The Cog is What Makes The Machine Go

(I'd been putting #Blapril instead of #Blapril2020 in the posts. Oh yay. Guess I'm going to have to go fix that.)




What to write about Developer/Creator Appreciation Week of #Blapril?

That you have my sympathy.

You're already in an impossible position --attempting to please a (very) fickle audience, while at the same time maintain your own sanity-- and then on top of it you're typically crapped upon salary-wise by your employer and told what a "privilege" it is to work in the video games industry as an excuse. When you decide to deviate from an implicitly defined "formula" for video games, the gatekeepers come out of the woodwork to tell you that "you're doing it wrong" to be polite about it.

In short, the video games industry is a microcosm of what our pre-pandemic lives were like, but played out in public and all over the internet.

It's not as if people were going to follow the foibles of Bob's Plumbing and Propane* all over Reddit, but I can guarantee you that any post about Star Wars: The Old Republic on Facebook will result in at least a decent number of commenters saying "I can't believe this shitty game is still around, and who would ever play this piece of shit is beyond me."

For starters.

It's like seeing an ad for Ivory Soap --yes, it still exists, people-- and waiting for the inevitable "P&G is in league with SATAN!!!" comments from conspiracy theorists who thought the old P&G logo described a hidden connection to Satanists that was only revealed to a chosen few.

Or hearing the "Paul is Dead" refrain from people who still think Paul McCartney died in a car crash in the mid 60s, prior to Sargent Pepper's release.**

Besides, if there's anybody who had a deal with the Devil, it has to be Keith Richards.

***

I'd rather not crush anybody's hopes and dreams (tm), but if you're getting into the IT field --let alone the video games industry-- you have to realize that the early days of video games (70s through the 90s) are long gone, and Corporate America (tm) and the MBA people have invaded the video games industry and turned it into just another corporate drone kind of life, where the investors reign supreme.

Oh, there are exceptions out there, but in general you have to realize that video game development is a job like any other, and upper management typically looks at the developer/creator as just another cog in the machine. If you think otherwise, go listen to a quarterly investor call for a company such as EA or Activision/Blizzard.

Once, several years ago, I fielded a call from a comp sci club at a local university, who wanted me to talk to their computer science students about the exciting things I was doing in the field I was in. The presumption was that because of my field, I was getting to do all sorts of cutting edge work in IT.

"Um," I said, "I'm not sure if I'm the right guy to talk to your club."

"Why not?"

"Because about half of a job in my field is spent in meetings."

"Meetings?" I could almost hear the guy's optimism burst and deflate.

"Yeah. That and bureacracy, because [my field] is the butt end of the universe in IT. And if someone knows your name, it's because the crap is hitting the fan and people are yelling your name. If nobody knows your name, it means everything is working right, and then people wonder why they're paying so much for your time and effort."

***

So yes, developers, I hear you. I see you, and I appreciate all of your efforts.

Yes, I see the shitstorms that come out of saying things such as the story being just as important in video games as other parts, and I see the layoffs that hit your company when you still had record profits. I see you being thrown under the bus when upper management wants a sacrificial lamb for when nobody at the top could provide consistent and cohesive direction. And I see you when you are marginalized, made to feel small --or unwanted-- or stressed beyond belief when the company wants you to work 80-100 hour work weeks.

Yeah, I see you. You have my respect and my love, and I wish I had won the lottery so that I could create a game company that would do things right for their developers.

But since Powerball hasn't been so kind (not like it's ever going to, let's be real here), I can only give you my love and support.

#Blapril2020




*I have no idea if this company exists, but it wouldn't shock me if it does.

**Newsflash: Paul is not only still alive, but had a recent album release and even played Lady Madonna on the One World Together At Home fundraiser.

As One Set of Leveling Follies Concludes, Another Begins

Azshandra dinged last week by finally completing Blackrock Depths, which was a real struggle given that it took her about 3-4 weeks to finally get into a run that actually made it to completion.

