so it was fun shooting them to pieces. Again, the question was, were they just looking for someone their range, or were they hoping for some kind of buffing (healing)?
It feels like such a strange coincidence, that I have been soloing missions at the same time day after day, but the moment I removed AR/traps from my search comment, I get team invites almost immediately after I log in. Ironically, now that I actually have a nice AoE power (flamethrower), it's not in my comments. But I still got invites!
History repeats itself, the game and the people who play it do not change. Time to make an thugs/dark MM or an ice/rad corrupter!
As a conclusion to my little experiment, I changed the search comments on my AR/traps corrupter to "Term contracts negotiable" last night.
Did a mission, started towards the next. Ninja invite. Joined a team of three masterminds, which meant I didn't have to use my secondary at all. Acid mortar came up whenever it recharged to up the total damage, but any other damage dealer (brute, corrupter, stalker) could have fufilled the purpose of bumping up spawn sizes and adding damage. The question in my mind was if I was invited because they just decided to grab anyone in their range, or were they under some delusion that a corrupter could provide some kind of buffing they didn't need in the first place?
This morning, logged on, started towards my mission. Another invite came. Joined a team doing the PTS arc fighting Shivans. This time I had to work my secondary more, but basically I just spammed flamethrower on Shivans flopping on the ice slick (fun!). Shivans were also vulnerable to lethal damage, so it was fun shooting them to pieces. Again, the question was, were they just looking for someone their range, or were they hoping for some kind of buffing (healing)?
It feels like such a strange coincidence, that I have been soloing missions at the same time day after day, but the moment I removed AR/traps from my search comment, I get team invites almost immediately after I log in. Ironically, now that I actually have a nice AoE power (flamethrower), it's not in my comments. But I still got invites!
History repeats itself, the game and the people who play it do not change. Time to make an thugs/dark MM or an ice/rad corrupter!
Monday, October 16, 2006
CoH Orgy
Phew. Had a weeklong CoH orgy. Had to tell myself to slow down in case I burn myself out again. After all, the game really hasn't changed, and isn't about to change.
My resolution is to take this game in a completely non-serious way. Play it with my SG (a bunch of casuals anyway), no spending of excessive time on the forums, no compulsive powers testing or hero-planner tweaking. In fact, it could really be the compulsive behaviour a certain segment of CoH gamers that is causing the game to evolve the way it is.
Perhaps if enough of the CoH players make it absolutely clear that they just want a jolly good time playing recreationally instead of stick their nose into some peculiar "top-dog" rat-race, the devs might realise that they are alientating their original playerbase. The people who were there from the start, not some Achiever kiddies who will "loot, loot, loot" for all of three months of their gaming attention span.
Recreational playing for me is a bit weird though. Friends going off to other more populated servers -- except all different ones. Victory, Liberty, Virtue and Freedom, plus the ones in Guardian. Thankfully most of those in Justice seem to have quit CoH. This leaves me scratching my head on where to focus my levelling. At least I have toons of each level range sitting in Guardian that I can pull out depending on who I am playing with.
A minor achievement is getting my Fire/cold corrupter to 35. Hurrah for freezing rain rip-off. Together with my nifty new Aid self, life has taken a turn for the better. Now I can shelve him; the gameplay style bores me but I was just stubborn and wanted to get to 35.
Now the goal is to get some fire monkies on my dominator. Then I can shelve her too. With that, I can close down Guardian Alts Inc.
After that, the search for the most interesting CoV combo is on. And for that, I am still waiting for an intuitive flash. Both my old dark/electric main and my current mind/storm main came from intuitive flashes. You kind of get a strong concept, and a combo that you think might be fun... and then you just keep going.
I wonder if CoV is even capable of giving that flash. The gameplay seems kind of uninspirational -- but that's to be expected. Villains aren't inspirational, after all.
My resolution is to take this game in a completely non-serious way. Play it with my SG (a bunch of casuals anyway), no spending of excessive time on the forums, no compulsive powers testing or hero-planner tweaking. In fact, it could really be the compulsive behaviour a certain segment of CoH gamers that is causing the game to evolve the way it is.
Perhaps if enough of the CoH players make it absolutely clear that they just want a jolly good time playing recreationally instead of stick their nose into some peculiar "top-dog" rat-race, the devs might realise that they are alientating their original playerbase. The people who were there from the start, not some Achiever kiddies who will "loot, loot, loot" for all of three months of their gaming attention span.
Recreational playing for me is a bit weird though. Friends going off to other more populated servers -- except all different ones. Victory, Liberty, Virtue and Freedom, plus the ones in Guardian. Thankfully most of those in Justice seem to have quit CoH. This leaves me scratching my head on where to focus my levelling. At least I have toons of each level range sitting in Guardian that I can pull out depending on who I am playing with.
A minor achievement is getting my Fire/cold corrupter to 35. Hurrah for freezing rain rip-off. Together with my nifty new Aid self, life has taken a turn for the better. Now I can shelve him; the gameplay style bores me but I was just stubborn and wanted to get to 35.
Now the goal is to get some fire monkies on my dominator. Then I can shelve her too. With that, I can close down Guardian Alts Inc.
After that, the search for the most interesting CoV combo is on. And for that, I am still waiting for an intuitive flash. Both my old dark/electric main and my current mind/storm main came from intuitive flashes. You kind of get a strong concept, and a combo that you think might be fun... and then you just keep going.
I wonder if CoV is even capable of giving that flash. The gameplay seems kind of uninspirational -- but that's to be expected. Villains aren't inspirational, after all.
Friday, October 13, 2006
On the value of play
Oh boy, it appears that this week is confrontation week or something. :) I am doing a damn great job of butting my supervisor in the head every time we meet. I swear we are completely dimetrically opposed personalities, and were it not for the subordinate-superordinate relationship, we would have killed each other long ago.
We had a sharing session about a class that a colleague and I developed. It's a pretty experimental class, dealing in high-level biology with computers, and because we wanted to make it more "fun" and less textbook-y than all the usual courses that are produced by nonimaginative people, we took a "play" / "experiment" / "explore" / "be adventurous" approach to the whole thing.
We start out with an interaction fiction game ("Metamorphoses", Emily Short) to get students into the mood of things, encouraging them to experiment, be creative, think up new solutions, while letting them bump their heads against a fairly unrelenting command parser and build some frustration.
Which is precisely how the tools for bioinformatics work. Because they're built by computer scientists and biologists, the jargon is pretty darned non-understandable, and the idea is to tell the kids without really telling them that it's ok to treat it like a game, and to try and try again to get what you want, if the command syntax is being stupid about understanding you.
