Well, okay, not really propaganda, but I've come up with a few ideas to maybe give the visitors lectures a little more viewers. It's pretty simple -- spam! 
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So this posting is a bit late, I apologize for that (been trying to catch up with a lot of schoolwork). 

Southland Tales! What a great film. One point of interest in the film is the small bit where they feature a bag of thumbs, which is never properly explained in the film. In the graphic novel, however, one can find a larger explanation of the thumbs -- which still doesn't fully make sense to me. The idea is that in the future (the tangent future, so... the "now" but "there" I guess) thumb prints are used for identification in voting. This process seems simple enough; the idea of a free-floating voter isn't exactly new, but they complicate things when they say that each thumb can vote hundreds of times in different areas. 
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Well, I haven't made a post on this for the new Lennox seminar yet because it completely slipped my mind. Also I figured if anyone was interested in who I was they'd check and realize that I've already made two previous introduction posts; one for Games for the Web and one for Hackers!

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So! I'm paired with Hitsuzen on this one, we created something majestic.

Well, I opened up Second Life and played around with it in the labs for the first time ever, and lemme tell you...

In the labs, it was terrible. Terribad. Terribadle. I blame the lag for this. It just infuriates me to try to move, wait 2 seconds for my keystrokes to register, and another two for my character to STOP moving when I want him to. It made learning the camera angles and basic movement impossible. Even searching for less crowded places to teleport to was impossible -- the search took forever. Didn't really help I only got to try it out on day 2, so I downloaded it and installed it on my own machine in the dorms, where...

It still lagged, kinda. Takes awhile for each place to load once there. I think I just needed to teleport and wait a good five minutes, whilst eating a sandwich or something. I checked out a few techno clubs, that was pretty cool. It's really hard to get used to the interacting, and HELL it is hard to edit your character at first. I need to find a way to change my basic texturing, or I'll never get rid of this stupid orange hair (and yeah, omfg, I created a "Hair" piece over it and now I can't remove that either. Hurray for orange hair with black spiky hair on top. I look idiotic). So anyway, I checked out some of those, it was interesting. I went over to some "romantic" spot and saw couples dancing with classical music, that was kinda cute. Then I had some real fun and decided to check out the red light districts and illegal stuff that was mentioned in class, and...

WOW. I'll admit one of the first things I saw when I teleported was a furry, which I found hilarious, because earlier that day when I mentioned I was trying out Second Life one of my friends asked if I was just going to turn into some furry and disappear in my room forever. So I checked out a few mature dance areas, which were hilarious. Action balls for a guy getting oral pleasures (tipping, of course, is encouraged if not mandatory), pole dancing, and some of the most hilarious avatars I've seen so far were in these areas. None of the usual stuff, but, like, well, I can't even describe it. Some dude had glowing pants he was dancing with that made some kind of shimmer everywhere he moved... some chick was wearing vines for her outfit (which was for sale, of course)... I'll have to revisit them for some more investigation. Purely educational. The last thing I visited was a movie theater, which played full length films. Needless to say I found this theater in a strip club, so the films were of the mature content, but they actually STREAMED on the screen for the avatar to watch! Hilarious. I'll have to post more about what I find later.

Yep, my project is done. And it'd be beautiful if I could load it onto my desktop via Scratch's website. Hiitsuzen says she can, so I'll be a-postin' the link here anyway.

It's a game. You're a cat. Eat mice. Cat follows your mouse. Running over mice means the mice speed up, get smaller, and your own speed increments as well. Get zero to win! Except the point of the game is to find out a faster way to get zero.

Hint: What's the game's name? What's that aboot? Konami wat? Can I be a bigger hin---

Seriously easy to figure out, just leave about half a second between each part of the cheat code.





Woohoo.

Edit: Apparently it stops loading at a full bar. Will try to fix on the morrow after speaking with le prof.

I still don't really know the direction I want to take my project in. The problem, I think, is I just keep trying to explore the bounds the program has. to offer and trying to tie that in with my previous programming experience. I finally got into making variables and stuff, and working with operators, which is pretty interesting.

