Category Archives: Social

Ottawa – The Day After

Posted on by

As the world was made aware yesterday, Canada had a terror event in the capital.  I work about 4 blocks from the event, and our building was in lockdown until 8pm.  Suffice it to say that it was a rough day.  I tweeted my issues with the media reporting on theories rather than facts and the least offensive was CBC, who oddly enough is a government sponsored news channel. I had to turn off the news/radio later in the day, when things had calmed down a bit, because of the insane political/religious rhetoric.  The focus should be on Cpl Cirillo‘s death and the actions of the Parliament security to disrupt the final event.

Even though I was at work, I can assure you my thoughts were pressing in other matters.  As per security protocol, wireless calls were blocked, so there were quite a few worried folk around here.  Twitter was faster than the news as there were hundreds of people on site.  Heck, even some reporters were posting pictures of emergency services (EMS) on Twitter, which is to my knowledge, a criminal offense.  Aside from the Boston Bombing, which was an instant event (though it did include a manhunt), this is a rather unique use of Twitter and other social media to manage in an emergency.  EMS can’t say too much because the public is posting all sorts of stuff that the bad guys have access to.  When you’re hunting a person down you don’t advertise that you’re hunting in X spot right?

To further complicate things are the multiple jurisdictions at play.  The Ottawa City police are for the core streets.  The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are responsible for the grounds of our Parliament.  Behind Parliament is a river that separates Ontario and Quebec (provinces), which have their own provincial police.  Finally, inside Parliament, the Sargeant-at-Arms is responsible for the security of members of Parliament.  I think the count was around 7 on-site police forces that needed to talk.  This is excluding the military or national security advisors and 3 levels of government officials (national, provincial and municipal – city hall is 2 blocks down from Parliament).  They have admitted they were caught off guard, so I’d expect some change in protocol for any potential future event.

Before the Event

Canada is an interesting country, where we strongly value privacy and freedom.  In fact, it’s something (maybe one of the only things) that the left and right agree on.  We don’t have a TSA.  We don’t have warrantless wiretaps.  We have rather strong privacy commissioners (who actually changed the way Facebook works for everyone).  It’s a free an open society where people can espouse their thoughts, but always tempered with a cordial respect.  The real nutjobs are mostly ignored to their tiny corner – Sun News is a really good example of this.  There’s just a general level of tolerance, though it is challenging at times.

Before the event, I could walk up to Parliament and touch the building.  I could watch caucus leave.  I could even shake the PM’s hand if he was in office.  I could take a tour of the offices, visit the house of commons and actually see the inner workings of my country’s governance.  Security was evident but it wasn’t intrusive. I didn’t have to wait in line to wait in line again.  Our security heads had advised that could prevent most but not all attacks.  Any additional money spent would be exponential compared to the actual security it provided.

After the Event

I am personally not any more fearful.  I am certainly confused and angry that such an event could occur.  I am upset that a Canadian-born citizen because so disenfranchised with our country that they sought refuge in extremist thought.  That isn’t a security failure, it’s a social one.  It’s going to require some internal review about how we can become more unified and accepting, rather than push more people out.

I am happy with the overall response of Canadians to this tragic event.  While there are certainly the fringes that want to close borders and declare war on a sect of a religion, the general masses understand that these actions are so far removed from core values that we should protect those who are different.  Our police and security forces have already tended support branches to our religious and cultural communities in case they feel threatened from retribution.  It’s telling that the country, rather than focus their pain on some large change, we took the time to just get closer and invite more people to the hug.

Let’s be honest though, there will be some changes.  Our Prime Minster’s speech did cause some concern around the wording around more security:

In fact, this will lead us to strengthen our resolve and redouble our efforts and those of our national security agencies to take all necessary steps to identify and counter threats, and keep Canada safe here at home – LINK

This isn’t 9/11.  This isn’t the Boston Bombing, or the London Tube Bombs.  One military target, some potential political ones.  There were no bystanders here.  Any re-action should be of even keel compared to the action taken, as any swing in direction is always returned with a re-balancing swing later on.  I am not willing to give up my privacy and freedom to prevent a similar attack because I don’t believe today that it would actually have made a difference.  I am anxious to understand further details however, so see what, if anything, could have been done to prevent it.  Now is far from the time of action, it’s the time for investigation, evaluation and a measured response.

