Warning!
This post will be a bit sentimental and melodramatic, so you have full rights to skip this - it might even get sappy and mopey in places.
I've been writing this blog for two years as of today.
155 posts, 192 comments, 31k page-views and about half of those from non-US sources, including Brazil, Denmark, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden...
The bulk of my traffic has come from a very small subset of posts - the story got a lot of attention, another entry picked up WoWInsider got some eyeballs, and my transmog posts seem popular, as do a couple of guides in particular, but the rest of my entries are not particular standouts. Some posts that I put a lot of thought and effort and emotion into just kind of slipped into oblivion and I find that sad, but such is the way of things in the frequent writing market - you produce a bunch of stuff and throw it up on the wall and some of it will stick and most of it will just kind of melt into the plaster becoming the background for the standouts.
It's kind of crazy (and somewhat depressing) when I think about the number of number who've read this blog is bigger than the number of people who've seen my plays or read my fiction. But it's a privilege to have people read and take an interest in anything one writes, and I do appreciate the people who've followed me for this long, or have even taken an occasional gander at a Google-result that plopped them here. I appreciate every one of you who has taken a few minutes to read what I had to say, and if it helped you in any way, I'm twice as glad.
155 posts in 2 years is almost 1.5 posts a week. That's not a terrible average, though I've had more productive months than others. Especially in the end-tier of the expansion, when MoP is bringing so many changes, a lot of what there is to say seems somehow irrelevant or too-late or after-the-fact so I find myself starting topics or looking at old drafts and slowly deleting them one line at a time, as I realize they're well past their best-use date.
I've also been thinking of stopping completely, but I don't think that'll happen. Even if my readership dropped back to the dozen or two views a month I used to get when I started, I think I'd just keep writing to catalog my thoughts.
Often, I find myself wanting to blog about topics that aren't relevant here - my issues with politic and economics, my struggle with atheism while trying to bond with a religious family whose culture is tied into faith, I could write all day about my son who's nearly a year and a half, and I want to write about the last year of depression treatment that I went into... but none of that is relevant here, none of these are things I want to tie into Warcraft, even if all of these are entangled with my Warcraft experience in deep, intractable ways.
My guild that I play with, my friends that I play with, are all carefully chosen people who reflect my political and non-religious ideals. Not only their tolerance, but their acceptance and involvement with me and my family keeps me engaged. My wife doesn't play, but some members of my guild are friends with her on Facebook, they ask me about my son, I share videos with them over YouTube. I bond with some of them about my treatment, and... it's all tied up.
Two years ago was also, more or less, when we started this guild, when the six or so of us decided we would play the game on our terms, and wouldn't be held to crappy standards of play, nor would we be exposed to homophobia or sexism just to be able to progress as raiders or have strong PvP teams. And we've succeeded in almost every way imaginable.
And through it all, I kept writing, about my frustrations, about my triumphs, about my concerns, during that time I went from co-GM and Raid-Lead to Raid-Lad to merely an officer and attended nearly 95% of the raids that happened during this time. I did Arena in three seasons reaching ~1600 rating every time on two classes.
All of that to wind up exactly where I started two years ago. The end of an expansion, goals in hand, hope and excitement for the future, surrounded by friends... but there are two fundamental differences from the way things were two years ago.
1. I'm a dad.
2. I'm not depressed.
The dad thing and its constraints on time is obvious, but the depression thing is a bit more complicated. At some point in 2009/2010 I slipped into a major depression, and it sapped me of all ambition and creativity. I couldn't write or play music, couldn't follow through on projects, or do much of anything really, and the last year of medication and therapy have slowly brought me back to life and a lot of that creative energy that I was missing has started seeping back into my life.
And with it come the constraints on time.
There is the small game-development company I'm working with as a designer and programmer. There are the numerous publishing projects I'm working on with my wife and a friend. There is my own writing to pursue, my first major play that I'm trying to finalize and find a company to read, my book that I want to draft and send to an agent, the songs I want to record...
Do I have time to raid? Do I have time to write about Warcraft?
I don't know. Not yet. I'm trying to do everything, and a lot of it is suffering from a lack of attention - but my philosophy about creative projects has always been to enjoy the process and not worry about the product, and that's what I'm doing right now. After two years of gray, dull depression, just being involved with these collaborative projects is enough to fill my life with color.
