Nihilum

It seems to me that the world is an infinitely odder place than even I gave it credit for and I'm only talking about the 'human' part of reality. Let's not worry for now about nature and/or supernature.

As you may be aware that the latest World of Warcraft expansion was released last Thursday. All fine and good. Furtle has been dabbling with it since her copy arrived in the post, but being a regular person has not dedicated every waking moment to it. This means that she is in danger of falling behind... The expansion, Wrath of the Lich King is designed for characters of level 70 and higher. In the two or so days available to her, she has made some progress towards getting to level 71. It appears though, that there is a significantly sized group who are already maxed out at level 80 and we have had the odd joke about spotting the Warcrack addicts who have taken a fortnight off work just to play the expansion through.

Since I don't take much more than a casual interest in online gaming in general or Warcraft in particular, I was rather surprised to find that there are strange bands of "elite" players out there. Or rather, I wasn't surprised that these elites exist so much as the fact that a group called "Nihilum" have effectively solved the expansion already and are grumbling that there is too much effort on the part of the game designers to 'level' the game for all players. Effectively they want more attention paid to them over the bulk of players out there who provide the business base for World of Warcraft.

Nihilum are a strange little body of blokes who make their livings playing Warcraft. I guess there is some kudos in that - actually earning money, presumably a living wage - through sponsorship playing a game is quite remarkable. Apparently they have beta keys to the game so I assume that most of the expansion was solved as it was being developed. They do not allow women in their little group because they do not want distractions such as role playing or talk/risk of relationships developing. (Let's not address the idea of relationships between game characters).

This all seems like some strange science fiction evolutionary path to me.

What do these players look like? Are they strange, grey figures sitting in armchairs with their little vestigial legs dangling over the front? Do they have large, unblinking fish eyes that stare at the screen, gaining information pixel by pixel at ranges beyond the normal scope of the human eye? Are they round, gellied things that have to be wired and plumbed to their chairs? Doe their tiny hands have long, spatulate fingers with extra joints, the index fingers being hugely over developed and potentially lethal?

I wish Jack Kirby were still alive; I would love to see his rendition of one or two of these monsters in life supported hover buckets playing around a huge plasma screen in a darked room with a soda and pizzas being dispensed at need by service droids.

It's a strange, strange, world.

Nihilum

It seems to me that the world is an infinitely odder place than even I gave it credit for and I'm only talking about the 'human' part of reality. Let's not worry for now about nature and/or supernature.

As you may be aware that the latest World of Warcraft expansion was released last Thursday. All fine and good. Furtle has been dabbling with it since her copy arrived in the post, but being a regular person has not dedicated every waking moment to it. This means that she is in danger of falling behind... The expansion, Wrath of the Lich King is designed for characters of level 70 and higher. In the two or so days available to her, she has made some progress towards getting to level 71. It appears though, that there is a significantly sized group who are already maxed out at level 80 and we have had the odd joke about spotting the Warcrack addicts who have taken a fortnight off work just to play the expansion through.

Since I don't take much more than a casual interest in online gaming in general or Warcraft in particular, I was rather surprised to find that there are strange bands of "elite" players out there. Or rather, I wasn't surprised that these elites exist so much as the fact that a group called "Nihilum" have effectively solved the expansion already and are grumbling that there is too much effort on the part of the game designers to 'level' the game for all players. Effectively they want more attention paid to them over the bulk of players out there who provide the business base for World of Warcraft.

Nihilum are a strange little body of blokes who make their livings playing Warcraft. I guess there is some kudos in that - actually earning money, presumably a living wage - through sponsorship playing a game is quite remarkable. Apparently they have beta keys to the game so I assume that most of the expansion was solved as it was being developed. They do not allow women in their little group because they do not want distractions such as role playing or talk/risk of relationships developing. (Let's not address the idea of relationships between game characters).

This all seems like some strange science fiction evolutionary path to me.

What do these players look like? Are they strange, grey figures sitting in armchairs with their little vestigial legs dangling over the front? Do they have large, unblinking fish eyes that stare at the screen, gaining information pixel by pixel at ranges beyond the normal scope of the human eye? Are they round, gellied things that have to be wired and plumbed to their chairs? Doe their tiny hands have long, spatulate fingers with extra joints, the index fingers being hugely over developed and potentially lethal?

I wish Jack Kirby were still alive; I would love to see his rendition of one or two of these monsters in life supported hover buckets playing around a huge plasma screen in a darked room with a soda and pizzas being dispensed at need by service droids.

It's a strange, strange, world.