To Sum

Ottawa is a good and strong city.  Canada is a great country.  It is great because of it’s values and ethics.  By all reports, Cpl Cirillo was a model citizen and it’s a tragedy to have lost him, and I do mourn for his family.  He paid a price for the freedom we enjoy and we need to pay respect to that act.  I truly believe that this event will make us stronger as a country, working together for a better tomorrow.

Gaming and School – A Clash of Cultures

Posted on by

This will be a very meta post.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, my wife is a high school teacher and I have a rather large set of opinions around our education system from front to end.  That we’re still using the same system from WW2 is a problem, though many school boards are trying to implement changes.  The problem with change is people and teachers are notoriously against change.  That’s sad really because the kids are simply not paying attention anymore.  There’s just too much competition for places of edu-tainment and the real world does not relate to school structure in any way.

So the meta part is that my wife goes to seminars and that my eldest daughter started school this year in a new program that focuses on critical thinking rather than memorization (one of my 4 key tenets of growth).  I write a lot about how game design intersects with the social structures we see day to day and my wife recently texted me about Minecraft as a teaching prediction tool.

KTR had a recent post that went into this topic, Progress vs Progression and I think it relates to the discussion a fair amount as school systems are often focused on progression rather than progress.  Do the same thing over and over again and expect different results (Einstein anyone?)  But more specifically, I want to focus on Minecraft’s design.

Minecraft is like virtual Legos.  I have a rather large collection of large Legos.  My kids are 2 and 4, so the regular pieces aren’t yet an option but I do plan on just ordering a few hundred pieces online in the future.  What I do have now though is enough to keep both kids occupied for some time and lets their imagination grow.  Once second it’s a plane, the other it’s a snake, and always with some story attached to it.  I’d hazard to guess that more people have played with Lego than have watched Star Wars, or Harry Potter or whatever other social phenomenon we hear tell.  Legos are a simple tool (~7000 unique pieces) with an infinite amount of possibilities.  (Apparently, four 2×4 Lego pieces have over 3 billion possible combinations.)    AFOL is a massive subculture.

Minecraft takes that little tool we all know and then turns it around a bit.  Different blocks have different properties (harder, liquid, precious, etc…) and combining them in particular formations creates specific tools (picks, shovels, doors, etc…).  I can build a house with multiple stories and windows, or I can build a rudimentary calculator, or I can build a life-size replica of the Starship Enterprise.

Sure, in between all that I can hunt skeletons, clearcut a forest, build a moat and die multiple times but that’s flavor.  The meat of the game is building and building without goals.  The lack of goals spawned many imitators, most notably Terraria.  This lack of an imposed progression tracking system, and in it’s place a self-imposed list of victory conditions is one of the largest departures in gaming in a very long time, at least in terms of popularity.  I mean, sandboxes have always been popular but not 56 million+ popular.  Minecraft is worse than Chrono Trigger, you can find the application on any system, iOS, Android, Console, PC, Raspberry Pi…People know it, people have played it, people dress us as Creep for Halloween.

So how does this affect education you ask?  Well it’s a system of personal goals and limitations that can be shared between other players.  Westeros was rebuilt!  Social constructs are built, with long terms goals based on small components.  Remember, each massive item is built from the same small bricks. The only difference between your outhouse and a sprawling city is time and vision.  School does not focus on this, instead if focuses on memorization by rote.  You need to know every component of the outhouse and every component from the city as 2 different entities with little in common.  Minecraft is all about building big dreams with only a small amount of tools and one that rewards tinkering rather than perfection.  Oh, that door really doesn’t work?  Tear it down and start again but you don’t have to tear down the entire building.  Success is iterative and one that requires some critical thinking to see how all the pieces fit together.  I could write entire articles and feats of reverse engineering in Minecraft.

All this to say is that Minecraft forces people to ask solid questions about final design and not blindly accept something as fact.  It allows experimentation and groupthink, encourages creativity.  These skills are essential for the real world (and the basis of critical thinking), that is if you’re not aiming to be a sheep of some sort packing shelves for a living.  (Mind you, there is potential for nobility in that career).  Think big, think different, using the same tools as everyone else.  Minecraft celebrates and expands on this.  School focuses on memorization and conformity.  Some schools are changing but the old guard certainly needs to see the light of day.