As my son gets older, that time squeeze will get tighter and tighter, and at some point I will have to do something to curtail my Warcraft time-slot. But that's still some time away, even though time seems to be accelerating. When I think of my son being a year and a half old, it seems crazy, how could so much time have passed by already?
But it has. And more will be gone soon. The patches keep on coming, the dungeons and raids get cleared, dragons die, gold is collected from sold auctions, we run our dailies, log in and out, make alts, laugh over vent on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and after enchanting the loots and cuts some gems to fill empty slots, we say good-night and turn off the monitor plunging the room into darkness.
And, as well all know, it doesn't end there, completely, does it? In the secret moment, in the instant of vulnerability when the day's exhaustion catches up, we sometimes experience an out of body moment of connection.
In the darkness, motes of light dance on the screen, illuminating the outline of my avatar, Innana, my identity present in Azeroth, Innana, a stronger, braver version of me with the strength to protect her friends from harm, with all of her issues, her stories, her nightmares and dreams, she looks back at me, waves, wondering who I might be, and I wave back, knowing exactly who she is, before she fades into the matte, shadow shimmer of the black screen and I turn slowly to climb into bed, well past midnight, and close my eyes, caught between her and me for an instant, between dream and reality, before sleep takes over.
I don't know if I'll still be here in 2 more years, but I know I'll be here 2 days, 2 weeks, and 2 months from now, and more than that, I'll just have to wait and see.
Thank you for sticking with me for so long.
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Monday, October 24, 2011
Two Problems With Pandaria
5.0 sounds like a lot of fun, but there are two basic things that I think are worth discussing - one is not an issue at all, but has become a problem for the player-base, and the other is an actually sort of a problem but I haven't heard too many people discuss it yet.
First, the thing that might actually be an issue: Is Blizzard reducing Chinese culture to an expansion?
We've seen Blizzard co-opting culture before. Trolls for Caribbean culture, Tauren for Native Americans, the dismal portrayal of Middle-Eastern and African people in the Pygmy of Uldum (down to their gibberish gibbering), the one-dimensional Irish/Scots among the Dwarfs... is this another step in that direction, where a pop-cultural understanding of Chinese and Far-Eastern culture is being stuffed into the Pandaren where we're going to see mildly offensive stereotyping based on fantastical imagery rather than any basis in the reality of that culture?
I can't say, but I do think that Blizzard does a lot of this without thinking about things. I don't think there is a process in Blizzard that filters ideas - I think it goes from design to execution with little conversation in between in terms of thinking about what the impact might be culturally. If there was even a minor conversation in the vein of, "Do we think this might offend the cultural sensibilities of the people involved," we would never have seen the Pygmy, or at least not in that incarnation. Or for that matter, quests in which we torture people, but that's a different topic completely.
The most confusing and unfortunate part of it is that nobody ever calls Blizzard on it, and when they do, the argument is thrown out as it's a game and not meant to be taken seriously.
Well. As a brown person playing the game, I felt a little hurt seeing the Pygmy. I wasn't particularly offended, I wasn't going to stop playing the game, but it just made me wish that Blizzard had taken the time to have a conversation about cultural impact, impression and stereotyping before building those models or designing the race.
And I think the fact that they never even had that conversation is kind of the point I'm trying to make.
Without playing through 5.0, it'll be impossible to tell how the far-eastern culture makes out among the Pandaren, but we'll see.
Next, let's talk about the non-issue: "Pandaren area a joke race, Blizzard is ruining WoW."
The problem isn't with Pandaren, the problem is that it's not Wrath of the Lich King. It's not The Burning Crusade. It's not the Cataclysm. It's not about your world in danger, it's not about a threat, there is no angry, angst-ridden, gritty and horrible antagonist to rage against, and certainly no obvious Gothic elements to be seen. Armor doesn't have skulls and bones on it.
Do you remember the Diablo 3 fiasco with the color pallet issues? This is the same thing in a different vein.
The criticism leveled against MoP is ultimately in the vein of, "This isn't what I like." Now, measure that against a game with walking cows, pig people with crossbows, and gurgling fish men who chase you on land. It isn't about the silly nature of the Pandas, it's their lack of grit.