Singaporeans, after all, need a helluva lot of practice in opening up and learning how to stick one's neck out. We've encountered students in this class that were SO scared to touch the keyboard even after encouragment to do so - "Go ahead, just press any key. Type anything." And they just stare in horror at the alien device, frozen like a deer in headlights, completely crippled by the freedom of independence.
(Look, this works in primary school. But you guys are in junior college now and you'd better start learning about this whole aspect of life you missed out on, before you hit uni level.)
So anyhow, the later part of the afternoon falls back to a dejavu of Metamorphoses because we jump into protein visualization and structure - this part developed by my colleague. There's a program called Rasmol that allows you to look at the structure of different proteins, and the hilarious cosmic coincidence of it all is that it works by a command line interface, yes, just like Ifiction. So we get the kids to pull up the helpfile with the command reference, and to experiment with the commands.
By now, through really hard work and effort, we've gotten 95% of the students to open up a bit and feel free to type anything without thinking they're going to blow the computer up. To give them a bit of guidance, my colleague asks them some specific questions about the protein they are looking at. Can you find out how to select certain side chains? Can you figure out how many parts the protein is made of? Can you figure out the number of alpha helixes inside this protein, there's a specific command to use...etc.?
I personally think that this is the most elegant bit of the class that we've managed to concoct. There's no way we can give you the be-all and end-all of bioinformatics in a one day lesson. In fact, we don't want to be the knowledge givers high up from a mountaintop. That's not the point of this lesson. The point was to empower the students with the realization that -they- are equally capable of asking and answering questions they are interested in, given a basic knowledge of the tools they can use and the encouragement/method of how you learn about a tool, ie. play/just do it.
So anyhow, to our "bang heads on the wall" misfortune, our darling supervisor is completely allergic to the concept of "play."
Seriously. It is an alien concept to her. Say the word "exploration" to her and she gets the heebie jeebies. She likes a set "goal/purpose," otherwise she just gives up and dumps the whole thing as being worthless.
(I fought like a wildcat to get the tacit permission to start with Metamorphoses. Which, imo, worked damn well with a JC group we tried it with, while the Sec group was a bit more unsure of themselves but most loosened up. At least my boss was willing to experiment with a new teaching style.)
I really don't know what else to say except to feel sorry for her. I am well aware that the teaching style of this class (be adventurous/try things out/look it up yourself) is completely alien to my supervisor and gives her the screaming willies and the cold chills.
And because of this, she felt compelled to remark at the end of the sharing session that she felt a pointless sense of nonpurpose during the experiment part of protein visualization. That she would have liked a 'goal' - and no, finding out more about aspects of protein structure wasn't a goal enough - she wanted it wrapped in some kind of 'higher purpose' story about medicine and cures or something like it. Because without it, she just gave up and stopped thinking.
*sighs*
No, it isn't wrong. In fact, this is a perfectly valid and cunning way to sneak in bits of bioinformatics into other themed lessons. That we're also thinking of doing - ie. instead of teaching by subject, we teach by a theme. The Mystery of the Romanovs - solving the Anastacia story (wherein we learn about gel electrophoresis and bioinformatics).
But it misses the point of this lesson, which is after all, targeted at a high-level audience, junior college biologists.
And which is essentially about play and self-constructed meaning. Intrinsic motivation.
Do we (as instructors) really need to tell you (as a student) the meaning of it all? Can't you create the meaning for yourself? Are you really so straight-laced in your thinking that you can't make an intuitive jump now and then and figure stuff out for yourself? Well, that's the idea of this class. We're trying to teach you how to discover that meaning.
I mean, there's really no way you can construct a class that makes everybody happy. Every class will have some subset of students left with the cold chills because it completely contrasts their learning style.
If we made a class that made my supervisor happy, it'll leave ME asleep (I've zombified out before when my supervisor was teaching a class. And kept awake only by taking notes on how NOT to teach my classes.) And that's not to say that she's wrong. She teaches the way she likes to learn. So do I. It's neither of our faults that we have dimetrically opposed learning styles.
I could give a fuck about higher purpose and medicine and cures and stuff. Start waving it around and preaching in my face too much and I'd personally switch off. She switches off when I start ranting about being free to explore and experiment and so on.
So I felt obliged to argue it out with her because my colleague put in a lot of work into the class, and needed some defending.
But I think in the end that it says more about her as a person than anything with the class.
I can't imagine her life, y'know. I give thanks everyday that I'm not these people who have forgotten how to play and have fun. My DAD is another one who has given up games as a bad idea. It's so sad.
I suppose their idea of entertainment is to sit passively and watch TV and be fed emotions and stuff. Be it Desperate Housewives or some action flick.
Play is an outlet for the self. To allow you to express yourself without fear. To try out new ideas. To learn without being lectured at.
Wish certain people would realize it sooner.
Because it'll be tragic if we had more Londos in this world.
"My shoes are too tight. And I have forgotten how to dance."
We had a sharing session about a class that a colleague and I developed. It's a pretty experimental class, dealing in high-level biology with computers, and because we wanted to make it more "fun" and less textbook-y than all the usual courses that are produced by nonimaginative people, we took a "play" / "experiment" / "explore" / "be adventurous" approach to the whole thing.
We start out with an interaction fiction game ("Metamorphoses", Emily Short) to get students into the mood of things, encouraging them to experiment, be creative, think up new solutions, while letting them bump their heads against a fairly unrelenting command parser and build some frustration.
Which is precisely how the tools for bioinformatics work. Because they're built by computer scientists and biologists, the jargon is pretty darned non-understandable, and the idea is to tell the kids without really telling them that it's ok to treat it like a game, and to try and try again to get what you want, if the command syntax is being stupid about understanding you.
Singaporeans, after all, need a helluva lot of practice in opening up and learning how to stick one's neck out. We've encountered students in this class that were SO scared to touch the keyboard even after encouragment to do so - "Go ahead, just press any key. Type anything." And they just stare in horror at the alien device, frozen like a deer in headlights, completely crippled by the freedom of independence.
(Look, this works in primary school. But you guys are in junior college now and you'd better start learning about this whole aspect of life you missed out on, before you hit uni level.)
So anyhow, the later part of the afternoon falls back to a dejavu of Metamorphoses because we jump into protein visualization and structure - this part developed by my colleague. There's a program called Rasmol that allows you to look at the structure of different proteins, and the hilarious cosmic coincidence of it all is that it works by a command line interface, yes, just like Ifiction. So we get the kids to pull up the helpfile with the command reference, and to experiment with the commands.
By now, through really hard work and effort, we've gotten 95% of the students to open up a bit and feel free to type anything without thinking they're going to blow the computer up. To give them a bit of guidance, my colleague asks them some specific questions about the protein they are looking at. Can you find out how to select certain side chains? Can you figure out how many parts the protein is made of? Can you figure out the number of alpha helixes inside this protein, there's a specific command to use...etc.?
