Homeless Articles over the last few goldberg part, which was solid, and the months – and this one is no exception. first article, which made some good points). it reads like what people who This week, Bruce Woodcock shares his know only about other gaming platforms We hear from a lot of people on a weekly experiences and preferences for playing would write about mobile. i guess it basis wishing to write for the magazine. a female in online worlds. Joe Blancato might be a good read for some people, ITo The Editor: Tonight i finally found Some just like the magazine’s style and discusses with the founders of Troika the but for people who are actually in the the time to read the mobile edition of the want to be involved. Sometimes, they’ve ideas behind the company, and mobile trenches it was largely escapist, which i was looking forward to, already looked at our editorial calendar eventually, the fall of one of the most disappointing. knowing the nice articles you usually and have an issue in particular for which original and often underappreciated have. they’d like to write. And some come game developers. Phillip Scuderi - Jeff Valadares, Production Director, forward with fully fleshed out pitches or explores Maxis’ sim games and their Digital Chocolate (Sumea) Have to say that i’m really disappointed. articles, great ideas, but not at all mark, not on just the gaming world, but related to our calendar. for those who’ve played them, their In Response to “Going ‘Home’ for Somehow, the issue kinda missed most mark on our understanding of the world the Holidays” from The Escapist of the mobile point (except for the eric It is these orphan articles which cause us around us. Gearoid Reidy uncovers the Forum: the most difficulty. You see, we’re unsung heroes of the game industry: the suckers for a great article, but we have localizers. And Erin Hoffman offers, in designed, and love, our editorial her article, that parents might just be calendar. It is the foundation upon which the best game developers. Enjoy these the whole of <i>The Escapist</i> is articles and more in this week’s The built. However, we have learned in our Escapist. first year of publishing <i>The Escapist</i> that sometimes it is best to Cheers, have a little flexibility built into the mix. It is this need for flexibility that has brought forth the recurring Editor’s Choice issues you’ll find scattered throughout the calendar. These issues are literally a mix of some of our favorite This gave me some pretty severe warm years to match each detail. Everything fuzzies. Almost made me wish I could from the parents that believe retail find an MMO that I could put up with for stores are daycare centers to the long enough to experience this sort of frustrating, incompetent teenage help thing. Oh well. I’m still holding out for was present in my own personal outing World of Starcraft. in the retail business. - Bongo Bill I will never understand the passionate anger that people feel while waiting on In Response to “’Maajh, Ladies’” line. Most people browse the store for a from The Escapist Forum: half hour or more; but when it comes to Is this some kind of a x-mas joke? I waiting on line time becomes precious. mean, ok, your grandmother (when she does exist, anyway) plays mahjong. And I just hope that people that read this what? What’s the higher meaning? Or article will, if they don’t already, treat the connection to the (electronic) retail employees with more respect and gaming? patience during the holiday season. I still love the holidays, but work is ...gee, next time i am going to write significantly more taxing. There can’t about the terrible chess trials with my always be enough cashiers to fill every granddad...and terrible they were... register, and there aren’t always enough salesmen to assist each sale with the Carc detail that they would normally offer at any other time of year. In Response to “Christmas Behind the Cash Register” from The Escapist Forum: -Blaxton This article describes the Holiday retail experience accurately. As the store was described I was constantly bringing up images in my head from the past two Hello, my name is Bruce, and I like to among my peers and lacked the adequate play female characters in online games. social skills to communicate effectively in the real world, let alone a virtual one. But It wasn’t always this way. I had my first in those virtual worlds were girls, real exposure to internet gaming in 1989, girls, and they actually wanted to talk to while I was attending Purdue University. me. At least, they did until I fell into the Oh, I had been playing computer and hidden, precarious traps of social videogames for years before then, and I communication, the plethora of unknown had even done my share of time in the and unavoidable faux pas that inevitably BBS scene, but the revelation that the led to making a bad first impression. Still, internet allowed me to connect, in real I muddled through and actually did time, with complete strangers thousands manage to make some friends and even of miles away, for free, was truly find romance, in the wild whirlwind of staggering. My discovery of the various those early days. Soon, I had even tools of early net communication become involved in the practice of progressed rapidly, from email to Usenet TinySex, a TinyMUD version of what later to finger to talk. By 1990, I had fully internet generations would call “cybering.” immersed myself in the growing phenomenon of TinyMUDs, an offshoot of But there was one woman, in a virtual the original line of Multi-User Dungeons world named Islandia, who enchanted that had started back in 1978 with me more than any other. Her character Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw. We went by the name Faerie, and she was didn’t care that we were limited to just everything a man could want: mystery, text. We were making virtual worlds! We beauty, charm, intelligence and were engaged in a cyberspace revolution! devastatingly sharp wit. And if the rumors were true, she was the best of My early characters were universally male the best when it came to TinySex. I was and, perhaps out of ego, usually looked completely smitten with her, but due to just like myself, albeit an idealized and my earlier social fumbling, she would empowered version of the computer geek have nothing to do with me. She had I actually was. But like many nerds of many other friends on the MUD, though, that era, I was a social outcast even including a few from real life who went to the same college, and one of them And thus, Lorianna was born, and in due would check the list of accounts again, had recently changed his character’s in- time she and Faerie had become quite looking for who was logging out. After game gender from male to female. I was the item, just as I had planned. We were only a couple of nights, I had narrowed partly to blame for it; since MUDs were both enjoying each other’s company, and the list of potential candidate logins to text-based, when you entered a room of Lorianna had become quite popular just one: Trip. people all you saw was a list of names, MUD-wide. But I was not prepared for not each individual description of each how those virtual experiences were I was shocked. Was Islandia’s most character, and I had kept mistaking him becoming increasingly substantive. Could renowned femme fatale actually a guy? It for female since he had a very feminine- I actually turn our virtual relationship was almost inconceivable. Sure, the high sounding name. We all had a good into a real one? What if she had a frequency of virtual cross-dressing had laugh, and he adopted the female boyfriend? Would she still accept me become an accepted fact on TinyMUDs by persona in game as his “sister.” once I told her my terrible secret? What then, but Faerie? After days of nervous chance would a long distance tension, I couldn’t take it anymore – I Faerie, as it turned out, actually preferred relationship between two teenagers had to tell Faerie the truth, and the whole the company of the fairer sex, and with have, anyway? I had to find out more truth. That night, we had a long talk my recent exposure to the idea that men about who Faerie really was. online, wherein I revealed to her who could actually pretend to be women in really was, and what I had done, and how the game, I began to hatch a plan. I I put my newly acquired internet-fu to I had discovered who she really was, too. would create a new, female character, work. I knew that Faerie’s real life And then she told me about her player, one that would not have the historical friends and fellow MUDders went to Trip, and how he enjoyed playing female baggage my male character had. I would Berkeley, and so I began my search characters, and how this sort of virtual carefully craft her to behave and act like there. Back in those early days, the gender bending was just another exercise just the sort of woman Faerie would lust UNIX finger command could be used to in roleplaying.