I’ve also been doing some Video Game consulting work which has been helping pay the bills, and that has been a tremendously rewarding experience.  For the longest time inside Xbox I would be called upon to basically provide the service of being an analyst or consultant for some aspect of a game for the platform.  And every time I would toil and provide what I thought was concrete applicable advice only to hear from the other side of the table “Well of course you think that, you want our title to be better on Xbox than PS3.” and watch my hard work get dropped on the floor because I was talking to liaison people for a platform and not the people in charge of making the game the best it can be. 

Now that I’m doing consulting, they can still drop my advice.  But I now I get paid for it, and I know that they dropped it for reasons related to resources or having to make cost decisions not solely because the joker across the table in charge of not playing favorites. Especially since now I can provide my expertise to any platform.  It’s very rewarding work.  I can see why a lot of people leave XYZ industry and go into consulting.

But what I really want to do, is direct!

Ok not really what I really want to do is perform! I love being in front of an audience and making them laugh. And alongside this big adventure of leaving the crushing corporate world and trying to do what I want is doing ALL the things. So I have a list for you of my upcoming performances!

For those who are not familiar with what I do performance wise, here’s an example, and another, and another.

Having said that, I’m so happy to announce I’m a special guest for the Exceptionally Ordinary Variety Tour for their Seattle and Portland shows! I’m also going to be performing fun stuff with Molly Lewis in Seattle!  And at Rooster Teeth’s community event in Austin I will also have stuff to say!  And lastly I will be at w00stock 4.0 at SDCC (note I’m not an official performer at w00tstock 4.0 but will be present as alumni and to do something we had a blast doing last year.)  In all cases I will have hard cover and soft cover copies of my first book, A Microsoft Life, for sale and will be signing it. Here’s my schedule!

SEATTLE 6.20:

The Exceptionally Ordinary Tour at The Vera Project

PORTLAND 6.21:

The Exceptionally Ordinary Tour at The Old Church

SEATTLE 6.24:

Molly Lewis and Friends at The Triple Door

AUSTIN: 7.7-7.9:

RTX (Rooster Teeth Xpo)

SAN DIEGO COMIC CON 7.12:

w00tstock 4.0!

I have other performance announcements to make for August and September but for now please come out see me and my friends act silly for you.  I’ll be doing a mixture of old stuff and entirely new stuff, and I would love to see you there.

But at 3:44 AM today, Eastern United States time, so much changed.

Oh, the impact will take time.  All transformative technologies do.  The Internet took 20 years for it to reach the everyday person.  And so does the first private servicing of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Earth Orbit (EO) face the same obstacle.  Except government programs have, sometimes on purpose and most times not, stood in the way of progress in regards to LEO and EO.

Let me say that more clearly: NASA has been primarily holding near Earth exploration back.  It wasn’t intentional, and NASA would not agree with that, as they have set up the liaison to private sector. But the agreements that resulted in tonight’s launch were only very recently reached. And I would argue that their position only evolved as the government funding of shuttle servicing of EO/LEO started to drop off. 

So clearly, I am an anti-NASA fan now in regards to pace.

I know, OMG YOU HERETIC ASSHOLE YOU WANT TO DESTROY MARS ROVERS AND CASSINI.

Calm down.

Seconds ago the first privately engineered rocket and capsule went into orbit to demonstrate its ability to service the International Space Station and future projects in LEO and EO. This follows the first launch of private spacecraft to send humans into LEO just to send them.

There’s a lot that can still go wrong, the capsule won’t reach the ISS for 3 days. But…She’s in orbit.

This is how it begins.  This is so much more important than the last shuttle launch.  It doesn’t feel like history, but it is.  And NASA only agreed to it because it no longer had the shuttle to rely on.

I watched the SpaceX Dragon launch in tears of pride.  It’s now on us, not our massively funded governments who sometimes run risk for little gain.  Mark my words. With this change it all begins. Within 10 years, things like sub earth orbital private transport will replace the utility of something like the Concord as the method of making it from LA to Japan in an hour. Sub orbital flight will move quickly after 2022 from extravagance to novelty to utility. It all requires getting things like the government programs out of the way.

Our romantic relationship with NASA as how people explore space has to end. Other governments will help, other private enterprise in other countries too.

And, it’s time for private enterprise to help, freeing NASA to evolve into Air Traffic Control for LEO and EO and let them concentrate on the next big missions: Return to the Moon, Mars, and exploration of moons like Europa and the Asteroid belt.

I do not say this lightly.  I am a sucker as much as anyone for the Michael Bay slow montage of how we got here.  Mercury, Gemini.  Apollo. Shuttle. And NASA has to all reports been an excellent partner in creating this moment. As much as I feel the past 20 years have been somewhat hindered by NASA’s sole control, they have adapted to the future like scientists.

So SpaceX has taken a step.  Virgin Galactic has already taken a step. And hell, this was just the launch.  Dragon won’t reach the ISS for three days so something can still go wrong. But that’s still progress.

There will be failures.  People may die.  Like all exploration it will be painful.

Godspeed SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. You hold the near future in your hands.  Let’s let NASA hold our far futures in their hands.