It seems the more I play with Scratch the more I can figure out. I'm finally figuring out functions, but still trying to structure my scripts like I would a program (with calls and whatnot) but it seems to take on more of a parallel aspect to it. Seems I need to run the program and have everything execute at once, then wait for user input, which isn't something I'm really used to. But at the same time, in a way it's easier to work with.

What I have left to learn? A lot. User input, multiple sprites and scene changes, everything, really. It's like re-learning a new language that incorporates a GUI into it. Kind of like visual basic... but even more so with the visual aspect. I want to mess around with keyboard input and see if I can make it flow smoother than what I've previously done. That'll be cool.

What an interesting program. I've actually never played with Scratch before, although now I might just mess around with it in my spare time. It kind of gives you an idea of what coding is, what with the logic parameters (if you got into it enough to do a while loop or maybe a for statement) and the action commands. True, it's only slightly higher than coding Visual Basic, but WAY more fun to play with.

And yes, that's important. Why? Like Leila L. mentioned in her post, diving into C can just be overwhelming. Well, while I completely disagree with her on that point (haha C was easy Leila and you know it) it was just boring. BORING. After making a computer say "Hello world!" it went downhill. However, with a cute little program like Scratch, you can make a cat dance all around your screen and at the same time, learn a bit of computer logic. It's not teaching you to code in any way, but it teaches you to think in the way required to program. I loved playing with the cat sprite, and hope we get to do some more so I can look further into the program and see how complex it gets.

And the infinite "meow" loops had me cracking up. Hard.

So. Computer programming. I've had some first hand experience with it, I guess, being a computer science major. The context? Well, coding for my major. I guess I messed around with visual basic way back when when everyone was thinking it was "so cool" (click the button and the CD tray opens! WOAH.) and slowly upgraded to HTML, some scripting, and finally learning C, C++, C#, java, whatever. I've messed around with J, which was... vomit-inducing, the language was so cryptic. Seriously, ask anyone that has even seen a line of J (or in J terms, "an entire freaking program"). Also messed with some Perl, PHP, Ruby, and Python.

Things I associate with programming... utter boredom comes to mind. There's nothing like spending hours figuring out some function only to get a seg fault, and then spending hours debugging that stupid error. I mean, when everything works, programming is cool. You actually get to see your stuff WORK. But when does everything work? Never. Debugging takes hours upon hours upon cases of beer upon hours more. Drives me insane to code--don't question why I'm majoring in computer science, I do love computers and'll get into the field, but hopefully not involving coding. I can't say most of the adjectives I feel are necessary to truly describe coding on this blog, as I believe there are certain restrictions to using inappropriate language.

Programming, when finished, is cool. You get a great feeling when a program compiles and runs correctly, and you can see the computer doing exactly what you wanted it to. Programming, while debugging, is horrendous.

Just talking about it is making me half-nauseous and half-tired, so I'm ending this one here.

So I was visiting the website Lifehacker (totally on my own accord) and the first thing I noticed that really bummed me out was that I apparently could not combine the search features "Most Popular" and "Downloads". So I can't find the most popular downloads? That really grinds my gears.

Nevertheless, I persevered onwards and browsed throughout the pages until I hit something that caught my eye and stopped my scrolling immediately. "Process Explorer" was its name, and apparently process exploring was its game. Just from the look of it I fell for it; the pale colors, the sleek look of the processes all lined up, the simplicity of the UI... Well, lets just say I downloaded it.

So upon installing this application I noticed that I didn't need to install this application. Yep, just an executable file with a help file and a Eula. So upon running this application the first thing I saw that took my breath away was all of my processes, lined up with easy to read details. CPU usage, descriptions, and company names flashed out at me left and right. I could clearly see everything. If I hovered over a process, I'd see the full path of the file that ran it along with the services ran by said process. They were even sorted by what managed what! My winlogon.exe processes were all sorted out; below, my explorer.exe. One sweet feature was right clicking on a process and having the option "Search Online..." or Ctrl-M for a hotkey. This brings up the process name in a google search. For anyone that has tried looking up every process running on their machine to find that one stupid virus, you'll appreciate this feature. You can even show a list of all running DLL's on the machine.

