Hello green world, I have not posted in a long time. And that's most likely because I only created and updated this live journal thing on account of two classes I had care of a certain professorio doktor fellow. Maybe that clears up the question "why so much pseudo-intellecual 'i'm cool enough to use cussing in my scholastic analyses' garbage?" or the more popular "what the fuck is your deal?"

so there you have it.

And another signpost in the wake of destruction i've left in the creation of my little digital novella, the story of a man and his amish caretakers. the fella from some website that I leeched off of gave us a nice little calling card. You'll find it a few posts down, in big bold typeface, with a friendly message of peace, love, and understanding.
Obviously the utterly ridiculous amount of hits upon my uber-popular blog was sapping his much-needed bands. Hosting camera phone pictures of babies and white parappas is taxing. I'd imagine H&R block is helping manage the finances needed to supply the baby-seal-blood needed to fuel the futuristic mainframe technology (aka "teh gibson" in layman's terms) he's using to provide us with such a valuable virtual asset. To the pantheon of websitery you go, friend!

Traditionalists would probably say that cheating in any case is wrong. Now, while i'd largely agree with such a claim, I think it's a bit close-minded to apply the same principles universally, regardless of context. This seems actually to be big conundrum with morality and its constant re-definition. It's preposterous to try and coneive of a moral framework that is universally applicable, regardless of time and context. This also seems to be the big fallacy of modern law...although I think contemporary civilizations have gotten alot better about adapting their law to context (i.e. not chopping off your hands for snatching a bushel of bananas because you genuinely needed it to survive). Since we've pretty much deduced that the term "gaming" has a rather wide umbrella, and can be applied to a large breadth of circumstance and rule sets. In keeping with this same vein of thought, cheating in games is a bit more of a loaded issue than your friend unplugging your snes control in the middle of a heated street-fighter bout. Yes, cheating in the aforementioned scenario is wrong, and absolutely morally reprehensible, and I believe federal statutes should hold that such trickery can be met with a reprise by my fist to the transgressor's face....if only.

Cheats seem to fill the modern-day landscape. It's almost as if it's bread into us as modern Americans to shrug off mistruths and misdoings. And if that's a bit of an overstatement, then the desensitization to immoral actions has at least found its way into a large portion of the people i've met. I don't claim to be an innocent, but for the cases of this posting i'll take the observer's high ground....basically, i'd say it's safe to say that contemporary moral standards are not exactly what one might call (from a perspective transcending time) SATISFACTORY. So, in this respect (and to ease off of the poor bush i've been beating), i'd say cheating in a game is principally immoral. Again, however, let's stay within context with any examination of questionable moral action; What if bringing cheating into a game actually enhances the enjoyability to all, not just for the cheater? I know this case must not me very frequent, but what if the cheater actually brings a much-wanted, much-needed element of transformative play into the mix?

It seems to be a matter of deciphering acceptable forms of "cheating" (however few and far between they may be) from the rest. A few bad apples do not necessarily need to ruin the bushel. Why, if Diablo trainers had never been invented, I would only had a lesser degree of generic low-quality hack-n-slash fun. The trainer element of the game basically opened up a survival of the cheatest sort of online social contract, where the weak sheep were those that took the moral high ground and refused to use trainers. And putting "NO TRAINERS" on your game listing on battlenet only increased your chance of getting raped by a cheater in sheep's clothing. While the original brand of Diablo fun would've lasted longer, I am much more grateful for the transformative play that was allowed when you could, for instance, walk through walls and hide INSIDE wirt's wooden leg. There's nothing like calmly doing a dungeon run when all of a sudden out of the left corner of your screen comes a max-level player, literally on fire with some protection buff and glowing alot becasue of it. As the sweeping wave of lightening-destruction kills all the monsters surrounding you (but not you, if you were wise and bought into the trainer contract), you suddenly realize that perhaps this whole "cheating" thing isn't as bad as it's all cracked up to be. If it can bring a new brand of fun, at minimal expense, then I believe that cheating is not only permissible, but should be encouraged. The problem is determining in which scenario this holds true. I know there were plenty of gamers who thought Diablo's multi-player aspect was nearly ruined by trainers; Personally, I didn't see it as that big of a deal. I saw cheating as not only acceptable, but also quite fun. Others disagreed, so the moral rightness of the situation was questionable at best.

See the title of this posting? That's what was printed on the back of the size 500 pair of not-so-tighty-whities that were my prize in this particularly hilarious christmas parlour game (along with one of those nifty tap-light thingies...both of which have been sitting in my back seat since christmas, a happy welcome to anyone lucky enough to sit on either of them). The game is called secret Santa, and if you know a relatively loose and jovial family (i.e. my girlfriend's neighbors), this christmas game can be pretty entertaining. The only prerequesite is that you bring a "gag gift" of your own creation or choice...and a little spiked egg nog swishing around in your belly doesn't hurt.

Numbers 1 to X (x being the number of gift-bringers and willing participants) are written on slips of paper, swished around and picked out of a hat. Basically, the higher your number, the better chance you have of NOT walking away with what is obviously (through its tight wrapping) a bananna and two oranges taped together in a suggestive way...or said pair of tighty whities, or anything on par with that level of gaggitry. He who chooses poorly and gets number one is basically stuck with whatever gift he first chooses, for the meantime; Anyone with a higher number than him can choose to trade their gift for his, as well. So the lower your number, the more people can decide to exchange their decapitated malibu stacey for your not-so-disturbing peanut-butter-covered pencil shavings. The ladder goes all the way up to the person with the highest number (the position I enjoyed during the game we played...but still somehow ended up walking away with a huge pair of underwear that have somehow doubled as a bumper sticker for the past couple months). That person has no gift choice, because he automatically gets the last gift on the table (in my case, the banana/orange combination), but gets to trade that gift with that of whomever else he chooses...which can be an awkward choice when the person with the tap light and underwear is about 60-something years old.

