Ahhhhh...the joy of new inspiration. Nothing makes a PC gamer's poky bits go all atwitter like a giant pipe and new hardware...and this week I find myself in the possession of both. The new pipe (encrusted with giant purple veins, much like The Swollen Glans, my favorite COH toon ever)...
...is courtesy of Comcast Blast!, and it sings 25Mbps sweet nothings into my ear.The hardware is courtesy of me. And NewEgg. And Fry's. And Central Computer. Maybe a little Best Buy in desperation. And I can't forget Steve at SFF Store. Oh, and even MotherboardPro (though the Mobo they sent me was defective, they were super awesome). It's an upgrade to a small form factor delight that I built over a year ago using the Silverstone SG01e case. Now it's got all the goodies (Core2Duo E8600, Asus P5E-VM HDMI mobo, Diamond Radeon HD 4870 X2, 4G of Geil RAM, Zalman CNPS 8000 CPU cooler, Western Digital Velociraptor 300G 10K RPM HD, and some other stuff). I'd post pictures of all the components, the build process, and the final package, but that would be gratuitous, no? I don't want to come off as a braggart.
So here I am with the biggest pipe available to the common man (SHUT THE FUCK UP FiOS and U-verse CUSTOMERS) and the most bleeding edge tiny PC I've ever built...but what to do with them?
Inspired by the University of Texas at Austin's MMO history preservation project, I decided that the only logical thing to do was download and install every MMO I've ever put a significant amount of time into. Simultaneously. Except for AutoAssualt, which has the dubious distinction of "fastest MMO plug ever pulled".
And they're all organized nicely on my toolbar, by publisher no less...the full list, in somewhat chronological order:-Planetside
-Star Wars Galaxies
-Everquest II
-Saga of Ryzom
-EVE Online
-Guild Wars
-City of Heroes/City of Villians
-World of Warcraft
-Dungeons and Dragons Online
-Lord of the Rings Online
-Vanguard
-Pirates of the Burning Sea
-Age of Conan
-Warhammer Online
Holy crap. The next question I'm going to have to ask myself once all this shit is downloaded is...what the fuck am I going to do with it? In case you're actually a developer and wondering how this post will help you...I don't know. But do the math on that list for me please. We'll just call it $50x14 (some games were cheaper, but some have expansions). That's $700. Now subscription fees. I'm not going to even speculate on that, because I have a bad habit of forgetting to cancel (YOU LOVE ME FOR IT), but it's a lot. I'm your target. What will my memory of these games be, sometimes years since the last time I played? Isn't that what you develop for...to make an impact on my brain (and my wallet)?
What is their legacy? Stay tuned...
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