Azaroth

So, this weekend, we’re sort of going all out for my mother’s birthday. Friday to Monday pretty much, although I’m not sure we’re doing anything on Sunday.

I have no idea what the tab is so far, but I saw the bill for supper tonight (that my father covered, and I got the tip for). I really almost shit myself. Of course, there were 13 people - and one of them decided that, since someone else was paying, they’d drink 9 beers. Amusingly enough, this was the boyfriend of my mom’s friend. We barely know him. I’m not even sure any of us had met him until that night, possibly aside from his girlfriend. Although I assume she doesn’t know him that well, since he’s probably out drinking every night. As long as someone else is paying.

Anyway, Saturday is my day. Basically I’ll be cooking for her all day. My dad is having a chef over Monday, so I’m throwing down in the hopes of upstaging him. That’s just how loving my family is.

I’m starting with an sauteed peach stuffed egg bread french toast, with a pecan crumble and pepper roasted hashbrowns. The peaches, peppers and potatos are organic. Eggs are free range. Fruit on the side for presentation. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the starfruit and blood orange that I wanted.

After that, I’m being a cheap asshole and making a quick dessert with things that are on hand. I’ll be making up a vanilla rice pudding, marbling it with hot strawberry “jam”, over crunchy meringue. Yeah, the first one cost too much. Yes, the rice pudding and strawberry jam are being made on the spot. No they are not coming home from a store in a container.

Following a simple moroccan barbeque for lunch, I’m doing my trademark mushroom szechaun cognac pork chops for supper. No, there’s no more information. The details of that dish are a secret. It comes with pork fried, lightly curried rice and a tri-coloured spinch and cheese bauletti - just incase you’re interested in ordering.

Finishing off with a simple dessert of balled fruit in a sour cherry sorbet. Again, I didn’t get the fruit I was after. Namely Dragonfruit. Substitution fruits are simply mango, cantaloupe, pineapple, and blackberries.

And there you go. A throwdown with Bobby Flay, without Bobby Flay. Because I think Bobby Flay is kind of an asshole.

A while ago, it was announced on Gamasutra that a new MMO-centric magazine, “Massive”, was to be launched as of January this year.

Now, put aside the fact that they were claiming to be first, but they certainly would be the only one operating. Seemed like a fair idea in some aspects, but since, by their very nature, online gamers tend to be… online, and any “news” a magazine could print would be pretty much behind by weeks or months - it may not have been the BEST idea.

However, combine it with in-depth reviews, good writing, beta stuff, some sort of user forum for maniacal and amusing rantings, and a CD with MMOs to try… I can’t tell you that I wouldn’t pick one up if I saw it on the shelf.

It’s sort of like… racing cars.

Those guys know pretty much everything about what they’re doing. They can’t afford most of the shit in those magazines. They can’t fly out to the events being advertised, and any amazing news about car racing that’s broken… they’ve either seen it on some car racing television channel or heard it in the garage.

Yet they pick up that magazine with their slim jims and smokes because it’s what they’re interested in.

I get all the hockey information on the internet that’s ever needed by one human being not directly employed in hockey. But I still subscribe to The Hockey News. Why?

Because I just do.

Not the best business plan, and I wouldn’t pitch it to any investors.. but being the only person serving a certain niche is generally worth the shot.

So good for them, they gave it a shot. Or, intended to. See, that’s all over with.

Apparently their parent company, TheGlobe.com has been found liable for sending “at least 100,000 unsolicited and unauthorized commercial email messages to MySpace members using MySpace user accounts improperly established by the Company”.

Here’s the big snag with that - It could cost them $40 to $120 million dollars, probably shutting them down. In fact, recent calls to their publisher yielded “an automated recording indicating that the number had been disconnected.”

Ouch.

Apparently Raph is tired of hearing about the NGE.

Froth ensues.

Seriously.

People are coming out of dark, dark corners to ramble about how much they hate the world because of changes to Star Wars Galaxies. It almost reminds me of UO:Renaissance.

Almost.

People really don’t seem to like wholesale changes to their game in mid-play. Who knew.

MMO players also seem to be rabidly fanatical about their chosen MMOs. Also, who knew.

The developers tend to get tired of “discussing” these kinds of things with insults flying in from 10,000 angles. Yes, once again, who knew.

Yeah I saw it. Like everyone else. What I don’t get is people’s reactions.

Wait, yeah I do.

People are fucking pissed, feel let down, whatever. Nothing happened! OMG!

Well here’s what happened. It’s the skinny.

This is exactly the reaction the director was planning to get from people.

No, seriously. He’s really not actually stupid.

