Psychochild's Blog

Like it or not, it’s now the holiday season. For most people, this is a glad time of year as we get together for feasts to drive away the winter darkness and chill. During this time our minds often turn to families and loved ones. We look for source of warmth to drive off the emotional chill we feel this time of year. Sometimes we find it, sometimes we don’t.

Often I like to take a closer look at things and evaluate them more in depth. Like relationships: How does our perceptions affect them, particularly in the online world? It seems that we fall into regular patterns in our relationships, conforming to society’s expectations of what we should do. But, the culture in the U.S. has a terrible time really defining relationships. Even a meaningful word “love” tend to be dangerously overloaded and fraught with peril. Let’s take a look at this, and maybe think about what it means for Socializers in games.
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So, a few people including the wonderful Dr. Cat of Origin and Fucadia fame, are doing a “Legends of Gaming” stream later today, starting very soon. It’ll be a “Johnny Carson” style show with many different people coming along to be interviewed, then stick around a bit as others are being interviewed.

Facebook info: https://www.facebook.com/events/191189097992468/

Stream at: http://twitch.tv/doctor_cat

I’m scheduled for 2:15 PM Pacific (5:15 Eastern).

Full schedule inside.
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I’ve run into an interesting situation with some people in FFXIV. Many times people have needed items which I have gladly been able to provide (or acquire easily), but people feel bad taking the items from me. They insist on paying for the items somehow, or they want to trade. One friend said she felt bad always asking me for stuff, even if I offer on a regular basis.

I wanted to take a look at this, and look at why it really didn’t bother me to offer these items or services to others. Why I’m a big-hearted socialist in MMOs.
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I hope everyone out there had a good Thanksgiving. Even if you don’t celebrate it, I hope it was a good day. And, it’s always a good time to stop and reflect on what you’re thankful for.

Let me take a moment to count my blessings.
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Once again I have survived a full revolution clinging to a ball of dirt and molten metal hurtling through space around a continuous nuclear fusion engine. As with most things, this makes my life sound much more dramatic than it really is. For the non-science nerds out there: it’s my birthday today.

But, as is tradition on my blog, let’s take a look at the past year or so of life.
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So, this is a game development blog. I’ve announced my new project The Humanity Hypothesis, so now let me talk about some of the day-to-day development of developing the game.

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So, what has kept me so busy that I’ve been slow to post? Let me present my brand-new game project called The Humanity Hypothesis.

We’re on Steam Greenlight, so the most important thing is to go vote for it!

Okay, I’ll share a bit more information about it, if you really want.
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For creative people, sometimes the most daunting thing is the blank page. Sometimes you simply have no clue where to begin when working on a new idea; the idea can be so large that working from any particular perspective threatens to block out something else. Focusing on expressing one perspective could drive others out of your head, diminishing the work as a whole. Creative people usually come up with some solution for this. For me, I like to write down concepts and then organize them into a structure, usually an outline, that guides me as I work on other parts.

Sometimes that blank page can appear unconquerable. For less experienced people, it’s sometimes easier to borrow some structure from another source. In writing, a novice might borrow a universe they like and create “fanfic”. Or an experienced creator might want to take something they’ve seen and give it their own spin. An artist might take familiar characters from other media and create something new; conventions usually have art halls full of familiar comic characters in humorous or sexy situations they wouldn’t normally be found in.

So, let’s look at the use of other works as structure for your own.
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After a great Blaugust, I’ve been a bit slack about posting regularly. A few things are contributing to this.

Let’s do a brief catch-up, shall we?
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If you don’t follow game industry news, you might have missed that Valve changed how they use reviews. The short version is that only if you’ve bought a game directly from steam does your review count by default.

This has some pretty tremendous consequences for game developers, and probably for game players. Let’s take a look at what this means in a bit more detail, shall we?
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