imported

Tyranny of a Blank Page

Early in the week I had this idea of what I was going to write about for Storytime Saturday, and it was something good.  The problem is as Saturday has now happened I cannot for the life of me remember what it was that I wanted to write about.  Jaedia says this is why she keeps notes…  but I ultimately fail at doing that.  I have literally hundreds of “Untitled” Google documents with only a few sentences in them, so note taking is not exactly my strong suit.  Actually the problem isn’t the notes themselves but the organization.  Some people can neatly compartmentalize their lives into subjects and categories and then there are people like me that are shocked and amazed if anything goes as planned… because we are constantly rewriting that plan as we go along.  This is the point where I admit that I really have no prep work for my blog.

This is a curse and a blessing both depending on the day.  As I could not think of anything to write about this morning it was a curse.  The fact that I could start banging away on my keys and make something work as I went along…  is the blessing.  As writers we have to find whatever it is that works for us.  I’ve always tended to be one of those “rough outline” people, that I need a sketch of a roadmap…  but then prefer to fill in the details as I go allowing myself to be flexible and adjust to change as it happens.  The irony of this… is that I am pretty damned adaptable, but I still end up hating change in most forms.  I guess when you choose to life your life is a state of loosely organized chaos, you learn to really respect the parts of your life that you can commit to routine.  Those are the stable base that you build your ever changing life upon, so when one of those things changes you notice it.

The Wayward Blogger

One of the things I took special time to point out yesterday in all of my NBI 2015 announcements… was that we are also looking for what I termed the “Wayward Blogger”.  I guess this hits home for me especially because still deep within my core I am one of you.  I was a Wayward blogger for years, with weeks where I was extremely active, and month long pauses in activity.  If I could do this whole blogging daily thing naturally then I wouldn’t need to challenge myself by calling it the “Grand Experiment” and keeping track of each and every day  that goes by where I didn’t break the streak.  If you look through my blogs history you will find several six or seven month lapses in posting, and today during Storytime Saturday I guess I want to address those.  Not necessarily why the lapses happened but what my mental state was like during each.

The problem with a blog is when it starts to get popular you feel like you are forced to produce content.  The irony of doing the blogging every day thing, is that in many ways it is a gimmick.  When you are producing that much content people are generally forgiving on your off days.  Not every single post I make is meaningful or important, and some of them are going to flat out honestly suck.  I’ve talked about the “permission to suck” before, but it is even more than just this.  When you are blogging infrequently you feel like you have to write gold every single time you set your fingers to your keyboard.  This pressure is overwhelming sometimes and each day that passes gets internalized as another rung higher your subsequent post has to be to make up for the fact that it has been six months.

Permission to be Boring

I have no stats on this, but this is something I have heard from each and every other person that has gone dormant.  That they don’t blog because they feel like they simply don’t have anything to say that is worthy of that “triumphant return” post.  This is the instinct we have to figure out how to subvert if we are going to be happy bloggers.  Like the permission to suck when you are just starting out, you have to give yourself the permission to be boring on occasion.  Writing a “return” post is often like ripping off a band aid.  You need to get it over with quickly so you can get on with the normal business of writing posts.  The thing you have to realize is that for most readers your blog has been shuffled into a RSS Reader along with the rest of the people that they follow.  They will notice when you come back, but no one is actually there waiting every single day for that “epic post” you have built up in your head.

Ultimately if anyone is going to read a blog for any length of time, there is a transition that happens.  You stop caring so much about what is being written and begin to focus on the person behind the screen.  Those people, the ones that have transitioned to caring about you as a human being…  they will always be there when you return to welcome you with open arms.  The other folks who were only there when you were producing that thing they desired on that specific moment…  they will always be fickle and aren’t really worth the heartache and frustration.  You need to ask yourself what exactly do you want to write about and then focus on doing just that.  So many of us started our blogs as one thing, and then realized whatever that “one” thing was no longer sustainable.  We then transitioned into writing about the things that made us happy, and have kept going because of whatever that “thing” was.

