Archive of ‘MMORPGs’ category

20
Jul
2020

All for the misdeeds of a comparative few.

categories: MMORPGs, personal; word count: 450 words

I’m still getting used to the idea of having amber sunglasses (80% sunglass, amber-tinted) that I can put on, and have been figuring out when the best times are to wear them, especially when I’m indoors. Figuring out when to wear them when I’m outside has been a lot simpler, especially when it’s not dark outside. And as much as I know that they’re not going to be some kind of miracle “catch-all” for my migraines, having something useful like this in the tool box isn’t going to hurt, especially when I have a neurologist hell bent on not adhering to my last neurologist’s plan of care for me when, at the very least, I was prescribed one thing that actually helped, especially at more than one dose (Fioricet). When I see my neurologist for my second visit with her, I’m going to ask if I can be put on an anti-depressant as a maintenance medication since those have some efficacy in reducing migraine frequency and mitigating migraine severity, and the olanzapine that she has me continuing to single-dose for severe migraines does seem to be helping a bit. If she’ll replace the lisinopril that she currently has me trialing with that, I would be happier than I am now, because that medication has had me gain some weight as a result of moving up to the dose that she wants me to take, and I’ve been told that having that come about as a result… isn’t exactly the best (it’s worth changing meds).

I’m also still bothered that you can’t have your Homunculus auto-attack for you in Ragnarok Online now, even if you’re obviously not away from the computer letting it have a free-for-all, which has been against Gravity rules since the start of time when they were even introduced. This incapacitates the alchemist(/geneticist/creator) class beyond making them a glorified swordsman without the specialized skills or just someone who can make and throw potions and Vend. As I’ve mentioned, this punishes everyone who played and enjoyed playing the class for the misdeeds of a comparative few who were eventually going to get banned anyway, because no one who ever afkmists ever really does so long enough not to get caught.

I also found out that Ragnarok Online 2 was essentially cancelled for not being popular (or maybe lucrative?) enough, although it’s still available as a game… I guess it’s just not going to be updated beyond a certain point. I did download it off of Steam for nostalgia’s sake, although forced-WASD has never been and will never be my type of gameplay, and I do intend on giving it a brief whirl when the kids are in bed sleeping…

12
May
2020

There’s always this… lull when it comes to games.

categories: MMORPGs, RPGs; word count: 291 words

I’m beginning to lose some of the zest that I had for Animal Crossing when it first came out, but I do check the game before I go to bed each night provided that I did not check it at some point during the day. This is one of the reasons that I do not want to “commit” to MMORPGs that you have to pay a monthly subscription to play, because at some point in time I know that I am going to lose interest in it, and I would just rather not take the risk of paying every month to play something that my brain is eventually, sooner rather than later, going to go, “Hey! You need to take a break from this!”. Because I know me, and it’s something that happens every time with every game. I need to be able to walk away from it at some point. Brain does what brain wants when it comes to games, especially MMOs. There is no sweet-talking brain into “committing to the cause”. I have not found an MMO yet that I have committed to long-term without there being some break.

I suppose this may have come about, or been cemented in my head, from playing games with the wrong kind of people over the years. Now don’t get me wrong, I do love games. I love playing them around migraines, with the right medication, when I can. But I have managed to play them with the wrong people over the years, so this may have become a bit of a protective mechanism that my brain can not shake, even if I am now playing them with the right people. So if you are one of those “wrong” people, thanks, seriously.

04
Mar
2020

And as a conclusion to my last two posts.

categories: MMORPGs; word count: 507 words

What actually made me report the private server that I have been mentioning in my last two entries was the fact that I had actually stumbled upon sensitive, secret information regarding two of the server’s GMs — it came out that two of the server GMs were using money that had been donated to the server to pay their rent, utilities, and effectively making “being GMs” their full-time jobs, all while failing to divulge that they were doing this with the money that was being donated, and that they wanted to keep this a secret (at least for as long as they could). Given how popular this server still was, and how unethical I knew this was, I made the decision to report the private server (because hosting a private server is not legal) to Gravity’s Korean branch, and I gave them actual proof of what the GMs were doing with the donation money. Apparently, within two weeks of me actually doing this, it came out that Gravity had issued this server a formal cease and desist letter, and they responded to this by shutting down the server. I observed from the sidelines, not saying a word. I suppose it would have been different if the GMs in question had said anything, anything at all, about what they had really been doing with the donation money, but they never once did this. It was apparently supposed to remain a secret for as long as they could prevent it from getting out. (And I don’t think it actually “came out” for years until someone off-handedly mentioned on a message board that yes, two of the GMs were actually using donation money to pay their rent and pay their bills, which I myself had known for years because I still knew people that played that server in… shall we say, positions of authority.)

Some time later, the server made an attempt at “coming back” with a base of operations in another country, apparently an attempt at circumventing the cease and desist with the actual server’s data being located in another country. However, it could never break a player base of 1,000 people when at one point in time between 3,000 and 4,000 people were logged on at any one time. After awhile, it faded back into obscurity. And to be honest, I did feel bad about reporting the server, because a lot of people did play it, and there were a lot of good players on it. But the corruption with that one server seemed like it would honestly never end, and it seemed like it would not stop getting worse. And since this involved people’s money in the form of donation in… extremely questionable ways, I felt that I had no choice but to report the server to Gravity so that it could get dealt with in an ethical way. I felt like my hands were tied in the matter. This wasn’t just some small screw-up, or even a series of small screw-ups, that was occurring. All of these were really large.

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