Maebius Musings

Yet another computer-game post, which you folks here for odd musings can skip if you need to. Long rambling fanboy-glee to follow.

The newest patch in World of Warcraft enables an additional new boss for folks to try out, named Emalon the Storm Watcher. He is no lame pushover, either! (Nolame=Emalon backwards :/ )

This boss is available periodically only after your faction wins a player-vs-player battle in a zone of the game, and defeating the boss drops top-end awesome gear if you are lucky. I was lucky enough to run with some of my guild folks, and some other random characters, ten of us in total (plus pets), but he dropped rogue gear, so nothing for me.

While I am not quite epic-geared as many in my guild, I was not turned down for the boss run, which made me happy. I get really annoyed when random PuGs look at my character and say “no, sorry, you need moar purplz” (epic gear).

The fight is rather complex, with multiple enemies, and a few tricky gimmicks for timing and positioning. As a single-target healer, my job was a little less chaotic, but still fraught with stress and rapid-fire keypresses. Essentially, my job in this fight was to heal the off-tank, and toss some group-heals if time permits.

The boss has 4 helpers, and will energize/overcharge one of them every so often. The DPS classes must, MUST kill the overcharged helper within something like 25 seconds or it explodes, killing our group. While this is happening, the main tank is holding the attention of the big-boss, and the off-tank is keeping all 4 helpers in line. The overcharged helper gets initially healed to full life and every few seconds gets a “stacking buff” to deal a bit more damage. This means, every so often my off-tank rapidly, RAPIDLY takes increasing damage. Earthmother’s Ashes, does that damage hit hard and fast!

To round out the boss’s abilities, every so often he will stop and charge up a Lightning Nova, that damages anyone standing near the boss’s feet after 5 seconds. Thus, it’s all but impossible to stand still and just spam heals/damage. The group as a whole is spread out and must move away from the boss to avoid the nova.

To keep an epic-feeling story short, Kanandi shielded and queued up a heal to land a half-second after the boss was engaged, then moved quickly to a far corner where the off-tank would round-up the helpers. From there, I kept myself shielded and OMGWTF cast heal spells at my target. Only my off-tank. Did I mention only? …with about 4 minor exceptions where I could quick-miniheal someone who took some Nova damage. Otherwise, if I hesitated a moment, hit the wrong key, or otherwise made a ‘mistake’ like pausing to, you know, sneeze once, the person I was healing died.

In fact, the first time we engaged the boss we didn’t realize how FAST the DPS needed to switch to the overcharged enemy. 26 seconds later, the screen goes boom and 9-10 people were dead. 2 second or less after that, the still-standing main tank fell to 5 big nasties smacking on him. ..Woah!

All told, we wiped (died) as a group six times. Once from me tossing a few extra heals to patch up minor damage from the Nova on other characters, thus letting my target die (I learned quick!). Once from me and a few others getting a lag-spike that caused a fatal delay in healing/damage. And a few more on something/one else that eventually resulted in an Overcharged explosion. Still, each time we did noticeably better and closer to killing the boss.

The epic-ness of the whole evening was how little guilt and blame was given out. In the case of me not concentrating on my target, I understood, “do it differnet next time“. When the DPS zigged instead of zagged to pick up the overcharged enemy, those people nodded with a “yep, my bad“. The majority of us there were new to the encounter, and I suppose it showed.
Yet, each time, people understood the fight a bit better, smoothed out their strategy, and worked to improve. No one whined about repair bills, no one pointed fingers accusingly when things went wrong. We simply stopped, took mental notes on what happened, and vowed to push forward One.More.Time. until it was done. On the last attempt, with the local time of midnight and a few folks starting to mumble about sleep, we did it. The fight lasted just over 5 minutes, and had a rhythm and flow that was awesome to experience.

Offtank pulls everything, I heal-spam… main tank taunts boss and drags him to opposite corner… Boss novas, we run away, then move back in… helper gets Overcharged, all healers switch to the off-tank and pray he survives while DPS blows cooldowns to KILL IT NOW… Overcharge addd dies, I breathe for 1.834 seconds… Boss novas… another helper respawns and gets overcharged…. rinse… repeat. Every 30 seconds.

