Oddly familiar...

To find out what happens in a sleep-deprived brain, Vyazovskiy kept rats up past their bedtime and used small sensors to measure the activity of individual neurons. Many of us know that distracting toys can stop us from sleeping – so it is with rats. Vyazovskiy woke them up bright and early, when they would normally be asleep, and gave them new objects to play with for four hours. The rats stayed awake and the sensors recorded their brain activity as they muddled through.
via blogs.discovermagazine.com

SQUEE! SQUEE! SQUEE!

KoL: The best 'Come back and PLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY' email I've ever read.

Dear splugget,

Okay, I'm not good at this kind of thing, but I feel like I have to give it a try. So, here goes:

I was hanging out the other night, listening to some old mp3s, and I was just overcome with memories of when we used to hang out all the time. Remember? You were an intrepid, fearless adventurer, and I was the free-to-play, fun-and-funny online role-playing game that won your heart. Do you still remember those good
times? I can't stop thinking about them.

I mean, I know things got kind of messed up at the end, and believe me, I'm sorry. If I could take any of that back, I totally would. And I know people grow and change, and you're not the same person you were then, but hey -- I've changed, too! I thought and thought about how to win you back. I figured I'd make you a mix CD, but I couldn't decide what "our song" was. So I just concentrated on becoming a better game for you, and here's what I came up with:

Remember how much fun you used to have with your clan? Alternately, remember how you never joined a clan because you didn't see the point? Either way, clans now have clan dungeons, group zones where your whole clan can work together. Crawl through sewers to Hobopolis, a vast underground vagrant vacation vista! Slide into the slime tube, and stir-fry sassy slimes!

I know I wasn't the prettiest game when we were together, so I had some work done. Almost every interface got an interface-lift. You can even manage most of your inventory via chat commands! I also came up with a way for you to automate some of the things you don't love about the game, so you can spend more time with the parts you do love.

Not only that, but there are way more animated .gifs than there were before. Don't worry; I haven't lost that low-fi edginess you love, but I'm a lot easier to play with now.

You can also have a custom title now, just in case you didn't feel like I appreciated what made you unique as an individual.

I should also say Haiku Dungeon's been revamped. See what I did there?

Maybe you quit because you got sick of always adventuring above the water. I admit that seems unlikely, but I fixed that, too -- there are a bunch of underwater zones with new food, equipment, mechanics, and challenges.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, trust me. I'm still the silly, clever, deceptively-complex game you fell in love with, only with about 95% more awesome.

So, I'm just sayin', if you can find it in your heart to give me another chance, I won't disappoint you.

If you don't drop by, I promise I won't bother you again. I just really felt like we deserved one more try.

Love,

The Kingdom of Loathing.
http://www.kingdomofloathing.com

Wise Goblin Idiot Control Methodology

Earlier the direct effect of criticism was minimal. Practically the M&S only stopped doing his nonsense when he was a true newbie totally oblivious to TB. In every other case I got "lol i do what i wanna" or "whysosrs lol" or "welcome to my /ignore". Of course there was a long-time effect, they usually stopped doing the same nonsense or showing up at all. It's simple sub-conscious method, he "plays for fun" and being criticized is not fun, so he (without being consciously aware of) avoided things that attracted critical comments.

But when I called them out with guild name, I started to get "sorry" or some lame excuse and immediate fixing their behavior. I was totally amazed. Took some time figuring out what's going on

via greedygoblin.blogspot.com

It works!

It really, really works!

Tested in Guild Wars and Forsaken World. It WORKS!

YAAAAAAAY!