Graduation

Haven't written in a while.

Submitted my last assignment a week ago. Since then I've taken the week off to chill, go to the gym, do a bit of networking. I got my professor's LinkedIn and the email of a dude from the Fair Work Commission, although I am generally unsure how useful that will be. And yesterday I went to the Art Gallery of NSW, too - wanted to tour more of Sydney but the bushfire smog has been putting me off.

Having a vision can be...tiring. Even though I've kind of iterated to some of my closer friends about my game ideas, they still get confused when they see me buying games for research purposes. "Why don't you just play [insert game] instead?"

And on the flip side, despite the focus I've gained in my side hobby, I frankly have no idea where I'm headed with the rest of my life - especially my career. I've looked at HR jobs and I'm honestly not sure where to start. I've talked to a few people and they've mentioned most HR people start as recruiters, which I do hope to avoid if possible - but maybe there is no possible.

If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said my life goals were to settle down with a nice girl and find a job that feeds us both, plus a few kids to boot. But after I dated my ex I realized my life needed something external. (I might be a little biased here as my ex wanted codependence, but that's a post for another time.)

Since then I've been a little lost.

Career
I do have some ideas. I am very interested in the business of green technology, for example, although I have no idea where exactly I want to go with that. The supply chain management, supposedly, ties in with my desire to bring more green technology development/manufacturing to Singapore. I might just work for a few years and then go to grad school and do that.

Alternatively, I'm also interested in bringing better HR practices to our local organizations, both private and government. Singaporeans (like my friend in Standard-Chartered) do not see the value in employee care at all, and largely to their own detriment. However, this seems harder as it's very hard to change people's mindsets. I'm also still interested in the idea of making a lot of money, mainly for the purposes of funding something philanthropic, such as my nonprofit game studio idea, and I don't really see HR making all that much.

Other
Outside of my career, I'm interested in trying to find a balance in what I'm doing - the goal is to be a little more productive than my parents, who defined their lives with their occupations and just watch TV in their spare time.

1. Designing and playing games
2. Staying fit by going to the gym + walks at the local park or around the city
3. I might also pick up music again if I can find a casual band that will take a rusty idiot like me
4. Reading (I need to do this more, have so many books to get through)
5. I still do the occasional Daily Show or Azur Lane run, although I'm still not big on TV

Beyond this I feel I may be biting off more time than I can chew, especially since I am more concerned with how I intend to fund some of my ventures.

So yeah, I've got a lot to think about...and probably do something about. More to come, I guess. Especially since the core of my game edges ever closer, I might start talking about it.

November Rain

November 01
So things happened:

• NDA for critics on Hideo Kojima's game Death Stranding got lifted, so reviews flooded in en masse. (Game itself launches on November 08.)
• Diablo IV official announcement. As anyone who has been following me knows, I am a huge ARPG fan and have pipe dreams to design an ARPG of my own. So this is HUGE news to me.
• My favorite singer, IU, released a new single yesterday entitled Love Poem. This has zero relevance to this post but I'm just happy for new music.

My ideas on the Diablo IV announcement are here.

My overall conclusion from Diablo IV is this: I am on the same page, ideas-wise, as the Diablo team. From the gameplay trailer and some other videos I've seen, Diablo IV came out quite close to how I would have done it were I in charge of designing that game. Given my lack of funds and general inexperience in computer science, I am a long way from shipping a game myself and I accept it's never happening within this generation of ARPGs. But the fact I have such close ideas gives me confidence.

With this in mind, Death Stranding also showed me two new things.

First, I never was quite able to put into words why I wanted to go into developing video games from an indie/non-profit perspective. I understand it now. I see video games as art, same as television, movies, or books. Art is often used to make social commentary, to make a statement about our lives. And of the art forms video games are more frequently consumed today by our youth than any other medium. Yet there is very limited social commentary in video games, and this is largely due to the corporate environment by which games are made.

