The world in whole - As seen in the eyes of an MMORPG Traveller

Greetings, Helegaradon Sihniliophinopopolos here and I'm writing this Journal to examine how different cultures and worlds treat Nature, Work and each other, first off, we will take a look at a few of the various races I have encountered during my journey throughout various worlds. Enjoy!

Chapters:

Chapter 1 - Races & Factions

Chapter 2 - Professions & Jobs

Chapter 3 - Nature and the world around

Chapter 4 - Conclusion

CHAPTER 1 - RACES & FACTIONS.

While it is true that there are many strange and wonderful races throughout the many varied worlds, very few are capable of the most basic of Human expressions, laughter seems to be the most common, along with dancing/fun, which are often displayed in tandem. Of the many worlds, you can usually find certain elements common between them, despite them not ever being in contact with each other, such as beards, accents and size. For example, almost every world has Elves, these people are usually rather tall, live long long lives (some are even stated to be immortal) and have pointy ears, superior egos and heightened emotions, meanwhile, Dwarves are more commonly found to have large beards, pride for the large beards, have a love of battle and speak in gruff Scottish accents. More detail on a few sample races I have observed through my Incredi-Sized Multi storage trans-world teleportational drirections travel device will follow the end of this sentence, as in, now.

Dwarves
Dwarves are mainly small folk, around waist height, but don't let that fool you, their heart and might more than make up for their size. A single Dwarf, fully armored charging into a battle (which is another common point across the worlds surprisingly) can strike fear into the most battle-hardened foe. Dwarves seem to have more "health" than most other races, meaning they can often withstand many hammer and arrow blows to the face, which you will agree, is an excellent ability to have in a tight corner. Most Dwarves take up fighting roles, using weapons up to 3 times their size to destroy their enemies, some however, take up the roles of Hunters, using a variety of distance based weaponry, some have mastered the ability to create guns, while others have to stick with Bows and Crossbows. A Dwarf can most likely be found with a Huge bear and a mug of Ale after a hard day of murdering small animals for pieces of skin (yet another common point, which will be mentioned later on)


Elves
Ahh, the Elf, tall and immortal (occasionally.) Elves usually live in trees or out in the wild, they feel a strong bond to nature, you see, this much is common on all of the worlds I have visited. Elves are most likely to be found as Hunters, again, in common with other worlds, most seemed to be named using the following letters:

A E G L O S

There is not usually much variation in the way they are put together, they mainly start with L and end in S, with multiple vowels in between, however, this seems to anger most of the worlds that they occupy, perhaps a Deity of a distant past had the same name and is now feared or hated, perhaps there are just too many Elves name in similar style that it just gets annoying and frustrating, who knows? I do believe it requires further study though.

Trolls

Trolls are primarily shunned for being evil, while some are just bitter for various reasons, some can truly be described as evil, if you can't fully see their path. Trolls are mainly caste in Shamanistic roles, Witch doctors, Rain callers etc, but they go much deeper than that, in many ways, some Trolls have more in common with Elves than they do with their Fellow allies. Trolls seem to come in many different sizes, some are Huge lumbering war machines, intent on smashing or crushing anything they come across, others are around 6ft (add 3ft for their hair as well)

Orcs

Orcs, like Trolls are caste as Evil, but much like the Troll, they are bitter about the way their luck has been pretty much none existent. Some Orcs however, are evil, they display only their base needs - Kill and feed. orcs are hard to describe as many worlds feature them, they are usually found in a warrior style role, smashing Dwarves and rabbits about with giant weapons.

Humans

Humans are found on pretty much all the worlds, and again, can be found in Good and Evil roles. Humans seem to show the least intelligence between the races. Some will follow you needlessly for hours upon hours and when you finally confront them, they just laugh and start their long walk back to wherever they came from. Some Humans enjoy speaking in an abbreviated manner, this seems to annoy many people, often resulting in threats of physical violence. Humans are usually strong fighters or magic users as it makes up for their lack of intelligence and makes them feel ever so slightly less insignificant.

So, there are a few of the Races I've encountered so face, of course there are many, many more out there, often similar in appearance to each other, although there are rules, some look feline in appearance, while some have canine features, one particular race seems to resemble bovine, but standing on their hind legs, most have tails. I like their tails, tails are good.

CHAPTER 2 - PROFESSIONS & JOBS.

Of all the worlds I have visited, there are two things in common to each and every race - 1: Complete and utter laziness, 2: Greed. Let me explain.

People who have something they want doing, but are too lazy/stupid to do for their selves are gifted with some variety of icon above their heads. This icon seems to draw people to them, kind of a sirens call, the promise of [Rat face Boots of Endurance +8] is to tempting for some and they will blatantly go out of their way to obtain whatever the person needs. In theory, this is a superb money making scheme - Having people do stuff for you in 126 simple Quests - This, however, is where the greed comes in, I meant really, how many [Bunch of Random Plants] does anyone really need? Is there a list that has the right amount? Would it look like a straight line with "Not enough" at the start and "Plenty" at the end?

