Game Juggling and Frustration Management

My previous post mentions that I’ve basically been hopping from game to game to find enjoyment, but I think it’s time I learned to do a bit of game juggling.

Currently, I have a six-month subscription to EVE on a new account, and at the same time, I will be enjoying Gulid Wars 2 and The Secret World and what they have to offer, slowly but surely. I don’t want to make any of them a main game (unless I think all three are my main game), but all of them provide something different and appealing for me.

EVE: Internet Spaceships and Sandbox goodness

The Secret World: The lore and mythos is intriguing, and Investigation missions are boss.

GW2: Free-to-play fantasy with action combat and potential longevity.

 

I’ve never really tried to multitask gaming before, so if you folks have any ideas on how to best juggle games, let me know!

 

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On another note, I’ve been dealing with some frustration regarding my connection to the Internet recently. I had trouble patching and playing certain games, and more recently, certain sites, like MMORPG.com (my workplace, basically) and Steam’s Store pages (Missed the last few days of the Steam Sale as a result) do not load properly, making it difficult to actually read or click anything.

I’ve been managing the frustration by focusing on other activities, but I’d just really like for my connection to be stable so my browsing and gaming can go back to normal again.

On Inclusion and Community Building

A little over a month ago, I put up a Devil’s Advocate column for work about the culture of inclusion versus the culture of exclusion happening in today’s game space. It was debated hotly and not received well by some members of the MMORPG.com commenting community, though I’m at a loss to explain why as the mods had to lock comments and remove offensive posts (and I pretty much stopped reading the comments as they were getting out of hand).

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.

1000 Words: Stepping into Guild Wars

On the recommendation of Twitter personality Longasc, I went ahead and purchased the Guild Wars games and expansions as my final expenses for 2010. I’m quite impressed by Guild Wars, as I never thought it would actually capture my attention, but then again, I never paid Guild Wars much heed until now.

I started off with a dervish, but found myself getting annoyed with it, so I went ahead and switched the Dervish out for an assassin who will dual-spec into Dervishy goodness in the future. My assassin is currently dual specced as a Ranger, which basically means I’m using my bow more than my knives, but I can do either well enough.

In any event, I’m enjoying the Factions storyline currently, and I’m also looking forward to earning the points required to get goodies for Guild Wars 2. It should prove interesting how all this turns out.

In the meantime, feel free make a caption to the picture of my character above, whom I took a snapshot of while dancing. Cheers!