I have never, in all of Kanandi’s healing, had such a hair-trigger job, against such a challenging boss. I have never before felt that sense of “progression” where each attempt was better than the last with NO whining from the unguilded random people with us. I felt like a “Real Raider”, and was honestly and sincerely Proud to simply see some unknown stranger get the gear that dropped. The teamwork was palpable, and appreciated. We all worked our butts off to get things done, and each person had the most important part. If one fell, we all fell (within 25 seconds!).

It was epic.

I can’t wait to do it again next week!

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It’s no secret to some folks who know me, that I am a contradiction in lifestyles somewhat, in terms of my current job and Life Philosophy.

I have an active Virtual presence on a number of forums, MMO games, and of course, this blog, plus I work as a computer-support tech for a multinational corporation. While I don’t own the t-shirt, I have what I consider an appropriate amount of geek-cred on the intarwebs.

Still, my personal/spiritual/whatever life is one based on the sacredness of Nature, a relationship with the Divine (in whatever form you choose), and things that at a glance are the polar opposite of “The Internet”.

Facebook, MySpace, and such are pointless to me, and I’ve been quoted at work as saying that I dislike digital media and (while I do not practice what I rant) understand that Vinyl Records are probably the penultimate sound-storage concept. Even this Blog is a contradiction of Virtual and Reality, yet exists as convenience to share my thoughts with an otherwise unconnected population of e-friends.
I will not probably ever own a Kindle, or an iPhone, or any such “must-have” tech gadget, unless purchased for me by kindly associates and friends, though I’m starting to lean towards buying a cheap MP3 player just to listen to some good grooves while meditating outside under the stars during campouts when the usual crickets are too quiet.

Also, since the days of working at the local library during my school years, I just like books too much….
…as so wonderfully mocked explained by the folks over at Penny Arcade:

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I’m on a spring cleaning kick this week at work, putting all my pens and associated junk from the desk drawers into a big box inside the drawers. Thus, not really arranging anything except a tossing out of ink-less pens, but now enabling me to clean my desk on some future job-leaving-date by simply pulling out the big boxes and going home to unpack. Quick, efficient, and surprisingly lowered my stress level a bit. (I’ve been worried about being fired, or more accurately, wanting to quit for quite some months now).

I have not moved this energetic sorting to my home yet, due mainly to evenings being “TAX TIME” with the wife, and thus any scrap of horizontal surface not covered by client receipts or paperwork is still sacrosanct “For Future Use” by Mrs Maebius.

On a particularly randomly related topic, I was amazed in my online computer game last night, how the changing dynamic of a group can severely alter the experience of said group. NOTE: Jargon ahead. I want to record this for posterity here, so you non-gamers may want to skip the rest of this post.

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Continued from the epic tale of The Warrior Brothers…

In the southern lands of Lititz, Pennsylvania, the sprogling named Gatorade played happily with his cousin. The pretense of names had been dropped since last weekend, as kids tend to do, but there was still great adventures in the backyard of my parents place, involving zombie squirrels and bat-men attacks.

When we were all hanging around outside, my father asked about the Crystal Dino Bone, and if the kid was still talking about it. I asked the sprogling, and was told that the kids were now after a LightSword shaped like a crystal bone. Fair enough, I figured….

Unbeknownst to me, my father took the the original Warrior Brother story to heart, and had located “an ancient bottle” buried in the yard while he was digging his garden, many many years ago. Inside this bottle was a rolled up scrap of parchment (click image for details) that appeared to be some sort of map!

The young cousins unrolled the map, and quickly realized it showed the very backyard they were playing in, with a great mysterious X near the creek at the corner of the property.

Collecting the grown ups (who, other than my father had no clue that this adventure was pre-planned) we traced out the steps of the map.

From the porch, around the small shed, then turning sharply to circle dangerously close to the water behind the large forsythia bushes. After navigating the treacherous muddy cliffs, we returned to the center of the yard, made a loop, and began our walk towards the little side fence-row garden. Zig-Zagging next to the maple tree, we then stepped sideways around a small lilac transplanted here from Everthorn Farms. Once this was done, we were mere paces away from the final destination marked on this aging scroll.