No. It wouldn't because it seems people are content in running the same "quest" for years on end, massing and huge stockpile of random items that they can sell off to the highest bidder. These so-called quests are no easy feat either, especially the ones based around killed an arbitrary number of generic creature 14, due to the way they have evolved, which is described in the next chapter. In all then, people you meet in the world will always have something for you to do because they can't be bothered doing it themselves. My advice, in closing of this chapter would be to avoid them like the plague, the tasks they give will be tedious and take nothing short of years to complete.

CHAPTER 3 - NATURE & THE WORLD AROUND.

As I mentioned in the last chapter, the worlds have evolved in such a way that everything is dangerous, be it water or trees, something WILL want to kill you, and given half a chance they will. Most creatures have developed the ability to make you walk slow, in an annoying way. This is so they can catch up and murder you in whatever manner they choose. I mentioned as well that killing these creatures for tasks can be a tedious task, this is why:

Feline style creatures - No skulls or bones, Fur disintegrates when you try and pick it up, No Blood or internal organs.
Canines - Eyes not present, heads vanish once they die, no feet, teeth missing.
Humanoids - No hands, Ears, blood, skin, heads, feet or beards.

These rules only apply to around 89% of the population, some still retain traits such as blood and skulls, others wont. This is why it is tedious and annoying, the call of the quest giver is strong, and again, I urge you all to not try and do anything for these lazy idiots, unless you like banging you head repeatedly into a hedgehog at 40 minute intervals.

CHAPTER 4 - CONCLUSION.

So here we are, the conclusion at last. While all the worlds are varied enough to hold the interest for the avid explorer, the dangers out way the rewards. Travel to these worlds at your own peril, It will cost you a fortune and you will come out of them enjoying the feeling of metal spikes being jammed into your temples, I know I do. So in closing, Avoid, watch a movie, each a cabbage, fluff a squirrel, just don't go into these world hoping to find something interesting, there is only death.

Helegaradon Sihniliophinopopolos signing out.

Mean Machine

I've finally decided it's about time I posted one of the Wombat's old Garry's Mod videos from a time when we actually used to play it.

Saying that, we have over the past couple of weeks been playing it again, though most of the time we've spent in it has been been either shooting Dr. Breen a helluva lot (did I just use the word 'helluva'?) or attaching thrusters to hoverboards and pissing ourselves laughing at the hilarious deaths that entail. Not that either of those are bad things mind.

But to the point of this post. Today I stumbled upon the My Videos folder on this here computer and found a 'Games' folder lurking inside. In which there are a bunch of old Garry's Mod videos from late 2006. Again, mainly just videos of killing Dr. Breen and the like but one in particular is what I deem to be our finest work to date.

Entitled 'Mean Machine,' it shows an old rusting wheelless APC which we brought back to life by giving it some big new wheels, a nice olive green polish, some new headlights, and a battering ram to be used for clearing the road of any zombies or Dr. Breens who might happen to be standing in the way (ie. a lot).

Made in late summer 2006, it is to date the most productive thing we have done in Garry's Mod. It came about when I was unemployed for 2 or 3 months following an unwelcome stint at Birmingham Aluminium (watch The Machinist to get an idea of what it was like to work there). I quit when they laid upon me a shift pattern of Monday to Thursday 6am to 6pm.

A week or so after I quit I bought a brand new £1000 PC and sat there most of the day doing nothing but drinking Tea, eating ham and cheese sarnies, and playing Garry's Mod. I soon realised I had about £100 to my name and £600 rent to pay in less than two weeks. So we made this:

Tubes

Right to the point in this blorg title.

This is something that has been on my mind all week, we really need a new system of measuring things, I personally don't care much for such words as Millimeter's, Centimeter's, Inch's or meters. I hate having to work out whats what when measuring stuff which happens once in a pink sphere that it just gets on my nerves persistently and I end up hitting stuff, damn measurment systems...Anyway, I have devised a way that will benifit everyone - The Loyal Tube

Tubes! i dont hear you cry, whats the point? Well, tubes are everywhere and you can find them in almost all situations and they always come in handy, so here is the measurment systtem in broken math format as I also dislike anything numerical, like dinosaurs.

Tube = (Length x Height = size)
Size = (Does not matter)

As you can see, any tube can be used in any situation as it doesn't matter what size it is! Ingenious you don't say! Here is an example:

Measuring a building used to be hard using a 30cm Ruler, or for the posh amongst you all, a straight edge, now, with tubes, tedium is a thing of the past. By using a large tube you can stack them up against the building and say "Oh! It's 500 tubes high, Huzzah!" while with small tubes, you can say "Oh! It's 2,846 tubes high, Huzzah!"

