If you don't know what a Skinner Box is, I suggest you look it up. Why, you ask? Because This.
That's right, MMO's are like a digital Skinner Box. In other words, a rat in a box hitting a button to get a treat. Hint: You're the rat.
I recently canceled my World of Warcraft subscription (unrelated to that article there, actually) out of boredom. The grinding finally got as boring as watching shit dry, and raiding is sort of like participating in a group game of monkey-hump-the-football.
Even though I've got the sort of OCD personality that I can get hooked on games like that very very easily, I do seem to hit a threshold where I lose all interest. FOr Diablo 2, it was earning the best item in the game. After that, lost all interest. For WoW, it was the 100 mount achievment, and holy shit, what a miserable grind that was. Same deal as Diablo though; once I hit a sort of personal goal I had set for myself within the game, I was done. Actually, same thing happened to me in Fallout 3 and Battlefield 2... once I capped out my level or unlocked all the weapons, nothing. Lost all interest.
Speaking of games, I know I'm late as hell to the party, but damn, Portal is a fantastic little game. THE CAKE IS A LIE.
And speaking of other games, Battlefield Bad Company 2 is terrible. It's as if the developers set out to suck all the fun out of FPS games. I might be jaded because I'm coming from the ADD/Short attention span Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, style of gaming, but damn, Bad Company Two reminds me way too much of incompetent raids in World of Warcraft.
I seem to be into a "tiny bites" style of gaming now, where I'll just do a half hour or an hour of something like call of duty, and then go draw or do something else that's actually somewhat fulfilling. The thought of anything like a three or four hour raid makes me want to strap a helmet on and charge at hard inanimate objects face first until the thought leaves my brain.
Also, when did Cracked get interesting? I still remember it as a shitty Mad Magazine knockoff; the website actually entertains me. When the hell did that happen???
Now, rambling on to another topic, the little bomber dude up there was a two or three year old pencil sketch I could never get to look right, so I finally sat down during a Livestream session and finished the little bastard up. I think he came out pretty good, and people like him enough that I'll be including him (or critters like him) in Steamvolt.
Also, I used a Netti Pot in an attempt to clear out my residual mucous issues from being sick. It was... odd. Horrible for about two seconds until I realized that my brain just expected it to be horrible. Then it was just weird. Having a deviated septum means that the nostrils behave differently when you're pouring stuff into them, which was frightening and confusing.
The good news is that it seems to have cleared out whatever nasty allergen was stuck up in my sinuses and punching me in the mucous maker over and over again, so I think the discomfort and crying was probably worth it.
Hmm, rereading this post, I can see that it's definitely one of my more disconnected rambling ones. Eh, whatever. Time to go draw when I should be working! :D