Oh and SpaceX?  Dragon is a beauty.  She flew true. What a flight.  What a night. I am so proud.

Battle.net® Account Security & Diablo® III

We’d like to take a moment to address the recent reports that suggested that Battle.net® and Diablo® III may have been compromised. Historically, the release of a new game — such a World of Warcraft® expansion — will result in an increase in reports of individual account compromises, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing now with Diablo III. We know how frustrating it can be to become the victim of account theft, and as always, we’re dedicated to doing everything we can to help our players keep their Battle.net accounts safe — and we appreciate everyone who’s doing their part to help protect their accounts as well. You can read about ways to help keep your account secure, along with some of the internal and external measures we have in place to help us achieve our security goals, at our account security website here: www.battle.net/security.

We also wanted to reassure you that the Battle.net Authenticator and Battle.net Mobile Authenticator (a free app for iPhone and Android devices) continue to be some of the most effective measures we offer to help players protect themselves against account compromises, and we encourage everyone to take advantage of them. In addition, we also recently introduced a new service called Battle.net SMS Protect™, which allows you to use your text-enabled cell phone to unlock a locked Battle.net account, recover your account name, approve a password reset, or remove a lost Authenticator. Optionally, you can set up the Battle.net SMS Protect system to send you a text message whenever important changes occur on your account.

For more information on the Authenticator, visit http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/battle-net-authenticator-faq

For more on the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, visit http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/battle-net-mobile-authenticator-faq

For more on Battle.net SMS Protect, visit http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/battlenet-sms-protect

We also have other measures built into Battle.net to help protect players. Occasionally, when Battle.net detects unusual login activity that differs from your normal behavior — such as logging in from an unfamiliar location — we may prompt you for additional information (such as the answer to one of your security questions) and/or require you to perform a password reset through the Battle.net website. World of Warcraft players might be familiar with this security method already, and Diablo III players may begin to encounter it as well.

As always, if you think you’ve been the victim of an account compromise, head to the "Help! I’ve Been Hacked!" tool at http://us.battle.net/en/security/help for assistance

As far as these things go, it’s well constructed.  It’s long enough to seem transparent, and detailed enough in guidance to result in every single online gaming press to reprint it without question.

But let’s look at it.  Let’s really look at it.

Battle.net® Account Security & Diablo® III

Good title, a tried and true practice of framing the issue clearly without seeming like there’s anything going on.  “Hey!  We just thought we would do a post about account security and Diablo 3!  No reason!” Note also the distinct brand separation of Battle.net from Diablo 3. I would imagine this is intentional. If Battle.net’s brand has to take a hit, most people don’t equate that name with Diablo 3. Yet.

This is the first most important thing you can do in perception manipulation: frame your response at the outset to be making it seem routine and breezy, protect your money making asset and throw the obscure one under the bus. Even the title is critical.

We’d like to take a moment to address the recent reports that suggested that Battle.net® and Diablo® III may have been compromised.

Highlights are mine.

These highlights are not inaccurate.  But they are manipulative.  They seek to first and foremost cast into doubt any accuracy in the reports.  This is typically indicative of an investigation either underway or one that has resulted in facts that make the people crafting this message keenly interested in muddying the waters.

Let’s stop for a moment for me to say this: I have no idea what is going on.  I am not trying to say Blizzard is doing one thing or another.  I am trying to show you how the careful crafting of language (sometimes by lawyers and PR firms) permeates statements in crisis situations.

Look at the words “suggested” and “may have been.”  These statements, from my understanding, go through multiple revisions by committees of people to craft a plausibly disputed description of the response.

Why plausibly disputed?  Well in my well learned opinion, to avoid legal liability. The possible presence of lawyers in the crafting of the message in this case means that legal advice was being dispensed.  So, during a lawsuit discovery phase the crafting of the total statement cannot be shown in court because lawyers were providing legal advice on how their clients should communicate. That’s protected under attorney client privilege.

Already, merely a few words in, the idea of communicating without really giving information is established.  I won’t bore you with the rest of the statement to this level of detail.  Instead I will simply denote what every gaming site on the Internet will gloss over:

Historically, the release of a new game — such [SIC] a World of Warcraft® expansion [/SIC] — will result in an increase in reports of individual account compromises, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing now with Diablo III.

*This happens to everyone, it’s not our fault for not preventing it. Also we wrote this in a hurry and messed up our grammar.

We know how frustrating it can be to become the victim of account theft, and as always, we’re dedicated to doing everything we can to help our players keep their Battle.net accounts safe — and we appreciate everyone who’s doing their part to help protect their accounts as well.

*Subtle hint that if we didn’t clearly communicate the risk or provide enough incentive in using our security features, this is kind of your fault. But we thank those who deciphered the arcane settings instead of playing the game to help lower our instances of fraud.

**Special bonus free protip to companies: Offer unique DLC or bonus upgrades for people who “proof up” their accounts to become verifiable.  This is how you get people to use features that add friction to the log in process.

You can read about ways to help keep your account secure, along with some of the internal and external measures we have in place to help us achieve our security goals, at our account security website here: www.battle.net/security.

