Posts Tagged ‘Blogging’

What You Want, Others Don’t Like :: Expectations in MMOs

My (utterly brilliant) editor tells me I need to prepare you good people for a fairly personal post, which this is. It’s been a tough couple of weeks at Alternative Towers, and it all came to a head yesterday when I was informed in no uncertain terms that I’ve no idea how to have ‘fun’ in the game I choose to write about daily. Needless to say, I know a red flag when I see one. So, instead of going and muttering incoherently about how people don’t understand me in a corner? You get this, because sometimes it isn’t just about what I want or what you think is right, it’s about making everybody understand the bigger issues at play.

I’m getting increasingly annoyed with being told to cheer up when it comes to how I write about Warcraft. It appears that, according to some, I just don’t have enough ‘fun’ any more, and that being ‘nice’ is far more important in most cases than playing the game.

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Azeroth: Confessions and emotional investments

The first game I ever played was Pong. It was 1978, and I was twelve years old. My father worked for the Ford Motor Company and flew a lot between Dagenham (Essex, UK) and Detroit, and on one particular trip he arrived home with an Atari 2600. That’s when everything changed. After that it was the ZX81, then the BBC B and an Amiga. The first pay cheque my boyfriend earned after graduating University went on buying a 386 PC with a copy of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Nearly thirty years on we’re still married, and gaming is a part of everyone’s lives in this house: my 14 year old son and 10 year old daughter are playing Trove together as I type this article.

However, these days I spend quite a lot of time in Azeroth playing World of Warcraft, and that’s what I’ll be talking about during my tenure here.

The MMO was bought initially in order to help me through long nights breast feeding the youngest, and in the end it saved me from myself, after I was diagnosed with Post Natal Depression. It became a space where I could allow myself to just kick back and relax, and evolved into something more significant as time went on: becoming a GM in a small but committed Guild gave me confidence in the virtual world where none existed in reality. It was a vital first step back on a road to recovery which pushed me to write daily as a means of helping to rationalise how I felt and to deal with the issues I had. In February 2016 I will celebrate seven years of my Warcraft Blog. I know that without this particular game in my life, I’d not be the person I now am.

It’s odd when people ask me to describe the journey I’ve had with games since those early days. Being a woman in what was back then very much a man’s world was always difficult, especially when I could make my 10p last longer in a Galaxians machine than most boys my age.

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Liebster Love

The Liebster love has come to GD, thanks Pixelkaffe! To make this a little easier (and less tedious for the readers out there) I and Mylex will do our answers in the same post! In reality it’s just Mylex being too lazy to make his own post and tag his own victims but whatever.

11 random facts about Noctua:
1. My favourite number is 125 and it changes every year on my birthday (in accordance to a schedule I made when I was 7).
2. People say I think too much. How can someone think too much?? I can see how one could think too little.
3. Money and fame Honesty and transparency are the qualities I value most in people I meet.
4. I name my computers. This one is called Ivy.
5. My wildest and deepest desire as a child was to have a secret room that no one but me knew existed. In the absence of such a room (and since my mum could not be pursueded to hire the workers needed to design such a room for me) I once put a little lamp and a chair in a tiny closet where I would read books for hours while people where looking for me.
6. I’m extremely sensitive to bright colours that don’t match… It’s an unwelcomed legacy from my mother who taught me about complementary colour schemes from a very young age.
7. I’m often openly hypocritical. Take this situation for an example; I love asking other people questions but I am easily unnerved by answering them myself. I’m very cagey by nature and even writing these 11 facts about myself is proving a very long and uncomfortable process!

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Hello, I’m Noctua

Here I find myself, one little night owl in a great big world called the Internet. Though I’ve found my way here many a time before, the world of gaming is still new to me. Maybe that is why my fascination with online gaming and the communities that dwell there was so striking.

Having always taken a great interest in human behaviour and interaction I was intrigued. I often find myself examining people around me, not just in my everyday life, but in game too.

Though a surface can be a beautiful thing, I’ve always found that what lies underneath it is far more compelling. To increase my understanding of people around me and human nature in general has always been a slight obsession of mine. In this blog I will write down my thoughts on everything from gaming to psychology and philosophy. Most likely I will be up typing away in the middle of the night when all decent people are fast asleep in their beds.

That’s me and my story of how I ended up in this little corner of cyberspace tonight. Feel free to comment, say hi or introduce yourself below. Sweet dreams everyone.

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