Digital Plagues

            May years ago, there was a plague released into the game of World of Warcraft as part of an event. It wasn’t supposed to last very long, but there was a flaw in the code that allowed characters’ pets to carry it out of the region it was supposed to be contained to – and to spread it to others. Before long, there was an epidemic – low level characters couldn’t withstand the disease, while higher level ones were practically immune. It was out of control before the developers could do anything about it.

            The community rallied into different groups – with most of them working to fight the plague. Stronger players helped the weak to safety. Then, of course, there were others working to actively spread the plague, for reasons of their own.

            When the Center for Disease Control heard about this, they were intrigued – because the various reactions of the people playing the game matched what happens during an outbreak. I don’t know the whole story, but I believe they were able to make great use of the data gathered in the game during that time.

            It’s interesting to reflect back on that, though I have – shockingly – never played WoW, as I’m currently helping fight a somewhat more intentional virtual plague that was released upon the community of the Chronicles of Elyria. We’re seeing the same sort of things happening – some people fighting for the plague, while the majority are fighting against it. In the middle, there are some people who just want a shot at the free copy of the game they can possibly earn through participating in this event.

            While some people find the comparisons surprising, I’ve come to expect it. Whenever you get enough people in one place, they form a microcosm, reflecting reality in almost every way. What people forget is that people are people, and if you hand people a situation, you’ll always find someone in the group whose opinion differs from the others.

            Massively multiplayer games have been around for a long time, and they’re very popular within certain circles. I know human experimentation is wrong, but really... look at how perfect these test groups are for exploring how people react in different circumstances. It’s a perfect medium for delving deeper into the human psyche...

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Reflective Debates

            This week I had the fascinating experience of participating in a political debate. Not real for real politics, of course, although real enough to merit the attention of myself and others. However, like most things that aren’t real, it granted very accurate insight into the function of real politics – and I came out not only with a greater respect for politicians, but with a much greater understanding of why it takes them so long to get anything done.

            The topic for debate was around the development of policies for the group I joined that is eagerly awaiting the release of the Chronicles of Elyria. In essence, a decision needed to be made on how to deal with people who choose to settle on our land, but choose not to officially join the larger group. It may not seem like such a hard decision to make, but there are a lot of nuances surrounding it.

            For a bit more frame of reference, in Elyria (which is a MMORPG), the governmental system (including laws and taxes) is controlled by players. So a lot of things have to be considered – such as military strategy, infrastructure, and resource management (as resources are finite and can be exhausted). So the question was, if someone takes control of some land and pays their taxes and follows the laws of the larger governing body, but doesn’t engage in the co-operative initiatives of the larger group, how should they be handled?

            This topic had been getting discussed by the policy-makers, and when it came down to being time for making the policy, they put out a call for anyone interested in helping to write it. I suggested an open forum for the discussion, and was surprised when it actually happened – and resulted in a five hour long conversation.

            I won’t bore you with the details, but it boiled down to two polar ideals, with everyone involved somewhere on a spectrum between the two. At one end were the people who believed that the settlements should be left alone so long as they didn’t prove hostile or cause problems by being unwilling to trade resources, and at the other end were the people who believed such settlements as refuse to join the bigger group should be immediately and forcefully eliminated.

            The result, in the end, is still yet to be determined – but we provided some new ideas for the policy writers, and showed them that the will of the people had the same spectrum of opinions as the governing body – which was determined to be a good thing, as it meant the views of the people were accurately represented.

            For my part, it was mostly an enjoyable experience, working with the more open-minded people to find a middle ground. There was also some frustration with the less open-minded people who, rather than discussing, stated their opinion repeatedly and wouldn’t sway from their viewpoint in the least.

            Coming out of it, my overall thought was, “Well... so this is why governments in the real world take so long to accomplish anything.” Suddenly I have more respect for what politicians deal with.

            And, once again, we see how well fiction reflects reality. Many people may declaim that “it’s just a game”, but what we’re seeing is a microcosm that reflects our own world. I can’t wait for this game to launch so I can see where this goes.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

The Chronicles of Elyria

            This week I happened upon something that I found so exciting that it’s captured all my attention and it is scooping up all of my free time. Naturally, that means you get to hear about it now. It’s called... The Chronicles of Elyria.

            The Chronicles of Elyria is a new Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game that won’t even come out until next yet – and here I am, waiting for it as I haven’t waited since the days of waiting for the new Harry Potter books to come out. And I’m not the only one! There’s a huge community waiting out there, some of whom have been desperately waiting for this game since 2016 or earlier. That’s how awesome this game is!

            So, let me tell you a bit about the Chronicles of Elyria. To start off with, I suppose I should tell you how I found it. It was through an online add I saw for the game. Normally I ignore adds, but this one caught my attention – informing me that this was a game where creatures could be hunted to extinction. This was such an intriguing notion that I clicked – and was dragged down the rabbit hole.

            Now, for those of you who don’t know about MMORPGs, basically they are video games with large worlds where you can interact and play with other people. However, aside from that, they’re an awful lot like any other video game – there are real people around, but you don’t have to interact with them. Everything you need is still provided by the Non-Player Characters, and you have a set of quests that you do – and if you get stuck, you just have to look up a guide to figure out how to get unstuck.

            With CoE, everything is different. For starters, you don’t get sent on quests by NPCs waiting around to send you on a mission – when you create you character, an A.I. generates a storyline unique to your character that will appear randomly in the game, with larger events only occurring if you do something in the game that triggers them – such as stealing for the first time, or travelling to a specific town. Rather than chasing around after stories, your story follows you.

