Discussion: NY Times MMO Player Slideshow
By
Anti_Proton,
Posted on: 2007-06-18 24:55 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
Congratulations to those heroes brave enough to have their secret identities outed by the NYT.
What is it with the EQ players? I'm happy to say I dropped that in the first week. The COX players are looking good though.
Must find Harisu..... 
Yowza!
Wow, the whole idea is really cool. I am totally amazed.
I'm off to the store, and it's an attention-deficit announcement thread, so it'll be a short post.
- Anshe Chung is known outside the Second Life community as a successful virtual hospitality and real estate entrepreneur. She made the cover of BusinessWeek! Are any of the other photographed people newsmakers?
- There's a significant omission here. The biggest American MMORPG doesn't appear in the slideshow, even once! Is it because of their not-so-customizable avatars? Is it because of their cutthroat IP policy and history of litigiousness? Or is this a good old fashioned press snub? 
I'm not really sure what you consider the "biggest MMORPG in America" but statistics would indicate WoW. There is at least one WoW person listed there. So I'm not sure what you're getting at?
We'll see....
Jason Rowe kind of made me feel sad at first, but then I thought, that's who these kind of games are perfect for. In-game, he can be who he wants to be, no one sees his disability and feels sorry for him (like I did when I first saw the picture.) I imagine virtual worlds can be a great outlet, they allow people who are constantly treated as different to be treated just like everyone else for awhile.
As diversity goes, I think CoX definately has it in spades.
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entrepreneur. She made the cover of BusinessWeek! Are any of the other photographed people newsmakers?
- There's a significant omission here. The biggest American MMORPG doesn't appear in the slideshow, even once! Is it because of their not-so-customizable avatars? Is it because of their cutthroat IP policy and history of litigiousness? Or is this a good old fashioned press snub?
[/ QUOTE ]wow is there, eq2 is there, coh is very represented, are you referring to guild wars maybe? Edit: oh and back off hirasu, shes mine!!! she just dosent know it yet.
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Jason Rowe kind of made me feel sad at first, but then I thought, that's who these kind of games are perfect for. In-game, he can be who he wants to be, no one sees his disability and feels sorry for him (like I did when I first saw the picture.) I imagine virtual worlds can be a great outlet, they allow people who are constantly treated as different to be treated just like everyone else for awhile.
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QFT Vox - I felt the exact same way. The virtual world cares a lot less about RL physical handicaps. As long as you have some sort of interface to a computer, you're set.
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I'm off to the store, and it's an attention-deficit announcement thread, so it'll be a short post.
- Anshe Chung is known outside the Second Life community as a successful virtual hospitality and real estate entrepreneur. She made the cover of BusinessWeek! Are any of the other photographed people newsmakers?
- There's a significant omission here. The biggest American MMORPG doesn't appear in the slideshow, even once! Is it because of their not-so-customizable avatars? Is it because of their cutthroat IP policy and history of litigiousness? Or is this a good old fashioned press snub?
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He's talking about Second Life I think. I'd call that more of an interactive chat room than a game though.
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Jason Rowe kind of made me feel sad at first, but then I thought, that's who these kind of games are perfect for. In-game, he can be who he wants to be, no one sees his disability and feels sorry for him (like I did when I first saw the picture.) I imagine virtual worlds can be a great outlet, they allow people who are constantly treated as different to be treated just like everyone else for awhile.
[/ QUOTE ]intersting thing about him, i noticed he was a marksman, and i can see how that would be a good class for someone who had physical difficulties, since if they play like they did when i played, they are very focused on that first killer shot, and he probably got by on the rest with macros.
I felt bad for the poor guy who was the eq2 barbarian, he was brave to put hsi pic up, but a lot of people will probably point out that he looked the most like a steriotyped mmo player, since he was heavier. Gotta give him credit for having the guts to still put his pic out there.
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I'm off to the store, and it's an attention-deficit announcement thread, so it'll be a short post.
- Anshe Chung is known outside the Second Life community as a successful virtual hospitality and real estate entrepreneur. She made the cover of BusinessWeek! Are any of the other photographed people newsmakers?
- There's a significant omission here. The biggest American MMORPG doesn't appear in the slideshow, even once! Is it because of their not-so-customizable avatars? Is it because of their cutthroat IP policy and history of litigiousness? Or is this a good old fashioned press snub?
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He's talking about Second Life I think. I'd call that more of an interactive chat room than a game though.
[/ QUOTE ]they have 4 sl players there, the bhuddist monk,the mom, the blue skinned girl, and ashe cheung
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Jason Rowe kind of made me feel sad at first, but then I thought, that's who these kind of games are perfect for. In-game, he can be who he wants to be, no one sees his disability and feels sorry for him (like I did when I first saw the picture.) I imagine virtual worlds can be a great outlet, they allow people who are constantly treated as different to be treated just like everyone else for awhile.