Pandaria is beautiful. It's breathtaking. There are no ruins, the buildings are alive and open. The landscape isn't scarred by war. The mountains are cloaked in mist. The forests still stand whole and pristine.
After 3 expansions full of war, grit, dirt, blood, and more skulls and bones than you can find in an abattoir, I think the artists were done with those themes and wanted to move on. I think the writers were tired of pushing the same styles of quests. The creative team wanted to stretch its muscle in a way it hadn't before and Pandaria was that venue.
I can't seriously have an issue with that - video games at their purest, are art. Artists don't just repeat and do the same thing over and over - they experiment, they modify, they grow. That's what Blizzard is doing with Warcraft - they're moving on to something completely new, and I'm excited to see how it turns out.
A game doesn't need to be drowned in inches of blood to be good or interesting. People change, stories grow, and the game evolves.
This is a good thing.
First, the thing that might actually be an issue: Is Blizzard reducing Chinese culture to an expansion?
We've seen Blizzard co-opting culture before. Trolls for Caribbean culture, Tauren for Native Americans, the dismal portrayal of Middle-Eastern and African people in the Pygmy of Uldum (down to their gibberish gibbering), the one-dimensional Irish/Scots among the Dwarfs... is this another step in that direction, where a pop-cultural understanding of Chinese and Far-Eastern culture is being stuffed into the Pandaren where we're going to see mildly offensive stereotyping based on fantastical imagery rather than any basis in the reality of that culture?
I can't say, but I do think that Blizzard does a lot of this without thinking about things. I don't think there is a process in Blizzard that filters ideas - I think it goes from design to execution with little conversation in between in terms of thinking about what the impact might be culturally. If there was even a minor conversation in the vein of, "Do we think this might offend the cultural sensibilities of the people involved," we would never have seen the Pygmy, or at least not in that incarnation. Or for that matter, quests in which we torture people, but that's a different topic completely.
The most confusing and unfortunate part of it is that nobody ever calls Blizzard on it, and when they do, the argument is thrown out as it's a game and not meant to be taken seriously.
Well. As a brown person playing the game, I felt a little hurt seeing the Pygmy. I wasn't particularly offended, I wasn't going to stop playing the game, but it just made me wish that Blizzard had taken the time to have a conversation about cultural impact, impression and stereotyping before building those models or designing the race.
And I think the fact that they never even had that conversation is kind of the point I'm trying to make.
Without playing through 5.0, it'll be impossible to tell how the far-eastern culture makes out among the Pandaren, but we'll see.
Next, let's talk about the non-issue: "Pandaren area a joke race, Blizzard is ruining WoW."
The problem isn't with Pandaren, the problem is that it's not Wrath of the Lich King. It's not The Burning Crusade. It's not the Cataclysm. It's not about your world in danger, it's not about a threat, there is no angry, angst-ridden, gritty and horrible antagonist to rage against, and certainly no obvious Gothic elements to be seen. Armor doesn't have skulls and bones on it.
Do you remember the Diablo 3 fiasco with the color pallet issues? This is the same thing in a different vein.
The criticism leveled against MoP is ultimately in the vein of, "This isn't what I like." Now, measure that against a game with walking cows, pig people with crossbows, and gurgling fish men who chase you on land. It isn't about the silly nature of the Pandas, it's their lack of grit.
Pandaria is beautiful. It's breathtaking. There are no ruins, the buildings are alive and open. The landscape isn't scarred by war. The mountains are cloaked in mist. The forests still stand whole and pristine.
After 3 expansions full of war, grit, dirt, blood, and more skulls and bones than you can find in an abattoir, I think the artists were done with those themes and wanted to move on. I think the writers were tired of pushing the same styles of quests. The creative team wanted to stretch its muscle in a way it hadn't before and Pandaria was that venue.
I can't seriously have an issue with that - video games at their purest, are art. Artists don't just repeat and do the same thing over and over - they experiment, they modify, they grow. That's what Blizzard is doing with Warcraft - they're moving on to something completely new, and I'm excited to see how it turns out.
