A few weeks back, I put up a tweet about how I wanted the first expansion for Guild Wars 2 to be set in the Cabin in the Woods universe. Of course, that’s bloody impossible, but with my mind so firmly entrenched in wanting more Whedonesque horror, I found myself liking The Secret World because it’s the closest thing to a horror MMO with comedic bits.

I have my first impressions up on CSICON, if anyone wants to take a look, but basically, I’m really hoping Funcom pulls a rabbit out of its hat and does some MMO magic with The Secret World as I’d really like for it to succeed.

With all the recent commotion over the Perfect Strangers flash game, I’ve been listening to the theme song for the show and as I was listening, thoughts about blogging came to mind.

After a few seconds, my mind just clicked, and it was like I learned more about my time blogging from listening to the Perfect Strangers theme song.

Sometimes the world looks perfect. There’s nothing to rearrange.

This is I felt when I started blogging and had my blog organized and my first post introducing myself to the public set up.

Sometimes you just get a feeling like you need some kind of change.

Eventually, I began to feel like something was missing. Writing about just one game (for me it was WoW at first) felt constricting, so I kept trying other games and writing about non MMO things. Everything felt like fair game to me to write.

No matter what the odds are this time, nothing’s going to stand in my way.

Originally, I thought about various minutiae and statistical information. I wanted to know if people were reading my writings. I felt determined to make it as a writer for a video game website, or to make a living through writing. This was a rather depressing point of view to take, because I write in a way that is very non-confrontational, and I kept getting disheartened by my situation.

This flame in my heart, and a long lost friend gives every dark street a light at the end.

I kept writing, and I stayed in touch with friends, and it was with the help of many twitter friends that I realized, I enjoyed it whether I was being paid or not. Strangely enough, it was also a twitter friends who helped me to take a risk on myself, and eventually I got a part time job writing professionally.

I realized, if I wanted to write as an outlet, it should not matter too much how many people were reading it if I could simply get my thoughts out in a way that felt right for me and showed it to people open to what I had to say. It was gratifying to realize that.

Standing tall, on the wings of my dream. Rise and fall, on the wings of my dream. 

You will have good days and bad days writing.

People may read you and like or hate what you say (as it happened throughout my nearly 10 years of personal, professional and leisurely blogging), but you have to be a good sport about it and stand above the muck they might want to throw at you and respond in a dignified manner to show that you aren’t going to stoop to their level.

The rain and thunder, the wind and haze, I’m bound for better days. 

You have to be optimistic about your writing. Even if you’re not optimistic about everything else, you have to look forward thinking that you support what you write and your words have value. This keeps you going on the bad days, and keeps you from taking a break from writing that becomes an abandonment of your hobby.

Just remember, if that rain, thunder, wind, and haze is a storm, do not use your computer.

It’s my life and my dream, and nothing’s going to stop me now.

That’s definitely what I tell myself these days, and it’s a great life-affirming statement to keep in mind.

GO LARRY AND BALKI! GO WRITERS GO!

Many people find reasons not to do something. A good number of people choose to do something because despite all those myriad reasons to not do a particular action, they find one redeeming reason to go ahead and try anyway.

Sometimes, you may feel scared that you’d get rejected by fellow bloggers or maybe even trolled by people. Other times, you may not like the lack of attention on your blog, or you may not be confident in your ability to write anything. Worse still, you might feel like your opinions shouldn’t matter, and so for any and all of the above reasons, you choose not to blog.

Well I’m here to tell you that there isn’t just one good reason to blog: there’s a couple of excellent reasons to go onto a blogging platform and write about your experiences playing games.

For one thing, there is scientific evidence that points to blogging being mentally healthy for people. It allows people to feel less isolated and more confident in the strength of their friendships when they’re able to blog.

Related to this, another good reason to blog is that it lets flex your mental (and possibly your emotional) muscles a bit. By writing things down, you’re learning to organize your thoughts, which in itself is an excellent exercise to keep your brain active. It also lets you improve your writing abilities. Best of all, you can also use blogging to destress from particular events, good or bad.

One of the other wonderful benefits behind blogging is the interactivity you get when blogging. If people read your work, they can comment on it and provide their own take on your writings, or offer advice and insight as needed. As mentioned earlier, blogging is as much as socializing force as it is an introspective output.

