Massively

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.

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.

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.

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).