The game evokes lots of laughter, and strangely embodies the spirit of christmas more than most holidy-oriented activities that i've participated in. And under Salen's and Zimmerman's definition of play (free movement within a more rigid structure), it is a rather open-ended form of play. Rules are adhered to, but as with any game played whilst intoxicated and in a really really good christmas mood, the rules kind of take a back-seat to hilarious situational elements of play...for instance, if it means that the 14-year-old-kid has to break the rules to give the 50-year-old man a sexually suggestive paper-mache mock-up, then so be it. In the ludic sense, then this is a pretty accurate demonstration of testing the actual imposed limits or rules of a particular game. The game, with its pan-age appeal, has this very surprising solidarity-building element that brings together all of the ages at the christmas party, in a much more mature way. In this respect, the transformative elements of the game affect all, but they seemed to have a more visible effect in the younger children participating; After the game was over, the kids were alot more forewardly social with their elders, and any shyness that existed before had been completely melted by the awkwardly hilarious heat of the game. At least for that evening, it melted ice throughout the whole house, and to all its inhabitants. In retrospect, that seems to be the whole idea behind Christmas...huh...time to do something about that pair of underwear in my car.

The fondest game in distant memory was a variation of hide-and-seek that involved a frisbee/football/manequin foot or any other potential projectiles...and the game was played in a mall after closing hours. My dad used to operate a business out of north star mall, here in San Antonio. I spent a formidable amount of my childhood in that mall; Some weeks I was there more frequently than I was at home. We even had a small room adjacent to storage areas that had a couch-bed, tv, and kitchenette (oficially for the use of our employees, but damned if we didn't sleep there often). I think north star's management were relieved when we left; that was the day they wouldn't have to worry about repeats of episodes like the time my brother (14 at the time) broke into the liquor cabinet and went on a vomitting rampage through the sax-5thavenue wing...or the time my dad got in a fist fight with a customer and almost threw him over our second-story balcony, where he would have been impaled on the great american cookie stand, or whatever bullshit kiosk was set up at the time.

So back to the point, yeah?... We (me and friends) had this magnificent opportunity to utilize a closed-down mall on any night (within the bounds of decency, that is). Since we had been reprimanded on a number of ocassions for playing hide and seek throughout the mall during opening hours (victoria's secret doesn't take kindly to children running around hiding behind bra racks), so to avoid being banned from all areas besides my dad's store, we decided to just play at night, when the beaurocrats were asleep. We knew the night guards intimately, and they had no problem with us playing whatever game we wished, in certain areas of the mall where the potential to break things was minimal.

We played hide and seek most of the time...there's nothing like walking through a darkened, yet moon-lit mall waiting to be tackled by an assailant at every turn. On a couple occasions the guards would turn on the house music for a short amount of time, for our delight.

The environment that we were playing the otherwise-traditional game of hide/seek in definitely modified our modes of play, as well as our interactions with our nightly chaperones (including my dad). First of all, as far as the mechanics of the actual game, we went far beyond simple hide/seek; We would suddenly turn a wing of the mall into a vietnamese jungle and rambo the hell out of it...or stage an attack on the power-man defending the food court barracks. It was cool as hell, to say the least. My dad's interactions with the guards was frequent because of our play, and our mutual trust and understanding grew. A couple times a guard whose name I can't remember would hide behind a kiosk or something and scare the living shit out of us.

From what I can remember, our little 4-kid games gave life to the otherwise dead mall, forged some friendships, and ultimately went further than a simple game of hide and seek. We left the mall about 8 years ago, but me and my girl still go back there sometimes and try to turn a normal day at the mall into an elaborate game of hide and seek...

...except there's a certain storage access door whose code for some odd reason has not been changed in 8 or 9 years.

SNOOOCH to the NOOCH!

...now shake hands, because it looks like you're gonna be closer friends than most might have anticipated.

So it seems that the Yoko factor rears its ugly head again, this time in a much different context; The mythical chimera is no longer disrupting the flow of musical pioneering, her newly-maneceured nails have set their sights on our much-cherished virtual realms. Now, ya might say "Matthew C. Daly, that's a bit partisan of you, isn't it?" You're goddamn right it's partisan, but don't worry, it's only a reaction to a few ridiculous quotes I just injested on Terranova...so i'll regress, you vaporous figure of quotations. I apologize. Maybe this will turn out to be something more fruitful and edifying for our e-culture than I suspect...and maybe i'll explain what i'm droning on about here...just maybe.

It seems that Funcom, creators of Anarchy Online, set up their unheard-of free-accounts system with advertising intentions in mind. The idea is that those gamers who wish to waive the optional membership fee will be exposed to advertisement saturation all over the world of AO. Paying members will not see billboards and such in cities. I found this particularly interesting largely because I'm planning on playing AO (again) for a comparative final research project. And the fusion of virtual worlds and advertising, while some might say inevitable, is a bit scary. The reason the beginning of this post might seem a bit stilted is only because of comments such as this one made by Funcom CEO Trond Aas, regarding his companies collaboration with the advertising firm Massive, Inc.:

"Through our own research we know that most gamers want in-game advertisement to heighten the sense of realism. "

Now, i'm not positive as to their research methods, but the words "flawed" or "fabricated" come to mind when reading something like that. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a gamer that finds the 100x50 square foot banner for Starbucks to so greatly enhance that sought after feeling of immersion in the virtual realm...assuming starbucks isn't actually hiding behind one of the ruling corporate factions in the world of Anarchy Online. And while billboard ads in the metropolitan centers of AO might fit context (merely by their presence, disregarding their actual content), how would an in-game advertising model work for the majority of medievel-style fantasty-based MMO's? Would the town crier walk through town ringing a bell, yelling "Dude, ye hath acquired a Dell...of vanquishing!" I find it hard and depressing to imagine monolith billboards or gas-station jingles hitting you from every angle as you traverse a world you've chosen to take part in if only to escape the rigors of reality.

The (enormous) thread involves contributions from Bartle, Castronova, and a whole hell of a lot of opinionated guys and girls. But one of the most surprisingly abrasive responses came soon after the original posting:

"There's nothing magical in MMORPGs; it's just another distributed application. You can write your own any time. If you're unhappy with the economies that the corporations you've attached yourself to are offering, then all you have to do is pay enough to make your own."

Mocha Myopia, anyone?

TL had a couple advantages on Yee, it seems. First of all, her audience wasn't constantly being attacked by the local wildlife. And secondly, she was presenting in what seemed to be a virtual outdoor classroom. I noticed a sort of award plaque/emblem thing behind the bleachers, and it turned out to be a teacher-of-the-month award. I'm still not entirely clear on who the teacher was or what she taught, but she seemed to be very proud of her students...whomever they might have been. So it seemed only appropriate that we receive a lecture in an "outdoor" virtual learning environment (Jebus answered my prayers that she wouldn't suddenly utilize the screen behind her character and whip out some elaborately boring virtual powerpoint presentation).

