Today, Fives Ways I Would Abuse Power as a Game Employee, Developer, Designer, or Assistant to the Undersecretary of Orc Spell Effects:
1. The Server-wide Broadcast System. Usually reserved for important game announcements like: We know the game mail system is broken at the moment, hell if we can figure it out, but don’t delete your mail in the meantime because you will regret it and then we will laugh, I’d run roughshod over that system if ever the Undersecretary’s back was turned.
“We’re watching you ….” and “Aren’t you glad this isn’t Norrath (Azeroth) (Ascalon) (Camelot)?” and “Stop complaining about us in guild chat or your raid might have an unfortunate ‘accident'” and “Player64 is right. Player907 *is* a ninja, I saw the whole thing.”
2. My own Ego-NPC. FotonNPC, placed prominently in a major city, would interact with players via programmed scripts. (Yes, I know this has been done before, keep reading.) Any players that would /rude or /spit in my NPC’s vicinity would set off the “Time to Die, TargetPlayer!” script, where my NPC would give chase and wtfpwn with dual-wielded glowy swords and then /rude and /spit on their disrespectful corpses.
A few times a day, my NPC would also make a patrol of all the city’s dark corners and hidden passages and engage the wtfpwn script if any night elves were caught cybering, because that’s just weird and inappropriate in my city.
3. Chat Channel Vigilante. I would port to the major cities, hidden, and watch the chat channels for the lollerskaters, PVP whiners and other chat nuisances. Public chat abusers would get a special tell from GM-Foton: Greetings! You talk too much in public chat. Thanks!
I could just macro that so it wouldn’t take too much of my time. I’d have a separate macro, of course, for the players who offer their unsolicited opinions on every auction they see in the public channels: Greetings! How about you mind your own business? Thanks.
4. Raid Critic. I’d choose a server guild at random, port out to their instance hidden (duh), and sit and watch the show. Occasionally, I’d offer some tips and insights in /say, “There’s no way this is going to work” or “You need more healers. ALOT more healers.” Or, after a wipe, when they arrive back at the room of their untimely deaths, /say: Now THAT’S a lot of skeletons (corpses) (bodies)!!
5. One word: screenshots. Think of the screenshots I could gather of private conversations, dirty deals and unethical collusion between players, rivals and guilds then! Now, I’m somewhat limited to what happens within my circle of friends, enemies and guildmates … to have access to the whole chat system, I would indeed be a god.
Naturally, I’d publish all the good stuff on a super secret website under yet another super secret identity so everyone could enjoy.
I realize that all this could only end in tragedy, my ultimate dismissal, but what the hell — it’d be a great ride while it lasted.
If it were me I would set up a series of tags, that would overwrite their guild tags…or better yet just add them to the guild tags so people would know that their guild let such a smacktard in. Anyway, I digress. A series of tags that would display to all other players that labeled the offender with his/her offence. Such as:
PvP Whiner =
Incessant Auction Announcers =
Those who learned English from a Calculator =
Cyberererers =
Maybe it’s just me, but humiliation really isn’t humiliation unless you get the community involved.
See, that comment would have made more sense if it wasn’t written by a moron that didn’t think to make sure the tags would show. *headdesk*
PvP Whiner = ‘Should L2P’
Incessant Auctioneer Announcers = ‘Is an Ingame Currency Agriculturalist of Ambiguious Ethic and/or National Origin’
Those who learned English from a calculator = ‘|_0\/3$ |-|3 ‘
I fail at life. Last time I ever comment, I promise. :sigh:
Regarding #3…
It’ll be a lot easier to monitor chat now that all the major cities Trade, LFG, and General chats are connected.
Because, ya know, there wasn’t enough spam in each city alone, so Blizzard lumped them all together… *eyeroll*
As long as Barrens chat is still seperate…
That was a necessary step else distributing Auction Houses would dilute the benefits LFG and trade reap from having a communal gathering point. Having a community center is a good thing, and that is preserved with the exception of distrubuted geographics – not perfect since many interactions still require or are facilitated by proximity, but still not too bad.
Someone who’s partaken of more game design koolaid might have to explain to me one more time why all towns can’t be linked without the 10 minute flight time barrier, something about the illusion of size which I suspect may be another neolithic arbitrarily enforced artifical scarcity paradigm needing to be exposed as a crutch to dilute weak content and torn down. Or else maybe I’ll finally understand.
Horizons kind of sucked, but I liked the town-to-town teleportation system.
> DELETE FROM characters WHERE class=’shaman’
Haha.
I’d suggest: DELETE FROM characters WHERE class=’hunter’&race=’night elf’ but probably a million more would be created overnight to replace those, like cutting off one of a hydra’s heads .. two more spring up to replace it.
Foton, lately the blog has been 10/10. Did somebody make a New Year’s Resolution???
Thanks man. No resolution, but whatever I’m doing right, I hope to continue.
err, |-|3 ¢0¢ ? that’s a bit too l33 for me to read 🙁
What about accidentally letting some of the phattest loot in the game be set down on the ground for a free for all… then pick it up right as people get near. Then keep dropping it and moving way… and drop it and move away… buahahaha!