Second, Kojima's game also really tells me that what I just outlined - thinking on the same page as Blizzard devs - is not enough. Kojima's impact lies in things that are totally out there, that could never even have been imagined by other devs. If I need to survive as a small fry in such a harsh industry, I have to truly think outside the box. I think the time to start doing so is now.

November 03
(wasn't fully mentally together when writing this; bit of a roundabout rant, sorry)
The cycle is always the same. Coincidentally bump into my ex/neighbor a bunch of times in a short period. Around the same time my dad rats me out with "I don't know what you do every day." Well, I do. I've been planning my game project, drawing concepts, reading about Death Stranding and Diablo IV, and starting on programming and Unity lessons (although I haven't gotten much work in that department, either). But first I don't want tell him that; and secondly he's right, and I'm not happy with my progress in all of the above, including the college paper he's been bugging me about. And with my lack of progress the voice seeps back, even if merely a whisper.

About that, my ex. The part that hurts isn’t really the things she did. It’s that, for all the information on red flags I've read since then, I can’t wrap my head around how to tell a person's character. Like my ex herself was a hardworking girl with probably more mental maturity than myself. You can see that: she has more academic achievements than I, with summer internships and a recent writing award that I just noticed on her LinkedIn. But I never quite noticed her selfishness and emotional immaturity until after I started dating her. And one can see that too, when you realize she's on her 5th boyfriend in 4 years; but that's very subtle, as you wouldn't know that detail unless you've known her for a while.

With a few days left on the semester, I've been thinking about blocking her once and for all. She hasn't really disturbed me much in the past couple of years, save than a friend add at the start of this year - which I discarded, as that was way too early. But now I'm mildly torn. I have little doubt my ex did some shitty things which caused me to leave her. Should it be fair, then, that I also deny her the friendship she (seems to) desire? Or maybe she has changed for the better, or will change for the better, and I will have lost a friend that could be. I need to figure this one out - but I should also probably hold off until my paper's done, lol.

But, back to my dad and my paper. Maybe I'm biting off more than I can chew here. Maybe I just need to focus on a few aspects of game design rather than try to do everything. And I definitely need to put more effort into my career too. It seems so hard sometimes.

Diablo 4 @ Blizzcon 2019: Reactions

Gameplay

Cinematic

Notes

Combat moving to a more 3-dimensional form, involving the ability to climb & jump ledges and cast spells up/down. This is directly in line with where I expected the genre to move to (see: Darksiders Genesis or Riot's ARPG, which all are looking at jumping and climbing). Why? It is probably the single easiest idea to make your gameplay look cool and fun, because map assets in Diablo III (and Grim Dawn) were already 3D, just a question of drawing and coding that terrain into something pathable. The question that determines success amongst these competitors is how well this mechanic will be integrated with the combat. Just having an "oh I can climb up and jump off things" isn't going to make your game more fun by itself. This also draws another inference: Diablo IV is unlikely going to copy Path of Exile's algorithmic level generation, so it will probably simulate "random map generation" as Diablo III did, with just a few hand-drawn variants.

Edit: With more information I have learned there is a kind of dodge step, similar to the short dodge of Bloodborne. I think this is great. The question, similar to the climbing function, is how well this is going to be implemented into the game. A dodge step tacked on for no reason does nothing for the game on its own.

On the contrary, the one thing I definitely did not expect - MOUNTS. There are several directions I see this, some good, some not so good. The good is that you can expect much more of an "open world" experience - not a true open world (still sticking to a 4-player instance) but a huge enough map that mounts would be warranted. The bad is that I can already see the mount skin MTX, lol.

Classes and abilities are a clear nod back to Diablo II: Sorcerer, Barbarian, and the Druid. This is a standard Blizzard marketing move. They show the "nostalgic" aspects of the game first, then if there's new things that weren't in the previous games they will reveal it closer to release. All classes definitely have more mobility than before, which is an expected but positive aspect, as you can see how varying mobility between classes in Diablo III affected clear speeds (and therefore game balance). I'm personally excited for the Druid as that was my main back in Diablo II and the Sorcerer will hopefully scratch the Wizard addiction I gained in Diablo III. Overall Blizzard tends to do an amazing job with class design and I'm not worried about this.

