This Is How We Do It

“Thanks everyone – I’ve been a part of the Guild only a few months, but having a Pride March has to be one of the epic events I’ve experienced in the last 3 years of playing WOW. . . .”  

Characters:
Petitmort(70)

The Blackbird

Gettin’ my geek on waiting for the delivery of the closest thing that I’ll ever have to a child, besides maybe a boyfriend and cats, the HP Blackbird.  The Blackbird is the product of a collaboration between HP and gaming system boutique shop Voodoo and even at the low end (which is what I ordered), it looks to be a big fast beast of a gaming rig.

My last computer purchase was about 5 years ago, and it died a nasty, deep hardware death 3 weeks ago and my online life.has.been.hell ever since.  I’m actually very grateful for the loan of a VERY old computer from buds of mine, but playing WoW and surfing porn has been slow and very painful.  Hey! This gift horse has bad breath! I know. Sorry!

Not to jinx it before it gets here, but I went with the pretty and pricey Blackbird because it got CNET.com’s highest rating for a personal computer, ever, b) it is upgradeable with no proprietary parts and c) because it isn’t Dell, who is getting really bad press re: their customer service fuck ups.  Also, it just looks badass.

A sure sign you might need a new system is when your current one can’t load the promo site of the computer you want to own.  K, like so many things, that made sense in my head. Coffee first, then blogging.  Then checking the front door every few minutes to make sure, as they have so many times in the past, UPS doesn’t fuck up the delivery.

M2F ‘n F2M in MMORPG. WTF?

Perhaps this has happened to you or to someone you know: Two characters, one male and one female, are sitting together and enjoying each other’s company in their favorite MMORPG environment. After a bit of lively conversation, the male avatar decides to ask the all-important question:

Male Avatar: ASL?
Female Avatar: 25 M New York
Pregnant silence ensues.

Gender-bending. It happens all the time. Unless you play in a country like Korea, where game registration ID codes practically guarantee that the sex of the player’s character actually matches the player’s own sex, you’ve probably come across situations such as these. Reactions of players vary anywhere from curiosity to amusement to disgust.

Why do guys have female avatars, and why do gals have male avatars? Why is it even important to consider why?

K that thing about Korea is weird and creepy. The rest o’ the article is here.

Another WoW Minefield

Blizzard once again is attempting to walk a very fine line with regards to censoring player interaction. I rather lost respect (and my desire to play Warcraft. Apparently I’m not alone. One of the most popular keyword phrases that leads people from Google search to my site is the title of one of my entries Bored of Warcraft) after Blizzard’s badly bungled multiple stabs at forcing my guild The Spreading Taint, to change its name. Sadly they were eventually somewhat successful (though big kudos to the Taint as they expand into a third guild to accomodate their growing membership).

So this article interests me, especially about Blizzard’s desire to prevent the disciplined parties from publicising Blizzard’s action. And any article that starts off

Nothing ruins a quest to smite the dreaded Talon Lord of Sethekk Halls like seeing an troll and an orc simulating childbirth and peeing on each other

is worth a read anyway.

WoW is 4 Women

Anyone else find this headline/angle more than a little odd?

1 in 3 World of Warcraft Players Attracted to One Another

By: Psych Central Senior News Editor
on Wednesday, Aug, 22, 2007

Reviewed by: John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
on August 22, 2007 at 1:15 pm

New research suggests that online interactive game-playing, such as World of Warcraft, is not only “highly socially interactive” for most players, but on average, 1 in 3 players have found themselves to be attracted to another player.

The study found approximately 75% of players made “good friends” with someone else in the game environment.

Over 42% of women and 26% of men who play online games find themselves attracted to another player, the researchers found.

Nearly 40% said they would discuss sensitive issues with their online gaming friends, issues they wouldn’t discuss with their real-life friends. Women were more likely to do so then men.

The study, led by Helena Cole and Mark Griffiths from Nottingham Trent University in the U.K., was based upon a survey answered by 912 self-selected massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMOPRG) players from 45 countries.

Most subjects who answered the survey were male (70%) and played World of Warcraft (49%). City of Heroes, Ultima Online, EverQuest, Lineage II and RuneScape players were also represented in the survey. World of Warcraft was more popular among women participants (60.5%) versus male participants (44%). World of Warcraft is the largest MMOPRG today, with over 9 million players.

The survey found that the average time spent playing a game online was nearly 23 hours/week.

The mean average age of people who answered the survey was 23.6 years old and 28.2% of survey respondents were over 25 years old.

Researchers said that online game players revealed that that they feel “more themselves” online because they are not judged by their appearance, gender, age, or other personal information.

The study showed that nearly 43% of participants had met with online friends in real-life situations. The researchers wrote that this suggests that online gaming is a social activity or facilitates social activity. Ten percent of players said they developed a physical relationship with another game player.

Male players make more friends online, but females are more likely to meet with online friends.

Only 1 in 5 participants believed their online game playing had a negative impact in relationships with people whom they did not play with.