While it's been my personal experience that the women in my life typically have had a limited video game vocabulary, I can understand how the idea that women only play games that allow them to "chatter on" can be somewhat demeaning. Now, having said that, i'd like to burrow my head further against the radical femenist preponderance that arose in class the other day....alright, well I exagerrated that entire sentence, but I DID notice a certain sense of female solidarity arise at the accusation that women play games primarily to further their circles of sewing. It was really touching, but I think it was a bit misdirected....Not to further stereotypes, but how many girls do you know (not talking to you LISA!) play half life 2? Doom 3? My point is that there is a social element of this and other Massively Multiplayer that obviously attracts a WIDE variety of players (MEN AND WOMEN). Nobody's threatening femininity as we know it, although there are many that would often unwittingly stereotype to extreme degrees. It's just that social networks are the bare BASIS of these games. If you're the most recluse hermit in the virtual world, you're part of the game's social structure. You can't tell me that you would be performing repetetive quest after quest for experience if yours was the only player character in Azeroth (Norrath, Britania, what have you).

Basically, I believe the refusal of playing motivations based on sociability is counter-productive, and nothing to be embarrased of or something to shy away from. It's the entire basis of the game, at least in a minor degree. I don't log on so I can roleplay gandalf the almighty, but I CAN say with a fair amount of certainty that the fact that i'm playing in a world inhabited by OTHER social beings is one of the main draws that has attracted me to MMO's since the very beginning.

I know i'm going to have to defend this in class in some way or another, and my wits will NOT be about me when that happens. I'm doomed....doomed a life of

I'M COMIN' VIRGINIA!

Seeing as how i completely forgot to write any kind of detailed description of a hopeful research focus, I figured i'd do that now; First and foremost, I'd like to study addiction with specific focus of course on World of Warcraft. The topic piqued my interest because, as a somewhat experienced gamer I haven't quite experienced the level of replay value in any other game. Since school started I've been playing the game pretty frequently, and I haven't tired of it yet; If anything, i've become more involved with it since the beginning. As Dr. Delwiche noted, I plan on straying from writing what would become a complete glorification of the game. I'd like to focus instead on the addictive nature of the game, from the perspective of different player-types (to be Bartlian about it). Obviously Bartle's and Yee's concepts of player types and motivations would be foundational in the investigation of why this game (which has obviously drawn a huge spectrum of personalities/demographics/player types) draws so many people in. Specifics are still down to a minimum, but I hope to elaborate on it and turn it into a worthwhile research endeavor.

The other idea I had was to compare the gaming dynamics of WoW and another MMO, like Anarchy Online; how they draw different types of players, how critical design elements differ, etc. I could also combine the addiction idea addressed above with this one, making it a study of why two games draw different players for different reasons.

Another idea that pretty much just popped in my head as I was typing was to investigate a MUD (or number of popular MUDs) that incorporate something at least close to permanent Player Death, aging, or anything that we talked about in class today. And if not focusing on PD, then actually delving into the realm of text-based MUDs, their communities, game dynamics, etc...pretty much the idea in the paragraph above this one, only comparing more mainstream graphical MMO's to MUD's.

And those are some of the ideas that have been running around the brain farm. Although I like the ideas listed out here, I don't feel that i've found a truly inspiring topic to focus on. Maybe when that happens (as I hope it will), I'll have a more exciting plan of study. Until then....

do or do not...there is no try

So today i'm exploring Dustwallow swamp, home to the hard-held human outpost of Theramore, and generally a terrifying place. I'm getting my ass handed to me by some walking pile of sludge, and this fellow dwarf paladin shows up, few levels higher than me, and completely saves my ass. He buffs me and gives me some food and drink to boot. I think to myself "gee what a nice guy," do a little /dance for him and bid him farewell. An hour later i'm getting my ass re-handed to me by some NPC thieves and this same guy shows up on his bucking bronco and takes them out with some holy smiting justice. We exchange some pleasantries, he gives me some frog-leg soup (okay), and a shiny new gun, much better than the model I held in my hands. In astonishment at this stranger's generosity, I thanked him repetetetively, asking if I could reciprocate in any way. He denied my addresses, and I didn't complain. We part ways again and start actually holding a /tell conversation, starting with some criticisms of the gameplay dynamic, he imparts some game-related wisdom, tips and tricks and such. So I figure, hey, i've inadvertantly made another virtual buddy. Now, based on our lengthy conversation while i'm running completely lost through thousand needles canyon, I figure by this guy's sense of humor, his projected maturity, as well as his apparent levle of intelligence, he must be at least college-educated, probably a professional, maybe even a father.

I talk to Bozar(?) a bit longer, and the conversation tends toward our origins in reality. I'm a student at a University in San Antonio, TX; I'm 20 years old, blah blah. Bozar is 12 years old, lives with his single mom in Vermont (if memory serves), and seems to enjoy the hell out of playing WoW. He spends most of his time in the game (the level 41 paladin he's communicating to me through is only one of a slew of characters that would make solomon blush). Now, the conversation remains casual throughout, and i'm only making speculative judgements based on what we talked about. But, the main point i'm trying to get across here is that i'm still floored by the maturity that was oozing through the text he was transmitting to me through his keyboard. He seemed like he had his head on straighter than I did, and i've got a good 8-year head start on him. Now, this is interesting enough merely as a human interest story, and I won't get into anymore speculation about this kid's life/dreams/mentality/aspirations, because frankly it wouldn't be very moral would it. But, related to personality portrayal and the flexible and uncertain nature of online interaction, Bozar is one for the books. In all my extensive exploration of digital interpersonal communication, I've rarely been as surprised at discovering the true identity of the person on the other side of the console. Now, i'm sure that in real-life, personal communication, Bozar's probably a bit more like a kid than I could sense in World of Warcraft. But he was able to fool me, and i'm sure i've unwittingly held inaccurate images of those that I interact with somewhat blindly.

The gender-turing test we played in class the other day, while fun, was a bit unstructured I think. It could've stood to have been a bit more organized, and on a personal level I was just somewhat confused by what exactly we were trying to discover in the actors. Furthermore, the test was based on the actor intentionaly role-playing a character distinct from their own. This is a whole different ballpark from trying to discover the "true name" of someone by interacting with them casually, not under strict role-playing parameters. In the end, though, it's quite difficult to tell, given only limited bases of judgement, who exactly is on the other end of that cute little collection of polygons.

