Tonight everything just boiled to a head, and I blew my top in a spectacularly shitty fashion. My analog friends and I are in Lima Peru to see my friend get married and tonight was the rehearsal dinner. Half the group was already getting on my nerves since we spent the last five days together going to Machu piccu and back; my friends wife who can't not open her mouth and say the most blatantly obvious or totally moronic things every minute, and my other two friends who love nothing better than to get as drunk as possible as fast as possible and just be generally obnoxious. By their powers combined...
I thought I had more patience. Maybe everything hit at once, and I just needed to release it and get as far away from the situation as possible. I lost my cool and ran the fuck off in the middle of Miraflores, with only a vague sense of where I was going in a blind huff. Not exactly my finest hour. I missed the dinner, and more than that, disappointed myself and my friends with how I acted.
Maybe it was just the situation. Maybe I was the 5th wheel. Maybe I secretly hate all other people and want nothing to do with any situation where I need to depend on anyone else. Oh. Wait... It got me thinking though. I not a group thinker, or even a group person. Im my own wolfpack so to speak. Maybe I just dont like my friends anymore.
I'm more disappointed that I wasn't there for my friend getting married than I was losing my shit and bailing on my other buddies. They had it coming, they had it coming, they only had themselves to blame.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Why I'm single.
Thought experiment post time. Also giving typing on an iPad a shot. So far so good.
Number one. I'm too nice. Like literally too nice of a person to live in this world let alone find a girl who digs it. I'm still baffled how being a rude douche has more appeal to women than being an ethical good person. I'm nice, but am I too nice? Rther than quantify it, I'm just going to say yes. I'm too accommodating. Either I have my own shit figured out enough that I direct my thought and energy outward, or I just dont care about myself enough that an need my locus outside myself in order to fulfil same unmet Freudian need or something. Prolly a combination.
Número dos. Holy fuck, the iPad does accents for you. Go apple. I'm too smart. I don't know if I am a genius or something but I have a hard time connecting with people simply because I think on a higher level than most. I can't turn it off either, and it's ridiculous. I really hard to find smart women, or just smart people in general, but is rough. I'm not talking about how much you know, I'm talking about true intelligence, abilities to create and share unique and smart thoughts. This can also be attributed to why I prefer to not be around my lot of peppe in general, but it doesnt help on the female front.
Reason the third, I'm broken somehow. Havent exactly nailed this one down yet, but there is something subconsciously that is happening and cockblocking me. Rich and I had a discussion of whose is better equipped to establish a successful relationship: someone who comes from a divorced household, or someone whose parents are still together. I'd argue that it depends. Those with divorced parents have a higher nsuccess rate with mates who's parents are also broken up than with a mate with married parents. I'd also argue that it goes both ways. So in some way, I'm single because I haven't found that other broken person out there yet.
I'm also tragically single by choice as well. I'm still on my me kick, and I don't have time for another persons right now until things settle way down. The need for companionship pings me once in a while, but it passes with a quick look at okcupid and I see what the selection looks like. Talk about a wasteland. When every girl is a smart, fun loving, artsy, funny special snowflake, no girls are. Get over yourselves girls.
Okay, wet blanket over. Gogo gadget iPad. Typing on you is actually not terrible. Less than three.
Number one. I'm too nice. Like literally too nice of a person to live in this world let alone find a girl who digs it. I'm still baffled how being a rude douche has more appeal to women than being an ethical good person. I'm nice, but am I too nice? Rther than quantify it, I'm just going to say yes. I'm too accommodating. Either I have my own shit figured out enough that I direct my thought and energy outward, or I just dont care about myself enough that an need my locus outside myself in order to fulfil same unmet Freudian need or something. Prolly a combination.
Número dos. Holy fuck, the iPad does accents for you. Go apple. I'm too smart. I don't know if I am a genius or something but I have a hard time connecting with people simply because I think on a higher level than most. I can't turn it off either, and it's ridiculous. I really hard to find smart women, or just smart people in general, but is rough. I'm not talking about how much you know, I'm talking about true intelligence, abilities to create and share unique and smart thoughts. This can also be attributed to why I prefer to not be around my lot of peppe in general, but it doesnt help on the female front.
Reason the third, I'm broken somehow. Havent exactly nailed this one down yet, but there is something subconsciously that is happening and cockblocking me. Rich and I had a discussion of whose is better equipped to establish a successful relationship: someone who comes from a divorced household, or someone whose parents are still together. I'd argue that it depends. Those with divorced parents have a higher nsuccess rate with mates who's parents are also broken up than with a mate with married parents. I'd also argue that it goes both ways. So in some way, I'm single because I haven't found that other broken person out there yet.