I personally think that this is the most elegant bit of the class that we've managed to concoct. There's no way we can give you the be-all and end-all of bioinformatics in a one day lesson. In fact, we don't want to be the knowledge givers high up from a mountaintop. That's not the point of this lesson. The point was to empower the students with the realization that -they- are equally capable of asking and answering questions they are interested in, given a basic knowledge of the tools they can use and the encouragement/method of how you learn about a tool, ie. play/just do it.
So anyhow, to our "bang heads on the wall" misfortune, our darling supervisor is completely allergic to the concept of "play."
Seriously. It is an alien concept to her. Say the word "exploration" to her and she gets the heebie jeebies. She likes a set "goal/purpose," otherwise she just gives up and dumps the whole thing as being worthless.
(I fought like a wildcat to get the tacit permission to start with Metamorphoses. Which, imo, worked damn well with a JC group we tried it with, while the Sec group was a bit more unsure of themselves but most loosened up. At least my boss was willing to experiment with a new teaching style.)
I really don't know what else to say except to feel sorry for her. I am well aware that the teaching style of this class (be adventurous/try things out/look it up yourself) is completely alien to my supervisor and gives her the screaming willies and the cold chills.
And because of this, she felt compelled to remark at the end of the sharing session that she felt a pointless sense of nonpurpose during the experiment part of protein visualization. That she would have liked a 'goal' - and no, finding out more about aspects of protein structure wasn't a goal enough - she wanted it wrapped in some kind of 'higher purpose' story about medicine and cures or something like it. Because without it, she just gave up and stopped thinking.
*sighs*
No, it isn't wrong. In fact, this is a perfectly valid and cunning way to sneak in bits of bioinformatics into other themed lessons. That we're also thinking of doing - ie. instead of teaching by subject, we teach by a theme. The Mystery of the Romanovs - solving the Anastacia story (wherein we learn about gel electrophoresis and bioinformatics).
But it misses the point of this lesson, which is after all, targeted at a high-level audience, junior college biologists.
And which is essentially about play and self-constructed meaning. Intrinsic motivation.
Do we (as instructors) really need to tell you (as a student) the meaning of it all? Can't you create the meaning for yourself? Are you really so straight-laced in your thinking that you can't make an intuitive jump now and then and figure stuff out for yourself? Well, that's the idea of this class. We're trying to teach you how to discover that meaning.
I mean, there's really no way you can construct a class that makes everybody happy. Every class will have some subset of students left with the cold chills because it completely contrasts their learning style.
If we made a class that made my supervisor happy, it'll leave ME asleep (I've zombified out before when my supervisor was teaching a class. And kept awake only by taking notes on how NOT to teach my classes.) And that's not to say that she's wrong. She teaches the way she likes to learn. So do I. It's neither of our faults that we have dimetrically opposed learning styles.
I could give a fuck about higher purpose and medicine and cures and stuff. Start waving it around and preaching in my face too much and I'd personally switch off. She switches off when I start ranting about being free to explore and experiment and so on.
So I felt obliged to argue it out with her because my colleague put in a lot of work into the class, and needed some defending.
But I think in the end that it says more about her as a person than anything with the class.
I can't imagine her life, y'know. I give thanks everyday that I'm not these people who have forgotten how to play and have fun. My DAD is another one who has given up games as a bad idea. It's so sad.
I suppose their idea of entertainment is to sit passively and watch TV and be fed emotions and stuff. Be it Desperate Housewives or some action flick.
Play is an outlet for the self. To allow you to express yourself without fear. To try out new ideas. To learn without being lectured at.
Wish certain people would realize it sooner.
Because it'll be tragic if we had more Londos in this world.
"My shoes are too tight. And I have forgotten how to dance."
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Frogs, wells, men and islands
Read your recent livejournal article, and I wonder, is this truly a sign of greater malaise in Singapore, or can we apply it to elsewhere as well?
Oh, don’t get me wrong. Singapore is weird in its own conservative, happy, insulated “frog in a well” way. But I don’t think anywhere else is free of this “fear of the different” and “fear of the unknown” either. Hence undercurrents of prejudice towards whatever does not seem ‘normal’ to the community, Islam/Singhs (how they mix the two is beyond me) in the US, GLBT in certain Asian countries, etc.
Perhaps as we improve our education, we may have a larger and larger subset of people who are taught to look beyond the initial first impression. But I suspect it’s something innately biological that will never be conquered entirely, and certainly not by a majority.
The dead cells story reminds me of a colleague of mine who shaved her head. Yep, -her- head. For a “worthy” mainstream cause too, something to do with cancer and giving kids hair for wigs… Still, I can bet the number of stares and funny looks and odd questions posed to her are immensely high. Even some school classes ask, I’m sure.
But really, isn’t it natural to ask? A kid sees something different, they are curious, and so they ask. I personally couldn’t take my eyes off her for a while, before my ‘educated’ self prodded me in the back and told me I was staring, so lay off.
The sad part only comes when adults have somehow learned to hate and fear that which is different from them and revile it. I don’t know where they learn this from.
It’s really kind of tragic because I’m a coward and I don’t like attention. Otherwise, I am –very- tempted to shave my head too. Why? Cos I think the hairstyle (or lack of it) looks damn sexy. (And yea, that’s another reason why I was staring. Imagining it on my head, ha ha. :P) I also detest washing hair, and think my scalp would be infinitely better for an airing out and some exposure so that the dead cells can fall off and stop dandruffing themselves.
I just don’t want to a) endure millions of questions or funny looks. Or b) make some kind of political or fashion statement. I’m not an activist, thank you, I hate the attention..
That’s part of the problem when it comes to walking away from the mainstream atm. It’s hard to do it quietly when everyone wants to come and look and point and maybe do a news report about it. If you choose to do it, then it needs to be so important to you that you’re willing to endure the dumbass attention spotlight on ya.
*Sighs* And so my hair remains unshorn and I fade into the background nondescriptly.
This also leads me to another question I was pondering lately. It’s sometimes rather scary to find out -just- how differently other people think.
You begin to wonder: Is it just me? Does -everybody- else think that way? Why? How are their brains wired up so that they value what they value? Isn’t it kinda shallow what they’re valuing?
And the most terrifying of all: What if none of us can really understand one another? That they may -think- they think the same, but really, they don’t. Maybe we’re all little islands of thinking man that value different things and express opinions differently.
I mean, why is the divorce rate going up these days? Evidently, it’s more culturally ‘acceptable’ to separate from one another when people realize it isn’t working out. That they’re incompatible.
