Media Personality
I got into a conversation with some of my friends the other day, and during the course of it they referred to me as a “media personality”. Then to justify this they asked the guild… who agreed with them that I was most definitely one. I am not sure exactly why but this made me more frustrated than it probably should have considering that they probably did mean it as some sort of a compliment. I guess for me… when you say those words together it doesn’t exactly evoke a positive image. So many self proclaimed personalities are these vapid and self serving entities that only think of promoting whatever it is that they are doing… and ultimately makes them money. I realize self promotion is a key part of this whole process, but it is one that I have always done half heartedly. I am this guy that does a thing, and if that thing doesn’t interest you… then I don’t exactly feel compelled to try and beat down your door.
I guess the huge benefit I have is that I don’t have to make a living from what I am doing. This is and likely always will be a hobby for me. My writing and podcasting is something that I do largely for my own personal enjoyment. If I were trying to support myself and my family from what I happen to be doing, then more than likely I would feel differently. I realized long ago that there was no real way I could support myself through writing. I look to my friends that attempt to do it, and they generally are writing for multiple venues and churning out articles left and right to keep their heads above water. That is not exactly the life I would want to have for myself. This way I get to “play” at being a serious writer, without having to deal with any of the consequences. All of this said… I still do not in any fashion feel like a “media personality”.
Raid Got Good
Last night was my first raid back after Pax South, and I was to some extent dreading it a bit. Getting back into the “swing of things” has been a bit of a struggle. Since coming back I have felt generally disconnected from my game worlds, and feared my performance would be frustratingly bad. All things considered I seemed to do just fine, and once the raid started rolling I felt right at home. Apparently I need to go to Pax more often because in my absence the raid got really damned good. When I left we were struggling with Imperator Mar’gok but making some progress. That Thursday night I left, the raid downed him without me… but with some very specific circumstances that revolved around a much smaller raid size. Last night… it felt like we were old pros because through the course of the evening we one-shotted 7 of 7 bosses in Normal all before we took our first break.
After the break we started working on Hard Mode and repeated a Kargath kill before moving on and attempting Butcher. That fight had been our roadblock and in the past when we had attempted it we lacked the oomph to get over the hurdle. Last night we one shot killed him for the first time, beating the enrage in what felt like a largely repeatable fashion. One of the things I have noticed is that when our raid downs a boss, it gives us a significant confidence boost and suddenly repeat performances feel much smoother. So I feel like after clearing the Butcher hurdle we will likely be able to take down a few more heroic encounters Thursday. For a full sweep of all of the content we have downed before, we moved on to the Twin Ogrons Heroic and got them down in a single attempt as well. Like I said… clearly I need to go away more often, because when I do it seems like the raid gets phenomenally good.
Selfiegate
One of the controversies that has been brewing since they first announced the 6.1 patch, is the integration with twitter. For some reason there are many players that view this as a bad thing. I for one absolutely loved the fact that I could integrate twitter with Rift, and used it constantly. The only bad thing about that integration was the fact that it liked to tweet for you if you didn’t first turn that off. It also provided an awesome feature that allowed you to take a screenshot with the UI hidden by default. This has been something I have wanted in every game I have ever played, because when you are trying to capture the action… it just feels odd to try and fumble to flip the UI off, then take a picture… and then flip it back on before you actually die. Anything that makes doing something I am already going to do easier… is a net positive for me. At the end of the day it is an optional feature, and as such no one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to hook up your account to twitter.
This week more gasoline was added to the fire when a certain follower mission was found on the PTR. The Field Photography mission rewards the player with a S.E.L.F.I.E. Camera allowing you to take as you might expect… those ubiquitous selfie style pictures. Then a later mission called Lens Some Hands allows you to upgrade your camera, adding Instagram style filters to it. For some reason this has erupted a controversy of people up in arms that selfies are being added to the game. To which I want to add.. chill the fuck out. I personally think its a cute feature to be added, and fits with all of the other random toys we have access to that do goofy things. As a programmer, I recognize that more than likely this was some programmers pet project. We all have a stack of “wouldn’t it be cool” things that we fiddle with when we have downtime. Ultimately this one turned out to be good enough that they ended up integrating it into the game. Once again… if you don’t want to use it… then don’t. No one is forcing you to take duck face pictures of your character, but for those who do want to… let them. I feel like sometimes we lose sight of the fact that this is a supposed to be something we are doing for fun… and if taking selfies makes you happy then screw anyone who tries to harsh that happy.