Sometimes I wonder if these things happen in sine waves. Hold up, let's backtrack, what things? How hardcore one is into a game, rather. Or the amount a game takes over one's life into more of a hobby (expenditure, planning, doing, etc.) or until it becomes an entire lifestyle (days revolve around it, yadda yadda.)
RoD was definitely in the second and third options. More of a lifestyle, if I have to be truly honest. But then, college life has its perks with tons of free time. And RoD was one of those "games" or social worlds where you could easily spend 12+ hours of every day in it, working on one self-made goal or another.
Eventually, the disadvantages of becoming a little too passionate about things outweighed the diminishing benefits of delving in depth into a game/social world.
So, CoX came in as the cure. Quick, easy, low-effort social involvement, lots of badabing badaboom action. Worked for four years, then content ran low.
(Damn Explorers and their tendencies to consume content faster than it is produced.)
Certainly a category 1 thing, CoX, with maybe a slight slippage into 2 when one considers a bit of character planning, toying with music videos, etc.
A whole bunch of messing around searching for something I didn't know I was missing follows. DDO, Age of Conan, ill-fated Tabula Rasa / PoTBS / AA / whatever, LOTRO, WoW (for 18 hours or so), Warhammer...
All games. All very standard diku MMO games. Make a character. Kill stuff. Complete tasks. Gain xp. Level up. Ultimate goal: keep repeating to kill BIGGER stuff. Or MORE stuff.
Not to say that the mechanic is bad. Nor to say that each game didn't have its brilliant innovations and wasn't worth seeing. They were all worth touring. Some, I even wanted to stay, or planned to hang around for a bit. And still do. (In a little box in my mind labeled "Someday in the future, I'd do more of this.")
I didn't realize I was missing the immediate draw of an active social environment akin to RoD until I actually stumbled into one in ATITD.
Wasn't an easy thing either. My first ATITD experience nearly made me want to throw in the towel and quit. Communities are fragile things, and their mood and culture can shift from positive to negative, supportive to discouraging in short spaces of time.
I remember my first days in RoD. Stumbling steps into the MUD, poking around areas by oneself, but chat channels scrolling all about me, giving the sensation that there is a world out there full of other people, bustling with life, joined in shared community by dint of the game being played.
These days, I don't know it's there much. Not as busy as it once was, no doubt.
Some CoX global channels have it too. But you have to know which channels to join. You still have to move with WASD, which makes talking in it hard, and when you're in a busy fight, talking becomes harder still.
But basically it's the sense of a community that is doing its own thing, but contains people ready to help you if need be.
Not a lot of other MMOS have that small but big town feeling. WoW is humongous and their public chat is full of selfish predators and gold farmers, with the 'good' people huddled away in their private guilds, taking care of their own. Maybe. Even if the drama is all about the loot. Maybe the server choice makes a difference. Cox too. Think LOTRO is the same. WAR is very much task-focused with little room for non task-oriented socializing.
Or maybe it's just luck of the draw. Stumbling on the right kind of community in a particular place.
Because I know the other parts of ATITD ain't right for me either. Nor other guilds in RoD, GoV...GoM, fer example. But GoW was ok, and GoC was perfect.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Confluence of Hypertext
Oh, this is cool.
a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/health/research/11brain.html?_r=1
And not the content of the article, which is admittedly an amusing theory to play around with intellectually, but what I noticed when clicking around to scroll up and down the page.
One can highlight individual words and click the lil question mark button that pops up, and voila, instant dictionary/reference lookup.
I think it is absolutely fantastic, kinda like postmodern hypertext and more akin to what is envisioned in the sci-fi shows of today.
How many people actually put it to good use, I don't know, but it's so uber cool that the option is there.
Ironically, the old highlighted underlined hypertext links are also present in the same article too. So it's like a meeting between old and new.
Maybe in the future, all you'll need to do is click special buttons on your mouse for a dictionary lookup reference or a url to another site and so on.
And of course, maybe there will be no more mouse later on too.
a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/health/research/11brain.html?_r=1
And not the content of the article, which is admittedly an amusing theory to play around with intellectually, but what I noticed when clicking around to scroll up and down the page.
One can highlight individual words and click the lil question mark button that pops up, and voila, instant dictionary/reference lookup.
I think it is absolutely fantastic, kinda like postmodern hypertext and more akin to what is envisioned in the sci-fi shows of today.
How many people actually put it to good use, I don't know, but it's so uber cool that the option is there.
Ironically, the old highlighted underlined hypertext links are also present in the same article too. So it's like a meeting between old and new.
Maybe in the future, all you'll need to do is click special buttons on your mouse for a dictionary lookup reference or a url to another site and so on.
And of course, maybe there will be no more mouse later on too.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Micro$oft World Domination Steamrolls On...
It makes me feel like a sellout.
I'm trying to download OpenOffice 3 right now, in the hope that it make me forget the idea altogether.
See, I'm entertaining the thought of *choke* *sob* *strangled gasp* PAYING $115 or so for Microsoft Office 2007: Home/Student edition.
It also makes me feel a little grumpy. I actually like OpenOffice a great deal. I loved it when it was version 1 and simple and a free "stick-it-to-the-man" alternative to the all-encompassing MS Office whateveryear. I liked version 2 of OpenOffice when I got my new home computer and installed it as before-mentioned cost-saving option to NOT buying any more Microsoft stuff other than the operating system (which, if I want to game on a PC is kinda moot a decision).
I'm almost sure that I'm going to like version 3, which can only be a better improvement on version 2 of OpenOffice. I think, anyhow, but then I have copies of version 1 and 2 around if I wanted to revert back.
Alas, OpenOffice and Microsoft Office don't -quite- get along without a hitch. Oh, 95-99% of all the text and pictures and animation are going to carry over without much of a bother, but certain subtle layout shifts bug me every time I cross over between home and work.
MS Office, in its evil proprietary ways, have also come up with some interesting attractive changes in its 2007 version.
The ribbon bar was the most dramatic change, of course. It took some getting used to (and a hissy fit when I realized it couldn't be customized easily) but I must admit that 80% of the new ribbon makes commonly-used functions MUCH easier to access and a joy to edit documents with. (I still wish I could toss out the 20% I don't need and put in functions I would actually use though.)
File compression has improved significantly. The 2003 version seemed quite notorious for bloat, and let's not even talk about older versions of MS Office. I was quite amused when I was editing a powerpoint on an older 2003 version computer downstairs, and had to transfer 15MB worth of ppt upstairs on my thumbdrive, and after saving in a 2003-compatible format (not even the pptx 2007-only better compression version), said document had shrunk to 753kb. I would think this quite comparable to what OpenOffice can manage: maybe one or the other may win by a few tens of kb more or less, but it's neglible in the large scheme of things.
I'm also enjoying the improved clipart options MS Office includes - an entire website full of fairly decent legally-usable clip art, integrated into the programs, and searchable with tags.
They've added some nice proprietary format/designs/themes that actually look like they hired a real graphic designer to create, and these are fairly time-saving when you need to generate something pleasant-looking and you remember that you're not hired (or paid enough) to be a part-time layout graphic designer.
It seems like the only thing MS Office won't do, is save stuff in PDF form, probably on purpose so they can try and make more money off people.
(Of course, when I say MS Office, I'm just referring to the Word, Powerpoint and Excel triumvirate, not the other bloated crap.)
I have actually been enjoying the use of a two month free trial of MS Office this Dec-Jan period. Mostly because it's a convenient tool for documents I need to work properly at work. I can rest assured that I can open the same file and not have my shapes, text boxes, tables and pictures mysteriously misaligning themselves into the most fugly of configurations.
And this makes me kinda mad. That I am enjoying using MS Office 2007, that is.
Because I'd much rather be using something else.
Hell, I get a lot of personal mileage out of Google Docs. I just can't expect to make a worksheet or a classroom powerpoint out of it and have it look decent. It's still early days yet for Google Docs.
I'd like to use OpenOffice a lot more than I currently am. Because I think it is a GREAT free (did I mention FREE?) alternative to MS Office. I write all my personal documents with OO's Writer, and it's nifty.
But my workplace computers are rabidly Microsoft whores, and I'm finding I'm getting more used to the 'new' 2007 layout (which they probably rearranged on purpose so that people get conditioned to it and adverse to using a strange layout) and I'm wondering if I want to fall back into the little niggling workarounds of trying to get both OO and MS to play nice once my Office trial expires.
