Massively^™

Let's face it, being a teen is not easy. With the ever-growing mountain of potential pitfalls teens may face, the last thing they want to deal with is the hatred, discrimination and bigotry that seems to be plaguing our online environments. To help combat this problem, Habbo has joined forces with the Matthew Shepard Foundation in a project they call "Erase Hate".

Beginning July 7th, the Matthew Shepard Foundation staff will make appearances twice a week in Habbo's InfoBus to discuss those issues concerning young people in a safe environment. Main topics will include bullying, discrimination and any other forms of hate experienced on and offline. Not only will these teens be taught how to deal with these concerns, but they will learn how to encourage respect among peers. "It is a mission of the Foundation to support young people and provide them with the resources to lead healthy, productive, hate free lives," said Judy Shepard, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation. "Our partnership with Habbo will allow us to have ongoing conversations with young people about what they can do in the fight to replace hate with understanding, compassion, and acceptance."

Yesterday marked the one month anniversary of EVE Online's democratically elected Council of Stellar Management. The council was created as a way for the players to democratically decide which game issues are important enough to bring to CCP's attention. Since CCP are unable to sift through the forum for important topics, this gives a way for players to put forward their problems in a constructive manner. The council vote on whether each issue is important or not and compile a list to present to CCP. CCP have the final say in what issues from the list they think need to be addressed and will essentially be using the CSM to focus player feedback into a constructive form they can use.

Since its inception, the CSM has been plagued with problems and disputes. From the beginning, it was clear that a surprisingly small proportion of the playerbase were interested in the whole thing. Only 11% of players voted and of those even fewer actively participate in presenting issues to the council. With such a low voting turnout from the general EVE populace, it was argued that organised alliance voting made up the majority of the votes. Disputes escalated to new heights with the conclusion of the third official CSM meeting but recent meetings have seen vast improvements across the board.

At this one month anniversary, I look back on the problems that have plagued the council of stellar management and how they've been handled.

The recent story of Jeanne Stevens, the Republican candidate to the State House of Representatives for Connecticut got us to thinking. All other issues aside (assuming the issues that were important to you were already covered) would you be more or less inclined to vote for a MMOG player?

Many people consider MMOGs to be a horrible time-sink, with the potential of addiction -- so MMOGing may not be something you want in an elected official. Others feel that it's just a particularly savvy way to enjoy free time since you don't have to worry about paying for gas or a lot for extras on a night out. (Frugality, it can be argued, is a great trait for an elected official to have!) What do you think? More or less likely to get your votes? Does it really matter?

Politicians proclaiming their love for World of Warcraft is not a new thing, but in a recent interview with Wandering Goblin, we get treated to some information on the playing style of Jeanne Stevens, Republican candidate for the Connecticut legislature.

In this interview, Stevens reveals that her three Horde characters -- a 70 Orc Hunter, a 58 Troll Shaman and a 53 Blood Elf Rogue -- are a way for her to relax in her mostly PvE playstyle. She also brings up some wonderful points regarding parenting and gaming. "Parents need to start parenting!" she says. "You are the adult. You are responsible for what happens within your home. If you don't like the content of a t.v. show, game, book, etc., don't allow it in your home – that is your choice – you get to be the legislator, you make the laws of your home." We couldn't agree more, and it's certainly refreshing to hear someone in such potential legislative power say something like that.

This reaction and a lack of communication are to be expected, but what would more explanatory thoughts look like in the form of an open letter? Over on LagORama, the hilarious Inhibitor vicariously penned such correspondence from both viewpoints: the players addressing the developers and the developers addressing their players. What an interesting and hilarious take from both sides, and who knew that some MMORPG developers actually played their own game.

Picture the scene – you're at a family gathering, or maybe you're meeting your significant other's friends and family for the first time, and the conversation turns interrogative. Questions are asked about your hobbies; what you do to relax and how you spend your spare time.

What do you do? When put on the spot like that, it's natural for gamers to feel trapped, to feel like admitting to playing MMOs would be tantamount to admitting to a rather kinky fetish or confessing that you've got a rather embarrassing disease – it might not be catching, but there's a chance that you'll get some funny looks, and you may just lose some credibility points.

What about job interviews and applications? These invariably have a point where questions are asked about you hobbies and leisure time. While there are good arguments that putting down strong examples of guild leadership might work in your favour – owning up to the fact that you play an MMO upwards of 15 hours a week might not be the smartest thing career-wise.

Don't get me wrong – I am proud and happy to be a geek and a gamer, and I've never wanted to be anything else; the wall above my desk sports a rare Akira poster I picked up on holiday France a while back; I own the complete boxed set of the original Transformers series; and much of my wardrobe consists of t-shirts from ThinkGeek and the Penny Arcade store. People ask me what I do in my spare time, and I look them straight in the eye and tell them that I'm a gamer, and while I'm not ashamed of it, I can't help but wince a little when I see most people's reaction to it.

The voting for the first EVE Online CSM closed just a few days ago, but already CCP has announced the nine lucky players that will compose the first Council of Stellar Management. Andrew Cruse (Jade Constantine) managed to beat out Niall Dologhan (Hardin) by a matter of only a few dozen votes, to be the CSM's first chairman. The post at the official EVE Online website includes a number of details about the voting process, including a great deal of demographic information. The first order of business for the Council will be to elect a vice-chairman, secretary and vice-secretary.

Some 24,651 votes were cast, out of a pool of 222,422 eligible voters. That's a turnout of 11%; not great, but not bad for a first effort either. Most of the votes were cast by veteran players, with an average account age of 1.77 years. Most of the votes came from the US, roughly 32% of all the votes cast. The next most involved countries were the UK, Germany, Russia, and Canada. These percentages roughly align with the countries representation in the player population.

