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32 year old Dede lives in a remote village in Indonesia with his two children, trying to care for them. Dede, a former fisherman, has an extraordinary skin condition: he has root like structures growing out of his body - branches that can grow up to 5cm a year and which protrude from his hands and feet, and welts covering his whole body.

He is known locally as ‘Tree Man’ and his condition has baffled local doctors for 20 years. In an attempt to earn a living to support his family, he is part of a circus troupe, displaying his Tree Man limbs along with others afflicted with skin deformities in ‘freak’ shows.

Dr Anthony Gaspari, a world expert in skin conditions from the University of Maryland travels to Indonesia to attempt to diagnosis Dede’s mysterious condition. He takes skin samples for biopsies back in the USA. What will he discover?

We go on an intimate journey with the extraordinary Dede, as he tries to eek out a living in a circus troupe to support his family, and as he is given medical help by Dr Gaspari. The identification and possible cure of his condition, could change his whole life.

Half way across the world, in Romania, farmer Ion Toader is discovered to have a similar extraordinary ‘Tree Man’ condition, with growths all over his hands. He has not been able to drive a tractor for five years. A Romanian surgeon offers to give him an operation to remove his growths.

Will it be successful, and how will it change Ion’s life?

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) — Parents, don’t put away those video games just yet — today’s gamer may be tomorrow’s top surgeon.
Studies suggest that video games, such as "Batman Begins," above, can improve thinking.

Studies suggest that video games, such as "Batman Begins," above, can improve thinking.

Researchers who gathered in Boston for the American Psychological Association convention detailed a series of studies suggesting video games can be powerful learning tools — from increasing younger students’ problem-solving potential to improving the suturing skills of laparoscopic surgeons.

One study even looked at whether playing "World of Warcraft," the world’s biggest multiplayer online game, can improve scientific thinking.

The conclusion? Certain types of video games can have benefits beyond the virtual thrills of blowing up demons.

In one Fordham University study, 122 students in fifth, sixth and seventh grades were asked to think out loud for 20 minutes while playing a game they had never seen before. Researchers studied the children’s statements to see if playing the game improved cognitive and perceptual skills.

While older children seemed more interested in just playing the game, younger children showed more interest in setting up a series of short-term goals needed to help them learn the game.

"The younger kids are focusing more on their planning and problem solving while they are actually playing the game, while adolescents are focusing less on their planning and strategizing and more on the here and now," said Fordham psychologist Fran Blumberg, who conducted the research last year and plans to submit it for publication. "They’re thinking less strategically than the younger kids."

Studies by Iowa State University psychologist Douglas Gentile and Dr. James Rosser, head of minimally invasive surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, compared surgeons who play video games to those who don’t.

The edge went to gamer surgeons, they found, even after taking into account differences in age, years of medical training and the number of laparoscopic surgeries performed. In laparoscopic procedures, surgeons use small incisions, thin surgical tools and video cameras to see inside the body.

One study of 33 laparoscopic surgeons found that those who played video games were 27 percent faster at advanced surgical procedures and made 37 percent fewer errors than those who didn’t.

Advanced video game skills also were a good way to predict suturing abilities, according to their study, which was published in the Archives of Surgery in 2007.

Research Gentile and Rosser conducted for a second as yet unpublished study of 303 laparoscopic surgeons found those who played video games requiring spacial skills and hand dexterity performed better at those skills when tested later compared to surgeons who didn’t play videos, Gentile said.

"The single best predictor of their skills is how much they had played video games in the past and how much they played now. Those were better predictors of surgical skills than years of training and number of surgeries performed," Gentile said. "So the first question you might ask your surgeon is how many of these (surgeries) have you done and the second question is ‘Are you a gamer?"’

Some videos games even appear to sharpen scientific thinking skills.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison looked at a random sample of 2,000 chat room posts about "World of Warcraft" to see what the players were discussing. The game is set in a fantasy world where players hunt, gather and battle to move their characters to higher levels. Players who work together succeed faster.

The research found the game encouraged scientific thinking, like using systems and models for understanding situations and using math and testing to investigate problems.

The vast majority of the discussion participants, 86 percent, shared knowledge to solve problems and more than half, 58 percent, used systematic and evaluative processes, researchers found.

The forums show that gamers are "creating an environment in which informal scientific reasoning practices are being learned," said Sean Duncan, a doctoral student who worked on the "World of Warcraft" report with lead author Constance Steinkuehler. The paper is set for publication in the Journal of Science Education and Technology.

The news wasn’t all good.

Other studies confirmed earlier research that found students who played violent games tended to be more hostile, less forgiving and believed violence to be normal compared to those who played nonviolent games. And those who played more entertainment games did poorer in school and were are greater risk of obesity.

Next time you can’t get a cell phone signal in the middle of town, put your problem in perspective: New figures show that the deadliest job in America now goes to the men and women who construct, upgrade, and repair cell phone towers.

According to a story in this week’s RCR Wireless News (no online link yet), building and climbing towers (which can be hundreds of feet tall) is more dangerous than ranching, fishing, logging, and even ironworking. The fatality rate is currently 183.6 deaths per 100,000 workers: Five tower workers died during one 12-day span earlier this year alone. 18 tower workers died on the job in 2006.

The cause for the runup in tower worker deaths isn’t completely clear, but it’s likely a combination of careless working practices (workers not using safety gear 100 percent of the time, or not using it correctly) and network operators pushing to build out and upgrade their networks too quickly. Hard to blame carriers for wanting to get faster networks up and running, but not at the cost of human life. (RCR is careful to note that the investigation into the rise in fatalities is too early to attribute to any specific source.)

Oddly, a loophole in OSHA rules may make it difficult for changes to happen quickly: Towers are often constructed by small contractors instead of the carriers or the owners of the towers. Since the carrier isn’t on site during the construction of the tower, the contractor receives the fine and the carrier and owner face no sanctions. (That hasn’t stopped the families of some of the deceased workers from suing carriers, though.

