Is your Identity safe

Is it possible for someone to kill their identity online?

 

Now there is a question to ask, to be honest I don’t really know the answer nor do I wish to know.  In my opinion what makes the internet so interesting is that everyone on the web is anynomous, save for those who wish to show what they look like in a posting of a family photo or otherwise.

            If someone were to damage their identity online it would either be through their own fault.  They had done, said or performed something that would ruin their reputation online.  Then what, they make a new ID for themselves and start over again.  But if someone were to steal that identity and ruin out of spite or otherwise, then is simply a matter of miss identification. 

Something new and fun

I want to do something different here:

 

I usually write a page about a review, a thought, or what have you but today I want to try something fun.  I’m going to make a list of ‘What if…’ scenarios and I would like to see what comes to your mind.  It’s nothing psychological mind you, just for fun <3.

 

1. You’re at home doing your usual routine, you hear a sound coming from you door.  As you go to investigate you realize the noise is getting louder as you approach the door.  You open the door and find ________________________ which tells you that your stomach is actually ____________________________________ and if you don’t get rid of it you will die.  What do you do
2. You spend you time at the beach doing your planned thing.  You hear a scream on the shore and can’t help but look at it.  It’s a mermaid and she happens to look just like the mermaid from Disney’s Little Mermaid.  What do you do?
3.  As you finish your bottle beverage you throw it away.  You start to feel a strange tingle in your chest.  Just then ______________________ bursts from your chest and says______________________________.  What happens next?

 

Okay, this is about it.  I’m looking forward to what you guys and gals come up with

The strangest things about games

I don’t mean all games when I use this title, I actually refer to the Massive Multiplayer Online games.  They have been really expanding in the online community over the past years and I don’t mean through graphics.  I mean these particular systems are become more and more like our live community.  We have games now, not just for going online for bashing and smashing, that allow users to just create an avatar for themselves and go online and just ‘mingle’. 

            I saw a documentary about video games this Sunday about how online games affect our community.  One of the fore mentioned stories was about a family, mainly the husband and wife.  The husband worked as an electronic hardware developer while the wife was a stay at home mom and looked after the kids.  Then, come bed time, they pulled out their laptops in bed and started playing an MMO RPG or specifically they played City of Heroes.  It was kind of funny and at the same time a little romantic if you think about it, I mean a husband and wife who are old enough to be my parents (well when they were 20 years younger) are playing a game online together.  I think this is a great example as too why MMO games are really expanding how we communicate with each other and no I don’t think Instant messenger or Blogging about yourself can come close to what an MMO game can do.  Because with MMO games you can create a physical avatar for your character and customize their look so rather than looking like yourself you can look sexy and attractive, wink wink.

            Now for some of those who don’t do MMOs you probably know that they are expensive, not just for buying the game from the store but also for the monthly fee.  But beyond that, there are some games not found over the counter that can help you to make money rather than lose it.  The title of the game escapes me but one MMO that exists is one that you cannot find on the store counters, you can find it online and download for free and just play for kicks.  The game doesn’t just allow for fun game play, it also allows the user to buy, literally, items to dress their online avatar from pinky sparkly boots to a green cowboy hat.  Now here is where it gets kind of weird, those who are buying the objects online are actually paying, literally, the guy who created the boots and hat.  So they are adding cash into this guys pocket every time they buy something he or she has created in the game.

            But aside from the romance and commercialism of the online world, I have found that there are even bigger and stranger things people do with their online avatars.  To quill your thoughts it’s not kinky, I’ll go into that later.  But there are businesses out there, specifically for MMO games that will play the game for you, at a price, and help you reach a level for your character.  I guess this is in some ways legal since you are paying these people to play on your account and spend literally hundreds of hours to raise the experience level of your in-game avatar to a certain point.  Aside from that they will also give you new weapons, animal mounts and in-game gold amount per your request and the price.  Now I saw apart of this in the pre-mentioned documentary, that companies are making money off this kind of business of playing peoples game to help them reach a certain experience level and they in fact deliver.  The house mom went to one of these online groups, paid to have her game avatar for City of Heroes at par with her husband and waited for them to tell her that they completed their job.  Now personally, this is the kind of thing for those who are lazy and too busy to get their avatar to be on par with the other players, but for me a hard core gamer this kind of thing takes away the fun of the game itself.  That and I just don’t feel comfortable with giving my personal info for a game I’m paying for to be used by a foreign party.  That and that kind of thing, too me, takes away the joy and the fun of the game.

           

Now I’m going to get a little risqué on you here, so be fore warned.

