MAPQUEST
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I had casually skimmed over Mapquest.com a few times before and had never thought of the potential. Not until I heard that thousands of people play mapquest every day from all around the world. A free browser-based MMO, how interesting.
So I decided to give it another chance. When I arrived at mapquest.ca (The canadian server) the first thing I noticed was how amazingly open-ended it was.

So non-linear and flexible you could define your own rules. I decided I needed to create a character, D&D style.

Now, mapquest is all about suburban geography, so I figured a ranger would be suited to the task, but more of a contemporary ranger and one that would be suited to the many travels this game would take him through.

I started as always with the ability rolls.
12, 7, 12, 18, 10, 12

The 18 is promising. I decide 18 would be a good constitution score, and if I make my character a gnome, the +2 racial bonus would increase it to 20. My strength score would hence drop by 2, but that's livable.

So my abilities are as follows:
Str 10, Dex 7, Con 20, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 10

True, not a very good combat-oriented ranger, but this was going to be about travel and exploration, so a high intelligence and wisdom would be more valuable than strength and dexterity.
I name my character Tiberius Rambo.

I click the "settings" menu.

There doesn't seem to be anywhere to upload a pic for my character so all that art work for nothing.


Well, I decide, what better place to start than Toronto? I type Toronto under the city field and leave it at that.
Let me tell you, the game's geography is very lifelike.

I'm loving the graphical interface so far. See that little star? That's me. I am here.

I zoom in all the way and I find that my adventure starts by the corner of Barton Ave and Manning Ave.

What's here? I've been to Toronto one or two times and the only street I recognize here is Bathurst.
The adventure here must be to find my way to civilization.
I click on the arrow at the left of the window that says west. However, this really only adjusts the map position and not where my character is standing.

I can't seem to figure out how my character moves at all. He's been standing still for a while and I don't want his legs to get tired simply from standing.
I decide I should quickly find out where I want to go, then figure out where to move him.

After a little zooming out and moving west, I find a good spot. Pearson Airport.

Tiberius could travel any number of places from there. Now, how do I start him moving?

I decide, first I need to pinpoint Pearson, so I click on the little helpful tab at the top right, "Airport"
This brings up the following menu:

I'm a little offput by the fact that it says "State" and not "State/Province"
I enter the appropriate data as if it's a state.

You bastards! Why aren't Provinces supported by this function? What, Canada doesn't have airports?
I look around the site to find a "submit bug" query and I don't find one. Looks like the software company (which doesn't have its name or logo anywhere on the site, interestingly enough) doesn't care enough to have any sort of tech support for their game.
Meanwhile, our hero is still standing there in Toronto, so I decide I'm going to have to adapt to the circumstances.
The closest American airport is an airport in Niagara Falls, NY.

Great.

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