naked gnome protest and other oddities

It's worth noting that while you were living your so called life last week, there was a mass protest on Worlds of Warcraft concerning problems with the Warrior player class, that ultimately crashed the Argent Dawn server. Inexplicably (to me anyway), the protesters were gnomes and not he-man/amazon warriors.

While we're at it, we note with mild interest the beta of Sociolotron, an adult-themed, no-holds-barred MMORPG. From the gamesfirst review:

The thing that will get most folks to play Sociolotron is the fact that the game is explicitly designed to be absolutely debaucherous. A review of the newbie guides and gameplay descriptions quickly reveals that this is a standard MMORPG (although not the gorgeous 3D variety) in the tradition of Ultima Online or any good MUD or MOO. The graphics are primitive by today’s standards, but they provide a good amount of visualization. The sprites on-screen change according to what weapons or armor are equipped, and there are many postures to assume when chatting, or, ahem, whatever. The skills range from the normal (blacksmith, sword, etc.) to the strange (prostitution, succubus). Sociolotron focuses on skill development, property acquisition, and social roleplaying to motivate the gameplay, and what it lacks in the graphics and polish department is made up for in the “What the fuck?!?” department.

In other news, a somewhat famous Ultima Online gold farmer who claims to have generated something like 9 billion gold pieces and sold them for over $100,000 of real actual money, quit the biz and sold his gear on eBay. Apparently the exploit he used has now been closed off, so don't go rushing off to jump his claim.

Of course, you would already know all these things if you were reading the quite excellent Terra Nova, which chronicles the startling parallel universes of online virtual worlds.

Posted by Gene at February 2, 2005 11:53 PM | TrackBack