Tubes will change the way science views nothing in particular, so do your duty, expose tubes to the world today to make a better future for yesterday!






Ps.

Huzzah!

Mungos, Spiddles and Kittywiggles...

...None of which shall be mentioned again in this blorg, since I've not had the enthusiasm to do one for a while, this one will be a new one for a while with completely nonsensical sentence structure and possibly grammatical errors ahoy.

Things around me at the moment:

1 Plate & fork - Just removed a pasty from our physical existence.
Half a bottle of Dr. Pepper, open, lid on the other side of the table
Joystick, not plugged in, not doing anything other than taking up space
1 Plasma globe, now with 100% more added headphones
Phone(s)
Random Trinkets
1 Empty bottle of Dr. Pepper, removed from existence while thinking of this sentence.


You may ask what the point in that was, the truth is, there is no point and to hell with you for suggesting that there was, those of you who didn't then shame on you for not thinking it.

Dragons ahoy!

Quick! Look over there, is that a dragon?!?

The question that has haunted many people for the last 34 seconds now has an answer and that answer is "No, that my magnetic friend, is what we call a Kangaroo" so there you have it, the dragon in question is none other than Chellibo, the Marvelous Kangaroo, he may have scales and breath fire but dammit if he is not a kangaroo.

23,017 centimeters beneath the atmosphere

This decent has taken a turn for the worse, so I am going.

I was going to put something else there but I deleted the text from virtual existence as I'm too bored and lazy to get the random buds firing off in my mind so I shall just leave it as - I am Going.

Gone.

Deer Hunters for a day, fools for a lifetime

We arrived in Pike, Illinois at the break of dawn. Mike turned up on his trusty steed 'LaRoo' and myself on a brand spankin' new quad bike. First we decided to test our gear. I ran straight to the nearest tree to set up my new high chair (with built in foot massager!), jumped on the bugger and sat to watch Mike set up his tent. We soon got bored sitting there pointing at each other and so decided to set off in quest of a 200lb white-tailed buck.

We got on our respective modes of transportation and headed south through the woods with our grunt call tubes lodged firmly in our mouths and made as much noise as humanly possible. We soon discovered this wasn't the way it was meant to be done so quickly and silently we both fell straight into prone position. We crawled along in this manner for a while until we realised we were both covered in warm deer crap, and thought there must be something close by. There was nothing but a lone squirrel staring confusedly at us which was duly slain by Mike and his Rifle.

We headed further south and came across a river, consulting the map we saw a dotted line through the river and decided to head towards that. It wasn't long before we came across a bridge (A Bridge!!!) and there was much rejoicing, and pointing for that matter. We stepped onto the bridge and had a little dance whilst moving over it. Mike noticed a huge eagle flying overhead and whipped out his rifle and fired all five shots at it with no luck, one blast of his shotgun took care of it though, and it fell into the river. We waded in and stared (and pointed) at the dead body. At this point we decided to split up.

I had my thermal goggles with me and saw some orange blobs though the trees so I snuck through (very professionally I might add) and there it was, the 200lb white-tailed buck. It had it's back turned towards me so I hid behind the tree and prepared to take my shot. I peeked round and it was still standing there silently, so I took aim and... Suddenly 3 gunshots from the left, it scarpered. It was Mike running towards me; deer call tube lodged in his gob, making an awful racket. We didn't see it again.

Somewhat disappointed at the lack of things to kill and longing for some action we felt it necessary to start shooting at cars on the nearby road, nothing came of this, the terrible shots we both are. We saw a farm house in the distance and set out towards that, I ran over a squirrel and Mike shot one, so it wasn't all bad. Unfortunately the farm house was empty, so our hopes of murdering the family were abruptly ended. Mike then decided to finger LaRoo while we watched a beautiful sunset.

Back to Rapture

Another late night blorg from moi, and now I've found the setting that changes the time format so it no longer says I've been writing these in the early afternoon.

Crysis (yes that dreaded word again) has been completed, t'was very good, it does what it says on the proverbial, but that's all I'm writing about it. I've now moved back to BioShock. I did complete this within a week or two of it's release but was left somewhat underwhelmed by the whole affair. The reason for this I couldn't quite explain, so I put it down to the crashes I suffered every half an hour whilst playing the game. I then updated my video card drivers to stop the crashing, which worked, but still felt mildly unsatisfied by it. I then came across this blorg post, written in essay format, describing the inner workings of BioShock and it's story in great detail (please do read it if you have an hour spare). It was written by someone who also felt slightly disappointed come the end of the game, and made me realise that many more people were feeling that way upon completion. Maybe that's the way it was meant to be?

