And we’re back! Thanks to these fine folks I’ve got SC4 running happily in a window, so it’s time to get back to building. But before I do, I think it’s important to assign a representative in this district of the city, someone who can act as my eyes and ears in the pixellated world below. There could only really have been one man for the job, and I assigned him a shitty little run-down shack near the crater’s edge. How’s it going, Garrosh?

Same shit, different day.

Socketrape is expanding nicely; added protection from the fine folks at the Firestarters, Inc. fire station and Dr. Zed’s Vivisectorium should keep these miserable fuckers alive at least long enough for this cesspit to flourish. Road, power and water connections have been made to the nearby ether, the residential and industrial districts suffered aggressive expansion, and the citizens are predictably complaining about every little fucking thing they can think of, the ungrateful mongrels. They’ve even been asking for trees and parks long after my inclusion of the local community garden, This Is Where You Bury The Bodies. It’s a hard life being mayor, but someone has to do it. Somehow, despite the constant bitching, these parasites love me all the same.

Island of Dr. Moreau

Things have taken a turn for the worse, though — while I was constructing my little island paradise home and wasting far too many taxpayer dollars (yes, it needs a moat!), the rest of the city was dying of thirst due to the water towers conveniently located in the heart of the industrial district being shut down because of — wait for it — water pollution. The inclusion of a costly yet pleasantly industrial water treatment plant did little to stop the powers that be opening and re-closing the adjacent water towers, so the city’s water supply has been moved elsewhere, amidst constant complaints about pollution, garbage, and requests to build a fucking church.

I mostly just ignored their pleas, and continued to build a ridiculously elaborate park/recreation area near my house and the city hall, in an attempt to raise the land value to a ludicrous level. Meanwhile, the city is going to hell — there’s a massive cloud of pollution around the industrial district (no thanks to the new oil power plant), barely any interest in commercial development, hundreds of jobless residents, and the city advisers yelling at me constantly about education, pollution, water supply, hospital funding, all while my cash supply goes slowly down the drain, the city unable to maintain its maintenance costs.

What began as a pipe-dream is quickly becoming a logistical hell, as New Gomorrah is collapsing under the weight of its own decadence; the irony of the situation certainly hasn’t escaped me. Even Garrosh is joining in with the picketers; he wants better education, is infuriated by the terrible health-care, and complaints about city-wide traffic problems are coming in from all sides. Even the prisons are overflowing, crime rates hitting new highs as there simply isn’t any way to contain the legions of convicts.

Could this be the ill-fated end for Socketrape and New Gomorrah? Not if I can help it, that’s for damn sure.

There must always be a Lich King Grease Pit.

It’s been a long time since I last played a SimCity game; I remember as a kid I used to be obsessed with the series, back to its humble beginnings, and one of my favourite ways to play the game was to load one of the pre-built cities — SimCity 1’s Boston was a great choice — and then impact the populace with a veritable Pandora’s box of disasters, starting with a few nuclear meltdowns and following up with earthquakes and fires, enough to level the city and leave barely scraps of polluted, wrecked, burning wasteland behind. From there, I’d build up a new civilization upon the ashes of the old, Mad Max-esque nightmare world.

The other thing I used to love doing started with SimCity 2000, where it became the goal of myself and a friend to build the ‘perfect’ city, which generally meant cramming as many arcologies together as was physically possible, not to mention building a ridiculously elaborate and fancy garden around ‘my’ house in the game. Skip forward to SimCity 4 and, with the help of a custom region file I hacked together years ago (which provides a region several times larger than what the game would normally allow), it’s time to combine those two goals into what is bound to be a logistics nightmare: an attempt to create the biggest city I’ve ever made, while simultaneously ruling with unparalleled levels of sadism and cruelty. Welcome to the freshly-founded hell of New Gomorrah.

