Age of Boobies

When Robert E. Howard introduced the world to Conan the Barbarian, I'm sure he had no idea the character would be around over 80 years later. The fact that there is yet another upcoming video game about him means the Cimmerian is going strong.

Conan is an anti-hero, and as one, he generally likes to get down with the ladies. So it's no surprise that the game is supposed to have its fair share of nudity (I wonder if it'll compare to The Witcher in that matter). What's puzzling is that some gamers out there were so put off by the nudity that they decided to start a petitition to add a nudity toggle to the game.

The developer and publisher responded by... umm, releasing a "femme fatale" trailer.

Am in Bizarro world?

More site updates...

So, a few quick things I've been working on the past few nights when I've had a free 15-20 minutes. I added the author name at the bottom of the posts, as well as a link to the comments. Having some issues getting the right number of posts to display; I'll update that later. Images should generally be able to show up as much bigger now in image posts.

Okay, more stuff to come soon! I really gotta start hitting the css layouts some more.

New comments system

The built-in comments system for Chyrp kinda sucks if you start doing anti-spam checking, so I have moved to an easy and flexible new method - Disqus. You can sign up on their website and post comments on any site that uses Disqus. You can keep one single profile, manage all your comments in one place, and I can manage it pretty easily as well. More on this later, as I haven't had a lot of time to give it a whirl. Discussions will only be viewable in the Trackback links (it's below this post). I'll add the comment count stuff a little later when I get some time.

The System

"In China's hottest online game right now, players encounter a "system" that executes a seductive control. Though unseen, this "system" is omnipresent. It a virtual yet real monopolist. "Not a leaf moves in this kingdom if I don't know about it." The voice of Pinochet, former dictator of Chile, echoes softly though this virtual world."

Danwei brings us a fascinating article on a Chinese MMORPG called ZT Online that has made its creator a billionaire. With all the talk of "casual gaming" and "online transactions" in Western gaming these days, this is a case study of that concept taken to extremes.

While the author is correct that Western audiences prefer an egalitarian approach, I think there has always been a desire to excel and have personal gain come before anything else. It has been a defining balance of our species - why should online gaming be any different?

Thanks to Joel Martinsen for the excellent translation of the original article by Cao Yunwu.