The ground around the X was overgrown with high weeds and dusty overflow-debris from the creek. At first, it appeared we might need a shovel, but the young adventurers bravely picked through the grasses until a glint of sunlight was spotted through the weeds.

The Crystal Dinosaur Bone LightSword had been found at last!

One of the boys, made the quote of the day in an almost breathless awe: “It really does exist!” after what was initially just an imaginary play-prop.

It was a fun adventure, and the finding of an actual “crystal bone” (Plexiglass) made this geek-dad smile. My father, or should I say “Pap Da Dad”, is so cool!

The rest of the day, my sprogling and his cousin carried that sword around, having quests too numerous to recount here. The LightSword gained powers in the sun, lost energy in the dirt, and had edges SO SHARP they could cut through anything that was not specially enchanted to be “lightsword proof”.

So far, I myself am not lightsword proof, so am unable to even touch the treasure. Only my wife, the sprogling, and my oldest nephew are able to do so. And even then, they must recharge their lightsword proof ability every morning after breakfast, but the details of this process are a secret to those uninitiated.

And so, the Lightsword sits now, in a special location in the kid’s play area. The map has been discarded (I pulled it back out of the trash after the kid tossed it) now that the treasure was found. He got it out this morning before school, to defeat some creature in the bathroom where I took the picture posted above.

The adventure awaiting us on next trip to Lititz? Only time will tell….

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This weekend, we visited some friends of ours (and did taxes, of course). A really fun little situation-game presented itself while myself, the kid, my friend, and his 3yr old son were out at the local park running off some energy before “nap time”.

The Sprogling’s been very into making up stories recently, and games where he has an alter-ego. In the past, he’s said he was some character, but still was himself, and merely seemed to change his name. Now, he is developing entire characters, with special abilities and actual limitations,as opposed to his prior make-up-new-power-for-every-obstacle play. Of course, me as proud GeekDad is tending to encourage this RPG appreciation. We even started playing with a big 20-sided die plus some regular 6-siders in various strategic wargames. It won’t be long now until he’s ready to tabletop some classic pen-and-paper games! MwaHaHahaHa

Lately though, he is developing a world of “Warrior Brothers”. In this world of pseudo-native-american meets high-fantasy, giant rocks become monsters, trees (known as Windgazers) are spirit allies, and us human males are all a tribe of Warrior Brothers, equipped with either spell-like powers, or fun tool/weapons to use in defeating the rock-monsters. Only boys are able to be Warrior Brothers, and girls (like mom) must either stay home and be safe, or sometimes are powerful ‘sorcerer princesses’ that can defeat anything with their magic, though this changes on a minute-by-minute basis it seems.

I am actually in the process of writing these ideas down in a complete LARP-style handbook, since the setting is becoming quite involved, and remains coherent across over two full weeks of playing this game when we go outside. Sticks are either wands, clubs, or ‘power staffs’ [sic]. Pinecones are bombs of various powers, depending on size. Snow and ice are harmful environmental effects that either trap you or drain your power. Patches of grass or composting piles of leaves become lava (which can heal some types of Warrior Brother), or random landscapes (ie: one particular bare spot in the yard is a pool of poison). Of particular note, oniongrass, or ‘yard chives‘ are useful as healing snacks or poison attacks depending on the target. When our mint starts to sprout in the garden, he already knows that can be brewed into a strong tea to put enemies to sleep, or “to help WindGazers grow after they are cut down”.

All details provided below are as described by my kid. We each named ourselves in a whim, and he crafted full character biographies and the list of powers and limitations each person had. He acted as DM and leader of this rag-tag band of adventurers, while we offered suggestions to how we reacted against our enemies.

(It was actually kinda neat seeing how empowering him to compromise on certain situations we refused to be railroaded into, could be used to develop social skills in the real world. Good mental note to help him work through some school-play issues.. Hmm…)

My kid is ‘Gatorade‘, who never gets thirsty, and uses a stick like a magic wand to heal, or to shoot fire. He can also use a longer walking staff as a weapon to crack open the ground and make lava explode on impact.

