Holiday Reading for the Gamer

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If you’re like me, you’re about to spend some of the upcoming winter holiday AFK–either squished between Fatty and Snorri the not-very-attractive dwarves on a cross country flight or trapped in your relatives’ house with only dialup to connect you to the virtual world. Fear not, intrepid gamer. Instead of reading the quest text this holiday season, curl up with an enormous novel. I hear that reading is (almost) as effective as Wow for lifting mind and spirit beyond the little inanities of mundane existence. In other words–a good book can help cut down on holiday boredom.

Of course, Professor Syd has a particular book in mind for you this holiday season. It occurred to me the other day that gamers must love Tad Williams’ Otherland series.

otherland

Why Read Otherland?

This four-book series will satisfy fans of either sci-fi or fantasy novels in general, but it has a special appeal to the gamer. I’m more of a fantasy reader myself. I read this series in 2004, and at that point, I had never even heard of online gaming. In fact, I think I might not have been willing to play WoW at all if I hadn’t become familiar with the concept of virtual realities through Williams’ novels. In the Otherland books, the evocation of both character and (virtual) landscape is masterfully done. Those of you who’ve already read the series may wonder what my favorite “world” is–I’ll just go live inside The House. Incidentally, I am of the opinion that The Makers in WoW are a reference to Williams’s Builders of the House.

A Short Plot Summary

I have to admit that my memory was fuzzy on this point after four years, but the story centers around Renie Sulaweyo, a South African programmer whose little brother Stephen mysteriously goes missing. It seems that he’s been literally sucked into the computer–or rather, his personality has been downloaded into an extraordinarily detailed virtual world. This virtual universe, Otherland, has been designed as a kind of afterlife for the rich and computer literate. All the self-styled gods (programmers) of this world have created their own fantastic refuges in which they can store their personalities and memories after their physical deaths. Pretty cool huh?

However, of course the whole thing goes awry, and each programmer’s heaven becomes Renie’s hell as she tries to find her brother. To the rescue: a cast of motley characters, including a click-language speaking romantic lead who spends most of the book transformed into a baboon, an avatar who’s somehow managed to escape an endlessly-repeating WWI campaign, and two teenage MMO players. One of these gamers, Orlando, is an invalid in real life, but in his virtual life, he is the most famous hero of the fictional MMO The Middle Kingdom. Interestingly, it is his Middle Kingdom avatar that appears in Otherland. The relationship between teenage “real person” Orlando and his avatar Thargor (who I picture as an orc warrior) is the most fascinating part of the book. Looking back, I can’t believe that Otherland came out in 1998, which means that it was probably in the works as early as 1994–the Dark Ages as far as MMOs are concerned.

Interesting Ideas

With a series like Otherland, the ideas often leave a longer-lasting impression than the plot line. What, four years after reading the novels, do I still think about from time to time? Here is a short list of philosophical questions that Williams’ series is able to answer.

Q. What is the best way to connect to the internet?
A. Clearly, a neural device implanted in the skull is superior to clunky computers and cables. The characters are able to interact directly with the virtual world without the mediation of the computer screen.

Q. What is the difference between real life and virtual life?
A. None at all. The experience of the mind is just as real in either case.

Q. Where do gamers go when they die?
A. The good ones become Rangers in their own idealized Lord of the Rings world. Duh.

I hope you’re convinced. Put Otherland on your reading list or, if you’ve read it already, consider sending a copy to a gamer friend as a holiday gift.

As a side note, I’d like to invite readers to recommend books for me. I was addicted to reading long before WoW existed, and I’m still able to burn through some pages every week.

Saturday Afternoon Muses

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I’m about to take off in a few minutes to get some creative work done but I wanted to share some things on what my upcoming projects are.

  • Looking for volunteer submissions of your UI! I want to round up 50 UIs and feature them on the blog. You’re welcome to participate!
  • Disc Priests, would you like to submit a brief tip for inexperienced Disc Priests that I can also show on the blog (such as myself)?
  • I scored B+s on my other 2 courses as the final grade. This brings my GPA up to a level where I can technically declare my major!
  • Work is finally starting on an E-Book. There’s a lot of guides out there for leveling and gold making. For us management types, there aren’t enough resources for players who are running a guild. This was largely inspired by Syd’s Build a Guild series and I’ll be expanding upon that with more insights. I’m also hoping to include snippets or profiles of other bloggers are players that are in guilds to give you “snapshots” of what their guild is like on the inside. I’m going to draw upon my experience, success and failures. Everything that you ever wanted to know about leading or running a guild, I’ll try to put in. If there’s anything you want to see included or questions answered, feel free to drop me a line. Most importantly, yes it will be free. No idea what to title it yet.
  • Drawing a blank for tomorrow’s Spiritual Guidance again. Sigh.