We also wanted to reassure you that the Battle.net Authenticator and Battle.net Mobile Authenticator (a free app for iPhone and Android devices) continue to be some of the most effective measures we offer to help players protect themselves against account compromises, and we encourage everyone to take advantage of them. In addition, we also recently introduced a new service called Battle.net SMS Protect™, which allows you to use your text-enabled cell phone to unlock a locked Battle.net account, recover your account name, approve a password reset, or remove a lost Authenticator. Optionally, you can set up the Battle.net SMS Protect system to send you a text message whenever important changes occur on your account.

For more information on the Authenticator, visit http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/battle-net-authenticator-faq

For more on the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, visit http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/battle-net-mobile-authenticator-faq

For more on Battle.net SMS Protect, visit http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/battlenet-sms-protect

This is good guidance.  But it’s buried in the overall defensiveness of the opening.  There’s no real incentive to take these actions for the customer.  My eyes glazed over by the time I read it.  Whoever the potential lawyers and PR people who crafted this, seriously guys: you were so concerned with protecting yourselves you made words words words.  I know you know every gaming site will simply reprint it.  But you are giving guidance here. The guidance part?  That’s the meat.  Not the “Reports” that “Suggest” there “may be” a problem.

We also have other measures built into Battle.net to help protect players. Occasionally, when Battle.net detects unusual login activity that differs from your normal behavior — such as logging in from an unfamiliar location — we may prompt you for additional information (such as the answer to one of your security questions) and/or require you to perform a password reset through the Battle.net website. World of Warcraft players might be familiar with this security method already, and Diablo III players may begin to encounter it as well.

As always, if you think you’ve been the victim of an account compromise, head to the "Help! I’ve Been Hacked!" tool at http://us.battle.net/en/security/help for assistance

Again, good stuff.  Bravo!  But, words words words at the end of a lot of words words words. All of the guidance should have been up front.

All right. So, since I’m Mr. Brilliant Mcsmartypants here, how would I have done it?

Easy. I would have unlocked a unique item in Diablo 3 for anyone who enables the security features and I would have said this:

(PLEASE NOTE NONE OF THE BELOW ARE STATEMENTS ISSUED BY BLIZZARD. THIS IS ME JUST OFFERING ADVICE. DO NOT CONFUSE THIS WITH ANY OFFICIAL STATEMENTS REGARDING DIABLO 3, THIS IS JUST A LESSON IN CUSTOMER RELATIONS AND PR.

SERIOUSLY.)

We’ve heard from our customers that there are issues involving Battle.net account security in Diablo 3.  Before we address those complaints we want to remind all our customers of the following:

Battle.net account security can be increased by using secondary authentication:

For more information on the Authenticator, visit http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/battle-net-authenticator-faq

For more on the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, visit http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/battle-net-mobile-authenticator-faq 

For more on Battle.net SMS Protect, visit http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/battlenet-sms-protect

If you enable these options, your Battle.net is eligible for a unique Diablo 3 [Insert level appropriate reward]

*Cut to the reason to increase your account security up front with helpful guidance.

Secondly, if you think you’ve been the victim of an account compromise, head to the "Help! I’ve Been Hacked!" tool at http://us.battle.net/en/security/help for assistance.

*Next, immediately validate people’s concerns by offering help. The last thing people want to hear are “isolated reports” that “suggest” there “might be” a problem. They want to know where to go if all their items are gone.

Last? address the issue:

We’re concerned about the customer posts and details regarding negative impact to their accounts. We’ve taken the reports seriously and assigned teams to investigate. However that takes time. Please understand we’re not dismissing or shrugging off a situation that might result in the hard work we’ve done to make Diablo 3 such a great title to be undone. We will provide further updates on a 48 hour basis to [THIS LOCATION]

*Then, you take a competent community spokesperson and make that person available 24/7 to press. Issue the statement, but allow it to be challenged and explored by press.

See how many less words?  See how much more the statement assumes the mantle of responsibility without blaming the customer while still noting the investigation is ongoing? Plus, you get a real human to answer questions that challenge the statement.  The human might not be able to truly answer all the questions again due to legitimate concerns about liability, but a journalist can feel that they did their job challenging the issue with a real person instead of having to dissect and speculate about a statement.

This isn’t rocket science.

To see another analysis of blanket statement fail, here’s my breakdown of John Edwards’ admission of his affair.

Work progresses apace on After. I’m becoming really pleased with how it’s turning out.  My next Kickstarter update to my backers will be a first glimpse of the cover design and an explanation of it.

But what I’m learning most as I start to stretch as a writer is the need to roll other projects around as a break.  I feel guilty doing that while being funded by a Kickstarter but the reality is you can only write so much in one place without letting your brain jump to other places. I have two other projects in play and I’ve become smarter in how I develop an idea and involve other awesome creative people to be a part of it, so that it changes in creative and wonderful ways. Then I don’t have to write every word myself having formed a “band” of writers, and later a spouse or a girlfriend will change the entire creative direction for one of us and it will devolve into a level of acrimony that still results in multigenerational reverence.

That’s going to be my next Kickstarter.

