Janari
05-17-2003, 11:37 AM
Originally posted by SteppySOA:
I have recently been accused of taking EverQuest too seriously. This was in response to my general opinion that Furor, he of the FOH threat to bag their marbles and move their patronage from Sony’s treasury to Blizzard’s, is actually a childish, overbearing, and possibly delusional idiot.
Well, I have a few things to say. Despite the fact that I have posted on this message board some 3000+ times, EverQuest is a COMPUTER GAME! I play for recreation. I do not play to validate my manhood, to overcome my feelings of inadequacy, or to live out some fantasy in which I actually do get to kick some ass now and then. If you think being able to join 71 other on-line friends in destroying a computer-generated dragon makes you somehow a better, smarter, cooler, or in any way superior person, then I pity you. Seriously, you are pathetic and deserve only pity (and a little contempt) if you think there is anything worthy of boasting in killing a computer-defined movable object. If, on the other hand, you find it entertaining and fun to join with your friends and play a game, then you are a healthy, normally adjusted individual.
Now, let me go into some detail on the interface between the real world and EQ. Sony is a big-ass company in Japan. You are what is commonly referred to as a consumer. The way world economy works, they sell a product to you and you, as a consumer, buy it. In this case, they not only sell a product, but provide an entertainment service to you. You pay them, they give you a game to play. Got it? You don’t work for Sony. You don’t earn brownie points by playing a lot and killing big mean computer monsters. You just entertain yourself. As long as you keep getting entertained, you keep paying Sony money. You and half a million other computer geeks. When you stop being entertained, you stop paying. It’s that simple. You’re not paying dues, you’re not punching a time-clock, you’re not earning green stamps or coupons to turn in for fabulous prizes. There is one and only one reason to keep shelling out your money for this service – you keep getting entertained.
Now, some players play sparingly. They may only be able to play 2 or 3 hours a week or even a month and their characters may only be level 7 or 8 and they may have only a small, poor-quality collection of gear on that character. For this, they pay oh, roughly $12.95 a month. Some players play 70 or 80 hours a week, have characters that are level 65 with hundreds of AA points, and some of the best gear in the game. For this, they pay, believe it or not, roughly $12.95 a month. It would seem, then, that the high-time, high-level guys are getting quite the bargain, wouldn’t it? Clearly, they are getting a whole lot more entertainment for their $12.95 than the low-time player, doesn’t it seem?
Here’s a clue, Furor – you didn’t work your ass off to get to Plane of Time. You PLAYED A GAME which is a form of entertainment for which you WILLINGLY PAID MONEY! Okay, so you were disappointed with the result and the outcome. Great. Quit. And don’t let the door hit your whining, sniveling, self-important geek ass on the way out. But the picture you try to paint that it was all sweat and toil and hard work and suffering you were laying down in your drudgery amongst the rabble of EQ (while still paying Sony $12.95 for the privilege) doesn’t make you look like a victim. It makes you look gullible. Seriously, if it was that horrible and painful and you kept paying for the privilege of suffering – well, come on man. Most lab rats learn faster than that. I have had people tell me all about your ‘contributions’ to the game – not that they could actually name or document a single one, mind you, but they insist you have, single-handedly, out of the goodness of your heart, made EQ a much better place for all of us. Which is utter bullshit! Sony has programmers and game designers who make money – presumably a fair chunk of it – writing the code for this game. And given the size and complexity of the game, they do a pretty good job of it. So good, in fact, that 500,000 people pay them $12.95 a month to play that game. Honestly, the idea that you have in any way helped them do their job or that it wouldn’t have been done as well or as fast without you around to squeal like an infant with a loaded diaper is incredibly laughable.
So you think you can put the fear of God into Sony Online Entertainment by threatening to remove 50 or 60 subscribers from their 500,000. Ummm-kay. Yeah, I can seem them bending over for you give the incredible economic power represented by the nearly $700 a month of income you threaten to remove from their intake of millions. By golly, with that kind of financial clout, maybe they should name a zone after you guys. Or design a new playable race with a city named Furorville as their home. By golly, if those massive dollar amounts alone do not have them quaking in their boots, certainly your threat to transfer that treasure trove of moolah to one of their competitors will do the trick!
Oh pardon moi – sarcasm is sometimes hard to resist.
