Games:
World of Warcraft (PC)
So, log off. Shut the game down and come back later, after your assassin has wandered off to do something else. Don’t call for help on the chat channel. Don’t cry about the unfairness of it all. Assembling a team of Level 85s to gank him will just make him mad. Your rescuers will get on with their game and, as soon as they’re gone, he’ll be back to kill you again.
People talk about WoW addiction. It’s easy to laugh it off and say it’ll never happen to you, but if you spend three hours hobbling around in ghost form only to be murdered as soon as you reach your body then you need help. It’s that simple.
Tip #8 - Try to keep nudity to a minimum
There’s nothing wrong with running around naked. It’s perfectly natural. You look at the gear your character’s wearing, try removing your starting tunic and oh! Your clothes come off!
You can streak through the city streets. I’m down with that. And hey, if you’re a boy in real life and you want to play a warrior female and check out some of those Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance breast physics, well, you might get some funny looks if someone catches you doing it, but I’m not going to stop you.
But please, whatever you do, for the sake of your own virtual dignity, stick to removing your own clothes.
Don’t run across the Fallout wastelands killing mutant townsfolk and stealing their trousers. Don’t murder wonky-faced wenches in the fields outside Bruma to perv on their polygonal backsides. I know you want to be naked in your RPG of choice, but there’s only so much nudity you can explain to a curious passer-by. When you have entire villages populated by corpses in their birthday suits, you’ve crossed a line.
Tip #9 - Strictly no dancing
The first thing everyone does when playing a new MMORPG is check out the /dance emoticon. This is the command that makes your character do a little dance, and most MMORPGs implement it. You type it in, do your Cha-Cha-Slide, your Heavy Metal head-bang or your Macarena, and you never, EVER, type it in again.
Because typing it in again can lead to dangerous happenings. Oh, we’ve all seen the videos. We’ve seen you and your buddies body-popping in PlayStation Home. We know you’re partial to a little rave in City of Heroes.
The next time you and your friends get together to do the running man in Orgrimmar town centre think about this: you’re paying money to have a virtual dance party in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game while you sit staring at a screen, alone.
Yes, I know that’s the kind of thing TV pundit Lowri Turner says when she embarks on another ill-informed anti-video games rant. Believe me, I’m just as nerdy as the next guy. Do you want to know what I spent this evening doing? Killing rats in fantasy dungeons. They weren’t even new fantasy dungeons, with particularly convincing sewer grates and the latest line in cobweb physics. I killed rats in Arx Fatalis and then I killed more in The Temple of Elemental Evil - that’s as geeky as a Sunday night gets.
Yet I’d never - EVER - participate in a virtual dance-off.
“It’s just a bit of fun!” you say. “It’s not like it’s an illness.” Oh yeah? Then explain to me why they call it DISCO FEVER.
Please, no more dancing. You’re embarrassing yourself.
Tip #10 - Avoid Nesingwary’s Expedition
You’re pinned into your trench by enemy fire. Rats are gnawing the trench foot from your toes. You’re starving, you’re tired, and you’re frightened.
Some of the lads write poems to keep from going insane. Captain Nesingwary keeps them loosely bound in a folder, which he brings over to show you.
Suddenly the sky opens in a howling, torrential rainstorm. Wind whips the papers from his hands and carries them out across the battlefield. There are tigers out there, and worse. Dinosaurs. Strange panther-like big cats that phase in and out of sight and stalk you from the shadows. Roving Horde patrols who’ll shoot you down, sit watch over your corpse and kill you again if ever your soul tries to find its way back.
You must stumble into this Great War nightmare. You must kill a hundred animals and find fifteen rare and ragged pages, and you must do it all while the enemy repeatedly hunts and kills you without mercy and without remorse.
If madness has an address, it lives here, in this feverish war-torn jungle
Tip number ten: When visiting the World of Warcraft, never go to Stranglethorn Vale.
People talk about WoW addiction. It’s easy to laugh it off and say it’ll never happen to you, but if you spend three hours hobbling around in ghost form only to be murdered as soon as you reach your body then you need help. It’s that simple.
There’s nothing wrong with running around naked. It’s perfectly natural. You look at the gear your character’s wearing, try removing your starting tunic and oh! Your clothes come off!
You can streak through the city streets. I’m down with that. And hey, if you’re a boy in real life and you want to play a warrior female and check out some of those Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance breast physics, well, you might get some funny looks if someone catches you doing it, but I’m not going to stop you.
But please, whatever you do, for the sake of your own virtual dignity, stick to removing your own clothes.
Don’t run across the Fallout wastelands killing mutant townsfolk and stealing their trousers. Don’t murder wonky-faced wenches in the fields outside Bruma to perv on their polygonal backsides. I know you want to be naked in your RPG of choice, but there’s only so much nudity you can explain to a curious passer-by. When you have entire villages populated by corpses in their birthday suits, you’ve crossed a line.
The first thing everyone does when playing a new MMORPG is check out the /dance emoticon. This is the command that makes your character do a little dance, and most MMORPGs implement it. You type it in, do your Cha-Cha-Slide, your Heavy Metal head-bang or your Macarena, and you never, EVER, type it in again.
Because typing it in again can lead to dangerous happenings. Oh, we’ve all seen the videos. We’ve seen you and your buddies body-popping in PlayStation Home. We know you’re partial to a little rave in City of Heroes.
The next time you and your friends get together to do the running man in Orgrimmar town centre think about this: you’re paying money to have a virtual dance party in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game while you sit staring at a screen, alone.
Yet I’d never - EVER - participate in a virtual dance-off.
“It’s just a bit of fun!” you say. “It’s not like it’s an illness.” Oh yeah? Then explain to me why they call it DISCO FEVER.
Please, no more dancing. You’re embarrassing yourself.
Tip #10 - Avoid Nesingwary’s Expedition
You’re pinned into your trench by enemy fire. Rats are gnawing the trench foot from your toes. You’re starving, you’re tired, and you’re frightened.
Some of the lads write poems to keep from going insane. Captain Nesingwary keeps them loosely bound in a folder, which he brings over to show you.
You must stumble into this Great War nightmare. You must kill a hundred animals and find fifteen rare and ragged pages, and you must do it all while the enemy repeatedly hunts and kills you without mercy and without remorse.
If madness has an address, it lives here, in this feverish war-torn jungle
Tip number ten: When visiting the World of Warcraft, never go to Stranglethorn Vale.
Games:
World of Warcraft (PC)