A game doesn't need to be drowned in inches of blood to be good or interesting. People change, stories grow, and the game evolves.
This is a good thing.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Paladin Tier 13 Armor On Female Models
I really love the Paladin Tier 13. I was looking forward to wearing this tier for a while. But then I saw how it looks on female models:
Sigh. I guess I'll have to find a shirt to wear underneath that'll blend well with the tier. For some reason I don't really have a problem with cloth-wearers or even mail or leather wearers having these kind of outfits. But doing it to plate just seems ridiculous. It could be that I'm reading way too much gritty fantasy where this kind of thing doesn't fly. It could be that I've been playing a female character as my main for nearly a year, now. And I know a lot of people don't have a problem with plate bikini or whatever as it's a fantasy setting.
But I find it absolutely ridiculous to wear a plate belly-shirt.
I really don't know how many women work in the Blizzard art-department, I'd be really curious. Maybe a woman designed this, I don't know, but it kind of doesn't matter, that still doesn't excuse this.
It just plain blows screaming chunks of suck and fail at the moon that I have to show off my bare mid-riff while tanking the god-damned Aspect of Death.
Sigh. I guess I'll have to find a shirt to wear underneath that'll blend well with the tier. For some reason I don't really have a problem with cloth-wearers or even mail or leather wearers having these kind of outfits. But doing it to plate just seems ridiculous. It could be that I'm reading way too much gritty fantasy where this kind of thing doesn't fly. It could be that I've been playing a female character as my main for nearly a year, now. And I know a lot of people don't have a problem with plate bikini or whatever as it's a fantasy setting.
But I find it absolutely ridiculous to wear a plate belly-shirt.
I really don't know how many women work in the Blizzard art-department, I'd be really curious. Maybe a woman designed this, I don't know, but it kind of doesn't matter, that still doesn't excuse this.
It just plain blows screaming chunks of suck and fail at the moon that I have to show off my bare mid-riff while tanking the god-damned Aspect of Death.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
New Banner
So far, I have been using screen-shots of night-time Stormwind or from the Blood Queen's boudoir as the Blog Header but I wanted something a little more personal and I was jealous of all the blogs with their own, custom header images.
One of my guildies and old, old friend Arte who is a wonderful artist offered to make something up for me when I was whining about it on Vent and this is what she came up with. Pictured are the two main characters that I play - Innana, my Draenei Paladin and Merricat, my Human Warlock, having a night out in Stormwind and spotting someone to make trouble with.
However cool the banner is, it diminishes the awesome detail that Arte put into the characters, so I will show you the original sketch she did as well so the detail can be appreciated (don't kill me, Arte!)
The great thing about it is that the drawing captures the themes and moods of these characters that I haven't done any roleplay on in a way that gives me a solid grip on their identity - Innana's cocky, kind of reckless devil-may-care attitude comes across loud and clear (which is so different from the human I used to play my paladin as before Cataclysm, it's enough to give me whiplash), and Merricat's moody, secretive, dark nature is somehow made absolutely adorable - yet still a bit dangerous.
She promised me more drawings in the future and I'm super excited to share them with you, or she can share them herself when she decides to start her Warcraft art blog. Thanks so much, Arte! :-)
One of my guildies and old, old friend Arte who is a wonderful artist offered to make something up for me when I was whining about it on Vent and this is what she came up with. Pictured are the two main characters that I play - Innana, my Draenei Paladin and Merricat, my Human Warlock, having a night out in Stormwind and spotting someone to make trouble with.
However cool the banner is, it diminishes the awesome detail that Arte put into the characters, so I will show you the original sketch she did as well so the detail can be appreciated (don't kill me, Arte!)
The great thing about it is that the drawing captures the themes and moods of these characters that I haven't done any roleplay on in a way that gives me a solid grip on their identity - Innana's cocky, kind of reckless devil-may-care attitude comes across loud and clear (which is so different from the human I used to play my paladin as before Cataclysm, it's enough to give me whiplash), and Merricat's moody, secretive, dark nature is somehow made absolutely adorable - yet still a bit dangerous.
She promised me more drawings in the future and I'm super excited to share them with you, or she can share them herself when she decides to start her Warcraft art blog. Thanks so much, Arte! :-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)