(Diablo II had 5 classes on release + 2 more in the expansion. Diablo III had 5 classes on release + 1 more in the expansion + 1 more as a bonus DLC. So you can expect roughly 5 classes out of Diablo IV.)

Enemies look better than in any Diablo installment previously - this is one of the things other ARPGs (looking at you, Path of Exile) really need to take from Diablo III and hopefully they can also look at IV for inspiration. The first clear idea is they are a lot bigger in general. This sounds really simplistic but it gets the impact devs are looking for. If you want dark fantasy, if you want to get creepy, scary demons, you want to think big - like Monster Hunter kind of big. Previous games did not do this because of technical limitations, but this should no longer be the case. Additionally, at 2:04 you can see what appears to be a demon summoning circle that activates when stepped on. This looks like it could be a mini-boss mechanic: possibly you could "summon" by activating the circle, and then kill whatever spawns for more loot. It's a bit of a stretch but here's to hoping there's a kind of cool interaction in there.

Did not see a return to the light radius mechanic from Diablo I and II. I expected this for a lot of reasons but I'm still mildly disappointed. I definitely get the feel Diablo IV will be a game about exploration, and it can be admittedly annoying to explore a world with limited visibility all the time. Edit: new information shows that there IS a light radius in Diablo IV, but looks like a Titan-Quest-style light radius, ie: only occurs at night, does nothing to hide foes and thus is absolutely meaningless to actual gameplay. So my analysis remains the same.

Also did not see a focus on environment like Diablo III did, with the exception of chests. I am disappointed with this. When I played really poorly-rated ARPGs like Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor-Martyr and Warhammer Chaosbane, I found the infrequency of environmental objects made the levels more boring (amongst other things). Diablo III might have overdone it (creating objects with little practical relevance to the game), but Path of Exile and Grim Dawn get this right as they have things like chests, troves, strongboxes, traps, or even something as mild as pots or urns to destroy for nothing. The poorly-rated ARPGs were consistently threadbare in comparison. One developer I follow on Twitter described the level design as "unfinished" - I do hope that is the case.

Story & art style. Many seem impressed from the trailers, applauding it for a true return to the dark art style of the first two games and a familiar final boss in Lilith. I concur, but I also think it was less original than expected. Random dark mage comes out of nowhere and manages to summon a demon lord with the power of plot magic? Bandits stumble upon the ritual and are conveniently used as human sacrifices? Definitely seen tropes like these in random short comics or DnD roleplays. The story also needs to connect back to Diablo III: Reaper of Soul's ending, which will be a challenge.

Opinions & Predictions

I expect a game that is going to be driven heavily by interactive combat, an effective grimdark story, and a well-put-together dark fantasy world. Every game has to craft their own niche and Diablo knows not to compete against Path of Exile in terms of replayability or seasonal content. They will instead stick with what they did well in Diablo III while improving on common complaints the game had in the past.

The question then is how this is going to be executed. Blizzard would do well to avoid tired plot devices that have been sticking around since the beginning of the franchise. The "I have nightmares of the future" used in the gameplay trailer is a classic overdone one, as is the dark cultist summoning demons rightfully be far too difficult for him/her. While not normally an important factor to game success in general, the story and lore that has become central to the Diablo identity makes it crucial.

As far as gameplay itself goes, Blizzard should draw upon games like Path of Exile and Grim Dawn, with their complicated systems (such as GD's critical hits) as a starting point for evolving their own build designs. Diablo II was extremely complex (some of the math has actually never been reverse engineered despite being over 15 years old) but Diablo III just 'dumbed down' everything in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience. This is a wrong strategy. A casual fraction of the audience will not engage with the any formulas you adopt even if they are heavily simplified, but the hardcore audience will, and a simplified system does nothing for those players. Next, new aspects of the game Blizzard is introducing, such as mounts and mobility, should be well-integrated with the rest of the game from a mechanical and lore perspective: What happens to horses when you dismount? Are they even horses (or magically summoned spirits)? Could players ride non-horse creatures? And of course, Blizzard should also apply due diligence in the aspects Diablo is famous for: quality enemy design, interactive and dark level design, and polished classes and abilities with clean high fantasy aspects.

