Terra Nova commentary today on why the player-held banning powers haven’t been used in almost three years of Egyptian life. I do love TN so very much. Statements like this you just can’t find anywhere else:

I don’t think I’m nearly as surprised as Tepper seems to be. Partly because I think his expectation here invokes a common form of cyberlibertarian narrative about contemporary American politics that is at the least an over-simplified hypothesis about the development of post-1945 liberal democracies, that refers implicitly to some kind of universal tendency of individuals to surrender freedom to authority.

A Junkie In The Desert. An ATITD player talks addiction @ The Escapist.

Richard Bartle’s very well read Players who Suit Muds is an essay designed to give players and designers a way to talk about Player Types. It’s an incredibly useful tool, and was later made into a test designed to measure your Bartle Quotient. If you’ve ever seen someone’s signature and it said something like “34% Explorer, 42% Socializer”, they were referring to their results from the Bartle test. This is all well and good, but how do the concepts of Player Types actually help us as players? It’s nice to be able to brand yourself in such a way that people understand you, but what is the benefit? In the past, the different MMOGs have been examined for what kinds of players they mainly appeal to. I’m going to go into some specifics today as regards how the different player types will interact with some of the newer games that we’ve seen become available. Down at the bottom of this article I’ve included a list of most of the major MMOGs and the player types they cater to.

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With Hyrrix now off on his newest adventure, the Monday editorial will be my bailiwick from now on. As such, I’ve decided to rename it. “Random Dialogue” is an apt description of what I’d like to get across in these editorials. Namely, what is on my mind at the time when it comes to the genre we all enjoy a great deal. I’m going to generally speak from a crunchier perspective. My editorial on Questing from a while back is a good example of what I’m going for. Today I’m going to start off with some of my favorite snackable parts from MMOGs that were released in 2003.

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