- 89. Lazy. I am lazy. I may have said this already, but that involves checking an archive of the last 88 posts, and I'm too lazy.
I've been lazy lately in many respects. Haven't been updating this thing, haven't been doing my exercises, haven't been writing, haven't even been keeping up with the webcomics I read (which is a sign of genuine laziness, when you don't even have the energy to click a link).
Two things to discuss today.
MICROTRANSACTIONS!!
A common concept in a particular brand of MMOs (most of the non-'mainstream' ones), it is currently branching out into other gaming things.
Today I checked out the PSstore. I had recently borrowed Soul Calibur 4 from a friend (amusing game. I kick EVERYONE'S ace with the fencing style), and had a look-see at what was on offer on the store, expecting a free download or two. EVERYTHING there cost $1.75 (American, presumably) and consisted of a few music tracks or equipment pieces. There were about 20-30 things you could download. That is quite ridiculous, the prospect of spending up to $40 on a bunch of little thingies. But, I have to admit, part of me was tempted. If I had money on the PSstore account, I probably would've googled those costume packs to work out which ones were worth getting, and grabbed them.
This is hardly a new things, even in Western style games. City of Heroes (which fell flat on it's face in it's Asian launch) has had a few microtransaction packs put out. These gave the players new emotes and costume options, and that's all, and people (including myself, back when I played the game) paid $7 for them. It's minimal work for the programers and designers, but not a bad little profit, if the game is popular enough.
Second thing
WIKIPERTS
What is this? It sounds lewd, rude, and possibly unhygenic. No, it's just a term I made up then to discuss people who read about things on Wikipedia and become experts. Everyone'e encountered them, mostly they're just irritating. But now I've got one in my own house.
My brother is currently playing Fallout 3 (a fun game, once I've finished twice and have a third game ongoing in), and is convinced he's amazingly awesome in the game. This claim (one he makes in many games) is somewhat ruined by the fact he plays all games on Easy or less difficulty. But I digress.
As he often does when he has a new game he plays, he becomes a tad obsessed with it. For this, he looked up "Fallout 3 Wiki" in google, and found the Fallout 3 Wikipedia site (not the entry, the SITE, a whole wiki about the game). He looked up various things he hadn't yet gotten to in the game, somewhat ruining it in my view, but to each their own.
Those of you who have not yet played the game but wish to, or are playing the game but haven't finished, ignore the next paragraph.
At one point in the game you get someone on your team called Fawkes. Fawkes is a Supermutant, which are traditionally 9 foot tall bulges of muscles and rage equipped with guns and clubs. They all look very male and very creepy/intimidating, and Fawkes is no different in that respect. What is different is that Fawkes is an intelligent, sympathetic being. When you encounter Fawkes one of your first thoughts is "Giant broad shouldered muscle-bound male brute with a guy name and a guy voice actor. Must be a guy". It's a simple assumption made of the fact before you, and one many people make (similar) conclusions every day. But Fawkes, to further the tragedy of the story, is (possibly) originally a woman. All people, male or female, turn into the 'male-looking' Supermutants when transformed. And since my Brother read the Wikipedia page about Fawkes before he ever encountered the loveable piece of tank, he now INSISTS on refering to him/her as a 'she'. The real irony? When he originally read it, the wikipedia page asserted Fawkes was female. Since he read it, someone updated it with an arguement as to why it is impossible to tell if Fawkes is male or female. Yet he constantly corrects me whenever I refer to 'him'.
There, monstaragraph finished.
Right, post over. You may now resume your normal lives. See you all day after tomorrow (since I'm lazy, and tomorrow from 2pm onwards is drinky-drinky time).
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