It was only a matter of time before I contracted some kind of illness, I suppose. Doing battle with The Horde until three already depletes a man, but when you meet thousands of people over the course of a weekend somebody there is a carrier. I'm currently flanking the condition with barely substantiated science and folk remedies of questionable efficacy.

The phenomenon described in the strip desperately needed some verbal identifier. It's ready-made for the Madden '06 footage on Xbox 360. They wouldn't let us see it at E3, and now I understand why. If we'd gone back there and seen something like that - especially given what they were showing in their ten million dollar circular theater - the cruelty and barbarism of our response would be the sort of thing you'd cut to maintain your M rating. Who did they let in, I wonder? And what did they see?

The video is suboptimal, to be sure. But it's not so bad that the disparities between it and the Madden '06 released in Bizarro World aren't apparent. You need a word like Bullshot at the ready, as though it were holstered, just to phrase the odd, skeptical enthusiasm engendered by these specious materials.

It isn't that it makes me mad, they're just not real or true and I think that when we have evidence to the contrary it needs to be presented and discussed. I think that rocking CSI-style investigations into small, zoomed quadrants of images is part of the fun. It's fun to imagine what the next generation, or perhaps in this case the generation after this one, has in store. Even if that Elysian field only really exists in promotional materials.

Personally, I wouldn't have shown that video to anybody. The system doesn't launch for another two months, and I've seen amazing shifts in the final builds of a game - it may be that they believe they can hit a target like that. If anyone could do it, I guess it would have to be the largest publisher of electronic entertainment in the world. I want them to put me in a situation where I need to come to you, sheepish and contrite, regarding my cynicism on these matters. I love being wrong about things like this.

(CW)TB out.

i wouldn't like me if i met me

Things on Dark Iron continue to be awesome. Our epic battle against the PvP guilds is a real blast. The question of “ganking” has come up quite often in the forums and I just wanted to share my two cents on the topic.

I think that on a PVP server, especially one with this much (pretend) animosity you are going to see a lot of ganking. If you’re out by yourself I really think you need to expect it. Most of the time I don’t even leave town unless I’m in a group of five people. Once you hit the mid thirties and higher you really can’t be running around by yourself anymore. I’ve certainly ganked my fair share of Horde and God knows I’ve been on the receiving end more times than I can count. I’ve been in a few situations where a quick wave or a bow can keep me alive but those are really the exception and I don’t expect it to work every time.

I do think “corpse camping” is lame. I try not to do it just because I know how pissed off I get when it’s done to me. For the most part the group I run with tends to follow the “don’t start nothing, won’t be nothing” rule. That’s just me and my friends though. I’ve grouped with some CTS dojo guys and we killed every single Horde we saw regardless of their level. The guys in that guild are some pipe toting mother fuckers let me tell you.

So that’s my take on the ganking issue. You can read more about it in my book, Conceptual Models of Ganking: Analysis and Application (4th Edition). Pick up your copy today.

The Knights of Arcadia and the Fancy Lads are recruiting again. If you’d like to join one of our guilds you just need to group with some of us. If you play with a group of Knights or Lads and things go well just ask them to pass your name on to an officer. Right now that’s the mechanism both guilds are using to add new players.

If you can swing it I really think you should try and hit BlizzCon with us. We’re really excited to meet up with some PA fans there and get our WOW on. I’d love to get a big group of PA fans together on a bank of computers and hit Warsong Gulch or something. Who knows maybe we’ll all descend on Disney Lands while we’re there. We can all buy Mickey hats with our names stitched onto them and eat cotton candy. Then we’ll all ride the Matterhorn and we’ll dare Tycho to stand up just before we get to the yeti and he’ll get his head clipped off by the monster’s animatronic arm. Good times!

-Gabe out

To me, Dudefella is not a name that says "epic adventure."

(CW)TB

You can talk to me about naming my character when you don’t have a vagina.

-Gabe out

Jane and Ryan over at 1up put together a kind of PAX shrine, and I hardly know what to say. It's practically an act of worship, I hope the show was as entertaining as they made it look.

We told them we wouldn't do an interview with them unless they interviewed tiny faces we had drawn on our hands, which was our way of saying "no," but they agreed so we didn't really know what to do. I really don't like being filmed or photographed, but it seems rude not to consent to it. Like a kind dentist, they did their best to ease the dark work of their profession.

(CW)TB

Thanks to everyone who wrote in to wish Gabe a happy Birthday. As you can see he hit the cake pretty hard. I’d imagine that from now on, any day that he doesn’t open a million presents and then dive face first into a chocolate cake before taking a nap will seem boring.

-Gabe out

You might remember that a couple weeks ago I auctioned off some original artwork on eBay with the intention of giving all the money to the Red Cross. eBay had a system in place to make it easy for sellers like myself to do exactly that and so I took advantage of it. This required me to create and account using their missionfish program. According to what I read this was a system that guaranteed the money went to the charity listed. I assumed that meant that when the winner paid for the auction he paid through missionfish and I never even saw the money.

That is not how missionfish works.

The winner pays the seller and then the seller pays mission fish. Now if the auction ends and the seller does not pay missionfish by the second Monday after the auction ends, they just take the money out of the seller's credit card. This is a pretty stupid system but it is further complicated when the winning bidder refuses to pay.

The person who won the original art mailed me and informed me that he can’t buy it. He gave me a reasonable story about why but at this point it doesn’t really matter. I’ve contacted the next person in line but there is no guarantee they will still want it or still have the money to buy it. Meanwhile I’ve got a limited amount of time before missionfish comes after me for the money and attempts to draw it directly out of my ass.

If you work at eBay or missionfish and you can help me sort this crap out I’d really appreciate a mail from you. gabriel@penny-arcade.com

-Gabe out