A 3-ft.-high tablet romantically dubbed "Gabriel’s Revelation" could challenge the uniqueness of the idea of the Christian Resurrection. The tablet appears to date authentically to the years just before the birth of Jesus and yet — at least according to one Israeli scholar — it announces the raising of a messiah after three days in the grave. If true, this could mean that Jesus’ followers had access to a well-established paradigm when they decreed that Christ himself rose on the third day — and it might even hint that they they could have applied it in their grief after their master was crucified. However, such a contentious reading of the 87-line tablet depends on creative interpretation of a smudged passage, making it the latest entry in the woulda/coulda/shoulda category of possible New Testament artifacts; they are useful to prove less-spectacular points and to stir discussion on the big ones, but probably not to settle them nor shake anyone’s faith.
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The ink-on-stone document, which is owned by a Swiss-Israeli antiques collector and reportedly came to light about a decade ago, has been dated by manuscript and chemical experts to a period just before Jesus’ birth. Some scholars think it may originally have been part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a trove of religious texts found in caves on the West Bank that were possibly associated with John the Baptist. The tablet is written in the form of an end-of-the-world prediction in the voice of the angel Gabriel; one line, for instance, predicts that "in three days you will know evil will be defeated by justice."

Such "apocalypses," often featuring a triumphant military figure called a messiah (literally, anointed one), were not uncommon in the religious and politically tumultuous Jewish world of 1st century B.C. Palestine. But what may make the Gabriel tablet unique is its 80th line, which begins with the words "In three days" and includes some form of the verb "to live." Israel Knohl, an expert in Talmudic and biblical language at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University who was not involved in the first research on the artifact, claims that it refers to a historic 1st-century Jewish rebel named Simon who was killed by the Romans in 4 B.C., and should read "In three days, you shall live. I Gabriel command you." If so, Jesus-era Judaism had begun to explore the idea of a three-day resurrection before Jesus was born.

This, in turn, undermines one of the strongest literary arguments employed by Christians over centuries to support the historicity of the Resurrection (in which they believe on faith): the specificity and novelty of the idea that the Messiah would die on a Friday and rise on a Sunday. Who could make such stuff up? But, as Knohl told TIME, maybe the Christians had a model to work from. The idea of a "dying and rising messiah appears in some Jewish texts, but until now, everyone thought that was the impact of Christianity on Judaism," he says. "But for the first time, we have proof that it was the other way around. The concept was there before Jesus." If so, he goes on, "this should shake our basic view of Christianity. … What happens in the New Testament [could have been] adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story."

Not so fast, say some Christian academics. "It is certainly not perfectly clear that the tablet is talking about a crucified and risen savior figure called Simon," says Ben Witherington, an early-Christianity expert at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. The verb that Knohl translates as "rise!," Witherington says, could also mean "there arose," and so one can ask "does it mean ‘he comes to life,’ i.e., a resurrection, or that he just ’shows up?’ " Witherington also points out that gospel texts are far less reliant on the observed fact of the Resurrection (there is no angelic command in them like the line in the Gabriel stone) than on the testimony of eyewitnesses to Jesus’ post-Resurrection self. Finally, Witherington notes that if he is wrong and Knohl’s reading is right, it at least sets to rest the notion that the various gospel quotes attributed to Christ foreshadowing his death and Resurrection were textual retrojections put in his mouth by later believers — Jesus the Messianic Jew, as Knohl sees him, would have been familiar with the vocabulary for his own fate.

Knohl stands by his reading. "The spelling and the phrasing is unique," he told TIME, "but it is similar to to other texts found around the Dead Sea." Yet for now, at least, Gabriel’s Revelation must take its place among a slew of recently discovered or rediscovered objects from around the time of Jesus that are claimed to either support or undermine Scripture but are themselves sufficiently, logically or archaeologically compromised to prevent their being definitive. In 2002, a bone-storage box with the legend "James Son of Joseph Brother of Jesus" bobbed up that seemed to buttress Jesus’ historicity while at the same time suggest that the Catholic teaching that he had no true brothers was false — but the Israeli Antiquities Authority declared the inscription as a forgery (although various experts continue to disagree). In 2007 the Discovery Channel aired a documentary (funded by Titanic director James Cameron) that purported to have located the "Jesus Family Tomb" in the Israeli suburb of Talpiot, with bone boxes with the names "Jesus Son of Joseph," "Mary" and one of the names of Mary Magdalene. If the ossuaries were for the gospel Jesus, his mother and Mary Magdalene, then the implications for Christianity would be dire; but despite considerable initial hoopla, the idea is regarded by many as speculation.

It remains to be seen whether Gabriel’s Revelation, and especially Knohl’s interpretation, will weather the hot lights of fame. Even the authors of its initial research seem a little dubious about his claims that it is a dry run for the Easter story. But, as often happens in such cases, they seem better disposed to a slightly toned-down assertion: in this case, that the Gabriel tablet does indicate a very rare instance of the idea that a messiah might suffer — a notion introduced in Judaic thought centuries before by the prophet Isaiah but which supposedly went out of style by Jesus’ time. If that more modest theory gains traction, it will forge a link between a trend in first-century Judaism and one of Christianity’s galvanizing thoughts — that God might throw in his lot with a suffering or even murdered man — that could contribute to a growing mutual understanding.

Musse Dolk is a 2nd year game student from Sweden. As a part of his studies, Musse created the MMORPG Gamers Handbook, a fantastic basic resource that introduces new players to some of the terms, concepts and etiquette of MMORPG gaming. A decent guide for MMORPG Gamers, both new and veteran players might find something useful here:

1 Abstract

Massive multiplayer online games have a growing percentage of the games on today’s computer market. Each game has its unique set of challenges but there are also similarities where general game play strategies and recommendations apply. The MMORPG gamer’s handbook provides practical suggestions to players for how to work well in a team-based environment. Many misconceptions in MMORPGs are clarified and players learn the most effective ways to improve their cooperative game play.

2 Introduction

There are a lot of good spoilers and guides out there for massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG). Most of these are game specific and go down to the core in both the games system and fast advancement within the game. So why add another guide to the bunch?

Over the last few years I’ve played a lot of different MMORPGs and in every one of these I discovered that players new to the environment and the multiplayer game concept in general had the same kind of problems. There is quite a big gap between experienced players and new ones, even with all the guides and spoilers out there telling you exactly where to go and what to do.

One common problem is that many of the experienced players rarely have the patience to deal with newcomers, so they tend to get left out and sometimes get very hard critique for their limited knowledge. The spoiler guide ends and the player are suddenly out there on her own without really having had a chance to learn. This is especially true to games where it is easy to go solo.

