I wonder what 'The comic book store guy' thinks of it
Microsoft has decided to eliminate volunteer peacekeepers in the fantasy game ‘Asheron’s Call’…. a game in which multiple (read: thousands) of people take part in an epic adventure online, graphically. Like merging the graphics and internet play of Quake 3 Arena with a MUD. So the volunteer peacekeeping peeps are gone, and everyone’s pissed off. They’re going to be replaced by full-time, paid employees of Microsoft. What’s interesting here is not what MS has done (which is what the article is about), but how people are reacting to it. These player are really, really, really mad. Apparently they’re so mad, they’re cussing in chat rooms, and there isn’t even anyone there to keep them from doing it… They seem to not realize that it’s a FUCKING GAME. One dude mentioned how much time he’d spent moderating: close to 1000 hours (in no specified time-frame, but still).. I guess it isn’t a game to most of the players, it’s their whole lives: “There’s just a lot of hand-holding and commiseration among the volunteers. This whole ordeal is turning into a full-blown grieving process for a lot of us.” Hoo-boy.