 

Game Reviews – Finding Patterns

Posted on by

Actually, I think this spans more than game reviews and finds itself in the “media review” category.

Shadow of Mordor is releasing next Tuesday, the 30th.  Apparently it’s getting some pretty favorable reviews, well at least from those who’s opinions I find parity.  It’s an interesting thing the review-before-launch.  I mean, less so on those with massive marketing budgets and pre-orders (side note, I don’t have cable.  Saw the first Destiny add last night).

I knew the game was coming, I saw a couple previews but had mostly set the game aside.  Assassin’s Creed meets Batman is how I categorized it and it appears to be close enough to the truth.  But the early reviews being positive is not something I expected.

The way I see it, if you’re not milking a franchise to death, any new game is a gamble.  Sure, a developer wants pre-order to gauge interest.  They are going to spend on marketing a fair bit to get the message out there.  But it’s still a coin toss for a lot of gamers as to how the review determines purchase.  People are like lemmings and reviews, in particular Metacritic, push people one way or the other.  That said, a positive review has a rather noticeable impact on sales, just like a negative one does.

Timing of those reviews is critical.  I’m reminded of the R.I.P.D. film.  Not only were critics not allowed to release any reviews before launch, they weren’t actually provided a release candidate to review.  The movie is quite bad, performed poorly, and is best forgotten.  It would have made even less money if the negative review had come out ahead of time.  Movie reviews often come out a few days before the actual film.  GotG came out 2 weeks before and to glowing praise, which allowed a fair amount of word of mouth and positive spin to build up ticket sales.

Game reviews are usually on release day or a few days after, with a few exceptions.  These are games that run the ~70% mark on reviews.  Great games tend to have early reviews, Last of Us is a good recent example, Ni No Kuni is another than comes to mind.  The Destiny reviews came out after launch (not that it mattered much in sales is appears) and the reviews are certainly mixed.

I’m coming to the conclusion that there’s a direct link between the release of a review in relation to the release date, and the quality of same game.  The farther ahead the review date is, the better the game.  Reviews that are post-launch are often times related to poorer games.  Yes, I realize that the MMO space is harder to judge without other players, but the general vibe is there.  An MMO in final beta is not going to be any different than a Release Candidate build for reviews.  And no MMO is reviewed on raid difficulty, just end game accessibility.

Interesting food for thought.

 

Gaming Toxicity – What’s Next?

Posted on by

I’ve talked about this one at length already but it bears repeating after recent events.  There are a lot of asshats in the gaming sphere and the level of anonymity that the internet provides is a cloak they abuse.  The concept of privacy on the internet is something we’re eventually going to have to give up (or have already if you pay attention).  The advent of social tools without the social skills to use them makes for a mess of a time.  This is still the Wild West and the sheriff is more or less whoever wants to wear the badge.  There are many countries that are making changes to their laws to make people accountable for their actions on-line – the UK is the most advanced in this (but also has amazing trolls).  Canada is getting better but the US is like a ballpit of dumb when it comes to this – in particular around their understanding of what Free Speech actually means in a legal sense.

And let’s be clear about this.  Reasonable people saying reasonable things don’t get attention.  It passes the logic test, and we say “they’re ok”.  It’s the people on the extremes that get attention because what they say makes little sense.  So you end up hearing the 1 idiot spouting stupid (and we getting dumber for hearing it) and the moderate voice that counters it is barely heard because everyone is arguing against dumb.

Never argue with an idiot; they’ll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience. –

Back to the gaming world now.  League of Legends (LoL) is making a few changes to their system.  You might remember them from the concept of tribunals a few years ago.  A group of (volunteer) players who act as a council to vote on players who have been reported for bad behavior.  They assign bans or time outs or what-have-you, based on in-game logs.  The recidivism rate is actually surprising, with something like 90% of them never coming back to the tribunal.  But let’s make no mistake here, with the millions who are playing, there are still many who cause issues and the penalties are currently very black/white.

