Pi Story!

I first heard about this MMORPG a month or so ago, when it was closed beta by invite only. If I had gotten to the page on time I could have joined through a magazine. Well now it's open beta, and I just joined a few days ago. The character selection is a bit limited unfourtantly, but I still find the game enjoyable. Once you reach level 10 you're able to pick your profession. And since I haven't reached that level yet, I'm unsure of the choices. Just like most rpgs you get certain quests you have to accomplish, which require you to go to different areas which you get to by a thing called Pi's. You start a new 'mission', whenever you travel to an area with a Pi. You also have reccomended party members and level for each area. Now you can finish a level without a party but you should be at the highest level reccomended or you'll the 'boss' will defeat you easily.

Hi, meet Ophelia!

On Second Life I'm known as Ophelia Cooperstone, my image changes constantly so it was hard to choose a screenshot. I chose this one because I liked how it was positioned and the background scene. As I have mentioned in class before I'm able to have a home through a group called Trilegy Corporation, this was taken there, in a garden area that I discovered while exploring the region of Maklovar, which is the land Trilegy owns along with Boris. You have to be a member of the group to build and put your items down, but it's good for a place to start. You have a 200 prim limit, which is fine with me, especially since it's free. Once disadvantage is the 2 week clean up, where you'll have to relocate or get to the land in time to reclaim your area. Another is that it fills up fast, and regions become full, constricting the number of items you can have in your house. The area sometimes gets crowded, but that’s to be expected, considering that their offering the land free. If you do join though, take one thing into mind, you have to have the group as the active group if you want to build. Otherwise it will just tell you that you don’t have right permission.

My SECOND LIFE

ok well here is how it breaks down. The one in the top corner is me in an area called pon. I think... but I thought it would be  different to have two dogs in the shot. of course they arnt mine but I call the spotted one on my right cat and the one on my left panda bubba. Then the one above this type is me in a hammock which I also found in pon...I am just chillin and taking a breather. Then the final pic to this types left and below my pic is a pic of my good friend turbo. I have known her for about 3 weeks now but she is by far one of the coolest people that I know. oh and this was taken in a place called freebie land which is where she helpped me to find some neat free stuff. any way I gots to go so until next time. see yah.

SL Clothing

When it comes to the choices of clothing to meet the standard of the "player," i think it's difficult to find something in common to what the "player" may actually be like in real life.  

I understand that in SL people like to change their appearance to make themselves look more what they couldn't look like in real life.  For me i really don't care.  As i was creating my avatar, I had a hard time actually finding clothes i liked.  The selection is so vas that its hard to choose what you actually want to wear.  I made it easy for my self and made my character look simple.  The only thing i did make my character look different from the average person was change the avatars hair and color.  Its longer and crazy with the color pink dyed into it. 

From my analysis, SL did a great job offering a wide selection of different looks and appearance's that the avatar's owner can choose from.  Most people would find it wonderful to have all those choices to choose from, but for me its just to much to choose from.  

Racism in WoW

So theres this little game called World of Warcraft, It's pretty epic. I have a few characters. One of them is top level. You may have heard of him. His name is Edgaralenpwn. He is a rogue, which basically means i sneak around and gank people. Secondly, he is a gnome. Gnomes. For some reason everyone, and i mean everyone, hates gnomes. Some feel the need to punt us. Idk why. It is bad. Once a fellow alliance member refused to party with me, simply because i am a gnome. A short skinny gnome. At smaller levels i was rewarded for being a gnome. I was once called "cute", and received many gold because of it. That was on my old server. On my new server, everyone seems to hate me. Its understandable to hate me if you are a horde and i am killing you, i do have a tiny hit box and move rather quickly for my size. But if you're alliance? Did a gnome do something to every single person in the past, corrupting their vision of us? It's ridiculous how much i have to put up with, even if it is in good fun. Gnomes are people(?) to!(lol)

SL picsauce

Epic, isn't it? So many words to descibe such a powerful image. Lol. Maybe not. But this is my new and improved character, Edgar Karillion. Named after the badass gnome rogue, Edgaralenpwn. Here we find edgar in an aquarium. With Flaming Spears. Not really sure why, but for some reason this screenshot just doesnt make very much sense. Maybe its the huge golden wings...