Well, in the 40 minutes or so that we had in class to level our characters up and venture out to experiment socially and sexually, I didn't have much time do any real role-playing. Don't get me wrong, I had a few sparse in-character general-chat conversations about the existence of honor among thieves, for the most part, those that I spoke with on thursday seemed to be responding to me only because it seemed appropriate for their characters' personality types (although i'm sure not necessarily the elements of their OWN personality exactly). For instance, I happened upon a general chat exchange about some guy ripping off another guy and leaving him in the dust. Some high-and-mighty paladin guy (probably one of those disco-dancing, goatee-sporting, cold-macaroni-eating dunces that runs around with a sledge hammer, some buffs and a quite-literally-holier-than-thou attitude, although I never actually saw his character, but for his addition to the chat)..right, got carried away; yes, so a paladin suggested, in response to the man's plight (the man all the while playing his own character), suggested that rogues (I.E. people whose characters are rogues) are brigands, thieves, pillagers, back-stabbers, and a numer of other labels popular around Britain circa the 1200's. Right, so I figured this guy is playing his pally to the max, emphasizing his oath toward protecting honor, light, truth and all that garbage. I'm running around northshire abbey, silencing my final "YOU NO TAKE CANDLE!" and I notice this guy dissing my chosen profession. Now, this might not have been such a big deal to me: a) had i not been role-playing as instructed...b) had i not fallen in love with the rogue class in about 10 minutes. So I felt a moral and contractual obligation to take this fucker down....so I did. I turned my guns to starboard and unloaded all the punditry I could muster, under the auspices of a female rookie rogue, literally born yesterday. Okay, so punditry is a bit of a stretch, it was more along the lines of a hobbesian (man inherently sucks, adapt or fight an eternally futile battle), darwinian (I don't care if you have power word:jesus fire, i'm going to dance the watusi on your corpse because i'm the fittest) bullshit-fest that ended in a stalemate, as I logged off in a hurry to a real-life obligation.

I have a bit of history with role-playing, though, and I saw in that small session what i've seen every time. No matter how bombastic and exagerrated you may portray yourself, people seem to inevitably accept it as an accurate reflection of your real-life characteristics. And it seems to run the gamut of interactive para-social communication: chat, mesageboards/forums, muds, email, and in particular these MMO's. There's something terribly convincing about a graphically in-depth environment that makes it infinitely easier to accept the reality of someone's portrayed, in-game personality (whether it be genuine or fabricated) than through any other interactive medium. As the most recent example, Brendon cleverly created "Erythrina," a terribly attractive female (human) priest on suramar. I ran into him in stormwind and just having my avatar converse with his, without him role-playing in any way (i.e. conversing like he normally would in the game, take that however you want to) I found it very difficult to retain the mental image of brendon crockett talking to me, because his representative character was so physically different than him. It's like one of those dual-aspect pictures, where you can see two faces or a roman column, but not both at the same time...never both at the same time. So, sitting and talking to Brendon through this hot polygonal woman was a bit confusing, and this was without any projected modification to his personality (what most people I think would agree is the real definition of a person).

So what happens when you portray yourself as, say a saucey rogue with a killer body, piercing eyes, and equally piercing wit and punch daggers?...not to mention the in-game physical manifestation to back up the illusion. The results can be very very convincing, and I speak mostly from experience here. I played alongside one of the leaders of our guild in UO, "Jason," for a year or so, and I considered him a good in-game friend. Conversley, I didn't know much about his real life. Well a year or so later it turns out he's a she, some young girl from Troy, MI. This completely shattered my image of "Jason," and while "he" was the same person after that, it was kind of an early lesson in the flexibility of gender and personality. I had always had this mental image of the guy as this goatee-sporting, basket-ball playing, car-souping-up kind of leather jacket guy. I couldn't have been further from the truth. This didn't really change our relationship that much, although it was a terrible shock for me to find out...it had little importance, anyway, as our guild was promptly disbanded soon after that (goddamn fascist GM's)

I've role-played my fair share of characters, either for sociological experimentation or for some other utility (I ain't of them WEIRDOS, OKAY?! *ptooey*). And, attempting to compile all of my frivolous gender and personality-bending adventures that spawned largely out of a need for fun, not research, I come up with the basic conclusion that the visual element of MMO's only serves to accentuate the believability of even the most horrendously exagerrated personality types. Among my character repertoire in immediate memory, i've played: a middle-aged man with a wife and daughter, college-student of considerably different stature than my own (being 14 or so at the time), and any number of female characters. In the same vein as Lisa's "ditz" character, i've taken advantage of players' initial expectations of my own character for my own personal gain, and it's usually ended in at least entertaining results. An anecdote an old friend of mine (we'll call him Mahoney to protect the innocent) shared with me basically involved a situation where he had been fighting alongside this female high elf in Everquest, and having engaged in really interesting conversation (and a bit of e-flirting), he developed what he described as something like "a perverse, detached attraction" to this person. Basically at the end of the dungeon the big-boobed high elf revealed "herself" to be a guy, not rudely or harshly, just factually, like actively masquerading as a girl, and going as far as flirtatiously interacting with another guy was in no way unorthodox or even somewhat sick. Mahoney said he wasn't floored or anything, but he said the whole situation gave him the heebie-jeebies, so to speak.

Now, looking back on this story from this class's socio-psychological lense, this struck me as queer (no pun intended, BAM!) in a couple ways. First of all, Mahoney is a man who gets laid....often...in the real world, with real, card-carrying members of the female gender. Suffice it to say that he has absolutley no need (nor desire, as far as I hope I know) to be flirting with an e-girl, as risky as any seasoned veteran knows VERY well. So comparing his being drawn into the reality of interacting with a fair-complected, fine-as-hell high elf with my own experiences, and others that i've been privied to, it just seems to support even further the persuasive power of massive-interactive-online-multiplayer games. I've found myself sucked into similar (albeit not romantic) situations, where i've unconsciously accepted the reality that's on my screen without really analyzing potentialities and possibilities (or even what I KNOW is reality- see Brendon as Erythrina). Now, regardless of my falling victim to intense role-playing, or subjecting others to my own trickery, i've never lost sleep over in-game circumstance. However, potentials for what Yee would call problematic usage has been illustrated in aspects of addiction (widows of everquest), almost decadent money spending (ebay), and other almost scary results of certain personality types mixing themselves up in these virtual worlds. Husbands have left their wives for virtual bitches, there has been to my knowledge at least one suicide undeniably resultant of in-game immersion (and consequently betrayal), and there are people who have their financially lives invested in in-game business, as well as their own psychological investments into the games and those who play them. Considering the flooring persuasive power that even minimal role-playing can have in these games, doesn't this provide an irresistible backdrop for those subversive types who would take advantage of others (emotionally, psychologically, financially, etc.)? I found my female rogue self clawing at this paladin's virtual eyes to win an argument that in real life, under what I would like to believe is my "real" personality, I wouldn't give two shits about. Why is this?....uhhh, i dunno, you tell me!