I enjoyed playing with this thing. I'm keeping it. There's a handy feature to replace your task manager with it--I'll probably enable that so I can see this everytime I need to kill some process that's bugging me. I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy the Lifehacker website after I found a few wallpapers and random windows themes... seemed pretty plain until I noticed titles like "new firefox extension makes firefox look AWESOME" which had me laughing for some reason. I'll have to revisit the website later to find some more programs.



PS: Sorry for the artifacts.

Bah, a post about the contents of my outdated PC and how much they cost. I have no idea how much they cost when I got them so I'll just ballpark each one.

So lets start off with the basics! My case is the Fatality model from Zalman. Great slots for quick insert/removal of hard drives, can hold up to six (hell yes) and has hella great air flow. And it just looks cool. Supposedly this'll run you up $265.60 from this website, but I seem to recall getting it for $200.

http://www.plug-ins.net/product.php?productid=1368&cat=64&page=1

Next stop: motherboard. I've got the ASUS Striker Extreme in here, which seems to retail anywhere from $200 to $400 at this point. Pretty sure I paid $250. Love the MB.

http://usa.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=G7JoxzAEXsQwDt7G

On top of the motherboard, looks like I've only got 3 GBs of RAM... what the hell. Time to upgrade I guess. RAM is cheap as hell: 1 GB for what, $40 easy these days? So the RAM lets say (back then) was $50 per GB, there's another $150. The processor is an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700, 2.6GHz and 4MB L2 cache. This one cost around $500 when bought. Video cards... a NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT from back in the day that I throw my TV on for a third monitor sometimes, and a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT that I'm using dual DVI jacks for my current two monitors. The price of the 7600 I have no idea on. Like $200. The 8800 GT was more like $260. Uhh cutting it short (and skipping my sound card) is my 500 GB hard drive which sells for practically nothing these days; maybe $70.

In total? Lets guess $1630. I've got a 5.1 surround system as well but these aren't too expensive anymore. Hopefully upgrading RAM soon as well as video card and.. well, hell, everything.

The Short-Lived Wiz

 

            The name “Jonathan James” is known throughout the hacker world as one of the greatest hackers of all time. A mention of him will crop up in almost any famous hacker discussion, and his name and internet handle “c0mrade” are spoken with jealousy in the hacker community. On June 29^th and 30^th of 1999 Jonathan broke into thirteen computers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration located at their space flight center in Huntsville, Ala. He then proceeded to download some of their software and stole data from the systems, which led to a full three-week shutdown of a few of the infected computers. With the shutdown costs and hardware replacements, the Justice Department reported that over $40,000 of costs were incurred. Later in the late August to late October range, Jonathan broke into computers used by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an agency that monitors threats to the United States from all kinds of attacks (nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons in addition to regular conventional arms). While inside their network, Jonathan went ahead and caught over 3,300 messages and at least nineteen user names and passwords. Jonathan was arrested in September of 2000 for his crimes. How he was caught was not mentioned to the press, but his father speculates that their Internet service provider traced him through his connection. At sixteen years old, Jonathan James became the first juvenile to be sentenced federally to a term of six months in prison. Later on, the judge reversed her decision and sentenced him to six months of house arrest, with probation until Jonathan turned twenty-one. In addition to the house arrest, he was banned from using a computer recreationally, and he was required to send letters of apology to NASA and the Department of Defense. Jonathan ended up breaking probation and was sent to a correctional facility for the six months.

 

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So, who works in clean rooms? Many people work in clean rooms to develop microchips. Computer scientists, for one, need the environment to work within the scale of microns. A lot of the work is performed by machines, which cut out the chip. Acids are then used to etch out the channels and lagoons that are later filled with metals to conduct electricity. A process engineer takes this chip and, while following the design, cut out unwanted sealant and develop the rest of it.

