Questions for geeky friends

[eviltammy]

Or anyone else who'd care to answer.

At one of my former places of work, I still have friends. Well, actually, at all my former places of work, I still have friends, but this particular person I actually keep in touch with :) She doesn't get some aspects of computers and, while I can help somewhat, there's a lot that's hard for me to explain. Mostly because either a lack of technical knowledge or it's just something that I don't do, so I can't really explain it to her satisfaction.

None of these questions are really technical, but I'm looking for help here:

1. Explain gaming - MMPORGS(?) or whatever they are. How you do them, who does them, etc.

2. XBox - PS2's - how do they work?

3. LJ/MySpace/Blogger/Vox/other social networking - what's the difference?

4. Does anyone know of something that the library & all the branches can use to cut down on the amount of spam they receive. In chatting with a friend, I came up with either using something like mail2web.com to delete spam from the server before downloading mail or using something like Mailwasher Pro. Something with a one-time low price tag? Mailwasher sounds good to me, but I'm looking for other suggestions also - things that are very easy to set up.

5. Anything new and hot that I can tell her about? Or someplace that she can check to see what's new and hot?

Thanks! ::Puts out plates of nice naughty bickies and lots of drinks for respondents and readers::

Comments

[demeth.livejournal.com]

I've played MMORPG's pretty much since the genre began.

You know the typical computer game where you play as a character, earn gear and experience points and get improved statistics and skills as you go? That's an RPG (role playing game), like Dungeons and Dragons except that that's paper and pencil, face-to-face with a person running the show. The next step is a CRPG, computer RPG, where you basically play D&D but the computer takes care of the rolls and statistics and the enemies. Some of those games are more advanced, they let you play with friends, such as cooperating with a limited number (typically 2, 4, or 8) of people over a network, LAN, etc. Finally, when you can play a game with literally hundreds or thousands of other players, they call that Massively Multiplayer, and they also add the O for Online. The reason for this is a gaming company must run servers that track all the players and literally the entire world you live in. (Therefore they typically charge a monthly subscription fee to cover the hardware, software, bandwidth, programmers working on bug fixes, technical and customer support, and developing new content (no new content, people "finish" the game and quit)). Since these have a maximum capacity for players, most successful MMORPG's have multiple server worlds, so someone on the "Florida" server would not be able to play directly with someone on the "Delaware" server. "Persistent world" MMORPG's can actually permanently change their world, so different servers can actually be quite different, and some have their own rulesets, such as RP (Roleplaying encouraged, filled with Thy and Thou and Ayes, discourages RL conversation in public) or PVP (Player versus Player content is enabled)

Ultima Online was basically the original hugely popular graphical MMORPG, EverQuest set the bar afterward, and World of Warcraft now dominates the market.

[diavestra.livejournal.com]

And he should know because he spends *hours* playing them each day. I'm still trying to figure out a way to make it pay....