Then I started reading this article (opens in a new window) where MMObility interviews the developers from Illyriad, who have a game out that doesn’t use Flash.

It seems when they first started developing their game, they realized that many people don’t have Flash.  Those that do, only have a certain version.  I know that it can be difficult to remain backward compatible with many Flash applications.  I haven’t done serious designing in a few years, but I remember my (then) supervisor creating a Flash intro to a website we were working on.  It worked great on his computer.  Not so much on mine since I had an earlier version of Flash.

Now, you can use HTML5 to do much of what you would have used Flash to do.  Most of the newer browsers will support HTML5 without a problem.

That’ll leave many more options for the casual gaming sites, and hopefully get rid of some of the bugs in the games.

I’ve been thinking about my father a lot today.  One of my cousins on his side is a friend on Facebook, and more than my older half sisters, my cousin makes me think of Daddy.  Even after 7 years, I think of him and miss him.  I really wish he could meet my youngest 2 kids.  He never even really got to know my oldest son.  My nieces and nephew got to know him, but they’re not much younger than I am because my half sisters are much older.  One of my nieces is 6 months older than I am.  I watch my husband play with my youngest son, and I miss Daddy more.  My husband does some of the same things with our son that Daddy did with me.  My ex played different games with my oldest.  It probably doesn’t help that an old ex’s birthday just passed, and like myself, this person is a child of a deaf adult/parent.  Though both of his parents are/were deaf, and only Daddy was in my case.  Sad, I just started to call this person an old friend, but we haven’t talked since a dear friend of mine died in 2006.  That friend’s death left another hole in my life.  He was the one who encouraged me to keep at what I’m good at.  I haven’t been.  I know losing my friend was nothing compared to what his wife and kids lost, but I shared things with him that I tell few others, even now.  I’m not very good at letting people in to my personal life.  I’ll share some things and not others.

I’ve been looking at my list of goals for the year.  I’m making good progress on the health category.  I foresee that my blood pressure and other factors will be normalized by the end of the year, whatever normal is.

You could say I’m spending more time with family… because we’ve had 2 snow days in the lats 2 weeks.  But it’s not good enough.  I need to be making improvements in the time I spend in the evenings.  Ideally, if I can move like I want, I’d like to get a bike with a trailer for myself and the youngest, then have his big sister ride her bike so we can all get some movement in.

The new job… I’ve been spending so much time researching what I want to do.  My goal was an hour a day, and I’m getting there, but it’s not the easiest to find the time sometimes.  I guess anything worthwhile will require a lot of effort on my part, huh?  Since I’ve strongly disliked my job for more than 3 years, I need to do something about the situation.

No, this post isn’t going to be about what you’d think at first.  There was actually an article on Yahoo! news about getting married online.  That people are getting married in person, then having their characters in online games get married on the game.  Yahoo! is treating it as something new.

I guess they don’t count weddings on MUDs since they’re not graphic MMOs.  Yet, I know they were having weddings on Apoc before I started playing there in ’94.  I remember playing Realms of Despair in ’95 or ’96 and they had weddings on there as well if I remember correctly.  It’s been a few years now.

After reading the article, the only thing I saw that stuck with me was the link to the YouTube video where they held the wedding on a PVP/PKill server – I think on World of Warcraft.  I giggled a little because I remember how upset I used to get on Apoc.  They may not have allowed player killing except on certain nights, but stealing from other players was allowed more often.  And of course, if memory serves, one of the … I won’t say best PThieves, but definitely one of the most prolific was played by none other than SaTaN himself (or the guy who also played the character on Apoc named SaTaN).  I often wonder how he’s doing, and some of the other higherups that were around when Shar was a little mort.

Now that Mozilla spellcheck has gone crazy.  It’s bedtime.  Laterness.

The question remains, since Apoc used to be my place to escape, why don’t I log on more frequently?

When I went so long without Internet last year, I allowed my characters to rent-die (don’t tell me about MUDs that don’t have rent, I’ve tried them and lost interest).  After they rent-died, I figured I might as well reroll anyway.  The characters were over 50 and just getting old.  Plus, my thief was only level 11.

So now I have a dilemma, my cleric is level 12 or so, but I’m having trouble getting the stats I want for an AP (Anti-Paladin).  With few people on much of the time, I’m not sure if I should continue to try to roll an AP or to try to roll a Thief since that’s what I’m now most familiar with playing.

I’m thinking AP still, even though I won’t be able to make the same types of runs that I made with the Thief.  I think perhaps I should try to roll an AP this weekend while I’m designing my new site that didn’t get done last weekend.  If I don’t get the stats I want, maybe I should consider Thief after all.

