A brief Grumpy bio and introduction is in the sidebar along with a Table of Contents. Even those readers that never played Sony’s Star Wars: Galaxies will enjoy his posts as many of his misadventures, rants and editorials apply universally to all Massive Multiplayer Online Games.

The collection is also a telling record of the rise and fall of a major online game.

Want to read them all? Start here and page through the tales by clicking the navigation links.

…Grumpy opens his first shop, a little shed really, and hires his first vendor, a HUGE vendor box. To his dismay, he discovers that the SWG Vendor Union is even more powerful than the Teamsters, and has to pay thousands of credits EACH hour to operate the Huge Vendor Box. Grumpy’s first marketing plan, rather rudimentary in hindsight, involves /shouting to the blue dots he sees on radar to get their asses inside the store and buy something for crissakes, the maintenance is killing him! Needless to say, there was quite a bit of drinking involved that night and not a lot of sales.

…Grumpy is sent on an errand to find Fish for sale so that his gf/business partner can build one of those aquariums she had heard so much about. Returning empty-handed, he announces his intention to get the d*mn fish himself and, thus, A Fishing God was born. In fact, Grumpy starts to spend so much time fishing, mostly hiding from his SWG responsibilites, his gf suspects him of having a RP affair with a Twilek dancer. Grumpy explains A. he’d rather clone than roleplay, B. fishing was HER idea, and C. unless the twilek eats chum bait and likes being fileted, he wouldn’t be interested anyways.

…Grumpy gets some angry tells from a whack job at the starport, telling him to stop spamming her. Grumpy, having just logged on, scrolls up in his chat log to see if maybe he was leaning on his /shout hotkey for the store waypoints. He hadn’t, and replies that she must be mistaken on who was spamming. She insists she was not and that Grumpy should stop sending her tells to sell somethingorother. Grumpy tries one more time to explain that he had just checked his log and is innocent. The whack job really lets Grumpy have it then, thereby ensuring herself a spot on Grumpy’s addignore list. Grumpy runs into WhackJob981 a few weeks later, overt and getting a musician buff in the cantina. Grumpy really lets her have it then. The beat down, that is.

…Grumpy heads to Bestine to kick some tail, tangles with one red Pistoleer that is backed up by *gasp* three blue dots and one very blue and neutral Master Rezzer. Grumpy rather bluntly tells the group to stop fighting like, and he quotes, “cowardly pr***s”. One of the blue dots threatens to report Grumpy (oh no), so Grumpy saves them the trouble by reporting himself, making sure that he includes the “cowardly pr***s” and the “f*ck off” and adds that Grumpy is neither repentent nor ashamed about the incident. He was curious if he would ever hear back on that. (Nope, never.)

Grumpy will be in and out of SWG for a while longer: wrap-up work, a new fishing puddle he had found on the sunny side of Moenia JUST BEFORE THEY BROKE FISHING, maybe a few more PvP romps … or should he say, PvP time spent running like h*ll from god-mode Master Riflemen?

For the most part, Grumpy enjoyed his time here. Lately, Grumpy sees far too much apathy and far too little competence for his tastes, but he understands that others might like that sort of thing from their MMORPG. He’ll try The Next Big Thing, of course — would be unAmerican not to sample everything available … to excess.

Until then, Grumpy is in syndication exclusively on the Eclipse message boards. (Ed. note: not so exclusively now.)

Werd up dawgs, yo

The Grumpy Master Architect ©

Sometimes Grumpy’s SWG marketing genious scares even himself.

While Grumpy would like to lie and tell you that he was involved in some glamorous contract negotiations, the truth is rather benign — he has been busy with RL work obligations and new work opportunities (Read: more work, not much more pay). And Grumpy has decided recently that he won’t be spending even one more minute waiting for his vendors to wake up and initialize.

After due consideration, Grumpy also realized he should probably post and explain so his legions of fans (all two of them) wouldn’t continue to check the boards, hopeful for another tale of An Unfortunate Cloning Incident. Grumpy read back through some of his posts and has concluded that it’s a pretty good body of work — some are killer, some fall flat and a bit short of the mark, most are at least mildly amusing.

Not bad for commercial-free entertainment.