But wow, so many people are finding themselves incompatible? Did they discover bits of their partner that they didn’t like? Did they themselves change in outlook with time?
And if two people with such a strong reason to find themselves compatible end up giving up, what chance do the rest of us have for general understanding?
Brrr. Scary thought. It’s the kind of thoughts that make you suspect the Korean peninsula (among other things) is going to go up in a cloud of radioactive smoke some day soon. Depressing, to say the least.
So what led to all this pondering anyhow?
It starts with the story of an award so stupid only a bureaucratic Singaporean could come up with it. I won’t mention names to protect the dumbly innocent. But get this, it’s an award that comes attached to a mandatory training session.
Yes, you have to attend a lesson before you can receive this award.
Duh? Is this some kind of marketing gimmick to sell a class so boring that you can’t charge for it otherwise?
Welp, let me tell you it sure seemed like it to me when I got arrowed into the silver award last year and sat for a mind-boggling 8 hours in a run-down ramshackle ‘gahmen’ style classroom listening to a trainer rant away. And the air-con was so crummy, I suspect there were toxic mould spores growing in the filter because I came down with a bad case of cold/flu a day after. Probably an allergic reaction.
After that ‘requisite’ pain, months down the road, I get the news that there’s some kind of fucked up dinner ceremony to attend. (No, nothing monetary comes with the award. Just free food and a lot of civil service servants clapping at you, I presume.) After a long day of hard work.
I weigh the pros of free food against the agony of having to find my way to the building (somewhere in the benighted depths of Sentosa Island), make small talk (the most meaningless form of noise to ever come out of mouths – even vomitting has a more important function) and fake a smile amidst insincere attention (that I hate anyway) to collect a piece of plastic (or maybe just a piece of paper if they can’t afford a trophy) that will end up accumulating dust.
As can be expected, I decided to wuss out with the excuse of ‘other important plans that night.’ My bed was real happy to see me. So was I. Sleep is far more precious.
So anyhow, it being a long story and me being very longwinded with such things, this year, I get the news (horror) that I got nominated for the gold award.
*groan*
Sometime way back when in April, they arrange for the damn ‘required’ class in August. Then I go off gallivanting on two overseas trips coming back on August 1, and as can be quite expected too, I forget all about it.
No, seriously, I forgot. Not “I forgot,” with the quotation marks. It wasn’t until I got all revved up with productivity and David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” sometime mid-September that I started cleaning out my inbox and discovering this ancient email sent in April.
Oopsie.
Crud.
Dayum. I actually didn’t want to go, and I can’t say I’m crushed by the fact that I missed it, and I would have played truant if I could, but wtf is my boss going to say?
Turns out it wouldn’t be until October that the class people send word that I never went, and there was this interesting little incident which I am still ruminating over. I find new revelations in it every time I go over it again.
The HR person comes running to my boss, explaining I never went for this class. She goes, “Oh, is it?” in a shocked/amazed kind of voice, and turns to me, and I too express surprise, amazement and general befuddlement over the existence of this class, and then a slow gradual realization that I missed it. Oops, really sorry. (Ie. the same thing that occurred to me when I figured it out in September, just delayed a bit.)
But everything’s still real polite and anyhow we shrug a bit and I think there’s that.
Naw, of course, it’s not. A couple days later, I get an email from my supervisor with retarded language (some people should never express themselves on paper) – short stilted missing punctuation “can I find out the reason why you missed this class” one sentence memo.
She has, however, forwarded me a mail with quotes in it, and I read the comment of my boss (supervisor’s boss too) about this whole incident being “an unfortunate blowing away of an opportunity of an award” because there are no more classes for this year, and so I would not be able to receive this award.
It’s about at this point that I literally blow up and lose it. Luckily for everyone, there is no one around for me to lose it on, so I get to vent on paper. And I can’t let go of this just yet because it’s so mind-boggling to me how screwed up this whole fucked up world is.
I could pick this incident apart like a literature book with layers and layers of symbolism that reflect on the world at large.
The language used just blows me away. First, I admit I get really pissed off about bad grammar and hopeless English expression. So when I have to sit and piece together a retarded sentence to try and figure out just wtf the person wants, I get mad.
Then I get angrier at the tone used. Hello? I thought the whole deal started with an –award-. Ie. you wanted to recognize me for doing good. So why are you treating me like this kid who just missed his year-end exams or something? It’s hypocrisy, it’s like what you mentioned, you’re only good if you fall within this narrow standard of behavior.
Then I get even more angry because yea, it’s my fault, I miss these kinds of crap because I don’t really have good time management skills, I’m more of a spontaneous kind of person, I dislike referring to calendars, so I kinda feel guilty and responsible about having it fly clean out of my head. None of this would happen if I’d just been a good lil girl and showed up like I was supposed to.
Then I get even more pissed off because, hello, “supposed to?” I hate the thinking that plagues me in the last paragraph because it’s so mainstream Singaporean. I hate that it exists like a nagging mom’s voice in my own head. If you’d just be a little better, a little gooder, a little more organized, a little more pro at time management, why, you’d go far my dear! You have such high standards and produce excellent work, just work on thy punctuality. Argh. (And yes, my two superiors kinda think this way.)
I get angry about the expected perfection. I get angry because this was a stupid –award- in the first place, why the heck can’t I refuse it gratefully instead of getting treated like a criminal?
*boggle*
And that’s just the emotion from the first sentence. :)
I’m kinda more upset and boggled than angry at the forwarded message. The words used. “Blowing away of an opportunity?” It’s really strong, harsh language. It’s like I threw a winning million-dollar lottery ticket into the toilet bowl or something. Which thoroughly boggles me because I /don’t see the importance/ of this award.
Am I going to get promoted if I win this award? Am I going to get more money? I heartily doubt it.
So what is so fucking important about it then? It’s a “title.” It’s for prestige. For parents to ooh and aah. For people who love the attention to stand up and preen on a stage and be applauded by hundreds of screaming fans (er, equivalent award winners who are also as self-centered, that is).
I was never really big into the prestige thing. Except when I got conned into believing the myths other people made about me, about me always being teh ultimate quest competition winnar! And I’ve learned from RoD since then that having self-esteem predicated on the approval and adulation of other people is the most dangerous and damaging thing one can do to yourself and your ego.
*shudder*
It seems to me that it is other people reading meaning into and projecting themselves into things to see what they want to see. Maybe -they- value awards. So it seems like an ultimate tragedy to miss the chance at one. (Meanwhile, I’m thanking the cosmos for saving 8+ hours of my life for more valuable pursuits.)
