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5:30 PM SOMETIMES I SITS AND THINKS AND SOMETIMES I JUST SITS

Not much going on today, thus another patented Sad-Assed-Update®.

As part of Lum Celebrity Deathmatch Week, I did an interview with Fear of Battle Vortex yesterday, which he says will be posted Friday night. It's proof positive that I write far better than I speak.

7:45 PM ME BAD, ME SORRY

Got about 12 zillion emails saying my page wasn't loading in Netscape. Turns out that the last 1K or so of it got lost when I updated, including the closing table tags (which Netscape is a bitch about, while IE is more laid back). So no, I'm not going to go to IE 5.0 with VB-Script only. Even though Netscape has basically sucked raw eggs since version 4.

6:00 PM KEEP IT UP, BUCKO, WE'LL WHIP MOURNE ON YOUR BUTT NEXT

Got this from Mushashi, charter member of the Lum Entourage...

Damn Lum, he really nailed you. Being interviewed on Stratics is sure going to mess up ChubChub's gameplay. Of course, he's probably penalty boxed and so the only thing he does currently is beat off to articles about actually playing UO. Cheer up ChubChub! Soon you'll be back, spending your 10 bucks to support those guys who have been screwing you for 2 years. That'll show them.

Come on Lum, I bet you even get GM twinks! Hell, you had GM Gabriel's pic up there! What a great stunt to earn the love of one of UO's red-robed heroes. I just can't understand why I never got preferential treatment from my pet GM even after plugging him many times with those immortal words, "FUCK YOU DATURA!" (Any GM's who wish to give me free stuff please make sure it's in demand on eBay.)

Uh, how well does being a sellout pay? Stratics might be mirroring some of my crap, so I want to figure out how much blow I should be asking for before they read my profane rants and kick me out of my cushy brown-nosing position.

Congrats on your celebrity status. I'll be watching with interest and admiration while trying to figure out how to steal it for myself.

10:30 AM EXPLAINS A LOT TO ME...

Check out this interview with Origin's anonymous PR guy. All will be revealed, grasshopper.

10:00 AM DISSENTING OPINIONS WELCOME AS ALWAYS

Just got this from someone often banned from our message board:

Not only have your rants gone down hill but now it seems your a big fucking sellout. Hell you even made it on startics about being the "star" guest interview. I got an idea Why not just get down on your knees and blow these people while your at it. I mean they have been fucking us in the ass for about 2 years now. But you seem about the type of person to do anything to get in "good" with osi. Remember your elist comments about smurfs? Well your there pally, right there on your high horse, with shit all over your nose. What kinda of a loser actually makes an effort to go to these player meetings? I see you right next to chuck in the prozac line. You suck Lum face it. Look at what you have become, a sellout.

ChubChub Mookey

Normally I'd just let my entourage beat you up Puff Daddy style, but I think I'll climb down from my ivory tower to answer this one.

I'm not "in good" with OSI. I'm not even "in-different" with OSI. In fact I'm told some of them even tried to get xrgaming.net to shut this site down. But that's not important, I don't feel the need to prove "street cred" or somehow assert my non-ass-kissing-ness to every J. Random Punk off Twister's message bases. The fact of the matter is, you as well as every other swinging appendage in the universe can judge for yourself whether or not this site meets your personal criteria for independence, wit and poo-slinging. And you know what? If you think I'm full of shit, nothing is stopping you from doing it better. Web space is cheap (free if you can deal with ad banners). Go forth and do better, or just sit quietly in your corner and bitch a lot. Your choice.

As for whether or not my driving for a few hours to make fun of the Dev team qualifies as "sucking", up or otherwise, well, I never claimed to be not ate up with it. I mean, I do a web site. That pretty much defines being ate up with it. And these things make for great source material. But again, if ya don't like it, ya don't gotta read it. Bye now. Y'all come back real soon, y'hear?