And now, *cue soundtrack — depending on your opinion as of late re: SWG, Grumpy would suggest either Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” or Metallica’s “Saint Anger”*, one final look at The Master Architect’s Tales and the SWG life of Grumpy.

…Grumpy starts off his SWG career in Moenia, unable to arrive in more hospitable environments like Kaadra, Coronet, or even Bestine. After a few hours of not being able to see his hand in front of his ImageDesign-free face, Grumpy scrapes together enough credits to shuttle over to Kaadra until a roving group of red and angry Maulers promptly send him … back to Moenia.

…After mining for days with tiny wind generators to power the tiny mineral harvesters to harvest tiny quantities of ore and metal to save up into HUGE quantities to grind through architect, Grumpy, FOR SOME REASON THAT HE CANNOT UNDERSTAND EVEN TODAY, destroys the waypoints to some of his harvesters and has to run around for a few days trying to find them. (And kids, grinding a profession in the old days wasn’t as easy as it is today. Grinding meant crafting in the snow with rusty tools that would cut your fingers and your gf/business partner would say ‘there’s got to be an easier way’ and you would say ‘NO THERE ISN’T’ and then she wouldn’t speak to you for a few hours.)

…While waiting for his tiny harvesters to collect tiny quantities of ore and metal, Grumpy works on pistol experience outside Kaadra and is pleasantly surprised that the bandits around town drop loot!!! Something called “Skill Attachments” or similar. As Grumpy cannot figure out how these dumbass things work (clicking on them seemed to have no effect), Grumpy sells these on the bazaar for 500 credits each. Seriously. (They sold really fast too, by the way.)

…Grumpy prepares to make his first house deed, a small Naboo house (no, not that sh*thole round one), planning to surprise his gf/business partner with their first SWG HOME and their VERY OWN WORKSHOP. In the steamy heat of his home office (it was August after all), he clicked Assemble and … crit failed. Grumpy’s RL neighbors are alarmed by the loud cursing and Grumpy recalls vividly why he had resolved several months earlier to never again play a SOE game.

To be concluded tomorrow.

The Grumpy Master Architect ©

This Friday, Grumpy thought it might be sporting to give out his own awards for the Best and the Worst of SWG in general, and the Eclipse server in particular. What fun!

“Best” Den of Thieves - yes, Grumpy realizes that is an oxymoron, but any place with this much naked avarice is truly a treasure. The Rori Borgle Bat Cave! Seriously, worth a swoop ride just to see the dozens of players at the bottom of a cave huddled around debris. Even more exciting, sometimes they aren’t AFK!

“Best” Gamebreaking Feature - The Vendor/Bazaar Situation. Choking off the livelihood of thousands of crafters when the vendors grind to a halt after noon each day is pure evil genious. Sony’s virtual lack of response for MONTHS just makes this feature, and award, all the sweeter.

Best Example of Crafter Pride - This is a real award (note the lack of sarcastic quotation marks). Grumpy was really impressed by how much time and effort Abido put into decorating his shop, home and PA structures. See for yourself here: Grumpy’s seen a lot of creative decorating in SWG on several servers (back when he used to give a d*mn), and Abido is a master. /bow /grovel

Worst Public Cantina - Coronet. There is no contest here. Have you been there lately? If not, save yourself and shuttle elsewhere. The entryway is jammed with AFKers, new arrivals ask for an entertainer invite for an hour or more, and Grumpy is f’ing sick of hearing the text macro “Heal me if I need one plz kthxmuchly”. Grumpy would like to say “how bout you use this stim and bl*w me?”, but he doubts anyone is at their keyboard to read it.

Best Place to Kill an Overt and Get a Cursing Tell Afterwards - Fort Tusken. Nothing gives Grumpy quite as much pleasure in SWG these days, as /declaring and swooping out to good ole Fort Tusken to look for an overt. It is especially sweet when they mistake Grumpy’s red dot for just another Tusken red dot and come running upstairs with their group to kill the Tusken Grumpy. SURPRISE!

Most Annoying SWG “Feature” - The self-storing vehicle. Out of dozens of annoying “features”, Grumpy curses the loudest (IRL!!) at his swoop when it gets tired and takes a break back on the datapad just when Grumpy is out in the middle of nowhere … usually overt, alone, buffless, without any camp kits and now, to top it all off … he’s pissed too.