I'm also tragically single by choice as well. I'm still on my me kick, and I don't have time for another persons right now until things settle way down. The need for companionship pings me once in a while, but it passes with a quick look at okcupid and I see what the selection looks like. Talk about a wasteland. When every girl is a smart, fun loving, artsy, funny special snowflake, no girls are. Get over yourselves girls.
Okay, wet blanket over. Gogo gadget iPad. Typing on you is actually not terrible. Less than three.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Another Approach.
15 bucks per month can get you a lot more these days than it used to, which seems counterintuitive compared to the economic theory of inflation. WoW was and still is a hell of a deal based on a $/hour basis in terms of the cost of entertainment.
Doing anything analog such as going to a movie, getting a beer, or seeing a show is going to run you some bucks. That 15 bucks could go towards a Netflix sub, an MMO sub, music subscription, or really anything connected to the internet. That seems to be the standard rate.
What am I going to do with my 15 bucks, now that WoW is out of the picture? WoW did a spectacular job of bringing a lot of different mechanics all under one engine, and since you never lost your progress, there were always other things to try and do. This is what initially drew me to it; life before WoW I could plow through an RPG, but would feel a little twinge starting a new one. Couldn't I pull some of my previous experience in and save a little time on the front end? WoW did this, as your character was a hub for various RPG experiences.
It only makes sense that I take a polar opposite approach to huge infrastructure persistent worlds, and get back to a little of my gaming roots: small independent games.
Computer games, NES games, and video games in general have their roots in very short, very simple mechanisms, and typically can be chewed through in roughly 5-10 hours. I got by for a long time on game demos, freeware, shareware, and even some pirated stuff way back in the day. I think (a little romantically) that the new game mechanics will be tried and tested on the short form battlefield, ready for the next huge amalgamation to gobble them all up and polish them.
Will $15/mo be enough to fuel my indie game habit?
Doing anything analog such as going to a movie, getting a beer, or seeing a show is going to run you some bucks. That 15 bucks could go towards a Netflix sub, an MMO sub, music subscription, or really anything connected to the internet. That seems to be the standard rate.
What am I going to do with my 15 bucks, now that WoW is out of the picture? WoW did a spectacular job of bringing a lot of different mechanics all under one engine, and since you never lost your progress, there were always other things to try and do. This is what initially drew me to it; life before WoW I could plow through an RPG, but would feel a little twinge starting a new one. Couldn't I pull some of my previous experience in and save a little time on the front end? WoW did this, as your character was a hub for various RPG experiences.
It only makes sense that I take a polar opposite approach to huge infrastructure persistent worlds, and get back to a little of my gaming roots: small independent games.
Computer games, NES games, and video games in general have their roots in very short, very simple mechanisms, and typically can be chewed through in roughly 5-10 hours. I got by for a long time on game demos, freeware, shareware, and even some pirated stuff way back in the day. I think (a little romantically) that the new game mechanics will be tried and tested on the short form battlefield, ready for the next huge amalgamation to gobble them all up and polish them.
Will $15/mo be enough to fuel my indie game habit?
Friday, March 2, 2012
But a whimper.
I'm not sure how to start this off, but with my acknowledgement that my time in World of Warcraft is complete.
I feel that the well has run dry, and it is time for me to move on to other things in life. There is nothing left to discover, nothing more to learn, and no more people to meet in this game. The game has changed so much in the time that I have played it, that it's become something else entirely. Perhaps I have stayed the same, or I have changed in a different direction.
Six years. Seems so short when you say it like that.
I got through the first 10 levels of this game, and thought "Wow. Someone has finally gotten things right. I have been playing video games all my life, and this truly feels like something refreshing and different." You don't come across those feelings very often, so I decided to embrace it.
So much has changed in my life since I first started playing in this whole other world. I used to be a grown up before I started playing; things like bills, and credit ratings, and class ranks meant more before I became a paladin. I justified all that time to myself. I had been a hard working student and person all my life, and never really got to have a childhood growing up. Divorced parents, and no real family structure will make you very independent, and you end up having to do a lot of things for yourself otherwise nothing happens at all. The last 6 years have been my childhood, in game and out.
Playing a paladin, I have had to reinvent myself multiple times during the course of my career; these reinventions also mirrored the personal reinventions that have happened to myself outside the game. Just as it was in the game, it is in life; You get the greatest personal benefit when other people share your successes and failures. The people you surround yourself with make the experience all the richer. No matter where you are in life or how alone you feel, there are always others out there who are similar to you and taking solace in that is freeing. Knowing that there are nerds of a feather out in the world, makes the world a little smaller and having a like minded dialogue can turn any day around.
My highs are lows are for myself and myself alone though. My successes and failures in the game have shaped who I am, and the lessons learned have already been integrated into who I am.
On a less dramatic note, I am quitting for a few reasons:
1) Something I used to take pride in being unique is now cheapened.