Hell, if I didn't have to do work at home, I'd be happy to not pay a hundred bucks. But I cannot design powerpoints at the office. Too many interruptions, too little quiet time.
I also think that being familiar with the layout bar that I'm stuck with at the office is good for general productivity. Having that clipart access is good for work stuff too, as we need all the pictures we can get our hands on to make our class stuff look good.
But I also want to have more time to play around with OpenOffice because I can't stand the thought of such a great free option being unused and unappreciated.
In theory, I could just put down the money and have both on my computer, reserving the one for workstuff and using the other for mestuff.
It's just that the thought is somewhat offensive, to have both programs, which are perfectly good at doing the same thing, except that they're not 100% compatible with each other, thus forcing me towards getting the one because my worklife would be easier caving in to the Micro$oft conglomerate.
When I'd much rather be using the other.
Pfft.
I guess I still have until Jan 31 to consider the state of my sanity.
I'm trying to download OpenOffice 3 right now, in the hope that it make me forget the idea altogether.
See, I'm entertaining the thought of *choke* *sob* *strangled gasp* PAYING $115 or so for Microsoft Office 2007: Home/Student edition.
It also makes me feel a little grumpy. I actually like OpenOffice a great deal. I loved it when it was version 1 and simple and a free "stick-it-to-the-man" alternative to the all-encompassing MS Office whateveryear. I liked version 2 of OpenOffice when I got my new home computer and installed it as before-mentioned cost-saving option to NOT buying any more Microsoft stuff other than the operating system (which, if I want to game on a PC is kinda moot a decision).
I'm almost sure that I'm going to like version 3, which can only be a better improvement on version 2 of OpenOffice. I think, anyhow, but then I have copies of version 1 and 2 around if I wanted to revert back.
Alas, OpenOffice and Microsoft Office don't -quite- get along without a hitch. Oh, 95-99% of all the text and pictures and animation are going to carry over without much of a bother, but certain subtle layout shifts bug me every time I cross over between home and work.
MS Office, in its evil proprietary ways, have also come up with some interesting attractive changes in its 2007 version.
The ribbon bar was the most dramatic change, of course. It took some getting used to (and a hissy fit when I realized it couldn't be customized easily) but I must admit that 80% of the new ribbon makes commonly-used functions MUCH easier to access and a joy to edit documents with. (I still wish I could toss out the 20% I don't need and put in functions I would actually use though.)
File compression has improved significantly. The 2003 version seemed quite notorious for bloat, and let's not even talk about older versions of MS Office. I was quite amused when I was editing a powerpoint on an older 2003 version computer downstairs, and had to transfer 15MB worth of ppt upstairs on my thumbdrive, and after saving in a 2003-compatible format (not even the pptx 2007-only better compression version), said document had shrunk to 753kb. I would think this quite comparable to what OpenOffice can manage: maybe one or the other may win by a few tens of kb more or less, but it's neglible in the large scheme of things.
I'm also enjoying the improved clipart options MS Office includes - an entire website full of fairly decent legally-usable clip art, integrated into the programs, and searchable with tags.
They've added some nice proprietary format/designs/themes that actually look like they hired a real graphic designer to create, and these are fairly time-saving when you need to generate something pleasant-looking and you remember that you're not hired (or paid enough) to be a part-time layout graphic designer.
It seems like the only thing MS Office won't do, is save stuff in PDF form, probably on purpose so they can try and make more money off people.
(Of course, when I say MS Office, I'm just referring to the Word, Powerpoint and Excel triumvirate, not the other bloated crap.)
I have actually been enjoying the use of a two month free trial of MS Office this Dec-Jan period. Mostly because it's a convenient tool for documents I need to work properly at work. I can rest assured that I can open the same file and not have my shapes, text boxes, tables and pictures mysteriously misaligning themselves into the most fugly of configurations.
And this makes me kinda mad. That I am enjoying using MS Office 2007, that is.
Because I'd much rather be using something else.
Hell, I get a lot of personal mileage out of Google Docs. I just can't expect to make a worksheet or a classroom powerpoint out of it and have it look decent. It's still early days yet for Google Docs.
I'd like to use OpenOffice a lot more than I currently am. Because I think it is a GREAT free (did I mention FREE?) alternative to MS Office. I write all my personal documents with OO's Writer, and it's nifty.
But my workplace computers are rabidly Microsoft whores, and I'm finding I'm getting more used to the 'new' 2007 layout (which they probably rearranged on purpose so that people get conditioned to it and adverse to using a strange layout) and I'm wondering if I want to fall back into the little niggling workarounds of trying to get both OO and MS to play nice once my Office trial expires.
Hell, if I didn't have to do work at home, I'd be happy to not pay a hundred bucks. But I cannot design powerpoints at the office. Too many interruptions, too little quiet time.
I also think that being familiar with the layout bar that I'm stuck with at the office is good for general productivity. Having that clipart access is good for work stuff too, as we need all the pictures we can get our hands on to make our class stuff look good.
But I also want to have more time to play around with OpenOffice because I can't stand the thought of such a great free option being unused and unappreciated.
In theory, I could just put down the money and have both on my computer, reserving the one for workstuff and using the other for mestuff.
It's just that the thought is somewhat offensive, to have both programs, which are perfectly good at doing the same thing, except that they're not 100% compatible with each other, thus forcing me towards getting the one because my worklife would be easier caving in to the Micro$oft conglomerate.
When I'd much rather be using the other.
Pfft.
I guess I still have until Jan 31 to consider the state of my sanity.
Friday, January 09, 2009
If Only People Came With Labels...
Idly surfing Amazon, looking at hardcover books way too expensive for me to splurge on all at once. Mostly on leadership, management and knowing one's own strengths to focus on for self-improvement, instead of just trying to repair weaknesses.
Remembered an ancient book called, "Now, Discover Your Strengths" that I bought in college. Spent a dusty hour trying to locate it in my cupboards. Finally found it. Figured out email used to take the personality test *hem* StrengthsFinder Profile (TM) and recalled password to log in.
Being a snotty once-only kind of thing, I couldn't retake the test again for fun, but I did pull up the report on my Signature Themes:
Many years of research conducted by The Gallup Organization suggest that the most effective people are those who understand their strengths and behaviors. These people are best able to develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands of their daily lives, their careers, and their families.
A review of the knowledge and skills you have acquired can provide a basic sense of your abilities, but an awareness and understanding of your natural talents will provide true insight into the core reasons behind your consistent successes.
Your Signature Themes report presents your five most dominant themes of talent, in the rank order revealed by your responses to StrengthsFinder. Of the 34 themes measured, these are your "top five."
Your Signature Themes are very important in maximizing the talents that lead to your successes. By focusing on your Signature Themes, separately and in combination, you can identify your talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy personal and career success through consistent, near-perfect performance.
Ideation
You are fascinated by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is a concept, the best explanation of the most events. You are delighted when you discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection. Yours is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections, and so you are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. An idea is a new perspective on familiar challenges. You revel in taking the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. You love all these ideas because they are profound, because they are novel, because they are clarifying, because they are contrary, because they are bizarre. For all these reasons you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you. Others may label you creative or original or conceptual or even smart. Perhaps you are all of these. Who can be sure? What you are sure of is that ideas are thrilling. And on most days this is enough.
Input
You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information—words, facts, books, and quotations—or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.
Deliberative
You are careful. You are vigilant. You are a private person. You know that the world is an unpredictable place. Everything may seem in order, but beneath the surface you sense the many risks. Rather than denying these risks, you draw each one out into the open. Then each risk can be identified, assessed, and ultimately reduced. Thus, you are a fairly serious person who approaches life with a certain reserve. For example, you like to plan ahead so as to anticipate what might go wrong. You select your friends cautiously and keep your own counsel when the conversation turns to personal matters. You are careful not to give too much praise and recognition, lest it be misconstrued. If some people don’t like you because you are not as effusive as others, then so be it. For you, life is not a popularity contest. Life is something of a minefield. Others can run through it recklessly if they so choose, but you take a different approach. You identify the dangers, weigh their relative impact, and then place your feet deliberately. You walk with care.