 

            Now we go into one of the biggest issues with the MMO, but before that let me back up a bit.  The internet is the biggest source of online pornography out there, if you were in high school and you to deform by puberty to get a hot girlfriend you turned to the internet for naked girls and a chance to see what sex was all about.  But with the viewing of naked bodies clashing the high school surfer would want more than just watching and searching he/she would want to be apart of that action, no pun there.  You may not find it on the shelves at a Gamestop but you will find them by looking for the right things on the internet.  There are places online, either for free or a price, you can download and play games that not only allow you to interact with other people around the world but will also allow you to get friendly and then get frisky.  These type of games exist so the player could become a bit more aware of themselves and also, for some apparently, to better understand what they find a turn on.  Now I’m sure you thinking a lot of this reflects me, well that is only half true, a majority of my information is relayed from what I learned from the Game documentary.  You may think “this is so not true.”  or some such that tells you this is all B.S. but I tell you here and now that these things do exist.  We, specifically Americans, are interested in this kind of thing because our society is so big on censorship and the idea of seeing a naked man or exposed women is disapproving and shameful so it’s no wonder people have sex with the lights out.  Other cultures, mainly places like Japan and the famous street known as ‘the red light district’ overseas are very open about their sexual exposure, so with like Japan it’s not really a shock that they would make games made for adults and sell them on the shelves.

 

            Okay now I’m going to stop there for now and be done with it.  So let me make a summary of what I have mentioned before closing.

1. MMO games are becoming bigger and bigger for communities to interact.
2. If you’re smart and talented enough you can make a business for MMO games and make some money off your efforts
3. you can pay people to play and raise your avatar level while you do other things
4. There is no #4 remark
5. MMO games for sex are great ways for people to meet and just love each other without any real life side effects
6. get milk
7. call mother
8.  conquer the world

Video games are a toy

I remember last week when I was just having a chat with some other students we brought up a conversation about the release of Spore.  We later got into a talk about the games released by Will Wright and his Maxis crew and the conversation pointed out that his games are kind of like toys.  In some ways that is true, I mean think about it for a moment.  WIth games like Halo, Dawn of war, Starwars games, Metal Gear SOlid you have a plot and a character roll.  But with Maxis games you basically play as a god. 

Lets take the Sims series for example, you can create a character and a family and then give them a place to live and a job.  With spore, you have to whole god control at your hands.  You can start at the te-ne tiny micro organizim and go up into a full space age civilization. 

It’s games like that, I think, make the whole gaming experience worth while.  You’re not so much playing a movie or acting out a story you’re creating the story and the movie yourself.

The place for characters.

Well as I write this I’m watching a House marathon on USA, if you’ve seen it you know it’s an amazing show.  I love watching USA, its always been a great station for really good shows from Airplane, Monk, Psych and those before it.  Even back in the 80s and 90s when cartoons were at their hype like the Real Ghostbusters, the Smurfs, The Gobots and more. 

Now you know there are other TV stations out there like Cartoon Network, Nickolodean, Disney channel, and some of the other beloved stations.  But really I don’t think any of those can compare with USA, because of its line up with unique and beloved characters such as House, Monk and the Psych crew. 

One of the things I love in life are the unique array of characters in shows.  Whether its someone playing the role of an ass, know it all, doctor to a cartoon car that can transform into a sexy villaness and kick ass.

The warhammer franchise

 

            Well my day started off like always: woke up at 10 AM, went to play games for a while, did some homework on the PC.  Then I searched the web for some random Youtube videos on video games, just for fun.  Then while I was looking through I found something that captured my attention.

 

            I found a video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbjbbzOrCIg and was interested when I saw the game play footage, a beta mind you, of the game.  Now the game itself is based on the Warhammer 40,000 so being a fan of the franchise I was excited to see you could play as a character from the game.  Now I know there have been titles in the past, one that comes to my mind is the FPS game ‘Fire Warrior’ it was a good start for the franchise as a game but…meh…

 

            What really got me into the series of warhammer was the real time strategy (RTS) Dawn of War.  With that I became interested in playing the game and learning a bit about the table top game.  It’s funny how the PC game got me interested in a table top game that’s been around for years and years…I think in the 80s or 90s I’m not entirely sure of that. 

 

            The story of warhammer is actually very…how can I say…enjoyable.  It has a very in depth storyline for each of the generated factions.  It has a wonderful way of combining science and technology with a bit of magic and sorcery.  So imagine something like a super human in heavy thick armor and is possessed by a demon from Hell. 

 

            I could go on and on about the characters and the story of warhammer, but really there is just too much information to just give out.  Especially since the franchise has a science fiction version (warhammer 40,000) and a medieval version (warhammer) which is kind of like Lord of the Rings meets Constantine.  

 

            For me my favorite cast of characters in the game are called ‘Chaos Space Marines’ these guys are the dark and evil cast of the game, although I’ve been told there is no good or evil in the game.  But these guys are very very dark.  They have horns on their helmets, faces that are reminiscent of a skull or screaming monster, their weapons and armor have the appearance of a howling beastly maw and their style is much like a tribe of blood thirsty soldiers. 

 

I couldn’t find any really good images to showcase, but if you’ve played Dawn of War or have heard of it you know whom I talk about or you can just search for them on Google.