But the most important and worrying issue of all is the release date. Diablo IV honestly looks like a very unfinished game, and Blizzard's other content this year is…lacking, to say the least. Will Overwatch 2 and regular Warcraft  and Hearthstone releases be able to keep up Blizzard cash flow for the next 3-5 years while IV remains in development? And if not, what other ideas does Blizzard have up their sleeve? It's hard to imagine, but I daresay if they don't have an answer to these questions, we may not even make it to release date.

what makes game, and what makes work?

I speak in lieu of Ian Bogost's recent article, Video Games Are Better Without Gameplay. I have studied Bogost in university before this. One of the things to be aware of is that his title are often moot, a series of jokes meant to garner attention and debate. I am reminded of two foreign policy papers I recently read: Cyber War Is Not War and Cyber War Is War, both written by colleagues at Cambridge taking fun jabs at each other while bringing to light the destruction cyber warfare can potentially inflict. (As an aside, Bogost also has written Video Games Are Better Without Characters and Video Games Are Better Without Stories.)

But how moot is the title, really? Can one imagine a game...without gameplay? A number of my friends play a game known as Girl's Frontline, a Chinese mobile title where you set up a squadrons of "T-dolls" - which seem to be rifles turned into female soldiers by some weird alien technology - and then they just kind of…watch the game play itself. The thinking and challenge comes in how best to arrange the girls so they can beat the level while not spending too many resources. But the rest of the game is all but a very repetitive TV show. Doesn't that sound like a snoozefest? Yet Girl's Frontline exceeded 17 million USD in revenue in FY 2018 (source). 

See, the underlying idea Bogost puts forward is this: what makes the human mind differentiate "work" and "play"? For example, what is the difference between spending one's evenings pressing buttons at a grocery store cash register versus spending evenings pressing the Start Mission button in Girl's Frontline? And there's no reason to stop at games. People run grueling marathons, research and write articles on Wikipedia, build things out of wood or metal, the list goes on. What makes these recreation and not work?

Clearly there exists some answer, some kind of subconscious mental divide - it's quite doubtful for instance that a manager can merely tell employees to "think of work like play" and suddenly expect increases in motivation (although I do expect there are managers who have tried). Academic theories surrounding the work/play paradigm delve into a blend of motivation psychology, behavioral economics, and philosophy. The research is very incomplete when trying to put all of these schools together: it's an area that currently lacks expertise (given its multidisciplinary nature and relative newness) and funding. But all game designers know this much at least: a large number of very popular games get away with having a lot of "grind", that is, repetitive in-game actions that are not intrinsically enjoyable to most but are done solely for in-game rewards. In fact, having a certain quantity of grind often improves games in terms of popularity (although too much grind is often detracting).

Bogost also takes another angle: the "goose game" he talks about - its official name being Untitled Goose Game - is a currently trending comedic title. Bogost maintains the Goose Game's popularity actually comes more from watching others play the game on streaming services and less from the enjoyment of playing the game itself, thus begging the question if it's the game themselves that is really fun, or if it's something else; perhaps the sense of wonder or humor we inject into the experience and that designers have learned to facilitate. But it seems many people actually did enjoy playing the Goose Game, so the point of the article (along with the misleading title) was missed by most. I merely think Bogost would have been clearer had he cited League of Legends instead.

Video Games Are Better Without Gameplay doesn't really seek answers, but to simulate discussion. To myself, the discussion around games forever seeks to deteriorate to uninformed arguments, as people always think they know something about games just because they play. (A familiar sentiment to me: as a music student prior, I find the world is grotesquely misinformed on what makes themselves enjoy certain music.) My goal is to research so I don't succumb to the same pitfall. And if I can share a bit of that with the people around me, why not?