Command
Command leads you to take charge. Unlike some people, you feel no discomfort with imposing your views on others. On the contrary, once your opinion is formed, you need to share it with others. Once your goal is set, you feel restless until you have aligned others with you. You are not frightened by confrontation; rather, you know that confrontation is the first step toward resolution. Whereas others may avoid facing up to life’s unpleasantness, you feel compelled to present the facts or the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be. You need things to be clear between people and challenge them to be clear-eyed and honest. You push them to take risks. You may even intimidate them. And while some may resent this, labeling you opinionated, they often willingly hand you the reins. People are drawn toward those who take a stance and ask them to move in a certain direction. Therefore, people will be drawn to you. You have presence. You have Command.
Intellection
You like to think. You like mental activity. You like exercising the “muscles” of your brain, stretching them in multiple directions. This need for mental activity may be focused; for example, you may be trying to solve a problem or develop an idea or understand another person’s feelings. The exact focus will depend on your other strengths. On the other hand, this mental activity may very well lack focus. The theme of Intellection does not dictate what you are thinking about; it simply describes that you like to think. You are the kind of person who enjoys your time alone because it is your time for musing and reflection. You are introspective. In a sense you are your own best companion, as you pose yourself questions and try out answers on yourself to see how they sound. This introspection may lead you to a slight sense of discontent as you compare what you are actually doing with all the thoughts and ideas that your mind conceives. Or this introspection may tend toward more pragmatic matters such as the events of the day or a conversation that you plan to have later. Wherever it leads you, this mental hum is one of the constants of your life.
I find it surprisingly accurate for these sorts of profiles. With 34 themes, the top 5 would tend to be more individualized than trying to stuff all types of people into 16 boxes like the MBTI does.
And because I have a certain fondness for these sorts of conceptual ways of looking at and understanding people, I often wish that the people around me came nicely labelled with all these different profiles.
People kinda perplex me just looking at them and trying to read their body language. I'm so self-focused anyway and introspective that I have very little clue (or interest, to be brutally honest) what they're thinking. Though I do think it would help me understand them better if I did know them as combinations of these profiles.
Too bad the people I'm really interested in figuring out won't share or have any interest filling these sorts of things out.
My entire workplace did the MBTI as part of one workshop. Unfortunately, the only people whose MBTIs I managed to find out were my closest colleagues and friends - unsurprisingly, most of them were INTPs or INTJs. Duh. No doubt that's why we liked to hang together in the first place, cos we saw the world in the same way.
The other less close colleagues who cared to share what kind of other strange combination ESwhatever, I have to admit that I callously just shrugged mentally and quickly forgot whatever the heck they were cos they weren't close anyway.
I am still deathly curious as to what the heck personalities my supervisor and my boss are, mostly because it may make trying to figure out the appropriate approach less alien guesswork, but it's not exactly the kind of thing you can come out and ask, eh?
And I would seriously kill to find out what everybody's Top 5 Strengths are, because that would make figuring out what they're good at and value doing and should be asked to work on SO MUCH EASIER.
But no...our dysfunctional little family is broke (in the poor sense, not the broken sense, though that is true too), so we will never get to do one of these Gallup tests on a corporate level. Thus we will continue to waffle around in our little oblivious bubbles, cheerfully noncommunicating with each other.
Grrr.
We need some sort of expert consultant. Except they don't come cheap. And Singaporean consultants tend to be eyebrow-raising, in a bad way. Perhaps it's just what happens when you always take the lowest bidder. Good enough for gahmen work.
Blah.
Remembered an ancient book called, "Now, Discover Your Strengths" that I bought in college. Spent a dusty hour trying to locate it in my cupboards. Finally found it. Figured out email used to take the personality test *hem* StrengthsFinder Profile (TM) and recalled password to log in.
Being a snotty once-only kind of thing, I couldn't retake the test again for fun, but I did pull up the report on my Signature Themes:
Many years of research conducted by The Gallup Organization suggest that the most effective people are those who understand their strengths and behaviors. These people are best able to develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands of their daily lives, their careers, and their families.
A review of the knowledge and skills you have acquired can provide a basic sense of your abilities, but an awareness and understanding of your natural talents will provide true insight into the core reasons behind your consistent successes.
Your Signature Themes report presents your five most dominant themes of talent, in the rank order revealed by your responses to StrengthsFinder. Of the 34 themes measured, these are your "top five."
Your Signature Themes are very important in maximizing the talents that lead to your successes. By focusing on your Signature Themes, separately and in combination, you can identify your talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy personal and career success through consistent, near-perfect performance.
Ideation
You are fascinated by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is a concept, the best explanation of the most events. You are delighted when you discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection. Yours is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections, and so you are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. An idea is a new perspective on familiar challenges. You revel in taking the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. You love all these ideas because they are profound, because they are novel, because they are clarifying, because they are contrary, because they are bizarre. For all these reasons you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you. Others may label you creative or original or conceptual or even smart. Perhaps you are all of these. Who can be sure? What you are sure of is that ideas are thrilling. And on most days this is enough.
Input
You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information—words, facts, books, and quotations—or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.
Deliberative
You are careful. You are vigilant. You are a private person. You know that the world is an unpredictable place. Everything may seem in order, but beneath the surface you sense the many risks. Rather than denying these risks, you draw each one out into the open. Then each risk can be identified, assessed, and ultimately reduced. Thus, you are a fairly serious person who approaches life with a certain reserve. For example, you like to plan ahead so as to anticipate what might go wrong. You select your friends cautiously and keep your own counsel when the conversation turns to personal matters. You are careful not to give too much praise and recognition, lest it be misconstrued. If some people don’t like you because you are not as effusive as others, then so be it. For you, life is not a popularity contest. Life is something of a minefield. Others can run through it recklessly if they so choose, but you take a different approach. You identify the dangers, weigh their relative impact, and then place your feet deliberately. You walk with care.
Command
Command leads you to take charge. Unlike some people, you feel no discomfort with imposing your views on others. On the contrary, once your opinion is formed, you need to share it with others. Once your goal is set, you feel restless until you have aligned others with you. You are not frightened by confrontation; rather, you know that confrontation is the first step toward resolution. Whereas others may avoid facing up to life’s unpleasantness, you feel compelled to present the facts or the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be. You need things to be clear between people and challenge them to be clear-eyed and honest. You push them to take risks. You may even intimidate them. And while some may resent this, labeling you opinionated, they often willingly hand you the reins. People are drawn toward those who take a stance and ask them to move in a certain direction. Therefore, people will be drawn to you. You have presence. You have Command.
Intellection
You like to think. You like mental activity. You like exercising the “muscles” of your brain, stretching them in multiple directions. This need for mental activity may be focused; for example, you may be trying to solve a problem or develop an idea or understand another person’s feelings. The exact focus will depend on your other strengths. On the other hand, this mental activity may very well lack focus. The theme of Intellection does not dictate what you are thinking about; it simply describes that you like to think. You are the kind of person who enjoys your time alone because it is your time for musing and reflection. You are introspective. In a sense you are your own best companion, as you pose yourself questions and try out answers on yourself to see how they sound. This introspection may lead you to a slight sense of discontent as you compare what you are actually doing with all the thoughts and ideas that your mind conceives. Or this introspection may tend toward more pragmatic matters such as the events of the day or a conversation that you plan to have later. Wherever it leads you, this mental hum is one of the constants of your life.
I find it surprisingly accurate for these sorts of profiles. With 34 themes, the top 5 would tend to be more individualized than trying to stuff all types of people into 16 boxes like the MBTI does.
And because I have a certain fondness for these sorts of conceptual ways of looking at and understanding people, I often wish that the people around me came nicely labelled with all these different profiles.
People kinda perplex me just looking at them and trying to read their body language. I'm so self-focused anyway and introspective that I have very little clue (or interest, to be brutally honest) what they're thinking. Though I do think it would help me understand them better if I did know them as combinations of these profiles.
Too bad the people I'm really interested in figuring out won't share or have any interest filling these sorts of things out.
My entire workplace did the MBTI as part of one workshop. Unfortunately, the only people whose MBTIs I managed to find out were my closest colleagues and friends - unsurprisingly, most of them were INTPs or INTJs. Duh. No doubt that's why we liked to hang together in the first place, cos we saw the world in the same way.
The other less close colleagues who cared to share what kind of other strange combination ESwhatever, I have to admit that I callously just shrugged mentally and quickly forgot whatever the heck they were cos they weren't close anyway.
I am still deathly curious as to what the heck personalities my supervisor and my boss are, mostly because it may make trying to figure out the appropriate approach less alien guesswork, but it's not exactly the kind of thing you can come out and ask, eh?