The researchers concluded, “The virtual world that these games offer allows players to express themselves in ways they may not feel comfortable doing in real life because
of their appearance, gender, sexuality, age, or other factors. They also offer a place where teamwork, encouragement, and fun can be experienced.”

The study was published in the August 2007 issue of CyberPsychology and Behavior.

Bored of Warcraft

Bored of Warcraft and waiting for Warhammer. . .without a game going on, I tend to make up my own. My most recent is this uberlozer fest. . .

I open my gmail to a random email from ages ago, don’t read the email or who it is to or from, and then based soley on the contextual Google keyword ads to the right of my email, try and guess the context of the email.

It isn’t as easy as it sounds.  A brief email with the boyfriend recently produced this:

What Type of Mom Are You?
15 fun questions that will tell you what type of parent you are!
www.AreYouASlackerMom.com

What Causes Fibromyalgia?
Learn More About the Causes of Fibromyalgia at Revolution Health.
RevolutionHealth.com

Night Sweats ?
Night Sweats can be stopped See what our customers have to say
www.bedfan.com

What Causes Fatigue?
Solve the underlying cause of fatigue in women, naturally.
www.womentowomen.com

More about…

Lupus Symptoms »
Causes of Fatigue »
Severe Headaches »
Insomnia Causes »

About these links

Gaming FTW

Game-Playing Eclipses Social Networks, Online Video

By K.C. Jones
InformationWeek

Fri Aug 17, 4:10 PM ET

Social networks like MySpace and viewing short video clips on YouTube may be extremely popular, but online games eclipse both as America’s favorite Internet activity, according to a new report.

The research and analysis company Parks Associates announced Friday that games are still the most popular Internet activity in the United States. The report, “Casual Gaming Market Update”, found that 34% of U.S. adult Internet users play online games each week, compared with 29% who watch short online videos and 19% who visit social networking sites.

So, gaming is up from 19% in the second quarter last year. Thirteen percent of Internet-connected households reported viewing video clips and visiting social networking sites in the second quarter of last year.

“Despite the growing popularity of YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, gaming remains the king of online entertainment, driven largely by casual gaming activities,” James Kuai, a research analyst at Parks Associates, said in a prepared statement. Kuai said that gaming also has business advantages.

“Unlike sites for social networking and video streaming, which rely solely on advertising revenue, casual gaming has more mature and heterogeneous revenue models, including Web-based and in-game advertising, try-before-you-buy, subscriptions, and micro-transactions,” he said.

The report found that year-over-year growth rate for frequent online gamers was 79%, while the growth rate for users of social networking stood at 46%, but users of video streaming sites increased by 123%.

“The casual gaming industry cannot rest on its laurels,” Kuai said. “In order to counter the growing competition from other online activities, the industry needs to continue to grow its fan base and find ways to better monetize its existing audience.”

See original article on InformationWeek.com

Eating My Veggies

You’d think, on paper, that the 4th Annual Rough Trade Summer Meatspace social would be rowdier than Gboy’s school cohort bbq, and may be in some ways it was.

Even though, I was later reminded, there was an orgy of sorts after the Rough Trade bash, at no point during it did Gboy shake his booty like he did here with a school chum.

Also, at no point during the gay gamer festivities did an intoxicated classmate of Gboy’s let us stick uneaten veggie n’ dip veggies up his arse. Nor did at any point I eat the parsley out of said classmate’s ass either.

Rough Traders, despite the following feel-up fest and all-night grope-a-thon, must feel cheated.

For which I humbly apologize.

Fuckin’ Philly

Some hater asshat in Philly attacked Gaygamer.net, posting hate speech on the forums, and throwing the site offline with denial of service attacks.

Article here, with excerpt from gaygamer.net owner. . .
Hello, faithful readers: As you might have noticed, we have had some connection issues in the last few days and now the site is completely down. I’m sad to say that we have been the target of homophobic hackers. Thankfully, they didn’t get to our database so all of our stuff is still in tact. At this point we are jut waiting for our service provider to ensure everything is good before putting the server back online. Hopefully, this will be resolved by the end of this weekend, so please keep checking back. You can’t keep a good gay gamer down, so we’ll be back before you know it, serving up all the sassy game content you can handle. Cheers, Fruit Brute

In Praise of Geeks

From observing (and being one) for such a very long time, I’m in full agreement with a Wired article about
The 10 Real Reasons Why Geeks Make Better Lovers.

My favorite being. . .

Geeks know kinky people

Geeks haven’t just seen a variety of positions, kinks and fetishes in blue movies. They know (or are) people who enjoy those things, so they don’t dismiss entire categories of sexual interests as the sole province of a bunch of weirdos in San Francisco.

It’s hard to sustain prejudice and bias against an abstract group when you develop relationships with individuals and discover they’re just like you. It doesn’t matter if they dress up like ponies, or refuse to conform to a societal idea of gender norms, or eat pancakes for dinner. Geek lovers know better than to try to impose their sexual preferences or standards on others — including your friends — and are more likely to love and let love.