Perhaps my favorite reason for starting and continuing blogging is its worth in allowing for visible retrospection. Over a long period of blogging, I have amassed hundreds (probably more than a thousand) posts, be they personal, professional, or leisure-related. I sometimes keep copies of my favorite posts and look at them once in a while to see the way I used to think about things before, compared to how I think about them now. In a nutshell, blogging allows you to chart your growth as a person, and can even help you see warning signs if you’re starting to feel burnt out or depressed about certain things in your life.

All these being said, those are four pretty good reasons to blog. I encourage you to take up the mantle of a blogger (whether for games or personal blogging), join us at the Newbie Blogger Initiative forums, introduce yourself so we can help you along the path of writing.

Cheers!

I’ve been away from my regular computer for nearly a month now, so I haven’t had the chance to really write anything other than work posts as I’ve been spending time with family in San Francisco.

That said, I do have something important I’d like to share with the readers here.

Justin, otherwise known as Syp from Bio Break, contacted a lot of folks last month to prepare a concerted effort to get readers and interested parties to start and maintain a blog (about games, but heck, if you want to start a personal blog too, I think that’s excellent). It’s called the Newbie Blogger Initiative, and it aims to introduce folks to blogging by getting established bloggers to provide commentary, insights, and general help regarding the blogging process.

More than 70 bloggers have pledged their support to write posts for this month to help new or interested parties along in blogging. I will also be participating in this initiative, and I hope folks out there reading entries from myself or other participants will join the Newbie Blogger Initiative forums, sign up, and consider asking folks for help or advice in the appropriate places.

Cheers to all, and I’ll have another post up in a few hours when I have the chance.

If you’re wondering who I’m referring to, I’m talking about Tobold at the moment.

Nope, not that Mittani fellow. Tobold.

The basis for his consternation lies in the events of Mittanigate, wherein a CSM player (and Council of Stellar Management) chairman named The Mittani seemingly encouraged other people into goading someone to commit suicide.

The fallout of this event was The Mittani (Alexander Gianturco)’s resignation from the CSM, the revocation of his CSM position in its entirety and a 30-day banning for The Mittani’s account (not sure if this still holds) a day later, a boatload of people going nuts everywhere regarding bullying and other issues in relation to this particular event, The Mittani (both character and person) refocusing his efforts on pretty much creating havoc across New Eden, and Tobold saying stuff again.

Now, I read Tobold’s writings, and I can see where he’s coming from, but sometimes, I think he’s preachier than I am, without trying to see what everyone’s viewpoint is on a particular issue.

I asked Syncaine to help me get more insight into everything by providing me with clarifications regarding what happened, minus his personal commentary. From what he’s told me, and from videos I’ve seen and posts I’ve read, all that’s happened is that a drunk guy (The Mittani) decided to be a complete tool and tried to get other people to be a dick to someone. The other guy didn’t quite care, and according to Syncaine, said recipient of the bullying in this case was even joking that maybe he should kill himself to get Mittani in trouble.

Dissecting the scenario, all I can see are the following:

1. The Mittani decides to be drunk and stupid.

2. People in the EVE community decide to act stupid as well.

3. Outrage spreads over the occurrence of stupidity.

4. Recipient of bullying doesn’t give a damn, and also says something stupid that makes light of suicide.

5. Reports that aren’t updated exacerbate matters.

6. Tobold says Syncaine and The Mittani are evil, which is stupid, because Syncaine is about as opinionated and well-spoken as Tobold and had his words taken out of context, and the Mittani, as we’ve discussed earlier, is stupid.

7. Errybody in the club getting tipsy stupid.

What does this lead to? Simple… People are idiots. They can be mean-spirited and follow the flow of discussion to an idiotic conclusion. Worse still, they can choose to follow an agenda of their own that misrepresents ideas to further their thoughts.

Whether that last bit refers to Gianturco’s campaign, Tobold’s writings, Syncaine’s writings, or my writings… why not just lump them all into a ball of stupid, call it a day, and focus our efforts on just being nicer people to everyone in general instead of being stupid dicks online.

That’d be the smartest outcome out all this, I’d reckon.

For the most part, the crux of the article on allowing everyone to feel safe and unharassed in their games was met with some disapproval. Perhaps it’s my writing style, or perhaps some people simply don’t think the game space is worth a damn other than for selfish play, but I certainly don’t want to spend my time thinking about a community that doesn’t take care of its fellows.

Then I read the latest post on ArenaNet’s blog about building community, and the quoted portion below is an important excerpt of that:

Our ultimate goal is to create an environment that is respectful, welcoming, inclusive and friendly. We want to create a global community where people will feel at home, and an environment that will foster both creativity and collaboration.

