Why I will never play the Age of Conan MMO

Conan as he is meant to be: covered in blood, holding two gore-soaked swords, with a barely-dressed woman jonesing for a helping of his steely thews. (ironically, image taken from a video game)

Some people, particularly people who know about my fondness for both computer games and Conan, have suggested that I might look into the new Age of Conan Massively Multiplayer Online game. I've heard that the graphics are great and that the gameplay will be a lot of fun. To begin, let me say that I don't think I'll ever play any MMO again; at least, I hope I won't. To say I got burned playing World of Warcraft is an understatement: I got flame-charred. Games like that only give you the illusion that you're playing; you're just pushing the game through its paces, either succeeding in killing-this/going-there or going back to try again, like a glorified version of Chutes and Ladders.

So then, why does a Conan MMO offend me so much? When I was a lot younger, I used to look forward to the coming of the "Bookmobile" because the library in my little desert military base wasn't much for adventure stories, but the Bookmobile had so many fun books, not least of them books with a strong, brave man on the cover holding a sword! And so I was introduced to Conan, and I thrilled at the far-fetched tales of his wanderings and adventures, swept away to a heroic time and place. I must have read a dozen of those novels at least. Conan will always have a place in my heart assured for him just for that.

Now, I have rediscovered Conan in the stories by the man who created him: Robert E. Howard. Unlike the novels I read as a boy, these stories aren't just "doing Conan," expanding a world of adventure and fantasy. To Howard, Conan meant something: it was about the heroic struggle of a single man against the world, a real man, as Howard himself might have put it. Howard believed that civilization was a corrupting influence on what it really meant to be human, and he used Conan to strike back against a world he hated for its destruction of individuality and spirit. A Howard Conan story is more than just a remarkably visual and gripping read that I see reflected in the fantasy genre all over; it's a deeply-felt story of a time Howard longed for, when a man's worth truly mattered. And it's come to mean much the same for me: I, too, wish for a time I could be something more than just a nearsighted, skinny lad with no prospect of anything magical in his life. Sure, Conan would have bent me in half like a blade of grass, but at least I would have had that chance to stand up and be something.

And that is why I will not be trying the Age of Conan MMO.

A little rage

Every now and then, I feel the world is utterly lacking in vitriol. So, here's a little soapbox ranting for the cheap seats. Are we all paying attention? Do all children have splatter-shields on to protect them from flying spittle? Good. Let's crank this puppy up.

If you're going to criticize a blog, do it with a little good spirit. Although it's always fun to completely put down a stranger behind your veil of anonymity, you should be a man and consider that this other person had the guts to come out and say something to the world. Perhaps he or she didn't say it the best way it could have been said, but anyone deserves points just for saying something. The basis of this blog, for instance, is the notion that any thought, no matter how random or obtuse, may be worth preserving. Of course it's rather arrogant to assume that people will be actually interested in me, but arrogance is fun. As is cannibalism. But before we get too far off topic, let's get back to the issue at hand.

Specifically, my goat was gotten by the fact that my good friend's first post on a popular steampunk blog received a rather biting comment from a fellow with a moniker which I'll admit already shows that this person admits the unusually harsh content of the remark. I won't repeat the comment out of deference for this person; I wouldn't want my own comment over-analyzed on a blog without my knowledge, so I won't do it to this person. I'll merely say that I felt personally hurt by the comment because it implied the post was below the standard in quality set for the blog; I think that, even if a first post fails in living up to one's expectations, one could at least give a critical comment and wait for a second post before reaching for the torches and pitchforks. Yes, I take that kind of thing personally. No, the Lord Admiral and I are not the same person.

That being said, this person does make a legitimate point about the reduction of the post having led to a bit of decline in its quality. Damn the common man who can't read better than a chimpanzee! Let's put some meat on these cyber-bones!

Yes, you can attach cyber- to anything.

Mmm, cyber-pizza.

Uwe Boll PS

The biggest criticism against Uwe Boll... okay, let's be honest, ONE of the biggest criticisms, is that he completely misses the point of the video games he's making movies out of. However, his latest movie, Postal, has the following movie summary on imdb.com:

The story begins with a regular Joe who tries desperately to seek employment, but embarks on a violent rampage when he teams up with cult leader Uncle Dave. Their first act is to heist an amusement park, only to learn that the Taliban are planning the same heist as well. Chaos ensues, and now the Postal Dude must not only take on terrorists but political figures as well.

Uwe Boll, I tip my hat to you, sir. Having played the festering, maggot-ridden corpse of modern video game decay that is Postal and, more appropriate to the film, Postal II, I feel I am in a position to tell you that you, sir, have perfectly captured the essence of that game. Your movie sounds every bit as awful as the game.

The First Horseman?