There’s an old story about UO and the Trammel split, where Origin at the time didn’t understand the problem with griefers and the open PvP plaguing the game.  If you recall, it was not a terribly complex thing to lose your house to a greifer, people would stack bag and bags of crap to hide their keys so that the PvP looters would take forever to find the right one.  The concept was as this “a griefer is one who costs you more money than they pay”.  So you might make $15 on that griefer but if they cause 2 people to quit, you’ve lost money.  And UO was losing money.  I am not saying the split was the right choice (in fact I would easily argue other things could have been done – I was a noto-hunter in the day, which could have been a much more elegant solution) but it was a hard solution to a very large problem.

XBONE has a reputation system of 3 tiers.  Regular, borderline and scumbag.  Ok, I’m paraphrasing but you get the idea.  Regular and borderline play in one bucket, scumbags play in another.  Your rating decays over time so you can come back to the clean area.  I haven’t seen any reports on this program since launch mind you…

LoL once again.  They are implementing a new type of penalty where poorly rated players can no longer play ranked games.  Ranked games have rewards, they are seasons, they allow you to join the professional circuit.  It’s pretty similar to the XBONE solution except that non-ranked games are where the casual players are found.  This is really putting the wolf in with the sheep, when you look at it from the outside.  I’m sure there’s some thought as to how this can impact the bottom line but it’s rather clear that the bad players need more types of punishment.  I’m guessing the matchmaking process aligns no only your skill level but your player reputation, which should make it fun to watch from the outside.

I know Hearthstone’s approach to this is to not allow chat at all.  Just some basic pre-canned messages.  People will quit before losing, which is another topic.  When Heroes of the Storm does launch, and as with all Blizzard items attracts DragonSoul to complain/grief, I am extremely curious as to their plans for managing that issue.  (And yes, I realize I’m avoiding the SC2 scene, which is arguably pretty tame).  Once we get passed LoL into Blizzard casual-land, I’m of the opinion we’ll have reached a gaming crest of toxicity management

Your Voice Matters

Posted on by

I have a personal rule in my line of work, if no one says anything, then it’s approved.  I tried forcing people to approve things and nothing moved, so now everything has a disclaimer.

You have x days to provide comments, otherwise you’re indicating approval for the content.

It took 2 or 3 passes before people realized I wasn’t messing around and now feedback is quite quick.  It’s also something I use when talking to friends and politics comes up.  “Did you vote?  No?  Then shut up.”

The link to gaming, and actually more like social studies, is as follows.  A lack of action is an approval of another action.  In much simpler terms, if you’re not calling an asshat out, then you’re ok with their actions.  If you’re not /reporting someone for clear harassment, then you’re supporting them.

Now, people can make all sorts of excuses around that and that’s all they are, excuses.  If you aren’t standing up for something, then you’re standing up for nothing.  Things don’t change by just sitting there and looking at them.  They need action, they need people.

Greifer – someone who through their actions, costs you more than they pay into the system

I could care LESS about what people think about the UO Trammel split.  It was the solution, at the time, that was meant to stop greifing.  There was such a furor on the forums and in-game, people were simply just abandoning completely that Origin needed to make a drastic change.  You can blame the “carebears” if you want but the cause was always the greifers.  The solution… we can talk about that another time.

I won’t be linking to any hashtags or websites about the garbage going on today.  It’s really not that complicated.  There are a bunch of people who would rather stroke themselves and put everyone else down rather than share the ball.  I get that.  We used to call them schoolyard bullies.  They all ended up pumping gas for a living.

The gaming industry is undergoing a revolution.  The old days of pumping out shareware crap at Radio Shack are long gone.  The old guard of online games has long since retired or morphed into today’s MMO/online presence.  Today’s gaming must be inclusive.  It’s beyond financially irresponsible to ignore 50% of your market – it’s ignorant.  Gaming is a business, it needs to make money.  Focusing solely on greifers as your target audience is stupid.  XBOX One even has a cesspool of players with low score to avoid this problem.  If you want to be an asshole, that’s fine.  Go circle jerk with the rest and leave us alone.

There is a massive storm of ideas and mandates going on today.  It will not get better in the short term.  This is what happens when you want a revolution, people will get hurt, business will suffer and after what seems like an eternity, the industry will come out stronger.

But the only way this thing will change is if you use your voice, because every single one matters.