Their working conditions can be fairly intense. The problem lies in the fact that the room cannot have any external contaminates or particles, which forces the worker into a bunny suit. The problem here is the long process of putting one on; in countries where business is not as regulated as in the US, workers are often put on 12 hour shifts just to maximize their time in the room. The suits are airtight and hamper movement (as any full bodysuit would) which makes the conditions even harder. However difficult it may be, it is still necessary and workers have to get used to it.

Is this the sort of job I'd want to pursue after leaving college? Not at all. No way. Nope. The process of getting in and out of a bunny suit is enough to talk me out of it. Certain problems seem to arise for me... bathroom breaks? Sure, they could put a unit in the suit, but that doesn't seem like something I would want to get used to. Smoke breaks? You'd be fired for wasting company time, spending at least half an hour at a time for a five minute smoke. I will definitely be looking for a more laid back job; working in a clean room just seems like too much.

Hm... I'm sure I already wrote one of these for Games for the Web on this blog, but I guess I'll go again.

I'm Chris D. Majoring in computer science and whatnot. Uh... I love playing video games, drinking, partying, and generally having a good time (who doesn't?). I'm also into some Internet groups and cultures. I work for ITS-PC Maintenance fixing computers around campus, so I guess if anyone has a hardware issue gimme a call.

I'm interested in hacking communities and Internet gangs. The whole concept is pretty cool, imo, so I'm taking the class to hopefully delve further into it. I'm also hoping we cover social engineering and identity theft, as common as they are these days. 

I'm sure we're all going to get semi-acquainted over the semester, which is great because I have no idea what else to write in here. I'll see you all in class / on the web!

-Chris D

Ahhh the bias debate. How can one remain truly unbiased whilst studying a culture? I'm here to say that it is impossible. Yeah, that's right, I just blew your mind twice. The problem is middle ground. How does one know when to stop accepting or rejecting all the views of the culture and stay above it all? 

Since everyone else is blogging about furries and furry culture, I won't. Boring. It's been covered. Furries are "shocking" when first introduced to a person as a concept, to be sure. Wait, I'm not talking about furries, that's right.

I'd rather talk about Anonymous. There's an Internet subculture so deep that most haven't even heard about it, but it exists all around you. People posting anonymously on imageboards and forums (namely one) that band together and treat everyone with disrespect, including themselves. They perform raids on random people via the Internet, which often result in the defamation of a person and can lead to their lives being ruined.

I'd like to tell a story so everyone gets the idea. There once was a man named Chris Forcand. He was an upstanding Canadian citizen and a devout Christian. Chris believed that the most important things in life were God and "meeting a nice girl" who was "younger than him." Unfortunately, "younger than him" usually meant girls in their early teenage years -- ie, Chris Forcand was a pedophile. On October 14th of 2007, he met a 13-year old "Jessica" in an MSN chat room and proceeded to try to lure her up to his place for some activities. What Chris didn't know was that Jessica was Anon in full pedocatch mode. Anon kept up the pretense, pretending to be this young girl, and Chris eventually sent "Jessica" nude shots of himself after coming home from Church (BRB, church).

It gets better! From the bits of information Chris gave out about himself, Anon found his documents and praise blog. They spammed the blog with transcripts of the chat and Chris' pictures. They called Chris nonstop on his house line, and also spammed all the info to his local church. To finish it off nicely, this rather large group of Internet vigilantes informed the FBI, Chris' local authorities, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Chris was arrested on December 5th of 2007, just a month and a half after the deed, for multiple sexual and weapons related charges.

In this instance, it can be seen that this online group acted for good. A pedophile was arrested and brought to justice. However, what must be understood is that raids do not occur for good; they occur for laughs. It was funny to ruin Chris' life, so they did it. If Chris hadn't been a pedophile, but was noticed by Anon anyway, the same thing could have happened regardless.