Calling in on the text

Okay, before I get attacked by all you texters I want to make it clear that this is not me bashing texting or attacking anyone....yet. I just wanted to throw my two pennies into the pot about our cell phone use today.
So I have a cell phone like everyone else, the big difference is that I don't text as well as unable to due to my finger's size. I've tried it before and ended up looking like a 5 year old was trying to do it. I look at people when they text and see them peck at the little keypad like a bird to bread crumbs, and then just wonder, wow how long does it take to learn the board so that you can type a whole message that makes sense in under a minute when I take 5 minutes to type in someone's name for contacts list.
Now is the part where I will probably stroke people the wrong way in that when I see people texting at the worst times and about the most trivial stuff, as well as send a message, receive one within 15 seconds and then sending another one, when a normal call will go quicker and suffice just as much. Are we at the point that we just don't want to interact with other humans?! I think sometimes it's a good time to text and then other times just call them. Some say, " Well I want a record of what they said" or "I'm not always at my phone or available." Well good news, we have invented something on your phone when you weren't "available", it's called an answering machine. I've had this fight with someone about this over the phone that he was trying to defend it for being the one use for the phone. I just said, it's called a cell phone for a reason, we call people and talk to them to tell them something and nif you want to save what they wrote, just write it down, we are already lazy enough. If your in a movie threater and want to talk to someone, just leave the threater, your not enjoying the movie, because if you truly did enjoy it your attention would be focused on it and not your phone. Also, don't think by texting in the threater is subtle and non-distracting when the 5+ rows behind you can see the bright white screen and the people's attention to your left and right will be attracted to the srceen most likely rather than the movie.
Given texting is a good way to communcate with others and it is private versus speaking out loud, but I'm talking about people who never hit the talk button to listen to the phone and another human's voice. I guess I'm old fashion like that to not understand the true purpose of texting. If you wish to attempt to show me the "light" of texting and not just flame/bash on me because I "insulted" your way of communcation with others.

The Lantern in the Dark.

I wanted a picture that was in a good area and also looked nice. This one isn't perfect since it doesn't have a center focus, but I still like how the classroom looks in the dark. I choose to make myself not the center of attention because I don't want the spotlight nor do I want light in general which this poster shows perfectly, that's only one reason why I choose to do it like it is.
Another reason is that I took it in the classroom because I feel it's the only true place that is safe( for those who haven't adventured, it's weird at first if you go to the wrong place.) which is why I didn't take an aquarium picture, I didn't know where I was, here I know exactly where I am and who to expect will be here. I included the chairs for the display that it is the classroom and not a random spot in a dark area, along with some of the pictures we created Monday. If you can see me clearly, which is probably not possible, I've changed my attire from a hippie looking person to someone who wants to be part of the blue man group.
And for what I think is the poorest reason but the main reason I did it in an area that I thought no one else would is that I want to be unique and sometimes an attention whore. Like I said, it's not the best reason but it's my reason and what I chose so bloody deal with it, kind of like why I don't care about wings, firearms or whatever in Second Life. Which raises another point to my picture and why, I don't need anything special to be special, I only need to take something basic or simple and look at it a different way. That's what I thought when I logged on and saw that the area the classroom was placed in was dark.
So I guess one of the main reasons I chose this was that it showed my personally a little as well as to show that even if something is basic, it's not useless or not special, you just have to have both your true eyes, as well as your mind's eyes.

The Clowns

Here is a picture of Donut, Godzilla2000 and Alyssa being good students.

Text Messaging...

Who here loves to text message? Cause i do.

Because I love to text message so much I've been very angry lately. My cell phone screen has taken its toll and died on me. So every day i struggle to text my friends and the frustrating thing about this is that everyone text messages. I never receive phone calls from my friends, but text messages.

Are you a text messaging machine? I find it very useful in my everyday life. Its useful when I'm in movies and i want to talk to someone. It allows me to send private messages to my friends when I don't want others to know. Also I can receive a message and have it on record so if I'm busy i can wait and look at it later. But the misconception of text messaging is many of us find it hard to understand exactly what the person "means" when they text you certain comments. It can be taken in many ways depending on the person that reads it.