Gaming Questionnaire – Because, Yeah

Posted on by

I’d really like to take the time to write more but I’ve been so rarely in the house lately that I’ve done very little blogging.  Can’t complain of late, given the (finally) nice weather.  Fall is approaching, so after the next 2 weekends, there should be some stability.

That said, late as always, I thought I’d give the Gaming Questionnaire from Cannot Be Tamed a shot.  Some part of this is for me, some part for you!  win/win

There are a lot of questions and after running through it, I get to realize that this is like asking me who my favorite child is.  They all are, for various reasons, at various times.  And I’m really glad I can say that.

1. When did you start playing video games?

A little squib, probably 5-6.  I’m 35 now, so that’s a fair amount of time.

2. What is the first game you remember playing?

I do remember playing Pong at my grandmothers and a fair chunk of early Atari.  My friend had a commodore.  A neighbor was always buying new Atari games, then selling them.  I bought what must seem like 30 games from him for a dollar each.  It was a lot of fun.

3. PC or Console?

I started on console, then moved to PC, then back to console, then back to PC.  I really don’t see the need for consoles today.  Steam + Big Screen + controller is the way forward.  I think the actual conversation today is PC or mobile.

4. XBOX, Playstation or Wii?

Today?  Playstation.  It’s a gamer focused device with a bunch of value services.  XBOX is a shell of what it was and Wii is in a really, really weird place right now.

5. What’s the best game you ever played?

That is a really, really good question.  How about I split that up a bit because a game today can’t really compare with one from 20 years ago.  Quest for Glory series has been on the list for a long time.  The original XCOM.  I prefer Civ 5 over the other ones in the series but 1/2 were amazing. Myst had me change the way I thought about games.  NHL 94 and Jeremy Roenick.  FF6 I’ve put hundreds of hours.  Ni No Kuni is the best RPG in the past 5 years.

How do you ever pick a single game?

6. What is the worst game you ever played?

I dunno, Enter the Matrix?  I tend to put in a good 5 hours into a game, even if I don’t like it.  Just to get a feel for it.  EtM was really quite bad.

7. Name a game that was popular/critically adored that you just didn’t like.

Call of Duty/Battlefield/FPS clones.  I just don’t see the point.

8. Name a game that was poorly received that you really like.

I’m going to say Hellgate.  PvE FPS MMOs are all pretty ugly today.  Hellgate did a TON of things wrong but also did a TON of things right.  There was next to no middle ground.

9. What are your favorite genres?

RPG, platformers, tactical/strategy games tend to be top of pile.  I prefer to think than to react.

10. Who is your favorite game protagonist?

This isn’t a fair question.  Protagonists today are clearly defined while 10 years ago you had to fill in the blanks.  Voice actors make or break it.  So old school, I’d say the hero from the QfG series.  Very flexible, you could act noble or not.  I thought it was solid and the story kept pace.  Today’s hero is Oliver from Ni No Kuni.  The character progresses drastically from start to finish, it’s really impressive what they did.

11. Describe your perfect video game

RPG with MMO elements, set in sci-fi, with PvE sandbox elements.  Solid replay value, with different branching stories.  I like the idea of playing the protagonist but even more so the strategist.  How about a combination of Minecraft, Overlord and Mass Effect.

12. What video game character do you have a crush on?

Hmm.  Female characters are so underdeveloped it’s really hard to go that route.  The new Lara Croft angle sounds promising, and FemShep had potential (but spoiled it in ME3).  I guess right now, Drusera in Wildstar is the one I’m most curious about.

Lightning from FF13 started out as a crush but then you learn more and go “oh”.  I would be curious to see Nathan Drake’s descent into madness.

13. What game has the best music?

FF6 is up there.  Eternal Sonata is highly noted.  Ni No Kuni has an amazing soundtrack.  Transistor was also quite good.

14. Most memorable moment in a game

Biggest plot twist is likely Aerith’s death given that no one liked to kill protagonists in the first 1/3rd of a game (outside of an intro).  I’ve had quite a few memorable moments, when I either get my wife to see it or my kids.  To pick one would be to deny all the amazing moments in great games.  By and large though, it has little to do with the climax of the game but more with the intertwining of the story.  Bioshock Infinite is less about the climax and more about the 2nd playthrough and seeing the game through a different set of lenses.

