I’m in ur market stealing yer customers…meowlolz

I’ve been paying attention to the forums here so much I’ve neglected posting here. Omg wth! To make up for it, I thought I would come up with a snazzy lolcatz title (hey, everyone else is doing it) that would surely make its way across the internet, RSS feeds, reposts, and linkbacks. This will assuredly draw your eyes to these very words! Ah, the power of greysku…er the internet!

Anyway, I just moved into a new place and the stupid AC doesn’t work. APPARENTLY my anti-industry rantings have caused a small cabal of evil developers to band together and they have set out to silence me. Galileo knows what I’m talking about. Anyway, these guys are total amateurs. I caught them trying to load a copy of Vanguard on my computer (dorks) and they had the nerve to throw old AOL disks at me like shurikens. HA!

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition you know.

Did I mention that I have some spanish blood coursing through my veins? (you know the “hot blooded spanish flamenco dancer” type stuff, direct from Spain!). I’m also pretty inquisitive, so there you go. Boy were they surprised. I pulled a few crazy moves on them (which I learned from the cool CCP guys a couple of years back when I was over there in Iceland doing a bit of consulting) and totally took them out. It was all very unpleasant you know, Icelanders have no fear, and their fighting style shows it. Anyway, I roughed these punks up real good. You know, I feel the need to interject here that the stereotypes about geek developers are *mostly* true. My office still reeks of stale mountain dew and bawlz. I should have made them go outside before kicking their butts.

When they woke up, I decided to interrogate them a bit. Of course they were hardened…working for some of the “big boyz” developers and publishers out there is torture enough. “Crunch time all the time” they say…bah, thats just stupid project management in my book. Anyway, the leader of this motley group scoffed at my scare tactics and claimed he worked for EA for several years and saw the death of so many projects (remember the Battletech MMO that was nearly in beta when EA canned it for no obvious reason?) that he was completely desensitized to any violence. Tough cookie there. So I moved on to the next guy.

This dude was a real piece of work. No honestly. He looked part codemonkey, (ok more like part ape/orangutang), and he had a tattoo that said “Romero made me his bitch” under an old daikatana logo. He sneered at me and said he wouldn’t talk. I merely watched him for a moment and then said “The new fallout is oblivion with guns!”. The poor sap started spluttering something about silly looking mutants and then passed out. Psht, don’t sneer at ME when I’m playing hardball. I’m totally Supercore.

I moved on to the third guy. Er girl. Oh, hey a marketing chick out in the field. Now that is pretty impressive. The only thing more deadly than a marketing chick is a woman programmer. Every one I have ever met has danced circles around the guy programmers. Seriously, if there were more women in the industry, we would probably advance by ten years overnight. I realized I had to be cautious. Sure, she looked pretty, but women are powers of nature to deal with. Mad respect to the ladies. Anyway, I was trying to figure out if I should get right to the point with the interrogation or if I should say something witty and then I realized something was amiss.

This chick was a guy! Role-playing! OMG I knew that most hot elves in MMO land are actually guys (better think twice about trying to pick up that chick while you are on the next raid my friend), but I didn’t think they would go this far! Cross dressing game developer! I thought I had seen my fair share of wierd stuff at the last anime convention’s cosplay contest, but wow, this dude knows his craft. “Changes nothing” I thought. So I started one of my infamous lectures about how the industry is devolving, and that MMORPGs are nothing more than badly designed and glorified CRPGs, when this shmuck started spouting industry growth numbers at me. HA! So he was in marketing! I smacked her, uh him, in the mouth and he tried to bite my hand. I wasn’t having any of that so I dug out some research I’ve been compiling for years (player complaints about games in forums). You can’t beat that sort of anecdotal evidence with some flakey and bloated subscription numbers. I mean honestly, I felt like I was talking about Second Life again. Anyway, the marketing shlep eventually shut up in a sullen pose glaring at me with those beady eyes.

Time to move on. I still had no idea who sent this motley bunch to harass me. I’m pretty sure I’ve complained or ranted about nearly everyone and every project out there. Hrm…David Perry’s “Secret project” mmo turns out to be a racing game. Real innovative Dave! I expected more. Hrm, he wouldn’t stoop so low as to have my AC taken out though. What about the guys over at Green Monster Games? Those giant egos wouldn’t tolerate me sniping them would they? Oh wait, speaking of ego, they are now called Kurt Shilling Games, or was it 38 Studios? Wait, how many studios?It’s all about the team, isnt it Kurt. I can’t wait to see what this braintrust puts out. I swear if it is a baseball MMORPG I’ll beat up some little leaguers. No, I’m small fry to those guys. I doubt that McFarlane and Salvatore even know that I exist. To be honest, I half expect a game that looks pretty with a nice story line, and has nine innings. Starting a game development studio because you like Everquest and the profit potential looks juicy are bad reasons in my opinion.

Hrmmm, who could it possibly be? The Red 5 guys? Nah, I don’t think they have the time. I honestly don’t know enough about them to really give them a hard time, although it is suspicious that they raised a ton of money so fast after leaving Blizzard. I mean, sheesh, WoW was barely out the gate and they were laying cable in a new office space. I still think that I could score a cool $20M for development if I hired a former Blizzard receptionist or janitor. That seems to be the way to get funds these days.

NCSoft maybe? Aion looks pretty and of course Tabula Rasa is getting a lot of press. I saw a headline the other day “Tabula Rasa puts the RP back in RPG”. I wanted to puke. It’s a shooter. Yeah, I said it. Personally I liked Tabula Rasa before they chucked two years worth of design and development into the ether and started over. Now its just like…well, MMO Unreal. Oh, you have to use the environment! Bzzzt. Still not role-playing. It has a story! No, every game has story. Hell you can even make up a story of your own for Tic-Tac-Toe. That doesn’t make it role-playing or role-playing with “user created content”. I have a lot of respect for Garriot and NCSoft, but let’s take off the rose-colored glasses folks. Anyway, I’ve met a lot of nice and talented people at NCSoft. They aren’t the vengeful kind. Although I have heard rumors of developers getting “lost” in Garriot’s castle. Now THAT is some hardcore roleplaying my friends.

So while I have been standing here mulling over who my possible tormentors could be, my captives have all either passed out or fallen asleep. That’s what happens when you drone on and on like myself. Too bad for them though, I still have more material to use. I could have made them pay for their insolence and terrible game design and development. Next time I might force them to listen to David Hasselhoff singing “Hooked on a feeling” or perhaps Leonard Nimoy’s infamous rendition of “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”. I told ya, I play hardball.

I called a local SCA guild and told them that there were some folks here making fun of people that hit each other with boffo bats and pretend to be knights and squires. Boy that really pissed them off. They promised to head straight over and show my guests some *real* role-playing. Maybe they will learn a lesson and quit making crap MMORPGs that are nothing more than grind and looting. I swear, if I hear another developer say “end game” or “high level content” I’m going to punch them in the mouth. You aren’t making a CRPG you moron.

Nicodemus out.

PS, keep your hands off my AC! I’ll find out who is doing this!
PSS, I’m not really stealing your customers…yet. Remember, “Nico knows MMO’s! Bo ain’t got diddly.”