People are pissed that nothing happened. See, everything happened. Or at least, that’s what David Chase wants you to believe. Each and every one of you.

He wants a big reaction. Negative is a reaction. It gets the radio guys ranting, the talk on the streets flowing. It’ll settle over time as people do what they’re wanted to do here - form their own theories.

Did Tony get shot? Was the blank screen a throwback to the conversation with Bobby? Who shot him? Did the family live on? What happened after? What the hell did the FBI agent mean? Who killed Phil, exactly?

People are complaining that there was no huge climactic ending. See, that’d be too easy. Too predictable. It’d cause a big fuss, but it’s not a long term plan. The fuss would die down, and people would be left with a “cool” feeling, sure.

But.. and here’s the big info.. Chase considers himself an artist. He doesn’t want any of that. He wants the controversy, he wants the talking, he wants the theories, he wants to jerk himself off over the uproar he’s caused (that he, *jerk jerk jerk*, intentionally caused through his awesome plan, carefully laid plan… *jerk jerk jerk*), he DOESN’T want to do what’s predictable…

… and most of all, he wants to sell DVDs.

Three different endings. Director commentary. People will actually want those things for reasons other than collections and casual viewing and Pizza Night with Timmy, Jean, and Audrey. Millions and millions of dollars are fun to have, and however they package this up… it’ll be the best selling DVD in television history.

That’s the meaning of the ending. Badda bing.

A couple of weeks ago, some mouthbreathing EA fanboys got pretty heavily on my case when I dared to suggest that a 2-3 year old, inactive chart showing UO’s subscription numbers to be ~135k might just be inaccurate in 2007.

I also suggested that there should be much more done with the game if EA/Mythic desire some sort of rejuvenation. This particular comment was met by cries of “What more could they POSSIBLY do, IDIOT??”.

Being that I’m not big on doing people’s jobs for them OR explaining simple concepts to retards on the internet, the conversation pretty much stopped right there.

As a preface, if you scroll down a bit, in a recent post I dug up a chart listing the (heavy) decline of active guilds on UO shards. This was basically all I had for current statistical information, but extrapolating a trend of downward spiraling account numbers wasn’t hard to do. And it certainly wasn’t a crazy leap of negativity like some would like to believe.

Now comes this.

Put simply, it’s a continuation of SirBruce’s old MMO subscription chart. As mentioned, at last update, the old chart had UO sitting at around 135,000 accounts. Personally, I felt this number was probably embellished by the company even though half of the accounts being owned by Japanese gamers was granted. Regardless of that, I knew very well that the subscriptions haven’t held steady.

The new site linked is updated, apparently, solely on insiders sending in the information needed.

Well, whoever sent the UO info should be hunted down and fired (no, not really). I think that a lot of UO players and UO fans were holding relentlessly onto the dream that Ultima Online was still pulling nearly 150,000 credit cards every month.

Yeah. Not so much.

What’s listed on the new site looks to be somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000. Considering at LEAST half of these are very obviously in Japan - UO is in a very, very sad state of affairs. To say the least is to say that my earlier assumptions were correct, and I sincerely hope that the people running UO aren’t as thickheaded as your average message board chucklehead. You have to recognize that a poorly received client update and a generic expansion aren’t going to turn the sinking ship around.

I take no pleasure in this information, but I do honestly think that some people need to get their heads out of their asses before it’s so far past “way too late” that nobody gives a flying fuck anymore. If you need a place to start, there’s a post two or three down that might get you going in the right direction.

There was a short discussion on Raph’s site about “what if WoW had full loot”.

I found the mental image funny. So I made a quick comic (mostly for my own amusement).

Please note the homages to Imanewbie and B0N3D00D and pLaTeDeWd, my two very favourite UO comics of all time (and the first two I ever came across I think).

Admittedly I slapped it together quickly, and I didn’t even intend to put it on my blog. But what the hell. Talking about Imanewbie and BON3D00D and pLaTeDeWd is great.

Here’s the comic.

I’ve actually gone ahead and reconstructed IPYUO.COM, mostly for nostalgic purposes… and because I saw that there were still quite a few people hitting the site, every single day.

So that’s back, and there’s a message for old players - as well as links to my closing rant, and this blog.

Looking back, I should have took more the attitude I did with this message than I did with my rant. I think I was pretty damn bitter at the time, and I came across in a lot of ways that I didn’t want to. In essence, I think I tore down all of the progress we made, because for years later that post was being quoted by people, including UO devs, as an example of why classic UO and open PvP sucks and/or doesn’t work.

But you can’t change history, so it’s all there in its effervescent glory (what, I don’t know).

Enjoy.