Work is getting more interesting, but it may be a year before we know anything definite about what’s going to happen.  That means a year of doing what I’ve been doing… I can manage that.  The longer I work, the more I can get put aside in case I lose my job, and/or the more bills I can pay off so I have that many fewer bills if I lose my job.  It’ll all work out, or it won’t.  So instead of worrying, I’m trying to focus on my writing… or finding other places to write since the place I normally write is very slow in the summer. 

Eventually, things will work out as they should, or they won’t.  Severance packages at other facilities they’ve closed have been as little as 1 week of severance pay for each year working for the company.  Considering this is one of the biggest employers in the area, it’ll be interesting to see how the economy in the area fares with these changes.  I feel bad for the visible head of the company… one of the founders.  He was no longer running the company, the next generation was running the company.  I suspect all they saw was dollar signs.

All the drama at work has the added benefit of making me realize how lucky I’ve been over the years.  One of my coworkers has been through a large number of mergers, some of these mergers have meant job loss.  This is my first time facing this type of situation. 

It’s best to let go of the worry.  Nothing I do can change what’ll happen to myself or my coworkers.  All I can do is be sure that I don’t backstab anyone just to keep my job.  Backstabbing others is not the way I’d choose to save my job.  I’ rather lose my job and someone else keep theirs in that situation.  Because I’m not sure I could handle the guilt… besides, something always comes along, and all I have to do is focus on writing to get more income on top of any unemployment I’d get…

Time to sleep.  Hopefully I haven’t bored anyone too much lol.

Funny Videos

 When I think about a game snob, I think about how someone who plays a time intensive game like World of Warcraft might think that someone who plays a game like Bejeweled isn’t really a gamer.  Bejeweled doesn’t seem to take the level of skill that WoW does.  What about someone who plays computer games feeling that someone who plays console games isn’t a gamer?  I’ve seen that myself.  My husband easily gets addicted to playing Need for Speed, but I never considered him a gamer because he didn’t play any computer games.  Of course part of my condescension might just be because I don’t have the hand-eye coordination to play video games.  Spyro is about my speed.  With the cheat codes to get unlimited lives

 So, though my husband plays console games, and Yahoo! pool, I don’t consider him a gamer.  Is that being a snob?  How is that different from someone who plays WoW looking down on me because I play a text based game, or even because I only play a couple of hours a night? 

 Is it all interrelated to how much a person knows about computers?  I mean I’m a computer geek, my husband only knows enough about computers to be dangerous.  My friend who used to game was an artist, but also a computer geek.  His wife was a writer and only played online games because her husband did.  It’s a great way to help a relationship, but did that make her a gamer?  She played Asheron’s Call too.

 Oh yea, and I got an email from my brother after he read my blog… he used to play Dungeon Siege.  Does that make him a gamer?  Where is the line? 

 Is a gamer really different in any way than a non-gamer?  It seems to me that we all have addictions, just varying degrees of addiction.  Oh yea, and we’re not all interested in the same thing. That’d be boring if we were.

Since it’s almost midnight my time, I’d best try to sleep.  A dear friend of mine is going to comment on how late I’m up. 

If you have any comments on my interpreation of a game snob, feel free.  I’m curious what others think, and whether they look down on others that do not play the same type of games…

*edit: I had to turn off the comments because I kept getting spam.

I struggled a bit with what to write about after my last few posts.  After all, I had said everything I could about women gamers.  Or had I?

 The article above talks about theoretical reasons for women gamers to be mostly social gamers.  In a way, I agree with what was said, as a general rule, women are more social than men.  However, I don’t entirely agree with what the author said because I am not the type that is interested in soap operas.  Granted, I’ll admit, I do read romance novels, but the ones I prefer are the ones with a mystery involved.  A crime to be solved, an adventure to be had, something more intellectual than just girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy. 

 The stories I like the best though, are not romances at all.  They’re fantasy novels… the kind with dragons and elves.  Halflings and dwarves.  Or magic.  JK Rowling, Mercedes Lackey, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey.  If you were to look at my bookshelves, those are the books that you’d find.  Well, then I have some that lean more toward science fiction.  Especially some of Anne McCaffrey’s, she does both fantasy combined with science fiction. 

 Back to my topic though, one thing I’ve found is that a lot of times, women who are online tend to be rather defensive about being women.  I asked one person that I MUD with whether she was actually female, and she said that I could ask a couple of other people who would verify that she was.  Odd, I prefer to take peoples word for it.  Especially when there’s nothing extra they’d get out of lying to me.  I mean I fully admit I’m female.  A guy playing a female character isn’t going to get more help from me than a guy playing a male character.  I just never saw the point.  I mean the other people live who knows how far.  Plus, I’m married.  I help when I feel I can help.  If I don’t have extra, I just don’t help.  Oh yea, unless you become my friend.  Then you’ll get as much help as I can give, all you have to do is ask.