I am ‘IvyLeague‘, a scientist Warrior Brother with the power to control poison ivy and other plants. I can shoot vines from my hands to wrap up enemies, and use poison thorn-attacks from my own [raspberry-branch] wand. Otherwise, I’m kinda weak and rely on Gatorade for those times when big-guns are needed. (He’s so cute!)

Our friend Nate, down in PA, is known now as ‘Cheerio‘, (yes, like the cereal), who can make lightning strikes, and is able to walk on snow without getting trapped. No known weaknesses, other than being afraid of bombs, and doesn’t like Chives or mint (see above).

The 3yr old son of Cheerio, apparently keeps changing his name. It’s either Ted-Fu, or Teddi-Go-Cha, or lately, Tedichi (ted-EE-chee). He is invincible, but can’t attack anyone because he’s too small.

Our latest adventure, in the large fitness park, was to defeat a series of 4 giant rock monsters (those landscaping rocks that have little flower-gardens and mulch encircling them in a field). The first was a bomb monster, so our pinecones healed it. Eventually, it was defeated by the pine-tree windgazer nearby dropping ‘a tillion‘ needles on the monster, which pinned it to the ground so it could be smacked with Gatorade’s Staff.

Next was a poison monster surrounded by lava, so I could not use my own powers against it. This was defeated by throwing a snowball at the lava to freeze it, and once again, got smacked by Gatorade’s Staff.

Thirdly, was an ice-monster who was immune to Gatorade’s Staff, and needed to be struck by Lightning and Poison thorns at the exact same time, or it would regenerate instantly. This one took quite a few tries to defeat.

Lastly, was a giagantic dragon rock (mostly submerged, so all we saw was the fin on his back sticking up from the ground). He was immune or otherwise unaffected by all our attacks, but eventually defeated when we used a handful of crab-grass and a pidgeon feather to tickle it. This weakened it enough that Gatorade was able to find a small 2lb rock nearby that was charged with SunGazer energy (small friendly river-rocks are SunGazers). We put the small rock on top of the giant rock back, which drained all his power and turned it to inert stone. Whew, just in time too, since then it was time to leave and return home, so the Warrior Brothers could get hot cocoa.

We took the feather home, and Tedichi got to keep it in his treasure box. All in all, a really fun adventure, and one that I hope my friend completely enjoyed.

-fin-

PS: This coming weekend, The Warrior Brothers are traveling to the far-away land of Lititz, where I grew up, in search of a fabled Crystal Dinosaur Bone. Not sure how into this my nephews will be, but if such an adventure takes place, I’ll be sure to blog about it here…. I can’t wait!

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(Note: I’ll try to keep game-jargon to a minimum, for my non-gamer readers here, but a bit of such wording is necessary for proper flow and convenience. I’ll try to provide a Glossary at the bottom. I also tend to describe the actions of my characters in first-person or as seperate individuals depending on my mood. When I’m playing a character in the game, I roleplay that character during interactions with other player-characters. I healed ABC, She/He killed XYZ, etc. )

In my favorite online game (World of Warcraft) I have three main characters that I play fairly often. I will never be a “hardcore raider”, since I play too infrequently, and prefer to role-play rather than purely quest for experience. There’s a reason after almost 3 years of playing once a week minimum, I’m still not at the “level cap” on any of my characters. I play to unwind after work, not get epic gear.

I’ve written a few “backstories” for these characters, which are linked here, if you are interested. These stories do tend to use game-terms liberally, but I enjoyed writing them, and would love any feedback and critical reviews. Kanandi’s Story. (Also a small in-character treatise on healing via non-spell-first-aid) Nookni’s Story. Pohatu’s Story.

***

My favorite character in general is a Troll healing priest named Kanandi. My best memories (outside of purely roleplaying ones) in-game have been running with random people I’ve never really met, frantically casting heal spells towards them, while they did their best to kill the big baddies for the particular dungeons we were exploring. While healers are particularly slow to kill enemies on their own, compared to more “DPS” classes (those who do a lot of “Damage Per Second“), they survive very well if you use appropriate caution while in the wilderness alone.

