Coded green.

Saturday 15 December 2001

Computers

Pic of the day: The topmost one is new. Siemens, made in Europe, as if that were some kind of recommendation.

Yet another computer

This Saturday was much better than the last one! I slept fairly long into the morning, then got up and went to town. But first I dressed as a loser: Mismatched jogging suit (sweater?) and worn jogging shoes (sneakers?). (Not sure about the American names of these things.) I guess I should have skipped shaving too, but I did not want to appear too masculine.

Then to town, as I said. Here I went into a cheap gift shop and loitered for a while. Eventually one of the ladies that worked there approached me and showed me the exit. They haven't done that when I've been wearing Marlboro Classics, but that does not really prove anything. More tests are in order. It was kinda nice there, anyway, with lots and lots of people bumping into each other. I really enjoyed being bumped into, this year. One customer remarked that it was like a beehive. That is a fairly good metaphor. Or perhaps "Anthill inside".

***

Later I went to the Shop of Angels. It should come as no surprise that they did not treat me any different from normal. Then again they may well know me by now. I bought the new computer that I ordered earlier this week. I've had my fill with random disconnects from the Internet, and a retailer that don't want to admit that it could be anything except the phone line. (That's North Corporation. Avoid them like the plaque, or something.)

The new Siemens is a rather stripped down machine, bought explicitly to play online role playing games. It has a fast processor (more than I need, actually) of 1 GHz. 1 billion Hertz. I still have my 286 with 10 MHz. That was considered quite a bit at its time. This is 100 times faster. The harddisk of 20 GigaBytes is 1000 times larger, and the memory is also 100 times larger and much cheaper than the original. Things have certainly progressed in 10 years. But human nature has not, I guess.

***

Human nature features prominently in these games. The game I play now is Dark Age of Camelot. I have briefly mentioned it before, but I expect to be back - if all goes well - with a lengthy review or two when I know it well enough. I have to admit that the many functions were hard to remember even after reading the manual. I think the game could have profited from an off-line training ground or demo, like EverQuest has. Still, I seem to have gotten a hang on it, and made my first observations.

Some character classes are naturally more social than others. Healers are most useful in groups, and are also quite popular for this purpose. They stand back and heal other group members during and after fight, and receive their share of goods and experience points. If you want to play with people, this is an obvious choice.

Warrior types have less to gain from grouping, and tend to go alone more. (Unless they find a healer to group with.) For some reason, it seems that at least low level magicians go alone too. This seems like a bad idea. But again, I have only played one evening.

The game is definitely not in the romance genre. Sword and sorcery. In the case of Midgard, mostly swords. And axes, lots and lots of axes. As a dating service, I predict that it will never do well.

***

Did I mention that I used to write novels about the time when such games would be available? Games with such a level of detail that people could easily lose themselves in them - and most important of all, the people they interact with are real people. Not just shapes on a screen. I find this thoroughly fascinating. In its way, it exceeds space as the final frontier. Now people can wear different bodies, and live lives strikingly different from what they usually do.

Still, it is not quite the same level of reality as panicky Christmas shoppers bumping you in the aisle on a Saturday noon.


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