The first day — which is to say, the last few hours before I haul myself off to sleep — has been short, but eventful. New Gomorrah and its first sub-city, the capital of Socketrape were founded, a substantial and obligatory industrial zone was formed, Bob’s Grease Pit (the first commercial venture to rear its ugly head) was made into a historic building to ensure that there will always be a Bob’s Grease Pit, and I dropped a sizeable chunk of burning cosmic rock into the middle of the freshly-populated residential zone, partly because it seemed appropriate, and partly because I just felt like being an asshole. What better way to drive the fear of god into these people (metaphorically speaking; it’s more like a fear of angry nerd) than to crush their puny homes with the unstoppable might of a fucking meteor, and watch the fire spread like… well, like wildfire. It didn’t take long for the wretched leeches to rebuild upon the ruined terrain, anyway, though I think I’ll leave the meteor crater as-is, something for those peons to remember me by.

But alas, the hour is late, so the city must remain further unscathed for the moment. Next time, things are really going to get ugly.

Next: Rise and Fall

That time has now come, and dusting off my old code, I’m beginning with rewrite numbero tres — the old code is simply too haphazard and poorly-organized to make a viable base, and I’ve made somewhat of a breakthrough with my display routines since then. My new project, Kobiak, stands on the shoulders of (and re-uses much of, albeit repolished) Gravel, and aims to be a roguelike/tactical RPG hybrid, something which I believe is at least somewhat unique and original compared to the original plans. Rather than a lone adventurer exploring a dungeon — as is roguelike tradition — the plan is to employ an entire party of like-minded adventurers, with combat being far more tactical than simply butting heads with a dragon until one of you dies.

It’s still early days and I don’t want to say too much so soon, but I’ve got big plans for this one, and my restructured code is being designed specifically with future expansion and easy modification in mind, so hopefully I won’t run into the road-blocks that forced me to re-write Gravel almost from scratch twice over. I’m already very happy with the display engine, though, which — in classic roguelike tradition — is ASCII all the way, but with a twist that I’m keeping under my hat for now.

I’ll doubtless be rambling more in future as the project takes shape, so keep your eyes peeled!

I live in a small apartment building, the kind where it looks like a regular house on the outside, but each of the three floors is a separate apartment with a common stairwell and front door. Mine’s the one at the top, and when I moved in here, the building was all mine, so to speak — nobody else lived in the other two, and life was good. Now begins the mystery, however, of whether or not someone has moved into one of the other apartments.

Evidence for started with a repairman coming to the house to fix the intercom for flat 1, mysterious sounds which may or may not have originated in the stairwell and could easily have been from the neighboring house (which I know is populated), and a partial boot-print on a couple of letters that were on the floor by the front door (which could just as easily have been caused by the postman, the cleaners, or any other maintenance staff). Evidence against is mostly blind hope — as I like the idea of having the building to myself — and a stack of letters to “the occupier” of flats 1 and 2 from things like the city council and the TV license folks, which have been uncollected for quite some time. I also haven’t noticed any letters addressed directly to anyone but myself or to a generic “the occupier”, though they could have simply been collected if the neighbors are more dilligent than I.

It’s all quite mysterious, and perhaps even vaguely eerie. Am I alone in this building, or are others lurking about, unseen, unknown, but living mere feet away from my front door? One thing’s for sure: If I do have neighbors, they’re pretty damn quiet.

I look worse than I feel, but that’s not saying much, I look pretty dreadful. Food didn’t stay down, but that’s okay because it was terrible anyway. Started smoking again, missed my sweet, sweet cancer-sticks. Reality is about as interesting as it can be, which is to say, not at all. Been having extremely vivid and more-bizarre-than-usual dreams lately, which I’m sure is a sign of something, but I’m not sure what. Google’s latest foray into mimicry vexes me only mildly. A brief addiction to Pepsi Max has been quashed by apathy. I don’t miss people, per se, but there are some folks who I feel like I should talk to more often. I’m so used to lies, that sometimes I forget how to tell the truth. I think everything would be better if I could just learn to chill out and not be angry at things. I had one other thing to say, but deleted it because it sounded stupid. I think the problem with the world is that I don’t feel like I belong here. On a brighter note, my debt’s going down pretty steadily, albeit slowly. End of line.