And I would seriously kill to find out what everybody's Top 5 Strengths are, because that would make figuring out what they're good at and value doing and should be asked to work on SO MUCH EASIER.
But no...our dysfunctional little family is broke (in the poor sense, not the broken sense, though that is true too), so we will never get to do one of these Gallup tests on a corporate level. Thus we will continue to waffle around in our little oblivious bubbles, cheerfully noncommunicating with each other.
Grrr.
We need some sort of expert consultant. Except they don't come cheap. And Singaporean consultants tend to be eyebrow-raising, in a bad way. Perhaps it's just what happens when you always take the lowest bidder. Good enough for gahmen work.
Blah.
MoodImprover (TM) Method #1
'Nother staff leaving. So I had to attend one of those becoming-ubiquitous 'farewell' dinners, which wasted a good 3-4 hours on my off day in something that drags down my mood significantly.
1) Physical social gatherings + internet introvert = does not mix.
Talk about energy draining. But, because I go to be diplomatic and to attempt to rejoin the rest of the human race, even though...
2) Topics talked about do not interest me.
*sighs* It's either mainstream commentaries - TV, some movie, National Service, urban legends, ghost stories - or gossip. Often malicious work-related gossip, and a big fat negative complaint session wherein the person feeling 'wronged' declares how right and justified he or she really is, from their perspective.
I have very little common shared interest in the former. And often, I get even more depressed that I seem to be so un-mainstream from everybody else. Heck, I don't even seem to fit into any subcultures in Singapore. Haha.
The latter is sometimes fun, in a mean sort of way or a 'boy, got it off my chest' manner, but ultimately, imo, negative for one's mood and depressing and makes you distrust everybody and think the worst of everyone.
3) Self-esteem takes a hit. Doubt sets in.
Do I stay or go? Do I stay or go? Life's not perfect. Work's not perfect. Nothing is -ever- going to be perfect. I find my job pretty cushy. I also find certain aspects of the job eyeball-rolling ludicrous. I am not 100% happy where I am. I am also 100% certain that I will not be 100% happy wherever else I go either.
Bitchy complaint sessions from people who are deeply unhappy and have chosen to go are kinda slanted in the obvious direction you'd expect them to rationalize.
Then I get to go into a spasm of self-doubt and ping pong back wondering wtf do I care about the opinions of other people, my life is my life, I don't need to try and change to make them happy, and back and forth and back and forth.
---
So anyway, my own bitch session is over. I hit upon something tonight that lifted my mood in a 100% guaranteed manner. So I am recording it down for posterity in case I ever need it again, and I sure get depressed often enough to need it:
Go listen to Weird Al Yankovich's Don't Download This Song. Go. Do it now.
Before the end of the chorus was over, I was giggling/cackling uncontrollably and singing along at the top of my lungs.
So now instead of brooding over stuff that I cannot change and reserving them for future thought sessions where I am calmer and more receptive, my brain is now munching on the question of why exactly I find this particular song totally hilarious.
Part of it is the lyrics. I love clever lyrics. Only Sting and Weird Al can create the cleverest erudite lyrics in my book.
Part of it is the tune. So I'm an 80's kid. This sort of 'inspirational' singalong We Are The World chorus songs are part of my upbringing. Just too catchy for one's own good.
Part of it is the fun philosophical 'guilt' produced in experiencing the song. We're downloaders. We know it's illegal. Just how comfortable are we with the whole subject? Is it as bad as the RIAA make it out to be? Plus the poking fun at 'evil' corporations and rich people.
Of course, part of it is that so many people just don't quite get it. And write the freakiest comments about it. So there's a certain satisfaction in being 'smart' enough to appreciate it on all its levels.
And linking to that, that Weird Al was so fiendishly devilishly clever with this song, twisting it into some sort of self-referential paradox. Since he himself made it freely downloadable from his own website...
"Don't Download This Song," indeed.
Everything just turns upon itself in a big pile of funny stuff that tickles every single one of my humor buttons and I just can't help it but laugh and laugh...and feel significantly better afterwards.
I'm-a gonna listen to it again. And again. Until the tears roll down. Cos you can laugh or cry at this freaky world we live in, and I much rather laugh than feel sad about everything.
1) Physical social gatherings + internet introvert = does not mix.
Talk about energy draining. But, because I go to be diplomatic and to attempt to rejoin the rest of the human race, even though...
2) Topics talked about do not interest me.
*sighs* It's either mainstream commentaries - TV, some movie, National Service, urban legends, ghost stories - or gossip. Often malicious work-related gossip, and a big fat negative complaint session wherein the person feeling 'wronged' declares how right and justified he or she really is, from their perspective.
I have very little common shared interest in the former. And often, I get even more depressed that I seem to be so un-mainstream from everybody else. Heck, I don't even seem to fit into any subcultures in Singapore. Haha.
The latter is sometimes fun, in a mean sort of way or a 'boy, got it off my chest' manner, but ultimately, imo, negative for one's mood and depressing and makes you distrust everybody and think the worst of everyone.
3) Self-esteem takes a hit. Doubt sets in.
Do I stay or go? Do I stay or go? Life's not perfect. Work's not perfect. Nothing is -ever- going to be perfect. I find my job pretty cushy. I also find certain aspects of the job eyeball-rolling ludicrous. I am not 100% happy where I am. I am also 100% certain that I will not be 100% happy wherever else I go either.
Bitchy complaint sessions from people who are deeply unhappy and have chosen to go are kinda slanted in the obvious direction you'd expect them to rationalize.
Then I get to go into a spasm of self-doubt and ping pong back wondering wtf do I care about the opinions of other people, my life is my life, I don't need to try and change to make them happy, and back and forth and back and forth.
---
So anyway, my own bitch session is over. I hit upon something tonight that lifted my mood in a 100% guaranteed manner. So I am recording it down for posterity in case I ever need it again, and I sure get depressed often enough to need it:
Go listen to Weird Al Yankovich's Don't Download This Song. Go. Do it now.
Before the end of the chorus was over, I was giggling/cackling uncontrollably and singing along at the top of my lungs.
So now instead of brooding over stuff that I cannot change and reserving them for future thought sessions where I am calmer and more receptive, my brain is now munching on the question of why exactly I find this particular song totally hilarious.
Part of it is the lyrics. I love clever lyrics. Only Sting and Weird Al can create the cleverest erudite lyrics in my book.
Part of it is the tune. So I'm an 80's kid. This sort of 'inspirational' singalong We Are The World chorus songs are part of my upbringing. Just too catchy for one's own good.
Part of it is the fun philosophical 'guilt' produced in experiencing the song. We're downloaders. We know it's illegal. Just how comfortable are we with the whole subject? Is it as bad as the RIAA make it out to be? Plus the poking fun at 'evil' corporations and rich people.
Of course, part of it is that so many people just don't quite get it. And write the freakiest comments about it. So there's a certain satisfaction in being 'smart' enough to appreciate it on all its levels.
And linking to that, that Weird Al was so fiendishly devilishly clever with this song, twisting it into some sort of self-referential paradox. Since he himself made it freely downloadable from his own website...
"Don't Download This Song," indeed.
Everything just turns upon itself in a big pile of funny stuff that tickles every single one of my humor buttons and I just can't help it but laugh and laugh...and feel significantly better afterwards.
I'm-a gonna listen to it again. And again. Until the tears roll down. Cos you can laugh or cry at this freaky world we live in, and I much rather laugh than feel sad about everything.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Straight to Calorie Hell
Do not pass go. Do not collect $
There's a surprising amount of meat - okay, meat-like object - in the MacDonald's Mega Prosperity Burger.
It actually looked like a presentable burger in terms of quantity.
Yeah, yeah, I know, what am I doing at MacDonald's in the first place, but there's a McD's outside where I work, there is no other decently edible food at tolerable prices by a tourist attraction, I had no time to bring lunch, I am facing a long two-hour session of Shinkendo right after work, and I was starving by noon with no breakfast.
And the evil banner waving my food temptation nemesis - curly *hem* "Twister" fries - in front of me was too hard to resist.
So what the heck, Chinese New Year promotion only rolls around once a year, so I was due at least one taste of the "Prosperity" Burger. (Yeah, prosperous for THEM, that is.)
