ArenaNet and the Price Paid

Tags

anet, arenanet, community, games, gaming, guild wars 2, gw2, MMO, mmo gaming, mmorpg, mmorpg gaming, reddit, social media, twitter

By now, everyone has had more than enough time to process the matter of ArenaNet’s actions against two of the writers of Guild Wars 2, including the resultant blowback that still seems to be washing onward at the point of my writing this blog. As someone who likes to follow and write about MMOs and multiplayer games, there’s something of a compulsion to provide my own opinion on the whole sorry affair, but there’s also quite a lot of thoughts I would like to get off of my chest.

Before I begin, though, I do want to mention that links that I provide in this post are very likely going to direct to some unpleasant content, so if that’s a sensitive spot for you, then I implore you to not click any links in this post if that will cause you to be upset.

I’ll also be including pictures of owls to further smooth the edges.

The Delight of Outreach

Tags

community, forum, message board, MMO, playstyle, roleplay, social media, twitter

MMO’s are things that can be done solo, which is fine and well and wonderful…but at the same time, there are things that are just better together.  I have tried to just get by on writing headcanon for my character in Final Fantasy XIV, but that’s more an exercise in writing than it is engaging with others.  MMO’s are best when you find like-minded folks to be with.

But in a gaming age where groups are assembled through a finder algorithm, is there really a point to it anymore?  Are MMO’s losing their social side?  Not really.  You just have to do a bit of legwork.  Which isn’t really work at all.

Calling it “legplay” just gives it a whole different context.

Blaugust Day 14 – #FollowFriday

Tags

#ff, awesome humans, blog, follow friday, lovely people, twitter, vlog

I don’t participate in hashtagging an awful lot when I’m Twitter except for the one associated with Blaugust and when I use them as an oh-so-clever comedic device.  That said, I will admit that one particular hashtag trend that I kind of enjoy is the Follow Friday hashtag.  And I say this not just because I’ve been mentioned in a couple of those.

@wolfyseyes Fun faxt-that took a lot of time to type put accurately. Much like this post, it needed efiting. XD

— Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes) August 12, 2015

Seriously, I’m terrible at this Tweet Machine thing.

The other part of Twitter that I have a bit of a hard time with is its forced brevity.  And, because I like the idea of Follow Friday but hate the idea of being limited to 140 characters, I’ll be taking this Blaugust post to share my favorite people that I follow.  Specifically, those who I have found in my life as excellent and opinionated people.  People who inspire, entertain, delight or otherwise have enriched my own blogging and digital life.