50 gold coins wasted and some bruised egos all around. It should have been an easy run — perhaps that kind of confidence had made us complacent; arrogant, even. It should have been easy, but everything went to hell for reasons that nobody could agree on. It’s easy to point fingers, of course, and everyone points away from themselves, but sometimes things just aren’t meant to be.

This is the point where I realized — or perhaps I should say, it was the last straw, the last thread on an ever-so-long rope — something which spans further than mere raid groups in World of Warcraft, but also extends to my out-of-game personality. By habit I tend to play a support role in online RPGs, most notably the archetypal healer whose job it is to keep the group alive — stemming, I think, from earlier excursions where the ‘group’ tended to just be a core body of 3-4 friends who’d play online games together, a team I was comfortable and happy enough with to easily support my compatriots.

Sadly, herein lies the problem, an issue which has been troubling me with increasing intensity for weeks, and finally culminated with the realization that no matter how hard I try, no matter what angle I look at the problem from, nothing can change the simple and undeniable fact that I’m simply not built for this — or, more specifically, not willing to put the responsibility and safety of others in my hands, even if only in the context of online games, tenfold when applied to reality. The expectations of others — and, indeed, myself — combined with what eventually becomes crushing stress and self-doubt, thoroughly abandons the realm of what should be considered ‘fun’ and enters into much less favourable places.

To clarify, while I wish I was and certainly try hard to be, I’m just not a ‘team player’; I don’t easily handle the responsibility of being the lynchpin of failure or success upon which others rely, and except when given fairly menial, low-risk tasks, the combined stress and self-doubt accumulate into what eventually becomes an aversion so great that I’m unable to react with anything but an overwhelming sense of avoidance. Indeed, I’m not much of a team anything, being a person who tends to flourish in very small groups, but when at large social gatherings or parties (and I would consider a ‘large’ gathering being that which has more than 5-6 people present), the urge is almost overwhelming to quietly occupy a corner and interact with others as little — and avoid drawing attention to myself as much — as is possible. Indeed, I’m even known to abandon a group entirely, when the combined weight of numbers becomes too much to bear.

The lesson learned, I think, is merely that the greater the concentration of people — whether be it a real-life social gathering or an online game — the less I want to play a prominent part. It’s less a case of apathy, laziness or unwillingness to contribute, and more that I’m just not comfortable leading the charge, having people rely upon me, or being the centre of attention during a group discussion. I mostly just want to do my own thing — the archetypal ‘lone wolf’, as it were — and when I do have to rely on others, do my part in the most subtle, unassuming, and unnoticable way possible. I don’t want praise for being a good team player — I just want to do my part in such a way that, failure or success, neither the blame nor thanks land on my shoulders.

hey,

it’s not really like this,

I’m just this guy who smokes too much and wishes he wasn’t so shy at parties.

Now, let me step back for a moment and say that I’ve generally had superb experiences when it comes to level 80, “endgame” dungeon-running, even despite the occasional player who displays, shall we say, less-than-stellar performance. People generally know the game, they know their role, and with very few exceptions, things tend to go pretty smoothly. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for misbegotten attempts at low-level dungeoneering, a tendency I’d blame simply on players being new to the game, but that pretty heirloom gear (adorned with Crusader, no less), tells a different story.

I wish I could make this shit up.

So, cue the contestants: Mentat, my freshly-minted (and already level 21) paladin, the obligatory hunter, and three druids. While normally not a major issue, I knew there’d be a problem with our furry brethren when the ‘tank’ (feral spec, natch) started casting Wrath, the healer used nothing but Healing Touch, the hunter’s pet growled, and Muggins here had to sort the whole mess out by flailing into action as a stand-in tank, despite the sheer ineptitude present. Just as I thought I was in some grotesque parody, things turned from bad to worse — the two druids decided to have a tank-off by both assuming bear form and attempting a most painful display of fighting over aggro — I say this, because the healer and hunter were taking more hits than anyone.