SO! Story told, Anon barely explained but there's no time for that. Maybe I'll write the paper on them. Anyway, when you first come into this culture you'll be shocked, and VERY biased. Anon purposefully ignores all real life morals; they throw them away and go based on one rule: "do it for the lulz" (lulz => a corruption of lol). Internet trolls are spawned, and hate is thrown all around. Anything you've ever been told not to do is encouraged. It's such a flip of normal society that it's impossible to not be biased. So what do you do about it, to understand how things work and perform an unbiased study of it?

Well, like I said, you can't. I'll explain why in a sec. First though, some basic techniques I'm sure everyone has posted are "lurking moar" (very important), the reference to lurking behind on the sidelines and watching the community post and whatnot. Read the threads and learn the lingo. You can learn a huge amount from just lurking for a day or so. Another venture is slowly starting to post, and reading comments people make back at your post. As you learn, post more and more and you'll get into it. And here lies the problem!

If you start posting and understanding the morals (or immorals, really) of this community, you'll subconsciously start to accept them. It's psychology: live in an environment and you become like them. Either one of two things will happen: 1) You will remain biased against the community, if only a little, because of how "wrong" everything seems, or 2) You will accept the community and your bias will flip--you'll be defending them in your writings. The middle ground seems impossible to find. I noticed in our writings about MMOs that the same thing happened; people were defending MMOs or talking bad about people that didn't understand. They surely didn't mean to act like this, but it leaks out either way. Being biased towards or against something is how the human mind works; there's really no getting around it.

Basically, to sum it up, you can search for the most unbiased opinions in yourself by accepting and joining a community, but trying your hardest to stay apart at the same time. It's quite the conundrum, and good researchers have to really work to reach it. Ah well, good luck in the endeavor nonetheless!

So, as per instruction, I accessed the Terra Nova site and began exploring the various postings of the users. The first article I stumbled upon was interesting -- entitled "Who plays, how much, and why? Answers.", this article talked about how a group of researches has been granted access to Everquest II's full data logs. I like the idea of studying why people play so much or so little in these games, as I am an avid gamer myself. This could influence my paper towards the area of simply: "Why?" Why play MMOs? Basically, what I felt after reading this article was that a useful study would be to interview people on their reasons behind playing and coallate that with their actual play time, to determine what makes for a more "serious" gamer rather than a casual one.

Another article that caught my eye (honestly, because of the title) was from back in March 2005. "Designing for the 'Bitch-goddess Success'" talks about how virtual worlds might encourage more failure. I thought this would tie in nicely with the "reasons behind playing" topic, as success vs failure would undoubtedly be a reason that people keep playing / play more than casually. The article itself talks about how there aren't real penalties in games, just little falls and rises to get people to keep playing. The problem is easy: there will always be losers, but as long as they're paying customers, what should the company do to them? You can't just oust them from the game because they're terrible or don't understand it, because you still want them to continue paying. The article was cool, and I actually enjoyed reading it. Nate Combs wrote it, if anyone's interested in looking it up.

Reading through the TN archives was fun and informative. I think I'll need to do some more of this to finish off my idea of what my paper will be about...

I found the Vanguard site pretty useful in finding out about guilds. In my previous experience from WoW, top guilds were just "known," and social guilds appeared and disappeared constantly. This new way of searching for guilds and finding out about them via the website is great.

I looked through a lot and decided on the "Most members" for my top 3. There's a couple reasons for this; 1) such guilds would probably be very social, with so many active players 2) they won't be raiding guilds [as those limit their members to the elite] and 3) they would be the easiest to join and mix in with. Because of this, I found The Platinum Order, Oracles of Vanguard, and Silky Venom to be my top choices.

I decided on The Platinum Order. It has more than 2x the members than any of the other guilds, and their website clearly states that though they raid and craft, they are neither a raiding nor crafting guild. They also point out that a typical guild activity is joking around in guild chat, which would really provide a focus for paper ideas and just be fun to play around with. Because of this, they seem to be above Oracles and Venom in terms of this assignment and gameplay. I plan to apply as soon as possible and get involved in their activities.