Not to make this an antie-roleplaying propaganda blog update (bit too late i'm thinking), but the future looks even more dangerous for the adverse effects of mixing anonymity and believable environments. The proof is in the architecture, and I believe that graphics are a key element to the convincing nature of MMO's; as the graphics improve and become more photo- and dimensional-realistic, it would seem logical that it will become easier and easier to convince one's self that the reality portrayed on screen is fact, not fiction...(we can take it the next step, where you're receiving virtual worlds through a VR headset, or directly ingesting the environment sensually, ala eXistenz, the Matrix, motherfucking lawn-mower man). While improved hardware performance (visually and orally) means much more immersive experiences, and thus makes any hard-core gamer grow a big rubbery one, it also spells out trouble for those of more impressionable dispositions. If you're cut off from real-life by your virtual-reality headset and headphones, sitting at some bar/tavern engaged in terrific conversation with some buxom blonde that couldn't be any more attractive, you just TRY and convince me that not only will you WANT to believe what you're experiences, you won't be ABLE to help yourself.

Horrifyingly exciting, ain't it.

I return after being treated for shrapnel-related injuries after my hard drive exploded into a million pieces...Hmmm, reminds me of that time I was playing world of warcraft and me and desiree were trying desperately to kill as many scorpions and vile unfamiliars that we became oohh so familiar with, struggling to beat the other team for the grand prize of FOUR SILVER YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH! party time...From a less flippant and more analytical stance, though, watching everyone scamper about to get an A in power-leveling 101 kind of got me thinking along two lines. The first, and lesser developed thought that came to mind was related to the throes and throes of power-leveling, capitalistic and individualistic maniacs that I saw scowering Norrath and Britania during my days playing those early MMO's. I think that these games, in the process of emulating a kind of rough and unfinished version of real life, will tend to bring out those elements of any given personality that seeks to accomplish and gain wealth, power, all that business. It's like Bartle's idea of the achiever player type...while I disagree with his uber pigeon-holing, those scategories he proposes are pretty damn accurate, in my experience. Most particularly, those ahievers who seek riches and power beyond that of their earthly realm tend to trade immersion for what equates to a term I haven't thought about in about five years. The dynamics of Ultima Online's game design allowed for any player with the right macroing program to basically leave their computer with a weight holding down a particular button, and while the player went off on his own real-life adventure to attain the golden macaroni of vanquishing, his avatar would be jabbing at a practice dummy, for instance. When the player returned his avatar would be an adept swordsman. It was that easy, and i'll be the first to admit to doing it...before they patched it, i think.

Basically, what i'm aiming at (with a shotgun apprently) is what i've seen to be the in-game equivalent of profiteering gluttons, trying to better their fellow avatar. These players tend to see the immersion, fun and most importantly GROUP INTERACTION as something secondary to their original goal of getting that castle of his very own. What this equated to in Everquest was a forest full of newbie players who would've gladly rendered everyone else in the zone miniature and unable to move (ala Mario Kart) so that he/she could have at the npc monsters that he/she needed to finish such and such quest to receive such and such item/accolades/etc. Now, when I termed last class's excercise "Power-leveling 101" I wasn't trying to undermine the intentions of herr professor. I realize that he was trying to get us acclimate ourselves to group play and some of the more intermediate-level aspects of the WoW dynamic. However, what we were doing, down to that last piece of clothing sold to break the barrier in time, was a kind of enclosed example of the profiteering glutton player type (that I will submit to Bartle for his review ;) Now, you might say, "World of Warcraft's format requires you to be social, it PUSHES YOU THAT WAY FOR CHRISSAKES!" True, everything from elite quests to getting simple directions to the nearest McGnomeregon requires one to interact, but I think what many might see as WoW's saving grace, the quest system, tends to bring out the same kind of gluttonous activity that previous MMO's wrought, and sometimes worse. You know what i'm talking about when you've joined a party and half of your group bails on you at the slightest hint of potential death; when that melee bastard closer to the corpse you just took down takes the quest item you deserved; when the chat logs are absolutely FULL of people asking questions in a hurry that they could easily answer themselves if they weren't so caught up in the power-level game. And don't get me started on the Auction House atmosphere, i'm bound to rupture a blood vessel. Capitalism at its most abhorrent, eh? ;)

I'm not ALL complaints, though. The semi-forced group dynamic is a nice way to enjoy the fruits of working as a team, and the quest system DOES act as a kind of "map of the Satyrs," telling you what exotic locales are most worth visiting ("don't miss Slartibartfast's newest fjord folks, he worked his ass off on this one!...err, and while you're there, pick up some, uhh....kobold brain stems...sure, bring ten of those back to me, but really check out those fjords, they're quite marvelous!"). I figure the capitalistic, profiteering attitude will pervade MMO's, as long as they operate under even semi-realistic parameters (which, while severely fantasty-oriented, WoW does operate under realistic standards, to a point). There are some definite up-sides, though...especially when you roll that 95 on that badass little chestplate the big turtle boss dropped! And I've actually met a number of virtual buddies through trade activity. As far as leadership skills learned from the game, I know that I can't stand it when a newly-formed group of strangers has no idea what it means to work as a unit, so i'm usually the one to try and assign tasks and priorities for those of different classes and such...but that only happens when i'm dealing with a bunch of truly nincompoopy nincompoops. As far as those skills transferring to real life, I suppose there's some grounds to that proposition. While it may bring out leadership-oriented parts of your personality, I don't think leading a group of players through a dungeon would really equate that well to, say running a team of construction workers; Nothing trains you for leadership like the real thing, but I guess that necessary skills such as task allocation, organization, and to a much much lesser degree people skills could be garnered from in-game activity. Next time you're walking down a crowded street with your friends and your trusted dog, just try and control-1 the mut to attack the nearest tabbed target, preferrably a middle-aged businessman, while typing "/1 I need a heal!" See what kind of response you get from that little beauty.

