Monday, June 10, 2002

Make Love, Not War by Brad King in Wired reveals that peace freaks are infiltrating the online shooter world, although one of them, Anne-Marie Schleiner, apparently has issues: She didn't try to make friends with her enemies until after she laid waste to eight other players, a fact she pointed out was very impressive since she's a relatively new player. Lots of good laughs, but my favorite is:
Online protests are becoming more frequent these days, but they have a relatively simple history, dating to Ultima Online, a world created by Richard Garriott and Starr Long. During the beta testing, Garriott's Lord British, a supposedly invincible character, was killed by a player during a town meeting. Garriott forgot to click on his "immortality" switch, which led to his untimely death when he stepped into a fireball.

What really irked the players was that Long, seeing his friend's character fall, called in a gaggle of demons who whomped the innocent bystanders.
Now that sounds like a good time!