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| ~ ~ ~ Notes from Paper Lane: a GNE weblog | |
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| ~ ~ ~ Notes from Paper Lane: a GNE weblog | |
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The New Yorker on Ultima Online
This is a rather old story (May 2001), but slow people like me may still find it interesting.
Has anybody else been loking around at the “competition”?
This site has loads of info on it…
Project Entropia looks like quite an interesting concept - real money and game money become one…
(Main reason I’ve suddenly enough time to look at all this stuff is that the people who host my homepage seem to have broken it for me…)
In keeping with Outis’ 30 second sketch, I have proceeded to create a 10 second sketch. How’s that for competition? =D
The following is a bitmap (in JPEG format, of course) of what I think Pixel A. Shun looks like:
The San Francisco Bay area GNEr’s get together simply must be held here! I already bought my dress for it. Capo, ER, want to try to put together a party?
Has anyone noticed there is a new issue of Ludus out?
Selva, when did you sneak this up??
It’s not like me to lose my rag - not online, anyway. There is, however, one thing that has been anoying the beJebus out of me these last few weeks…
I’ve been logging onto the chat quite regularly, and I check every evening to see whether other players are logged on. Unfortunately, sometimes what can appear to be a populated chat-room turns out to be merely a panoply of statues.
Maybe I have developed a hair-trigger temper, but I find it really annoying when there are people logged in to chat but not participating. You’re asking for it, you crazy tempters of statue-defacers, you! :)
Anybody else noticed that their neighbourhood browser has stopped working?
OK, so who was it who was looking for Ginger Altoids in the game, and did you find any? I found some tonight, and bought an extra in case whomever it was still wanted it. Let me know….
Friends! GNE-rs! Lend us your ears! Actually your voices.
Check out our new project “Vox Populi”
Ever wondered what your fellow GNErs sounded like? Mesmerize your malleus, inspire your incus, and stimulate your stapes! Hear your fellow GNErs in an upcoming issue of Ludus Perpetuus. If you have the capability and wish to participate, make a sound file (example) no larger than 1M, and send it to capo@paperlane.net (keep it clean, please). Satisfy your virtual voyuerism!
p.s. If you haven’t already, take the GNE survey! Why? Because!
(See Capo’s post below)
For any of you with a subscription or an open-minded local library - I found a bit disturbing the article on page 93 of the March 2003 issue of Playboy.
“Online Treachery; Net gaming has become a sinister playground for lukers and assholes”.
“Shawn Woollery was a 21year-old video-game fanatic - until he shot himself. Playing online games like EverQuest and Ultima, he’d run into grief players - gamers who use the forums to make their opponents’ lives miserable.”
And goes to explain MMORPGs, grief players, and other “bloodthirsty” games such as Eve Online, Lineage, Dark Age of Camelot, and Anarchy Online.
The sad part; in this particular case the game (EverQuest) took over someone’s real life, ending in his death by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
I give blessing to the peaceful existence that is GNE. And hope our own addictions will remain harmless (except for a few cases of carpal tunnel) and only a short amusing diversion out of our real lives. Peace.
‘squeek’
I hope no one kills me for posting something not about GNE i think i finnnaly have this blog thing figured out. has anyone heard of the Seti project?
I gleaned this link off of Metafilter: an essay by Paul Graham on why nerds are unpopular. It reminded me of GNE citizens. I wonder why! ;)
Happy Halloween2, fellow GNE-ers! Because valentines no longer exists, I have replaced it with a second halloween (hence the ‘2’ on the end of ‘Halloween’), as valentines is no fun, and halloween is.
There’s too much emphasis put on valentines, it somehow botheres me to go to school for a regular day, and have a bunch of ditzey girls running around giggling holding massive pink stuffed animals. I don’t think you should have to have a special day for someone if you love them, why not give them random gifts or whatever randomly? To me, that seems more thoughtful than getting them prezzies because the corperations said so.
So anyhow, Happy Halloween2!
If I double my hits, I will donate half of the money I have in my bank account to a local charity.So tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell strangers; it’s charity for GOD’s sake! You know, it would be nice if you did the same thing on your websites too…
If I triple my hits I will donate three-quarters of my account to said charity (plus some nice never-worn-before clothes).
And finally, if I quadruple my hits I will donate every freaking cent in my account to a local charity, plus clothes and some nice stuffed toys!
Go to www.papertiger.tk for more information, and maybe just to contribute a few hits.
P.S. Rest assured that I do have a nice, respectable stash to give away.
New topic for discussion: Would having a mental health professional begin playing GNE be a good, or bad thing? Just curious as to your opinions.