Oh yea, and as for the misconception that female gamers don’t know as much about gaming as male gamers.  Try logging onto any game I play and you’ll find that misconception crushed.  I may not have the hand-eye coordination for a first person shooter, but I certainly can play Dungeon Siege, Diablo III, or even MUD as well as, if not better than a good many male gamers.

I don’t need to post a pic proving that I’m a female on the internet.  I am NOT a gamer’s girlfriend or sister.  I am a gamer, and I am proud of it.

I was looking for more about Women in Gaming because for some reason this topic has caught my imagination.  When I did a search on Google, I came up with several articles, one from Escapist Magazine.  In the article above, the girl that the author interviewed talked about how working in Gamestop, sometimes female gamers came in and assumed that she didn’t know anything about gaming. 

She talked about how sometimes gamers call themselves elite because they play a certain game, or in some cases played a certain game.  Like finishing Final Fantasy II with no errors on the game save.  Like thinking that they’re hard core because they play World of Warcraft.

That got me to thinking, do I think I’m a hard core gamer because I MUD?  I mean MU*ing (playing either MUDs or MUSHs) doesn’t attract the attention of the younger generation any more.  Why play text based games when you can play visual games like WoW or Everquest?  Yet my feeling is why pay for gaming when you can get the same result using your imagination?

Which of us is the game snob?  Or are both of us?  Someone who plays WoW and thinks that text based games are stupid?  Or the one who plays text based games because that’s what she used to play, and it uses her imagination more?

I’ve been trying to remember why I didn’t like EQ as much.  Granted, I didn’t play a long time because I got involved in some stuff in my personal life at the time.  BUT, I think I realized why I played Asheron’s Call more than I played Everquest.  With Asheron’s Call, I could practice making stuff, food or arrows.  Oh, and a really close friend and his wife used to play.  I think I was all about the social aspect even then.  Trying new things and exploring are both fun, but it’s more fun to socialize. 

In the article it also talks about how mothers would come in to get video games for their girls and would choose Bratz games over anything else.  So are we directed toward what others think we would like for games?  If I hadn’t had 3 older brothers, would I have even had an Atari?  I’m pretty sure I would have gotten into Sci-Fi/Fantasy still.  Though I would read all of the books my mother got for my brother, I picked up Caves of Steel on my own.  Oh yea, and the book that truly freaked me out Z is for Zachariah. 

So am I a game snob?  Does someone have to play RPG’s to get my respect?  I’d have to say the answer to both of those questions is probably closer to yes.  I may want to say no, I may want to see the best of myself, but I don’t see that someone playing the Sims is anywhere close to someone who plays World of Warcraft.  Maybe it’s the percieved level of skill involed.  I don’t know.

http://womeninleadershipandtechnology.blogspot.com/2007/09/female-gamers-on-increase.html

It sounds like the person who wrote that post is in the gaming industry, so she has a different perspective on it than I do.  However, she does state this:

Female players tend to be casual, interested in easy-to-pick-up social games but not willing to fork over $30 to $50 for more “tough guy games”. The lure is in getting girls to obsess over games the way they obsess over boy bands or shows like Hannah Montanna.

There are some games I get obsessed over.  I’ll fully admit that I used to be addicted to MUDding.  A bit of that feeling has been coming back lately, when I log on.  I used to be addicted to Asheron’s Call, though I never was for Everquest because I had too tough a time with that game.  If I had had more time, I probably would have gotten addicted to that too.  Fortunately, I’ve learned to control my addiction to gaming so it does not interfere with my work or family life. 

 However, as a former AD&D player, the type of game I go for is going to be different from those who aren’t interested in fantasy roleplaying games.  My son has picked up some of the same interests, but he likes first person shooters and other military games. 

One of the drawbacks I’ve seen listed is the high cost of the gaming platform… Though my son had a PS2 (he broke it), we play mostly computer games.  In that case, the gaming systems are something I would have in the house anyway — did I mention I’m a computer geek? LOL

That said, I am cheap.  Though I have paid to play Asheron’s Call and Everquest, and for my son to play World of Warcraft, I prefer not to.  That’s why I like MUDding. 

I may like to solve puzzles, but games like http://puzzlepirates.com just don’t interest me for more than a month.  I get bored with doing the same puzzles over and over to go up levels.  I prefer to be doing different things.

I may have to check out other MUDs to see how many female gamers playing on them.