I notice too that the boss said nothing of this ‘unfortunate’ turn of events to me, only into an email to my supervisor, which then got forwarded to me. So what does this mean? Two-facedness? Say one thing to people’s face and say another behind their backs? Am I really surprised?
Dunno. One thing’s for sure, I got a lot of philosophy meat out of this little incident.
I even decided to brave the flames of mundane misunderstanding and sent an email to my boss explaining that the award doesn’t really matter to me, so please don’t take the extra effort to dump this on me next year, and that I’d appreciate the sentiment meant far more with a small gesture/gift of free SSC guidebooks that get published yearly.
I value the knowledge contained within far more than something I’m told by other people that I should be valuing. Even if other people tell me that I’m just collecting a mountain of dead trees that collect dust. :)
Eye of the beholder and all that. Meat and other man’s poison and what not.
Welp, I gave it my best to communicate with the frog in the well. We’ll see what happens.
My final reflection is on the whole ‘need’ for awards in the first place.
It’s borked.
Yea, that’s my take on it.
Borked design. Because what are you doing but applying extrinsic motivation?
Awards. Rewards. Bonuses. Increments. Extra food. Good boy. Roll over. Play dead.
It’s been researched, me dears. The more you apply extrinsic motivation, the more you KILL intrinsic motivation. And once the external treats dry up, the behavior stops. For good. Because you no longer want to perform the behavior if you’re not paid to do it.
It’s a better way to remove an unwanted behavior than to reward a desired one.
And the saddest thing I find by far is that a good majority of people have bought into this rubbish. They live for the prestige, of being better than the Joneses, of having one more kewl gilded trophy or line on the resume more than you.
A newspaper cartoon I saw this Sunday said it best. The cartoonist drew a scene of a family at this old man’s deathbed listening to his last words. Paraphrasing, it went something like “I leave this world in peace, secure in the knowledge that I was the best salesman of doohickeys in the spring quarter of ’73.”
It was actually a bit more obscure than that. I recall reading it a couple times trying to figure out what was so funny about it before I got the message it conveyed. Is that truly the way we want to go out in this life? Treasuring an obscure lil award or accomplishment way back when for the teensy period of time when you were -first- at something?
Scary. Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll pass.
Gives me more impetus to meditate more and live in the moment.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. Singapore is weird in its own conservative, happy, insulated “frog in a well” way. But I don’t think anywhere else is free of this “fear of the different” and “fear of the unknown” either. Hence undercurrents of prejudice towards whatever does not seem ‘normal’ to the community, Islam/Singhs (how they mix the two is beyond me) in the US, GLBT in certain Asian countries, etc.
Perhaps as we improve our education, we may have a larger and larger subset of people who are taught to look beyond the initial first impression. But I suspect it’s something innately biological that will never be conquered entirely, and certainly not by a majority.
The dead cells story reminds me of a colleague of mine who shaved her head. Yep, -her- head. For a “worthy” mainstream cause too, something to do with cancer and giving kids hair for wigs… Still, I can bet the number of stares and funny looks and odd questions posed to her are immensely high. Even some school classes ask, I’m sure.
But really, isn’t it natural to ask? A kid sees something different, they are curious, and so they ask. I personally couldn’t take my eyes off her for a while, before my ‘educated’ self prodded me in the back and told me I was staring, so lay off.
The sad part only comes when adults have somehow learned to hate and fear that which is different from them and revile it. I don’t know where they learn this from.
It’s really kind of tragic because I’m a coward and I don’t like attention. Otherwise, I am –very- tempted to shave my head too. Why? Cos I think the hairstyle (or lack of it) looks damn sexy. (And yea, that’s another reason why I was staring. Imagining it on my head, ha ha. :P) I also detest washing hair, and think my scalp would be infinitely better for an airing out and some exposure so that the dead cells can fall off and stop dandruffing themselves.
I just don’t want to a) endure millions of questions or funny looks. Or b) make some kind of political or fashion statement. I’m not an activist, thank you, I hate the attention..
That’s part of the problem when it comes to walking away from the mainstream atm. It’s hard to do it quietly when everyone wants to come and look and point and maybe do a news report about it. If you choose to do it, then it needs to be so important to you that you’re willing to endure the dumbass attention spotlight on ya.
*Sighs* And so my hair remains unshorn and I fade into the background nondescriptly.
This also leads me to another question I was pondering lately. It’s sometimes rather scary to find out -just- how differently other people think.
You begin to wonder: Is it just me? Does -everybody- else think that way? Why? How are their brains wired up so that they value what they value? Isn’t it kinda shallow what they’re valuing?
And the most terrifying of all: What if none of us can really understand one another? That they may -think- they think the same, but really, they don’t. Maybe we’re all little islands of thinking man that value different things and express opinions differently.
I mean, why is the divorce rate going up these days? Evidently, it’s more culturally ‘acceptable’ to separate from one another when people realize it isn’t working out. That they’re incompatible.
But wow, so many people are finding themselves incompatible? Did they discover bits of their partner that they didn’t like? Did they themselves change in outlook with time?
And if two people with such a strong reason to find themselves compatible end up giving up, what chance do the rest of us have for general understanding?
Brrr. Scary thought. It’s the kind of thoughts that make you suspect the Korean peninsula (among other things) is going to go up in a cloud of radioactive smoke some day soon. Depressing, to say the least.
So what led to all this pondering anyhow?
It starts with the story of an award so stupid only a bureaucratic Singaporean could come up with it. I won’t mention names to protect the dumbly innocent. But get this, it’s an award that comes attached to a mandatory training session.
Yes, you have to attend a lesson before you can receive this award.
Duh? Is this some kind of marketing gimmick to sell a class so boring that you can’t charge for it otherwise?
Welp, let me tell you it sure seemed like it to me when I got arrowed into the silver award last year and sat for a mind-boggling 8 hours in a run-down ramshackle ‘gahmen’ style classroom listening to a trainer rant away. And the air-con was so crummy, I suspect there were toxic mould spores growing in the filter because I came down with a bad case of cold/flu a day after. Probably an allergic reaction.
After that ‘requisite’ pain, months down the road, I get the news that there’s some kind of fucked up dinner ceremony to attend. (No, nothing monetary comes with the award. Just free food and a lot of civil service servants clapping at you, I presume.) After a long day of hard work.
I weigh the pros of free food against the agony of having to find my way to the building (somewhere in the benighted depths of Sentosa Island), make small talk (the most meaningless form of noise to ever come out of mouths – even vomitting has a more important function) and fake a smile amidst insincere attention (that I hate anyway) to collect a piece of plastic (or maybe just a piece of paper if they can’t afford a trophy) that will end up accumulating dust.