            And that’s not all! The kingdoms and towns in the game are primarily run by the players – that’s right, you can climb through the ranks and become a king, bringing whole new levels to the game – shifting from being and adventuring game to a resource management game if you so choose. This, coupled with the resources in the world being finite (they’re usually unlimited), including species being able to go extinct, makes for an incredibly in-depth survival game.

            But, wait, there’s more. Apart from all the wondrous gameplay elements that are too numerous to mention, one incredible aspect of the game is that your character actually ages and dies. That’s right – not only are the resources finite, but so is your time. A character lives for roughly one real-world year, then dies – but their soul lives on. You can then create another character, who inherits skills through the soul, and who might even be part of your own family (yes, you can have families and kids).

            And, the final and most interesting element is that, to maintain the continuity of the game – keeping everyone aging at the same rate and whatnot – when you log out of the game, the A.I. takes over your character and it keeps playing! You leave instructions, and your character continues on in your absence – perhaps saving you tons of time training skills, or performing other tasks.

            There is so much more to tell about this game, but those – at least for me – are the key highlights. The community waiting for the launch is also wonderful, friendly, and welcoming – at least, the one I joined up with is. I was welcomed so warmly when I joined that even I – antisocial though I am – am actually interacting with them. I’ve even contributed to the Lore they are creating – which, it is worth noting, the awesome game developers are incorporating into the game.

            So, if any of that interests you, go check out the Chronicles of Elyria! If you poke around and decide to join the community, I strongly encourage you to consider the Duchy known as the Conclave of Aritaur located in the Kingdom of Vornair on the NA-East server. If I see you mentioning that I sent you, I may even be able to get you welcomed into the county I joined.

            And if you know me in person, I strongly encourage you to send me a message if you plan to sign up on the Chronicles of Elyria website; I can give you my friend code, which will not only earn me points, but it will tell the game we’re friends so it can try to place us relatively close together in the game world – otherwise we might have literal hours to walk if we want to play together. If we can even find each other.

            That’s it. Now, go! Become madly obsessed with Elyria that you might share in my torment as we await its release date!

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Internet Anonymity

            Recently, Canada instated a new law to help prevent internet piracy. This law allows copyright holders to request internet companies to issue warnings to people who have illegally downloaded content. For example, if you were to download a song from your favourite band, the band could have your internet service provider inform you that continuing to download more of their songs could lead to a law suit. Your identity and personal information would remain confidential, but could be made available if legal action is taken (a nice balance between respecting privacy and enforcing copyright laws).

            This got me thinking, as you may have guessed, about the anonymity of people on the internet. In and of itself, the internet has become almost a whole world of its own. People on the internet can be whoever they claim to be and do what they like with few (or no) consequences. This anonymity has many benefits, particularly relating to privacy, but it also has the negative flip side – bullying, scams, viruses, piracy and various illegal activities.

            So, I'm wondering... what would happen if the anonymity of the internet was taken away?

            I'm not saying that I think this should happen, or even that it could – it would require the agreement of the entire world and we all know how likely that is to happen – I'm merely wanting to explore it as a theoretical exercise.

            If every time someone logged into the internet, wherever they went, their real names and faces would be registered. If, every time they interacted with people online, it was with their real names and faces. Would people behave differently?

            Personally, I think they would. The risk of going to illegal download sites or other sites they don’t want people to know they've been on would be greater – and if that is enough incentive to stop them from going, maybe they shouldn't be going there in the first place. People who bully online would no longer be hiding behind false personas. The risk of being banned from a site or online game would be greater if they were getting banned, rather than just the account that they could make a new one of.

Simply by removing anonymity, the internet could become a much friendlier place.

            Of course, there’s always a flip side. The first thing that comes to mind are predators, although they could be tracked by their true identity online as easily as their prey. So, the real problem would become the new generation of hackers specialising in using other peoples’ identities online – possibly an increase in the ease of identity theft. Would it be possible to police such activities? In a world where anonymity on the internet was abolished, would our society have evolved to a point where nothing can be gained from identity theft?

            It’s an interesting thought, really, especially with recent generations who've gotten used to their anonymity online. It really isn't as big a step as we think. Internet service providers already track the websites we go to (even though the information is kept confidential) and there is so much information on the internet that even the basic internet security that we teach isn't always enough.

            As a perfect example, I’ll tell you a story of my own youth. I spent much of my early teens playing massively multi-player online role playing games – particularly one called Runescape. My awareness of internet security was impeccable – bordering on the paranoid. I never gave out my name and the closest I’d come to telling someone where I lived was my province or country. I gave out very few personal details, even to the closest of my online friends.

            One my friends on Runscape was a Dutch woman name Paula who was around the same age as my parents and had kids my age. We became so close that we started referring to her as my Dutch Mom. Still, I didn't give her much information on myself, so you can imagine my surprise when I received a birthday card in the mail from her on my 16^th birthday.

            I’m fairly certain I’d only given her the month of my birthday. As to how she found my address... that came from small, unimportant pieces of information I let drop in casual conversation. She knew my country and province, my first name, a famous hockey player who was born in my city, and that my parents owned (at the time) a driving school (of which there were several in town). With that small amount of information, she’d was able to find me – and that was ten years ago when there was far less information available on the internet.

            So, as I said, we’re already not as anonymous as we think. The question is, would the internet become better/safer or worse with the removal of anonymity? What do you think?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.