Thursday, June 16, 2005

I have thus-far overlooked the concept of "owning" the stuff on your characters.  This guy went crazy and killed his friend over a sword.  A sword in a subscription-based game.  In some ways I understand.  In the days of Diablo II, while playing on the battle.net you could have all kinds of great equipment, but once you stopped playing for three months you lost your characters.  It happened to me.  Hundreds of hours of game play and leveling were gone.  Unique sets and lots of money.  I didn't mind too much because the game was a fun form of entertainment that I enjoyed with my real-life (RL) friends.  Once we stopped playing together everything was gone.  The thing is, I probably could have sold those unique and high level items to other players.  I'm currently playing a subscription-based massively multiplayer game called World of Warcraft.  RL friends are the number one reason I play.  It's the draw to get to the higher levels and the cool items that really drives you.  I see it in the auction house and in the general chat.  People, not just kids, craze over the items and abilities.  Just like RL actually.  Is it worth killing over?  Not if you can buy it on ebay. The article brings forth an interesting point about property.  My understanding is that everything in the game (whichever game you are playing), weapons, armour, money, etc., is copywrighted material owned by the software company.  Does that mean that I am leasing the digital property for the duration of my subscription?  I someone stole my account password and took items that required significant amounts of play-time to duplicate, would I have a reasonable case in court to file for personal damages against that person?  Maybe the developers should have some liability here.  For example, if someone steals my uber-sword, should they replace it?  I'm not sure that they should (although I'd want them to) just because that might diminish the value of the highly-sought after item.  My personal stance is that "it's just a game" and I'm playing for fun.  So, please don't mess with my character, I'll have to spend hundreds of hours building him back up again. 9:11:43 AM  comment []  Google It!

This makes me want to start playing with barbies.  If these were around when I was a kid I may have had to reconsider G.I. Joe.  Link 8:42:58 AM  comment []

Take your ipod swimming very often?  I take mine running so I guess I can imagine it ... 8:32:30 AM  comment []

Interesting buzz about the BBC.  They have a rather extensive site and program schedule about Beethoven.  The site looks great with lots and lots of relevant data. 8:28:20 AM  comment []