I Am Proof

Essentially I offer myself as proof that you too can be a pillar of stability in the community.  I was quite possibly one of the least prolific bloggers, with some pretty massive absences.  The longest one that I can remember was the seven months that passed between the last blog post and me rededicating myself to doing the daily blogging experiment.  Each time I felt like a complete failure for letting the blog posts stop.  Each time I beat myself up for not being able to crank out content when I “wasn’t feeling it”.  Each time I could not get the desire that I should be writing something out of my head, and ultimately this small amount of madness lead me to put fingers to keyboard again and start writing.  Now is when I let you in on a little secret…  that inner doubt, the bit of you that tells you not to post.  That never actually goes away.  Most mornings I have to hold my breath and close my eyes… and press the publish button, because the inner voice inside me is constantly telling me that whatever I am doing simply isn’t good enough.

I was and still am in many ways a Wayward Blogger, I am just learning how to overcome those instincts and force myself to perform.  I don’t know what I am doing most days, and in truth I don’t even have a clue.  I just keep moving forward and adapting to whatever happens, coming up with things on the fly as I push forward.  If I can do this…  quite literally anyone can.  I am possibly the least qualified person to be doing what I am doing on a daily basis, yet I keep finding a way to make it happen.  You are significantly more talented than I am, and will go on and make more magic than I could ever dream of.  You simply have to push yourself to do it.  Prove it to yourself, prove it to the community… that you can be our next shining star.  The support is there, you just need to make it happen by finding what it is that you love talking about, and start writing.  My hope this Newbie Blogger Initiative is not so much that we get this massive crop of new bloggers, but that instead we find a way to rekindle the fires of bloggers that have long gone dormant.  If I can do this so can you.

Source: Tales of the Aggronaut
The Wayward Blogger

It’s That Time Again!

Well folks it is once again May the First and as such time for us to begin the Newbie Blogger Initiative.  For those that are unfamiliar with this program, I thought I would take a few minutes this morning and talk about what exactly it is and what you can expect from it over the coming month.  May is essentially the month that bloggers set aside to helping create more bloggers.  In order to do what we do we need a thriving community to live in, and this is our version of a neighborhood block party.  I once referred to NBI as the BlizzCon of the gaming blogosphere, because really this is the event I look forward to each year.  It is exciting seeing all of the new faces filtered into our world, and seeing others rededicate themselves to creating more frequent content.  Others of us just enjoy helping folks out to get their start with whatever projects they are wanting to do.

For New Bloggers

If you have ever thought about creating a blog, a podcast, or a youtube channel this event is solely centered around you.  For years we have heard that “blogging” is dead but the fact that I have over five hundred active blogs in my feedly account would disagree.  Each time I go to read through my gaming blogs it is like drinking from a firehose.  I love this and I love the fact that there is so much creativity packed into this community.  However in order to keep this a vibrant and fresh community we keep needing to infuse it with some new blood and new ideas.  One of the most difficult parts about starting any new venture is getting an audience.  It can be frustrating to feel like you are writing into the void, and in part the Newbie Blogger Initiative is here to give you what you need most…  exposure.

During this month the gaming blogosphere turns its eyes to the Newbie Blogger Initiative and by choosing to start a blog during this month we are essentially hand delivering you readers.  Now of course starting the blog is the easy part, creating regular and creative content is the challenge.  Throughout the month veteran bloggers will be giving you tips and tricks that we have to help ease your transition.  This has always been a very blogging centric event, but we want to embrace all gaming content.  There have been quite the number of new podcasts spawned out of this event and the connections with other bloggers, as well as a few folks dipping their toes into video creation.  Essentially the sky is the limit on what you can do, but you have to start someplace and we are here to help.