The spoilers out there all offer great help on advancement. But for the most part they do not give general advice on how to play efficiently together with other players. That is where this book comes in. It is not supposed to be a replacement for any other guide out there. Instead, it supplements them by giving players general guidelines to follow that should be suitable for most MMORPGs out there. This book will point out the most effective practices of team play and steer you away from potentially dangerous ones. It will be a knowledgeable hand to guide you along the way and help you quickly become an experienced MMORPG player.

However keep in mind that there will always be exceptions to anything written here. It should be more looked on as guidelines than rules. Adapting to unexpected and unfavorable situations is part of being an experienced player. It is also oriented towards computer-oriented opponents and will not work against other players. If you are a new player, I do not recommend trying to learn everything at once. It’s often easier if you read up on one thing at the time, practice that for a while then moves on to next part. When you feel that you have a good idea of how to play your own primary role, read through the others for better cooperation and understanding while playing with them.

3 Character creation

The first step in any MMORPG is usually to create your character. Many times there is a wide variety of races and classes to choose from and I recommend you to do some research about each of these before you start, just to get a rough idea about them. It’s a good idea to find one from start that suits your play style and fills the role you want to play in teams with others.

3.1 Class archetypes

There are four common archetypes when it comes to group coordination. Most classes are suited primary for one of these roles or a mix in between them.

3.1.1 Tank

Basically a tank’s job is to get beaten up. You’re the wall between the weaker members of your party and the angry enemies you are fighting. As a tank you focus more on being resistant to damage than actually dealing it. A common mistake is to focus too much on your attack power, which makes you less efficient for taking damage. However you cannot completely neglect your attack power either. In many games, the more damage you deal the more likely are the enemies to attack you. This may differ from game to game, it’s important to find out how this works in the one you are playing.

3.1.2 Damage dealer

Your job will be to kill off enemies as quickly as possible. This is not as easy as it sounds. Do this too fast; and monsters will get angry on you instead of your tank. Remember that you are never the one who should take a beating. Many make the mistake of doing too much damage too fast. The trick is to find the sweet spot where you do max damage without making the enemies run for you.

3.1.3 Healer

A healer’s job will be to keep everyone alive. Some make the mistake of focusing on damage, which may result in not having enough power left to keep their group alive. Remember that your primary role will always be healing. A healer without mana many times leads to a dead group.

3.1.4 Crowd controller

A crowd controller is someone who takes care of enemies that the group is currently not fighting, usually by putting them in a sleeping state rendering them unable to fight. This is not an easy job; you need good reflexes, the ability to adapt to changing situations and an overview of the entire battle to keep track of who needs to be put to sleep in which order.

3.2 Races

You should always choose a race that you feel comfortable with, since you will most likely play it for a very long time. Appearance and role-playing reasons should always be of priority. It usually does not matter which race you have chosen in the long run for a specific archetype. Having that said, there are things to take in to consideration when choosing races. The first thing you should have a look at is if there are any racial abilities in your game. These are usually more valuable than statistical values of your race. In most games you can easily get stats from gear, but these abilities are often unique.

4 The basics of combat

These are the basics of fighting in a team-based environment. In most MMORPG’s small teams are known as “groups” and they get a private chat channel among its members. The size of a group may differ a bit from game to game. In newbie areas and lower levels, tactics may not seem like a big deal or even seem inefficient. It might not be the fastest way to get exp (points to gain a level) from start. I would still advise anyone to use this time for practice. There will be a lot more dangerous areas in time where you will not have much time to think about basics. Learn these by heart and you will have it a lot easier when more advanced situations arise.

4.1 Archetype basics

A few buzzwords that will be used:

Aggro – If someone gets aggro it means the enemies are attacking her.

Hate – When attacking an enemy you get hate points to that enemy. The player with highest hate points will get aggro of that particular enemy.

4.1.1 Tank

Tanks usually have a “taunt” skill that adds hate points to your character to keep your friends out of trouble. The hits you make and most skills you use should also increase your hate value. It may happen that the others will need to slow down their damage dealing so you can be the one in the front line. Trigger happy friends are hard to tank for, often you may need to tell them to slow down or wait with attacking so you have a chance to build your hate points with the current enemy.

4.1.1.1 Multiple opponents

Facing more than one opponent may be tricky, this means you have to switch target to keep a good hate value on them all. This should not be too hard if everyone keeps hitting the same target. You can get by with a low hate value on the enemies the others are not attacking but keep in mind that healing will always give hate to the healer for all enemies around you.

4.1.1.2 Breaking sleep

If you hit a sleeping target without thinking, chances are that it will run directly for the crowd controller. If you have a spell that gives hate without damaging the enemy, it is a good idea to use this before breaking the sleep. It’s also important that your other party members wait with their attack until you are ready.

4.1.1.3 Line of sight

To hit a target with a spell, most games require that there is a straight line without obstructions (discounting characters) to the target. It’s important that you do not enter a room by yourself and stay there, the healers will not be able to keep you alive around a corner and the rest of your group cannot target the enemies with their spells.

4.1.1.4 Enemy turning

When pulling, turn the enemies you face so they have their back against your group. This makes you closest to possible new enemies. You immediately see if you lose aggro. If you can, it is recommended to stand in a corner or against a wall. Many games also have bonuses for hitting enemies in the back or gives enemy increased chance to parry or riposte blows that hits them from front.

4.1.2 Damage dealer

It’s important to have all damage dealers in the group staying at the same target to kill one enemy at the time. It’s really important that enemies die as quickly as possible. However it’s just as important not to get aggro. Damage dealers usually cannot take many hits themselves. If you die, the group as a whole will deal a lot less damage and might not kill fast enough to survive. Even if you don’t die, you will drain your healer’s mana fast; which leads to additional hate points for the healer. Getting attacked as a damage dealer is a lose/lose situation.

One trick to avoid damage is to wait before attacking each enemy to allow some time for the tank to build up her hate. How long you should wait depends on the circumstances and the gear of your tank. Do not blame your tank if an enemy attacks you, instead adapt to the situation and wait longer. Try to find the perfect balance between doing a lot of damage and never getting attacked with your current teammates.