15. Scariest moment in a game

I can’t honestly say that I’ve ever been scared in a game before.  Never been my type of thing.

16. Most heart wrenching moment in a game

There have been plenty of self-sacrifices in games over the years.  Booker in Bioshock Infinite is the most recent memorable one.  I have great difficultly watching a parent lose their child, yet thankfully that is a rare occurrence in gaming.

17. What are your favorite websites/blogs about gaming?

See my blogroll 🙂  In addition, the official Reddit forums for a game are usually the best place for news.

18. What’s the last game you finished?

Transistor?  Devious Dungeon on Android might be more recent.  Does a replay of Quest for Glory count?  How many games today actually have endings?

19. What future release are you most excited about?

Today, Civilization: Beyond Earth and Wasteland 2.  I try not to look too far ahead.

20. Do you identify as a gamer?

Why yes, yes I do.  Anyone filling out this survey would be a gamer otherwise they couldn’t answer these questions.  Play games?  Gamer.

21. Why do you play video games?

I’ve answered this in the past.  I game for all sorts of reasons.  It’s my main hobby and allows me to decompress after a long day.  I enjoy nearly every aspect of gaming and find more pleasure from it than I think most do.  I am oddly concerned to meet someone my age or younger than doesn’t play games.  Outside of sports/crafting, an engrossing social life, or perhaps self-improvement activities, I’ve always been quite curious as to what people would rather do in their spare time.

Paralysis by Analysis

Posted on by

This post is going to read a little off for most people.  It is a concept that I have great difficulty communicating verbally and have little experience in trying to get it across in written form.  What I’ll do to start is refer to a particular book (series) – Foundation by Isaac Asimov – that’s core element deals with psycho-history.

Background

Psycho-history is a fictitious (at the time) form of mathematics, where you could predict the actions of a large group of people over time.  It’s akin to telling the future and today’s market of analytics tends is really pushing us towards this reality.  The one most seem to find is election patterns.  There are 2-3 people on the planet who are able to determine the results of an election, through mathematical models, a few months before they actually occur.  The old “opinion survey research” model is being deprecated with these new models. Moneyball also gets into this, where statistics – many of them – replaced older baseball scouting practices. Boston won a World Series with that model.  At the basic level it’s people + averages = outcome.

I’ve mentioned in the past that I love analytics and that as a people watcher, I can make rather quick determinations about strangers in seconds.  I guess it’s a bit like Sherlock and Mycroft.  High functioning sociopaths.  Sounds bad but hear me out.

The Start

What happens is as follows.  Every event I experience I digest and decompose.  Significant events tend to linger in my mind and replay over and over until I get all the parts separated.  So let’s say I meet a friend at the pub for a beer.  I’ll break down the weather, their demeanor, what we ordered, the waiter, the crowd, what was on TV, my state of mind and a hundred other variables.  This is all done subconsciously at the time and consciously later if I had trouble with it.  At 35 years of age, I’ve done hundreds of thousands of times and have built a repository of variables and results.  A weather pattern, a table, 2 people and a beer will give you this.  On a Monday you can talk about this topic.  If they cross their arms, you need to say this. And so on.  It’s like a giant Lego set, where each piece combined gives a different outcome.  The thing is, these outcomes are not guaranteed simply highly probable.  If it doesn’t give the result I wanted, then I spend more time trying to figure out why.  99% of the time it’s emotions, which are notoriously hard to compartmentalize.

The Hypothesis

Given that I have this rather large repertoire of information, I can “predict” the outcome of a given situation with a decent amount of accuracy.  That outcome then triggers another event.  At each trigger, there are multiple possibilities, each with their own odds of occurrence.  As I get further away from the original trigger, my certainty in the final outcome grows dimmer.  As I am looking for an optimal end state, I also look at how some outcomes can be modified to “get back on track”.  The following picture describes the high level process – realize that I mentally process each of these branches.

decision tree

As a final result you get something like the following Sherlock fight scene

Paralysis

There’s an saying that goes something like – people who live in the past are depressed, those who live in the future are anxious and those you live in the present are happy.  I live in the past and present at the same time.

