Jethro Tull Season Begins!
Nov. 24th, 2008 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastWell, truthfully, this year's Jethro Tull Season began at 1:15 p.m. on Saturday, but everyone knows I'm a big fat liar. So, there you go. Screw St. Nick and shopping malls and all those damn dead turkeys! Break out the heavy horses and the locomotives and the dirty old homeless men with pneumonia! Yes, this is how Caitlín copes with winter. Jethro Tull.
Thanks to Elizabeth Bear (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala, a fellow Tullite), I wasted over an hour this morning destroying most of the earth's population with a viral pandemic. I failed, though I did manage to wipe out the entire populations of Russia (where it began), North America, Europe, India, Greenland, much of South America, China, and most of Africa, before the disease finally burned itself out. I even bested the attempt to create a vaccine. Every day should begin so triumphantly (even though I failed).
Also, 149 years ago today, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was first published. 149 years later, we are still beleaguered by creationist numbnuts.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,125 words on "The Collier's Venus (1893)," and I almost found THE END. There will be one last short scene today. It's an odd story, another of my Cherry Creek steampunk tales (this will be the fourth), revisiting much of the territory covered by "In the Waterworks (1889)" and Threshold. After the writing, and a dinner of chili, we read and proofed Chapter Six of The Red Tree. I am pleased to say I like this novel even more now than when I "finished" it last month.
We lit the fireplace last night, for the first time this year. I haven't lived anywhere with a functional fireplace since 1982.
After the reading, we watched Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War, which I found extremely effective and chilling. A study in unforeseen consequences. The more things change, the more things keep getting worse. Meet the new boss, same as the old. You know the score. Tom Hanks was good, but Philip Seymour Hoffman was brilliant. Julia Roberts was just scary. And then, after the movie, there was WoW.
I think that I am finally beginning to become disenchanted with World of Warcraft. That makes what? Almost three months? It's just starting to feel far too much like a game (which, of course, is what it is), and I am too entirely disappointed by its utter failure as rp. I'm going to try and stick with it longer by scaling back the number of characters I'm playing, so there's not so much repetition (part of the undesired "gaminess"). I hate games. I want a simulation. I want roleplay, not gameplay. I want full immersion. I want to lose myself in alternate realities. And, so, I suspect it's time to forsake the visual interface and start reading more again. Reading, at least I am not bombarded by REAL LIVE idiots and by stats and leveling and all those other things that only serve to destroy suspension of disbelief. Last night, Mithwen reached Lvl 35. Scaling back, I'll most likely confine myself to Shaharrazad, my blood-elf warlock, and her little sister, Hanifah (a paladin). Spooky's talking about concentrating on her Tauren shaman, Usiku. Total, I presently have six characters, which looks pretty bad, until you consider that Blizzard permits you to have fifty. Anyway, I will continue to hope that at some point within the next few years a genuine rp "simulation" will emerge from the chaos of SL and mmorpgs and whatnot.
Thanks to Elizabeth Bear (
matociquala, a fellow Tullite), I wasted over an hour this morning destroying most of the earth's population with a viral pandemic. I failed, though I did manage to wipe out the entire populations of Russia (where it began), North America, Europe, India, Greenland, much of South America, China, and most of Africa, before the disease finally burned itself out. I even bested the attempt to create a vaccine. Every day should begin so triumphantly (even though I failed).Also, 149 years ago today, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was first published. 149 years later, we are still beleaguered by creationist numbnuts.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,125 words on "The Collier's Venus (1893)," and I almost found THE END. There will be one last short scene today. It's an odd story, another of my Cherry Creek steampunk tales (this will be the fourth), revisiting much of the territory covered by "In the Waterworks (1889)" and Threshold. After the writing, and a dinner of chili, we read and proofed Chapter Six of The Red Tree. I am pleased to say I like this novel even more now than when I "finished" it last month.
We lit the fireplace last night, for the first time this year. I haven't lived anywhere with a functional fireplace since 1982.
After the reading, we watched Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War, which I found extremely effective and chilling. A study in unforeseen consequences. The more things change, the more things keep getting worse. Meet the new boss, same as the old. You know the score. Tom Hanks was good, but Philip Seymour Hoffman was brilliant. Julia Roberts was just scary. And then, after the movie, there was WoW.
