The Cranky Sysadmin

Runes of Magic is as addictive as other MMO’s. It has enough in common with WoW, that it feels familiar, but there are enough differences so it doesn’t feel like a ripoff. I’ve read that it has similarities with Lord of the Rings Online, and other games as well. I can’t speak to that, but I can tell you how it compares to WoW.
See My Opinions about RoM

After a lot of work, I got Runes of Magic to work on Ubuntu. Runes of Magic is a fantasy RPG which plays a lot like WoW to my inexperienced eyes. It’s free to play. Their business model is based around an item shop where you buy extra stuff for real-world currency.
More on running RoM on Ubuntu

Civilization IV seems to work well on wine 1.27 these days. The only addition I had to make was the installation of the MS MXL utilities. I did this with “winetricks msxml3″. Find winetricks by searching on the wine home page. The install was smooth, and the game plays without any obvious anomolies. My only caveat is that I have installed a lot of other libraries, like directX 9 for other games like EVE and oblivion, so your installation may require more steps then mine did.

I occasionally look at browser based online games. I’ve looked at Evony (formerly Civony) in the recent past. Over the last weekend, I tried out Imperion. Evony is based in a medieval time while Imperion is a si-fi game. Other then that, they are actually earily similar. I suspect that one copied almost everything from the other except the graphics. Between the two, Imperion seems to be the much better game in my opinion although neither game holds my attention very long.

I recently saw an interesting Slashdot post about a researcher who played City of Heroes and reported on the social interactions he experienced. Some people view what he was doing as griefing. Some people view it as playing the game properly.
Read my opinion on MMO assclownery

After seeing all of the ads, I finally tried out Civony. It’s a fun game. It reminds me of “Heroes of Might and Magic”. Other folks say it reminds them of “Age of Empires”. The noob chat is as bad as rookie chat in EVE, only without the helpful people. It’s free to play, but you can buy coins which can be used in the “Shop” to aquire various power-ups.

Recently, in both WoW and in EVE, I came across people who were griefing other folks. The griefers were saying that the “carebears” were “crying over their pixels”. For the uninitiated, carebears (I qualify as one of these) are folks who don’t PvP much, and find other things in an online game to have fun with. Griefing is arguably, anything done to give someone a hard time in game. In WoW, this mostly limited to corpse camping and flagging PvP next to a crowded summoning stone. In EVE (hi-sec), it includes things like can flipping, blowing up people’s cargo containers, and bumping ships. I’m not sure piracy really counts as griefing, but there are some common aspects. In lo-sec and 0.0 space, it’s common for a pirate to destroy not only the ship, but also the escape pod. This is completely unnecessary, but is a common part of the culture.

So is it all “just pixels” as some would say? Is a web site just pixels? Is a customer database just pixels? I think it’s a matter of degree. I pay for those pixels in WoW and in EVE. I expend energy getting those pixels, so they have value to me. Were I so inclined, I could even get real cash for some of those pixels. I’m sure the executives and developers at Blizzard and CCP think the worlds they have toiled for years on are more then just pixels. My opinion is that the term, “just pixels” is specious and is an excuse for uncivil behavior. This relaxed attitude to other people’s stuff in online games is probably related to a similar effect seen in email or in your own car, where folks who usually wouldn’t be uncivil are willing to act in uncivil ways just because you can’t see the other person’s face.

What’s a person to do about this? I don’t think griefing and piracy will go away. If one wants to enjoy online games, one has to realize that there are uncivil folks out there, and that their numbers will probably be artificially high. Be smart and find a way to live with it. Don’t do things to invite griefing or piracy. In EVE, keep a low profile. Don’t transport high value items in a rookie ship (or an industrial). Learn to travel in a safe way (don’t use autopilot and use your map to see kill statistics). Read the Terms of Use carefully, so you know what is valid PvP and what isn’t. Learn the mechanics of the game so you know how to be safe. Don’t whine about your losses in the forums. All you do is invite derision. Use it as a learning experience and be more careful in the future or find a safer game.

PvP is a major component of life in EVE (more-so then WoW), so I don’t expect CCP to make EVE a safer place. In my case, I’ll probably just bite the bullet (maybe literally), outfit some cheap PVP ships and go practice pirate hunting in lo-sec and 0.0. I don’t think I can enjoy outright piracy, but bounty hunting could be fun. There are pirate hunting corps out there. Maybe I’ll join one.

In a dangerous virtual world one has to be situationally aware, but I think it’s also completely possible to have fun just like in the real world.