For Veteran Bloggers

While all of this love is getting thrown around on the new bloggers, it is  really the Veteran bloggers that make up the backbone of this initiative.  We need you, your ideas and your wisdom.  Blogging is rough, and getting up and doing this on a daily basis means we need some tools to be able to lean on.  Each of you started out as a fledgling blogger at one point or another, and many of you got a massive boost by the Newbie Blogger Initiative in the past.  Now is the time for us to step up and help the next generation to become the awesome bloggers of tomorrow.  Many times these new bloggers just need someone to talk to and bounce their ideas off.  I personally am always open to new blogger queries and during the course of this event I will end up trying to make a personal connection with as many of the new folks as I can.

What we need more than anything however is for you to keep making awesome content.  Let the bloggers know what works for you, what you have figured out doesn’t work, and general ideas about how to make a blog successful.  I’ve talked about a lot of topics in the  past, and there are a few of them I end up dusting off almost every year.  More than anything we need you showing that this is an achievable goal, and that given dedication you can succeed.  Each of us has tricks that we use to keep us going, and at the end of the day someone starting this is going to need a big bag of tricks to lean on.  Channel your gifts in whatever direction you feel best be it with writing prompts, tutorials or lessons learned, but whatever they might be we need you to make this work.  There are already folks signed up on the forums waiting for us to find them, so I suggest you sign up as mentor today.

For Wayward Bloggers

Now especially I want to address a special kind of blogger this year that I might not have in the past.  Have you lost your way blogging, and somehow lost the will to put pen to paper and create new content?  While I am generally thought of as this prolific daily blogger, there are some pretty massive lapses in my blogging history.  I recently celebrated my second anniversary of making posts every single day…  but prior to starting that there was a seven month lag in my blog.  It is easy to “fall off the wagon” for lack of a better term.  Life gets in the way and your font of inspiration dries up…  then the longer you wait to make a post the more pressure you put yourself under about making said post.  We are our own worst enemies, and as the months tick you suddenly realize you are no longer really a blogger.

Newbie Blogger Initiative is also the perfect time of the year for you to get active once again.  Sometimes we start down a path that doesn’t end up as sustainable for our interests, and other times life just simply throws us a curve ball.  In any case I urge you to take this month to get back into blogging.  We are here and waiting to help you with whatever you might need to tweak on your blog to make it sustainable.  We are also waiting with a ready audience to consume your brand new and shiny content.  Each year we lose a number of bloggers to life, and I am hoping to help resurrect some of them and get them making content once more.  The Newbie Blogger Initiative is so much more than just a launch pad for new blogs.  It can be the vitalization of our community every single year, giving us a new perspective to carry us through the next year.  If you want to come back to blogging regularly, we are waiting for you.

#NBI2015

Source: Tales of the Aggronaut
Newbie Blogger Initiative 2015

Bad Brain

This morning I am struggling a bit to get started with my normal blogging process.  Right now I am going through what I generally term as a “low spot” in my mental health.  I have been feeling depressed and generally disconnected from the world lately.  It is like I am staring out a window and watching the world go by in fast motion.  Additionally I seem to be focused on only the bad things.  Like I could have a dozen normal conversations, but my brain is heat seeking in on the moments that don’t go perfectly.  Analyzing them, breaking them apart, wallowing in my imagined failure.  What frustrates me the most is that I have a pretty awesome life, but when my brain is on a down cycle it certainly doesn’t seem like it, and my internal critic has been working overtime.

The thing is, it wouldn’t be quite so bad if my brain would just stop with statements like pointing out that I have gained weight, or that I am failing to live up to this or  that goal.  It always has to be the bully and take things one step too far.  My brain is telling me constantly that I am an imposter and that no one actually likes me, and that at best everyone simply tolerates my actions.  My brain is kicking things up another notch over the last few days, and incessant about telling me that the world would simply be a better place if I no longer existed.  The thing is… I know deep down inside my core that my brain is a liar, but man…  is it relentless.  I am not expecting anything from this, but I figured I would open up a bit more into my own personal struggles.  No one likes hanging around with someone that bums them out, but maybe me talking about it helps someone else who is struggling with the same demons.  I know my brain is wrong, and that this will pass in time… but right now, it is pretty hellacious to live with 24/7.