But Cardwyn? The "Alt Who is Not Quite an Alt" didn't have such issues.

She began the week at L53, got into a couple of Sunken Temple runs, and then after a day's worth of farming and questing in Burning Steppes* she managed to get into not one but two BRD runs in a single night.

And she got to the point where she could finally witness the end of the Marshall Windsor questline**, beating Az to the punch.

Go figure.

It's a weird feeling when your alt is able to complete something ahead of your main.

But like I alluded to above, she's not exactly an alt, but more of a "co-main" at this point.

***

The more I think about it, I believe her ability to catch up to Az in leveling had not as much to do with Mages being more in demand than Rogues but more to do with Rogues' ability to simply bypass lots of mobs by sneaking through them. Mages, with no such ability, have to essentially blast their way through to quest objectives, which add to the amount of XP they gain when performing similar quests.

Therefore, if I create another class that doesn't have a stealth ability --such as, say, a Paladin-- that Pally will likely level up more quickly than Az as well.

And you can put two and two together and figure out that I'm already thinking of leveling another alt, just because.

I'd considered returning to my Paladin roots for a while now, but as time has gone on I've watched how Pallys are commonly considered one of two things: Healers or Tanks. Yes, Paladins have a Retribution spec --which I've typically played with the exception of Quintalan's early leveling as Holy-- but Ret Pallys seem to be frowned upon in Classic.

When I mentioned this to another Classic friend, she said "Look, go play what you want to play. Don't let the crowd influence you." Which is typically the advice I'd give to almost everybody as well, so it took me aback to see that same advice given to me.

But she was right.

I should play what I want to play, and if others have issues with me playing Ret, that's their problem, not mine.

***

Then the question becomes who to create.

I thought about one of my old Paladins, Balthan, but I discovered that "Balthan" was already used on the Myzrael server, so I created a "Balthane". I've also considered a few other names, based on either other Paladins I've played or characters I created, but some of them I'm going to wait on for any Burning Crusade servers, and others were also not available. So for the moment, Balthane it is.

But hey, it's better than nothing.

#Blapril2020




*And also finding another kindred soul while working on the Dragonkin Menace quest, which begins the Marshall Windsor questline. Having leveled as Horde back in the day, I didn't even know this questline existed until Classic dropped, because I switched to Alliance around the time Cataclysm was released. And, as I now know, Cataclysm wiped out the Marshall Windsor questline.

**Bolvar was in a killed state last night, so the group I was in decided not to wait for him to respawn so the event could complete, but all I have to do is talk to the squire and that'll be that.

Behold the Source

I used to love playing arcade games back in the day, and they --along with the omnipresent Atari 2600-- formed a lot of my early video gaming career.

However, my life changed forever the day my parents bought a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A back in 1982.

This is the box with the real thing. It cost $299
in 1982 from a department store that eventually
merged into what is now Macy's. Yes, you could
buy home computers at department stores back then.

Before you ask, yes, we had game cartridges for the 16-bit computer. My personal favorite was Tunnels of Doom, a procedurally generated multi-level dungeon crawl that you could save your progress on either floppy disk (which we didn't have) or cassette tape (which we did have). I know other people in my family who liked Parsec, a Galaxian/Space Invaders knock off, but I was just introduced to D&D in the Fall of 1981 and Tunnels of Doom was the closest thing we had to a computer RPG in the house.

But what really changed my life was the fact that it truly was a computer, and you could program in TI-BASIC (what the machine was loaded with), TI-Extended BASIC, Assembler, Forth (never knew any computer system that used Forth other than this TI), and PASCAL. I cut my chops on spaghetti code in TI-BASIC, but it was also the springboard that led me to my current job in IT.