As can be expected, I decided to wuss out with the excuse of ‘other important plans that night.’ My bed was real happy to see me. So was I. Sleep is far more precious.
So anyhow, it being a long story and me being very longwinded with such things, this year, I get the news (horror) that I got nominated for the gold award.
*groan*
Sometime way back when in April, they arrange for the damn ‘required’ class in August. Then I go off gallivanting on two overseas trips coming back on August 1, and as can be quite expected too, I forget all about it.
No, seriously, I forgot. Not “I forgot,” with the quotation marks. It wasn’t until I got all revved up with productivity and David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” sometime mid-September that I started cleaning out my inbox and discovering this ancient email sent in April.
Oopsie.
Crud.
Dayum. I actually didn’t want to go, and I can’t say I’m crushed by the fact that I missed it, and I would have played truant if I could, but wtf is my boss going to say?
Turns out it wouldn’t be until October that the class people send word that I never went, and there was this interesting little incident which I am still ruminating over. I find new revelations in it every time I go over it again.
The HR person comes running to my boss, explaining I never went for this class. She goes, “Oh, is it?” in a shocked/amazed kind of voice, and turns to me, and I too express surprise, amazement and general befuddlement over the existence of this class, and then a slow gradual realization that I missed it. Oops, really sorry. (Ie. the same thing that occurred to me when I figured it out in September, just delayed a bit.)
But everything’s still real polite and anyhow we shrug a bit and I think there’s that.
Naw, of course, it’s not. A couple days later, I get an email from my supervisor with retarded language (some people should never express themselves on paper) – short stilted missing punctuation “can I find out the reason why you missed this class” one sentence memo.
She has, however, forwarded me a mail with quotes in it, and I read the comment of my boss (supervisor’s boss too) about this whole incident being “an unfortunate blowing away of an opportunity of an award” because there are no more classes for this year, and so I would not be able to receive this award.
It’s about at this point that I literally blow up and lose it. Luckily for everyone, there is no one around for me to lose it on, so I get to vent on paper. And I can’t let go of this just yet because it’s so mind-boggling to me how screwed up this whole fucked up world is.
I could pick this incident apart like a literature book with layers and layers of symbolism that reflect on the world at large.
The language used just blows me away. First, I admit I get really pissed off about bad grammar and hopeless English expression. So when I have to sit and piece together a retarded sentence to try and figure out just wtf the person wants, I get mad.
Then I get angrier at the tone used. Hello? I thought the whole deal started with an –award-. Ie. you wanted to recognize me for doing good. So why are you treating me like this kid who just missed his year-end exams or something? It’s hypocrisy, it’s like what you mentioned, you’re only good if you fall within this narrow standard of behavior.
Then I get even more angry because yea, it’s my fault, I miss these kinds of crap because I don’t really have good time management skills, I’m more of a spontaneous kind of person, I dislike referring to calendars, so I kinda feel guilty and responsible about having it fly clean out of my head. None of this would happen if I’d just been a good lil girl and showed up like I was supposed to.
Then I get even more pissed off because, hello, “supposed to?” I hate the thinking that plagues me in the last paragraph because it’s so mainstream Singaporean. I hate that it exists like a nagging mom’s voice in my own head. If you’d just be a little better, a little gooder, a little more organized, a little more pro at time management, why, you’d go far my dear! You have such high standards and produce excellent work, just work on thy punctuality. Argh. (And yes, my two superiors kinda think this way.)
I get angry about the expected perfection. I get angry because this was a stupid –award- in the first place, why the heck can’t I refuse it gratefully instead of getting treated like a criminal?
*boggle*
And that’s just the emotion from the first sentence. :)
I’m kinda more upset and boggled than angry at the forwarded message. The words used. “Blowing away of an opportunity?” It’s really strong, harsh language. It’s like I threw a winning million-dollar lottery ticket into the toilet bowl or something. Which thoroughly boggles me because I /don’t see the importance/ of this award.
Am I going to get promoted if I win this award? Am I going to get more money? I heartily doubt it.
So what is so fucking important about it then? It’s a “title.” It’s for prestige. For parents to ooh and aah. For people who love the attention to stand up and preen on a stage and be applauded by hundreds of screaming fans (er, equivalent award winners who are also as self-centered, that is).
I was never really big into the prestige thing. Except when I got conned into believing the myths other people made about me, about me always being teh ultimate quest competition winnar! And I’ve learned from RoD since then that having self-esteem predicated on the approval and adulation of other people is the most dangerous and damaging thing one can do to yourself and your ego.
*shudder*
It seems to me that it is other people reading meaning into and projecting themselves into things to see what they want to see. Maybe -they- value awards. So it seems like an ultimate tragedy to miss the chance at one. (Meanwhile, I’m thanking the cosmos for saving 8+ hours of my life for more valuable pursuits.)
I notice too that the boss said nothing of this ‘unfortunate’ turn of events to me, only into an email to my supervisor, which then got forwarded to me. So what does this mean? Two-facedness? Say one thing to people’s face and say another behind their backs? Am I really surprised?
Dunno. One thing’s for sure, I got a lot of philosophy meat out of this little incident.
I even decided to brave the flames of mundane misunderstanding and sent an email to my boss explaining that the award doesn’t really matter to me, so please don’t take the extra effort to dump this on me next year, and that I’d appreciate the sentiment meant far more with a small gesture/gift of free SSC guidebooks that get published yearly.
I value the knowledge contained within far more than something I’m told by other people that I should be valuing. Even if other people tell me that I’m just collecting a mountain of dead trees that collect dust. :)
Eye of the beholder and all that. Meat and other man’s poison and what not.
Welp, I gave it my best to communicate with the frog in the well. We’ll see what happens.
My final reflection is on the whole ‘need’ for awards in the first place.
It’s borked.
Yea, that’s my take on it.
Borked design. Because what are you doing but applying extrinsic motivation?
Awards. Rewards. Bonuses. Increments. Extra food. Good boy. Roll over. Play dead.
It’s been researched, me dears. The more you apply extrinsic motivation, the more you KILL intrinsic motivation. And once the external treats dry up, the behavior stops. For good. Because you no longer want to perform the behavior if you’re not paid to do it.
It’s a better way to remove an unwanted behavior than to reward a desired one.
And the saddest thing I find by far is that a good majority of people have bought into this rubbish. They live for the prestige, of being better than the Joneses, of having one more kewl gilded trophy or line on the resume more than you.
A newspaper cartoon I saw this Sunday said it best. The cartoonist drew a scene of a family at this old man’s deathbed listening to his last words. Paraphrasing, it went something like “I leave this world in peace, secure in the knowledge that I was the best salesman of doohickeys in the spring quarter of ’73.”
