ragnaarok refuses to dance

12-6pm 

We had our first legitimate in-game meeting today, or at least it would have been if more people had showed up. Order never even had to go to Thayer because we had enough room for everyone to play in Sudikoff, with Brendan filming until Qianqian left, freeing up the last seat.

After a long time of running around trying to meet up with each other, we finally held our first peace rally on the beaches of Nordland. Surprisingly we got a handful of people to actually listen to us and play along for awhile. Some people did not want to be peaceful, but most of them respected our requests to take their violence elsewhere. The inability to communicate directly  with the other side is frustrating. So is the deficiency of emotes. (Why the hell would they make a dance emote if no one ever wants to dance??) It is pretty obvious that Mythic wants us to play the game the way it was intended to be played, without any alliances, sabotage, or even neutrality among opposing realms. There is little room for alternative gameplay. It seems that this is not necessarily for lack of interest on the part of players though.

After the rally we hit up some scenarios. There is definitely a very different learning curve than there is when fighting against NPCs, but I could tell that I was getting better with every scenario as I figured out the strategy. Playing with other people, especially people sitting next to you is so much more rewarding that playing alone. I felt much better emotionally coming out of the lab today even though I was there longer than I was yesterday. On the other hand, six hours of sitting at a computer with nothing but coffee and sugar to keep me going had me feeling hopped up and jittery and I felt like I'd been shot in the head by that crazy thing that Javier Bardem uses in No Country for Old Men. Worst headache ever. 

It felt surreal to walk outside and see that it was raining and clearly had been for hours. World war III could have started while I was in the game and I would have had no idea. When you really get into the game its like nothing else exists.