I think that I am finally beginning to become disenchanted with World of Warcraft. That makes what? Almost three months? It's just starting to feel far too much like a game (which, of course, is what it is), and I am too entirely disappointed by its utter failure as rp. I'm going to try and stick with it longer by scaling back the number of characters I'm playing, so there's not so much repetition (part of the undesired "gaminess"). I hate games. I want a simulation. I want roleplay, not gameplay. I want full immersion. I want to lose myself in alternate realities. And, so, I suspect it's time to forsake the visual interface and start reading more again. Reading, at least I am not bombarded by REAL LIVE idiots and by stats and leveling and all those other things that only serve to destroy suspension of disbelief. Last night, Mithwen reached Lvl 35. Scaling back, I'll most likely confine myself to Shaharrazad, my blood-elf warlock, and her little sister, Hanifah (a paladin). Spooky's talking about concentrating on her Tauren shaman, Usiku. Total, I presently have six characters, which looks pretty bad, until you consider that Blizzard permits you to have fifty. Anyway, I will continue to hope that at some point within the next few years a genuine rp "simulation" will emerge from the chaos of SL and mmorpgs and whatnot.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 04:43 pm (UTC)...I knew I was forgetting something! Ring out the bells!
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 07:12 pm (UTC)...I knew I was forgetting something! Ring out the bells!
Indeed.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 05:15 pm (UTC)That was you?
Yahoo News said something like 'Authorities suspect an unknown disgruntled author, last seen in a Barnes & Noble store spraying Lysol onto copies of Twilight.'
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 05:17 pm (UTC)Yahoo News said something like 'Authorities suspect an unknown disgruntled author, last seen in a Barnes & Noble store spraying Lysol onto copies of Twilight.'
Damn security cameras....
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 05:20 pm (UTC)For me, autumn is Tull time, and it starts with Benefit, although with new cats in the house, the mouse police is not much sleeping these days.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 05:23 pm (UTC)Damn. You're good.
another of my Cherry Creek steampunk tales (this will be the fourth)
I really will love to see a book of them someday.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 07:03 pm (UTC)I really will love to see a book of them someday.
Maybe round about 2010, or 2011.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 08:09 pm (UTC)I can be patient.
Reading your complaints I am struck with a question.
Date: 2008-11-24 05:42 pm (UTC)Re: Reading your complaints I am struck with a question.
Date: 2008-11-24 07:09 pm (UTC)This isn't really a simple question to answer. I did, of course, spend a great deal of time playing old-school pencil and paper rps (mostly AD&D), long before I discovered SL and WoW. Back to about 1979, in fact. But they were never really satisfying, and the suspension of disbelief was hampered (or downright defeated) by the laborious slog through stats and the rolling of dice and so forth. For what it's worth, I will say that WoW is far superior, in my opinion, to tabletop rps. The programme does the RL slogging for you, and your mind is free to focus on the imaginary world.
So, quick answer, I did a lot of table-top rpg, and found it unsatisfying. In the end, I want the holodeck, and knowing I'll likely never get that, I want something as close to that experience as possible. Not a game. A simulation, in which I can, for a time, cease to be me, and also cease to be bothered by this world.
That makes perfect sense.
Date: 2008-11-26 05:08 pm (UTC)I agree - I still TT RPG (along with limited computer RPG) but I've also managed to find over the years the right mix of people so that I can focus less on the dice and far, far, far more on the story and the world. That, I suspect, also makes all the difference. Nothing can kill a game (of any sort) faster than a bunch of players who "don't get it"
Thanks for answering the question, I appreciate it!
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 06:11 pm (UTC)It's the reason I don't play games like WoW, etc. I play in a couple of text-based games on LJ and elsewhere, more like collaborative writing than anything else, and that's enjoyable enough for me.
That said:
Have you seen or heard of this? (http://www.tadwilliams.com/blog/comments.aspx?id=85)
It's being classified as an MMOG, possibly because I suspect there's no perfect term for it. It's... ambitious, from what I've read there on Tad's blog, and from discussion I've seen elsewhere. It might, when it's released, do something more for you than WoW.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 07:10 pm (UTC)Have you seen or heard of this?
I have not. Looks interesting. Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 08:39 pm (UTC)You're very welcome! It's about a year and a half away from release, and Tad can't give much more information than that away yet. He's really excited, though, which bodes well. He's generally got a good sense for what's awesome.
I'd so love to be able to do something like this, if only I could find the financial backing and the technical team. It's what I was working towards with the Howard's End sim, before I pulled the plug. But, yes, this looks hopeful.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 09:21 pm (UTC)You're absolutely right about needing immersion, not necessarily a set story. Self-guided, interactive rolplay offers so much more in the way of entertainment than following a preset series of instructions to a predetermined end. Even in games like WoW, there are only so many ways a thing can go, and really it boils down to kill or be killed. That's kind of the point of it all; interaction is a side-note.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 10:53 pm (UTC)That's kind of the point of it all; interaction is a side-note.
At best.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 06:12 pm (UTC)Never mind the surreal or incompetent attempts at RP I've seen, such as a scene between He-Man and the Christmas Twins in Silvermoon City, or an allegeldy role-played coaching session on PvP combat in which the phrase "sweater monkeys" was used.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 07:11 pm (UTC)or an allegeldy role-played coaching session on PvP combat in which the phrase "sweater monkeys" was used.
O.o