Really, I’ve reached my all-time social low (but maybe my all-time intellectual high) by teaching Puzzy (the chat bot on #paperlane) how to talk to me. It followed after I logged on and no one was talking, so I decided “Maybe Puzzy will talk to me!” After an hour of playing around with hir, I managed to squeeze out 5 minutes of chat :)
The chat transcript is in the extended story.
Desi: Puzzy, say hi
Puzzy: Puzzy waves hi
Desi: puzzy, no one’s talking
Puzzy: I heard that no one’s talking is right. [What the? - Desi]
Desi: puzzy, are you sleepy?
Puzzy: I guess sleepyserenity is sleepy — Don’t be so loud!
Desi: oop I’m sorry puzzy
Silence.
Desi: puzzy, what to say…
Puzzy: *Puzzy thinks hard — “Let’s talk about GNE!”
Desi: puzzy, we always talk about GNE!
Desi: this is a GNE chatroom!
Puzzy: Hmmm. I think GNE is an awsome game you have to wait to play.
Desi: I’ve already played it.
Desi: puzzy, the prototype at least
Puzzy: *Puzzy rolls his eyes — “We’ve all played the prototype.”
Desi: puzzy, not you
Puzzy: “I’m a bot!”
Desi: puzzy, but …
Puzzy: No buts! Get some real friends!
Puzzy: You is an evil little man
Desi: *Desi is stunned
Desi: puzzy, shame, shame, shame
Puzzy: *Puzzy hangs his head in shame
Desi: puzzy, you’re making me cry!
Puzzy: Aww! I’m sorry! I’m an idiot!
Desi: You’re an idiot!
Puzzy: I know, I know!
Silence.
Desi: so maybe I should get some real friends…
Desi: puzzy, I need real friends
Puzzy: No, I don’t mind talking to you. I have many underlying sociological problems I need to get out into the open.
Desi: Okay
Desi: puzzy, shoot
Puzzy: Okay. Well for starters, I tell people I’m a bot becuase I don’t want people to chat to me. They might get too close to me and I won’t feel so safe anymore.
Desi: puzzy, go on
Puzzy: Well… I don’t go out very often because I’m afraid of germs
Desi: puzzy, germs? [This part had some technical errors, so I’ll just continue with what Puzzy was supposed to say - Desi]
Puzzy: Yeah, germs. They get all over you when someone coughs or sneezes so you go home and take a shower but they’re still on you so you fill a bathtub with bleach AND YOU JUMP IN AND YOUR GENITALS START TO BURN AND…
Desi: puzzy, calm down!
Puzzy: Calm down?! CALM DOWN?! Okay, I’ll calm down :) — *Puzzy is doing some deep-breathing exercises.
And that’s it. For now…
It looks like the folks at Ludicorp have been busy. Check out the wonderful new design of Gameneverending.com.
So I get down on my knees and clench my hands together tight, mumbling a series of words you can’t hear from where you’re peeking at me, from your window a floor above mine. I better go hide.
I miss the GNE already. Elle’s words still ring in my ear, loud and haunting and oh, so minty: “I love you all!” [On that note, we love you too, Eleanor!]
So add me to your instant messengers. C’mon, even one of you…
MSN Messenger: patmcrotch4me@hotmail.com
Yahoo Messenger: desi_quin
ICQ: 126084712
It gets so lonely here all by myself…
As the sun sets on th horizon, and the new day forth has come, I feel honored to have been part of the town. I watched as GOD counted down, although for me and my GNE world all I saw was 10-5-and then, was froze like a pillar of salt, as “GOD” smiled down on his baby.
I feel quite blessed to have been allowed to be consumed, (for lack of a better word) into this world of arg… something I have not experienced before, but will hopefully be able to do again, as I grow with this universe. The friends/acquaintances/enemies made along the way, were all quite fun, helpful, and maybe sometimes over bearing…. but, “IT WAS ALL GREAT!!!”
I managed to have been able to be on line for most of the day, with the exception of few hours… And you know what is th most distressing, is that I have played, only at work, for lack of a computer at home, let alone, a home to go too… Computer is slower than molasses, and the people at work, think I’m nuts. I tried to show them our world, but none, really cared… except me…
Here, I am ramblin on, don’t know what to say, or do now… lost without my fix of “C”… when the new world is reborn, hopefully I will be back, bigger and better than ever, and ready to compete in the game thats not a game thats never ending.
Star Light Star Bright
First Star I See Tonight
Wish I May, Wish I Might
Have Superman’s Cape
For My Flight…
Hi, everyone! Right now, I’m feeling both sad and happy at the same time. Tomorrow it’ll finally hit me that the alpha is over, and only real life is out there again. :(
The museum annex has some new exhibits to commemorate the second (p.w. or “post-wipe”) epoch.
First of all, the wonderful Yearbook that Ivy started. School’s out!
Second, all the notes I could get ahold of were archived into a new exhibit. A few first-epoch notes were uncovered during that process, and that exhibit has been updated as well.