It was actually a bit more obscure than that. I recall reading it a couple times trying to figure out what was so funny about it before I got the message it conveyed. Is that truly the way we want to go out in this life? Treasuring an obscure lil award or accomplishment way back when for the teensy period of time when you were -first- at something?
Scary. Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll pass.
Gives me more impetus to meditate more and live in the moment.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
The 'RP' in RPG
So whatever happened to real roleplaying anyhow?
I reached a kind of breaking point this morning. Just waffling around on CoX as usual, and overheard a conversation over SGchat that nearly made me run over and beat my forehead into a wall.
Apparently Neverwinter Nights 2 is out. Or going to be out very soon. So all these chaps were running around egging everyone to get the game and play with them.
No problems there, so far.
Yes, we're talking Neverwinter Nights here, the toolset that allows you to create MODs, GM apparently, and I hear the new sequel is focusing a lot on letting you make meaningful decisions in a game and allow for something closer to true roleplaying in the single-player game (ideally, anyway.)
Still no problems there.
These guys though...Just took the cake. Min-maxers all. Oh, druids are sooo lame, they're weak. I'm a gonna be a gnome monk with dual kamis (or dunno what funky exotic asian sword), I have a arena pvp elf bard (the elf is way weak but his songs can do serious damage on others or something).
Jeez.
I don't understand these people. The rules lawyers. The ones who will crack open a book of rules and tear it apart looking for the 'best' combat advantage or whatever. The game is really a GAME, to them. It's these people who have turned the D&D ruleset into something that totally suits a computer, rather than a GM.
Imo, the original point of having different races and different class archetypes was so that you could actually ROLEPLAY being different people. But somewhere along the line it got mutated into "I'm still ME" but this guy has serious skills that can kick uber ass.
Faugh. Pah.
I don't think it's a new issue. Rules lawyers have always been with us since forever. There are people who derive more enjoyment of destroying and deconstructing and poking holes in systems than actually pretending to be someone else or tell a story.
But it seems to me that ever since the age of the computer game, there has been a shift in the mindset that more and more people are heading over to this camp.
It's no longer about books and storytelling (though there's still an RP camp, of course), but about hacks (hack and slashing and hax-exploits) that allow you to be one up over the other.
Or maybe it's just a freaking guy thing. That's been with us since the dawn of time when the Y chromosome developed.
Sigh.
One thing's for sure. I think I'm reacting to it because I want to tell stories and -be- people, but can't seem to find the correct medium for it.
Finding a real life roleplaying group and sufficient -time- to play here is on a near-impossible to achieve level, so screw that.
Finding a good group online is also time-consuming. Online games tend to just evaporate and die, or turn into long forum melodramas anyhow.
Computer games? Yea, maybe some rare singleplayer ones, if you're lucky. Maybe NWN2 will serve my purpose - but before I get it, my entire computer system urgently needs a Christmas overhaul first. The other games still suffer from a major infection of gamist Explorer/Achiever-types, while their rules systems don't really support meaningful decisions. Again, online roleplayers tend to have this thing for major angsty melodrama somehow, and there's no GM or real story to work with, just an overarcing setting backdrop and a million and one personal plotlines.
My closest hope is lurking around the indie RPG development scene looking for good narrativist/simulationist systems and then making myself sit down and try to go through them solo. (Which thanks to writer's block and the distraction of a million and one computer games isn't easy, eg. I was trying to play WH40K: Winter Assault in an attempt to finish it and then clear it off my system, and then I hear a new sequel is juuust coming out, har, so much for space saving.)
Ah well. I'm really just somewhat 'angry' (it's a bit strong a word, more like 'miffed') at myself for not finding the time to actually sit through and think about what I'm searching for. Something in my subconscious wants a story. A good story. I've been finding surcease in things like comics and good dvds, but I need a little more. I think I need a story of my or someone else's own making.
The sad thing is that I've found the perfect system for my needs. Or well, as near perfect as can get anyhow. The Mythic RPG (from RPGnow) is great for what I need done, telling logical stories.
But now I appear to be crippled by too much choice. I want to play some games in original settings that I've developed - have at least 2-3 running around in my head, but all not completed, and my shelf full of RPGs is looking at me wondering when the hell it's going to be their turn. There are still a lot of computer game settings (RoD, CoX) that all want their fair shake at it too.
I look at all the possibilities and I just up and give up and stop thinking that actually sitting down to play with myself is a good idea. Which is really sad. I can't even daydream with a 'rules' structure anymore, let alone freeform daydream.
And then something within me screams, you're losing it, the mundane work life in dreary old NORMAL SAFE Singapore is killing you slowly, where oh where has your childhood gone?
And then I panic and go, I really really HAVE to have this work and get myself a good story. Somehow. Somewhere.
Bloody subconscious wars within myself.
I want a story. I just don't know where I want it in first. :P
Hooray for the paradox of choice.
I reached a kind of breaking point this morning. Just waffling around on CoX as usual, and overheard a conversation over SGchat that nearly made me run over and beat my forehead into a wall.
Apparently Neverwinter Nights 2 is out. Or going to be out very soon. So all these chaps were running around egging everyone to get the game and play with them.
No problems there, so far.
Yes, we're talking Neverwinter Nights here, the toolset that allows you to create MODs, GM apparently, and I hear the new sequel is focusing a lot on letting you make meaningful decisions in a game and allow for something closer to true roleplaying in the single-player game (ideally, anyway.)
Still no problems there.
These guys though...Just took the cake. Min-maxers all. Oh, druids are sooo lame, they're weak. I'm a gonna be a gnome monk with dual kamis (or dunno what funky exotic asian sword), I have a arena pvp elf bard (the elf is way weak but his songs can do serious damage on others or something).
Jeez.
I don't understand these people. The rules lawyers. The ones who will crack open a book of rules and tear it apart looking for the 'best' combat advantage or whatever. The game is really a GAME, to them. It's these people who have turned the D&D ruleset into something that totally suits a computer, rather than a GM.
Imo, the original point of having different races and different class archetypes was so that you could actually ROLEPLAY being different people. But somewhere along the line it got mutated into "I'm still ME" but this guy has serious skills that can kick uber ass.
Faugh. Pah.
I don't think it's a new issue. Rules lawyers have always been with us since forever. There are people who derive more enjoyment of destroying and deconstructing and poking holes in systems than actually pretending to be someone else or tell a story.
But it seems to me that ever since the age of the computer game, there has been a shift in the mindset that more and more people are heading over to this camp.
It's no longer about books and storytelling (though there's still an RP camp, of course), but about hacks (hack and slashing and hax-exploits) that allow you to be one up over the other.
