Lemmings written in DHTML. As a coworker said when I showed him - it’s one of those things that’s always been possible theoretically, but you never thought anyone would go through the trouble to do it. It’s crazy.
I played some Puzzle Pirates this weekend, and while it was enjoyable and addictive, I think they need to add new puzzles fairly often, or people are going to get bored with it. The economy that they’ve “let the players build” is pretty inflationary, which means that new players will not stick around for long (it won’t be long before you have to spend $90,000,000 for a pair of shoes in the game - that’s my prediction.) I think part of the sticky-ness of the game (how long people stay with it) will depend on the kinds of people they run into in-game. I sailed with one captain who yelled at everyone on his crew for losing early in a group sword-fight. Really stupid. It’s not like people are intentionally playing badly to piss you off guy. Sometimes the computer just cheats like that. A good captain wouldn’t have gotten into a battle that would wind up so lopsided in the first place…Then later (I didn’t quit his ship because I’m basically lazy, and a good swordfighter) anyway, later, he wanted us to join him on some “race” so he could win a bigger ship. Now, you have to understand that as a “jobbing pirate” I only get paid if we pillage or make money trading. In no way am I going to gain by earning this jerk a shiny new ship - it’s not like I wanted to join his crew on a permanent basis. Anyway, he was racing to get to the starting line before the race started, and got himself attacked. So, I’m swordfighting, and doing well - in fact, I was the only one left, but I only had three computer guys left to beat - I could have done it I think. This guy is yelling at me to lose, so he can get to his race in time - nevermind that if we hadn’t gotten in the fight in the first place, we still would have wound up ten minutes late for the race. Then he wanted me to stick around (with no hope of pay) just to help him win the race. Sorry buddy, you’re going to have to win with Smiling Jenny and Gay Frederick manning the sails (which I don’t think was even allowed for the races.)
Or then there was the time that I was sailing on a Mad Mutineer’s ship, and this guy comes aboard talking about how important he is, and how he’s the king of his flag, and captain of his ship. The captain tells him to man a post, and he says “Don’t order me around - I’m a king.” After we make some money pillaging, he says “So, we’re all coming to my ship now, right?” - my response was “don’t let the gangplank hit your ass on the way off the ship.” When he left, everyone was quite happy to see him go
Ah, MMOARRRRRRPG stories. Good times, Good times.
Simpson’s quote of the day: “Look! There’s *another* disadvantaged boy!” - Homer