Anyways, I wanted to briefly address another topic, and that’s a sort of writing task I’ve been assigning myself where I come up with an idea but force myself to do it in a completely different writing medium than where my head was at when I came up with the way the idea would take form.

Bear with me while I tell you a brief story.

I thought of Europa. I’ve been fascinated with that moon since Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010. I spend a lot of time thinking about that moon.  It holds probably one of the best chances in our solar system for highly developed life.  The core of the moon is twisted constantly by Jupiter’s gravity, which creates friction and heat.  This means that Europa (and we know this to be true now) is harboring a liquid ocean underneath a crust ice.  We certainly don’t know all the particulars (like just how thick the ice is, or what type of ocean (salt water, etc)) but we do know it’s water.  And it’s been there a while. Which usually leads me down the path of what that life would look like or behave like in that environment. What is that life doing right now, so far away.

So I created a whale like species, that has evolved a rudimentary sentience. They exist much closer to the warm molten core of the floor of the ocean.  They breed in litters, and use sonar as their primary sensory and communication mechanism, but they also have primitive sight as well.  The breeding cycle is slightly predatory, in that the females are somewhat larger as to support the litter, the male is strong but somewhat smaller.  After a mating ritual involving song, the male latches himself to the female and they ascend far beyond the warmth of the lower levels, all the way up to near the ice crust where the temperature is much lower but the light is much brighter (from the reflection of Jupiter).  The male inserts his genetic information to fertilize the male, and casts away from her. 

She remains in the cold layer above the natural predator zone of their species in order to give birth. The ascension requires all the energy reserves of the male, only the strongest and youngest ever make it back down, and no male survives a second trip.  The vast majority die after mating once.

And this species, through natural selection, is going extinct. So there are so few of them, males and females swim their whole lives sometimes never finding a mate to make the journey before they die. So I thought of a story about a male nearing the end of his life without finding someone, and then he suddenly does. But he cant stay with her long or court her or really bond with her, he has to mate quickly, knowing that in that act he’ll die.

I know, cheerful right?  Bright, airy, suitable for spring?  So instead of writing a short story about it, which was where I wanted to go with it, I forced myself to do something infinitely more hard.

I turned it into a song.

Well, lyrics.  I mean I have a tune in mind. My musical training is that from age 5 to 16 I played Piano and Violin. I could read sheet music, determine time by ear, tune my Violin without a pitch pipe. I don’t know enough nearing age forty to look back and say I was good or talented, I just know the basic facts of what I could do at the time.

Sadly the actual playing of music and all of that skill drifted out of my life like responsible awesome things are discarded by 16 year olds. So recently when I recorded the audio version of my book A Microsoft Life, I decided to see if I had it in me to create music by writing an original song.

I did, at best, ok.  And it was stunningly difficult.  Not that I thought it would be easy, but more so that at least with some musical training I could rediscover it.  Yeah, no.  Add to the fact I *wanted* it to sound a tad awkward and “podcasty.”  So even when I hit what I thought was objectively good in pitch or tone, I had to re-record to up the awkward.*

In fact were it not for the help of my friend John Drake I’d still be coming up with the music to go with the lyrics. Again, I had a tune, and a meter/rhyme scheme. And I knew how I wanted the song to sound for the joke that it served on the audiobook. But that didn’t mean I had a song.  It meant I had bad high school poetry.

So why not do it again!

I’m presenting the following “song” under the same Creative Commons license for this site.  I know I’m not a music writer so I’m casting this one out to the Internet.  I know enough musical folk that if it’s something they feel is good, someone will adapt it.

Feel free to take this and make your own music to the lyrics you perform, but you can’t sell it or include it on a commercial album or other avenue without my permission under a new license. I know I don’t know music like I would like (hell I’m not sure I know words like I would like) but this was a super challenging exercise and even if you read it and go “wow that’s bad high school poetry” I feel like at least I hit above the bar I set for myself.  So feel free to take this and make it into a song, my only credit is “Lyrics: Stephen Toulouse” if you do it for free.

If you want to know what tune I have in my head for it,  email me and I will consider sending along a sample. Oh also there’s undoubtedly meter and rhyme fuck ups below so if you would prefer to tweak a word or two fine.  That’s a derivative work, you just can’t sell it.

Oh one last thing: I have no idea if this is good or not, I’m not presenting it as a “good song.”  I’m saying I wrote something in a genre not in my wheelhouse. Hrmm I should call that “Bad High School Poetry.”

Europa

In my mind, the red glow lasts forever
and in my dream you’re searching through it too
the lesser one’s don’t know what we’ve forgotten,
I fear that we’re the last ones, me and you.

I was told the sky ends in a ceiling
but without you I’ll never see its light
I know it takes your strength and mine to reach it
my solitary trip through end of night

I need to find you soon
so we can reach,
the ceiling of the sky

It’s been so long since I have heard another
so long ago the chorus of us all
Where did they go, all of our wondrous singers
My voice no longer echoes when I call

Then in the distance I can hear your singing
Relief and love mix in my glad reply
Joined we’ll make anew another choir
And we will touch the ceiling of the sky

We must leave here soon
so we can reach,
the ceiling of the sky

You form out of the dim warm light and hear me.
You ask me if I understand the price.
I’ve spent my life afraid of lonely silence.
Our choir’s voice is worth my sacrifice.

