You might need to define these words for us OGs. They confuse us.
“Ballsy” and “Hillarious.”
Interview with Felicia Day about the Guild in the Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574371032925896794.html
Hmm…so, I went and checked this out and…hmmm…I don’t get it. Do you have to be a MMORPG gamer to get it? I mean, I do understand the irony of me not getting it when I’m typing about it on an online group and all, but…
…Okay, I get it a little bit…but I guess I’m more of an old school geek in the “Free Enterprise” vein.
I suck, don’t I?
It’s okay dude. I suck too. I don’t have any game boxes of any kind in my house aside from cardboard ones. And the last computer game I got excited about was Command & Conquer (for Windows 95).
Oh, you’re worse than me! I’ve been known to indulge in video games (I’m currently trying to wipe the Japanese off the face of the “earth” in Civ IV), just not the online varieties. I had once thought of joining Star Wars Galaxies when it first came out (is that even still around?) but feared what that would do to my actual life…and I just can’t afford the subscription fees. (Cause, seriously, frak you charging me $60 for a game AND a monthly subscription.)
Wow, how cool was that? The thing that gets me is that I had the same reactions to the same things the audience did, before watching the video. It’s like we’re all one big family, you know? No matter where we are.
So Armando, you’re in luck! Eve charges a tiny fee to start and it’s just $15/mo. There’s even a free trial and you can download the game so you don’t have to run to the store. 
(Just make sure you have a reasonably modern copy of Excel installed. Heh.)
Seriously, though, this is a series aimed at gamers. As I said in last week’s 'cast, I found it entertaining and funny before I was a serious MMO gamer. Now I find it incredibly doubly funny because I see bits of myself in the characters.
I’ve said it before, but I’ve never played an MMO (well, excepting some stumbling about in EVE for a few days.) The Guild still makes perfect sense to me, since the personalities are pretty universal. It maps just as well to a pen-and-paper tabletop game, or an online forum.
Well, thing is, I do recognize certain tendencies in the characters on The Guild. I mean, it’s 9:30 a.m. and, instead of finising the one course outline I have left to finish before school starts next week, I’ve logged on to GWC for the third time this morning. If I had a therapist, I’m sure s/he’d fire me. :rolleyes:
Oh man!! Civilization is an awesome game! I’ve played Civ I and Civ II on the PC (but several years ago) and talk about addicting. It’s so hard to resist play “JUST ONE MORE TURN.”
I totally agree. I guess I, and other like Armando are just feeling a bit cranky that you Xbox owners get to see Guild Season 3 before the rest of us. But honestly, I have no problem with that. And I like spunkiness of the idea. Yeah, I can wait a week or whatever. And I’ll pay for it on iTunes no problem if that’s the deal. And I agree you don’t have to be an MMO gamer to relate to it or find it hilarious.
Agreed. They do go relatively easy on the MMM-specific jargon in the Guild. It’s interesting though. In a table top RPG gaming I’ve not heard the term “tank” specifically. But once Sean expalined what it meant, I understand totally. When play D&D we always had characters that were well-armored Knights or fighters or whatever and their role in the party was to absorb damage. Even playing Deadlands, one of our players wears a magical western duster that absorbs a huge amount of bullet damage. Yeah, he’s a tank.
Oddly, the first time I heard it was in one of the 4ed. D&D podcasts. I assume it migrated back from WoW.
Finished Season 1 yesterday. Pretty amusing. Looking forward to the other seasons this weekend.
While I’m no MMO gammer myself I can understand the obsession. I lost many an hour to Doom and DoomII, and both my wife and I have a completely lost weekend to SimCity.
I’ve subsequently learned I just have to put that crack pipe down if I still want to stay a productive member of society…
And I like spunkiness of the idea
Of a series about gamers or a series made up of bite-sized episodes? The first thing I thought of, with the latter, was how much it owes (in format, not in concept) to the French series Kaamelott (which is awesome, by the way. Though apparently a lot of the episodes–certainly the most famous one, “The Perfect Fifth”–seem to have been removed from YouTube. So, no link).
I figure the AI-based NPCs in MMOs make up a large portion of the tank concept. My experience is really only in Eve, but I suspect that be they trolls or Serpentis Rear Admirals, they’re still not-so-bright AIs that’ll drop their single-target aggro on whomever comes close enough first.
I’m proud to say that I finally own a ship shield-tanked heavily enough that when we were missioning in Eve earlier this week I was actually asked to go through the gate first.
I’ve got the same “issue”.
Well, when I have to work and live outside of home in a few weeks, that has to change.
My friends and I played many different D&D campaigns over the years (table top paper&dice of course).
But the longest running one was primarily a setting centered on Cavaliers (you know, horse riding, jousting knights in shinning armor).
And three of our primary player characters: Count Bartholomew, Baron Rathbern and Duke Mathew (me) had such strong plate armor (not plate mail, plate armor) (like - 3 Armor Class on average) that we’d of course be the first through any dungeon door, and we could absorb tons of damage (and it didn’t hurt they we were like 14th or 14th level characters). Sorry for all the D&D jargon :o. But suffice it to say we were “tanks” but we were also the main player characters and the plot revolved around us.
I must admit I have watched this Comiccon video daily as the energy in that rooms puts me in an immediate good mood. I try to imagine myself sitting there not knowing what to expect and seeing the Avatar video for the first time. There is clearly a lot of love for Vork who gets laughs everytime he is on the screen, even when he is not doing anything. The audience responds really well to Clara as well who simply eats and drinks her way through the whole thing and even Zaboo gets a laugh for a split-second “Woah-o” speed cut. Of course nothing tops the reaction to the Vork/Zaboo rap which just makes the whole place go wild.
This video is a little like positive good for you crack. An awesome moment in time was captured and we get to experience it over and over.