Debunking the Tencent conspiracy theory

Gaming communities have begun discussing political issues around China after the barring of top Hearthstone player Blitzchung for expressing his support for Hong Kong, which has resulted in employee walkouts at Blizzard and boycotts.

But I'm not here to talk about the Blitzchung drama itself; rather, I seek to talk about a common argument I've been reading on social media regarding the Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent Holdings Ltd. Despite what the online world thinks, I conclude that the Tencent issue is ultimately flawed, an argument that straddles paranoia and conspiracy theory; however, some of the effects attributed to Tencent might still appear to occur for unrelated reasons. Hopefully this reading should shed some background light into an increasingly important topic for anyone who plays video games, even mildly.

The internet's logic surrounding Tencent generally works as follows:

1. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has at least partial control over major Chinese companies (or at least the investment conglomerate Tencent Holdings Ltd) that they can influence the operations and resource flow of said companies.
2. Tencent invests into many major Western video game companies, giving them executive and operational control.
3. Therefore, one should not buy games from companies with Tencent investment because:
1. money spent on related games will go to the Chinese government; 
2. installing related games puts one at risk of embedded software that enables Chinese government surveillance;
3. companies that Tencent has major equity share in may engage in censorship of Chinese issues.

the first and most standout feature to note is that online communities greatly overestimate Tencent's influence over their most complained-about investments - namely, Epic Games, Riot Games, and Activision-Blizzard. Regarding Epic and ActiBlizz, Tencent is actually a minority shareholder, meaning all they have no real power over either company. This isn't just speculation; it is law (in just about everywhere) that a shareholder requires ownership of at least 50% of shares to force decisions. For all its investing, Tencent only meets the 50% rule in two major English-speaking gaming companies - Riot Games and Grinding Gear Games - which are not quite as often complained about. Even regarding Riot and GGG, these relationships are listed only as equity shareholding and are not necessarily managerial. (If this confuses you, think of it this way: Warren Buffett owns 100% of Apple share, but that doesn't quite mean he's exercising that power to decide on the features of the latest iPhone. In contrast, Elon Musk has 51% share control of SpaceX and is CEO, indicating he calls the shots.)

The next biggest reason is that the link between Tencent and the Chinese government is weaker than online communities suggest. Tencent was founded as a public company and has about as transparent of a history as one can expect from a typical corporation. The only concrete link I was able to find between Tencent and the CPC is that their CEO is a registered party member. While it is very possible Tencent may retain an underhanded friendship with the CPC, said links appear much weaker than actual companies to be afraid of: for example, Huawei has long-standing direct ties to CPC military technology, both historical and present, and even its basic equity structure is shady - a world of difference from Tencent's public, internationally-traded listings. Finally, Tencent's other subsidiaries have relatively drama-free histories, and has even had disagreements with the CPC on a few small fronts (such as censorship on their social media platforms).

This clearly puts (3a) and (3b) in the realm of general impossibility, as there is no evidence that Tencent ever had the power nor the interest in doing these things, and in fact it would harm their profit-seeking incentives. But (3c) is clearly happening as we speak. Undoubtedly, gaming companies have been censoring games for over two decades to bring them to China, and there is no doubt they will continue to do so; but one would be mistaken if they think Tencent is the main reason behind this. Rather, it is because there are over 1.3 billion mainland Chinese and gaming is a very common hobby amongst Chinese youth. It doesn't take a businessman to see the evident connection.

And even putting cold profit-seeking aside, a misconception amongst Western media is that the Chinese youth would change their opinions if they were exposed to uncensored knowledge of the CPC's history, leading them to conclude the only barrier is a legal one. The reality is that mainland Chinese youth trend towards nationalism. If you thought the recent Blitzchung actions were offensive, well, the opposite is equally offensive to the Chinese people. Given people tend not to enjoy things that are offensive to them, companies risk backlash from the general Chinese customer base in addition to the CPC's legal ramifications. From a purely utilitarian perspective, "kowtowing to China" could even be seen as positive, as game devs and other businesses stand make a larger population of people happier with their products or services.