Couldn’t we simply remain together,
The question in your song is what I fear.
We’d only ever hear our lonely voices,
And my life and journey’s end is here.

Now we’re on our way
so we can reach,
the ceiling of the sky

Wrapped together, the journey begins.
my strength and love I add to you.
I know I will not last here
the light and cold grow strong

But the voices we make will be clear…

I can hear them as the light grows near…

And I give you what we all revere…

I hear your cry, as weak, I break away.
The deed is done, you climb still further through
I see it now so bright and cold and lifeless
The ceiling of the sky embraces you.

Fading now I gave my life for children.
The chorus will live on a little while.
If one’s a male I hope he won’t be lonely
Not like me, he’ll sing with grace and style.

I’ll never hear his voice.
And now I die,
by the ceiling of the sky.

There’s nothing much to be done about the fact Seattle simply isn’t a convention city.  By that I mean it’s not New Orleans or Atlanta or Las Vegas which can easily handle conventions of 150,000+ people.

But that isn’t really what PAX is, even though as mentioned in Mike’s post 200,000 people want to attend something that only 60,000 people can fit into.  As Robert Khoo said during our “Khoo and A” during PAX East when I asked him about PAX expansion: something like PAX doesn’t really scale well past a certain size under 100,000 people.

That makes sense because PAX is such an organic event.  I know that’s technically a goofy use of the word organic, but what I mean is that Penny Arcade simply provides the space and the enforcer infrastructure.  Everything else grows out of the people who show up.  It’s hard to say what makes PAX such an amazing event to attend except to say it’s never the same thing twice.

Every single time I present at PAX I’m scared shitless.  Every time I stand up in front of that crowd I think to myself “These people are spending their hard earned and short lived PAX time at something *I’m* presenting.” It has to be A game.  Period.  Anything less and I would be upset at having wasted a single precious second of people’s time at PAX.

I love walking through a stodgy hotel like the Grand Hyatt in downtown Seattle and finding that tabletop gamers have taken over every available space in the lobby, to the staff’s dismay.  I love someone discovering the classic game arcade room for the first time. I love the keynotes that embrace and empower the audience. I love those moments during the concerts at night when someone says or sings the thing that makes thousands of people feel like they are talking specifically to them.

PAX is really the convention by gamers for gamers, unlike e3 which is by the industry for the industry. (Sure, there are cons like QuakeCon or BlizzCon.  But those are centered around specific titles.  As a PAX attendee you can be a PC gamer, tabletop gamer, PS3 gamer, etc and have the same level of experience.)

I made a comment on Twitter to Mike to the effect that it wasn’t really his fault PAX sold out, and yet he replied that actually it felt like yeah it was sort of his fault.  And he’s not totally wrong.

But this is a good problem to have. 

Too many nerds want to hang out with fellow nerds at a place that exists to serve nerd-dom.  There’s probably some “online streaming” bandaids or “adding an extra day” bandaids to be done.  For now, it’s probably at least some cold comfort that something so awesome not only exists, but exists at a level of demand that cannot be satiated.

Wait.

Isn’t this the type of thing we dreamed of for revenge when the jocks and popular people shunned us in school?  :>

I don’t know what that word means.  I think it means they couldn’t afford the letters for both Video and Epiphanies to do “Video Epiphanies” then, once they could afford the letters for a shortened version, put the wrong part first.  I would have gone with, if I had to, “Vidphanies".

Wait, I’ve just been informed their Twitter handle had nothing to do with affording the “s” and everything to do with @extracredits the Twitter handle being squatted by someone with the unlikely name of “Lindsay Lohan.”  pfft.  Like anyone would be named something so silly.

Still, that doesn’t explain why someone would call something “epipheo’s.”

I’ve now written epiphany or a variation of it enough times in this blog post to have that thing happen where it no longer sounds like a word.  But I digress.

Extra Creditz [sic] this week had an episode** where they covered online harassment. Specifically Xbox LIVE was called out, and viewers were encouraged to provide feedback to Microsoft to provide the tools to “stop harassment.”

Before we discuss, please to be viewing the videpiphaneo. (I’d embed it, but PATV doesn’t seem to allow that)

Ok now that you’re back, although my setup has been jokey snarky, the topic and the video are very real and very serious. I’m really glad that they made this video. There are several messages in the video that I feel need to be called out:

Gamers as a group are the people who tend to accept the people most commonly ostracized.

Anonymity breeds douchebags.

Douchebags who misbehave online just want attention and don’t represent gamers as a group.

The tools people have to deal with harassment are woefully inadequate (on Xbox LIVE, but one must assume other places as well)

This, as they say in the slang development bureau at Oxford, is right in my wheelhouse.

The problem isn’t solely Xbox LIVE.  Yes, I know, the problem is most commonly associated with Xbox LIVE.  And yes, I agree that objectively evaluated, the Xbox LIVE complaint system and tools for the customer have not been altered at all since 2005 despite the changes in functionality in the service. Note that in that statement I’m setting aside parental controls, because the problem of harassment online at it’s core isn’t the problem of child accounts or parent restrictions. It’s the fact any 10 year old or miscreant can quickly and easily create an adult Xbox LIVE Gold account in seconds, and a normal adult account can’t really prevent interaction with that account.