Congratulations to the new CSM delegates. For a full list of your new representatives, read on below the cut.

Voting is over for candidates of the Council of Stellar Management. The campaign slogans, the fund raising, the unexplained pod poppings, and the attack ads are all over. The next step in the process is selection of the candidates, which should happen today. If you are new to EVE Online, interested in learning about the council, or simply oblivious to it all due to 24 hour mining operations, there is an easy way to get brought up to speed quickly!

A 20 page explanation of the CSM is available, but that is not exactly a quick way of getting acquainted with in-game politics. Instead, CCP has provided a CSM information website to navigate to that explains the process, points out important posts, and could make a good start for those of us writing a thesis paper on the subject. Everything from how the voting worked to important devlogs is covered for easy reference. The first meeting between the CSM and CCP is scheduled for the 20th of June, so there is plenty of time to get yourself acquainted with how the world of EVE Online is going to be affected.

For the first time in a long time, EVE Online managed to send chills up my spine. It wasn't a fleet battle, or the disbanding of the Mercenary Coalition, my former alliance that made me stare in slack-jawed wonder at the screen. The thing that made me look at EVE with new eyes after 30 months of playing was the simple trailer, not even a minute long, for the Empyrean Age expansion, due this summer.

On the Drone Bay, I have made no secret of the fact that factional warfare was my single most anticipated feature for EVE Online, including the ambulation project. The idea of the four major factions going toe-to-toe with players deciding which way the balance tips gives the feeling of being inside a novel. This week's news has me more excited about my favorite game than I have been in a long time.

Players often venture into the wilderness of online games alone and friendless, seeking out allies in the worlds they inhabit and making friends as they go along. Some games are better at encouraging players to work together than others, too. You're not going to last very long playing by yourself in games like EverQuest or EVE Online, so you have to go looking for people to play with. On the other hand, in games like World of Warcraft you can start at the first level and get to level 70 without ever talking to another human being (it's even easier if you're a Hunter). Regardless of whether your particular game of choice forces you to find friends, many people like to have friends to play with anyway. Even if you don't need them, it's kind of the point of online games to play with other people. Right?

That's why some people roll into these games with a ready-made posse. Maybe it's a group of real-life friends that want to play together online, or maybe it's a guild composed of players that you met in a previous game and you'd all like to try something different together. Either way, it's pretty nice to be able to work with a group of people you already know, trust, and like. You don't have to hope that the fickle hand of fate will deliver good PuGs to you (we all know how rare those are), and you don't have to worry about trying to find a new group of people who you can relate to in a sea of anonymous faces (many of whom will have value systems, expectations, and maturity levels that will be different than yours). Is it possible you're missing out on something by bringing your own people in, though? If so, do you care?

We knew there were geeks in the writer's stable at Comedy Central, but now it's confirmed: there are gamers, too. For their Indecision 2008 site, Comedy Central has put together a handy one-sheet of the three major candidates, and what they will need to focus on to win the votes of various classes in World of Warcraft.

Anyone with general knowledge could have put this together, but there's one particular bit that makes us think at least one writer is a WoW player: For the Druid vote, Hilary Clinton needs to understand that they dislike that "Her dominant stance disrupts Feral Combat spells." Look over the list and see if you can find the candidate who best represents your character!

[Via TenTonHammer]

Voting will begin very soon for the highly-anticipated Council of Stellar Management. EVE Online's first democratically elected player representative orginization has been in the works for some time, and votes will finally be cast as of May 5th. They're slated to run for two weeks, but how did the field of applicants shape up? The official EVE site has a run down on the applications, reasons that some were rejected, and a bit of statistical analysis.

There were a total of 97 applicants, and of those 64 were viable. They were fairly upfront about the reasons some of those applications were rejected. A few failed to follow instructions regarding passport scans, others had broken the EULA, and two specifically requested to be withdrawn. Of the applicants, 4.687% (or three people) were women; this apparently matches their internal statistics of a 4.46% female player population. A final interesting statistic: more than half of all the applicants had more than one account, double the ratio for the general EVE populace.

We'll be following the EVE elections very closely next month, so keep your eyes peeled.

Stephen King is "the man." He's one of my favorite authors and a very big reason why I'm a writer today. I've followed the ebb and flow of his career, from his meteoric rise (and eventually perpetual stay) on the New York Time's Best Seller list to the the mostly abysmal adaptations of his books to film. Anytime he talks, I tend to listen.

So you can imagine my intrigue when King, a man who has never tested the virtual waters (F13 doesn't count) with his magnificent worlds - how great would an MMO set in the world of The Dark Tower be? - voiced his opinion about the proposed Massachusetts bill to ban the sale of "violent" video games to anyone under the age of 18.

In case you were mining asteroids and were unable to follow the events as they unfolded, a CSM information website devoted to helping you choose the right candidates has been created for your viewing pleasure. Players or curious onlookers can find links to candidates websites, manifestos, and some background information provided by CCP on the history of the CSM. The official documents linked by the site describe CCPs outlook on governing MMOs and their communities. The website provides a very interesting glimpse into a concept that will give players a unique opportunity to shape the world they enjoy.

[via Crazy Kinux]

'Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent', wrote Isaac Asimov, and to a certain extent, that's true. But in an industry that caters to these primal impulses -- and thriving off of them, as well -- is there room for the non-violent path? Certainly, the violent response is more fun than talking it out, at least in an urge overkill kind of way, but surely that's just a matter of implementation.

If we truly want to simulate any sort of real-life experience in our games, the full range of social interactions ought to have a place, including politics. And it's one thing to try to reason with an AI, but if you can create a lasting peace with another human player, you have something to be proud of. But is it necessary, or would diplomacy in a combat-oriented game merely detract from the experience?