Or maybe it's just a freaking guy thing. That's been with us since the dawn of time when the Y chromosome developed.
Sigh.
One thing's for sure. I think I'm reacting to it because I want to tell stories and -be- people, but can't seem to find the correct medium for it.
Finding a real life roleplaying group and sufficient -time- to play here is on a near-impossible to achieve level, so screw that.
Finding a good group online is also time-consuming. Online games tend to just evaporate and die, or turn into long forum melodramas anyhow.
Computer games? Yea, maybe some rare singleplayer ones, if you're lucky. Maybe NWN2 will serve my purpose - but before I get it, my entire computer system urgently needs a Christmas overhaul first. The other games still suffer from a major infection of gamist Explorer/Achiever-types, while their rules systems don't really support meaningful decisions. Again, online roleplayers tend to have this thing for major angsty melodrama somehow, and there's no GM or real story to work with, just an overarcing setting backdrop and a million and one personal plotlines.
My closest hope is lurking around the indie RPG development scene looking for good narrativist/simulationist systems and then making myself sit down and try to go through them solo. (Which thanks to writer's block and the distraction of a million and one computer games isn't easy, eg. I was trying to play WH40K: Winter Assault in an attempt to finish it and then clear it off my system, and then I hear a new sequel is juuust coming out, har, so much for space saving.)
Ah well. I'm really just somewhat 'angry' (it's a bit strong a word, more like 'miffed') at myself for not finding the time to actually sit through and think about what I'm searching for. Something in my subconscious wants a story. A good story. I've been finding surcease in things like comics and good dvds, but I need a little more. I think I need a story of my or someone else's own making.
The sad thing is that I've found the perfect system for my needs. Or well, as near perfect as can get anyhow. The Mythic RPG (from RPGnow) is great for what I need done, telling logical stories.
But now I appear to be crippled by too much choice. I want to play some games in original settings that I've developed - have at least 2-3 running around in my head, but all not completed, and my shelf full of RPGs is looking at me wondering when the hell it's going to be their turn. There are still a lot of computer game settings (RoD, CoX) that all want their fair shake at it too.
I look at all the possibilities and I just up and give up and stop thinking that actually sitting down to play with myself is a good idea. Which is really sad. I can't even daydream with a 'rules' structure anymore, let alone freeform daydream.
And then something within me screams, you're losing it, the mundane work life in dreary old NORMAL SAFE Singapore is killing you slowly, where oh where has your childhood gone?
And then I panic and go, I really really HAVE to have this work and get myself a good story. Somehow. Somewhere.
Bloody subconscious wars within myself.
I want a story. I just don't know where I want it in first. :P
Hooray for the paradox of choice.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Good vs Evil
Ok, so I didn't buy it.
It was tempting, because the final cost from just getting the package from Wal-mart was not so very different from the cost of buying the code online, especially if you consider the free month of play and that it would save me from downloading five issues worth of data. But after finding out the nearest Wal-mart was one hour's bus ride away, I gave up.
People say online games don't consist of real social life. We've all heard that countless times. I guess to some people, real social lives mean taking bus rides for hours to Downtown LA, doing meaningless things like dance or barhop? They think playing a game is meaningless, I think dancing, shopping and watching movies is meaningless. The difference is when you play a game, you don't need to take that two hour busride downtown. ("So get a car" -- getting a car to do meaningless things is even more meaningless!)
Now when I say I missed CoH, it does not really mean missing pressing some buttons and beating up mobs. It means missing the interaction with my supergroup online, random socialising on pick-ups. Doing a taskforce is in a way similar to a hike organised by some community center, right?
Of course, having the game interesting really helps the social aspect. I logged on a few times to RoD and fooled around. It was nice being able to chat with old friends again, but at the same time, RoD-as-a-game held absolutely no interest for me. And since chatting requires some kind of information flow, or shared interest, there wasn't that much to talk about either.
Everyone was pretty much the same and also different. Some of the annoying people seem to have mellowed out. Some are just different personality-wise. I did mention that Ed has immed, didn't I? In some sense, I think this is proof of what we are afraid of. A person our age goes into a "responsible position", reflecting in real life getting a stable normal life/job/car/house, and slowly they just turn into a "the administration" type of person.
Reports have it that most of my GEP classmates in are now being civil servants doing things of great...er...national import(?). Money and position. I wonder how we'll all relate to each other if we actually met again. Would I actually recognise these people as people I used to go to school with, or will they look more like younger imprints of my parents?
Maybe that's why I like the online social life. Even when I know most people in my SG are in their 30s and 40s, they have a non-normative streak -- they are playing a "kiddie" MMO after all, and they can talk about their D&D or comic collecting past. (It's only when they talk about their toddler children and nieces that my head explodes.)
It was tempting, because the final cost from just getting the package from Wal-mart was not so very different from the cost of buying the code online, especially if you consider the free month of play and that it would save me from downloading five issues worth of data. But after finding out the nearest Wal-mart was one hour's bus ride away, I gave up.
People say online games don't consist of real social life. We've all heard that countless times. I guess to some people, real social lives mean taking bus rides for hours to Downtown LA, doing meaningless things like dance or barhop? They think playing a game is meaningless, I think dancing, shopping and watching movies is meaningless. The difference is when you play a game, you don't need to take that two hour busride downtown. ("So get a car" -- getting a car to do meaningless things is even more meaningless!)
Now when I say I missed CoH, it does not really mean missing pressing some buttons and beating up mobs. It means missing the interaction with my supergroup online, random socialising on pick-ups. Doing a taskforce is in a way similar to a hike organised by some community center, right?
Of course, having the game interesting really helps the social aspect. I logged on a few times to RoD and fooled around. It was nice being able to chat with old friends again, but at the same time, RoD-as-a-game held absolutely no interest for me. And since chatting requires some kind of information flow, or shared interest, there wasn't that much to talk about either.
Everyone was pretty much the same and also different. Some of the annoying people seem to have mellowed out. Some are just different personality-wise. I did mention that Ed has immed, didn't I? In some sense, I think this is proof of what we are afraid of. A person our age goes into a "responsible position", reflecting in real life getting a stable normal life/job/car/house, and slowly they just turn into a "the administration" type of person.
Reports have it that most of my GEP classmates in are now being civil servants doing things of great...er...national import(?). Money and position. I wonder how we'll all relate to each other if we actually met again. Would I actually recognise these people as people I used to go to school with, or will they look more like younger imprints of my parents?
Maybe that's why I like the online social life. Even when I know most people in my SG are in their 30s and 40s, they have a non-normative streak -- they are playing a "kiddie" MMO after all, and they can talk about their D&D or comic collecting past. (It's only when they talk about their toddler children and nieces that my head explodes.)