Finally, a collection of blankie sniffer’s numerous haikus.
Two other announcements: Submissions for Ludus Perpetuus are due on 6 February. We’re looking for articles, poetry, artwork and fiction. Also, if you haven’t submitted an entry for the Player Directory, please do so!
Collective Detective is hosting paperlane.net’s chat. If you’re missing GNE chatter, try heading over there.
Thank you to everyone who contributed, and also to the wonderful players and developers that made the playtesting such a wonderful experience!
On more GNE-related news, the world ended at 5 past midnight, PST, after a delay of five minutes. We got to keep Bobbleton, the hub of bounciness. Speculation by yours truly says that the Pioneers will be headquartered there.
I love you all! On the extended entry is a list of must-see sites that I skimmed off the GNE chat. I got fish today. Two goldfish with the puffing mouths and the funny eyes and the oh-so-dumb appearance. They’re on my high-desk right now, ramming the glass bowl with their heads.
On more GNE-related news, the world ended at 5 past midnight, PST, after a delay of five minutes. We got to keep Bobbleton, the hub of bounciness. Speculation by yours truly says that the Pioneers will be headquartered there.
I love you all! On the extended entry is a list of must-see sites that I skimmed off the GNE chat. #paperlane on IRC www.meetup.com www.papertiger.tk
From Merriam - Webster’s Word of the Day
The Word of the Day for Jan 31 is:
puckish \PUH-kish\ (adjective): impish, whimsical
Example sentence:
Bert delighted in teasing his colleagues, and fortunately they recognized his puckish behavior as good-natured and tolerated it cheerfully.
Did you know?
We know Puck as a mischievous sprite who changed shapes, caused milk to spoil, and frightened village maidens in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream . The Bard drew on English folklore in casting his character, but the traditional Puck was more malicious than the Shakespearean imp; he was an evil spirit or demon. In medieval England, this nasty hobgoblin was known as the “puck,” “pucke,” or “pouke.” To the Irish, such a creature was the “pooka,” and to the Welsh, he was “pwcca.” But it was the Bard’s characterization that stuck, and by the time the adjective “puckish” started appearing regularly in English texts in the late 1800s the association was one of impishness, not evilness.
Hi folks!
I’m just working on a GNE quiz in ‘Who wants to be a millionaer’-style.
For I am not capable of coming up with too many questions I appreciate any help from you.
If you can think of any GNE related questions please
enter your suggestions for questions here
thanks a lot … see you around in the game :o)
At first glance it would appear to be they’re on to us. A mainstream comic puts out a series of strips that describe a rather familiar place.
It has recently come to light that GNE is in fact a ground-breaking experiment in particle physics…
Ever since the US House of Representatives closed down the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory project way back in 1993, scientists have fumed about the wasted US$2bn funding and what many thought was the best chance to probe the structure of fundamental particles.
But no longer! It seems that a crack Ludicorp team has been working secretly to harness the enormous potential lying dormant in the networked computers (and minds) of bloggers, artists, cognoscenti, and other denizens of the ‘Net.
An 3-tier application was built so as to seperate the complex processing from users, engaging them instead with colourful graphic entities (hubs and networks; electric sheep and marshmallow daggers) whilst a back-end DB simulated and explored processes previously unknown to humankind.
Players of the game made purple paper and yet simultaneously collapsed quantum waveforms thousands of miles away. Dagger fights caused electrons to change shells. Each yoinking caused a cascade of parity violations.
Commenting on the ingenious methods used both to fund the project and to secure the necessary computing power, a small furry spokesdog for Ludicorp said: “Woof”.
inevitable link to random nonsense: http://tinyurl.com/4duo
if tinyurl breaks, use the longer version:
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:9SfEwQiMddwC:www.jlab.org/exp_prog/experiments/summaries/E93-038.ps+%22gne+is+essential+to+understanding+the+structure+of+matter%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Abulafia’s entry about GNE related dreams made me wonder how GNE affects everyones daily life.
When I was having friends over for tea and cookies right before christmas I found myself being caught in an neverending cookie making loop the night before. I just could not stop! It felt like I was hitting *make another* again and again and…
Have you had any experiences like that or is it just me totally mixing up GNE and RL?!
“You join a MUD and spend months building a character in that community. At the end of this time, you have probably become well-known in that community - you have well-developed social capital. That social capital - the set of experiences and understandings that individuals in that space have of you - is built through time and repeated interactions.
“In cyberspace no assets are transferable. You can move from one community to another, but with each move you must start over again. You do not enter a MUD with money or social status. You enter as a character whom you must then construct.