So I decided to give it another go.

One thing I've always loved about the game is the way it looks, the shaders being the distinguishing factor, when light shines onto a tiled floor the gold shimmers in an awesome way. As you can see I've started taking some shots of the game and I will continue to do so until the end (and thanks to tweakguides.com for showing me how to remove the HUD).

I've just arrived at the Medical Pavilion (I took that earlier, bloody love it), which leads me on to an anecdote from my first play through of the game. This was the first part of the game that scared the crap out of me. Half way through the Medical Pavilion level I ventured into Dandy Dental, this is around the first time you meet the Houdini Splicers, and I was having a good old snoop around and went into the dental surgery, only for my vision to go cloudy. Mildly disoriented I turned around a full 360 degrees and stumbled forward, my vision cleared again and I was greeted with a dentist's chair. This room had an air of ambivalence about it, so I thought I'd quickly check the table in the corner and get out of there. As soon as I got to the table my vision clouded over again so I hastily turned around to find the door, it was at that point that my vision cleared and standing right in my face was a masked Houdini Splicer. I panicked, but luckily I had my trusty wrench to hand and gave him a swift whack around the chops. He then disappeared into a flutter of red ashes and appeared outside the door whilst shouting some random abuse at me, I managed to catch up with him and proceeded to beat his head in a panicked rage a few more times before he finally fell silent to the floor.

Spoons of the Ages

Quite a fitting title for what I am about to write about, since I've not wrote anything for a while because of what I'm about to write about...errr

So then, without further ado, I present "Spoons of the Ages - One Argonian and a Silver Spoon" which will not be in story format, but rather a tale of what happened and why it ultimately ended the life of a poor Argonian. By the way, this is about The Elder Scrolls 4 - Oblivion, just had to make that clear as my rambling may have missed that completely.

It all started in the town of Bravil, a run down dump, it was ideal for my Argonian due to the amount of water and people to steal from, rather it was until I murdered everyone I could lay my dagger into, still, that left a lot of empty, locked houses to case which is where the true story begins - How much do the Guards care?

I decided to test this theory, since there was no one to beat up bar punching rats in their stupid furry faces, I broke into one house and stole one item, a silver spoon, I then took it across the world to Chorrol and spoke to a guard.

Completely ignoring the fact that I had my dagger out and all the corpses around me, the guy took the logical step of trying to arrest me for stealing a spoon, now, I'm not sure how far telepathy goes, but I'm pretty sure none of the murdered people told them of my glorious deed and I'm sure the guards didn't send out a signal to alert everyone in the world of said deed. Perhaps everyone in Tamriel have their belongings electronically tagged for safety and convenience, yet they don't care when I stab them multiple times in the face.

I decide to go to jail and see what all the fuss is about, it seems a quite cosy place, no one else around though, I seem to have a lockpick that I decide to not use as it is late and my murdering has made me tired.

I get out and seem to have suffered some ability changes, it's hard to care though, a bit of anger rises in me so I stab a few rats to vent it out, which brings up another point, I was arrested, thrown in jail for a few days (spoon crime is a growing threat in a world where people cant use their mouths anymore) yet I get released with all my armor and the blood covered dagger I used to kill everyone with, not that I mind, saves me time looking for another.

I enter the Imperial City and see that there is one man walking around (not a clone guard) and I come to the conclusion that he was the one who squealed, I follow him for 13 days, learning his route, finding his house and taking on his habits. I break into his house one day while he is doing his daily wall staring exercises, and steal all of his belongings, right down to the blueberries he had on the table and the raw meat on the plates. I leave to punch some deer in the forests and return 3 days later, the guy isn't at his usual places so I go to his house. It seems that taking everything he had was just too costly and the urge to feed had came over him, his tables were full of fruit and meat, just lying there, uncooked and without a plate with just a spoon to eat with. I go outside and wait, his misery shall end tonight, the last man in the province and he has to use a spoon to eat raw meat with, it's a pitiful life. Being kind (heh) I go back in and steal what he has replaced and place one poisoned apple on his table, I go out and wait again, 2 days pass and the apple is still there, the man is nowhere to be found until by a freak chance I find him in a bush, dead, with 9 arrows in him, he was a hunter, and judging by the corpse of the forester near him, they had an epic battle, each was pierced with arrows, each left for the wilds...

I am now the last person alive (and this being the 360 version I can't use the mods that allows you to kill quest people) it's a lonely life so I head to his house, I leave a parchment and quill on his desk after pretending to write my confession and proceed to eat the poisoned apple, the effect takes hold, I fall back over the stool, dead.

This Argonians tale is over, next time they will all die by the warhammer of a frosty Nord named Alfred Bestlo...

All in all, that seems pretty crap now I'm looking at it, but I'm not bothered.