9:00 AM OK, SO NO ONE KNOWS THIS ONE

Stretch-7 reports back again, insisting that crossing server boundaries does in fact hinder the decay of murder counts. He got an SRC to back him up, as is shown in this transcript (he sent me screenshots of his journal which I've transcribed to be kind to the Gods of Bandwidth):

Stretch: I have been told two different things now. A counselor said that murder counts don't get taken away if you move server to server - the timer gets reset. Is this true?

SRC Felicia: Not exactly

Stretch: or somewhat true?

SRC Felicia: I believe that what happens is this: when you cross a server line, the time goes back to the last point it was saved at. Each subserver saves at different times, but at most you should only lose an hour or so.

Stretch: An hour out of how long?

SRC Felicia: That's my understanding of how it works. Depends on which murder count you're watching. The hours just get set back a little for short counts. For short counts, the total is 8 per murder. Long counts it's 40 per murder.

Stretch: So, if I moved server to server, every 5 minutes or so, would I lose a lot?

SRC Felicia: No, it's not a cumulative thing. Let's say you go from Vesper to Yew, and you save at 1 hour worked off in Vesper, but you've been in Vesper another 30 minutes. When you go to Yew, you'll be at 1 hour. If you go back to Vesper, you'll be at 1 hour...

Stretch: How often do these saves occur?

SRC Felicia: ...so you could keep doing that, and all that would happen is that the time you were doing it wouldn't count. I believe every 30 minutes to an hour, but it depends on the subserver and how much stuff is on hit.

Stretch: In theory you could be on a server for 30 minutes and only have 1 minute saved.

SRC Felicia: In theory, I believe so, yes.

Stretch: OK, thanks.

SRC Felicia: Welcome. =)

I would make a comment here about SRCs not being the most reliable source for information on game mechanics, but I'm probably already set for several lynchings at the Austin hoorah this weekend as it is. Regardless, OSI, if you're reading, some clarification would be nice.

9:00 AM MIGHT AS WELL FACE IT, YOU'RE ADDICTED TO LUM

More responses to the topic of addiction in UO have come in and are posted.

9:00 AM STRATICS ADMITS LUM EXISTS, LABELS HIM A CELEBRITY

Stratics has lined up a "Celebrity Chat" with yers truly Monday night at 7p CST. So show up and give me a hard time, because no doubt I will be cranky and out of sorts from driving back from Texas to make fun of the Dev team that weekend.

8:00 PM OK, SO THE PLAYERS KNEW THIS ONE

Still plan on some more updates but it's been hectic here at LumCentral (I'm still at work, working on hour number 12 now). However, I wanted to note that quite a few PKs informed me that the previous correspondent was mistaken and murder counts do in fact decay regardless of server line crossings. As one said, "He had 2 long counts probably, not 1, that would account for a month's worth of non-macroed time". Which is sad in and of itself.

The Lum Show is tentatively scheduled to go to Austin this weekend to mock the new Dev Team mercilessly. (I won't be bringing a camera, so you GMs can show up too, as long as no one's carding.) The fact that my first days off in months are being spent to drive to Texas and listen to PR on an online game... well, that's just freakin' sad. Like I need to be the one ranting about addiction here?

3:30 PM SURE BE NICE IF SOMEONE LET THE PLAYERS KNOW THIS ONE

Stretch-7 writes in again to clue us in on something reds have long suspected:

I turned blue a couple days ago and I just found out why I never turned blue until I macroed. If you cross a server line, your counter gets reset. I had a counselor confirm this a couple days ago.

I was red for 1 month and 1 week while only being 1 long term count over. I usually play UO for about 2-3 hours a day. That adds up to far more than 40 hours. I actually thought I was going to listen to OSI and not macro, and do what they wanted me to. Play UO for 40 hours. Well, after a month and I decided I wasn't go blue anytime soon. I macroed for 4 days (at about 8 hours a day). I then turned blue.

This is absolutely insane (I keep saying this about OSI). If they don't want us to macro, fix the system so it actually works without macroing.

