Robin Torres
Los Angeles - http://kneedles.blogspot.com
Robin Torres is a wife, mother, piece of cat furniture, Tauren Druid, Katana-wielding Scrapper, Summoner and knitter.
by Robin Torres
Jul 6th 2008 (1 year ago)

We were swimming in the apartment community pool this weekend and were unfortunate enough to be there when a kid was practicing his griefing skills. He was about 10 years old and was doing the standard stuff: throwing trash in the pool and blaming other kids, stealing the other kids' pool toys, and of course calling everyone "gay" when they left the pool and took their toys with them.
We see griefers of all ages in the MMOs we play and the kids games are no exception. We've discussed before how games like
Toontown Online take steps to prevent griefing with
canned chat phrases and passworded friend features. The worst thing a toon in
Toontown can say to you is "You stink!" which is really not very hurtful. But it is rather bothersome when it is spammed at you until you are able to escape the griefer, say by going home and
gardening.
.
by Robin Torres
Jun 10th 2008 (1 year ago)
WoW
Every other week, Robin Torres contributes Gamer Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with MMOs. I know, it used to be weekly and then it disappeared again. But I mean it this time.This year,
WoW Insider had all of their bloggers write an
About the Bloggers post. When I wrote mine, I got the following
comment from Supernoob:
Robin, my wife loves knitting but hates me playing Warcraft. Any advice on how to pacify a warcraft widow?
This surprised me, being a knitter, because I have found that the knitting community in general is pretty respectful of other people's hobbies. Knitters don't get a lot of respect from other hobbyists, so we are pretty understanding of people in similar situations. In fact, one of my first recommendations for guys with non-gamer significant others is to encourage them to get their own hobby.
There are a few things that could possibly cause this Battle of the Hobbies, and I will go over some of them and suggest solutions. But it is important to remember that in all relationships, communication is key. If you are in a similar situation, asking your MMO Widow what her specific concerns are about your gaming activities is the best way to start to solve the problem.
by Robin Torres
May 11th 2008 (1 year ago)
Hellgate: London
Things are happening at
Hellgate: London these days -- so many, that we're going to make a list! (We love lists.)
- The forums are now open: You no longer need to have an account to read the Hellgate: London forums, though you still need an account to post in them.
- Patch 1.3 is out: It has the usual number of bug fixes along with a lot of new features like emotes and shared stashes.
- Patch 1.3 has been patched: It also has the usual number of bugs that had to be fixed for the game to be fully playable again.
- Patch 1.3b is on the test server: There are still more bugs to be fixed and the changes are being tested now.
- The Test Server has been patched: The database crashed and needed to be rebuilt. So the Test Server is currently being tested.
- The Abyss Chronicles are coming soon: The next content patch or Patch 2.0 is in the works and information will be released shortly.
For more details on all of this news and more, check out
Issue 5 of the Underground Communique.
by Robin Torres
Apr 2nd 2008 (1 year ago)
Hellgate: London
Not wanting to be left out of the fun, the folks at Flagship Studios have a couple of April Fools' jokes of their own. The acquisition of
Hellgate High School in Missoula, Missouri is an amusing read. The team name is the Hellgate Knights and
Flagship Studios plans to farm the school for in-game music and sound effects.
But really, it's all about
Hellgate Barbie. We don't know which is funnier, Evoker Barbie with the hot pink pentacle or the fact that they beg Mattel not to sue them. It's really too bad this is a joke, because dressing up dolls in armor like our characters isn't such a bad idea.
Would you buy a Guardian Ken or a Summoner Skipper?
by Robin Torres
Apr 1st 2008 (1 year ago)
Hellgate: London

Do you want to communicate with a representative of
Flagship Studios with all of your
Hellgate: London or
Mythos related questions? Are you tired of not getting a response on the forums? Well, the unlikely place of
YouTube may be the answer for you.
We were surprised to find that Scapes, Hellgate: London's Community Manager was answering both
HGL and
Mythos questions in the comments of
their YouTube videos.
For example, if you go to take a look at the
new Patch 1.2 trailer, you will find comments about the new
Single Player patch as well as the difference between Video development and Game development.
So if you have a burning question for Flagship Studios, go sign into your YouTube account and leave a comment. You may just get a response straight from the source. Or you could wait until the next time they do an
IRC developer chat.
by Robin Torres
Mar 25th 2008 (1 year ago)
Each week, Robin Torres contributes Gamer Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with MMOs. Well, it used to be each week... and then stuff happened -- lots of stuff that made things go out of balance. But that just means more stuff to write about here... weekly.Recently, the Spousal Unit and I got into an argument over
this article about Blizzard's Naming Policy enforcement. In this post,
WoW Insider's Daniel Whitcomb asks why
Blizzard must be informed of every instance of a name like "Longjohnson", before they will enforce their policy on each one. I say people who blatantly name themselves against the policy are ruining the game immersion and are sucking other people's fun. The Spousal Unit says that the real
Funsucker is the person who reports the name, unless he or she plays on an RP server. He says people who name themselves after pornstars and genital euphemisms are just having fun and that people who talk about game immersion are taking themselves too seriously. I say that I play games to escape from the latest train wreck and don't want to see a version of her name on a Blood Elf Rogue when I'm bringing up an alt.