Now, I have never seen an Uwe Boll movie from beginning to end. But I'm told he's awful. And from what I have seen of his movies (mostly movies that ended up scraped off the inside of the toilet seat and stuck on the SciFi channel in between other crappy movies) proves that the general consensus that he's the most talentless director since Ed Wood could well be true. You do have to give him some props for getting angry enough to beat up five of his critics in real-life boxing matches, but then again, if that's the point you have to go to to make people stop making fun of you, you should probably re-examine what it is you are doing in the first place.

That being said, I found a hilarious tidbit on the internet (as I tend to do, from time to time). Petitiononline.com is a place for people with gripes to start petitions, after which they find out how few people actually give a damn about what they've spent the last few months bitching about. However, the online petition to get Uwe Boll to take his hands (some say tentacles? elder god Boll?) off of movies permanently has over 283,000 signatures as of this moment. Considering this suggests that 283,000 people have actually seen a Uwe Boll movie, that's pretty amazing in itself.

Comments on the petition left by signatories include:

Please stop before more damage can be done
My ass could make a better film than you Please, just stop. There is no need for you to make anymore films.
The film world is just fine without you.
Your movies make me feel funny

And, perhaps the comment that sums up how most people seem to feel about Uwe Boll:

All your films are penis


Please note, Mr. Boll, if you find this, that I haven't seen your movies, I just think this interesting web trend of wanting to track you down and fillet you like juicy carp guts is hilarious.

New digs

I moved into a new apartment last week, and I helped my mom move from her house to a new townhouse, which is what sucked away the majority of my time. Although it was wonderful to have help from a number of my friends, I still put in a huge amount of time, and at the end of it, I was so exhausted I just felt like crying. That's something pretty wimpy for me to admit, but there you have it. I also convinced her to take the huge television I bought for her. I have to come up with all sorts of excuses and reasons she should have it instead of giving it to me; she seems to think it's just too big. Well, that's the whole point!

What I didn't do today was go to see Wil Wheaton at Supercon. Someone else did, though. And I'm insanely jealous. Most of us know Wil as Wesley Crusher from Star Trek, which means a lot of people think he was annoying. I disagree: he was the character we all would have been on the Enterprise: the geeky kid just happy to be there, wanting to have adventures all the time. And I think that's the reason people are down on Wesley: they see themselves in him.

That being said, Wil also has a cool blog, in which he reveals himself to be a monster geek. I'm not one to talk, having an arcade machine emulator on my computer and having spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of weeks playing Berzerk (Chicken! Fight like a robot!), Sinistar (Beware, I live!), and Pole Position (Mutteroo muttera mumblerar). But Wil has actually made something out of it.

I spent the better part of today reading Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's The Watchmen. I feel very Rorscach at the moment. That character is probably the best thing about The Watchmen, although I think that the book, more than any other graphic novel I know of, truly gets at what it means to be a superhero.

I'm also feeling pretty cyberpunk. One of these days, I really have to teach myself to do art, so I can make comics.

A dearth of blogging

I haven't been blogging because I've been very busy and very away from my computer. But this doesn't mean that I haven't been having brilliant thoughts, thoughts even far more brilliant than the ones I've gotten down on this blog in the past, just that I haven't had the chance to immortalize them in digital form.

And let's be honest, this blog will probably be gone in a year anyhow.

But there will be more blogs coming soon! Probably.

I finally got around to seeing the new Guy Ritchie movie Revolver. I think I've finally decided, about an hour after I finished watching it, that I didn't like it.

In Honor of Mother's Day

In honor of Mother's Day, I wanted to express my deep appreciation for my own mother. It is thanks to her that I developed my lifelong interest in books, and if I ever actually finish and publish a novel, I'll have to dedicate the first one to her. I was a pretty mixed-up kid, and it was my mum's constant support and faith in me that helped me become the mixed-up young man I am today.

Also of note on Mother's Day is another story about deep devotion to a mother. Robert E. Howard, tough-guy Texan and writer of the Conan stories and other tales of hard men, was devastated by his mother's long convalescence. When she slipped into a coma the doctors said she wouldn't come out of, Howard went outside and shot himself. I find that deeply moving, and it shows that even the manliest of men can have a huge soft spot for his mum.

Isn't blogging great? Where else could I write a suicide story in honor of Mother's Day?

The Worst Movie Ever?

Netflix introduced me to this movie. I haven't seen it, but I'm sorely tempted to, just so I can die halfway through and have the following movie summary appear in my obituary:

"Truck (Isaac Hayes), an ex-football star working as a bounty hunter, is on the trail of a violent pimp named Gator (Paul Harris). But when Truck and his partner finally get their man, Gator's woman (Nichelle Nichols) and her pimping friends put a hit out on them. Now, the hunter has become the hunted, and Truck will have to survive the wrath of the baddest pimp ever -- a menacing thug named Blue (Yaphet Kotto)." (copied from Netflix)

Watch the trailer on Youtube. It will kick your ass. Of particular interest is Nichelle Nichols, also known as Star Trek's Lieutenant Uhura. Apparently, she wasn't just a black woman who played an important part on a starship and inspired young minority women all over the world. She was a pimp with a hooker called Colonel Sanders.