Flower Power

Last night was yet another running of the second static in our Final Fantasy Free Company.  We are still struggling a bit to gather up the eight people needed to raid, but hopefully as people continue leveling and gearing that will change a bit.  Ultimately I would love it were I able to be an optional in this group, since I have my group that meets seriously on Monday already, and our secondary night on Saturday before the podcast.  That said at raid time we managed to gather up seven people and attempted to pug an eighth.  That didn’t go terribly well, because while we were talking about the fights he ran off and pulled some golems.  I mean on one level I get it, because we had not said much in the game chat, and were sorting things out on voice chat…  but taking it upon yourself  to pull is rarely the right answer.  After a few wipes he refused to resurrect and we kicked him, abandoning duty and bringing in Ashgar.  From that point on the night seemed to improve.

Things were far more tense than they should have been, and there was a bit of an outburst on Teamspeak but other than that things fell in place fairly well.  I would be bummed that this team managed to get turn six in a single night of tries, whereas it took our team two nights…  but this group is leaning heavily on past experience.  When we tried to do each turn we tried really hard to go in as a blank slate and figure things out as they happened.  It was cool though to get another raid boss killed with this group and we moved on to Turn Seven.  There are a lot of moving parts in that fight, and largely the group still needs to figure out how best to control the Renaud freezing action.  It is a really fun fight and even more than turn six, it came back to me quickly as we started going through the motions.  I am starting to wonder though if I should be running Paladin on these fights since Damai is a Warrior main.  Not sure what additional benefit having a Paladin would give the group since it has a slightly different skillset.  Would at least give me practical experience doing stuff as my “other” tank class.

Another Outpost

The other game that I played a significant amount of yesterday was State of Decay Year One Survivor Edition.  I am back to playing Marcus after going on some crazy misadventures as Maya.  When I last played I got the radio announcement that a military presence had been spotted on the outskirts of town.  Having done this song and dance before I knew that it was best to take Maya over there to check it out.  Additionally at that point Marcus was doing the whole “not sure how long I can go on” thing, meaning he was exhausted and needed to be rested.  Around this same time I got reports that two hordes of zombies were getting close to town.  I’ve found the best way to take out a horde is vehicular zombiecide.  So I laughably grabbed the Pizza Delivery car and took the the roads running them down.  This ends up stirring up quite a few additional zombies in the process, but far less in my experience than trying to put down a horde with gun fire.

After quelling the two hordes I moved on to the Military encampment and it went just as well as it had in the past.  The military wants everyone to stay inside and shelter in place… which is fine and good until the zombies try breaking down your door.  The military house was next to one of the survivor houses I was working on gaining trust with.  Unfortunately the person that normally gives me quests to complete to gain their trust was not available, so not sure exactly where they wandered off to.  About this time I got a frantic radio message from Lucy telling me that her brother was trapped and needed my help.  He had managed to get himself pinned down in a barn, and I had to ride in and save the day.  This actually was tougher than I thought it would be and ended up having to clear about nine zombies to get to him and save him.  By this time Maya was going through her whole “too exhausted to continue” routine, but I managed to finish things off and get back home with Jacob.  So there we are, back home and ready for another jaunt out with Marcus.  Hopefully I will get in and play some more tonight.

Source: Tales of the Aggronaut
Flower Power

State of Decay

Back in June of 2013 I was completely amped with the release of State of Decay on the Xbox Live Arcade.  While I am not traditionally a console gamer I spent a good deal of my time out in the loft playing this game at launch.  When it came out that September of the PC I was even more excited because it meant that I would be spending more time playing it.  Since then I have picked up the two expansions…  that I have woefully not spent much time playing.  This has been one of those titles that when it goes on sale I sent copies to friends, considering it is as close to the perfect zombie survival game as I have ever played.  The only flaw however is the fact that this game desperately wants to be multiplayer.  In fact when I told my friends last night what I was playing before the raid…  the immediate response was an excited question asking if they added in multiplayer.