The problem here is a difference in opinion of what fun is. We play MMOs to have fun (and relieve stress and escape), but when we are playing with a massive number of other players, the many views of what fun is can and do clash. So the question is, should we care about other people's fun when we are having our own? In my opinion, your "right" to have fun, in-game or out, ends as soon as you start infringing on someone else's fun. But this rule can't be strictly applied because some people's fun may not fit into the scope of the game... or reality. I've tried to come up with some basic guidelines as to when we should worry about someone else's fun and when it's OK not to without being a Funsucker.
by Robin Torres
Feb 8th 2008 (1 year ago)
Hellgate: London
If you are interested in chatting with the developers of
Hellgate: London and you are available at 7pm EST today, then fire up your favorite IRC client and get ready to
talk to Flagship Studios. Their last developer chat was pretty candid, so if you are still playing
HGL or have renewed interest since the release of
Stonehenge, participating in this chat may be fun and informative.
Here are the details:
Server: irc.ForTheGamers.org
Channel: #FlagshipStudios
For questions during the event, type /msg DevBot yourquestionhere where "yourquestionhere" is your actual question. There will also be a separate channel just for chatting with other attendees.
I use
Trillian for IRC, but
mIRC is another good one. For The Gamers is also providing a web-based client for the chat. Full details on how to connect if you are having issues are provided
here.
Maybe I'll see you there,
preschooler permitting.
by Robin Torres
Jan 10th 2008 (1 year ago)
Are you or your children getting the above message when trying to play
ToonTown Online? When I first started playing, I was unable to play for more than 10 minutes at a time. Whenever I zoned, I only had about a 30% chance for actually staying in the game. I submitted many bug reports, but the responses from
TT customer service, while prompt, were completely unhelpful:
- Update my video driver
- Update my router firmware
- Update my network card driver
- Don't use wireless
- Delete a possibly corrupted file
The first three "solutions" are of course good things to do. Your drivers should always be up to date for optimum performance, but they didn't solve my problem. Fortunately,
Knuckles Fiddlefinger, an employee of the
Nerd Herd Geek Squad, posted the solution on the
ToonTown Central Forums. The problem is how
ToonTown handles routers. So even if you are running
WoW or
City of Heroes or even Disney's own
Pirates of the Carribean Online just fine, you still need to setup your router to handle
ToonTown Online. Instructions on how are after the jump.
by Robin Torres
Jan 9th 2008 (1 year ago)
WoW
CoH
CoV
Each week, Robin Torres contributes Gamer Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with MMOs.I have a lot of hopes for my two year old daughter. I hope that she will be more athletic than I am (which, frankly, won't be that hard). I hope that she will continue to be sociable and friendly and not the introvert that I was. And I hope that she will play video games with me because, well, it will be nice to have something in common with her if my other hopes come true.
Of course, I also have a lot of fears for her. There are a whole lot of scary people out there who have internet access. But, even if this were a crime-free world, there are still topics and language that I would prefer that she not be exposed to until she's mature enough to be able to handle them. And there is a lot to be said for letting our children keep their innocence for as long as possible. Not that I want to coddle her too much or keep her in a bubble, but she doesn't need to be reading R rated guildchat, either.
I really do believe that
there are a lot of benefits for children playing MMOs with their parents and that there are also benefits from allowing them to play MMOs solo. The problem is that there are also a lot of dangers. I'm talking here about children who can read but are not yet teenagers. Teens are a whole separate issue. I can't wait for those years
(sarcasm intended).
by Robin Torres
Dec 20th 2007 (1 year ago)
Hellgate: London
Hellgate: London's Patch 1.0 aka
Stonehenge aka
The Stonehenge Chronicles has been delayed until January. This will be the first major quarterly update and, if released in January, will still be on schedule.
Bill Roper, in a letter sent to registered players, said that they want to take the time to make this patch right:
If there is one lesson we've learned from launching Hellgate: London, our releases should be a question of "what" and not "when".
Huzzah.
In other patch news,
Single Player Patch 0.6 is live and available for
download. Multiplayer
Patch 0.7 has been live since December 14th on US servers and went live
December 19th on EU server Sydonai.
Subscribers who login to Patch 0.7 will find that Nemo in Holbrook Station has a goodie for them. My first try to receive it got me the much treasured Server Error, but after restarting the game I received the even more intriguing Transmogrifying Cube which,
as promised previously, will look
familiar to
Diablo II fans.
Patch 1.0
notes from the Test Center are after the jump.