Hardest-working Eclipse Crafter - Tally and her alt chef. As far as Grumpy has ever seen, her vendors are always well stocked, she answers emails and finishes custom orders promptly, and is always polite to her customers. (Unlike Grumpy, who is frequently rude to his victims/customers.) Even more amazing, in Grumpy’s opinion, is that Tally has been a professional crafter and merchant since dirt was young and Grumpy was just a punk architect.

Best Developer Post Warning Players Not To Make Thunderheart Cry Again - (Ed. note: thread was deleted by Sony, wonder why) — Grumpy doesn’t watch the Dev Tracker too often because in his experience, most of the Dev posts are of the “Hi Ashni” variety. But he ran across this one and found it hilarious on many levels: The mental image of TH running to the men’s room to sob in a stall because the “players were mean to him”, the bullsh*t Sony is trying to feed us about not eliminating PvP item decay, and the whole PR nightmare that was created…well worth the price of admission.

Congratulations to all the Grumpy winners. Sadly, there will be no monetary award, but upon your character deletion, you will achieve total consciousness. So you got that going for you. Which is nice.

The Grumpy Master Architect ©

Grumpy proposes the following:

1-alarm Drama Alert - e.g. scam alerts, usual GCW/tef exploiters, and the like - Message Board PM. In fact, to make sure Grumpy reads the PM, use a subject line like “I want to have your babies, PIC included” or “I’ve been naughty, want to see how?” Sending PMs labeled “Just a gentle reminder” and using a red Sony name fail to get his attention anymore.

2-alarm Drama Alert - e.g. the borgle cave is empty, an in-game CSR sighting, someone has crates of Bivoli on an OPERATIONAL vendor - Email alert to his work email. Grumpy largely ignores most of his emails ever since some asshat at the office leaked the office email directory to The **edit** Patch people (score! on the pun). At first, Grumpy thought his gf/business partner was trying to tell him something, but then realized it was just Tony in R & D surfing the porn sites again from outside the firewall. And if Tony is trying to tell Grumpy something, he doesn’t want to know.

3-alarm Drama Alert - e.g. Sony just smote dozens of accounts with the ban stick for duping, ACTUAL exploiting (not “exploiting” like some of you quenkers have been defining it), Grumpy’s gf has run off with some Master Commando from Talus (again) - Text message to his cell phone. Grumpy rather enjoys text messaging, especially of updated sports info. He can read through the messages while sitting through yet another Meeting Scheduled in Lieu of Another Meeting to be Scheduled Later in this Meeting.

4-alarm Drama Alert - e.g. a Weapon Experimentation tape auction is ending in a few minutes with a top bid under 100 million, solid proof that Sony employees play SWG (the character creation screens do NOT count), a quest/theme park worth a d*mn - Voice call/mail to his cell phone. Grumpy is a Master Cell Phone Screener and has an entire mental rolodex of excuses why he didn’t answer. His favs: charging cell phone, didn’t hear it ring, cell network must have been down (followed by a meaningful shrug). Feel free to leave a voice mail in case you’re screened.

5-alarm Drama Alert - e.g. multiple 4-alarm dramas, EclipseChick is pregnant by EclipseGuy IRL, EclipsePlayer just got busted for selling his Jedi account on eBay, Grumpy’s RL arch enemy just died in a fire (woot!) - Voice call/mail to his home phone. H*ll, if you’re calling about an “unfortunate” fire, come on over and have a drink with Grumpy, too. Grumpy needs to make up a cover story for the cops and could use some help.

The Grumpy Master Architect ©

Fortunately, Grumpy was stone cold sober that night and didn’t say something stupid like…”I’m right here” or “I’ve been busy”, even though Grumpy realizes if he was that stupid, people would probably accuse him of posing as Grumpy and trying to ride his coattails, which Grumpy would find hilarious. So Grumpy just listened. One dawg thought maybe Grumpy had died in a fiery car crash or was in a ditch bleeding somewhere; another thought it could be much worse, like Grumpy had been BANNED for being a malcontent or exploiting.

