I am

I am the voice of chaos and the whim of the universe. But don't mistake me for capricious or evil spirited.

Because - Judgment day is not coming soon enough.

giggle

giggle

Voice Chat and MMORPGs

So Wired published this article today on how voice chat affects the mood and tone in MMO's today. And there are couple of things in it that really bug me, so I wanted to talk about it.

There are good reasons why so many multiplayer online games are launching with voice-chat software. Partly it's to welcome newbies, who often find that old-school text-chat is simply too complicated. Also, voice chat makes pell-mell action easier to handle: If you're running a guild raid with 50 people, it's much easier to bark orders than to type them out (which is why voice chat has long been popular on first-person shooters on Xbox Live).

First and foremost.... if you find typing "too complicated" wtf are you doing online? Learn to type, its not hard! People don't like to type because its complicated, people don't like to type because they are too lazy to bother to fully form their words and thoughts. And don't tell me its easier to bark orders than to type, because its not. If you actually bother to learn to type, this shouldn't be a problem! Voice chat is for the lazy and illiterate.
And it does not improve raiding efficiency, if anything it makes it more chaotic. If you need to be barking orders over voice chat, then your raid group doesn't know what its doing. You should go over the strat before you start the encounter, go over what everyone needs to do in particular cases, and everyone SHOULD DO THOSE THINGS without needing to be barked at to do them. You should not need to tell people to heal, or change positions, or what not - they should know to do it when they need to do it, or at least be willing and able to learn to do it without having to have someone hold their hand and bark at them on voice.

But voice has much higher emotional bandwidth. It conveys a lot of identity: Your voice instantly transmits your age, your gender and often your nationality -- even your regional location too. (I can tell a Texan accent from a Minnesotan, and you can probably tell I'm Canadian by my nasal "oots.") With voice, the real world is honking in your ear.

This is particularly a problem for women, because often women thrive in MMOs precisely by downplaying their sexual identity. When Krista-Lee Malone, a student at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, did a study of the impact of voice chat on online worlds, women all told her they were treated differently once other players -- particularly younger men -- could hear their voices. ("They got hit on a lot," Malone says.)

This is one of the biggest problems with voice chat outside of the issues of accessibility. Voice brings with it who you are outside your character. It can ruin your RP, ruin the experience of being in the world of the game, and ruin the types of relations you have with your fellow players. As an RPer, this is especially troubling for me. What will people think when they encounter my male characters - especially some of my more interesting ones - when suddenly they hear a female voice coming from the person behind it? Simply put - the RP is always shattered. They will never think of that character as he is any longer, it will always be the knowledge of a woman behind the face of the male character.
Worse, it changes how people react to you and treat you as a character. I don't want people treating me as an American southern woman when I am playing my Male Blood Elf, or my female Draenei - I want them to treat me as the character I am RPing as and as the person I am in game. Voice destroys that - you only hear the persons voice, not their character any longer. It destroys the RP.
Worse, for women, as this article cites, men treat you differently once they know you are a woman. Female raid leaders, especially those with very female voices, have a hard time having people obey them, especially men. Men, especially young men of which the majority of the male MMO population, have a hard time taking instruction from women - especially older women which the majority of the female MMO population is made up of. And lord help you if you are a younger woman, your chances of being listened to drop to zero. All you get are people trying to hit on you, demand topless pictures of, and being lewd and rude to you. "'Throw up a (Ventrilo) server, the girls stop talking completely, the shy people shut up mostly and all that is left are the 12- to 18-year-old guys, and it becomes a locker room," as one poster complained on a sprawling, superb debate on the Terra Nova blog." It sounds cliché but its true!

Dmitri Williams, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, did a study of World of Warcraft players for one month. The results? Those who used text-only chat experienced "drops in trust and happiness" amongst their fellow players; those who used voice chat did not.The fatter emotional signal of voice apparently helps cement online relationships. Indeed, some guilds won't even let you participate anymore unless you use voice chat, because text-only chat seems shifty.

Why does text seem "shifty" to people? I've never understood this - too many people always read the worst in a line of text. They almost seem to go out of their way to destroy any innocence of meaning in text to find the worst possible, most insulting, most dishonest thing someone might possibly mean by what they say! Why do people do this? Take things at face value! Don't create drama where there is none! I think it has far more to do with our modern age and time than with anything to do with the textual medium verses voice. People are looking for conflict and strife, always feel the victim in everything that goes on, and never take any responsibility for what they bring on themselves.

Ultimately, this is about intimacy -- how much of ourselves we're willing to give away to strangers. Personally, I enjoy being able to construct identities carefully in text; that's because I grew up with text as my main online mode. It's possible that the impending generation of gamers will simply find voice chat more natural, in the same way that teenagers today happily blog about their personal lives and post pictures and videos of themselves. They regard personal revelation not as an incursion of privacy but a marker of authenticity.

This comment disgusts me. As someone with a bunch to lose by exposing myself online - a woman - its about much more than this. If I know I will never be taken seriously by the young males in my guild, why should I be forced to expose myself as a woman and thus lose any authority I may have? What about those who are men living as women, or women as men? Is it lying to say you are a woman when you are living as one, but your voice may not sound that like that? People become irrational and angry when confronted with such things, especially if they feel "betrayed" by the person in question.
The point is - voice chat is a violation of the fourth wall of gaming - it destroys the ability to be someone other than you are, someone within the world, rather than just being a person playing a game. It forces you to go back to your daily life, to be treated the way you are within the every day, rather than to be someone else, someone different. Get over it - voice chat is a crutch for raiding, and unneeded for the rest of the gaming.