While I did not take the best reference shots, because I was too busy playing the game…  I did dig up one of the screenshots I took playing the original steam release in the above section, and now directly above this paragraph is a screenshot from the Year One Survivor Edition… which is essentially an HD Remaster more than anything.  I definitely find screenshot two more appealing.  The first screenshot uses a lot of deep shadow to mask the extremely muddy textures, whereas the second shot is more willing to let you see things more naturally.  Another thing that I really dig is that the game has some nice Depth of Field going on in the YOSE edition.  You can see this in the second character on screen but even more so below in the shot of my character climbing the tower in town to scout for a view.  The world feels more “real” which makes it all the more creepy as you are wandering the wastes looking for resources.

Year One Survivor Edition

The biggest thing I have noticed while playing is that the controls seem much more responsive.  I am playing the game using the exact same black wired xbox 360 controller I did the first time, but this time around everything feels more fluid.  If this were just shooting I would think potentially it was me, since between the times playing this game…  I played a lot of Destiny with a controller, which has greatly improved my aiming.  I am noticing it especially when I am driving a car however, that things feel more controllable and less all over the place.  Additionally the melee combat feels more responsive.  This is aided by the fact that our character has now learned how to use a knife, instead of simply kicking zombies when your melee weapon breaks.  Stupid as this sounds, it feels even more “walking dead” thanks to this little motion.  This works unbelievably well when your companion holds the zombie and you finish them off with the knife.  I did a lot of this in the lake area before moving into the town for example.

I did not make it terribly far last night, because I was playing for about an hour before and after my World of Warcraft raid, but I did manage to get far enough in to remember why I liked this game so much.  Since it had been so long since I had last played, I opted to just restart the original campaign, as it tends to be the best way to ease into the game.  Additionally while running around yesterday at lunch I picked up a Xbox One copy for my boss, so I am figuring he will want to discuss what is going on in the game.  He is not much of a gamer but picked up the  Xbox One because his grand kids also have one…  and is a huge Walking Dead fan so I figured State of Decay was just about the perfect game for him.  I am one of those people that can do something, but struggle to talk someone through it… unless I am doing it myself.  I figured the only way I could be of any help to him was to actually be playing the content myself.

Making Progress

Like I said earlier I did not make a ton of progress, but after having played this multiple times I feel like maybe my play is a bit more focused than it was the first time.  As a result I have already rescued one group of survivors, cleaned out the veterinary clinic, built an outpost, built a sleeping area, built a workshop… and am working on building trust with a second group of survivors.  Not too shabby for about two hours of play if I do say so myself.  The whole “knowing what you are doing” aspect definitely speeds things up, as well as having a basic understanding of the lay of the land.  The first time I played this game I was having to constantly check the map, whereas this time around I can navigate at least somewhat based on landmarks.  I remember on my first play I overshot the church by a huge margin, crashed my car… had to get a new one… and finally made it back to the church at night.  This time I went straight there, knowing there was no real sense in exploring until I had done the introductory stuff at the church.

This is still a really great game, and like I said at the start of all of this… the only weakness is it would be so much more enjoyable were I exploring with my friends.  The bane of my existence is just how fast melee weapons break.  I feel like this is a game about me searching for my next weapon, more than anything else.  I rarely use guns, and prefer to take on the zombies in close range… in part  because it doesn’t summon more zombies to the gun shots.  Additionally I really do not want to summon a zombie horde down upon me.  That said I did at one point clear out a couple of hordes with a random car, which was extremely gratifying.  The other strange thing I have noticed is that I no longer fear the zombies.  The first time I played this game I was scared to death of interaction with them.  Every time I would search a location I would take the time to carefully board it up before proceeding.  Now I just deal with the zombies as they come… so in a way it feels like the transition someone would have to make in this world.  I understand it better, and therefore I am less concerned by it.  Still having a blast after all of the time I have played the game in the past, which is quite the compliment to the developers.

#StateOfDecay #YOSE #UndeadLabs

Source: Tales of the Aggronaut
Year One Survivor Edition