Slashdot Mirror
White Wolf Ends The World Of Darkness
KrinnDNZ writes "So White Wolf has been providing us geeks with angsty roleplaying pleasure as vampires, werewolves, and various other beasties, ever since the early 90s. Guess what - it's over. I'll have to admit that it takes guts to have your RPGs' 'big story' include the end of their world, but they're doing it, and they've got a date, 171 days from now." This seems to mean that well-known pen-and-paper RPG titles like Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascension, and Hunter: The Reckoning are genuinely being retired.
I was in the Borders up by the Arboretum, cruising the computer section. I saw this really hot chic and she was looking at the linux books ! I'm no linux freak (barely even a computer person, learning C in a class I'm taking now, installed linux so I could learn postgreSQL for a job that never materialized, working as a lowly filer at a title company) but I decided to start talking to her. She said she worked for BAE and they were switching some Oracle shit over to Linux and she was learning it. We talked and had a coffee there and exchanged email addresses. I did ok because my two roommates use linux all the time, so I tossed out some buzzwords and bashed SCO. Little did I know what I was in for.
A week later we agree to meet for a bite to eat and start talking.
My first warning was that she told me the last three relationships she's had were people she met on Evercrack. That, and the fact that she called it "Evercrack", should have made me run right then. But didn't know. I wasn't even sure what Everquest was, or what a role playing game was. So I toss out that I've heard of it from my roommates and ask her what she likes about it.
It turns out this girl plays more than 6 hours a day on weekdays ! She's part of some "raiding party" that has more than 100 people and started yammering about how they had standards for admission in ping times and bandwidth and stuff. It goes on and on. She won't shut up. She writes down a link to her character online and gives it to me. She stares at me after I get the napkin, so I feel obligated it put in my pocket like I'm gonna check it. (She is some magician-elf-Romulan thing.) She starts telling me how it is a real problem that her character can't see in the dark. "It's get dark in the everquest world too, you know!" Yeah, that's a "real" problem.
I'm out of my league and struggling here, but I'm not giving up. Remember she's hot. I remember my two roommates (the linux dudes) having a conversation with a third nerd (hey that rhymes) about some game that was a top secrete local project funded by some rich dude -- basically, the idea was a distributed P2P world, so each player got to edit and make rules for the piece of the universe hosted on their computer. There was some contrived shit with giant cylindrical space stations, to allow for the fact that you could visit anybody, not just the physical neighbors in a flat world. I realize now it is sick and gay and will probably lead to school shootings, but I'm trying to bang this chic so I tell her everything I remember.
While I am talking her face slowly smooths out and gets very calm, and then her eyes starting getting narrow. I think this is because she's interested.
As soon as I finish, she informs me in this dead, calm voice that I am part of a conspiracy of corporate powers envious of Evercrack's (yeah she still called it that) success and plotting to bring it down by siphoning off all the new gamers who didn't know better than to fall for our false sirens rather than join the one true game, evercrack. She actually said the words "the evercrack world is just as valid as the real world."
I get really scared for some reason, but I start defending my self. First, I have no designs on the evercrack world and I'm not even the one writing the competeing game. (She interrupts and accuses me of making fun of evercrackers.) I said I planned to try evercrack myself, since it sounded fun. (I'm sure my face betrayed the fact that I will never go near it.) She accused me of thinking that playing Evercrack was a waste of time, which I never even said. She wouldn't be stopped. At this point she also said I rudely made her feel fat by ordering a smaller meal than she did. (She was skinny and very hot.)
Her voice kept rising, and some people were listening. I sort of calmed down and realized I had no chance in hell, but that she probably wasn't armed so there was no danger. I calmly pointed out that she was totally fucking nuts and she got up and stomped o