4.1.2.1 Mana preservation

Another important thing is to not waste your mana. If an enemy dies really fast by your melee friends, just watch it happen. It is not important to cast a spell at every single enemy. A very common mistake is to land a big damage spell on an enemy that has very little health left. This would make the excess damage to waste and you have lost mana for no reason. This is not a competition for who that makes the most damage. Waiting until it is really needed saves both mana and time.

4.1.3 Healer

Healing is a work of art like all other archetypes when you break it down to pieces. The biggest challenge is to know when to heal and when not to. This is important because if you heal too fast, the enemy will run for you and if you heal too slow your tank dies.

Best opportunity to heal is when there are no enemies around. No risk to get attacked if there aren’t any enemies. Try to heal everyone to full, toss out all protective and damage preventing spells before each combat situation. You might want to start with the tank before she runs off to find new enemies. If you have time to do so, you can buff the others during combat, for most games buffs don’t seem to give any aggro. If it does in yours, avoid doing this in combat. Do not hesitate to tell your group to slow down if they are too impatient in waiting for heals before getting new enemies.

However be sure to also tell them when you are ready.

Second best is healing over time (HoT) spells. Cast one of these on the tanks before she gets enemies and she will have larger chances to come back alive. Beware though, in some games, the minor heals from these spells gives you hate to the enemies before the tank has a chance to build up her own. If you take notice that enemies are running directly towards you as soon as they come near, even though you have not done anything, it is likely that your HoT spells are to blame. If so, wait a moment and let the tank make the enemies mad at her before casting. They are still useful in the beginning of fights.

The third best opportunity is by the end of the fight, when the tank has a solid aggro to keep it for the remainder of the combat. Try to wait as long as you can with the healing without risking anyone’s life and do be prepared for unexpected moments. In areas where there is risk to get additional opponents, be sure not to wait too long; or you will end up with the new enemies beating you up.

Unfortunately these opportunities are few. Most of your healing time will be spent right in the middle of combat to keep you and your friends alive. It’s really important to avoid healing when enemies are incoming. If the tank runs with a several enemies after her and you heal her as soon as she gets close, all these enemies will turn to you; which means you are likely to end up dead. If the distance is far to the group and she is about to die, it might even be worth it to let her die, and then resurrect her afterwards when the enemies go away. This might not be a popular decision though, and should not be used without a good reason.

When your tank are facing enemies that hit particularly hard it may be a good idea to start casting your heal before she takes damage and interrupt your spell if she still has a lot of health when it’s about to land. This is especially useful when there is a lot of extra damage in the start of a combat.

4.1.3.1 Mana preservation

Another important thing to keep in mind is not overflowing your heals. A large healing spell on someone with little health is a lot of mana wasted. Usually this means big heals on tanks and small heals on damage dealers and spell casters. Not only does this preserve your mana but it also gives you less hate points.

4.1.4 Crowd controller

Crowd Control is a tricky job; you need to have an overview over the whole fight. By zooming out your camera to the max you should be able to easily pick out the enemies who need to sleep. Be sure to keep track of where the enemies come from and potential directions where additional enemies may show up.

It’s also important to foresee what will happen a few seconds before they do. To know this you need to learn how enemies move, which spells they are likely to cast and how much damage they can do to your group. Start with taking out the enemies with highest threat potential. Usually this means enemy healers and spell casters goes first, but there will be enemies with abilities or spells that are especially dangerous. Often you can associate names of enemies with how dangerous they are to the group. In example if they are named sorcerer, chances are that they have spells with long range and high damage. Be sure not to put have your controlled enemies too far from the group, this may draw additional enemies that passes by to join the fight.

Communication is also an important part of crowd control. Your group needs to be prepared for fighting with a crowd controller. If they hit one of your sleeping enemies, it will wake up and you are likely to get aggro. Be sure to tell everyone in the group to hit the same target. It’s also common for many crowd controllers to send a message to the group that tells which enemy is about to fall asleep. It’s better to alert them before casting than after, chances are that a group member will be alerted by this and can avoid attacking the target.

4.1.4.1 Sleep (single target)

This spell looks very different in many games but have the same basic function. It will allow the caster to completely stop an opponent. When sleeping, an enemy can’t move, cast or attack. Once the spell lands, its will not be able to finish it’s casting, hence, useful against any enemy that uses magic. This will last until either the spell wears off, or the opponent is damaged in some way. Spells that lower an enemy’s statistics, or that changes its hate towards a particular player, usually do not break the spell.

4.1.4.2 Sleep (point blank)

Same as above, but will target anything in a certain range around the caster. Usually, since more enemies can be targeted, the duration of the Point Blank sleep is much lower than the single target version. Considering most classes that have good Crowd Control abilities have a low amount of health, this spell is particularly handy. It allows you to stop all movement for a short period of time, allowing you to use other abilities without being interrupted or killed.

For example, you have 4 enemies going for you; use this spell once to stop them from hitting you, then use the single mesmerize on one of them, rinse and repeat until all of them are unable to hurt you. You can keep this sleep chain going for as long as the mana allows or until your group killed off all the enemies.

4.1.4.3 Sleep (area of effect)

Same as above, except the caster is not the centre of the circle of the range of the spell, but her offensive target. For example, if the spell has a 3-meter radius, and there are 3 enemies 2 meters apart, you should definitely use it on the one in the middle, so that the other 2 are also in range. If you would use it on the far right one for example, the one on the far left would not be under control. This spell can be very useful when you don’t intend to be anywhere near a big number of enemies coming your way. For example a warrior brings 4 enemies towards your group; you target the one closest to the middle of the pack, and hit the AE Sleep as soon as they are in range. This will usually stop them from hurting anyone else in the group and also keeping them all in your field of vision, allowing you to judge if any special measures need to be taken.

4.1.4.4 Stun (single target)

This spell is similar to Single Target Sleep, but with a very short duration. The biggest difference being that hitting the enemy while stunned will not remove the effect. These spells are useful to interrupt a casting enemy, halting a running enemy or simply to give you the time to think about your next move. If you have more than one (that is usable at the same time) you may consider using them at regular intervals, so that the enemy is almost permanently stunned.