Knowing how pathetic McD's beef patties usually are, I went for the Mega variant of two beef patties. Did not upsize as much as I wanted a lot of fries because I don't like paying for extra calories in the form of sugar in my now-colossal drink, and I really can do without the extra fat/sodium/calories in an extra helping of fries. *sob* Though I really like 'em.
And when I unwrapped the burger, the thickness quite surprised me. Each was nearly a cm in width, so it added up to a very pleasant meaty experience. (Even if it was most likely quasi-beef+skin/fat/innards in the manner of cheap sausages and such patties.)
Black pepper sauce was nice, appealing to the more Asian tastebud. Onions were decent (how can you go wrong with fresh cut onions unless they are no longer fresh?)
Bun still scores a major fail on account of no toasting whatsoever, but I suppose many locals are used to their bread being soft and spongy and cake-like. (Damn you, Gardenia and Sunshine!)
Twister fries are still as awesome as ever. Crispy MSG-laden batter, curly look, with the extra crunch only MacDonald's seems to know how to cook their fries with.
And I think I will skip dinner and go straight to grapes as a desert tonight. Whee, calorie overload.
There's a surprising amount of meat - okay, meat-like object - in the MacDonald's Mega Prosperity Burger.
It actually looked like a presentable burger in terms of quantity.
Yeah, yeah, I know, what am I doing at MacDonald's in the first place, but there's a McD's outside where I work, there is no other decently edible food at tolerable prices by a tourist attraction, I had no time to bring lunch, I am facing a long two-hour session of Shinkendo right after work, and I was starving by noon with no breakfast.
And the evil banner waving my food temptation nemesis - curly *hem* "Twister" fries - in front of me was too hard to resist.
So what the heck, Chinese New Year promotion only rolls around once a year, so I was due at least one taste of the "Prosperity" Burger. (Yeah, prosperous for THEM, that is.)
Knowing how pathetic McD's beef patties usually are, I went for the Mega variant of two beef patties. Did not upsize as much as I wanted a lot of fries because I don't like paying for extra calories in the form of sugar in my now-colossal drink, and I really can do without the extra fat/sodium/calories in an extra helping of fries. *sob* Though I really like 'em.
And when I unwrapped the burger, the thickness quite surprised me. Each was nearly a cm in width, so it added up to a very pleasant meaty experience. (Even if it was most likely quasi-beef+skin/fat/innards in the manner of cheap sausages and such patties.)
Black pepper sauce was nice, appealing to the more Asian tastebud. Onions were decent (how can you go wrong with fresh cut onions unless they are no longer fresh?)
Bun still scores a major fail on account of no toasting whatsoever, but I suppose many locals are used to their bread being soft and spongy and cake-like. (Damn you, Gardenia and Sunshine!)
Twister fries are still as awesome as ever. Crispy MSG-laden batter, curly look, with the extra crunch only MacDonald's seems to know how to cook their fries with.
And I think I will skip dinner and go straight to grapes as a desert tonight. Whee, calorie overload.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
The Ultimate Timegoldgearsink
Another Test has been unlocked in Egypt. This one is known as the Test of the Vigil.
Unlike the Obelisk Test, Vigil seems mostly a cooperative affair, with smaller, subtler opportunities to be selfish (er, self-interested). It is also extremely cunning design.
Ever played one of those parlour games at wedding dinner parties where they ask tables to engage in a cooperative scavenger hunt to find 8 pairs of socks, a blue belt, a yellow hairband and what not?
Code it in and you essentially have the Vigil test, also known as the all-voracious sacrificial fire, the muncher of hoarded stockpiles, and one of the best ways to get a group of people locked into mass hysteria "wasting" supplies with crazy grins on their faces, hyperventilating on occasion.
Initially, I took advantage of the Vigil to get the precursor test - Initiation into Worship - done. This test shows its poor legacy design. There are no in-game hints about what you need to do, besides a list of its requirements, and the game directs you to a website guide for clearer instructions 'because they have not had time to code it in yet.'
Except by now, the website guide doesn't exist anymore. Passing along the instructions for the Worship Initiation has fallen squarely into the players' hands, so we all end up having to 'check the wiki' to get proper directions.
First, one needs to have a partner. This is all very well if you game with a spouse, or I suppose, can afford a 'mule' aka second account. For cheapskate but game-serious newbies, this means a tedious hunt for someone who doesn't sound like a moron, who can find their way around without extreme handholding, and who hasn't done the initiation yet, and wants to do it NOW, with you.
Urgh.
I'd actually given it up as a bad forced-socializing idea. Except to participate in a Vigil, you need to have done the initiation beforehand. And the leader of the Vigil was doing all the advertisement over regional chat for me. When I'd logged on at noon my time and learned about it, there wasn't much anyone else on, obviously.
12 hours later though, there was an erudite-sounding newbie on the region chat who wanted to help out with the vigil. A quick /info on him showed he was only an Initiate of Five. Aha. This very much suggested he hadn't completed yet, as the two hardest are Worship and Thought. I sent him a chat and sure enough, he hadn't.
Whee. Partner obtained. The next obstacle was obtaining two hard-to-get materials, a small diamond and a drop of camel milk. None of those would be obtainable the regular way, so it was down to 'networking' aka asking everyone I could think of - my guildies (from two guilds), the leader of the Vigil who also happened to be a GM and a guildleader of the south part of the region's home guild, my neighbours, etc.
Personally, I found this rather annoying, to be dependent on someone else's largesse. But sometimes, you just have to swallow your pride, wait for them to respond in eon-slow time, and smile and say thank you.
The rest was a bunch of collecting other materials from my plentiful stash (yay for being a packrat, more on this later), and rehearsal and discussion of the route with fellow newbie. This made things a little more challenging than say, me tagging along with a veteran, but fortunately, fellow newbie was erudite and we managed to communicate without resorting to sign language or 'u follow wat i do, kk?'
We managed to muddle through the whole thing, with only a minor technical hitch at the beginning, and nothing wasted, thanks to our paranoid preparation beforehand. One's experience, pleasant or otherwise, is truly dependent on a good choice of partner. Some time later, we stood as proud Initiates into Worship.
Now we were ready to get sucked up into Vigil frenzy.
Passing the simple test aka Principles simply meant that you made one 'sacrifice.'
See, the person who starts the vigil gets to do all the grunt work of constructing the big Sacrificial Fire. After that, the big kahuna of a Fire will tell you, in intervals that start off at an hour apiece and get shorter and shorter, his shopping list of materials he wants to burn up and suck down into the electronic void. Bringing it the correct amount nets you one sacrifice.
This is, of course, really easy when it decides that it wants 1 slate shovel, or 31 onions (grown 5 apiece) or 122 bricks (made quite rapidly), but a little less fun when it decides to ask for rare materials like 5 Medium Emeralds or materials in bulk (1009 rotten flax, 784 water in jugs).
And it is quite all random. Actually, it seems to have a table of things to request - a certain number of common materials, some uncommon, some rare, etc, and random rolls some number for each, but essentially, we're at its mercy.
To pass the actual Test (with a capital T), one has to be one of 21 people per week with the highest Vigil score. This score is equals to the number of sacrifices you made x the number of people who participated in the same Vigil. And the score from various Vigils all add up.
Again, we have the crazy social dilemma situation that ATITD is so good at.
Teamwork is crucial for a Vigil. Obviously. With no leader, you're going to have people willy nilly hurling things into the fire, preferably the easiest things first, all overlapping effort, competing with each other for the most sacrifices, and the hard ones that get left behind will kill everybody once its timer runs out.
Oh, did I mention you can generally take slightly over an hour to fulfill each request? Otherwise, the fire dies and the Vigil ends. No more sacrifice. No more points.
So you need a leader who has some means of organizing people, plus people you can (relatively) trust. In this case, most of us were all residents of the same region, asked to join the same guild for joint communication chat, so there was quite a strong drive towards cooperation.
The leader basically assigned each person one sacrifice to achieve and made sure everyone had a sacrifice in before starting the next 'round' of sacrifices. A big warehouse of extra stockpiled materials also helped, along with equipment everyone could use to produce more materials.
Still, there is the opportunity to be self-interested if you really wanted to risk the consequences of everyone getting angry at you. You could try and jump the queue and chuck easy stuff in without the leader noticing. Me, I refrained, but I suspected another chap was doing so from time to time. I think the leader knew/suspected, because shortly, she sent this person out to collect limestone - a greatly time-tedious errand that keeps one far far away from the fire.
