Dear Diary,

Several things have come to my notice today. 

Those most ironic is that Quest Online, which everyone assumes is synonymous with Derek Smart, despite that he isn’t the only one working there, has been accused of plagiarizing a press release.  You know, as much as I think the man has built up so much bad karma that it would take a team of Sherpa guides a month to summit, the claim is a bit ludicrous.  On a related side note, our Boston Terrier is starting to sound a bit like our much larger guard dog…I think she has plagiarized her bark.

I read an article over at the escapist this afternoon that quotes somebody named Andrew Oliver (Sounds like two first names; is this one person or two?) who co-founded something called “Blitz games”.  He maintains what poses an even greater problem to game developers than piracy is the sale of used games.  Here is part of what he had to say .

“Arguably the bigger problem on consoles now is the trading in of games,” Oliver told Develop. “I understand why players do this, games are expensive and after a few weeks of playing you’ve either beaten it or got bored of it, so trading it back in to help pay for the next seems sensible when people are short of cash.”

OMGosh diary, what is this crazy old world coming to when people buy something used? I can’t believe anyone would ask a game developer to make a game with “replayability”…that’s just crazy talk. Electronic Arts has the right idea – they are making those cheap  bastards that buy used games pay an extra ten bucks .

Just the other night Fran invited me to run an instance with her in My Starry Little Pony Online…oops, I mean World of Warcraft.  It appears that the pickup groups in WoW are about as friendly and nice as a man wearing hob nail boots at an ass kicking contest. I think it’s interesting that Blizzard had an “accidental” leak from their upcoming Cataclysm expansion.  I am shocked that this would happen and even more disturbed by the insinuations that this might have been done to string the community along while the famed “It’s done when it’s done” Blizzard attitude, stretches the release date sometime into the next century. After all, just take one look at West and Zampella vs. Activision and you will find out just what Activision really thinks about content leaks. You know diary,I hope no one reads this who is considering playing WoW, otherwise they are likely to find out that the odds of finding a pick up group in WoW that isn’t infected with Asshaticus are smaller than finding a snowball in hell.

Pixel, pixel, who’s got the pixels

Dear Diary.  The question I have for you today is who owns something that isn’t really there? Now you and I both know that answer since we understand Zen Buddhism.  But it appears that the question has arisen twice in recent days.  Once by four people suing  Linden Labs, makers of Second life . It appears said individuals feel they should be able to own virtual land in Second Life.  It makes me wonder who they think owns the Second Life program and does EULA stand for euphemistic understanding of ludicrous arrangements.  But there just may be something to the whole “who owns what pixels” idea.  After all, Zynga said they owned their pixels when they filed a lawsuit against playerauctions.com not long ago.You know, this whole lawsuit involving Zynga does have a familiar ring to it .

You know, dear diary, the whole argument over who owns virtual property is a bit silly – because as every good Zen Buddhist knows, it’s not really there.

And another thing…

It’s just seven more days until Tyranis releases on Eve Online.  Planetary Interaction looks like it will be alot of fun.  With the pirates nicely walled up on the low end of the high security wall, those of us who build New Eden, the industrialists, will have more depth added to our game by the folks at ccp. It looks like my love/hate relationship is leaning more toward the love side.

There are alot of videos out there, but I found this one which is simple, straight-forward and high quality.  Take a look … oh wait, you are just a diary, you can’t look can you?