The truth is less glamorous, of course. Grumpy is just on a SWG downer lately and is bored. He’s pretty much cloned to every mob in the game which is Grumpy’s measure of “Beating and Finishing a Game”. (Not to mention that he is also a rich and infamous Master Architect, sometimes in charge of a vast Weaponsmith Empire.) And, Grumpy figures if he can’t say anything nice, (or at least civil), why say anything at all? Grumpy struggled hard to think of something positive, he even toyed with the idea of creating an actual LIST of positive SWG things, but all he could think of was this: Grumpy really likes the Theed Spaceport.

Grumpy’s not sure he can build a positive gaming experience based on liking a single spaceport, but for now, he’s going to try.

Grumpy decided this last weekend, he’s not going to pay his vendors anymore. Vendors obviously never decay, as the dead vendor in one of Grumpy’s shops is still standing in the corner, stoic and ever vigilant and maddeningly empty of stock. CSRs refuse to nuke the vendor, since its owner MIGHT POSSIBLY return to SWG some year and what a scandal that would be in the national press if he/she/it discovered that Sony had deleted his/her/its only friend, The Dead Vendor.

So now Grumpy isn’t going to pay any of his vendors. Not that they work and actually SELL goods anyways. Grumpy could lose millions and millions of credits in inventory if some day the vendors wake up and, discovering that they need 456,982 credits in repairs, decide to suicide. Grumpy can take that kind of risk though, because he has the Theed Spaceport to comfort him.

Since Grumpy had TWO positive thoughts, he decided to share them with the three people he interacts with the most in SWG: his gf/business partner, his SWG bud, and his closest competitor, and by closest Grumpy means he is actually NEXT DOOR to the vast Weaponsmith Empire.

Grumpy: I’m not going to pay my vendors anymore and I really like the Theed Spaceport.

His gf: That’s nice. Did you find a good field of that gas I need?

His SWG bud: Are you high?

His neighbor: That’s exploiting.

Grumpy: Seriously, I like the Theed Spaceport.

His gf: You found a good field near Theed?

His SWG bud: Must be drunk.

His neighbor: You’re going to lose everything.

Maybe Eclipse isn’t ready for a kinder, gentler Grumpy. Or maybe they just haven’t seen the light like Grumpy. This could be a new life — identifying and describing in excrutiating detail all the joy and happiness he sees around him on Eclipse. Actually, Grumpy would rather crawl around at the beach searching for discarded cigarette butts than lie to the general population…IN ELECTRONIC PRINT.

Theed Ticket Droid, ever-faithful, always alert for departing travelers, if only Grumpy’s vendors could be as hard working as you.

The Grumpy Master Architect ©

Well…not really. But recently one of his buds asked Grumpy what he was doing, and after learning that Grumpy had no gaming plans for the night, he asked Grumpy to shuttle over to his city and help defend their bases. Grumpy weighed his options — killing Endorian dinosaurs that spit annoying green juice or killing people that might send cursing /tells later. The possibility of cursing /tells wins every time!

After he arrived at his bud’s town, they showed him around the city and the detachment headquarters. The PA’s main combat dude specifically pointed out the cloning and insurance terminals to Grumpy, and Grumpy was about to say “No thank you, I’ll have no need for those” when one of the scouts spotted some blue dots a short distance from town.

Important safety tip: blue dots BAD, red dots BAD, purple dots GOOD!

The attacking force’s opening strategy seemed to include about five minutes of /shouted trash talk by their covert members, followed by some lazy swoop circles to count all the Novice Artisans in the crowd. Some of the trash talk was about the city structures that his bud’s PA had cleverly placed in a less-than-artistic way around the bases to restrict enemy movement. Grumpy didn’t know whether that was an exploit or not — he was too busy getting buffs and stuffing himself with food and drink to worry about statues and fountains.

At first, Grumpy didn’t think his bud’s PA had too much to worry about as their bases were loaded with sympathetic NPCs that kept telling them “You’re a sight for sore eyes!” and “Don’t worry, you’ll be safe here!” This was before Grumpy figured out that the NPCs on the outside of the base are completely WORTHLESS and easily killed by anyone with a survival knife. The NPCs inside aren’t too bright either as one of them told Grumpy “Halt!” when he went inside to /declare.