To conclude, we have established the gaming community's imagination of Tencent as a malicious arm of the CPC has very little basis in object reality. The idea that installing Fortnite or Call of Duty onto your personal computer will somehow compromise your personal data and sell it off to the Chinese is absurd to the point of conspiracy theory* - there is no real sign that Tencent ever had the power nor the interest in doing so. However, this is hardly to say that China-related issues in gaming should be ignored. Censorship in particular has every mark of a phenomena that will continue to increase, requiring gaming companies to become ever more nimble in navigating delicate political landscapes.

*Tongue-in-cheek: If one wants an actually viable conspiracy theory, consider that these data-selling rumors might be proliferated on social media by Russian propaganda agents. (Russia is a historical foe of China after all.)

2 RPGs: how I would improve them

Thought I'd just write for fun instead of moping about life's little annoyances, which almost all the past posts on this blog have been about. As I'm looking at game design as a hobby, it should come across my thoughts what should be done to improve existing games that I play - this will be a highly relevant question if I ever become a game designer. As this is just a start, I'm not going to write about seriously flawed games like Anthem or Warhammer: Chaosbane, as I'll need tens of pages to write about their problems.

Warframe
Firstly, enemy design - specifically, attacks of most enemies in the game. Basically, Warframe as we know it is chock full of hitscan, homing, or fast projectiles that are effectively unavoidable. This design is intentional but lacks practical diligence: while it may be fun for the first hundred hours, eventually the lack of skill-based interactions makes the game incredibly grindy, given that Warframe has thousands of hours of progression. This reddit post best describes the issue better than I do - I highly recommend giving it a read.

What the post doesn't explain is how important this is. Many other complaints I hear from other Warframe players (frame balance, scaling, etc.) actually mean very little if enemy design is crap in the first place. Regardless of how 'balanced' mob scaling becomes, if enemy attacks lack interaction it will remain the same: in early levels you can run anything you want and the mobs tickle you, making it fun at the start but gets super boring after a while; in the higher levels things will always one-shot you and there is no counterplay aside from running frames with heavy damage reduction, crowd control, or avoidance abilities such as invisibility.

Second thing I'd change is the armor mechanic - it's almost as bad as the attacks as you're basically forced to run armor reduction mechanics (such as Corrosive Projection) to clear harder levels quickly, greatly limiting customization and wasting precious effort put into the game (it makes other aura mods less relevant for example). The problem is you can't change the armor mechanic without doing the first bit and changing the attacks, as without armor most frames would just get one-shot all the time. A good change would be more like this: armor as we know it is replaced by flat damage reduction per hit, hard capping at 80% DMR per shot / hit. All mobs at level 10 or higher will have a base armor amount that increases with level, and is reduced by existing armor reduction mods.

Grim Dawn
I'm not going to talk about this extensively as this blog is (technically) public and I want to keep my ARPG ideas quiet. But basically I think old-school "Diablo-style" zombies are actually poor design, and ARPG developers have been keeping it in their games solely for the 90s nostalgia. The early levels of Grim Dawn are absolutely crawling with these slow, braindead creatures that are equally as braindead to fight. Actually good game design would make zombies more to the fast-moving style of Left 4 Dead (or 28 Days Later if you're more familiar with movies).

Secondly, I want more craftable gear at the endgame - legendary item drops in Grim Dawn drive me insane. Even if the crafting requirements are horrendous or require an equally random recipe scroll, having that alternative over solely relying on monster drops helps players feel more comfortable with grinding.

Interesting

With one parent having a bit of a Parkinson's scare and another with a bit of an Alzheimer's scare, I've been doing a bit of research into dementia prevention (dementia being the umbrella term for cognitive deterioration-related diseases). The research is iffy and questionable and I don't know if I have the informative background to understand every study I'm reading, but I'll do my best.