Over all, text messaging is a great way of communication.

third weekly blog about nothing

Well today is monday and this is probably going to be my only normal day of the week 

tomorrow I have work study at the radio station which isn't bad but I am getting paid so

thats good. Let me tell you the worst part about tomorrow. I have a 10:00 Pm volley ball

game. So thats going to be really fun. I figure that if we ( me and my team) can win this game

then we will be good to go. Now my volley ball experience is limited because I 

was only a manager for the girls volleyball team back in high school for my senior year

and that was about half a year. So I know all the techniques but I cant really put my finger on 

how I am going to come up with a winning plan using my teams strengths and 

compensating for our weaknesses. I guess I have 6 weeks to come up with a winning 

plan. The good news is that no matter what we are going to have fun and I think 

that we are going to get lucky and win a couple of games. So the only real things that

I am going to enforce on my team mates are good sportsmen ship because we need a grade of 

a C to get into the play offs. :) I guess that being a manager has some benifits after all. I learned

that good sportsmen ship will get you farther in the league then bad sportsmen ship. 

World of Warcraft: The Art of Revenge.

World of Warcraft or "Wow" is way to complicated to describe in one 200 world blogg. So, I decided to break it down into smaller subjects. The first topic about this virtual world that I would like to describe is the art of revenge. I play on a pvp server which means that everyone can attack and kill anyone in contested territory. The only reason I joined this server is beacuse of friends who played on it long before I got the game. Normally, I am a peaceful person and will leave Alliance members alone when out doing quests on my characters. But, there are times when much higher level characters attack and kill me. This is where revenge killing comes into play. I never let the jerk who killed me go, I hunt them down and camp them untill I feel that they have suffered enough. There are two ways to get a revenge kill. The first is if they are the same level and kill them on my current character. The second is to log on my level 70 Paladin and take out the trash. An example of this was last night. A 70 Warrior killed my 63 Hunter, logged the Paladin and killed the Warrior. He left me alone for the rest of the night. That also shows that Ret is > all.

Second Life: Clothing choices.

There are some who say clothing is who we are, but does that hold true in an online world? There are countless clothing options in the world of Second Life. You can look like a normal person or wear a complete set of armor and look like a warrior from a far off planet. I think that the clothing that a person wears expresses how they feel about their life and the world around them. For example, a person who may be feeling down one day may wear darker clothing then on a day they are feeling up. But when it comes to Second Life, I think that people choose to dress there characters how they would want to be in real life. They also could dress them how they feel about their life and have their views carry over into the virtual world. In conclusion, I think that Second Life offers many clothing choices and allows for people to express how they feel through their avatar in a virtual world.

Fashion of Second Life

Second life. So many clothing options! Should i go the the kickass obama t-shirt or the badass chestpiece with spikes stickin out of it. Eventually you will decide to put on the chestpiece. Why? One word. Status. The bigger/more colorful your clothing is, the more powerful you seem. Why does this matter? You have a sense of pride for your character when you have those hude spikes protruding from you shoulders. Maybe you think you look more fearsome with dragon wings. Maybe it shows wealth. Sure, you can get free stuff on SL, but the cool stuff costs money. Its a way of sayin,"Yea, i've got money and i have enough of it to spend on worthless virtual clothes that make my character a badass." Second life has a status ladder, the cooler clothes that you have, the higher up on he ladder you are.

friends

OK.....

Allow me to switch up gears and blog about some of my newest friends here at SCSU.

now I am not going to go all out and name each and every one of them ( mainly because I can't remember all their names). I digress though, These new friends of mine are really something else. I never imagined meeting a hard core gamer that was a female. nor did I ever think about meeting a hard core anime fan the was a girl also. College is a very interesting and at the same time some other friends have helped to change my out look on how I view this world we live in. Meaningless...Maybe to others but not to me. Its no joke that most of my friends are only my friends because of my personality but there in lies the secret. My personality is shaped not from my choices but from my friends actions around me and how they act and react to things around them and me even. I find that while most people are self made ( personality wise). I was made by taking bits of personality's and merging them together to create the person that you see in front of you today. Anyway enough of this sensless babbling of mine I have things to do and people to see. So see you later :)