Still, the strength of Kanandi is in her ability to work with groups, keeping them alive through sometimes overwhelming odds, and the fun split-second decisions needed when battles turn bad. With limited time to heal everyone, it’s a great attention-focus knowing that you must potentially ‘sacrifice’ one player in order for the group to win the battle. It may be ego-stroking, but I truly enjoy the feeling of knowing I made a difference when things got tough, and am able to resurrect a fallen ally afterward. Healers ideally stand back from combat, and use their abilities to allow others to do battle safely. We support the group, in a massively important way, since a group without a healer will quickly fall. When grouped, it is extremely rare for Kanandi to even cast an offensive spell. If no one needs heals, I am conserving my mana (magic) for a big heal that may be needed in the next few seconds.

Kanandi’s personality is one of friendly generosity. I’ve spent more gold than I care to ponder on making bags or robes, buying nifty little toys, and other “vanity” items for my friends in-game. Kanandi is known as the priestess with a cheerful sense of humor, who will gladly pass on a minor gear upgrade if it doesn’t look as fancy on her, or if another person in the group can use it as a bigger upgrade to their current gear. She also likes to ‘drink’, and carries around a few “permanent use” items like a beer keg that can provide in-game drinks for everyone in the group once every 30 minutes.

***

Secondly, I have a Troll hunter named Nookni. He always talks in his ‘racial accent‘ appropriate to the game lore, which tends to generate either a chuckle or a frown from other non-roleplayers. His personality is often wicked and sharp-sarcastic, but he always helps out his friends. Nookni is the outlet for a Trickster archetype in my own personality, and has in-game been kicked out of a guild once for mocking the selfish leadership members. Yet, I’ve been told out-of-character that some people appreciate Nookni telling things as he sees them, with no holds barred. He’s a nice guy, if you look past the smack-talk, but I admit I play this personality as a sort-of outlet for my aggression or spiteful feelings.

Hunters in World of Warcraft are essentially a pure damage class. They use bows and guns to shoot enemies from range, and have tamed pet/companion animals that are sent in to do the actual in-your-face combat against enemies. Hunters can essentially not heal themselves, other than buying potions and such, so grabbing the attention of too many monsters while out alone in the wilderness usually means a trip to the spirit-healer to recover your body. Yet it is a fun and relatively easy class to solo with, due to the pet mechanics.

Nookni exists, besides being a fun roleplaying diversion, to be my “farming” character. If Kanandi needs gold, or specific items that a particular enemy can drop, Nookni is able to do the job much faster. Things die much more quickly under a Hunter’s shots, and his pet is able to start attacking the next enemy while I’m still looting the first one. Hunters get a good flow when questing, which is a wonderfully unstressful thing. Likewise, if he is grouped with others to run a dungeon, the nature of the class means my actions require little more than standing back and going PewPewPew at the enemies. Much less stressful (and thus sometimes more boring) than playing a Healer like Kanandi.

***

Pohatu is a new character, who was once called Windchilde. Due to the magic of “Character Customization” (and $10), I took an unused female Tauren druid character and changed Her to a bulky Him, thus saving myself the effort of leveling another character up to lvl 30 (which would take me about three weeks). Pohatu was named by the sprogling, and sounded appropriately “Native American” to fit his race in-game. I found out afterwards that it’s the name of his favorite Bionicle character. His personality is still in flux, but he’s slowly becoming a bit of a gruff solitary type. He tends to chat often, if questions are asked about things in-game, but does not usually initiate conversations.

The neat thing about Druids, is they have the ability to shapeshift. Other than their racial form, they learn to shift into a bear, a cat, a travel-form, a water-form, and eventually at higher levels of experience, a flight form (including two optional forms: Tree_of_Life, and my reason-for-playing-one: a Moonkin, aka: Lazerchicken!).

Interestingly enough, there are three types of playstyle (and 3 places to specialize your talents) for the druid character. Each has it’s own flavor, though it is possible to switch playstyles at any time, due to the shapeshifting talents. Of course, the gear you collec,t and spells you train up mean you are MUCH better at one particular style, yet can still switch around in a pinch without visiting a trainer again. Druids are true Hybrid classes.

Restoration Druids become healers (and Trees?!), but that seemed too similar to my priest. Feral druids concentrate on bear and cat-form to do serious claw-based melee damage to enemies, though I could never get into a pure in-your-face damage class, and already had a Hunter for killing things.