Anecdotally, there doesn't seem to be much of a consistent pattern. My father was a senior corporate worker, retaining significant knowledge of the business and financial world through his life, but didn't exercise much until retirement, preferring to watch TV in his spare time. He's the one at risk for Parkinson's. On the other hand, my mother's life was very motor-focused, as she spent her life doing housework. Housework is a tough job and she basically has no real hobbies, preferring to simply read the newspaper in her spare time. She's at risk of Alzheimer's. Neither of my parents drink, smoke, or take drugs, although I heard in his youth my father used to be addicted to sugared drinks.

While my mother attempts to literally slap the illness out of herself (an acupuncture practice, apparently) I've decided to take a more practical view. There are several ideas I have:

• Diet: Would make sense, but we live relatively healthily, and satisfy the MIND diet most of the time. So short of going super hardcore, I'm not sure how I can improve on this. I have also heard that caloric restriction (that is, going on occasional weight loss diets) may be beneficial to preventing dementia, and my parents have not started doing that until in the most recent decade.
• Exercise: Intensive exercise, not just the daily 'ten thousand steps' my father tries to do. Something like 30-60 minutes a day, at least twice a week. Wish I had more time to do this.
• Cognitive development: This is the thing I've been focusing the most on: Reading, board games, video games, etc. The thing is, not everything you read or everything you play necessarily improves brain development, and I've even found some games might be detrimental to cognitive function. So this is pretty complicated and I'm still reading about it.

I've been thinking about turning this into some sort of life goal. Thing is, the medical research itself is still ongoing. It may not be likely I'll ever get around to making a viable solution by the time established causes of dementia-related diseases have been determined.

relatable meme

Me in 2017:

• Just broke up with (toxic) gf
• Realized I don't want to study my major anymore
• Basically no friends in class as all friends transferred out of the major after last semester
• Discovered my nephew passed away, was kept a secret from me for over a year
• All this has inflicted social anxiety and mild depression on me

Parents:

Fast forward to me in late 2018 / early 2019:

• New major that I actually enjoy
• Doing much better in school
• Made a ton of friends (thanks to the video games actually)
• Made my peace with nephew's death
• Hardly actually playing any video games
• Still kind of traumatized by my ex and low on self-esteem but I'm improving a lot

Parents when I told them my mental health hasn't fully recovered:

No kidding, the church has genuinely brainwashed my parents into thinking video games will consume me into a satanist, kind of like how people turn into pigs in Spirited Away. I simply think my parents watch too much TV.

Moods come and go.

Was productive today. Feeling good. Guess that’s what I’ve been missing this past week. Then I walk to my room, hear my ex and her bf together next door, and I get a little lonely. (Then I leave and immediately feel better.)

I've heard other voices, too: I think they might be watching a TV show together. Reminds me of something my father was telling me a few months back. Get some better hobbies, he said, such as watching TV. I'll let you share my Netflix account to start. And so he did, although I've never used it.

Personally I find most TV boring. I quote Eleanor Roosevelt, "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." The latest season of Game of Thrones, for example, is at best a discussion of events (What did you think of X episode?) and at worst a discussion of people (How was a certain cast member's acting?). I find neither discussion stimulating.

But that's just my opinion, something I'm open to changing my mind about. And I do think shows that generate discussion of ideas (such as a thought-provoking film, a documentary, or political commentary) are worth watching. But I doubt that's what my ex is watching, or that many other people watch for that matter.

Are video games any different in this sense? I believe the way I think about games is more ideas oriented: Why is the game enjoyable, or challenging, or cool? What mechanics were used? What visuals were used? Is there an effective theme or story behind the game or was it just slapped on as an afterthought? Did the game ultimately achieve its goals? From what I see about the game community, this is hardly a common thread, making it perhaps no different from TV.