Furor is a computer gamer. Believe me, it does not take a rocket scientist to punch auto-attack and occasionally hit the taunt and kick buttons. And before you tell me all about the L33T STRATS he and his guild have developed, let me point out that there are about 30 computer games more strategically demanding than EverQuest on my hard drive right now. I think it’s just spiffy that he and his guild found the time, persistence, and tactics to get into the Plane of Time. But I HOPE they are smart enough to realize that it isn’t going to impress anyone to put it on their resumes. In the real world, taking down the Rathe Council means one and only one thing – you got a ton of entertainment mileage out of your $12.95. But outside EQ, your mastery of the high end-game of EQ means absolutely dick. Even inside EQ, all it means is you have a whole lot more time on your hands than most of us.
The message Furor posted on the website is a blatant cry for help. This is a person whose identity is so tied to his achievements in a computer game, that he has come to believe his ‘accomplishments’ within the game have some value other than his own entertainment. He has come to believe that because he has seen more of the game and killed more imaginary monsters than other people, his $12.95 is somehow dramatically more important to SOE than yours or mine. If it is, Sony needs to have their customer service department re-trained immediately. Sony, let me point out what SHOULD be obvious to us all. You get fat off the casual, low time players – the ones who pay for a full game but only use a tiny fraction of your monthly bandwidth and server load. Resource hogs like Furor should be encouraged to leave as soon as you have a low-bandwidth replacement for them. He is sucking up way more than his share of your entertainment effort, if you ask me. The fact that he is still dissatisfied even after slurping up more of the entertainment slops than all the rest of us is clear proof his time has come. Boot him. You could easily accommodate 3 newbies with the server load he is sucking down and make 3 times the monthly income! Besides, if there is one thing that is obvious from his childish, immature squealing, it is that this is a person who you will never make happy, anyway.
Oh, and look at the last few patches! Sony is making it easier to be a newbie, easier for the casual player to move to harder zones, easier for people who don’t play 80 hours a week to enjoy more of the game in their limited time online.
And of course, that really really pisses Furor off because he seems to believe that the time he has spent playing, the time he has spent entertaining himself has somehow entitled him to more for his money than you or I get. Fortunately, Sony knows better. And so should Furor. And so should you.
Oh, and before you make an issue of how much time I spent writing up this little rant, let me give you the facts – 20 minutes. Tops. And that was with a couple of interruptions. Folks, I write for a living and I write fast. It’s part of my job and I enjoy it. It’s what I do for entertainment.
And unlike Furor, I often get paid for it.
I have recently been accused of taking EverQuest too seriously. This was in response to my general opinion that Furor, he of the FOH threat to bag their marbles and move their patronage from Sony’s treasury to Blizzard’s, is actually a childish, overbearing, and possibly delusional idiot.
Well, I have a few things to say. Despite the fact that I have posted on this message board some 3000+ times, EverQuest is a COMPUTER GAME! I play for recreation. I do not play to validate my manhood, to overcome my feelings of inadequacy, or to live out some fantasy in which I actually do get to kick some ass now and then. If you think being able to join 71 other on-line friends in destroying a computer-generated dragon makes you somehow a better, smarter, cooler, or in any way superior person, then I pity you. Seriously, you are pathetic and deserve only pity (and a little contempt) if you think there is anything worthy of boasting in killing a computer-defined movable object. If, on the other hand, you find it entertaining and fun to join with your friends and play a game, then you are a healthy, normally adjusted individual.
Now, let me go into some detail on the interface between the real world and EQ. Sony is a big-ass company in Japan. You are what is commonly referred to as a consumer. The way world economy works, they sell a product to you and you, as a consumer, buy it. In this case, they not only sell a product, but provide an entertainment service to you. You pay them, they give you a game to play. Got it? You don’t work for Sony. You don’t earn brownie points by playing a lot and killing big mean computer monsters. You just entertain yourself. As long as you keep getting entertained, you keep paying Sony money. You and half a million other computer geeks. When you stop being entertained, you stop paying. It’s that simple. You’re not paying dues, you’re not punching a time-clock, you’re not earning green stamps or coupons to turn in for fabulous prizes. There is one and only one reason to keep shelling out your money for this service – you keep getting entertained.
Now, some players play sparingly. They may only be able to play 2 or 3 hours a week or even a month and their characters may only be level 7 or 8 and they may have only a small, poor-quality collection of gear on that character. For this, they pay oh, roughly $12.95 a month. Some players play 70 or 80 hours a week, have characters that are level 65 with hundreds of AA points, and some of the best gear in the game. For this, they pay, believe it or not, roughly $12.95 a month. It would seem, then, that the high-time, high-level guys are getting quite the bargain, wouldn’t it? Clearly, they are getting a whole lot more entertainment for their $12.95 than the low-time player, doesn’t it seem?
