Massively Multiplayer Games For Dummies

Scott Jennings has been playing roleplaying games since 1976, when at the age of ten, during a game that had just come out called Dungeons & Dragons, he lost his first character, a 1st-level wizard, to a demon lord. He's been complaining about poor game balance ever since. More recently, he has been involved in the massively multiplayer gaming world in various capacities. In 1999, he posted tales of his various frustrations and amusements with Ultima Online on a Web site, which he named the Rantings of Lum the Mad after his character. Over the next three years, as the number of people who played MMGs grew, the combination of humor and commentary on Scott's Web site proved popular, both with the players and the creators of these games. Meanwhile, Scott's day job as a database programmer disappeared during the dot-com crash of 2001, luckily right at the time when a new massively multiplayer game, Mythic Entertainment's Dark Age of Camelot, needed a database programmer. It didn't take much convincing for him to move across the country and work on hit dice and monster aggro for a living. Four years and six expansions later, he's still working behind the scenes of Camelot's round table. He can't think of a more fulfilling career than to tinker at the machinery that makes worlds tick.

Foreword. Introduction. Part I: Getting Started with MMGs. Chapter 1: Introducing Massively Multiplayer Games. Chapter 2: Finding Your Perfect World. Chapter 3: Making the Connection. Part II: Your First Few Days: Going from Newbie to Pro. Chapter 4: Your First Day: Embracing Your Inner Newbie. Chapter 5: Your First Week: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions. Chapter 6: Getting Help from Customer Support. Part III: Playing Well with Others: Not Just for Elementary School Anymore. Chapter 7: Solo versus LFG: Why (and How) to Find Other Players. Chapter 8: There Is No "Aieee" in Team: Helping Your Group Survive. Chapter 9: Emily Post Never Wrote about the Undead: MMG Etiquette. Part IV: From Group to Guild: Making Your Mark in the World. Chapter 10: What Is a Guild, and What's in It for Me? Chapter 11: Finding the Right Guild for You. Chapter 12: Guilds in the Long Term: But I Already Have a Family! Part V: Have Fun Storming the Castle: The Endgame. Chapter 13: What the Endgame Means: How Do I Win? Chapter 14: The Buck Starts Here: Being an Online Merchant. Chapter 15: Writing Yourself Into the Story: Roleplaying. Chapter 16: Slaying the Dragon: Raiding. Chapter 17: The Most Dangerous Enemy: Player vs. Player. Part VI: Where to Go from Here. Chapter 18: The Game Outside the Game: Message Boards and Web Sites. Chapter 19: Knowing When to Say When. Part VII: The Part of Tens. Chapter 20: Ten Things I Wish I Knew When I Played My First MMG. Chapter 21: Ten MMG-Related Web Sites. Chapter 22: Ten Proudest Achievements in an MMG (From Selected Players). Appendix: A Glossary of Newspeak: MMG Jargon. Index. What's on the DVD?