(Click on the image for higher quality)

Well, there it is. I'm pretty sure by now I could've guessed that my main mentality was that of the killer aspect (87%), which means I like to beat other players in a PvP style environment and am very competitive. I'm not only competitive in killing, however, I am also fairly competitive in leveling and getting items no one else has. I believe that this ties back into the killing aspect, because to be better than someone else you not only need skill but gear (debatable by some). My achiever mentality was a stunning 67%, which I think fits perfectly with being a killer.

Exploring means little to me unless I can get something out of it. New areas for experience, new items, new players/mobs, any of those make it worth it--terrain and scenery, however, do not. My last aspect was socializing, and I can't emphasize more how little I care about that. I scored 13% for a reason: to be a killer and achiever you need to focus on the game and not much else. There's never really a point in a game where you should just be siting around talking, as there's always farming to be done or things to accomplish to get better. 

Bartle's test says I should play: well, MMO's. World of Warcraft was top on the list, which fits just right. DAoC follows, then FFXI, Everquest, and Guild Wars. All of these games focus on killing to gain in level and power, and are all games that fit my gaming type.

I really can't decide on this Bartle typology. I think most of the types have too much in common to be able to truly differentiate from one another. For instance, killing and achieving. You have to achieve to be able to kill, so does it not make sense that the two would be very closely related? Also, to achieve (against the computer) one will have to socialize to form groups that can best even the toughest enemies. Exploring too is required for any of the above: should you want to level, talk to new people, or get new items, you will first have to find a new area to work in. Even as such, I still think that the test shows some true aspects (it sure has me pegged) of gamers and should be valued as a way to classify gamers.

Here's some links to Vanguard-related stuff with a short description on each. Hope they help! (Forums are really useful for questions/help/advice on the game)

First off, I think anything that involves real life money in games weakens the game itself. The game makes up a virtual world where one can escape into, not buy his way into. It brings in real life effort and money, and unbalances the entire game. It undermines the skill and reward system the MMOs set in place to reward people for their hard work, and instead cheats the hard workers by allowing the rich players to simply buy their skill and gear. Some games I've played--private RO servers, for instance--had certain "god items" one could only get by donation. Without said items, regular players could never rise to the skill/gear level of the donators, simply because of the unfairness of god items. As I said before, it unbalances the game. Eventually, regular players all dropped out of the game, because the donators ruled the world, and what's the point of a game you can never win?

What happened in that private RO server is simple psychology and can be applied whenever cash comes into play in games. Certain players lack the patience to learn, or the capacity, and instead resolve to buy their way to the top. Real players get shunted aside, and the world is ruined. It is something all games should be careful of, to not succumb to greed in a donation sort of system.

Now, there's another way money is involved in games that isn't just buying gear -- it's buying characters. Really, anything can be bought these days. You could buy a powerleveling service, gear, in-game currency, an entire character, anything. The problem with buying characters is that these new high level characters have no idea how to play their class. Leveling up is a great way for a player to learn how to play his class. At max level, players without any sort of skill or class knowledge will only end up hurting the groups they join. A high level player is expected to know at least how to play a little bit -- you can't get to that level without learning something (unless you buy the character). This floods the game with unskilled players and hurts groups, which can ruin anyone's fun.

I believe that money in game is always a bad idea. In my opinion, a game and real life should be left far apart. By working RL money into this equation, it appears to me that we are blurring the boundaries between games and life--boundaries that should be left strong for good reasons.

PS: I left the starting island, and the rift system is pretty cool. Also, mounts at level 10? Neat.

    Well, we had our first Vanguard gaming session, and I was pretty pleased. I enjoyed this starting location and group activity much more than the solo play I had previously experienced. The game appears to have a few flaws which were easily discovered (ie terrain glitches and broken mobs) that I hope were fixed in today's patch, because those always take away from the gaming experience. My only real complaint is the slowness of the game when compared to others, like WoW or RO. It looks like they valued graphics a lot more than gameplay, and it is apparent in the speed of casting or death of mobs. However, the game is still pretty fun.