Here’s a clue, Furor – you didn’t work your ass off to get to Plane of Time. You PLAYED A GAME which is a form of entertainment for which you WILLINGLY PAID MONEY! Okay, so you were disappointed with the result and the outcome. Great. Quit. And don’t let the door hit your whining, sniveling, self-important geek ass on the way out. But the picture you try to paint that it was all sweat and toil and hard work and suffering you were laying down in your drudgery amongst the rabble of EQ (while still paying Sony $12.95 for the privilege) doesn’t make you look like a victim. It makes you look gullible. Seriously, if it was that horrible and painful and you kept paying for the privilege of suffering – well, come on man. Most lab rats learn faster than that. I have had people tell me all about your ‘contributions’ to the game – not that they could actually name or document a single one, mind you, but they insist you have, single-handedly, out of the goodness of your heart, made EQ a much better place for all of us. Which is utter bullshit! Sony has programmers and game designers who make money – presumably a fair chunk of it – writing the code for this game. And given the size and complexity of the game, they do a pretty good job of it. So good, in fact, that 500,000 people pay them $12.95 a month to play that game. Honestly, the idea that you have in any way helped them do their job or that it wouldn’t have been done as well or as fast without you around to squeal like an infant with a loaded diaper is incredibly laughable.
So you think you can put the fear of God into Sony Online Entertainment by threatening to remove 50 or 60 subscribers from their 500,000. Ummm-kay. Yeah, I can seem them bending over for you give the incredible economic power represented by the nearly $700 a month of income you threaten to remove from their intake of millions. By golly, with that kind of financial clout, maybe they should name a zone after you guys. Or design a new playable race with a city named Furorville as their home. By golly, if those massive dollar amounts alone do not have them quaking in their boots, certainly your threat to transfer that treasure trove of moolah to one of their competitors will do the trick!
Oh pardon moi – sarcasm is sometimes hard to resist.
Furor is a computer gamer. Believe me, it does not take a rocket scientist to punch auto-attack and occasionally hit the taunt and kick buttons. And before you tell me all about the L33T STRATS he and his guild have developed, let me point out that there are about 30 computer games more strategically demanding than EverQuest on my hard drive right now. I think it’s just spiffy that he and his guild found the time, persistence, and tactics to get into the Plane of Time. But I HOPE they are smart enough to realize that it isn’t going to impress anyone to put it on their resumes. In the real world, taking down the Rathe Council means one and only one thing – you got a ton of entertainment mileage out of your $12.95. But outside EQ, your mastery of the high end-game of EQ means absolutely dick. Even inside EQ, all it means is you have a whole lot more time on your hands than most of us.
The message Furor posted on the website is a blatant cry for help. This is a person whose identity is so tied to his achievements in a computer game, that he has come to believe his ‘accomplishments’ within the game have some value other than his own entertainment. He has come to believe that because he has seen more of the game and killed more imaginary monsters than other people, his $12.95 is somehow dramatically more important to SOE than yours or mine. If it is, Sony needs to have their customer service department re-trained immediately. Sony, let me point out what SHOULD be obvious to us all. You get fat off the casual, low time players – the ones who pay for a full game but only use a tiny fraction of your monthly bandwidth and server load. Resource hogs like Furor should be encouraged to leave as soon as you have a low-bandwidth replacement for them. He is sucking up way more than his share of your entertainment effort, if you ask me. The fact that he is still dissatisfied even after slurping up more of the entertainment slops than all the rest of us is clear proof his time has come. Boot him. You could easily accommodate 3 newbies with the server load he is sucking down and make 3 times the monthly income! Besides, if there is one thing that is obvious from his childish, immature squealing, it is that this is a person who you will never make happy, anyway.
Oh, and look at the last few patches! Sony is making it easier to be a newbie, easier for the casual player to move to harder zones, easier for people who don’t play 80 hours a week to enjoy more of the game in their limited time online.
And of course, that really really pisses Furor off because he seems to believe that the time he has spent playing, the time he has spent entertaining himself has somehow entitled him to more for his money than you or I get. Fortunately, Sony knows better. And so should Furor. And so should you.
Oh, and before you make an issue of how much time I spent writing up this little rant, let me give you the facts – 20 minutes. Tops. And that was with a couple of interruptions. Folks, I write for a living and I write fast. It’s part of my job and I enjoy it. It’s what I do for entertainment.
And unlike Furor, I often get paid for it.