Musing

Realized Thoughts on Falling Out of Love with Blizzard

Categories Games, Musing

I spent countless hours playing Diablo 2 and its expansion, and it probably only barely edges out Starcraft for hours played. My introduction to role playing games was the first Diablo (On the Playstation!) and NoX (a Westwood game) and Diablo 2 thereafter. Both gave me a lot of good memories, but Westwood died after NoX and Blizzard also had Starcraft. I was passionate about Blizzard from this point. When World of Warcraft came out, I jumped from Star Wars Galaxies to WoW and never looked back. I was smitten once again. WoW felt like it took the ideas of what I wanted from role playing games and made everything bigger and more realized.

NoX
NoX by Westwood. “My introduction to role playing games was the first Diablo (On the Playstation!) and NoX (a Westwood game) and Diablo 2 thereafter.”

However, on reflection and while listening to Kyle Bosman and Jason Schreier talk about Blizzard and WoW, I realize the world of Azeroth was probably what ruined them for me. Despite years of love, and subsequent love-hate, I think the path Blizzard walked for World of Warcraft changed the company from one that made games regularly to one that only focuses on, and before the phrase really existed, live service games. I remember when Starcraft Ghost was canceled and then I just stopped hearing about Blizzard working on new games. I did jump into and play Overwatch thoroughly but even that eventually had its doors closed and got replaced with Overwatch 2, with extra emphasis on forever-money.

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The Morals of an Alley Cat

Categories Games, Musing

If you’re Millennial or Gen-Z, or a parent to someone who is, you may know of an aardvark with glasses named Arthur (and I only know how to spell aardvark because it was a part of the spelling bee in one of the episodes). The show addressed issues of sibling rivalry, night terrors, classism, feelings of regret, and a whole host of other things that people face every day. My friend and I discussed it a few years ago and we wondered if it would have been the same if the characters were human children instead of aardvarks, bulldogs, bunnies, and rats. We agreed the show wouldn’t be the same if the children were people.

Consider Stardew Valley vs Animal Crossing. Do the animals add to the charm of Animal Crossing? They seem to have very different audiences and the question remains: is it the species of the characters that makes a difference?

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My Favorite Tool

Categories Musing

This is my first post of the type, a little more personal, but it felt like a good way to reflect upon how far I have come. Not quite a journal and not really a guide, and probably better as a toot/tweet, but here it is.

The last handful of years have had a lot of growth for me. In my job I have felt like I have done a lot of good, and in my personal life I felt like I grew a great comfort with boundaries and comfort. That is not to say that things do not get topsy-turvy, but I feel a lot better equipped to frame things in a healthy way. I grew up with a lot of broken people and so what may seem practical to others was foreign to me, but I never really learned how to manage all the information other people spoke my way. I took a lot of what was said to me at face value and that led to a lot of problems.

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