Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Need A New Book?

Then have I got a book for you!

In a world where you are owned by the company you work for, and take it as your last name; where countries are not run by a government, but by the biggest companies in the world; where sabotage and making money are often your only concerns is where Max Barry lands you in his novel Jennifer Government. A single parent of a young elementary school daughter and government agent Jennifer Government concerns herself when an old colleague threatens to merge some of the largest companies in the world in order to have full control over this economy-driven world. A worker for the man's company, Mr. Hack Nike, is given the task to initiate the plan, given no choice but to obey for fear of losing his job. The plan to release a new and expensive line of shoe of which there was only to be fifty pairs and after they are purchased, the shoe owners would have tragic "accidents", which in turn would promote the shoes. Jennifer hears about the Nike boss and goes to stop him, meeting Hack later on, and together, they form an alliance to take down the corporation and attempt to stop Nike from controlling the world. With the other plot twists and interesting characters, I found myself unable to start to understand before the author twisted the plot and created something I hadn't thought of or expected.

Want to find out more? Well I'm not saying a word more about it other than to mention it is a fantastic read and deserves some attention. Barry really knows how to keep you in suspense at various times throughout the novel and always keeps you begging for more.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Why I hate PvP

Firstly, to those of you who don't know what "PvP" is, it stands for "Player versus Player" and it gives the right to one person to duel/fight/kill/etc. another player. 

If you have ever played an MMO, then you probably know how it feels to be in the middle of something and then someone comes along and decides to kill you, for absolutely no reason whatsoever than to piss you off. For me, this has happened multiple times and has caused me to "rage-quit" from the game on multiple occasions. I realize that not everyone thinks the same way as I do, but I would think that if the other person had this happen to them, they would react in somewhat the same way, or at least think about/act on it.

In some games, PvP can be even more devastating than it sounds. In games such as World of Warcraft (WoW), a person can be killed, and the only penalties would be to be sent to a graveyard; forced to search for their bodies and resurrect their corpse. The second way would be to take on Resurrection Sickness, reducing your stats by, I believe 75% of normal and armor and weapons to be damaged by 25%. 

In a game like Runescape, however, if you are killed, all the items you are wearing and in your inventory except a select few (usually character-bound items and the three most expensive items) are dropped on the location you are killed and placed under a gravestone. This lasts a maximum of twelve minutes (depending on the gravestone you upgrade to) or until you either return to collect your dropped items, the items are picked up by the person that killed you, or the items disappear for good because of being left on the ground for too long. In the case that you attack the other person (on accident or on purpose in The Wilderness) will cause you to be skulled, making it so that you would lose EVERY item you have on you at the time (again, aside from character-bound items). This is a HUGE loss of money depending on the items the person is carrying at the time (though a profit to the killer usually) and can be frustrating on a very high level.

I think that's enough of my ranting for now, but any other opinions are welcome and will be considered.