Basically if you want to lose counts, the only way to do so is to macro on the same sub-server for long periods of time.

10:00 AM YES, THE "UOA IS NOT ULTIMA ONLINE ANONYMOUS" SUBJECT WAS ORIGINALLY USED BY J. ON THE MESSAGE BOARD.

I've gotten quite a few responses in to Chuck of UO Market's cry for help and Banstyle's commentary on same, all of which basically make the same point - personal responsibility, it's a beautiful thing. Here's 2 different takes on the subject.

My own response will be up later today.

9:30 AM ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER GUILD PISSED AT THE GMS

Stretch-7 of the Cult of 7 Sins reports in with this:

This happened to my guild's premier enemy Lords of Death (LoD) - Baja. He is what the GM of LoD posted on our message board (Cult of the 7 Sins).

Reference: LoD Board - Cult of 7 Sins Board

In my opinion this is horrific, espcailly because it literally takes hours for a gm to declare war on specific guilds. "Orc Pimp" is offensive? BAH!

---

Another horror story from the archives of GM Abuse and Maltreatment of PvP Oriented Guilds.

We have survived the reputation patch, stat-loss and whatever half-cooked, anti-pvp patch that OSI released. Through it all, we have gritted our teeth and beared it. But this latest issue just really pisses me off.

I logged in late one night to tend to some guildstone duties when all of the sudden the dreaded "Your account has been blocked" screen came up. I hurriedly checked my e-mail and found this ridiculous letter in my in-box.

Hail!

There are several offensive guild titles under your guild leadership from the character DarkBlade. These names are:

Johnny, Lord Salad Tosser
Couladin, Lord of Butt Jacking
Balinore, Orc Pimp
Kaiesis, Lord of Fags

I have suspended your account for 24 hours and disbanded your guild. You will have to re-add everyone with appropriate names.

At first, I thought to myself "ok, no big deal, I'll just re-add everyone tomorrow." But, I later find out from a guildmate that not only was everyone kicked from the guild, but that our guildstone was deleted too! Now, anyone who has ever run a PvP oriented guild knows how difficult it is to declare wars. Because of the crappy interface of the guildstone, declaring wars is a major hassle. Also, now we have to go through the task of getting all the other guilds to declare back on us. Considering we had over 20 mutual wars, this is an enormous task to say the least. So basically, what was our punishment? Over a years worth of war declaration down the drain with a swift keystroke of a GM.

Punishment fit the crime? Yes, I understand that the guild titles were offensive. I can even understand his rationale that it was my responsibility (hence the 24 hour ban), but disbanding our guild over this? I think this is simply ridiculous. He could have simply given me the ban, kicked the offending characters of the stone and send me a letter asking me to change it. Why then such a harsh punishment? Honestly, I think it's because we are the Lords of Death. We are a prominent (and successful) PvP/PK oriented and don't fit the RP mold that OSI desires. I seriously hope that this isn't the case but is merely abuse of power by an idiot GM. IMO, if we were a prominent RP guild, a punishment of this magnitude would have never occured.

In short, this is utter bullshit.

Kai

My thoughts - very few roleplayers will walk around with the guild title "Lord of Butt Jacking". It may seem like OSI is targeting PvPers unfairly, but basically, the most offensive gimps in the game tend to be into PvP (and give those of us into PvP who aren't offensive gimps a bad name).

The guildwar interface is pretty retarded though. I'd submit that guildstones shouldn't be deleted unless the guild name itself is offensive (like, say, "KKK"). Not only do guildstones cost money, but the real penalty is in tracking down and declaring on all the guilds they were at war at, as the guildmaster stated.

As far as I can tell, LoD actually played by the rules. They didn't random PK, but declared war on their opponents. This needs to be encouraged, not penalized.

(Those names were pretty lame, though. Although I agree that "Orc Pimp" is probably acceptable. Except to other orcs.)