There came a point in the Vigil when we could barely keep up with the rare materials. We were fast running out of all stockpiles of gems and fish, which necessitated people with 'connections' begging/bribing/trading for them with their friends in other regions. The leader announced that she was going to use her fast teleport ability to try and shuttle the crucial stuff over before the time limit expired, and pretty much gave carte blanche to forget the queue and dump in whatever else was possible, because we all didn't know if she was going to make it in time.
So the few of us self-interested folk remaining cheerfully indulged in a little free-for-all fire dumping to grab some extra points.
Oh, we did narrowly scrape by. About two times. Before the rest of the requests were just impossible to attain. I'd given up by then and was making my excuses to leave. (5am, y'know?) I suspect they came to the same conclusion shortly after.
The rest of the self-interest comes from the others in Egypt. If you don't stand to gain from this Vigil, it's actually in your best interest to keep your stuff for a Vigil you can attend. Either that, or take advantage of the high demand situation desperate people locked in a Vigil get into to trade things at over-average to ludicrous prices (depending on how badly the Vigil-ers want to continue...)
Strangely enough, I quite enjoyed the whole experience. It's nice to work in unison as a team, each doing what they can do best (I do great growing veggies, papyrus, other things, some other people mine or grow flax, yadda yadda) towards a greater goal. The time limit just makes it more game-like and adds adrenaline and urgency. It gives a good leader opportunity to get people organized.
And ultimately, it's a mad, crazy scavenger hunt that really tests all your resources and networks to the maximum. Stockpiles, equipment to make the materials, connections to people with more stockpiles, etc.
Hilariously, it all goes up in smoke. For points, and the hope of maybe passing the Test. IF your vigil was long enough and you got enough points. Sure, yeahright.
Unlike the Obelisk Test, Vigil seems mostly a cooperative affair, with smaller, subtler opportunities to be selfish (er, self-interested). It is also extremely cunning design.
Ever played one of those parlour games at wedding dinner parties where they ask tables to engage in a cooperative scavenger hunt to find 8 pairs of socks, a blue belt, a yellow hairband and what not?
Code it in and you essentially have the Vigil test, also known as the all-voracious sacrificial fire, the muncher of hoarded stockpiles, and one of the best ways to get a group of people locked into mass hysteria "wasting" supplies with crazy grins on their faces, hyperventilating on occasion.
Initially, I took advantage of the Vigil to get the precursor test - Initiation into Worship - done. This test shows its poor legacy design. There are no in-game hints about what you need to do, besides a list of its requirements, and the game directs you to a website guide for clearer instructions 'because they have not had time to code it in yet.'
Except by now, the website guide doesn't exist anymore. Passing along the instructions for the Worship Initiation has fallen squarely into the players' hands, so we all end up having to 'check the wiki' to get proper directions.
First, one needs to have a partner. This is all very well if you game with a spouse, or I suppose, can afford a 'mule' aka second account. For cheapskate but game-serious newbies, this means a tedious hunt for someone who doesn't sound like a moron, who can find their way around without extreme handholding, and who hasn't done the initiation yet, and wants to do it NOW, with you.
Urgh.
I'd actually given it up as a bad forced-socializing idea. Except to participate in a Vigil, you need to have done the initiation beforehand. And the leader of the Vigil was doing all the advertisement over regional chat for me. When I'd logged on at noon my time and learned about it, there wasn't much anyone else on, obviously.
12 hours later though, there was an erudite-sounding newbie on the region chat who wanted to help out with the vigil. A quick /info on him showed he was only an Initiate of Five. Aha. This very much suggested he hadn't completed yet, as the two hardest are Worship and Thought. I sent him a chat and sure enough, he hadn't.
Whee. Partner obtained. The next obstacle was obtaining two hard-to-get materials, a small diamond and a drop of camel milk. None of those would be obtainable the regular way, so it was down to 'networking' aka asking everyone I could think of - my guildies (from two guilds), the leader of the Vigil who also happened to be a GM and a guildleader of the south part of the region's home guild, my neighbours, etc.
Personally, I found this rather annoying, to be dependent on someone else's largesse. But sometimes, you just have to swallow your pride, wait for them to respond in eon-slow time, and smile and say thank you.
The rest was a bunch of collecting other materials from my plentiful stash (yay for being a packrat, more on this later), and rehearsal and discussion of the route with fellow newbie. This made things a little more challenging than say, me tagging along with a veteran, but fortunately, fellow newbie was erudite and we managed to communicate without resorting to sign language or 'u follow wat i do, kk?'
We managed to muddle through the whole thing, with only a minor technical hitch at the beginning, and nothing wasted, thanks to our paranoid preparation beforehand. One's experience, pleasant or otherwise, is truly dependent on a good choice of partner. Some time later, we stood as proud Initiates into Worship.
Now we were ready to get sucked up into Vigil frenzy.
Passing the simple test aka Principles simply meant that you made one 'sacrifice.'
See, the person who starts the vigil gets to do all the grunt work of constructing the big Sacrificial Fire. After that, the big kahuna of a Fire will tell you, in intervals that start off at an hour apiece and get shorter and shorter, his shopping list of materials he wants to burn up and suck down into the electronic void. Bringing it the correct amount nets you one sacrifice.
This is, of course, really easy when it decides that it wants 1 slate shovel, or 31 onions (grown 5 apiece) or 122 bricks (made quite rapidly), but a little less fun when it decides to ask for rare materials like 5 Medium Emeralds or materials in bulk (1009 rotten flax, 784 water in jugs).
And it is quite all random. Actually, it seems to have a table of things to request - a certain number of common materials, some uncommon, some rare, etc, and random rolls some number for each, but essentially, we're at its mercy.
To pass the actual Test (with a capital T), one has to be one of 21 people per week with the highest Vigil score. This score is equals to the number of sacrifices you made x the number of people who participated in the same Vigil. And the score from various Vigils all add up.
Again, we have the crazy social dilemma situation that ATITD is so good at.
Teamwork is crucial for a Vigil. Obviously. With no leader, you're going to have people willy nilly hurling things into the fire, preferably the easiest things first, all overlapping effort, competing with each other for the most sacrifices, and the hard ones that get left behind will kill everybody once its timer runs out.
Oh, did I mention you can generally take slightly over an hour to fulfill each request? Otherwise, the fire dies and the Vigil ends. No more sacrifice. No more points.
So you need a leader who has some means of organizing people, plus people you can (relatively) trust. In this case, most of us were all residents of the same region, asked to join the same guild for joint communication chat, so there was quite a strong drive towards cooperation.
The leader basically assigned each person one sacrifice to achieve and made sure everyone had a sacrifice in before starting the next 'round' of sacrifices. A big warehouse of extra stockpiled materials also helped, along with equipment everyone could use to produce more materials.
Still, there is the opportunity to be self-interested if you really wanted to risk the consequences of everyone getting angry at you. You could try and jump the queue and chuck easy stuff in without the leader noticing. Me, I refrained, but I suspected another chap was doing so from time to time. I think the leader knew/suspected, because shortly, she sent this person out to collect limestone - a greatly time-tedious errand that keeps one far far away from the fire.
There came a point in the Vigil when we could barely keep up with the rare materials. We were fast running out of all stockpiles of gems and fish, which necessitated people with 'connections' begging/bribing/trading for them with their friends in other regions. The leader announced that she was going to use her fast teleport ability to try and shuttle the crucial stuff over before the time limit expired, and pretty much gave carte blanche to forget the queue and dump in whatever else was possible, because we all didn't know if she was going to make it in time.
So the few of us self-interested folk remaining cheerfully indulged in a little free-for-all fire dumping to grab some extra points.
Oh, we did narrowly scrape by. About two times. Before the rest of the requests were just impossible to attain. I'd given up by then and was making my excuses to leave. (5am, y'know?) I suspect they came to the same conclusion shortly after.
The rest of the self-interest comes from the others in Egypt. If you don't stand to gain from this Vigil, it's actually in your best interest to keep your stuff for a Vigil you can attend. Either that, or take advantage of the high demand situation desperate people locked in a Vigil get into to trade things at over-average to ludicrous prices (depending on how badly the Vigil-ers want to continue...)
Strangely enough, I quite enjoyed the whole experience. It's nice to work in unison as a team, each doing what they can do best (I do great growing veggies, papyrus, other things, some other people mine or grow flax, yadda yadda) towards a greater goal. The time limit just makes it more game-like and adds adrenaline and urgency. It gives a good leader opportunity to get people organized.