I look back at what I did and what could have gone different, not in terms of regret mind you but in terms of analysis.  Like reviewing a game of chess.  This gives me more tools to work out variable outcomes and refines my existing ones.  I look forward to what’s possible and plan accordingly.  I know I’m going out for supper with the family – a small thing.  I know I’ll need a cup, diapers, a bib, cleaning items, a set of clothes, a booster, a medical kit and a bunch of other things for all the possible outcomes.  Or I know we’ll be hosting guests.  I’ll need coffee, tea, cups, plates, a clean dishwasher, items to be prepped, space for guests, favors, desert, places for people to be, kids to play and so on.  If there’s a possible variable, I’ve likely considered it.  The odds of of it happening determine my next steps.

Where it turns into paralysis is that I do this for everything and that I am never really living today but living tomorrow, or the week after, or 10 years down the road.  I have tremendous difficulty in appreciating the moment, outside of seeing a planned outcome being realized.  Spontaneity is appreciated only in the challenge is presents for future planning, not on the immediacy of the event.  So this makes Christmas and my birthday somewhat difficulty for people, as I’m not tremendously exited at gifts (of which I’ve guessed 95% of them ahead of time).

Side effects

This one you’re likely just not to believe and that’s OK.  Simply put, I have a fair amount of deja vu on a regular basis.  Not the “this feels familiar” feeling but the more surreal out of body aspect.  The easiest comparison is athletes and sports.  Elite athletes work on instinct and the best of them often report that the game simply slows down for them.  They can see everything at the same time, even themselves.  They can see what will happen in the next instant and be prepared for it.  I play hockey and that happens rather often.  What I get above and beyond that is a full fledged memory of an event as it happens.

I remember my first day of grade 8 as I had to swap schools.  I had a vivid dream the night before of the first day and sure enough it rolled out as I had dreamed.  The kicker was that I knew everyone’s name before having met them.  It’s been an odd trip since then.

The final side effect, and one I share with many introverts, is the need for solitude and general lack of energy for social events.  It is very draining to always be on and it makes it taxing on my family as well.  I tend to live in the future which makes it hard for people to understand my point of view – either they are impressed or intimidated.  Very little middle ground unless you’ve known me for a decent amount of time.

The good

I will finish off with the positive side of this story and there certainly is one.  This rather unique skill pays very well in the market.  I can take extremely complex issues, memorize the variables and lay out options.  I have a near encyclopedic memory.  I have enough social skills to interact with people.  I’ve become comfortable and accepting of the skill set, which makes me relatively happy.  I work diligently for positive outcomes, which is of benefit to those I wish to protect (wife, kids, family, friends).

Back From Vacation

Posted on by

3 weeks away and I back, is I.

It was an interesting vacation this year for a few reasons. Prime is that I lost my phone the first week (though got it back) and didn’t have any reception for the 3rd week. I was interweb-less! I spend a lot of time reading on-line, way more than most people. Without that outlet, it was a little rough at times. I did get some fishing in but with a 2 and 4 year old, it’s not the easiest thing to plan out. Second interesting factoid was that it either rained or was cold (~15C/60F) for nearly every day but 3. I don’t personally mind the rain so much but after a while, you start to get cabin fever. Third, I got the stomach flu – actually everyone did. Not fun.

I do wish it was more of a vacation to recoup, as was my cruise in the spring. Ehh, still was fun spending time with the family.

Wildstar

I am still subscribed and see myself doing so for quite a while. There are good reasons, and the guild is one of them. But after a month, I think I can put out a decent summary of the game, as I did with ESO. The next post will focus on that. Suffice to say, I’m having fun.

Other

I’ve touched on this in the past, where I have a passion for social analysis and a near fatal attraction to analytics as a whole. Recent conversations have provided me with a more vocabulary to properly explain what that actually means. This goes to an old issue where someone asks another person to “prove” that they love someone – in other words provide evidence on a non-physical item. I think I’ve found adequate wording to assist with that, and as to how my brain works. That’s also a future post.

All told, glad to be back at the writing desk.

Lessons Learned From Gaming

Posted on by

Working like crazy, Wildstar is the only sanity break I have. Need to write more. Here’s an idea that is top of mind of late, because of work.

