Real Life – The Kind Healer

Site Review and Fixes

Um, oops.

I let the auto-updater for WordPress itself just run for ages, not realizing that one of my key plugins – Jetpack – had gotten out-of-sync. Caused some wacky issues with displaying pages, as in not at all…

Everything is now current, and apparently displaying correctly. At least ‘relatively painless’ is still a thing with WordPress.

As for why I was taking a quick peek here, its two things: 1) I wanted to check a few things for self-publishing my GW2 fanfic, and 2) I thought I had made a post regarding my removal of all ‘well known’ Social Media sites (in quotes b/c I’ve seen Twitch referenced as such, as well as Youtube sometimes; I disagree). Turns out I was thinking about my use of my RL Name in some places, so at some point I actually *should* create a post about this.

Anyway. I’m liking what I see so far with the current editor, though I would like proper Footnote support. I fully expect that to be a thing in a plugin or setting someplace. So sometime next month the first Story Arc will go up here.

–TSK

The Mid-Life is Here

As of this morning, I have reached – or perhaps passed – that point of one’s life where folks commonly point at and say ‘this is the expected middle of your lifetime.’ AKA, the ‘mid-life’ part of the famous crisis everyone talks about.

Looking back, I am generally pleased with what I’ve accomplished so far, and hope to do even more. The only big turnabout (that some may again contribute to the famous crisis) was actually an industry I loved tarnishing itself without my realizing it. In turn, it caused the underlying community to have its own problems – which I hope to solve for myself by seeking out like-minded individuals again. But more carefully this time. And I may need to be more careful even after that; I wonder now if computer gaming has decided to prey on addictive behavior, which is very unsettling to me. Its serious enough that I am considering writing to our Senators for the first time since grade school.

Thinking nearer-term, we’ve already had an amazing year, and its only six weeks in so far. Obviously all the news this week was for the Falcon Heavy rocket, its almost perfect success, and its associated stunt; I’ve not minded the payload too much, after getting over the surprise of the whole thing. Instead, I find it a 35-years-late birthday present. And a few weeks back, we had one of the smallest commercial rockets (Electron) have its first successful launch too. What a wild ride its been so far for Space – I am very happy for both companies, and hope they keep up with their developments.

As for the future, I take each day as it arrives, just as a certain book taught me all those years ago. I do have proper goals when dealing with work, of course, but that is usually something that can be planned for. I do not – in fact, will not – fear the unexpected when dealing with the future; from my own experience, that just leads to pure madness. Instead, I continue to be ready to face the challenges of the new year and beyond, and hope to have a fun time doing them.

Online Identity and Privacy

Every now and then, I have to bring up to someone why I would be nutty enough to post online with a RL name. My best answer so far was part of a private forum discussion; re-posting the relevant part of that here:

For the individual, I believe its up to them to make up their minds regarding anonymity. In my case, I decided some time ago to mostly register under my RL name, but in return I decided to not have any involvement in social media, and limit any other public interactions. I also usually participate in forums where there are ‘account only’ sections (such as this site), as web crawlers will be unable to archive those posts. And for more public musings, I still have my private domain/site, which I point everyone to as the replacement for said social media.

Does this allow me to control ‘the message’ completely? No, and I have no interest in doing so. Not if I want to keep my sanity anyway. It does allow some control over what is associated with me, which is enough for my needs.

But I also do not recommend doing what I did without thinking through its implications.

This came up recently due to pointing a few folks to my site while under a different name – the one this site is named for. But in reality, Sungak has been with me for so long, that I consider him as much of a RL name as the actual one.

As an identity, Sungak isn’t a bad choice. In fact, he was originally played as an simpler version of myself, which allowed me to learn and grow socially in a safe manner. But he eventually became much more than that. He became a goal of sorts to strive for, and (in turn) an extension of myself. At certain points of my life, he’s even become an anchor of sanity when everything else wants to break me down mentally. Its an interesting symbiosis really.