Having been crowned victorious in the digital triathalon (running/screenshotting/slaying in no specific, and often jumbled order), i'd like to thank first and foremost the finger dexterity that is obviously a result of years and years of hardcore training and conditioning. I've awaited this moment a long time, and I believe that, while the other teams were definitely formidable, only sea bass nicole and I had the collective eye of the tiger...

Alright, I consider myself pretty well versed in the ways of the MMO...among the mud's and 3rd party knockoffs, i've played at some point or another: ultima online, everquest, asheron's call, anarchy online, meridian 59, the realm...and others that might not quite count as persistent mmo's per se (ala Diablo)...wow, having said that I feel like a nerd....not merely a nerd, but a pompous nerd at that, for having compiled such a pointless list from memory. A thousand pardons, whomever reads this. Right, well in a sentence, World of Warcraft has hit the goddamn nail on the head. The interface, the immersiveness, terrain, battle system, pvp, grouping dynamics, chat channel setup, zone dynamics, and so many other elements are a drastic improvement (near-perfection, one might say) of all of the elements of those other games i've played that have not quite made it there. UO had pvp problems and bugs up the wazoo, EQ was a power-playing level-fest (but it's terrain was beautiful for it's time), M59 kind of just depressed me because it would be literally half an hour between player encounters, AC was awesome because you could take down level 50's with a beginner character if you knew what you were doing...but the atmosphere was bland and it was again nothing but leveling; Diablo was pointless to play because of the wealth of trainers, and the realm was just...fucking hilarious...so to speak.

But WoW is indeed quite wow. I was hooked within my first half hour in the game. The fact that the dev team put considerable focus on the quest systems is where they most largely learned from past mistakes. In all those others, like i said, the focus was purlely leveling. They had all their pro's and con's, but your eyes were constantly on your experience meter, and oftentimes (ESPECIALLY in EQ) it would move at depressingly slow speeds...this why I had about 20 characters in each game, none of them above level 10. In WOW, I find that I oftentimes level without even anticipating it...suddenly i'm level 18, and all i've been doing is having fun. They designed this game for the casual player, alright, but it appeals to everyone. My girl, who enjoys nothing later than Yoshi's Island, spent an hour and a half engaged in weirdness and such with the players in the game.

Not enough can be said about the pure awesomeness of the quest system. It's a tutorial, social amalgamator (is that a word?), geographical tour guide, and reward system...and most importantly, the quests are usually pretty fun. The social structure of the game is such that if you enjoy it enough, you don't have to toil uselessly at the lower strata of the social ladder. All it takes is a willingness to explore and engage in quests...and to complete the big, uber-fun quests, you really have to enlist the help of others. I've met some cool people and a hand full of douches in the game, but there's a level of cooperation and competition that I quite dig, much more so than in the other MMO's. Again, as in all these games, some people take their play a bit to seriously, but I think that comes with the fact that this game immerses the player more than ever into a real physionomic, tactile experience...if only because of the beautiful graphics. As a result of this, I think there's a more adherent attachment to your character in the world, and your relationship toward those around you, the way you socialize, seems more immediatley effective or based in some kind of reality...like there's really someone on the other end of that composite of polygons.
Basically, where I didn't mind befriending someone in Ultima Online with the intentions of stabbing them in the back, literally, and then running off with a corpse-full of items and cash...when I play pvp in WoW, I find it alot harder to bring myself to do it. It seems like it's alot more effectual than it was...this probably has to do with the fact that I was 13 when I was double-crossing throes of people in UO. Hormones do horrible things to a young boy (shrug).

I'm gonna stop right there, because I've typed too much already. There's so much more to say about it, and i've only played the game for about 2 weeks probably. It's the next step, I think, and I dig it a whole, whole lot.

So school's back, and i'm not ready for it. For some reason a month's not quite enough for the likes of me. I guess this is entry one for the spring semester, for Delwiche's video games class. If you'd told me ten years ago that i'd be taking a college course on video games, i'd have smacked you in the eye for your ridiculousness. Looks like its a reality now, though.

For those who don't know me, i'm a junior, comm major, and probably gonna get into video game development at some point in this life. Whenever that happens will depend on a number of variables, such as my willingness to committ to a real job, as well chopping off the matted hornet's nest that is my hair...hmmm...typing that just now got the brain farm working. I'd say one of the socially-ascribed identities i'm most commonly met with on at least a semi-daily basis is based largely on my physical appareance, most notably my dreads. If I had a dime for every time someone told me "jah love" or some other rastafarian greeting...well, i'd have a lot of dimes i think...maybe enough to afford a hair cut. Yes, based on initial responses of people that are meeting me for the first time, and comparing the typical responses to those i'd usually receive before my head's entanglement, I can deduce off the cuff that some people assume:

1)I subscribe to a rastafarian lifestyle and/or worship Jah
2)That I smoke pot and abuse other drugs regularly (no comment)
3)That my mind must revolve solely around youthful activity and interest, such as sports, drug use, not-voting, driving dangerously fast and generally putting mine and other peoples' lives at risk....and the assumption suggests that I have absolutley no interest in the more "mature" subjects, such as politics, national economy, the NASDAQ, and a myriad of other interests related typically to people who do not look like me.

So, without writing a thesis on my hair, those are kind of extreme stereotypes that SOME people PROBABLY append to me. I give most people more credit than might be apparent. I know we're not all stereotyping assholes. You get the idea, though. If I am met with such an introduction, i'm sure the initial impression doesn't last long, I hope it crumbles after people get to know me.

On another hand, I consider myself a gamer, and as a result, I love to talk to other gamers about their gaming experiences. There's a certain collective nostalgia that one feels when talking about old games. For instance, I was talking to a good friend of mine a couple months ago about our old days on Ultima Online. We were at a party, and talking about adventuring, discovering a hedge maze southwest of britain, killing some pk's who attacked us inside said maze, and a number of other things that happened on that particular day, as well as other such experiences in the game. The fact that Vic also played UO gives us some basis of commonality, since we share a similar identity, in that respect. I believe we were both impacted by our time playing the game, and our identities were informed by that experience.

