Month: April 2014

   What an amazing four weeks weeks…

   It all began last year, when the administration team for the SecondLife RolePlay group I used to run, called “Roanoak”, decided to go to an MLP convention called BABScon.

   There are a few of us who attended EQLA last year, and that was really fun – so we decided to do it again… And after some discussion the available folks for the convention in April would be Tursi, Aurkae, Marjan, Daza, and myself.

   Daza would be coming all the way from Australia, which is rather expensive, so was looking for a couch to shack up on for a week before and after the convention rather than pay for hotels… After all, if one is going to fly half way around the planet, they should hang out for a while right?

   As I had just gotten a rather large house with several extra rooms, I offered to put up Daza for the week prior to the convention, and Tursi offered to put up Daza for a week after there in California.

   Word of this idea got around rather quickly, and many other people wanted to meet up with us there. So the plans expanded…

   Diomades, another Aussie from the Roanoak sims and all-around great guy, was going to be in California for GDC, which was about three weeks prior to BABScon, and if he could get a place to shack up for the duration he would attend with us. So I offered him the other room at my place, and Tursi would also take him in after the convention for a while.

   Keitee, another Ronaoak player from the much closer east coast, is very close with Dio and wanted to come see him while he was here. So after some fiddling with plane flights and such Keitee was also staying at my place for a few weeks.

   And then Aryte and Cassius arrived with Cassius’ father for a weekend in the middle, just to say ‘hi’ to everyone. 🙂

   So Keitee arrived on the 26th of March, Dio, Aryte, Cassius, and Cassius’ father on the 28th of March, and Daza on the 11th of April, and Daza, Dio, and I all flew to San Francisco on the 17th of April, and I returned on the 20th of April…

   The group of us for BABScon was Daza, Dio, Aurkae and Thunderspark, Tursi, Marjan, Sara, Erin, and myself… And it was a blast!

   Prior to the convention though, at one point we had Dio, Daza, Keitee, Painless and Griffy, Sara and Ryan, Nate from work, Erin, Scott, and myself all in the living room of my place – and we all fit comfortably!

   And here I thought the house was too big…

   Anyway, I am still recovering from the last month, and the convention… Sleep depravation, so much eating out, way WAY too much booze, exposure to thousands of people at the convention, plane flights…

   Wow…

   All in all though it has been a really fun month… A bit on the expensive-side, but fun is rarely cheap these days. And I could really use a vacation so I can recover from my vacation. 😉

BABSCon was a hoot.

Went there with a bunch of folks from Ronaoak in SecondLife and had a pretty epic weekend in Burlingame California.

The hotel was massive – like a city block under glass.

Lots happened and I took way more photos than would fit here… We hung out with some of the voice actresses for a day, and then palled around with Larson (one of the writers) for a while – he’s wild.

Here’s the whole group of us:

I created a fun commemorative poster poking fun at the disorganization of the con and the incredible lines…

   I like MMOs. They are exceptionally cheap entertainment by the hour, relatively social, and somewhat challenging.

   But I really like MMOs with a really good story to them…

   World of Warcraft was the last real MMO I got into, and that was because I was very much into the story of the world. The Warcraft franchise has a ton of interesting fantasy lore to it, and it was fun to be a part of that – until Blizzard took off into left field with it all at least.

   Since then I have tried a few other MMOs, and they all fall short on the lore… A player is never really quite sure where they are in the world, or why they are there.

   It feels random… The typical MMO is an odd mishmash of fantasy tropes with no real historical grounding for why things are that way. The world feels like it was put together about a year or two ago to fit some story arc you might be vaguely interested in.

   So in the history of MMOs there have been two that no only have a truckload of lore, a series of player-based games that people are familiar with, and are created by the company who owns the IP: World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls Online.

   Sure, there are other MMOs with access to a treasure-trove of story and lore; Lord of the Rings Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic would be two examples… The issue is these two examples are not created by the folks who own the IP, and do not have generations of games behind them.

   They do not translate well to a game.

   So… I am currently playing ESO, and having a blast.

   ESO is the same just left of center fantasy world we have come to know – swords, sorcery, various flavors of elves, various flavors of humans, a few anthropomorphic races for spice…

   And then things get weird…

   The flora and fauna of Tamriel is right out of the alien world of a scifi novel; strange giant insects and oddly mobile plants exist side-by-side with people in full plate on horseback. The religious aspects are a bit odd too – where you are never quite sure if the ‘gods’ are just very powerful (and slightly bent) people.

   All in all, one could easily imagine Tamriel being some alien world where in the far future humanity made an attempt to colonize – but something went wrong and a thousand years later everyone is living in the dark ages. It has that “Oh, hey – this is just like lord of the rings … wait – what the hell is that!?” effect going for it – and that is rather fun.

   I’ve not done an introduction post for a really long time, so for those of you who might be new here:

   To begin with I am an avid role-player… I am the player of a thousand characters, the creator of a thousand settings, and my online nom de guerre changes as needed for the image I intend to portray. In this the names I am known by are all characters upon a stage, playing out their parts as needed to bring the audience into the overall performance.

   The one commonality in both my characters and my online personas tends to be that they are mythical beasties – unicorns, specifically – and this has been true since the late 70’s… There is a reason for this; I have always been fascinated by the symbolism, and how such a chimerical creature of pure whimsy could get such an incredible foothold in human culture.

   Unicorns do not exist – everyone knows this. Yet ask anyone to identify one and BAM, the finger lands squarely on the one-horned horse.

   Nearly every culture on Earth has some similar mythical beastie – even cultures that never communicated with one other… That is a pretty potent myth, and I find it interesting how the symbolism is ‘adjusted’ to fit the prevalent ideals of the time.

   So as I find a connection in the symbolism, and thus unicorns have been integral to my life for 40+ years at this point, this explains the name of the company I run for my personal efforts; Alicorn Inc.

   Traditionally the ‘Alicorn’ is the horn of the unicorn, but in more modern times this has come to be used to refer to winged unicorns as well. And with the soaring popularity of Generation 4 “My Little Pony”, wherein the leadership are all Alicorn ponies – it seemed fitting for me to use this iconography as well.

   While I am not a magical flying unicorn who rules an Empire and is responsible for the livelihoods and security of thousands – I am a director for a good-sized tech company where I am responsible for the livelihoods and security of hundreds.

   And that makes this web site, in a very real sense, a peek behind the curtain to watch the Great and Powerful Oz pull the levers and turn the cranks that make the whole spectacle occur. But, how can one be certain this is not just another layer of imagery? Just another illusion, another mask, another stage piece built to amaze?

   You don’t.

   Welcome to the Internet. 😉