And ultimately, it's a mad, crazy scavenger hunt that really tests all your resources and networks to the maximum. Stockpiles, equipment to make the materials, connections to people with more stockpiles, etc.
Hilariously, it all goes up in smoke. For points, and the hope of maybe passing the Test. IF your vigil was long enough and you got enough points. Sure, yeahright.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Alpha Omega
http://www.alphaomegathegame.com/
I want this to be an MMO already.
And to think I only discovered this because I was bored and went rummaging through RPGnow and found it in one of the New Year Bundles on sale.
In the end, I discarded the thought of buying the other RPGs and just went with the cheaper AO bundle. Freaking awesome Guild Wars-esque art. Nifty setting.
I want this to be an MMO already.
And to think I only discovered this because I was bored and went rummaging through RPGnow and found it in one of the New Year Bundles on sale.
In the end, I discarded the thought of buying the other RPGs and just went with the cheaper AO bundle. Freaking awesome Guild Wars-esque art. Nifty setting.
Did Imms Talk This Much?
Sami: Which stadiums will be picked, how many people are already close to one that is picked, which prize type is being distributed by a given stadium (though communicating with friends can help in this)...
Sami: Which prize types will be more rare than others, and probably other chance variables as well.
MAMTeles: basically, trust your luck and plan strategies.. that's the spirit of the phoenix race
tlanthil: Will the travel time used be shown in an Events menu?
Zerda: Can we trade the little statues?
Sami: No.
Malard: Sami, if you have all 7 types, is that your max score? or having duplicates of each type improve your score further?
Sami: That is your max score for winning Fishing POles.
Sami: However, there are also 7 Stone Phoenix of Endurance awarded as prizes...
Sami: Those will be awarded in a sort of lottery, where you have a number of "lottery tickets" equal to the total *number* of models collected.
GiausBaltar: This race and the method of distribution of prizes you have chosen are wise and just, Sami. You are truely a great leader. Praise be to Sami, and praise be to Egypt.
Sami: Thank you, GiausBaltar.
Ichigo: Sami, what are these "Stone Phoenix of Endurance" you speak of? What are their uses?
Sami: These are unusual relics which glow at dawn - if you polish their wings when they glow, your endurance will be enhanced by 3, for the next 3 (Egyptian) hours.
Sami: They may not be placed near one another, though...
Sami: As they seem to interfere with each other.
Malard: Will we get to keep the Stadium statues after the event? and if so will they carry any benefit?
Sami: I assume that you mean the models - yes. They are interesting collectables, but have no known use.
Neophant: Can these Phoenixs plantable for decoration so can keep them around camp as statues?
Sami: Yes.
Malard: So what if more than 21 people have all 7 types, that would seem possible
Sami: I believe, from past written records, that more than 21 people achieving all 7 models is unlikely.
Sami: Also, if for example, 3 people achieve 7 models, and 15 people achieve 6, and 100 achieve 5, then a total of 18 poles will be awarded: 1 each to those that achieved either 7 or 6.
Mouglue: Are they reusable?
Sami: Yes, they never wear out. You can only be under the influence of one at a time.
Ichigo: So if 22 people achieve 7 models, no one will recieve a pole?
Sami: In theory. But historical doicuments show that that is extraordinarily unlikely.
Zezima: Can we use Free chariots ride?
Sami: Yes
Nonym: Do their effects stack with food?
Sami: Yes
Ichigo: Sami, will we be able to trade the statues? Can my guild work together to get as many as possible and then trade to gain complete sets?
Sami: No, it tracks which model you collect as an individual.
Rokan: Will you get a different model for each stadium you visit until you get all 7?
Sami: You will get whichever model the particular stadium distributes for this race.
Sami: So, if a friend is able to tell you that a newly announced stadium distributes, for instance, "Phoenix in his Prime", and you already have collected a Phoenix in his Prime, then that is valueable information.
Sariel: will everyone who visits a particular stadium get the same model?
Sami: Yes
Catlyn: Will the type be announced when the stadium is announced?
Sami: No
Dreasimy: How long will the event last after the final stadium is announced?
Sami: 105 minutes: 21 x 5.
MAMTeles: do you need to ahve the models u collected in your inventory at the end of the race to be awarded prizes?
Sami: No.
Malard: Sami, is the event to last for 1 hour only? if it does announcing 21 stadiums every 5 minutes cannot work...
Sami: The calendar is approximate on event lengths. The exact number is 105 minutes.
Zaniac: (OOC: Is it Teppy time or real life time some times it bugged in past with that)
Sami: [OOC: "TeppyTime"]
Malard: So the event ends when you announce the 21st stadium? what is the purpose of the 21st stadium
Sami: The event ends 5 minutes after the last stadium is announced.
---
Blah blah blardy blah. Just a short sample of the fine print before an ATITD contest, aka 'quest.'
Talk about hype-building + addressing all possible contingencies.
Mebbe RoD imms could learn a thing or two from this.
One thing's for sure, this game is way too full of clever people, who are also veterans. Which makes me absolutely convinced that I rather not even give it an attempt, for fear I get caught up in the old RoD 'must-win-it-all' mania in the end.
Sami: Which prize types will be more rare than others, and probably other chance variables as well.
MAMTeles: basically, trust your luck and plan strategies.. that's the spirit of the phoenix race
tlanthil: Will the travel time used be shown in an Events menu?
Zerda: Can we trade the little statues?
Sami: No.
Malard: Sami, if you have all 7 types, is that your max score? or having duplicates of each type improve your score further?
Sami: That is your max score for winning Fishing POles.
Sami: However, there are also 7 Stone Phoenix of Endurance awarded as prizes...
Sami: Those will be awarded in a sort of lottery, where you have a number of "lottery tickets" equal to the total *number* of models collected.
GiausBaltar: This race and the method of distribution of prizes you have chosen are wise and just, Sami. You are truely a great leader. Praise be to Sami, and praise be to Egypt.
Sami: Thank you, GiausBaltar.
Ichigo: Sami, what are these "Stone Phoenix of Endurance" you speak of? What are their uses?
Sami: These are unusual relics which glow at dawn - if you polish their wings when they glow, your endurance will be enhanced by 3, for the next 3 (Egyptian) hours.
Sami: They may not be placed near one another, though...
Sami: As they seem to interfere with each other.
Malard: Will we get to keep the Stadium statues after the event? and if so will they carry any benefit?
Sami: I assume that you mean the models - yes. They are interesting collectables, but have no known use.
Neophant: Can these Phoenixs plantable for decoration so can keep them around camp as statues?
Sami: Yes.
Malard: So what if more than 21 people have all 7 types, that would seem possible
Sami: I believe, from past written records, that more than 21 people achieving all 7 models is unlikely.
Sami: Also, if for example, 3 people achieve 7 models, and 15 people achieve 6, and 100 achieve 5, then a total of 18 poles will be awarded: 1 each to those that achieved either 7 or 6.
Mouglue: Are they reusable?
Sami: Yes, they never wear out. You can only be under the influence of one at a time.
Ichigo: So if 22 people achieve 7 models, no one will recieve a pole?
Sami: In theory. But historical doicuments show that that is extraordinarily unlikely.
Zezima: Can we use Free chariots ride?
Sami: Yes
Nonym: Do their effects stack with food?
Sami: Yes
Ichigo: Sami, will we be able to trade the statues? Can my guild work together to get as many as possible and then trade to gain complete sets?
Sami: No, it tracks which model you collect as an individual.
Rokan: Will you get a different model for each stadium you visit until you get all 7?
Sami: You will get whichever model the particular stadium distributes for this race.
Sami: So, if a friend is able to tell you that a newly announced stadium distributes, for instance, "Phoenix in his Prime", and you already have collected a Phoenix in his Prime, then that is valueable information.
Sariel: will everyone who visits a particular stadium get the same model?
Sami: Yes
Catlyn: Will the type be announced when the stadium is announced?
Sami: No
Dreasimy: How long will the event last after the final stadium is announced?
Sami: 105 minutes: 21 x 5.
MAMTeles: do you need to ahve the models u collected in your inventory at the end of the race to be awarded prizes?
Sami: No.
Malard: Sami, is the event to last for 1 hour only? if it does announcing 21 stadiums every 5 minutes cannot work...