As for his ‘age,’ I ran a few numbers and realized he’s nearly as old as I was when 9/11 happened. He’s certainly been around for more than half my life now, which would explain how comfortable I am shifting between the two (if they even are different people at this point). I really do need to listen to that part of me more often, as well; sometimes, I wonder if the Holy Spirit has taken up residence there, guiding me along a safe path. *shrug* I’ll never know, I suppose.

Valley and Altruistic Games

One the more interesting games I played recently is called Valley. While one of the Steam tags is marking it as a Walking Simulator, I consider it closer to Portal in some of its core mechanics (mostly in the amount of running and flying around you do). And it does include an element of combat, however small it may be. But the interesting mechanic I’ve been harping about to folks is the very Altruistic style of play the game has.

Its no spoiler to say that one of the notable points of the game is to save the valley you end up in. The source of the threat is not either, if you’re seen the trailer. But the idea of moving around the valley’s ‘life’ in order to save it has some interesting implications down the game’s core story. Regardless of how you interpret its ending, you’ll likely enjoy the game if you’re a fan of Portal.

So where is this leading? Turns out, there’s a Wikipedia article that explains some of the main drivers I’ve had for being Altruistic. In short, there are two: 1) doing so out of empathy with the target, and 2) doing so to make the target feel better. And, as is typical with me and driving Sociologists nuts, I’m triggered by both. :-) For Valley in particular, one of these options are not available, which I’ll have to leave vague since its possibly a spoiler. Still, very well done in that aspect, and can’t say enough about it.

(Note to self, though – do the article on being a Social Producer during my SL and Uru days, really piss off the Sociologists…)

And circling back to the subject I’m pondering recently, I went and did a search regarding other games that are like this. Not surprising, Guild Wars 2 is still top of that list (which was somewhat recent, so still have relevance). So, it may still be worth another shot there, but more on my terms. I’m still hesitant, though, as I’m honestly done with negativity of any form in online discussions – I do this to relax, and would prefer to find a like-minded group who is willing to toss out folks like that immediately.

Why is Eve on my ‘Return’ List?

In my previous post (regarding the current sabbatical from online gaming), I left Eve as a second option for returning (other than GW2). But it does not have any element at all of the new metric I am seeking from an MMO now – an engaging Story element.

Or does it?

Eve is a fickle game to many, including me. One of its core tenets is to have its players shape its universe, in turn making their own Stories. CCP just supplies the core mechanics. And in its own way, that kind of Story can be fun too, because you really are a part of it. In fact, this form of ’emergent’ play is similar to how some LARPs work on a long-term basis.

There are drawbacks to that of course; I don’t call Eve ‘the largest game of Diplomacy on the planet’ for nothing. But if you can find the right folks to hang out with its not bad at all – my final year there was involved with the relatively small RP community, and is my likely re-entry point for any venture back to Eve.

The main problem for me, even now, is the need for a Subscription to enjoy the style of play I like there – Industry and its Market. Nothing is unlocked on an Alpha for that form of activity, which I can understand, but that makes it even harder to want to re-enter the game at $15/month to unlock the other half of my character’s potential.

Which is why I have been predicting the idea of ‘Tiered Subscriptions’ – lower cost options with lesser restrictions than the free Alpha clone. The main price point I see happening is $10/month to remove access to XL sized ships (Capitals and Super-Capitals), which I’ve been calling Gamma. That is a very reasonable cost for a sizable part of the community to get behind, as many do not fly those anyway. Another option, which I call Beta, is a partial unlock of Industry and the Market (as well as more of the ORE mining ship line) for $5/month. It would be a serious no-brainer for me to pick that up, because even with a minor unlock of ships and skills my character would go from about 50% effective to 75% or more, and I could possibly support myself in-game with that kind of price point as well.

While I can see some potential downsides to this (in particular where to balance the Beta point at – if it happened at all), I feel the general idea may be worth pursuing, and hope CCP considers the options at some point.