“Paradoxically, then, we might say that it is harder to change communities in cyberspace than it is in real space. It is harder because you must give up everything in a move from one cyber-community to another, whereas in real space you can bring much of it with you. Communities in cyberspace, then, may in the short run have more power over their citizens than real-space communities do.”
- Lawrence Lessig, from “Code”
Now that GNE has once again become a game of javascript hacking, I seem to have lost interest.
In the early phases of the game, I was drawn in by exploration (of the world), then discovery (of how to use the various artifacts), then exploitation (arbitrage, finding optimal ways to make money, xp, etc.). And all the time, of course, by interacting with the clever, quirky, social people who are the most interesting feature of GNE.
But then I was able to Make everything that could be Made, knew everything within the game that I needed to know, and became a world-class Farmer.
In the past few weeks, I wondered if I could get to Level 19 entirely on genomes, without making a single GNE. I was pretty far along, too!
Then, last night, I noticed a player suddenly zoom way past inspoetica (and hence me) in xp. One theory: someone quietly accumulated way more wealth than inspoetica, but in something other than shekels, and suddenly traded that in for GNE ingredients.
Today, I see that a player whom I’ve never seen before has exceeded even that previous player. Uh huh.
So now there are two games. One, played by the rules the developers apparently intended, in which it is actually difficult to accumulate money, xp and the rest, and the other - hacking javascript - in which any idiot can appear to excel, and several have.
Given that, I’m not sure what’s left. Sure, there are the clever, quirky, social people who have always been the most interesting feature of GNE. But does that mean that GNE is now just a chat room with some cool people in it? That’s probably not enough, by itself, to hold my interest.
So I may be done for now. At least, until the next Great Wipe. If, after that, there are interesting new features, or at least fixes for the egregious hacks, I might once again be interested.
Or I may find myself still addicted to the mindless, repetitive activities that have occupied far too many of my hours in recent weeks. You never know. At least, *I* never know.
In any event, it’s been fun.
Hey - anybody want a few million shekels worth of diamonds? Or a chicken?
I thought it was kind of funny originally, then I stopped to think about and got scared instead.
Har, har, har… *twitch*
Note: If you fear you’ve actually become addicted you can take this online test to gauge yourself.
Is anyone in the least suprised that inspoetica managed to get the top entry in the records’ office’s list of property deeds?
Not I!
Eric, dear, you’re in my dreams
I wonder what it really means?
Does seeing your face make my heart fonder?
I’ll stare some more while I sit & ponder
And while away hours to reload
Your very ticklish java code
Surfing net for another server
Only serves to fuel my fervor
Dare I peek? Great Zeus, the terror!
I just recieved another error
But I am comforted you see
By your face looking back at me
Assuring me I’ll be online
In only 20 seconds time
Arcane Eric, please say when you
Go to sleep, see my face too
(You know it’s just to mess wit’ ya’,
I really fancy inspoetica)
GNE tip #19: When you chat, you’re chating to everyone logged into the game. We may be changing this so only people in the same location can hear each other.
Say it isn’t so! The chat is the television of GNE. It is our GNN. It allows everyone to be involved, or at least informed about things that are occurring right now in the game. I often leave the window open while I am working, just to have the background ‘noise’, and keep in touch with what is going on in my other world. If I have a complete conversation I need to hold with another player, I simply use the IM. If the chat is fractioned, then it would limit such happenings as the attempted PARP uprising, or even our impromptu trivia quizes. We need to maintain a global communique. It is vital to the dynamics of the game.
I’ve seen his face so many times tonight.
So many, many times.
Here is an Ode to Eric and his Eric Screen of Death.
I think we should have a festival, or a feast day - perhaps to celebrate the first day that GNE went live. Rituals are a common social thread, and GNE unquestionably fits the definition of a society. Because the nature of the game is perpetual, and the scope of it is global, a gathering day would give us all a better opportunity to visit with players we normally do not get to interact with.
I just woke from a dream where I tried to drop some junk in the dump, but mysteriously the result was a “drop all.” If I had a therapist, she would have a field day with this.
Let me pose this question to anyone who cares to take a swipe at it - will there be a deliniation between those who achieved their level 12 status and continue to play fo the sicial and enabling aspects early and those who are the “next generation” Level 12s? In other words, will the little world of GNE develop and old money/new money split?
Did anyone else find themselves mousing over the graphic at the top of the page?
Just found this quote from St Anselm:
Why, little man, do you run from one thing to another, searching for the goods of your soul and of your body? Love the one good in which are all goods, and that will suffice.
Not sure if it’s entirely apposite, but I liked it.
One of the problems with GNE is that there’s no danger! Don’t you want to get mugged in The Glums? Or chased by a wraith in The Foglands?
I just wanted to share with you this quote from Borges that made me think of the game:
Through the years a man peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, tools, stars, horses, and people. Shortly before his death, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the images of his own face.