As far as my first character goes, I think i've already created him. He's a dwarf hunter appropriately named Blààrgh, and I chose him because I was told that the hunter class was an excellent soloing class. I figure that corresponds at least slightly with my own personality, as I like to be self-sufficient, and not have to rely on others to engage in particular activities. I need the car I have, I need to live alone, I don't like being late because other people are lagging behind, nor do I want to feel pressured to rush if someone else is in a hurry. I attack life at my own pace, so I guess the hunter is a good enough class for me. He's at lvl 14 right now, so I guess i'm enjoying him. My pet bear, Vanna White, is the only steady companion my character has, and I can summon or dismiss her whenever I please (sounds like the optimal relationship, doesn't it...don't fight it, I know you're jealous ;) Conversely, the hunter's abilities make him a good supplement to any group. I've joined a few parties since I started playing the game, and i've enjoyed most of them (barring assholes or terribly immature twelve-year-olds). Again, this reflects largely on my social life in reality, as I consider myself very close to my group of friends, and I usually won't go more than a couple days without hanging out with one of my good friends. I enjoy self-sufficiency, but I like to be able to join up with people often. Thus, I play a character that can survive on his own, but can also be a valuable addition to any team. That's a pretty accurate reflection of me, I guess....shrug. I'm gonna try out a paladin at some point, because of all the players i've dueled, pally's ALWAYS win. They're goddamn tanks...big, armor-wearing, broadsword-bearing, regenerating tanks.
Fuckers.

A bit late, eh? I too failed to realize we were linking our projects on our blogs...well here's the game's website. It's a pretty funny little thing, i'm not too modest to admit...well, it's funny in my opinion at least. Shrug. Email me if you wanna give me any feedback or if you're stuck or if you wanna slap me for the ridiculousness of this project. It's been nice classing with you lot. I hope you all really enjoy the time away from school. Seeya.

I'm a firm believer that the future of the human race will depend almost entirely on how the international community (and consequently, the USA as one of the leaders of the intl. community) will approach regulatory measures to protect against deleterious uses of biotechnology, nuclear power, communications technologies, and other evolving technology. Fukuyama insists on an urgency to implement measures of control, on a world-wide level to avoid the realization of post-humanism in the most negative form, those illustrated in 1984, brave new world, brazil, the matrix, and other scientific and pseudo-scientific works of dystopian fiction. Right now, we're wielding our exponentially exploding power over the human mind, body, and our temporal surroundings like "a kid who's found his dad's gun," to quote Ian Malcom, the chaos theoritician in Jurassic Park. It's not too difficult to admit some similarities between the macrocosm of the modern world that is Jurassic Park and the modern technologically-driven world that we live in.

Our technology is our boon and our curse. Physically and/or mentally handicapped people will benefit extraordinarily from advances in biotechnology such as those reaped from the monkey/robot arm experiment. We have this fantastic technology to be able to restore control to a person's disfunctional arm, but at what cost exactly? The distinction between scientist and mad scientist is blurring alot these days. The team of scientists working on restoring functionality to dead limbs is at least vaguely reminiscent of a certain Dr. Frankenstein and his pioneering of biotechnology. We're coming upon the age of dominance over our temporal existence, and hey what a coincidence! We can also be superman in increasingly immersive virtual environments! The elaborate jigsaw/treasure map that is the human genome is being cracked more and more every day. When we can choose whether our offspring will have blue or blonde hair, when we can choose to take a happy pill or an "finally interested in sports, finally sociable in the right situation" pill, it's not too many steps away to inadvertantly choose a "finally able to accept mass genocide for the preservation of [insert country/political body name here] ideals" pill. If in 2004 we can chart human brain waves to a level of exactness that we can reproduce them, that conversely means that science has a foothold into dominating the human mind.

We're on the cusp of some strange days. Pandora's box is open, right? There's definately no closing it, as long as we're the dominant species on the planet. How our future will unfold will determine how we approach our technological uses. Hopefully man and tech can shake hands and choose to live a life of peace in a bungalow on the caspian sea, but i'd tend more toward tech holding a knife behind its back. But hey, at least we'll be able to surf the waves of destruction on our brand new hover boards right?! HEAVY!!!!

I've worked with ADRIFT, and it's a bit more cumbersome than i'd expected. I guess that's the tradeoff you pay for when you create an object-oriented programming application that is aimed to be used by those with little to no actual program experience. And experience within intensive programming skills would definatley help out with this project. This will be a challenging final project, but i'm sure I can handle it...I've decided to stick with the Amish story, because...well, because I really haven't thought of anything better. Eh. It's interesting enough. A cabal of technophiles with aspirations of worl domination...sounds familiar, eh? BUT NOT AMONGST THE AMISH! OH NO! Submachinegun Butterchurners away!
I haven't begun putting together the actual game, but the basic skeleton of the story is broken up into 4 major puzzles that you'll have to solve (or not solve, affecting the end result of the game), each of which will have at least a couple different ways to go about tackling. I'm going to try to make it as open-ended as possible, within the confines of my first mud creation. The story will be pretty narrowly focused, since it's a short-term project, but the puzzles should give the player enough breadth of choice to create a unique outcome. Like I said, 4 major puzzles:

1)Strange emaciated, terrified man approaches you during your daily rigours. He babbles about "the rest of them" still being underground. He runs off into the thicket. In puzzles one you choose whether or not to continue about your labors (game over, you'll unwittingly support the amishpocalypse) or investigate. The puzzle will consist of you snoooping around and not getting caught.

I figured i'd bridge the possibilities here.
a)you don't get caught, you continue down the main storyline
b)you get caught you have the chance to join them or fight. This, however would require me to create two more additional possible puzzles/story branches to the story. We'll see how this works out. I know this may be difficult to conceptualize, but don't worry I have it worked out in my head.

2)you get discovered or caught in a pickle or something, while rummaging around, and you have to chooose what to do here (escape, fight, surrender, etc.). And your ability to fight will be determined by how you use particular objects in the game. For instance, you may be temporarily locked in a containment chamber underground, but you have to get out in a hurry because the plans for the mass suicide or going to be initiated soon or something (gimme a break, i'll iron out the kinks soon) and you have to rescue your sister and escape the enclave. You'll have a pitch fork, for instance maybe, and a package of chewing gum, and some other trinkets you have, as well as those you can pick up in the room. You'll have ot use these the correct way to to escape and continue on to the next element of the story.

3)You've escaped and you need to rescue your sister from some town gathering (maybe the mass suicide under the guise of a church service or something). It's your choice here to rescue her or just escape, but there will be consequences to the end story.

4)You save your sis/decide to escape. The escape will be some final confrontation where you'll have to use your wits (and some carefully placed objects) to survive. If you fail to escape, you're killed or incorporated into the cabal, brainwashed so to speak.