Sami: The calendar is approximate on event lengths. The exact number is 105 minutes.
Zaniac: (OOC: Is it Teppy time or real life time some times it bugged in past with that)
Sami: [OOC: "TeppyTime"]
Malard: So the event ends when you announce the 21st stadium? what is the purpose of the 21st stadium
Sami: The event ends 5 minutes after the last stadium is announced.
---
Blah blah blardy blah. Just a short sample of the fine print before an ATITD contest, aka 'quest.'
Talk about hype-building + addressing all possible contingencies.
Mebbe RoD imms could learn a thing or two from this.
One thing's for sure, this game is way too full of clever people, who are also veterans. Which makes me absolutely convinced that I rather not even give it an attempt, for fear I get caught up in the old RoD 'must-win-it-all' mania in the end.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Thar's Silver in Them Thar Hills
After a couple of boring days where the entirety of Egpt were chokepointed at silver, some guy finally located a silver vein along the borders of our region and our neighboring rival region.
The ensuing onrush was classic.
Especially since silver doesn't seem to be that essential later on, besides being a big chokepoint in technology.
What was sorta fun was the big push to unlock casting. Our region needed a ton more iron, besides the silver. The silver had been pledged quite early on by a guild who were residents of QR, but the rest, well, everybody who was anybody pulled together and there was a big night of unabated mining and smelting iron.
Personally, I'm not super-thrilled by mining. The minigame isn't half-bad. You have to pick the correct mine crystal, as indicated by odd color out, highest saturated, lowest blue value, etc. There's a memory component to it, if you lag behind a certain number of crystals, the quantity of ore extracted increases.
What drives me nuts in this game are enforced timers. Stuff where you can only click once every 30 seconds because you've run out of energy.
So after about 10 pulls (if I'm lucky) in rapidfire succession, I end up hunkering down waiting for 10-30 seconds to elapse, twiddling my thumbs, watching my stat bars go back from alarm red to normal black, and throttled to one pull at a time, dying slowly from boredom and too many youtube videos in the other screen.
Of course, if this lasted forever, I would quit the game in a jiffy. Like all good social dilemmas, the hope is held out that things will get better.
One will eventually be able to cook food that increases one's stats, and voila, faster ore pulls. And as you pass certain tests, you may also get certain bonus stats. Eventually.
So the trick is to try and do the minimum amount of awful necessary, while still seeming to be doing substantial things to contribute to society - so that one can free-ride while still remaining part of the in-group.
I found the mines of the slightly-more hardcore guild I joined had been set to the rank of Member-only. This is a rank one higher than the one I was currently at. This, of course, did not make me uber happy, so I set out to suck up, er, social network my way into the slightly-more-accepted reaches of the hierarchy.
This was entirely governed by self-interest, I fear. The casual public guild that I am in and like, is all very well - but mines are definitely a tragedy of the commons affair. The more idiotic people mess with a mine, the more it's going to break, the more it's going to cost to repair.
It stands to reason that one definitely needs one's own mines for certain easier to obtain products, and best leverages on another guild's mines for rarer metals.
Because I'm stubborn and independent and would never lower myself as to beg for a rank increase (doesn't it make it so obvious that you just want to pillage the mines?), I formulated a more cunning long term plan.
Resigning myself to a long grindy night of staring at colored crystals, I sat by a public works mine to mine iron, while running back and forth with a load of ore to the hardcore guild's compound to smelt stuff (rank permissions for those were fine.)
Eventually, as I knew would happen, the guild leader logged on, heard the 'silver found, need iron now' news, and came on down to the iron mines.
On my next run to the compound, I hailed him and asked if he could set a mine to my rank to save the trip. He did so, and I started mining away industriously, bringing boatloads of iron ore to be smelted. Several thousands of iron ore and a few hours later, we had a very nice sum of iron to be donated to the unlocking of casting. Shortly after, as he made the trip back up to the guild hall, my rank increased. :P
Without me even needing to ask. Rowr.
Of course, all my hard work might just go to waste because one of the members of this hardcore guild has done something rather equivalent to Israel shooting rockets into Palestine.
He's gone and built a god-knows-how big obelisk over in another region. Without asking. Without respecting the queue.
Very shortly, the residents of that region are going to find out, run over to see whose obelisk it is, check that he's a member of this guild, and go headhunting for the leaders to see if they can resolve the situation amicably. Or not.
Being hardcore, a number of its members don't particularly give a shit about diplomacy. And its leader isn't exactly the verbose sort. I'm kinda scared that he's going to say 'lol' at the wrong moment and all of that region is going to carpetmine our territory in retaliation or something. :)
Yay, drama.
Ah well, worse come to the worse, I can always a) quit the guild and move
or b) just quit the freaking game. :P
The ensuing onrush was classic.
Especially since silver doesn't seem to be that essential later on, besides being a big chokepoint in technology.
What was sorta fun was the big push to unlock casting. Our region needed a ton more iron, besides the silver. The silver had been pledged quite early on by a guild who were residents of QR, but the rest, well, everybody who was anybody pulled together and there was a big night of unabated mining and smelting iron.
Personally, I'm not super-thrilled by mining. The minigame isn't half-bad. You have to pick the correct mine crystal, as indicated by odd color out, highest saturated, lowest blue value, etc. There's a memory component to it, if you lag behind a certain number of crystals, the quantity of ore extracted increases.
What drives me nuts in this game are enforced timers. Stuff where you can only click once every 30 seconds because you've run out of energy.
So after about 10 pulls (if I'm lucky) in rapidfire succession, I end up hunkering down waiting for 10-30 seconds to elapse, twiddling my thumbs, watching my stat bars go back from alarm red to normal black, and throttled to one pull at a time, dying slowly from boredom and too many youtube videos in the other screen.
Of course, if this lasted forever, I would quit the game in a jiffy. Like all good social dilemmas, the hope is held out that things will get better.
One will eventually be able to cook food that increases one's stats, and voila, faster ore pulls. And as you pass certain tests, you may also get certain bonus stats. Eventually.
So the trick is to try and do the minimum amount of awful necessary, while still seeming to be doing substantial things to contribute to society - so that one can free-ride while still remaining part of the in-group.
I found the mines of the slightly-more hardcore guild I joined had been set to the rank of Member-only. This is a rank one higher than the one I was currently at. This, of course, did not make me uber happy, so I set out to suck up, er, social network my way into the slightly-more-accepted reaches of the hierarchy.
This was entirely governed by self-interest, I fear. The casual public guild that I am in and like, is all very well - but mines are definitely a tragedy of the commons affair. The more idiotic people mess with a mine, the more it's going to break, the more it's going to cost to repair.
It stands to reason that one definitely needs one's own mines for certain easier to obtain products, and best leverages on another guild's mines for rarer metals.
Because I'm stubborn and independent and would never lower myself as to beg for a rank increase (doesn't it make it so obvious that you just want to pillage the mines?), I formulated a more cunning long term plan.
Resigning myself to a long grindy night of staring at colored crystals, I sat by a public works mine to mine iron, while running back and forth with a load of ore to the hardcore guild's compound to smelt stuff (rank permissions for those were fine.)
Eventually, as I knew would happen, the guild leader logged on, heard the 'silver found, need iron now' news, and came on down to the iron mines.
On my next run to the compound, I hailed him and asked if he could set a mine to my rank to save the trip. He did so, and I started mining away industriously, bringing boatloads of iron ore to be smelted. Several thousands of iron ore and a few hours later, we had a very nice sum of iron to be donated to the unlocking of casting. Shortly after, as he made the trip back up to the guild hall, my rank increased. :P
Without me even needing to ask. Rowr.
Of course, all my hard work might just go to waste because one of the members of this hardcore guild has done something rather equivalent to Israel shooting rockets into Palestine.
He's gone and built a god-knows-how big obelisk over in another region. Without asking. Without respecting the queue.
Very shortly, the residents of that region are going to find out, run over to see whose obelisk it is, check that he's a member of this guild, and go headhunting for the leaders to see if they can resolve the situation amicably. Or not.
Being hardcore, a number of its members don't particularly give a shit about diplomacy. And its leader isn't exactly the verbose sort. I'm kinda scared that he's going to say 'lol' at the wrong moment and all of that region is going to carpetmine our territory in retaliation or something. :)
Yay, drama.
Ah well, worse come to the worse, I can always a) quit the guild and move
or b) just quit the freaking game. :P