And with that, the problem of online harassment is actually the problem of adult customers, especially those who love the platform and the games and play online a lot. 

Believe it or not it’s a problem of the Internet, not just Xbox LIVE.  Certainly (again objectively speaking) it’s clear Xbox LIVE lags way behind in helping people self select their matchmaking pool, truly and fully block bad users, and orienting matchmaking on a reputation based system to increase positive experiences like some systems do.

But the root problem is one of anonymity and the allowance of anonymity on the system to wreak havoc. This is a problem on Xbox LIVE specifically by the lack of any form of delineation from a completely anonymous Gold account made with completely fake information, and an account where all of the information might be completely accurate. Again however it’s not unique to that system, merely that it’s commonly used to tarnish the reputation of the platform.

The video makes a lot of suggestions.  Most of the automated ones that are suggested are problematic although they sound like simple to implement common sense. 

Without violating my confidentiality agreement, let’s just say when you decide to say “User n muted x number of times results in action z” then very quickly online hacker forums will spring up whereby someone says “hey everyone add user n as a friend then mute them because they kicked my ass in Halo”.  Don’t believe me?  To this day the rumor exists that if you complain enough times against a non-offensive gamertag that it’s offensive you get a free gamertag change.  Or if you complain enough against the motto for a permabanned account on Xbox LIVE, the system will override the permaban with a temp ban and eventually unban the account.

Neither has ever been the case when I was in charge of enforcement.  Ever. 

But get just one person saying it works and BAM, even against actions that don’t even work my old team had to deal with the volume of false complaints by people who will do anything low friction in order to mess with the system.

We even presented all of the above facts at PAX and other places and the problems continued. There’s tons of forums where people say “Complain against n because they beat me” or “Do x so that z happens” even if it’s not true ever, people will try it. At any given time a significant labor amount on enforcement is spent making sure automated processes aren’t being misused.

So, pretty much every automated suggestion the video makes has been examined, and proven to be problematic.  The douchebags don’t just talk their game, they game the game, from Xbox LIVE to Steam.

It’s true the system could be developed to take that into account.  That’s a great point of feedback that should be passed on to various online systems, not just Xbox LIVE.  It’s important to communicate to those systems that you don’t want new avatar hats, you want these safety features.  This is important when features are being cut during the inevitable cut time during the process of shipping software.

I have certainly in my time in online systems provided my opinion on these matters.  But it seems to me the best results are probably driven by abandoning participation in them from a financial standpoint if you want to truly drive change.  In the end, the community that cannot encourage participation because the members of that community do not feel safe is the community that cannot help continue a financial reason for being. You truly have to vote with your dollars.  Your community will never become safer if you spend all your money there despite the abuse.  Resources will always be diverted to getting you to spend more money over anything else unless there is a real risk you will simply leave.  It’s the nature of business.

Beyond that fact, let’s move onto the tools people can use to help limit their exposure to the bad guys.  There’s always going to be the John Gabriel Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.  How can online communities stop this?

One way is simple, provide a striation between anonymous users and those willing to trade a small amount of identity for greater security. (Note to the libertarians ready with their founding father quotes: not liberty, identity.)

By this I mean those that provide Google voice phone numbers and fake credit cards are relegated to only being matched with others of like unverifiable fake info.  You want to be unknown?  No problem.  You are cast with the other unknowns.

Those people who can prove their identity at least at some level would then only be matched with others of a same level of verification.  Somewhat like “verified” PayPal users.  Or go the route of saying: if so many individuals who are “identified” in the system have a verified opinion of those who are jerks (verified meaning investigated by an enforcement team) then they are only match made or can interact with individuals at their level of reputation or below. In essence, those who are judged by those verified customers to be jerks will only be matched or allowed to interact with those otherwise verified to be jerks.

Gaming the system is prevented by setting the bar to be “verified”. Why bother “verifying” people if there isn’t a method to make a concrete punishment for faking things.  If my verified account ties to my actual bank or driver’s license number, there is a concrete reason for me not to participate in automated circumvention schemes. Herein the user has the choice: total anonymity at reduced level of privilege, or more accountability and a higher level of privilege in the system.

To me, this is the minimum an online interaction system should provide at this point.  The days of “just provide a 5×5 code and we let you fake name, address and everything else while still allowing you the same privilege as someone paying with verifiable information via PCI” are long gone.

Yet for many online systems, they are still here today. That’s stupid.

Lastly:  provide verified users who have that level of accountability in the online system the ability to truly (from an interaction perspective) block players, block players friends, and report all of the above with evidence to a team that reviews it. Sorry, if you are unverified, you cannot reach the top of the Call of Duty leaderboards. If you are unverified, your opinion of online interaction weighs less. This isn’t “pay to be ranked” it’s “verify” to be trusted to be ranked.

So. Why isn’t the feature set laid out above present today?