4.1.4.5 Stun (point blank)

Same as above, but effect hits everything within a certain radius around the caster. Great when a mesmerize line spell has been resisted by one or more enemies.

4.1.4.6 Rooting

Rooting spells makes enemies unable to move, but does not take away their fighting ability. Often this spell has a random duration and may be a bit unreliable. It is still very useful to cast before enemies gets to a weaker players saving the healer some mana. Note that in many games enemies have larger chances to break free of the spell if they are taking hits. It these cases it’s a good idea not to shoot ranged attacks on a rooted enemy.

4.1.4.7 Charm

This spell will give you control of an enemy for a period of time. While the spell is in effect, the enemy will act as any pet companion would. In most games, this means you can ask him to attack another enemy or do anything a normal pet would. These spells usually cannot be refreshed until they break. Which means you can’t cast this spell on an enemy already having one, or have two charmed enemies at once. You will have to wait until it breaks for when the enemy is once again trying to kill you, and then use the spell again.

4.1.4.8 Short term summoning

This is another spell that looks very different over the games. The common factor is that it creates a creature that will attract the enemy’s attention for a period of time. It will take the heat off of you or your group members, but not stopping the enemy. This means that the enemy will still attack, but will just not deal damage to your group members until the creature is either dead or the enemy’s hate toward one of your group has become greater than his hate towards your creature.

Keep in mind that during the period of time the enemy is attacking this creature, it can still heal, hurt your group with Area of Effect spells or simply just attract an additional enemy that roams by him.

4.1.4.9 Lure

This spells is similar to above, but usually for a set amount of attacks instead of being on a timer or affected by hate. Sometimes the spell only works for one enemy, sometimes it has an Area of Effect, and everything in its radius will be attracted to it for a set number of attacks. Once the enemies have attacked it for this amount of times, they will resume attacking your group. This spell will just draw attention off of you, giving you more time to react accordingly. It can be useful for Crowd Control purposes, but keep in mind that the faster the enemies hit, the less duration this spell has.

5 Guilds

A guild is an organization whose players share the same goals and decides to work together in a larger scale. Upon creation of a guild it is wise to have a clear set of goals, which the members will strive to achieve. Look at the guild as its own entity following a vision instead of personal opinions. With a clear vision, members of the guild are less likely to have misunderstandings about it.

5.1 Recruitment

Be open with your guilds intentions and try to recruit likeminded people that share the vision of the guild. Try to have active discussions every now and then about where the guild is going and its future plans.

Keep in mind that not every guild is suitable for everyone. This is often a matter of play style. It’s not as easy as it sounds to throw someone out. Many guilds are torn apart because someone got thrown out who had friends, who in turn had more friends and suddenly a big chunk of the guild left.

5.2 Leading and delegation

As a leader of the guild it’s important not to take too much responsibility to yourself. Delegate this job to a few officers, how many depends on the size of the guild. It’s important that all of the officers know the rules and goals by heart, so these can be explained to the members. It’s also preferable if each of the officers has their area of responsibility. If their areas overlap too much, there is a higher risk for contradicting decisions.

A leader who takes too much responsibility makes the guild stand and fall with her. This is not very good, because if she wants to go on vacation the guild might break up or take a pause for that period of time. It’s also very easy to get burned out of it all. It’s also important not to have too many officers. An officer needs to take responsibility and commitment for her tasks. Not everyone is suitable for this role in a guild.

5.3 Planning events

Getting your guild members to show up at guild events may be tricky at start, especially if you are a small guild just getting started. It’s a good idea to have a set time once or twice per week when guild events are happening. As leaders and officers responsible for the planning you need to remind your members when the events are and ask them personally if they can show up. Many members may miss messages given or even forget about them.

When the guild has a few events under their belt this will go a lot easier, people will take notice that the guild makes events together and keep looking for it. If things go well, less time will go to making people show up and instead be focused on development and evaluation of the events.

5.4 Loot systems

One of the main reasons for teamwork is to obtain treasure from your enemies. This is commonly known as loot. It’s a good idea to have a system thought of how to divide these items in a way that seems fair for everyone involved.

5.4.1 Need before greed

This system means a piece of equipment is randomised to players that can use the item if it is better than what they are currently using. If no one can use, it is randomised between all players to sell for cash. This is suitable for most small to medium sized guilds since every well-equipped player strengthens the guild as a whole.

5.4.2 Total randomness

If items can be traded between players it can be argued that anyone can use an item for selling, thereby being able to buy something for themselves. This may seem like a more fair system in places where there are only items for specific classes. If you team with players you haven’t been with before, it’s wise to talk about which loot system to use beforehand.

5.4.3 Point based loot systems

In heavy raiding guilds, players often feel the need for a more advanced system to handle the loot. One of the main reasons for this is that total randomised loot is purely based on luck. A player raiding only once per month have the same chance of getting something as someone who plays every day. It can be reasoned that the more active players; spending more time helping the guilds progress with their raiding should have a higher chance of getting better equipped than those who are rarely participating. One way to solve this is to give out points to each player for the events they have been attending to. These points can then be used to buy equipment and items using some form of selling or auctioning system.

5.4.4 Common problems

There are a few problems that may need to be taken in to consideration before choosing a point based loot system. The first is that points sometimes are earned faster than they can be spent. This means a new or less active participant can never hope to catch up to those with the highest points. Another problem is to handle unwanted items. Some items might be good, but not good enough for people wanting to spend their hard earned points on.

6 Raiding

Basically a raid has the same basics as fighting in a group, except that it normally takes longer time and requires more people.

6.1 Leading a raid

6.1.1 Communication is the key

As a raid leader it is extremely important that every member of the raid knows what to do. If there is any confusion among your members this may lead to everyone’s death. This means a good raid leader has a bit of insight in each of the different roles and classes of the game. It doesn’t mean she needs to learn them all by heart, but it’s good to have a general idea what everyone is about.

If someone asks, “what am I supposed to do, I never raided before?”. A good leader will have a short but easily understandable reply. Keep in mind that a raid is not everyone to herself; a leader needs to see the groups as a whole. Even if someone is super good at soloing, doesn’t mean she will do a good job in a raid.