Important safety tip: HQ NPCs like to talk big.

Finally, the overts arrived with their Master Combat Medic at the lead. Based on his bud’s reaction and Grumpy’s own sinking mind pool, this was not good news. Everyone was ordered to DB the MCMs, then find and DB the Master Doctors. Which was no easy task as this Teras Kasi Master took a disliking to Grumpy and came after him. Grumpy knew better than to let a TKM get too close and ran around a bit before getting lucky with some big hits. Just as he was about to DB the TKM’s incapped ass, the TKM bounced up and, Grumpy coulda swore, he smirked at Grumpy before smashing his head in.

Important safety tip: Until you see “Corpse of TKM” on the body, keep a safe distance.

A few clonings later, the enemy had been successfully repelled before they could get the codes to the bases, (which Grumpy learned would be VERY BAD), and the Good Guys gathered in one of those Camps As Large As Grumpy’s Main Store to heal up and speculate whether the enemy was done for the night. The PA Leader thanked all the guests for coming to their aid and made some speech that Grumpy didn’t pay much attention to because he was still getting cursing /tells.

One in particular caught his eye, from the Master Bounty Hunter that Grumpy had waxed right before he could slice the base terminal: I know where you live, phag.

Important safety tip: Don’t invite Master Bounty Hunters over for dinner and polite conversation.

The Grumpy Master Architect ©

Grumpy came to an important realization the other day. True, he risked toppling Modern Society by engaging in independent thought, something he had resolved not to do in 2004. Try as he might, he could not shake the feeling that SWG’s near future will be like the last breath of a dying man.

Problem #1 - The whole Jedi mess. If someone tries to tell Grumpy that the designers put more thought into this system than Grumpy does about where to stop for a cocktail on Friday night, they should be beaten with their own severed limbs.

Grumpy tried to distill all the problems he sees with The Road to Jedi and The Road to Jedi Master into a few paragraphs and failed. So he’ll save this discussion for a full post. You may want to skip it — it won’t be pleasant. *insert your own concerns about the BASIC PROFESSION STRUCTURE here*

Problem #2 - The GCW. Apparently, for us non-jedi, the GCW is supposed to occupy our time, as we while away the hours battling for the future of truth and freedom. Now, Grumpy is admittedly new to SWG’s PvP system, and he has a lot to learn about its nuances and intricacies, but Grumpy is no stranger to PvP games, some really great PvP games. And he can safely say that the GCW is bullsh*t. They’ve just about choked any incentive to PvP out of this GCW with item decay, TEF issues, problems with bases and turrets and everyone is off doing clicky clicky anyways.

And the storyline? H*ll, Grumpy fell asleep during Act I and couldn’t give a slumrat’s ass what Alderaan is whining about now.

Problem #3 - Content and Loot. Grumpy will just be blunt. Loot is the only true content in online gaming. What little loot there is in this game is largely CRAP. Grumpy has a stack of +1 Bull-whatever Experimentation tapes and plates. Those plus 4 bucks would buy Grumpy a cup of Starbucks coffee. Ya ya ya, the POIs are interesting in a “I’ve got nothing better to do tonite” kinda way. And, sure, his gf and all her “friends” love to get badges and squeal over each other’s bios. SHOW GRUMPY THE GD LOOT. Btw, the good loot? It’s nerfed to h*ll faster than Saddam scurrying underground.

Problem #4 - IN GAME Support. An oxymoron around here, as you all have discovered by now. Besides the plethora of stories about disappearing resources, stock, houses, factories, EQUIPPED items, (and we ALL have had it happen to us) yadda yadda yadda, there are other issues that either are never addressed or are dealt with after such a lengthy period of time, no one can remember the details and surely wouldn’t have any remaining solid “proof”. Two examples.

Few months back, Grumpy ran into a guy duping items through the bazaar. Grumpy talked to the guy, as he was kind of scratching his head at first about exactly was going on, and while the asshat didn’t openly admit what he was doing, it was obvious after some head scratching what he was up to. The bribe he offered Grumpy was the tip off. Grumpy doesn’t really care what everyone else does, but duping credits or items can break a game (as in…No one will be playing this game, it’s that broke). So Grumpy /reported his ass and notified the CSR team so they could watch. Poor, naive Grumpy. Not even two weeks ago, Grumpy ran into the SAME GUY doing the SAME THING, probably with the SAME BAZAAR TERMINAL.