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As someone with a physical disability (spinal cord injury), I could not agree more. Passive targeting and relatively slow combat make MMOs almost the perfect games for people with mobility impairments, which makes me wonder if he still plays SWG. The NGE removed passive targeting. SWG's disabled community was very vocal about how the change made combat nearly unplayable.
Hurly, how do you find COH's usual pace? Do you favor one AT over another, to compensate?
Just curious.
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I'm not really sure what you consider the "biggest MMORPG in America" but statistics would indicate WoW. There is at least one WoW person listed there. So I'm not sure what you're getting at?
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I stand corrected. I did mean WoW. One (and only one) of the pictures is of a WoW couple.
It is indeed curious that WoW is represented so lightly. I daresay when the average person (or even gamer) hears the term "MMO", they first think of the most widely-publicized. WoW has 6+ million subscribers, yet has one picture. Co* has 200k or so (arguable but close), and has four. Second Life has five, and it looks like they have 70k or so.
Does it mean anything, this low WoW score? Nah, probably not, maybe the NYT realizes the game gets too much free press as it is. 
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Hurly, how do you find COH's usual pace? Do you favor one AT over another, to compensate?
Just curious.
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I find any AT that "slows" down combat easier (but not necessarily more rewarding) to play. My first 50 was an AR/Dev /Force Blaster. Laughing Jack (Virtue) is currently and most oftenly configured as a Blastroller, though I've played every iteration the combo allows. Freespecs are you friend. 
(All toons are on Virtue) Control slows combat down: PowerOfTheMind, SL 34 Ill/Stm Controller. High resists slow combat down: Heavy Hand, SL 37 Inv/SS Tanker. Large debuffs slow combat down: Dr. Penny Cillin: SL 37 Rad/Rad Defender. Pets slow combat down: Scowling Jack, TL 50 Bot/Trap/Mace Mastermind.
I gravitate toward sets that allow me to stop, resist or ignore incoming damage. That is my definition of slowing down combat. The longer my health bar stays full the slower the combat is the more butt kicking I can do.
That said, Subatomic Quark, SL 42 Elec/Elec/Elec Blaster, is one of my favorite characters. He is played Blapper all the way with a Blastroller trump card (come on like I'm gonna skip three holds!). KungFu Hustle (created before the name length was increased, hence the missing 'r' and the movie was release TYVM ) is an SL 33 MA/Regen Scrapper is a fun build. Like Quark, he can be a challenge to play.
If anyone has a mobility impaired friend or acquaintance, who may be interested in playing MMOs, but not sure they are able, I'd be happy to chat about my experiences. Drop me a PM.
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It is indeed curious that WoW is represented so lightly. I daresay when the average person (or even gamer) hears the term "MMO", they first think of the most widely-publicized. WoW has 6+ million subscribers, yet has one picture. Co* has 200k or so (arguable but close), and has four. Second Life has five, and it looks like they have 70k or so.
Does it mean anything, this low WoW score? Nah, probably not, maybe the NYT realizes the game gets too much free press as it is.
[/ QUOTE ]i was wondering that too, also the second place online game, guild wars, had none. perhaps they went with people who volunteered, it makes sense that a game that allows you to have more freedom of character creation would have people taking more pride in showing off their characters than one where you can only pick from a few premade templates. I know that i feel like a own rian frostdrake a lot more than seung frost(my guild wars main)
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Jason Rowe kind of made me feel sad at first, but then I thought, that's who these kind of games are perfect for. In-game, he can be who he wants to be, no one sees his disability and feels sorry for him (like I did when I first saw the picture.) I imagine virtual worlds can be a great outlet, they allow people who are constantly treated as different to be treated just like everyone else for awhile.
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QFT Vox - I felt the exact same way. The virtual world cares a lot less about RL physical handicaps. As long as you have some sort of interface to a computer, you're set.
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He's made news before, I remember hearing about him back when I was playing swg.
I wouldn't feel bad for the disabled who get to play with games like this. I do feel bad for that morbidly obese kid who plays EQ 80 hours a week. I'm not passing judgement, since his weight problem could be caused by other things, however if his sedentary lifestyle is what's leading to it, then he needs to get out more.
I liked the piece, I just wish the screenshots had been a bit higher quality. Also, there are a lot better looking costume options out there.
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Use this thread to discuss the below announcement:
The New York Times Magazine offers a slide show displaying gaming double agents that include a number of City of Heroes players. These are players of interactive online games and their alter egos consisting of in-game avatars and the identities they forge to represent themselves inside the virtual worlds of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games.
Click here to view the slide show.
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