6.1.2 Planning ahead

As a leader you should know as much as you can about the place you are raiding. A common mistake is to let several members who believe they know more run ahead and start trying to lead everyone else. This most often turns in to chaos. The normal member will have no idea who to follow. It’s better to follow one leader to a dead end, than to be split and cause confusion in the entire team. You can always go back and take another turn, but you cannot make up for a wipeout of the team.

Some games also have raid areas where several raiding parties can be at once. If so, be sure to check that there are no other guilds currently fighting the place you are going for. If so, a backup plan may be in order.

It’s also a good idea to find out quests and information about the place you are about to raid. If you have time, also go in to class specific quests, or have a few of your group leaders do this. There are always people who do not know everything about their class and what they need to get.

6.1.3 Groups

If you have a large raid with several groups, it might be a pain to get spammed with questions from everyone. It’s a good idea to have one leader for each group to make sure there are no misunderstandings. These leaders should have enough knowledge to have an answer to most questions that may arise from normal members. In turn, if these group leaders are uncertain of something, they are the only ones that should keep direct contact with the raid leader.

6.2 Raiding discipline

6.2.1 Raid chat

If you have a specific raid chat, avoid speaking here at all if you’re not the leader. This channel should be used for important messages only. This way everyone can be sure of that whatever is mentioned on this channel is worth listening to and should be read.

6.2.2 Be on time

It’s preferable if everyone shows up on time. If the raid starts late every time, not only is it rude to those that are there on time, people will also start to take this in to account. This in turn results in the raid starting later and later every time.

6.2.3 Gear

Be sure to find out beforehand if some special gear is needed. Many raid encounters may require resistances for certain elements or special weapons. Also be sure to bring with you any ingredients you need for your spells. Also food and water may be important, depending on the game. It’s always better to bring with you gear you don’t use than to come unprepared.

6.2.4 Buffing (beneficial spells)

Some games do not have buffs that cover a whole raid. If so, it’s a good idea to assign people to hand out specific buffs. In this way everyone know who to ask, if they run out of theirs. (It’s impossible for a buffer to keep track of everyone in a raid)

7 Background

The analysis made to write this book is primary from my own game play experience and from interviews with other players in different games. My own experience is built from the following games and time estimation:

* Everquest – 321 days (7704 hours)
* Everquest 2 – 77 days (1848 hours)
* Vanguard: Saga of Heroes - 38 days (912 hours)
* World of Warcraft – 22 days (528 hours)
* Guild Wars – 15 days (360 hours)
* Dungeons & Dragons Online – 12 days (288 hours)
* Anarchy Online – 2 days (48 hours)
* Final Fantasy XI – 2 days (48 hours)
* Total playtime: 489 days (11736 hours)

I have also interviewed players from the following games:

* City of Heroes/Villains
* Dark Age of Camelot
* EVE Online
* Lineage
* Lord of the Rings Online
* Maple Story
* Star Wars Galaxies
* Ultima Online

8 Acknowledgements

First, I would like to thank PhD Candidate Mirjam Palosaari Eladhari from the University of Gotland Sweden, for doing a fantastic job at backing up my project to write this book and giving me feedback about it.

Special thanks to game developer Brad McQuaid for being an inspiration throughout my many years of MMORPG gaming. It was his active sharing of information, giving interviews, writing articles and forum posts that motivated me to take the path as a student in game design.

Also, thanks to Lovisa Pettersson, Eric De Lafontaine, Björn Fransson-Semb and Daniel Sund for their helpful comments and interesting discussions on different MMORPG topics that helped shape this book.

And finally thanks to Stina Wiik for making an amazing front cover.

 

The eagerly awaited event ESWC Masters of Paris will take place this upcoming weekend between the 4th of July and the 6th of July in Paris, France.

A prize pot of $25,000 in total is dedicated for the Counter-Strike tournament notably to help the teams covering the travel expenses for the ESWC Grand Final at San José.  

ESWC administration has unveiled the groups dividing, showing that most of the teams got a comfort group. The group drawings played out rather bad for fnatic though, as the team got a killer-group with a revitalized Roccat, the big surprise from Extreme Masters; SoA and the Brazilian top dogs from mibr. The defending champions of MYM are placed in the group with the two German teams.

For WarCraft 3 we have 20 players in total participating this time. They are going come from all over the world to try and win a berth to the Grand Finals in San Jose.

The ‘challengers’ will face the players in the ‘high’ and ‘top seeds’ and try to battle down WarCraft 3 legends like Moon and Sky. $5,000 will be distributed here.

Next to that tournaments for Counter-Strike Women, Call of Duty, DotA, Trackmania Nations and Quake 3 will take place.

myMYM.com will be live at the even to bring you first hand Coverage live from Paris for Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike Women, WarCraft 3 and DotA of course.

MEYRIN, Switzerland (June 29) - The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August.

But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists’ wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?

Ridiculous, say scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French initials CERN - some of whom have been working for a generation on the $5.8 billion collider, or LHC.

"Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on," said project leader Lyn Evans.

David Francis, a physicist on the collider’s huge ATLAS particle detector, smiled when asked whether he worried about black holes and hypothetical killer particles known as strangelets.

"If I thought that this was going to happen, I would be well away from here," he said.

The collider basically consists of a ring of supercooled magnets 17 miles in circumference attached to huge barrel-shaped detectors. The ring, which straddles the French and Swiss border, is buried 330 feet underground.

The machine, which has been called the largest scientific experiment in history, isn’t expected to begin test runs until August, and ramping up to full power could take months. But once it is working, it is expected to produce some startling findings.

Scientists plan to hunt for signs of the invisible "dark matter" and "dark energy" that make up more than 96 percent of the universe, and hope to glimpse the elusive Higgs boson, a so-far undiscovered particle thought to give matter its mass.

The collider could find evidence of extra dimensions, a boon for superstring theory, which holds that quarks, the particles that make up atoms, are infinitesimal vibrating strings.

The theory could resolve many of physics’ unanswered questions, but requires about 10 dimensions - far more than the three spatial dimensions our senses experience.

The safety of the collider, which will generate energies seven times higher than its most powerful rival, at Fermilab near Chicago, has been debated for years. The physicist Martin Rees has estimated the chance of an accelerator producing a global catastrophe at one in 50 million - long odds, to be sure, but about the same as winning some lotteries.