The main goal is to be inclusive, not exclusive, to encourage collaboration between communities, and to generate an atmosphere that is helpful, friendly, and above all, respectful.  There is an unfortunate tendency in some online communities to encourage behavior that is detrimental to the fun of a lot of players by allowing a rather toxic and unwelcoming atmosphere. We want to set a new standard and make the Guild Wars 2 community a mature, friendly, helpful and inclusive one that is recognized throughout the industry as being so.  With that goal, we will ensure that both our game and our forums reflect our standards, and we will evaluate our support for communities based on the standards they enforce upon themselves.

Ravious of Kill Ten Rats and Regina Buenaobra of ArenaNet said it best when they said that they expect more. I’m not sure if it relates exactly to expecting more of one’s self on a personal level or as a whole among other people, but from my experience, I’d be the type to think that it starts with the self.

I have my own issues, likes, and dislikes, but that doesn’t mean I can’t expect more from myself in terms of my ability to respect and care for other people. That’s where it starts, and hopefully, it’ll move forward from there.

I think there’s this line from Kamen Rider OOO that kind of says it best. The lead character, Eijji Hino, once said something along the lines of wanting to have the power to help everyone in the world. However, he’s only human, so his philosophy is to start being good to other people within his arm’s reach. I think, with the help of the internet, my arm’s reach can extend farther than I think is possible, and that’s a good place to start being excellent to other people.

Around a week or so ago, I was approached by Pirrip, who helps make the weekly comic called GamesRBad4U. At first I wasn’t sure if I should take a look at it, but I decided to trust that the email was legitimate, and found myself laughing at some of the comics they had for readers.

The description of the GamesRBad4U Tumblr is as follows:

As everyone knows, not only do video games rot children’s minds, but they eventually turn all children into malicious serial killers.

This is the story of one such gamer.

As such, you can probably see that this is a pretty satirical look at the influence of video games on the young or the easily manipulated.

The comic takes a very serious approach to the situation, wherein the main character of the comics, Thomas Maximilian Jenkins, uses video game logic in real-life situations causing havoc or embarrassment to his parents and sister. The video game references aren’t subtle, but the humor lies in the lack of subtlety and the deadpan way in which Jenkins sees everything as a threat or an opportunity to be exploited.

In my opinion, there is one thing that detracts from each comic as a whole. That’s in the attempts to reinforce the humor by having a public service announcement-slash-explanation at the end of each comic. The problem with this is that I feel the comics stand on their own without the need for explanation, or if an explanation appears to be warranted, then it can be put on the post as the first comment for those who don’t get the jokes at first glance.

For the most part, I will say this: When the games I love are referenced and taken to their logical extreme (see Dead Rising and Fallout 3), the comics can be really funny.

I’d recommend this comic for folks who are tired of the anti-gaming rhetoric and want to see it turned over into something funny instead. Definitely not recommended for folks who dislike games, do not play them, or who may take this comic strip as a serious example of the degradation of the youth.

Some time ago, I took Everquest out for a trial run, but I never really got into it because the controls felt alien to me… I mean, pressing H to hail an NPC? Typing words to talk to an imaginary being through the internet? Preposterous, right?

I’d been conditioned by the Eq2/WoW-era RPG to demand an experience that was similar to itself, to the point that I’d never really given the first Everquest a proper run-through because of its naturally different style of play.

I want to rectify that due to my current situation. Right now, there are a couple of AAA free-to-play MMORPGs I’ve not tried, and with my current need to conserve my money, it seemed like a good idea to go and revisit Everquest, especially since I actually have quite a bit of Station Cash on my account that’s doing nothing there.

At the same time, I’ve set EVE Online on an 11-day training regimen, even though I have only four days left on my sub. Whether it trains past day four is beyond me, but at least I’ll have a better inkling of what my plans are when I come back.

In addition, I want to try another genre I’ve yet to actually experience: the superhero game. I’ve downloaded DC Universe Online for a run, and I’m going to make an ice character for use.

My SC will go more to Everquest, probably, mostly because DCUO doesn’t seem to have housiing. Hopefully, I’ll enjoy Everquest and DCUO and, perhaps, even a bit of LOTRO, even without spending for anything with more money than I’ve already invested.

At the very least, some new and old games will get their time in the spotlight.

My thanks to Kaozz of ECTMMO for reminding me of the Everquest F2P transition that’s happening.

The EVE Writer takes off!

Without meaning to, I found out that a term I made up happened to be a word that some people actually use for the exact purpose I made it out to be.