The third playstyle is Balance Druids, marked by the ability to become Moonkin. Moonkin form is essentially a “caster” playstyle, where you toss lightning bolts, Moonfire, Starfire, and balls of Natural Wrath at the enemy. Think of your classic fantasy magic-user, and replace fireballs with leafy/sky-type stuff. Plus, who can resist the awesome battle-bird avatar?!!

What also interests me below the surface of the cool in-game form, is the fact that Balance Druids are somewhat of a support character. They learn a few spells that can be cast on others to “buff them”, and their other offensive abilities do things like lower an enemies armor, slow it down, or reduce it’s ability to hit you. Balance druids don’t deal massive damage (until high levels, where they step ahead of some other classes), but they assist others in doing so.

They level much slower, apparently, than Feral druids who do not rely on Mana or physical ammunition like my hunter, and simply claw and shred their way through enemies. Likewise, they are not as group-dependent as a Restoration Druid healer. They are balanced. Not too much of this, not too much of that, and it’s a slow process at lower levels until they learn most of their core abilities.

With this in mind, I found it very curious as to what this says about my own personality. I tend to avoid the types of characters that go out seeking combat, and play very defensively in groups. While I sometimes find myself in a leadership position (I’m a guildleader on Kanandi, and an officer in a different Guild with Pohatu), I don’t usually make the first moves. I encourage others to do so. I delegate, and support.

Any psychology-minded folks out there care to comment on that observation?

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Shh, don’t tell anyone, but yours truly got a kids code-book for Christmas so I can now become a full-time spy. If I don’t write as much this week, it’s either due to the holiday travels to visit folks…or I’m off saving the world.
While most of the cryptography is written at a middle-school level, I tried introducing a simple letter-swap code to the sprogling (A=1, B=2, etc). So far, he likes the IDEA of secret codes, but might be just a bit too young to get the idea fully. He tends to write random numbers and say it’s specific words. Still, it’s a fun little game we’ve played yesterday.

Since I also wanted to flex my programming skills that have grown severely rusty, in order to work on a new browser-based game idea I had (inspired slightly by the code-book), I figured I’d whip up a very generic little page to translate the number-code we were using to letters, and vice versa. Here it is: http://everthorn.net/Misc/translate123ABC.php
Enjoy!

-9- -16-18-15-13-9-19-5- -14-5-24-20- -2-12-15-7- -16-15-19-20- -23-9-12-12- -3-15-14-20-1-9-14- -1-3-20-21-1-12- -13-21-19-9-14-7-19- -15-18- -16-8-9-12-15-19-15-16-8-9-3-1-12- -20-8-15-21-7-8-20-19- -18-5-12-1-20-9-14-7- -20-15- -19-16-9-18-9-20-21-1-12-9-20-25- -15-18- -15-20-8-5-18- -5-19-15-20-5-18-9-3- -20-15-16-9-3-19-

-8-15-23-5-22-5-18- -20-8-15-19-5- -23-9-12-12- -8-1-22-5- -20-15- -23-1-9-20- -21-14-20-9-12- -20-8-5- -16-1-18-20-9-5-19- -1-14-4- -8-5-3-20-9-3- -22-9-19-9-20-1-20-9-15-14-19- -1-18-5- -4-15-14-5- -14-5-24-20- -23-5-5-11-

-1-12-19-15- -23-5- -1-18-5- -8-5-1-4-9-14-7- -20-15- -4-9-19-14-5-25-23-15-18-12-4- -9-14- -20-23-15- -23-5-5-11-19- -19-15- -1-18-5- -6-21-18-9-15-21-19-12-25- -7-5-20-20-9-14-7- -16-1-3-11-5-4- -6-15-18- -20-8-1-20-

-8-1-16-16-25- -14-5-23- -25-5-1-18-

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Quick post, just to jot down some thoughts before the Blizzard of 2008 crushes all life as we know it in the northeast US. (Seriously, the way folks are acting around here, closing schools, letting businesses off early, and it only JUST started snowing 15 minutes ago?!)

To those non-gamer readers, sorry if the following makes little sense to you. Just try to extrapolate the facts into real-world possibilities.