By contrast, a CERN team this month issued a report concluding that there is "no conceivable danger" of a cataclysmic event. The report essentially confirmed the findings of a 2003 CERN safety report, and a panel of five prominent scientists not affiliated with CERN, including one Nobel laureate, endorsed its conclusions.

Critics of the LHC filed a lawsuit in a Hawaiian court in March seeking to block its startup, alleging that there was "a significant risk that … operation of the Collider may have unintended consequences which could ultimately result in the destruction of our planet."

One of the plaintiffs, Walter L. Wagner, a physicist and lawyer, said Wednesday CERN’s safety report, released June 20, "has several major flaws," and his views on the risks of using the particle accelerator had not changed.

On Tuesday, U.S. Justice Department lawyers representing the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation filed a motion to dismiss the case.

The two agencies have contributed $531 million to building the collider, and the NSF has agreed to pay $87 million of its annual operating costs. Hundreds of American scientists will participate in the research.

The lawyers called the plaintiffs’ allegations "extraordinarily speculative," and said "there is no basis for any conceivable threat" from black holes or other objects the LHC might produce. A hearing on the motion is expected in late July or August.

In rebutting doomsday scenarios, CERN scientists point out that cosmic rays have been bombarding the earth, and triggering collisions similar to those planned for the collider, since the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.

And so far, Earth has survived.

"The LHC is only going to reproduce what nature does every second, what it has been doing for billions of years," said John Ellis, a British theoretical physicist at CERN.

Critics like Wagner have said the collisions caused by accelerators could be more hazardous than those of cosmic rays.

Both may produce micro black holes, subatomic versions of cosmic black holes - collapsed stars whose gravity fields are so powerful that they can suck in planets and other stars.

But micro black holes produced by cosmic ray collisions would likely be traveling so fast they would pass harmlessly through the earth.

Micro black holes produced by a collider, the skeptics theorize, would move more slowly and might be trapped inside the earth’s gravitational field - and eventually threaten the planet.

Ellis said doomsayers assume that the collider will create micro black holes in the first place, which he called unlikely. And even if they appeared, he said, they would instantly evaporate, as predicted by the British physicist Stephen Hawking.

As for strangelets, CERN scientists point out that they have never been proven to exist. They said that even if these particles formed inside the Collider they would quickly break down.

When the LHC is finally at full power, two beams of protons will race around the huge ring 11,000 times a second in opposite directions. They will travel in two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder and emptier than outer space.

Their trajectory will be curved by supercooled magnets - to guide the beams around the rings and prevent the packets of protons from cutting through the surrounding magnets like a blowtorch.

The paths of these beams will cross, and a few of the protons in them will collide, at a series of cylindrical detectors along the ring. The two largest detectors are essentially huge digital cameras, each weighing thousands of tons, capable of taking millions of snapshots a second.

Each year the detectors will generate 15 petabytes of data, the equivalent of a stack of CDs 12 miles tall. The data will require a high speed global network of computers for analysis.

Wagner and others filed a lawsuit to halt operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state in 1999. The courts dismissed the suit.

The leafy campus of CERN, a short drive from the shores of Lake Geneva, hardly seems like ground zero for doomsday. And locals don’t seem overly concerned. Thousands attended an open house here this spring.

"There is a huge army of scientists who know what they are talking about and are sleeping quite soundly as far as concerns the LHC," said project leader Evans.

LAS VEGAS – Francisco Lorenzo’s actions at the end of his fight at the Mandalay Bay Events Center with Humberto Soto on Saturday were cowardly, revolting and disgusting.

That means little, though, because he did the one thing he was required to do to claim the interim WBC super featherweight title:

He won.

Specifically, he won by disqualification with an acting job the likes of which haven’t been seen since Jack Nicholson in “As Good As It Gets” in 1997, but the point is, he won.

And, because he won, he should have been presented with the green WBC belt as its champion.

The WBC, though, opted to ignore the official verdict, however tainted it may be, and declared the title vacant.

“After watching the instant replay, I believe that there is no one in the world not thinking that a disqualification was one of the greatest mistakes ever in boxing,” WBC president Jose Sulaiman said.

Now, it’s easy to understand why the WBC wouldn’t want Lorenzo as its titleholder. The last four men to hold the belt – Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez, Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales, are all headed to the Hall of Fame. Previous WBC super featherweight champions like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Julio Cesar Chavez are locks for the Hall, too. Champions such as Alexis Arguello and Azumah Nelson are already enshrined.
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It’s hard to imagine Lorenzo standing shoulder to shoulder with men like that. He was beaten like a rag doll and clearly overmatched by Soto, who was on the verge of one of his most impressive knockouts.

Soto never got that knockout, though, as a mistake by referee Joe Cortez started a bizarre sequence that resulted in Lorenzo feigning a head injury so as to win a fight he was about to lose.

Lorenzo had been knocked down once in the fourth round and was on the verge of going out as Soto pursued him into a corner. As Soto moved in for the kill, Cortez jumped between the fighters, apparently to stop the fight.

“It was definitely a mistake and Joe acknowledges that,” said Keith Kizer, the executive director of the Nevada Athletic Commission.

Cortez almost as quickly backed away, though, resulting in momentary confusion and giving Lorenzo a precious few seconds to regain his senses. When Cortez ordered the boxers to continue, Soto threw a series of punches and Lorenzo voluntarily went to a knee.

As Cortez moved in to begin the count, Soto threw a right uppercut which missed and then a left that landed on the back of Lorenzo’s head.

Cortez ruled that Lorenzo was injured from the force of the punch. That is another mistake. Sitting less than 10 feet away, it hardly seemed like more than a swat to the back of the head, not a blow intended to concuss.

HBO’s replays appear to support the contention that it was an inconsequential blow.

It was, however, late. And it came with Lorenzo already on the canvas.

Soto refused to concede he’d fouled, pointing to the replay that showed him clearly to be incorrect.

“Watch the tape,” Soto said repeatedly. “The punch was already gone (when the referee jumped in).”

Unfortunately for Soto, that is not even close to being true. For whatever reason, Soto momentarily lost his self control, an action which cost him a significant victory.