The loot rolling was a similar farce — a situation so laughably awful that it could only have been a cosmic joke, with each player a mere puppet playing a caricature. The hunter rolled need on a dagger with arcane damage, the flea-ridden druid rolled need on a shield, the other bear-druid rolled need one a one-handed DPS mace, and all the time I’m praising the god of random numbers for the fortune to bless me with the winning rolls on both Stinging Viper and Worn Turtle Shell Shield (I wanted Kresh’s Back, but that only ever drops when I’m playing a cloth-wearer). After an almost predictable moment of uncertainty, the group ‘leader’ unsure which direction to go for the seventh time, all proverbial hell broke loose and the fail-druids fell down the gap during an easy jump, and between the two of them managed to aggro half a dozen elites. I bravely jumped down to lend a hand, but of course the healer was nowhere to be seen, and I’m sure you can imagine the outcome of this most ill-fated excursion.

Much as I wanted to stay and collect my booty, I simply couldn’t handle it any longer, and bailed — perhaps some other poor fool would take my place, and learn the unfortunate truth of it all; that at the bottom of a barrel is another barrel, and at the bottom of that one is a trio of druids.

But I didn't mind being killed by Dr Blight, because he had a cool name.

A trend I’ve noticed in online gaming lately — well, I say “lately” though it’s been vexing me for a number of years now — is the apparent obsession of people in team-based games to either jump into a game with a host of strangers and expect a quick, painless, easy victory, or jump ship and frenziedly search for another — supposedly superior — team to integrate with, hoping for a quicker victory. This is evident both in MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, where dungeons such as the Oculus were so reviled for the effort involved and the potential failure that many people would leave immediately upon entering, and many would refuse entrance to a raid group for those who could not prove that they’ve completed it prior, in fear of “noobs” bringing their team down. It’s also an unfortunate inevitability in other online team-based games, such as the one I’ve picked up again recently after a few years of inactivity, Halo 3.

Now, let me step back a moment and express my general distaste for being thrust into a team consisting of mouth-breathers who probably don’t even know which way up to hold the controller; lament as I may at games where I scored the highest in the entire round and yet my team still lost, if there’s one principle I’ll stick to — largely due to the experience point penalty accrued as a result, which would hinder my progress through the game’s military-style ranks — it’s that I stay to the bitter end, even when left in a short-handed team because three of them ran for the hills when the tables turned, and the last aside from myself resorted to that most heinous act of team-killing, presumably in the name of ill-gotten “fun”. In a fairly childish and unsportsmanlike way, I shot him in the back twice as retribution before spending the rest of the round hiding, and watching my “teammate” repeatedly hunted and slaughtered by the dominant group.

Nonetheless, my ire still holds relative validity in my mind: By simply fleeing the game, these people are not only throwing away a potential victory — I’ve seen plenty of “turnabout” games where the tables turn at the last minute, to provide a satisfying and crushing victory to the underdog — but they’re forsaking the rest of their team, forcing the remaining members to either lope on like a three-legged dog, or attempt to justify the “two wrongs make a right” philosophy and follow their lead, further augmenting the problem. I remember lamenting a similar issue a while ago with online game servers which provide numerous versions of the same world to balance the player-base; rather than accepting the natural balance and helping to keep things steady, players have a disturbing tendency to force their way into the most over-populated and over-crowded worlds, even going so far as to abandon the emptier, dying servers in lieu of something more populace, thus exacerbating the reason they left in the first place!

Is it simply human nature to constantly try to impel ourselves into “easy win” situations and the “best” groups, no expense too great in the quest to be with the “best” — even if they themselves could not adequately be judged as such under this banner — or is this yet another case of online gaming, with all the anonymity it entails, bringing out the literal worst in everyone, turning normally-reasonable people into a pack of drooling, rabid animals?