It’s all about persistence!
Posted by Jay | Filed under Blog, Game Industry
A curious event transpired today. A semi regular partly cloudy day in Upper New York state, regular work conversations, some loud, some hushed. All work related as we approach a green light build.
At work we use scrum. Its not news since many IT companies use scrum in some form or another. What is important is that lately more and more producers are carrying around net books. I recently purchased a net book as well, I love it. For many moons I’ve been requesting the Johnny Lee Setup in each room. I regularly hold conversations with my co workers about the wonders of a touch screen monitor as a white board.
Need to hold a brain storming session? Use the “white board” then email yourself the image or text. Need to organize scrum tasks in a way that doesn’t use a bazillion stacks of paper? Use a touch screen.
The above isn’t necessarily about persistence directly.
Today, a new path was taken. A new branch in the virtual white board space also known as virtual reality was championed. Today, my lead engineer brought up Minority Report. He brought up creating, not using, the virtual 3d interface used by Tom Cruise. I fire off a comment that it will take slightly more technical expertise than I currently possess. What happened next floored me.
“Naw. It’s all about persistence.”
No judgement. No problem solving. No pie in the sky. Not even a “Get your heads outta the clouds.” Just a gentle, “You could do that if you wanted to. You just have to want to.”
I immediately wrote it down. Immediately my mind began to possibalize. Normally this wouldn’t be significant, unless you happen to be Meditating in the Gap, Learning about the Secret and generally creating a space for possibilty in your life.
In one instant I was waylaid from multiple angles. Flooded by my accomplishments, lessons learned, past history, future wants and the immediate present.
“It’s all about persistence.”
3 years and 3 months ago I chose to follow a dream. I dreamed, since playing Battle Chess, that I wanted to create video games. For 3 months I researched, pursued, had a burning desire with all my heart to create video games. For 3 months I turned off all my video games and devoted myself to game design. I saw myself walking to work making video games. I dreamed about making video games. I devoted myself to absorbing everything I could from the interwebs about creating games. Designing games and learning about game mechanics.
3 years ago because of that burning desire, I interviewed and was offered a position as a Game System Designer. 3 years ago I took the first step into the world of my dreams.
“It’s all about persistence.” “You can have it if and only if you really want it.” Emphasis my own.
What could I persist in accomplishing? What could you? Where would you go and what would you do? Equally as important is where would I go and what would I do!
It’s all about persistence!
Leveling with my baby!
Posted by Jay | Filed under Blog, Game Industry, World of Warcraft
When I think about the rewards that a game like World of Warcraft offer its long term subscribers, often the methods are overlooked by its players. Rewards from World of Warcraft come in the form of items. Always tangible, always taking up inventory space. In fact, the only rewards given by WoW that are not items, are in fact titles! Displayed with pride by the wearers. Such a sight!
It comes as no surprise then that with the introduction of heirloom items that indeed, they are items. Blizzard never disappoints! They scale and allow for a low level character that can’t find a regular instance group to gather necessary equipment. Since the leveling speed has been increased, the lower level areas are almost completely devoid of life. It’s nothing like it was 4 years ago. I would suggest anyone that began WoW post Vanilla, IE BC or Wrath to try an mmo they find interesting when it launches. I wonder if the denizens of Shattrath or even Hillsbrad ever get lonely? Remember those times when you spent countless hours at those locations? I certainly do. Those two locations were densely populated for roughly 2 real world years! I bet they do and they’ll never show it!
While reminiscing, it came as a surprise that I came home one day to find my baby playing on her shiny white mac. While macs reflect the sun, the screen reflected the World of Warcraft world. “O Rly?” I asked. “Ya srsly!” She replied. And so I sprinted to my PC, logged into my main, purchased a bazillion heriloom items, 3, weapon, shoulders, bow and created a hunter.
After numerous gaming sessions I’m realizing that my reward for the above isn’t one available through Blizzard. While they may be involved by the sole purpose of providing the arena, they aren’t reponsible for the adventure my baby and I are experiencing. Blizzard isn’t sitting next to my baby and training her on MMO terminology and game mechanics. Mmos are renown for not training players. Even I remember the first time I learned about “aggro”, “tanking” and DPS. Another useful lesson that came way to late; leveling a cleric in EQ meant that I should try to find a group and not solo!
Back to my baby!
They don’t even get to watch her freak out every time she has to kill a spider. While cute, on occasion a jump, “WHAT THE FUCK!” Followed by “EWWWYW EWWYWY EWYEWYY EWYEYWE” And then “GROOOSSSSS!”
No, my reward from leveling with my baby are different. They can’t be summed up with any heirloom item transferable amonst X characters on my server. They can’t be displayed in a title over my head. They can’t even help me level. No my rewards are memories and bonding. Now that’s leveling with my baby!
Streaming Consciousness: Moment to Moment Raid Twitter
Posted by Jay | Filed under Blog, World of Warcraft
Tonight is going to be exciting! Tonight from 8:45 est pm until our raid night concludes I will twitter my thoughts and experience on this site.
Bring on the fun times!
Green Twitters on Black
Posted by Jay | Filed under Blog, World of Warcraft
That’s right folks!
As a social experiment I’m going to twitter during my raid time. With that in mind, starting at 8:45 EST PM Tuesday and Wednesday I, Green Text on Black will twitt. Why might you ask am I twittering? Excellent question! I was inspired by Tony’s blog post about twittering on Zappo’s website. I figured why not! WoW has a great community and live posting seems an interesting social experiment.
Disclaimers:
- I play a Disicpline Priest
- I don’t really know how to use twitter
- Follow me here or @GrnTxtOnBlk
- I am well geared.
- I will not be sharing my guild name
- I will not be sharing my characters name
- With a little work, you can already find all that information
Here’s looking at you twitt!
Exciting new site design!
Posted by Jay | Filed under Blog
New Site is up and running!
What do you think of the header?