Example two. Grumpy was hanging out in a cantina and some jagbag had a text afk macro involving pedophilia and **edit** rape. Grumpy thinks, w-t-f and asks others in the cantina who the asshat was. None of them had heard, having ignored the jag hours ago but knew his bit and some had /reported him for a few nights straight. One of the new musicians figured maybe the entertainers didn’t know how to properly /report someone, so he went to CSR chat to notify Team Customer Service. Poor, naive musician.

Naturally, Grumpy was curious how this was all going to pan out. Maybe a CSR SWAT team would show up and Swarm! Swarm! Swarm! before filling out the requisite twenty pages of paperwork for a permanent account ban. So Grumpy hung out healing the entertainers, enduring the Wacko Jacko-esque text macro. THREE HOURS LATER, nothing had been done. Grumpy’s no moral barometer, but he did wonder what in the h*ll could be more important than popping into one of the Eclipse cantinas and typing /ban Jagbag?

Grumpy can hear the Lucas ass lickers now. It’s not that easy to design a MMORPG. Give it time.

Actually, it is that easy. Witness…

#1 Open up jedi as a secondary profession for all. Jedi for the people! Might as well, players won’t stick around for long without it.

#2 Ditch overt/covert. It’s not working. On any level. You wanna play Star Wars with other catasses? Then choose a side.

#3 Pay someone to design loot. That’s all they do. Lots of it. Tons of it. Throw the d*mn loot all over. Randomize the whole d*mn thing. Pay some high school kid to write a story. There’s your d*mn content.

#4 Every server must have an in-game VISIBLE on /who server-wide 24/7. All they have to do is run and get the real CSR dude when there seems to be a problem. The real dude can decide if he should cut his coffee break short or not.

O ya, and don’t bother telling Grumpy that Sony actually plays their own game. Cuz if they do, the dying man could be on his death rattle.

The Grumpy Master Architect ©

Grumpy was still smarting from getting a beat-down at the hands of a mostly-AFK Teras Kasi Master and, by God, he wanted some bragging rights. If killing some half-asleep entertainer in a cantina was his only option, THEN SO BE IT, the dancers and musicians would fall! But he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have to resort to this. Just in case, he made sure to rationalize ahead of time by reminding his gf that War is All Hell, and there are no innocents!

They visited their favorite super secret NPC recruiter and swooped over to a nearby town, sure to be crawling with malcontents and vermin. Grumpy told his gf to store the bikes as they were either walking out of there later or cloning out. For crissakes, they couldn’t poke at the people then run to the bikes to escape.

There were quite a few red dots in town and his gf warned Grumpy not to pull too many of them at once. !!! How in the world Grumpy was going to avoid that, he didn’t know. These were PEOPLE, not stupid mobs that stand there chatting and gesturing while their comrade is slain at their feet. Although, in hindsight, that’s kind of what the people did. Just like stupid mobs.

Grumpy got the attention of two malcontents, NOT ENTERTAINERS, who tried to blow Grumpy’s head off with their rifles. Grumpy ducked behind a wall and anxiously awaited their arrival…within Grumpy’s combat range. Grumpy and his gf gave them a quick trip back to the cloning center — no mercy for non-entertainer malcontents! — then went stalking for a few more.

The /shout went out that there were overts in town. All hell started breaking loose then as red dots starting springing out of the woodwork. A couple Grumpy sympathizers asked for an invite, but, as far as Grumpy could tell, all they did was sit around chatting outside the cantina while Grumpy did all the work. Next time, Grumpy hopes they just start their own raid instead of tagging along on Grumpy’s.

There was a small group of players that gave Grumpy’s raid some real trouble. Grumpy could not hit those bastages with any reliability, which was very annoying and proved ultimately fatal. One of the group explained that they were KNOWN STACKERS, which Grumpy didn’t know anything about, but for d*mn sure wanted for himself. His gf shouted across the room “what is that?”; Grumpy just shrugged, hoping to find a clue in the rebuff-time conversation.

