Mock. Mockmockmock. Mockity-mock-mock

10:17am: "It's the machine that will eventually eat all of us up eventually."
Maple Story is an MMO that boasts being free-- well, mostly. You can progress just fine level-wise in the game without ever spending a dime, but if you want bells and whistles (such as special clothing, hair, etc.) you can trade real cash for 'NX' points.

A few days ago, a patch was released with a Halloween theme, including a couple new map areas to explore and monsters to kill. One of the areas, a haunted mansion, can only be entered by people wearing costumes purchased with NX points. Although entering this area is not neccessary to complete any goals in the game, the masses were not happy.

( The threads are of course chock full of the kind of mature level-headed discussion you'd expect from gamers. )

There's also a second huge thread about it here that I didn't have time to find choice comments from. A day after the patch was released and uproar began it was revealed that after Halloween you wouldn't need the NX items to enter the mansion, but that didn't really stop the rage any.

8:43pm: Via an anonymous individual at wank_report. And Boing_Boing. And a quarter of my flist. And my obsessive Googling. Thanks, guys.

I think this belongs on f_w because the situation originated in fandom, but if not I can delete or move.

This is, in a nutshell, about screenwriter Josh Olson, his met-on-the-net pal, "Audrey", the woman she met on Deadwood boards who created a hot poet/firefighter out of thin air for "Audrey" to fall in love with, Harlan Ellison hosting an intervention, and singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg, whose middleaged lady fans apparently also had an imposter in their ranks. Also: llamas.

( It's very, very long, so it's all under the cut. )

ETA: "Audrey" has updated her blog with two excellent things:

( Read more... )

More ETA: the comments on the article are good times. This person really disliked A History of Violence:
( Read more... )