Facebook Is The New AIM

I remember back in the day (junior high) when AIM was the thing to do when you were just sitting at home on the web and wanted to talk to your friends before text messaging was so popular. Over the years I noticed that less and less people went on and more people got cell phones and texting. Recently I joined Facebook and I have become kind of addicted to it. I found that if your friends were online you could instant message them just like AIM. Well thats about it... as you can see I am really close to the deadline and I just thought it was cool that AIM is kinda back in a sense,

Second Life Clothing

I've only been on Second Life once and I found it really hard to change my appearance. I could only choose one hair type and it looks really lame. My clothes were hard to change too, every outfit i tried didn't even work, it just wouldn't show up on my character. The only thing i could wear was dragon hands which looked ridiculous but it was the only thing that worked.

Second Life

Alright so I have been going on Second Life every so often this past week and I've noticed a few things about the clothing and items you can get and wear in the game. I dont know, some of the clothes you can wear look a little wierd, but some look kinda cool too. When I'd do close up views of my character, or when i was trying to make different jackets or gloves, I would notice that they look mor like your skin is just colored, rather than you're actually wearing something. But there are some cool things too. Like the hair I have on. I tried to make my own hair, but it always looked stupid. It kinda make you wonder how much time people spend on making these items for everyone to wear, you know?

Age Limits for online games...

So I guess this could be taken as a question of sorts... I play a game online called 2Moons as many of you know and it's posted as 17 years of age and up. Honestly, i know its a warning and they probably have to do it for liability reasons, but whats stopping people from just lying about their age? I've met plenty of people in 2Moons that are like 12 or 13 years old...I dont know, some food for though for thoes who read this. :)

Second life

Dear God...Where to begin!?

I dont know what to think about second life. It always has been very difficult for me to get into MMORPGs. I never liked WoW, couldnt get into Oblivion, thought morrowind was too complex, and so basically gave up on the massively multiplayer universe. But second life is a whole different story. There are no silly quests to complete, and really, no point to the game, other than maybe to create another line of communication between people.

I thought it was extremely difficult to customize my character. The hair! What the heck!? I ended up doing a random style and tweaking it to fit my needs. But still, i think it would be more worthwhile to make a more user friendly avatar customization method.

Also, after exploring for a while, I realized that a lot of people on SL are extremely weird. I communicated with a few people and all they seemed interested about was where I am from, how old I am, what sex I am, and other personal questions. I dont know if im cool with that stuff.

Addiction to virtual worlds

After playing around with second life for a while I realized I wasn't getting very far. It was extremely difficult to find the things I wanted to attach to my avatar, and it was also very hard to get used to all of the different features. Now I'm not saying I dont like second life. Far from it. I think that its amazing some of the things that can be done in the game. But thats exactly what it is: A game. I think people get WAY to into virtual worlds like second life. I realized this a long time ago when my friend grant, all he did, wanted to do, and thought about, was a game called starcraft. He would call me up at ridiculous times in the night, morning, day and otherwise, and ask if I wanted to play. He was addicted.

I have noticed that addiction can come easily with virtual wolrds. When games have such extensive plots, character lists, worlds, etc. etc., its hard not to be sucked in. I myself play Call Of Duty 4 almost religiously. But I play not for a communication with others, nor because there is a deep world to delve into. I play purely on a recreational, entertainment base. However, I must admit, I'm addicted to pwning n00bs.

I hope that someday people can realize that games are games, and only that. Some people base their lives around what they do in a video game. I think we need to get over that fantasy, and start living in the real world, WHILE still being able to enjoy a video game.

Finding A Topic

As I debated what I wanted to write about, I realized that my topic was right in front of me. Have you ever sat down to post in a forum, or started a conversation up with someone in IM or another virtual world only to realize you had nothing to talk about? Instead of talking you end up saying pointless things or nothing at all and the conversation sometimes ends up being 'rawrs' or various other gap fillers back and forth. It might not be that big of an issue to you but I know it poses a problem for me. =P Maybe I'm just boring. I don't know. It's hard finding a happy medium between silence and diarrhea of the mouth isn't it? Even as I'm typing this I'm having a hard time keeping it going. In fact I think the topic is ready to end, sorry about such a short little blurb. =P