Later, the guy explained that those players had multiple +defense skills, which was like cheating, because it made them very difficult to hit. His gf wanted to know how that was cheating and Grumpy pointed out the obvious. Namely, because he and his gf (and the rest of his group, apparently) didn’t think of it first. Sheesh.

They ended their murderous rampage by picking off a few hapless overts that wandered into the local cantina. It was a good night’s work cleansing the free lands of disease and blight. Grumpy had even gained some insight into a few minor “adjustments” he should make to his almost-l337 combat stealth alt.

His gf was rather pleased also with how well they had done and complimented Grumpy on a largely successful PvP raid. Grumpy, never one to miss a golden opportunity, told his gf there was only one way to end such a productive gaming night.

Victory sex.

The Grumpy Master Architect ©

Grumpy thought she would be excited and maybe give a little acceptance speech, which he would endure as part of his “Mr. Sensitive to Your Needs” act, but she wanted to know WHY was he retiring, WHEN did this happen, WHAT A SHAME that the jackals were now chewing his hide. Grumpy told her that Stryker was a grown man for crissakes and had surely run into jackals in real life already.

She thought this might be his first time running into jackals in a game, however, which Grumpy had to agree was disturbing the first time it happens. Although, by now, it has happened to Grumpy and his gf many times in online games. They have named these people the “What have you done for me lately?” people, or in short, the jackals.

Which all led to a very interesting conversation as they went about the daily business of the vast Weaponsmith Empire … with a few architectural sales thrown in to cover travel tickets. Grumpy and his gf compiled a list of The 5 Worst Asshats They Have Run Into In An Online Game, or, for short, Grumpy’s Arch Enemies. Grumpy’s list was far more accurate as his gf’s list had stupid people on it like these two sisters from Texas that tried to convince her that Grumpy was going to FLY TO TEXAS to live in their trailer park, which they described as a palatial trailer right before Grumpy put both their asses on ignore.

1. They refer to this quenker as He Who Cannot Be Named, although Grumpy calls him something like ThatMFUneWMALCS. Known to both of them in RL and so great is Grumpy’s hate for this asshat that were Grumpy to run across him with his heart on fire, Grumpy wouldn’t even piss on him. Seriously. At any rate, thievery, lies and dirty deals were the least of his crimes.

2. Player V, who hated Grumpy as much as Grumpy hated him. In the old days, when V would show up in the same area as Grumpy, he would launch into a /shout diatribe about what an asshat Grumpy was, which naturally Grumpy couldn’t hear as V was ignored. The group would tell Grumpy what was being said tho, which didn’t really concern Grumpy, but he for d*mn sure went out of his way to dump a bunch of aggro mobs onto V, as V would try to do to Grumpy as well.

3. Player X, who isn’t even on his gf’s list! His gf actually LIKED Player X! When Grumpy had to work late for a stretch of time, X would make plans to play with his gf, (in more ways than one), with wild stories about what Grumpy was up to when his gf wasn’t around. Grumpy tried to explain to her that X was doing this, that this was the kind of sh*t that men sometimes do, for crissakes, GRUMPY WOULD KNOW THIS AS HE PULLS SH*T TOO, but she was always unconvinced.

4. Player M, who stole everything from Grumpy and his gf’s guild, then tried to pin it on Grumpy. GMs were called in by the other guildmates to check out Grumpy’s account, and he was cleared of all wrongdoing, as were all of Grumpy’s alts. (For crying out loud, they did a THOROUGH investigation.) Later Player M switched servers, and last Grumpy heard, Player M had a lot of game items for sale.

5. Player N, who was a THORN IN GRUMPY’S SIDE, from the first time Grumpy met him. N was one of those whiny “when is the guild gonna do this for me?” people. As Grumpy was the combat leader, and generally planned the night’s activities for everyone, N would begin his nightly whining with Grumpy. After Grumpy would redo his ignore list, N would whine to Grumpy’s gf, who would then plead N’s case to Grumpy. Needless to say, they would do a lot of stuff for N in that guild.

After comparing lists, which were very disimilar, they both had to agree on one point: You sure can meet quality people in an online game.

Not that they ever have.

The Grumpy Master Architect ©