Raiding is not as much fun as it used to be. It was a lot easier to be a special snowflake back in Vanilla or Burning Crusade. The game was simpler, and raiding was more organic.
2) Pandas et al.
I used to respect Blizzard a great deal more than I do now. Something firmly stated for a long time was that the pandaren race was just an easter egg, something that was a one off in Warcraft 3 and would never make it into World of Warcraft. When I saw Mists of Pandaria's flagship feature would be Pandaren, something broke inside me. Nothing was sacred anymore, and my sneaking suspicion that the game was being tooled more and more to retain subscribers rather than retain the spirit of the game that I loved. Also, pokemon. Give me a fucking break. The game has absorbed so many people that the core fanbase of the game has been diluted into retarded, impatient, and stupid people that play the game. I don't want to play with those people.
3) "Hardcore" Raiding.
I appreciate what raiding needed to become in order to stay fresh and interesting to both veterans, and new people alike. To me this is a fools errand, which LFR has attempted to bandaid. LFR is not fun. Any random pickup group in this game that was mashed together by a computer is not fun at all. I have had probably less than 1% of my experiences in random dungeons and raids over the years be enriching and enjoyable. I digress, but I enjoy raiding and pushing myself as hard as I can. It's one arena where I am incredibly self critical.
This is gone now. It's replaced with encounters that discourage team coordination, and just aren't that interesting.
All three of these reasons are because of the focus of the game trying to attract players who don't want to put anything into their own game experience, and expect all the fun to be provided for them by either the developers, or everyone else that is playing the game.
Ugh.
I feel that the well has run dry, and it is time for me to move on to other things in life. There is nothing left to discover, nothing more to learn, and no more people to meet in this game. The game has changed so much in the time that I have played it, that it's become something else entirely. Perhaps I have stayed the same, or I have changed in a different direction.
Six years. Seems so short when you say it like that.
I got through the first 10 levels of this game, and thought "Wow. Someone has finally gotten things right. I have been playing video games all my life, and this truly feels like something refreshing and different." You don't come across those feelings very often, so I decided to embrace it.
So much has changed in my life since I first started playing in this whole other world. I used to be a grown up before I started playing; things like bills, and credit ratings, and class ranks meant more before I became a paladin. I justified all that time to myself. I had been a hard working student and person all my life, and never really got to have a childhood growing up. Divorced parents, and no real family structure will make you very independent, and you end up having to do a lot of things for yourself otherwise nothing happens at all. The last 6 years have been my childhood, in game and out.
Playing a paladin, I have had to reinvent myself multiple times during the course of my career; these reinventions also mirrored the personal reinventions that have happened to myself outside the game. Just as it was in the game, it is in life; You get the greatest personal benefit when other people share your successes and failures. The people you surround yourself with make the experience all the richer. No matter where you are in life or how alone you feel, there are always others out there who are similar to you and taking solace in that is freeing. Knowing that there are nerds of a feather out in the world, makes the world a little smaller and having a like minded dialogue can turn any day around.
My highs are lows are for myself and myself alone though. My successes and failures in the game have shaped who I am, and the lessons learned have already been integrated into who I am.
On a less dramatic note, I am quitting for a few reasons:
1) Something I used to take pride in being unique is now cheapened.
Raiding is not as much fun as it used to be. It was a lot easier to be a special snowflake back in Vanilla or Burning Crusade. The game was simpler, and raiding was more organic.
2) Pandas et al.
I used to respect Blizzard a great deal more than I do now. Something firmly stated for a long time was that the pandaren race was just an easter egg, something that was a one off in Warcraft 3 and would never make it into World of Warcraft. When I saw Mists of Pandaria's flagship feature would be Pandaren, something broke inside me. Nothing was sacred anymore, and my sneaking suspicion that the game was being tooled more and more to retain subscribers rather than retain the spirit of the game that I loved. Also, pokemon. Give me a fucking break. The game has absorbed so many people that the core fanbase of the game has been diluted into retarded, impatient, and stupid people that play the game. I don't want to play with those people.
3) "Hardcore" Raiding.
I appreciate what raiding needed to become in order to stay fresh and interesting to both veterans, and new people alike. To me this is a fools errand, which LFR has attempted to bandaid. LFR is not fun. Any random pickup group in this game that was mashed together by a computer is not fun at all. I have had probably less than 1% of my experiences in random dungeons and raids over the years be enriching and enjoyable. I digress, but I enjoy raiding and pushing myself as hard as I can. It's one arena where I am incredibly self critical.
This is gone now. It's replaced with encounters that discourage team coordination, and just aren't that interesting.
All three of these reasons are because of the focus of the game trying to attract players who don't want to put anything into their own game experience, and expect all the fun to be provided for them by either the developers, or everyone else that is playing the game.
Ugh.
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