Fact: In a rather popular computer MMO game, you manage to acquire a rather rare recipe, that allows your character to make a nifty vanity-item. Lets call this item a set of “Red Holiday Clothes“.

Fact: Holiday season is upon us, and in-game, the place is decorated with festive things. This is a limited-time event that will be gone in two weeks, when the patterns are no longer available.

Fact: There are other patterns available, and if your character is wearing all three items, they get a special little bonus, but nothing permanent. The three separate patterns are used by different character-types, such that MY character with the clothes can not make the boots, or the hat.

Fact: Since the gathering of all three items requires a minimum of three different types of character, it encourages cooperation, (or at least coordination) among players. Since it is a social game, this is probably a good thing.
Given this information, the relative cheapness of materials required to make the items in question, and the apparent demand for these items during this limited time….

• Do you charge an exceedingly inflated price to make the items for random people in the trade channels, thus maximizing the opportunity, and enabling you to accumulate gold? Gold is obviously very very useful for high-end things in-game and somewhat hard to come by through casual game-play.

• Do you offer to make the items available freely to anyone who provides the necessary materials to you, Optionally, suggesting a tip for your service? This generates a lot more business, and smaller individual profits, but potentially increased net income over (limited) time.

• Is there a third compromise option available?

It’s an interesting question, and since I am no business consultant, I see validity in each argument. I also have a marked preference for one of them.

* * *

In reality, I have been acting out option B. If other players come to me with the necessary materials, I will gladly make them an outfit for whatever they feel like tipping. I’m just collecting virtual gold here, not real money, and I’d rather strengthen my reputation as a helpful character, rather than a selfish greedy bastard. (I have another character who is much less hesitant to steal and press advantages in-game… I love Roleplaying servers!)

The strange thing that prompted this post, is that these actions have drawn an unexpected amount of flack from some other characters. Presumably those who were trying to sell their items at the current inflated market price. I’m willingly “undercutting the market” by a decent percentage. I’ve even been accused of “fixing the market” by essentially driving out all competition and setting the market price at almost null-level.

These self-described business-people are simply unable to compete, except when I am offline, and thus I am ‘criminally‘ preventing them from playing the game of economics as they feel it should be.

It’s a really deep topic, and not one I have time to fully ponder out right now. But its interesting enough to blog about here.

Am I doing something ethically wrong, by trying to be helpful? Is my presumed good Karma actually harming the player-driven economy?

It’s a little thing, I’m sure, and the long-term markets will balance out just fine once the limited-time event is over for the year. But does that make it right to be doing?

In the real world, I almost think such an activity would be almost illegal for some obscure tax-code reasons, and definitely somewhat unlikely to work due to being for “real money” and the potential to lose money over time.

Since crafting real-world items takes much more time than pressing a few buttons in a computer game, the economics are skewed much differently. Hmmm…..

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***UPDATED with wife/kid ideas below…

Get stuff for my kid, add my name to the card, and I’d be more than satisfied!

What, you want actual Maebius-related ideas? well, alright….

I’m a purveyor of all things tea-related, as many know. Any sort of tea is good. I have a plethora of strainers and such so loose-tea is always welcome, and less packaging than pre-bagged ones. The differenter the better!
For those alcohol-friendly folks, I am championing the cause of single-malt Scotch in the world. Nay, I daresay I become unto a true connoisseur of Scotch. I’ve tried the old Spayside-region standbys like The Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, and kin, but have heard rather interesting things about Islay Isle scotches, particularly Laphroaig ,or the somewhat rarer Lowlands. A gift of Scotch is one to be shared, as well, which adds a special treat to any such gifts I receive. /wink

Also, anything Dr Horrible inspired would net you Muse-points from this blog. As a fellow Nathan, and occasional Corporate Tool, a t-shirt would be wondrous, though the DVD is also a happy-making thing.

World of Warcraft game-cards are always welcome. I plan on having an account there until the servers die, or the internet is taken from me. Plus, gift-cards can be re-gifted to folks I know in-game affected negatively by the economy, yet derive more than just “entertainment value” from the community on-line.

Of course, any sort of random strange and unique stuff would find a place in my home (or as pants), as some of you folks know. I like surprises, and if it comes from someone I know (even virtually), or Local to the area, so much the better!