Day 2 - Zombies

Its day two of the epidemic. We have seen very few of the undead this far north of the city center, but we are taking no risks. Every neighbor in the cul de sac that had kids has turned. It seems the school was hit badly, and out of some sense of home the zombie children returned to their familes. We think we have cleared out the last of those victims however.

Erik's mother estimates we have enough supplies still to produce several about 50 thousand more rounds of the low cal. Those don't do much it seems, but if you are a good enough shot, you can take out their knees and stop them from moving. We've already blown through the shotgun ammo, and are contemplating how to modify it to shoot something more lethal to them than lead. Thermite has a very nice effect on them, but we are out of it now. We had to use the last to take out one of the neighbors houses.

We've been taking turns posting watch on the roof of the house. It's amazing how much you can see from our spot. The power is still on, so we have the high powered flood lights up there. TV and DSL are still working as well. CNN hasn't been taken out, nor has any other part of the Turner system. I suppose those buildings are easy enough to foritfy.

Interestingly enough, they seem to have no interest in the animals, and the animals seem totally unaffected by what ever it is. Coffee, Sugar and Wolfie took out three of them together, working as a pack. We are thinking of trying to train them to use on patrols, but I am unsure how well Sugar would be trainable.

Cats are fine, food stocks are fine, water still running. PS, if you burn the bodies, be sure there is a pile of them, they will burn hotter. Decapitation and smashing the heads seems to be the best way to stop them. Burning then takes out their ability to do anything else.

Rawr

Another damned semester starts with half a dozen things going wrong. Paperwork is MIA, shit is screwed up, and I did something royally stupid.

I'm going to pretend that Tuesday didn't happen, and just go on with the semester.


RRAWR.

She fits in well....

Dear lord... the evil cuteness.

Traffic Sucks - Here is how to fix it

My commute is an hour each way. Some days, it is an hour and a half, or two, or three. Traffic in this city sucks, no matter how you put it. But, during my drives, I think about the things I see, and think how I could improve upon the situation. So, here are some modifications to the traffic code which I think would vastly improve rush hour traffic in Atlanta.

1) Speed limits should be abolished on Interstate roads. Minimum speeds of 55 miles an hour should be enforced unless congestion prevents it. However, a set of "guide line" speeds should be established for the lanes of the Interstate roadways. Right two lanes should be 55-65 mph, middle lane should be 65-75 mph. Far left lane is unrestricted, as is the HOV lane. Individuals going faster than these speeds in these lanes or going slower than these speeds in these lanes should be ticketed for driving dangerously.

2) All two lane and greater surface roads not running through dense residential or commercial areas should have a speed limit of 55 or higher. All residential areas should be CLEARLY MARKED on the roadways by a change in outer line type (Double White) and all commercial areas should be marked in a similar way.

3) All commercial and government vehicles shall be banned from using Interstate and Major Surface roads within the metro area which are considered high volume roadways during rush hour between the hours of 6am and 9am and 4pm and 7pm. The following exceptions are obvious: Emergency response vehicles, patrolling police, school buses, and those commercial vehicles which are passing through the city without stops. However, commercial vehicles is extended to include personal vehicles which are being used for a commercial purpose, such as a personal pickup hauling lumber or pipe to a job site.

4) All vehicles with more than three passengers under the age of 15 (excluding school buses) shall have one additional individual over the age of 20 for every four more passengers over the limit of four. This individual must be seated so that they may sufficiently oversee the passengers of the vehicle, and not in the front row, so that the driver may be free to drive rather than being distracted by overseeing the passengers.

5) Special Licensing
5A) All drivers who wish to use cellular phones while driving must pass a multitasking exam in order to be qualified. All individuals using the vehicle must have the license in order for it to qualify for a special identification sticker. Else the individual may be pulled over at any time if observed using the cellphone. License may be revoked on site if driver is observed driving in a distracted manner while using the phone.
5B) All drivers who wish to drive a vehicle with any form of truck or SUV frame must pass an exam each year which indicates they are capable of dealing with the slower response time, larger vehicle size, and overall more complex driving style such a vehicle requires. An additional license shall be required for trucks with dual rear tires, and proof of economic need is required to gain such a license.
5C) All drivers wishing to act as carpool drivers for large numbers of children (greater than six) must pass an additional exam noting that they are capable of dealing with the distraction of driving under such conditions. License may be revoked if they are found driving without an additional adult.
5D) All drivers wishing to drive a commercial vehicle larger than a standard car or pickup truck must be certified that they are capable of driving such a vehicle. This includes the distraction of using a GPS system to navigate, the difficulties of the larger or unusual vehicle size, and possibly coworkers in the vehicle.

6) No large commercial vehicles are to be allowed in the Down Town area of any of the metro cities between the hours of 9am and 6pm. This does not include Interstates, and only pertains to surface streets.

7) No commercial vehicle designated as a wide load may use the surface streets or interstate within the metro area between 6am and 8pm. This includes vehicles that are simply passing through the area. Special holding areas shall be constructed on all major interstates for these and other vehicles to allow them a place to wait until evening to operate.

8) Any school bus operating on any Interstate road shall have one adult on board for every ten children under the age of 15, or one adult for every 8 children under the age of 10. This does not include the driver.

9) All major surface streets shall have designated bike lanes added to them.

10) All major surface streets with stop lights shall have left turn arrows added to them and properly integrated into their cycle.


....These are my observations, Take them as you will.