It’s a fair question not just for Xbox LIVE customers but also for any online service. Sure, the response might be the wonderful progression in child safety settings on any given platform, but that’s not the issue. Everyone’s made progress on child safety issues. But the adult account gamer today on Xbox LIVE and other services has only the same limited options the adult gamer of 2005 had. 

Surely the online environment, as evidenced by FatUglyorSlutty.com or the Extra Credits video, helps prove there’s an ongoing systemic problem that, while not unique to the Xbox LIVE platform, is at least exacerbated by whatever the platform interaction is implemented on?

The Extra Credits video links to an online form asking Xbox LIVE support for help. I sincerely hope that method has more impact than I did in my previous position.

I still feel strongly there is a simple solution to at least the problems facing most online interactions:

Provide easy to use, concrete tools for users to avoid or limit negative experiences.

Provide punishments to encourage users to obey Wheaton’s law.

Provide incentives for people to engage with each other in a positive manner and “be excellent to each other”

Ah but hey, I’m just a writer now.  What do I know. 

To the crew at Extra Credits, thanks for prompting the discussion.

*The phrase “Webisode” makes my heart hurt.  Because it’s not a word right now but in five years if it’s not a part of your elevator pitch (“it’s a series of webisodes about how if Deckard from Blade Runner was *not* a replicant”) than you won’t get off the ground.

** See above except “episode” becomes like “mimeograph.”  look it up kids.

You see, I was introduced to the world J.R.R. Tolkien created at an early age. I’ll pause here to let my more jaded geek friends sniff disapprovingly at my failure to put away childish things.  But much like the reaction people have today to viewing Citizen Kane (namely “what’s the big deal”) reading the Lord of the Rings after the movies doesn’t really convey the fact Tolkien practically cast the mold for the fantasy genre.  It was like a writer had taken all of the things I loved about Dungeons and Dragons and created archetypes not just of the classes and characters, but of what a fantasy plot should be. Like Citizen Kane is responsible for so much of what modern film has become, so too in my mind Tolkien’s work was so rich and realized as to be the fantasy work every fantasy work tried to be. I devoured The Silmarillion (which is like reading the entire bible, except more slowly paced), the Book of Lost Tales, and even the really obscure works like the “J.R.R. Tolkien guide to writing lyrics about bathing and the summer barley harvest”. I couldn’t believe someone had defined a world and history so thoroughly.

Oh, given my Dungeons and Dragon’s love I tried to read other fantasy.  But every story had Elves (but these aren’t Tolkien’s elves!) and Dwarves (but these are different than Tolkien’s) and magic rings (but totally different than Tolkien’s!) and there came a point where after around age 20 or so I stopped reading new fantasy and started just re-reading Lord of the Rings every couple of years.

To me, fantasy had been done to the best it was going to be done. The only Fantasy I read in the past few decades was Harry Potter, and I still compared it to Tolkien at every turn.*

Now, granted forming an opinion like that is about as well founded as the religion of Cheeto Christ of Latter Day Saints. It’s not like Neuromancer or the Foundation novels or Ringworld stopped me from consuming copious amounts of bad sci-fi on my way to the good stuff.  Fantasy writing however seemed to have a lot of the same tropes, and I just couldn’t be bothered to find the stories that didn’t. It isn’t so much that the fantasy genre sucks, I think it’s more that I formed the opinion that the genre was living in the shadow of a magnum opus to which all would be compared.

So I considered the fantasy genre somewhat sucky and dead to me.

Until I stumbled across a simple word: Hodor.

Paul (of Paul and Storm) was wearing a shirt with the word on it at the Seattle w00tstock I performed at.

I have no idea why in the above photo Storm looks like a 19 year old version of himself and Paul looks like a young George R. R. Martin.

Anyways, I asked Paul what the word meant and he explained it was from a fantasy series called A Song of Ice and Fire.  I told him my opinion of fantasy and he informed me I was stupid.  This was also about the time the buzz on Game of Thrones** was hitting a fever pitch because of the HBO adaptation.  Paul suggested that he would be highly surprised if I read it and didn’t like it.  A couple weeks later I picked up a copy on my kindle app for iPad.

Over the next eight weeks I had my misconceptions about the fantasy genre completely rebooted as I devoured every book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. For the first time in 20 years I had rediscovered a fiction genre. Not long after I finished the Song of Ice and Fire series to date, I started Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy.  Much like George R. R. Martin had taken the Tolkien out of his fantasy series with the lack of magic, adept application of incestuous sex and long term breastfeeding, so had Sanderson with his concept of Allomancy. The Mistborn Trilogy was just as fun to read and as interesting to me.

So I told you all that story so I could tell you this one.

Recently on Twitter I asked for people to recommend their favorite fantasy series so that I could continue rediscovering the genre.  The response was overwhelming and people asked me if I wouldn’t mind blogging the results so as to share which ones I chose to pursue. Here’s the reading list in order I narrowed things down too, note I have not read them yet:

1. Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles

Young George R. R. Martin (Paul) recommended this straight out of the gate, along with many of my followers.  Reading Mr. Rothfuss’s blog leads me to believe he’s just the kind of author I like, meaning the only thing I would rather do than read his books is buy him a beer.  Especially for his goodreads review of Alloy of Law, a side novel from the Mistborn universe. I can’t wait to start this series, it came so highly recommended.