Heck, this year, a hand-painted card with watercolours or crayons on a scrap of junk-mail envelope would make me happy. I don’t need “stuff” as much as I enjoy surprises.

This year, I have also felt a rather huge pull to be more charitable, perhaps as some esoteric spiritual buffering of the consumer-driven economy lately. As such, I think (hopefully without ‘selfish selflessness‘) that I would love to support these types of things in leu of proper gifts. I personally know some folks who have recently gotten put out on the street or otherwise very much in need of outside support, and it’s hard knowing that while we help as we can, it is not feasible to take them into our own home or finance their grocery/medical bills. Knowing this, I am drawn to help official charities be supported so those established organizations can do what they do better than our small household could ourselves.

http://www.foundationhoc.org/CF/HTML/TheaBowmanHouse.html
http://www.stevens-swan.org/
http:/www.childsplaycharity.org/index.php
http://www.kidsoneida.org/kids-oneida-home.cfm

Blessed Holidays to you all!

UPDATE: Ok, here’s a random wishlist for the rest of the family…. I’ve included two or three things that are already sent by Santa (and others) just so you can see what sorts of things were in mind by these two…

Sprogling: (as mentioned by him)

• small sand-timer like comes in board games. (30 Seconds = for brushing teeth the appropriate time)

• stuffed boxer dog (santa already has)

• Boom Blox (Wii game)

• Topple board game. (or Jenga, anything tactile like that)

http://www.etoys.com/genProduct.html/PID/3373679/ctid/17?ci_sku=197853&ci_src=14110944

• Drumsticks (already gotten)

• 100 trees (to plant in the backyard and build a fort in)

• Any kind of Craft things. (he loves paints, and pipe-cleaners)

• Paintable figures or stuff. (we have the dragons below, but he wants “a hundred million hundred thousand hundred of them because they are so cool and can defeat anything!”)

http://gifts.barnesandnoble.com/Toys-games/Paint-Your-Own-Bowls/e/31412642007/?cds2Pid=17921
http://gifts.barnesandnoble.com/Toys-games/Dragons-Paint-and-Play-Set/e/9780641760648/?cds2Pid=17921

Mrs Maebius

• UGGs style boots (sheepskin lined boots, size womans 9, short, not knee length)

http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2792101/0~2376780~6009391~6012477~6012480~6012745?origin=category&pbo=2792101

• Tales of Beedle the Bard (harry potter book)

• Heavy thick comfy socks. (be creative)

• Set of drill bits (different sizes, since we only have 2 bits right now for our drill. “Thick” or “pilot hole”)

• This ring-holder necklace. http://www.whatonearthcatalog.com/whatonearth/Item_Heart-Shaped-Hinged-Ring-Pendant_CB0672_ps_srm.html

• Fleecy warm blanket (amish blanket, that gamer-sleeved blanket, etc)

• White-noise generator for sound sleeping (without running the dryer or a fan.)

• The grabber tool to get canning jars out of a water bath without burning yourself.

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When I took out the puppy for her nightly 1am potty break, I noticed the air was crisp and very cold. a Lovely wintery chill in the air and racing clouds against the moon. There was a light hint of frost on everything, not quite enough to sparkle properly, but enough to give everything a light hazy-grey tint.

This morning, there was snow!

A good -3 inches here, with the radio reporting some lake-effect areas getting 6 inches.

As the first official snowfall for the season (we had wet flakes earlier, but nothing stuck and had melted by the time I woke up) it was nice to see. The kind of snow that is dry and powdery, so that preparing the car to drive meant simply slamming the door closed and watching everything *poof* off onto the driveway.

I wish my camera worked, since the drive to work was lovely. I do enjoy winter for mornings like this where there is not a blizzard of risky driving, or cold enough to freeze your lungs instantly. Just a nice, white-blanket across the landscape, and mostly sunny weather to make it glisten.

First snowfall means I get to stand outside as long as tolerable barefoot tonight once the kid and wife go to sleep, (I last usually all of 30 seconds) and scoop up a handful of snow to sprinkle on my head. It’s my winter tradition to “embrace the season”.

Hope folks reading this are enjoying lovely weather too.
(and I hope things dried out in Rio by now)

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