Cortez, who was traveling and could not be reached for comment, ruled that Lorenzo was unable to continue. And so, according to the unified rules, that meant the referee’s only option was to disqualify Soto once Lorenzo was given five minutes to recover and was still unable to fight.
Francisco Lorenzo of the Dominican Republic sits on the canvas after fighting Humberto Soto of Mexico during an interim WBC super featherweight title fight at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 28, 2008. Lorenzo was ruled a disqualification winner against Humberto Soto after Soto was ruled to have hit him while he was down. REUTERS/Steve Marcus (UNITED STATES)
Francisco Lorenzo of the Domin…
Reuters - Jun 29, 2:34 am EDT

“Had the referee determined that Mr. Lorenzo could have continued, then he would have been ordered to fight (at the end of the five-minute recovery break) and if he said he couldn’t, he would have lost by TKO,” Kizer said.

Lorenzo’s corner was encouraging him to stay down, realizing his best chance to win would be by disqualification. And so Lorenzo, who first took a knee to avoid punishment, went down to the seat of his pants to rest once Cortez told him he had five minutes to recover.

A couple of minutes into that time, Lorenzo laid flat on his back, not moving. He was milking the situation, hoping Cortez would rule he could not continue.

When the bout ended, Soto was apparently unaware of what the ruling was, because he walked to Lorenzo’s corner, pulled him from the floor and embraced him. Lorenzo then sat momentarily on his stool before getting up and parading around the ring with his arms over his head.

It’s galling to have to give a guy a belt who was so thoroughly outclassed and who disgraced himself and his sport by behaving like he did. But the rules are the rules and they can’t only be applied when it’s convenient.

The fight’s promoter, Bob Arum, wholeheartedly supported the WBC’s decision. He was nearly apoplectic when it was suggested to him that the WBC should have given Lorenzo the belt.

“Are you out of your mind?” Arum bellowed. “Of course they shouldn’t have given him the belt. He didn’t win that fight and it would be a disgrace to give him the belt. It’s ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous, to say otherwise.”

Of course, it’s not ludicrous. Upholding an official’s judgment call is a fundamental truth in sports. This was a judgment call by Cortez, however faulty, and it should be upheld.

Sulaiman said he wasn’t seeking to overturn the verdict, but did not feel bound by it when it came to awarding the WBC belt.

“While we respect the authority of the (Nevada commission) for a decision of the fight, we are the only ones to have the authority to decide on the decision relating to the WBC world title,” he said.

Cortez had the discretion to rule that the fighter could continue and to penalize Soto two points. That would have been irrelevant, because Soto would have stopped him when the fight resumed and claimed the belt.

But Cortez chose – incorrectly, it says here – to rule that the force of the blow had enough of an impact upon Lorenzo that he was unable to continue. In that situation, he had no choice but to disqualify Soto.

Lorenzo doesn’t deserve respect, praise or credit, but he does deserve one thing:

The title.

You just wonder if the Mexican-based WBC would have made the same ruling had it been Soto, a native of Mexico, who had been fouled and won by disqualification, and not Lorenzo, a Dominican.

As it is, Lorenzo got the victory but not the belt. And that is as much a travesty as Lorenzo’s bad acting was.

Just more than 10 years ago, Mozilla threw its open-source code into the public domain. Today, its browser — Firefox — is preparing to launch its third major release in hopes of continuing to eat away at Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
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Firefox already has more than 18 percent of the global market, according to Net Applications. With the release of Firefox 3, Mozilla could see a boost in downloads and market share. Microsoft’s next version of Internet Explorer won’t come to market until later this year.

On June 17, Mozilla will release Firefox 3. After more than 34 months of active development and the contributions of thousands of people, Firefox 3 will be downloadable free from the Mozilla Web site. Mozilla is promising this is the best browser — period.

"Firefox 3 is a very nice browser. It’s still going to have to go up against Internet Explorer {Windows] and Safari [Mac], which have the home court advantage on their operating systems," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch. "It shows that the browser market is anything but stagnant."

A Focus on Security

Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 15,000 updates, including some major re-architecting for improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. The result, Mozilla said, is a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer Web-site and Firefox add-on developers.

Mozilla begins with a focus on security. Users can click a Web site’s favicon [icon] in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if the connection is secure. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand, Mozilla said. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site’s favicon will turn green and show the name of the company.

Firefox 3 also has malware protection to warn users when they arrive at sites known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or the like. And a new Web Forgery Protection service blocks the content of pages suspected as Web forgeries. New SSL error pages, Mozilla said, are clearer and stricter, and Firefox automatically disables old and insecure add-on and plug-in versions.

Add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will also be disabled. Firefox will inform antivirus software when downloading executables and the browser respects the Vista parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

Easier, More Personal

Mozilla also concentrated on making Firefox easier to use and more personalized. In terms of password management, that means an information bar replaces the old password dialog so users can save passwords after a successful login. The add-on whitelist has been removed, making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks. And a new download manager aims to makes it much easier to locate downloaded files. Users can also see and search the Web site where a file came from.

Firefox 3 allows users to add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click and associate keywords with bookmarks to sort them. Web applications, such as a favorite Webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications to handle Web-site mail links. The Add-ons Manager can be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of add-ons available from Mozilla’s Web site.

Gartenberg expects the competition to dominate browsing will continue. Even now, Microsoft is working on the release of IE 8 and Apple is seeding Safari 4. "Clearly, Web browsers are still very important, as important as they were 10 years ago, but just in a different way," he said. "The bottom line is no one is actually paying for a browser any more. A browser is free. It’s something you give away in order to make money elsewhere."

LOS ANGELES (AP)—Candace Parker became the second woman to dunk in a WNBA game and the Los Angeles Sparks beat the Indiana Fever 77-63 on Sunday night.

Parker took a pass from Raffaella Masciadri, dribbled the length of the court and dunked with her right hand with 29 seconds to play.

“When I caught the ball and there was an open lane, it was a good opportunity,” Parker said. “I’m happy that I was able to do it in Los Angeles in front of the home fans.”

Lisa Leslie, her Sparks teammate, is the only other WNBA player to do it— throwing a shot down during a game in 2002.

“Obviously, it means a lot having the first person to do it on my team,” Parker said. “There’s going to be more to come in the league itself.”

Parker finished with 10 points, 10 rebounds, four blocks and four assists. Leslie added 17 points, nine rebounds, four assists and three blocks.