2. The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

I got this one quite a bit too.  Apparently it’s one of those universes that managed to outlive its author since Robert Jordan died before its completion. This one intrigues me because amongst Fantasy aficionados there’s tons of debate about the merits of individual chapters of the story but almost no disagreement that it’s a worthy investment. I normally abhor universes that continue past their author’s death by other writers.  But I make two exceptions: situations where the author opened up the universe prior to their death for other authors, or situations where the author authorized expansion after their death and left specific guidance.  The latter appears to have happened here and since the author is Brandon Sanderson I’m kool moe dee with that.

3. The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson

The tell tale warning of this series was simply how much content has been written by the author in a mere 4 years (8 books) but then I came around to my chief complaint about George “Trenchers of Bread” R. R. Martin writing too slow and decided I was, in the words of Young George R. R. Martin “Stupid.” This series combines several elements that intrigue me: a military-esque mindset describing conflict, political intrigue, and a well defined universe.

So those were the top three although there were many more I plan to explore.

For now at least, there’s a genre I can rediscover and luckily most of the stuff is written so I don’t have to wait for the next chapter.

*I’m looking at YOU, George R. R. Martin*.

Side note:

Books that I love that somewhat fit the borderline of fantasy:

A Canticle for Leibowitz

The Dark Tower (books 1-5)***

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

*Joseph Scrimshaw nails the very essence of the pollution of Tolkien with a Harry Potter joke with Young George R. R. Martin and Storm.

**Look let’s get something fucking straight.  Game of Thrones is a book in the series Song of Ice and Fire. I hate that HBO is marketing the entire thing under “Game of Thrones" because people get confused when looking for the follow-on books.  It’s like the opposite of the Jethro Tull problem, where Jethro Tull *is* the band but people think it’s the lead singer.

***SPOILER Stephen King wrote himself into The Dark Tower series in books 6 and 7.  It’s the worst most idiotic author hubris I have seen since George Lucas wrote his fever dream fantasy about a space Stepin Fetchit being the key reason the Galactic Empire was formed.

Friday Night/Saturday Morning at Midnight in the Manticore Theatre: The Business of Penny Arcade

I will be interviewing/moderating a session with Robert Khoo, President of Operations and Business Development for Penny Arcade.  This session will be about 65% interview format and 35% open Q&A from the audience.  Join myself and Robert to discuss the unique challenges of operating such a diverse and popular organization.  Also there might be some shenanigans.

Saturday night at 6pm in the Manticore Theatre: Major Nelson Podcast!

I’m back!  For a special live engagement I’m taking my old seat as co-host alongside Larry, e, and Laura for Major Nelson Radio.  We’re going to talk about PAX, what we’re playing recently, geek stuff, and Felicia Day will help me up the Red Head quotient of the show to say hi too.

Sunday Morning, 11:30am in the Arachnid Theatre: The Harmonix Podcast LIVE!

I’m going to drop in on my good friends at Harmonix for their live podcast.  Other interesting people are going to be there too so it’s critically important that you keep it a secret.  Because not only will it be like a totally exclusive thing that only you know about, I just realized I used the word only too close to another use of the word only and now the whole sentence is awkward.  Come see the podcast.  It will be totally only.

If there are any updates to my schedule I will post them here, but more importantly, if you (YES YOU) have questions you would like me to ask Robert Khoo please post them in the comments.

YAY PAX EAST!

I’m really happy I was able to make this happen as I’ve attended every PAX on both coasts since 2007 and was really bummed I might miss it this year.  I’m trying to figure out if there’s something creative I can do before hand to have on hand at the event both for backers of my Kickstarter and anyone else.

More details soon.

When I began the Kickstarter experiment, it was with the intention of giving me a financial reason to work on one project over another.  The base idea was that I had two or three projects going, and the work on two of them was more tedious but much farther along.  The fun project was my first fiction and I’ve been noodling on it for a while.  So when I decided to do a Kickstarter for it I set the financial goal at whatever it would take for me to get the project to publishable format (editing, cover design, e-pub conversion, etc)  What I did not expect was to have it overfund by 530%.

So what happens now?  Well thanks to your generosity, I can now afford to essentially work on this full time for the next two weeks.  I’ve waffled between whether that means the project gets done earlier, or simply gets a bit bigger.  My original word target was around 50,000 words.  I’ve decided to expand that somewhat.  Not by a lot but what the money allows me to do, over the amount I asked for, is buy food, etc while I turn down other opportunities and just work on this.

That’s an incredible event.  I don’t just mean for me, I mean in general.  Much like the days before content creation was beholden to monolithic gatekeepers, artists can now find “Patrons” to support their work easily and cheaply. Of course, there’s always the risk that what I turn out might *suck* but I’m going to try and err on the side that it won’t.

The project is on track to complete around the end of May, give or take some time for editing which is actually out of my control.  I’ll soon be sending along the “teaser” text of about 3,000 words in email to everyone who donated. As the story progresses, if those who donated would be interested in progress reports or story snippets let me know via the message or comment feature on Kickstarter and I will keep the updates coming.