Take this Survey: Your Character Strengths in 15 Minutes

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I found this interesting survey on Psyblog a few days ago and meant to try it out myself.

Psychologists Christopher Petersen and Martin Seligman devised “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Positive Strengths and Virtues”. It’s a simple questionnaire that identify your strengths as a human being.

Officially, it’s known as the VIA and it consists of 6 virtues and 24 strengths. They are:

  • Knowledge (virtue)
    • Creativity (strength)
    • Curiosity
    • Love of learning
    • Perspective (wisdom)
    • Open-mindedness
  • Courage (virtue)
    • Bravery (strength)
    • Persistence
    • Integrity
    • Vitality
  • Humanity
    • Capacity to love and receive love
    • Kindness
    • Social intelligence
  • Justice
    • Citizenship
    • Fairness
    • Leadership
  • Temperance
    • Forgiveness/mercy
    • Modesty/humility
    • Prudence
    • Self-regulation
  • Transcendence
    • Appreciation of excellence and beauty
    • Gratitude
    • Hope
    • Humour
    • Spirituality

What did Matticus get?

Your Top Character Strength

Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness
Thinking things through and examining them from all sides are important aspects of who you are. You do not jump to conclusions, and you rely only on solid evidence to make your decisions. You are able to change your mind.

Your Second Character Strength

Creativity, ingenuity, and originality
Thinking of new ways to do things is a crucial part of who you are. You are never content with doing something the conventional way if a better way is possible.

Your Third Character Strength

Perspective (wisdom)
Although you may not think of yourself as wise, your friends hold this view of you. They value your perspective on matters and turn to you for advice. You have a way of looking at the world that makes sense to others and to yourself.

Your Fourth Character Strength

Leadership
You excel at the tasks of leadership: encouraging a group to get things done and preserving harmony within the group by making everyone feel included. You do a good job organizing activities and seeing that they happen.

Your Fifth Character Strength

Social intelligence
You are aware of the motives and feelings of other people. You know what to do to fit in to different social situations, and you know what to do to put others at ease.

That’s just the top five strengths that I apparently possess after taking the VIA test. I definitely agree with the second and the fifth. Not too sure about the other three =).  You can expand the results when you finish as it lists more traits and qualities from your strongest to your weakest.

Interestingly enough, my weakest point was spirituality.

Try it now

You’ll have to register first, but it’s very painless. There’s three different survey versions: The full (240 questions), the full for kids and teens that are 8-17 (198 questions) and a brief versions (24 questions).

I spent no more than 12 minutes taking the full survey. You’ll get better results that way.

Go ahead and try it now!

I’m curious to hear what your top character strength is and if you believe that’s accurate!

Breaking News: Internet Cables cut

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Via EnGadget

There are 4 cables that run under the Mediterranean Sea to connect the internet servers in Europe and Asia. 3 of them have been severed – we don’t know how or why, although it’s probably a shipping accident. There are a couple of impacts to this:

  • The three cables involved carry about 75% of telecom traffic to the region. A lot of the traffic between Europe and Asia is being re-routed through the US.
  • This means your guildies playing from New Zealand and Australia may have connection issues until this is resolved, and anyone playing on Asian servers from North America will have similar issues.
  • Heavily loaded US servers may run more slowly

Thought you’d like to know – I’ll update as more information is available.

Luv,
Wyn

Epic Guest Posting Guidelines for the Matticus

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Would the World of Matticus ever feature a guest post from you?

In a word, yes. The first thing you have to remember is that in the World of Matticus, there is but one god: Matticus himself. Guest posts usually happen when I put the word out that I needs help.

In the past year, I’ve opened up guest posting to bloggers and writers that were interested in getting their feet wet. Today, I’m officially announcing the green light for open guests posts as well as setting down guidelines and suggests for writing them. Here’s a few examples for you to consider.

