Lum's book: Slashdot review

[Stroker Ace]

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/27/0820242


Gamers who are already members of the MMOG nation will probably not get a lot of mileage out of this book. A few tidbits might prove enlightening, many of the anecdotes are humorous, and the history that Jennings imparts to the book will be informative for pretty much everyone. This text is well and truly aimed at people new to the genre, though, and experienced players can give it a pass. If you've never played a MMOG, and want to, this book will be well worth the price. For the cost of about a month's subscription fee, you can avail yourself of the knowledge of an online gaming veteran that won't ever complain about your ninja looting, your camping, or your fascination with the /dance command.

[Lunch of Kong]

Stop hitting refresh on your amazon.com book sales ranking page, Lum!

Edit:
Awesome. Amazon only has 3 copies left. :)

Oprah book club, meet the Slashdot effect!

[Stroker Ace]

Two questions: One - Has anyone here read the book? It sounds like a good read, but probably not a must-buy for experienced players. What sort of people are there out there that are motivated to try new MMOs but fearful of the screwball MMO culture? I guess there could be lots of parents/significant others out there who are interested in taking the plunge.

Anyone have any anecdotes of fearful new players who ask these kinds of questions? It's hard to maintain a sense of perspective as a player.

Two - Lum, did Zonk contact you for an interview or anything or did he just email you when the review went up or what?

[HRose]

The book is really good because of Lum's writing style. Then it's not terribly useful for an already experienced player but this "usefulness" wouldn't be the reason to read it.

The point is that it couldn't be better than that. Lum really adds to the book and if it wasn't for him it could have been rather boring and redundant. Instead it isn't and it's a great fun reading it.

You can basically imagine a "MMO for dummies" book and apply to it all the qualities that Lum's writing style has and you can have an idea about why the book is really that good and worth reading.

It also helps a lot to see things in persepective, out of the momentum. There's a sense of progression and history that is being slowly built. It builds "community". While reading the book I couldn't stop to imagine how absolutely great it could have been if he didn't have to limit himself to introductory text.

The book is really wonderful in the way Lum approached the topic and wrote about it, but it leaves you wishing all the time he was more free to explore and discuss some of those arguments and MMO history that are only hinted due to the scope of the book.

Think to Tolkien. One of the best qualities of LOTR is that there's always a hint of a bigger story and setting behind the scenes. A whole world to explore that in the book is never fully disclosed, never "reached". It builds desire without satisfying it.

Lum's book is pretty much the same :)

Then you can basically open the book at random and find always some great passages. Two really random examples.

About the "guild drama":

Romantic Triangles: Bill meets Sue through the guild. Bill likes Sue. Sue likes Bill. Bill and Sue talk. A lot. Sue also likes Bob. Sue and Bob talk. A lot. Sue sends Bill a message that was meant for Bob. Things get ugly. Fast.
Or the anecdotes:

When good evacs go bad

Once in EverQuest, a multigroup raid was using the public OOC (out of character) chat channel to organize their raid, to the irritation of others that were in the zone. One wag decided to solve the problem by yelling "EVAC!" in the OOC channel. Many of the characters with evac did the thing they'd been trained to do by months of gameplay -- they immediately hit the evac button when they saw the word EVAC! in the chat channel. The raid ended horribly immediately thereafter...
Lum is a talented writer, he could write about "cooking" and make it unique.

[Lum]

Lum, did Zonk contact you for an interview or anything or did he just email you when the review went up or what?

He emailed me about an hour before it went up to let me know to batten down the hatches on my blog.

I was actually busy most of the afternoon/evening; when I came home my wife let me know about the Amazon thing. Uh, wow. I'm pretty sure I'd rather be on /. than Oprah, too.

EntityTempting Pimping: If you're curious, the first chapter of the book is online here (http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/38/04717527/0471752738.pdf)

[extarbags]

Seems like a good overview, Lum. Good goin'. I might try to get someone who's not in the know to read it, the next time they ask me why the hell I spend so much time buying new clothes in "that damn game."

[HRose]

Btw, this will lead to troubles :)

Lum's talents with the written word and his understanding of gameplay eventually led to his being hired by Dark Age of Camelot developer Mythic Studios.

[_Fury_]

God I love the Evac story. While I wasn't in the zone at the time, I played on that server, and was there for the ensuing message board fallout. There used to be a good archive of the thread, but I just went searching for it and it's disappeared. If you dig deep using google cache, the thread still lives on, though. I leave it as an excercise to the reader - it's worth seeking out, not because you care about the players involved, but instead because some of them (Chai in particular) are very adept and funny writers. Also because at least two names you know were in the guild accused of the wrongdoing. That's also an excercise to the reader, I'm not sure if it's ever been public knowledge.

And wow does it bring back memories. Names I haven't seen in ages. That's the biggest thing I miss from EQ, how important it all seemed.

Wow, what a digression.

Oh, and a secret p.s. to someone who I'm sure is reading: I could tell it was Avii from the first time I read the infamous post... Her writing style was incredibly distinct.

[Raife]

Seekrit stuff! Finds the precious!

Posting a bunch of smug, cryptic bullshit isn't really going to pique interest.

[Ryan A]

Posting a bunch of smug, cryptic bullshit isn't really going to pique interest.

But it does allow one to revel in the pseudo-importance that's been missing in his/her life since the glory days of Everquest.

[_Fury_]

Cryptic? Sure. Smug? Nah. If you didn't play on the Erollisi Marr Everquest server around 2000-2001 it's meaningless.

[Ryan A]

Cryptic? Sure. Smug? Nah.

While it may not have been your intent, posting things such as "I leave it as an exercise for the reader" sounds really really smug. And Koontzian.

[Stroker Ace]

i don't recognize any of these names (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:ZRyLbpknCJIJ:tarsis-shriners.org/Default.aspx%3Ftabid%3D1%26newsType%3DArticleView% 26articleId%3D28+evac+everquest+ooc+chai&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a), except for some walter scott guy who's obviously walt yarbrough with a mustache and a wig.

[Lum]

Yep, that's the "Evac!" story. It doesn't take an Internet Detective to figure out how I knew the anecdate :)

(btw pretty sure Walt played on Rallos Zek, not Emarr. Told you he was hardcore!)