Although, there is one other benefit of TV. Unlike video games, it can be watched together on a single screen, in the same room and on the same couch or bed, while a boyfriend mindlessly fondles and smells a girl's hair as she smiles, whittling away the hours. It's the kind of cheap lovey-dovey romance that girls want; such as this ex of mine, whose relationship ideals were so up in the clouds I called her a nutjob and dumped her (amongst other, more severe reasons). I think more mature people are more accommodating to their partner's hobbies and interests, and accept that not everything has to be shared. But at the same time, perhaps I can't expect a majority of girls to possess that maturity - and since I have been told I should be more romantic, perhaps I should pick up watching TV.

I'm still undecided. What does the reader think? TV, an effective hobby and couple bonding tool, or simply a useless pastime? Should I pick up watching TV? And if so, what shows would make a good watch?

About the Blog

"The Bigger the Guns, the Bigger the Boom"
Why? Because Keel is a badass and I'm sad Quake Champions ended up a buggy mess of a game.

Source: Reddit

Personal blog, kind of started on a whim. I like to write, so why not? It's a much more readable format than ranting about my life to my mates on messenger.

Talking about that life.
Not so long ago I recovered a bit of...something. Depression? Anxiety? I do not know. The voices came, telling me that I suck, I'm a failure, that nobody cares, that I deserve to lose all my friends and family and be lonely forever. I fought back. Took me 2 bloody years, and I got held back 2 semesters in uni because of it. But I fought like a mad dog against the black dog until I came out on top.

Now I'm better. Unfortunately I really did lose most of my friends. Didn't really fall out with them or anything, just stopped talking to a lot of them. Most of them have graduated, too, and uni is all new faces I don't recognize anymore. I don't really have time to make new friends either, given how busy I get with college. So happy as I am, I'm kind of a loner now. Guess that's why I started this blog.

Oh and my ex from first year still lives in the next room. That's motivation to graduate, if anything. Didn't really want to move because other than her presence my room is great. She doesn't bother me either, although she's on like her 4th 5th boyfriend or something and they make noise occasionally. (I also suspect she secretly wants to be platonic friends again.) Regardless, she was clingy, insecure, jealous, and immature, and I'm looking forward to never seeing her again.

Other than that, everything is good. I've gained new purpose, new hobbies, grades are kind of better (at least I'm not failing, right?) and I'm enjoying living. Self-esteem and intimacy issues aren't where I want them to be, but they're slowly getting better too. In a sense, suffering from whatever it was may be a blessing in the long run, in that I will end up a better person than if I hadn't suffered.

Oh and I'm in business school, if anyone cares. HRM major. I'm not sure why employment problems come as enjoyable to me but they do. Might have something to do with having a business exec for a father.

Uh okay, hobbies. It's about to get real clear why I'm a big loner, strap in.

• I play video games, although not much while I'm busy with school. Favorite games tend to be  Hack & Slash (Diablo, Grim Dawn, Bastion, etc.) I used to play a lot of Warframe and Guild Wars 2 and reminisce about those days sometimes, but I don't play them anymore for a number of varying reasons.
• Been thinking about starting up a video game studio as a side "gig". Chug my creative juices, ship some cool indie concepts, make people smile, send profits to a good charity. It's not really a gig as it makes me no money but it's a dream and I want to make it happen one day. I've been researching new games and planning new concepts in my spare time.
• I read when I get the time. I always have a ton of books to get through and will never finish half of them.
• I'm a casual fitness dude, albeit still pretty weak. Would love to get more hardcore but travelling to gym is pain and I'm always busy.
• I used to play the sax professionally. I brought my horn to uni but I don't get much time to play. Listening to music and paying what's due to support good artists keeps me happier nowadays.
• I used to draw as well, thinking about picking it up again.
• I watch comedy infrequently, mostly Conan and The Daily Show. I'm also watching the Azur Lane anime right now, but it's mostly because I play the game and I don't consider myself an anime fan by any means. (The only other anime I have ever watched is Fairy Tail.)
• Oh and I write, of course. I journal regularly, almost daily, check my mental health, reflect on my life, put together to-dos.

Edit (Oct 26): Updated post with the Keel picture. Updated hobbies to include my TV shows. Updated my ex's relationship status to 5th (lol).