The term I coined in my head was “metamarket,” and it refers to the creation of a market related to an existing product that adds value to the already existing product by virtue of that additional market being established.

I’ve told a handful of people that I wanted to establish some kind of metamarket to make ISK in EVE Online. As far as I understand it, even when you’re not playing the game, the mechanics of the game allow for blogs and websites to get some kind of ISK funding if they have advertisements, such as Eve News 24 or the EVE Battleclinic.

For me, that means that EVE has a sense of forward progression whether you’re in-game or out of it. As your skills train, you progress forward and gain new skills to help you become a better pilot. At the same time, with an existing metamarket, you also get the benefit of in-game monetary gain if you play your cards right in the physical world.

That made me want to think outside the box and see what else could be tapped as a business venture for my personal enjoyment, allowing me to further appreciate this intriguing out-of-game mechanic that ties in well to the universe of New Eden and increase my in-game assets as well.

To that end, I looked at my strengths and realized that since I enjoy writing, I might as well tie it into the EVE infrastructure somehow. After some consideration and a few hours of free blog building on WordPress, I came up with The EVE Writer, a place where players who want to have  announcements and advertisements tailor-made for their needs can invest some ISK into getting quality write-ups.

Whether they want advertisements for their corp on the forums, an announcement of a new feature for their EVE-related tool, or an editor for their EVE RP piece, I aim to provide that service. Folks who prefer to focus on doing what they do best, whether it be industry, PVE, PVP, or app creation, can let me handle how to tell everyone about what they’re doing in a positive, well-written manner that makes everyone happy.

That said, I hope advertising this here and through various means can reel in some curious folk who’d like to try out the service. In the meantime, I shall focus on real-life stuff and not get overly excited about this metamarket idea, as it can always blow up in my face.

Cheers!

When I play video games, I have this horrible tendency to min-max my actions . It’s just how I got used to playing console games; worse still, it translated into a desire to do things expediently in MMOs.

Now EVE is a big place, with many different things to do and a lot of skills needed to properly accomplish those tasks. The one thing I knew I wanted to do in the long term was to eventually build ships, but I also knew that I had to make money to get the materials and blueprints and skillbooks needed to both build the spacecraft I would be using and fly it properly without losing it in a firefight.

To respond to that scenario, I asked myself, “What do I want to do?”

I wanted to do Planetary Interaction. Then someone told me in the forums that I might not get a lot of money or be able to properly invest in Planetary Interaction as a newcomer to the game. I reconsidered my plans to follow this route.

I followed up that thought with the possibility of doing missions and farming the standings and research points needed for datacores to make the ships I wanted to build. The information was at my fingertips, when someone told me that I wouldn’t be able to make good use of the information I had because I wasn’t training the right skills to level 5. I reconsidered my plans to try this out in the interim.

At a loss, I asked the members on the EVE forums about the best way to skill my character so I could do Planetary Interaction, Missioning, and Industry at the same time, effectively. To that end, Mara Rinn and RavenPaine gave me the best advice I could ever really ask for.

Mara Rinn told me to “Fly spaceships for fun, not profit.”

RavenPaine said, “ISK is very important, but FUN is more important. Make sure that your chosen path (paths) is fun and interesting for YOU.”

Of course, they were right. In the past, nearly every console and PC game I had spent hours obsessing over with min-maxing and “getting everything right,” I ultimately never finished. In MMOs, I got burned out from wondering if I was strong enough, or made enough DPS, or if I was looking at the right database entry for a questline I needed to finish to get better loot that was only incrementally more powerful and not even visually shown on my character.

While in EVE, information and knowledge (and website tabs with guide entries) is definitely important, worrying about maximizing ISK all the time makes it a job: one where, unless you trade in the black market, you don’t even get paid in food-buying money for. It’s an approach that can drive me away from playing EVE, if not from burnout, then from fear of being ganked and losing a virtual ship because I couldn’t fly it right.

I’ve chosen, in that regard, to not worry about maximizing ISK. Instead, I want to do the three things I feel like doing (PI, Missions/Datacore gathering, and building stuff) as best as I can WITHOUT worrying about the min-maxing of stats and the optimization of my skill queue.

Sure, I’ll still be a nervous wreck at times wondering if I’m doing the right thing. That’s to be expected as a new capsuleer. All of it, however, is part of the capsuleer’s experience in space. With a future that reaches up to distant stars, who says we have to stay focused on a single shining beacon of light? New Eden is mine to explore, and I hope to get many good memories out of flying here.