Every fall I wander back to GW2, and it’s not looking any different this year. I love that they’re giving us an opportunity to unlock missed season adventures, including the Icebrood Saga. I picked it up on my main account, but still want to unlock it on my second account. The team has a ton of goodies lined up for the year, and I hope GW2 gets the attention it deserves. It’s still one of my favourite games to play. Happy 9th anniversary!
Over the years I’ve done a few appreciation posts, from community managers to developers – and as my gaming years have rounded out I’ve come to appreciate so much more that it would be absolutely impossible to put it all into a single post so I’m going to go about things a bit different. First, I know that last week (August 18th-24th) was actually the scheduled blaugust DAW but I got my weeks confused and so now I’m trying to make up for it. Appreciation is appreciation, right?
I have always prided myself on being able to criticize a game or aspects of a game while remaining calm and reasonable. I understand that gamers are a passionate bunch, and that passion can be both beneficial and detrimental to the game and the people working on it. I think that developers are (typically) quite open to listening to their audience, even if they can’t actively implement everything everyone wants – but when the audience passes over a certain threshold it becomes more difficult to listen to them, and then we get a group of ‘loud minority’ that seem to take over. I know, I’ve been there.
One of my jobs when I was working for NCSoft was to take the information/reactions from the players every single time there was an update or a change, and compile it into a neat and tidy list for those higher up to read. Every public observation from reddit, facebook, twitter, the forums, gaming sites, I read every comment. I did my best to absorb as much generic information and feedback as I could, and then present it up the line so that they would be able to “see” how people were reacting.
The problem is in a lot of cases, the satisfied are not posting about it at those locations. They’re in game, enjoying the content. It’s such a biased and tiny little percentage of players that the information was always going to be slanted. Everything had to be taken with a grain of salt. Everything had to be debated internally.
There is so.much. that goes on behind the scenes that players never see, and even though you might think that no one is talking about a particular aspect or that no one notices abc thing is broken – trust me, it has been discussed. If a change happens, there’s a reason. Sure, sometimes changes go through that don’t have a lot of insight and may be a bad decision (after all, developers are people too) but that doesn’t mean zero discussion goes on about it. That being said, every games company is different and I can only speak about my own personal experiences.
For this game developer appreciation I want to include EVERYONE who works on video games, in almost any capacity (I’m not so fond of the people at the top, but that’s my bias). You have an oftentimes thankless job. Players change, the world changes, and you’re expected to keep up and change too – and people don’t LIKE change, so there’s always going to be someone out there angry who directs that anger at you. On the plus side, yay, they’re passionate about your game, you helped foster that – on the downside, yikes, they’re passionate because of a video game, and that can sometimes be a scary thing. I tend to keep pretty quiet about game mechanics and issues I have in games these days and focus on the positive because I know just how difficult things can be, and because I know that there are already a bunch of voices out there talking about the negative aspects, so why not be one of the positive ones. Chances are if I can’t say anything positive about your game, then I’m not playing it.
We appreciate you developers! Keep doing what you’re doing.
In my neck of the woods, the temperature is almost at the freezing mark, geese are flying South, and I know that snow is just around the corner (in case you’ve forgotten I only have three months of the year without snow, June, July, August. The rest typically have a little or a LOT of snow). Seasons showcase my gaming habits VERY well. Every single time this fall weather comes, I start getting nostalgic for my ‘usual’ games. Hence the screenshot above that shows off Wurm Online. My ultimate favourite MMO. In the stand alone version of the game I have over 5,000 hours logged (thanks steam) and I can’t even begin to imagine the hours I must have in the base MMO version of the game. I have 12 characters, three of those are premium right now. I have two deeds that span across the newer steam-released servers and the old school servers. I’ve met some incredible people through this game that I remain friends with to this day, and it’s probably the first MMO that I played for me, and not because everyone else was playing it (in fact these days maybe only one or two people I know still play it, no one else likes it any more for a variety of reasons).
It also explains why I subscribed to FFXIV. A game that I love for so many reasons, but can’t actively devote the time to playing right this second. It’s a busy time of year for my husband and that means I’m with the kids 24/7 (no childcare where we’re at). I’m incredibly excited about the expansion coming out in a few months, but I’m not even at the part of the story I need to be. I go in with big ideas about catching up, but I don’t know if that’s feasible. I do want to remind people who are also trying to catch up that there are pay options to skip the first few expansion MSQ if that’s more to your liking. It won’t let you do that with the current / final expansion, but you can pay for both levels and MSQ unlocks in the shop.
Let’s talk about that a second. It’s obviously an option that is not for everyone, and not everyone is comfortable with doing that – but it doesn’t HURT anyone, and so if someone else has chosen to go that rout I really wish the community would rally behind them and appreciate that they’re playing at all instead of begrudging them for the fact that they skipped content. Not everyone plays the same, not everyone has the same time allowance, and allowing people to skip the MSQ on older content lets more people in the door and that is good!
Now what does all of this have to do with blogging?
Blogging for me, is comforting. This year I’ve made an effort into writing every single day, or at least posting an article up every single day and I’m really happy and proud about that. When my kids were born I found myself learning how to balance everything and I knew some things would have to take a step back especially if it was a particularly difficult week. Blaugust has been a great reminder on reassessing the balance in my life, and making time for the things I love – and that includes writing. While I still have to work on the community aspect and making time for that, it’s a start. I think each year I participate I learn a little bit more, I grow more appreciation, and I discover some amazing blogs while doing it.
It’s OK to do what’s comfortable – but there’s also something to be said for pushing yourself a bit, and growing. Whether it’s as a gamer, or a writer, or some other aspect.
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
It was too beautiful not to take a picture of. Lately all I’ve had time for is harvesting, I’ve been trying to get those timed nodes that pop up every so often so I can complete my mining log book. Why? Well, why not! It’s relaxing, to say the least. I’ve also made some good coin selling the materials. I know I could hang onto them and turn them into something then sell that something, but for now this is a nice easy way of generating a little income.
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
I often log into an MMO not to actually do anything in particular, but just to enjoy the fact that there are other ‘people’ around. I spend a lot of time with my kids (in fact, all of my time is spent with my kids) and I need some sort of extra interaction or I just want to watch conversations float by without really being a part of them. Harvesting in FFXIV is the perfect addition to this. I’ve been going through my log book and completing harvests one at a time, marking them off of my list. I use this in conjunction with FFXIV TeamCraft which I absolutely adore.
It will display a map, and even create routes for you to travel to collect the resources that you haven’t collected yet. I’m hoping to put these items on the auction house, or even just give them to my retainer and then craft with them and put THOSE items on the market. One of the super handy features of FFXIV TeamCraft is that it will take the items you have, and tell you what recipes you can make (and even tell you which recipes are missing only one or two components to make something).
I also need to complete the DoH/DoL jobs that I’ve been neglecting. The only one I’ve completed is mining, and that was ages ago. Once again I’m in awe of all the things ‘to do’ in game, and I love that there are so many options, be they crafting, harvesting, adventuring, or something else.
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
stargrace