While gaming still has yet to pierce the “accepted for adults” social bubble, there are many recorded benefits from gaming that translate to the real world.

One of the more common things heard of late is putting raiding on your resume, in particular if you’re achieving something unique. Now, the item on paper means nothing other than a conversation starter, sort of like past job experiences, unless you can provide a reference. That is really hard to do in the virtual world.

Still, the experience gained from raiding, and I select raiding purely for the logistical and skill difficulty factors, translates extremely well to real life activities. For example. I’ve had my share of complex problems to solve in my career, each with seemingly unique variables. In reality, those complex variables are based on a set of rules (mechanics) that can be seen if you look hard enough. The thing is, if you can raid at a high level, and high is whatever you want it to mean, then you likely have the skill set required to absorb an issue, compare it to other issues you’ve seen, apply basic rules to it, and formulate a response. You also have the ability to execute that response.

I know that seems pretty high level but I can assure you that being able to handle complex issues in a timely fashion is NOT a common skill. It’s also mainly why high level raiding is such a small drop in the bucket but the most prominent. Now, they aren’t directly linked for the main reason of time. If the RL is taking a lot out of you, you likely don’t want games to do the same. The inverse though, crappy job and you want a challenge does apply.

And that’s just raiding. I love playing markets in games, what with a love of spreadsheets. Analytics is a very important skill to have. Housing decoration. This allows creativity, communication skills, branding and a whole pile more. Achievements, the hard ones now, are almost OCD in their dedication to complete. Sticking to a goal and getting there, even through piles of muck, is something we all need to do at some point. 

I could go on about even more systems (RTS, FPS, puzzles, etc…) but it should be evident by now that what we play affects how we live in other aspects of our lives. Gaming today provides so much simulated complexity that it would be crazy to ignore the long term benefits.

Happy gaming all.

Won’t You Be My Neighbour

Posted on by

I would be remiss to mention yesterday’s sad news of the passing of Christopher “River” Cavelle, who ran High Latency Life.  There’s a condolences page you can also view.  There are quite a few posts out there about the event as well, which is fairly indicative of the social fabric that seems to tie the blogging world together.  It’s a sad day indeed.

My wife, ever the astute, had noticed that that I was playing Wildstar with a smile on my face and with the odd interjection.  Normally, I don’t smile when I game unless I see something rather neat.  Then she asks about it, I show here and we move on.  It’s not often that I smile for long periods of time.  But for some reason, Wildstar does that and part and parcel is the guild structure.  I had a rather decent guild many a year ago in WoW, then a solid run through Rift.  But since then, ehhh.  They always had people I knew in the RL too.  Wildstar, not so much.  Instead it’s made up of other bloggers (Evindra – Exile – Cats in Space).

Wilhelm uses the term neighbours and Wildstar does the same with their housing system.  The analogy works, in that there is a giant neighbourhood of bloggers that we all interact with on a regular basis.  Some of them you see every day, others you see once a month, some you just pass through.  I live in an older suburb, with an established community.  If the houses were empty, it would not be the same area so even though I might never talk to the neighbor 5 blocks down, they make the area what it is.  The core difference, and this is really important, is that I can see these people.

I cannot see the other bloggers.  I can rarely even hear them.  But I can read what they write.  I know more about Murf than I do my wife’s aunt, who I’ve met a dozen times now.  Each and every one of them adds a little something to the internet.  The NBI does a great job of giving a platform to new members of the neighbourhood but I don’t know that it really reflects what they are getting into.  You just don’t know until you step in and read the words.  Until you share ideas with another.  Until you come to some realization that your original idea needs a bit of work.  That there are dozens of people out there already, waiting for more to come along.

I think one of the largest advantages that blogging has above other more recent platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Vine, etc…) is that the format allows for more of the person to show through.  Outside of a podcast/stream, you rarely get to spend more than 200 characters or 8 seconds with someone.  Since it’s longer, people have to put in a bit more effort into the message as well, so they come out more thoughtful.  They are also quite a bit more likely to respond to you.  And it’s often times much less confrontational.  Blogging, or rather long-form communication, acts as a giant virtual network for the community.  Each one of us has a house people can visit.  There’s plenty of stuff there to check out too and if you take the time, you can make a new friend.