While I admit that my standards are high, I’m not asking you to solo Illidan or do heroic Occulus. What I do want is to illustrate reasons and qualities for a World of Matticus guest post.

Why write a guest post?

Exposure – By writing compelling articles, stories or posts in general on other blogs (not just mine, mind you), you increase your own visibility and exposure. View it as a chance to promote yourself and your work! Now you be thinking to yourself "why write on someone else’s blog when I can augment my own?" I encourage you to think in a different direction. By writing an insanely awesome blog post for another blogger and having it published, that blogger’s audience will want to know more about you and what else you have to offer.

Trial – Not sure if blogging is the right thing for you? At the very fundamental core of blogging is to communicate. You are translating your ideas and visions from your mind onto the screen. Don’t spend time establishing a blog only to discover that writing is difficult for you or that your interest has waned. Do the writing first then build the blog. Try writing a sample post and determine if it’s something you think you’ll enjoy down the road. Web sites come in all sorts of designs and styles. The one thing that all blogs have in common is the display of information.

You’ve decided to write a guest post? Excellent! Here’s a few things you might wish to consider:

Consider the audience

In the beginning, this blog catered towards Holy Priests. As time went on, it slowly included aspects for the raiding Holy Priest. Guild business and leadership was mixed into the blog. A Resto Druid was added. Now it includes material that Guild leaders would be interested in reading.

The majority of readers on World of Matticus are primarily healers, raiders, and bloggers. That’s a pretty wide sphere of influence, if I do say so myself. Keep the audience in mind when you’re writing a post. For example, most healers may not understand certain tanking concepts and you may wish to elaborate more on terms that you’ll be using.

If you’re writing about the nature of Hunters, PvP skills for Warriors, or the latest fashion news on Death Knights, you’ll want to consider another blog unless you can make it relevant for the World of Matticus readers.

What makes this blog appealing for you? Chances are, your answer will be the same as the other many thousands of readers. Browse through the archives to find some of your favourite posts and you’ll get a handle for what works and what doesn’t.

Matticus is beneficial

The one thing I stress most from the team here is to make your information useful. Give the reader something to take with them when they finish.

How does a Discipline Priest react in this raid situation? Did your GM handle a particularly difficult problem in a smooth fashion? Topics like that would be right up the alley in the World of Matticus.

Content in the World of Matticus should help answer problems that players find in the World of Warcraft.

Matticus is professional

I don’t care if you’re on the top 5v5 team in the world, or the best ranked Ret Paladin on WWS. I’m not expecting you to be Dan Brown either.

Sydera, Wynthea and I are really picky. Syd’s a teacher (not high school, but the best one can professionally be). Wyn usually shreds my posts because they’re not technically correct or sound. I harp on the other two if their posts do not look good.

Keep the post as clean looking as possible. White space is good. If necessary, format the post and add images to help spice and liven it up more.

Check your tone. Have a unique style. Make sure what you write can be understood. This isn’t a journal or a computer operations manual. Be clear, be concise. Add some personality. Don’t be afraid to write as if you’re speaking. Be interesting and humorous. Feel free to tell a story to get your point across.

Most importantly, spend as much time on thinking of a title as you do on your post. No other WoW blogger puts as much thought, time or emphasis into post titles as Matticus.

Spell check it.

Fact check it. If you’re not sure about spells or abilities, use WoWHead.

Not all of us are blogging gods by any means (but that Matticus comes close). We’re not the best. We’re only human. Typos will creep in or lawn gnomes will occasionally break a few things. All of us invest a lot of time and care into making our post the best as possible.

Some guest bloggers in the past have been rejected and told to rewrite. Go through multiple drafts. Ask someone in your guild to look it over. World of Matticus does not involve writers who write drafts then immediately publish them. Posts will stew around for days or even weeks if they do’t feel right until a “Eureka” moment strikes.

Sounds great! How do I sign up?

Drop me a line on my contact form. You can include a post within the body of the form there or get in touch with me first and float an idea my way to see how it sounds. I’ll respond with a confirmation and a giant thank you! If I don’t respond within a week, I must’ve not received it or I completely forgot about it. Feel free to poke me with a gentle reminder!

If you have a blog, it’s a good idea to link to your best blog posts. Note that it’s not required that you have a blog.

Image courtesy of Cierpki