    Honestly, when I started other games I had no idea what was happening. I didn't know hotkeys, shortcuts, the math behind it all, or how to use skills. Previous gaming experience, of course, gave me a clue as to what to do first, but each game is totally new in its own way. And you know what? I'm glad no one told me how it works. Now whenever I begin a game, I try out all the keys to understand the hotkeys, and end up reading all the tooltips for information. I'll go online and check the game's forums to see if users have anything interesting to say about classes or races, or gameplay mechanics, anything useful. It makes me more independent and takes away the need to ask for tips or help. Really, to get anywhere in a game, you really have to understand it yourself to succeed.

    After saying all that... lets hand out some tips! N turns off names (in case you feel like making more screenshots). I haven't yet figured out all the hotkeys, but that isn't too hard, just try them yourself. I believe a monster 2 levels up can be killed by a player with some skill, though perhaps not too easily. A key in grinding--repeatedly killing monsters to earn a flow of experience--is to kill monsters that you won't have any problems with. Try grinding on mobs (enemies) a level lower for quick killing. The distance meter next to the mob's level is extremely useful for casters, as you can be at the maximum range before you start to cast, thus giving you more time to inflict damage before the mob gets within melee range. I'm going to figure out damage and experience/death mechanics soon, so I'll have that up if anyone's interested.

    Really, I'll try to be helpful in class if anyone has a question. No question is a dumb question (just kidding, there are dumb questions and there's no question that I'll laugh if you ask them) so feel free to ask me anything. I always enjoy helping out. See y'all in four hours!

Hey guys!

    I'm Chris D, here to chronicle my adventures throughout the world of Vanguard. I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself before we begin with the game, so that you will get some sort of idea of the blogging that will follow. I've been an avid gamer since the early age of whenever I can first remember memories, from quitting Windows 3.1 to boot DOS games from floppy drives (5.25" floppy, a real floppy disk) to endless hours of Super Mario World and Donkey Kong on the Super Nintendo. My online gaming experience began mostly with a first-person shooter named Counter-Strike, and progressed onwards until I reached World of Warcraft.

    I started World of Warcraft when I was given a 60-day game card. I leveled a rogue, helped out by my level 60 real life friend, to the ranks of the raiders. I was into mostly solo play until I joined a small raiding guild, and then moved forwards to one of the best guilds on the server (almost 170 active players). We were raiding almost nightly, so there was really no time for meals and whatnot on the side. I was an officer for a few guilds which were successful, and a few that were not. Eventually, after one last guild fell apart, I drew back into solo play and eventually quit altogether. Because of this WoW experience, I'd call myself a learned player, and would like to help out anyone whenever I can in our Vanguard action. 

    As for ideas to research, nothing really jumps out of the blue to me that has not already been done. I was thinking about anonymity influencing behavior, leading to aggression and other behaviors towards strangers... but I am unsure if that topic could truly be explored because of the problem of game moderation. You're not truly anonymous if you're scared of being banned for saying something inappropriate or against the rules. I was also considering pursuing the diplomatic aspects of the game, as I have never really seen that before in any other game. I'm interested in how that works and the effects it will have on gamers. From Vanguard, I'd love to try end-game stuff, if we could make it that far. I'd also like to check out all the different aspects of this game, as it seems much larger (in terms of content) than any other game I've seen. Lastly, I'd like to have some fun with this.

   I'm still playing Aardwolf (hey, it's fun) so I'll probably write about that sometime. Really, when you learn all the math behind a game like World of Warcraft, it might as well be a MUD that's easier to find your way around in. Or not. Whichever, I'll type up some sort of review later! 

-PS: My usual handles are some variation of "blue." My main is usually Bluenowhere, but there's also Blueshooter, Bluepyro, whatever comes up. My sorcerer on Vanguard is Rednowhere, because I'm an idiot and Vanguard has some inane filter for rejecting names. Cya'll in game!