I have 6 endings somewhat conceptualized in my head right now. They range from happy to goofy to absolutely morbid. It's up to you to choose how this story ends.

WILL THE AMISH CONTINUE THEIR REIGN OF TERROR, DENOUNCING TELEVISION AND CHURNING THEIR OWN BUTTER?!
JOIN US FOR THE NEXT EPISODE OF...
REVENGE OF THE AMISH

Website Redux

I plan to write a short text-based puzzle game, utilizing an application called ADRIFT, which allows one such as I with no prior programming experience (but with an object-oriented mind!) to create a text-based adventure as grand in scope as I'd like. For the purposes of this project, though, the game will be rather small and focused in scope, pushing toward a small number (3 or 4) of semi-complex puzzles (hopefully!). Another cool thing about the program is that I can incorporate sound and music into the settings to add a little bit more depth and immersion into the text-based environments. It'll be like one of those choose-your-own-adventure books, where you get to decide what paths to take and what choices to make. There will be the possibility for different endings depending on how you decide to interact with non-player characters (npc's) in the game, as well as how you attempt to solve certain puzzles. I haven't begun developing yet, but my best guess is that if the game is as challenging as I hope to make it, it will probably take about 10-15 minutes to finish. This is an early speculation, so don't quote me on that. Regardless of how long it takes, i'll make sure to keep it interesting and engaging.

I chose to create a text-based MUD (multi-user dungeon as they called them back in the cretacious period) was because i'm contemplating designing video games for a living. I've been an avid gamer all my life and the little virtual worlds i've immersed myself in have had a huge impact on how i perceive the world around me, and I see that as a positive thing. I think games are the next step in entertainment, fiction, cinema, writing, music, and any of the other modes of story telling in the past. And if any of that is complete bullshit, I know one thing for damned sure; VIDEO GAMES ROCK! So here I go trying to make one, let's hope for the best, eh?

Whether my career prospects work out or not, i've never tried to go solo on designing a video game. I've worked on a number of projects related to level design, texturing and modeling, concept, and beta testing for bigger releases, but i've never actually set my mind to creating a virtual interactive world from scratch. I have a number of ideas where i'd like to take the story, but they're all speculation right now. I'm trying to tie in a theme touched upon in class or in one of our readings to an interesting concept for a short and condensed game. A couple ideas I have right now for story lines:

A)You're a young amish kid performing the daily labors and you're suddenly approached by a beaten emaciated and mangled figure of a man, babbling about something sinister going on and "the others are still down therë." Basically, the story will develop into something along the lines that yoúr amish community is actually a technology-driven cabal, whose intentions i'm not exactly clear on, but maybe they're holding some ICBMS and they're going to dominate the world. You find out that it's not just your community but thousands of other communes all around the world. You have to solve a number of puzzles and interact with some npc's to escape, distract your little sister long enough to get out with her (optional, will affect the ending), and somehow warn the proper authorities. Let's see how this one turns out, yeah?

B)You're shopping for groceries and realize that there are half-filled, abandoned grocery carts drifting alone down the aisles, and no people around. You notice someone run out the front, and you follow. You jump into your car and find emergency broadcast that the government is declaring a state of emergency. Somehow (not sure how) you find out it's a possible nuclear attack and you have to gather your family aorund town and make it to some safety. You'll have to interact with npc's and use objects, make decisions, etc. that will affect the outcome of the story.

Game on, yeah?

Posted this a while ago, but it might have been muddled in other stuff since then... so here's the site again! YAY!

Scott McCloud suggests the economic viability of selling three types of products on the internet: physical products such as clothing, books, merchandise, etc., advertising space on websites, and finally the intangible experiences of the internet. The selling or re-selling of actual products is most akin to retail methods of "brick and mortar" busineses, and according to McCloud are consequently subject to traditional laws of supply and demand. However, the third business model, in which intangible bits are sold to the consumer, traditional economic market/supply&demand models don't apply. In the new online marketplace, a business dynamic never before seen has been realized. The demand creates the supply. In the business of digital retail, as long as there's a willing buyer and a willing seller, there's a potential business transaction. The massively increased potential for huge, wide spanning reach to audiences gives every comic artist previously hindered by something like physical location the potential to sell his/her comics to the extent that he/she had hoped. A large part of this newfound potentiality is a large move toward the removal of those in power employing methods to keep saleable goods from being sold by smaller competitors. This is still possible in the digital retail market, but the new extent of reach found by any independent businessman online is much harder for larger, more affluent parties to quelch, particularly when that indie's website becomes popular. This new economic model eliminates physical distance from supplier to consumer, exuberant production prices, advertising, and finally the increased spending by producers on creating better products.

Examples:
Physical Merchandise - every store you've ever been to and bought from deals with the retail of physical products. There's really no better examples for this than every store in a mall, shopping center, or anywhere. If you want an example of physical product retail, go into the first store you see today and buy something. Restaurants, clothiers, electronics stores, whatever, it all falls under this. The same goes for online retailers of physical products.

Advertising - From pop ups to those annoying "catch the monkey and win a tv" banners on every major and minor website. It's become an enveloping force throughout the internet. Advertising methods have gone as far as automatically installing covert spyware onto your computer just by visiting a website or viewing a picture! Unless you take measures to take care of this, the owners of buyachimp dot com in Tacoma, WA are going to know exactly what kind of porn you're into! Scare thought. Online advertising has evolved since its early days in its subtleties. Pop up banners that replicate windows warnings or windows explorer windows will cause the unwitting user to unwittingly click and agree to buy a chimp from those fucks in Tacoma. It's only a matter of experience before innovations in fooling people become useless. Still, online advertising is affordable and has incredible reach

Intangible Bits - This new and improving method of internet retail includes the retail (or theft!) of digital music, art, literature, games, etc. In many ways it involves elements of the previous two models, or at least incorporates parts of those models into its own business methods. Apple's I-Tunes or the new napster (pffft!) are examples of organizations attempting to legitimize and realize the online reselling of digital music. Piracy is the main oponnent in such a business model, though, as there are about two and a half million ways to download digital products for free. Dealing with each of them is an impossibility, so a result has been a sort of forced compromise on the parts of retailers in rendering it both attractive and affordable, giving consumers an incentive to pay for products they can easily get for free. Establishing the advantage of buying over stealing something has continuously eluded businesses since the dawn of this new problem.