I learned to program by typing in lines and lines of TI-BASIC from computer magazines for applications from a cookie recipes database to video games to financial calculators. After typing in lines and lines of code, I then had to debug those lines to correct the inevitable typing errors. Once in a while, I did learn that the magazine's code printout had a flaw in it, and I learned to correct those flaws myself. I also learned to design and build an application based on desired input and output; once I discovered that each computer apparently had it's own version of BASIC, I also learned to translate these other BASIC flavors (such as Radio Shack's TRS-80 BASIC) to TI-BASIC.*

All of this led me to high school, where my high school was one of the first in the city to require a programming class for graduation.

Sure, I learned about the standard programming languages of the day, such as FORTRAN 77 and COBOL, but most of the design structure for programming had already been ingrained in me by those years spent with the TI-99/4A. To be fair, I still use those same lessons when I write scripts on the fly for whatever IT incident I encounter, but I have since learned other methods of software design, such as object oriented programming.

It actually doesn't look in that bad
a shape given that it's 38 years old.
I still have all the cartridges and other
peripherals, too. The cassette player needs
its belt replaced, however.

But I will always look back fondly on those years working on the now ancient TI home computer. It is weird looking at the machine now, and seeing it as about the same size as a laptop with a miniscule amount of computing power compared to even the cheapest smartphone, but it was a launching pad to a field that became a large part of my life.

#Blapril2020




*I still have a printout of the TRS-80 BASIC code for the old Santa Paravia kingdom building game around somewhere. The spaghetti code in that game is pretty bad.

**Once, when my paternal grandmother asked me that question and I responded "an astrophysicist", my grandmother mouthed to my mom, "What is that?" My mom replied, "I have no idea."

Research is King

"Rub a dub dub
Three men in a tub
And who do you think they be?
The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker
Turn them out, knaves all three."
--Traditional English Nursery Rhyme*



When I was rummaging around in my head for ideas about the "Getting to Know You" week of Blapril, the line "The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker" kept popping up.

I'd like to think it's because I putter around with hobbies, but I'm not exactly certain about that. I do cook (butcher), and I bake (baker), but the candles part? I seem to recall making candles the way the Colonial Americans did in 1776 as part of the 1976 Bicentennial celebration at my school (I was in First Grade at the time), but outside of burning candles in the fireplace** or above the mantle I haven't done much as far as candle making/usage is concerned.

But all three do have something in common: all three are things that people use their hands to work with. Sure, you can mechanize to your heart's content, but at their core all three are physical activities.

***

A lot of my hobbies require a certain level of manual dexterity. Video gaming is the most obvious example, but in the past my hobbies have included speaker building, homebrewing/winemaking, computer building, shortwave radio***, bread making, gardening, and car repair.**** Obviously, board gaming and pencil-and-paper RPGs don't require any real dexterity --and neither does reading-- but as my career does not require much manual dexterity at all I compensate by attempting to do a lot of other things myself.

At the same time, I also realize my own limitations. I know I'll never be as good as a contractor, and I have an alarming tendency to come close to electrocuting myself, so I farm out projects to contractors as the need arises. But I do have a stubborn streak in me that pushes me into learning as much as possible about a topic before deciding on a course of action. The mini-Reds tease me about my devotion to thoroughly researching a topic before starting a project, and they're not wrong.

***

Perhaps the reason why that nursery rhyme comes up when I think about my hobbies is that I am always interested in learning something new, researching it as much as I can, and then moving on to something else. There are hobbies that I return to, and ones that stick with me for the long term, but it is the fascination with how things work and why things are that keeps me going. I've told my wife on numerous occasions that when I retire I'd like to move to a town attached to a small liberal arts college or university; where I could simply become a fixture on campus, attending the classes I wanted, hearing talks and concerts, and enjoying the positives of being close to a place of learning. Oh, I don't have any illusions about what small towns are like, but there's something about being close to a university that the suburbs simply doesn't have.

#Blapril2020



*This is the version that I knew growing up; there are plenty of variations.

**I used to build fires in our fireplace, but after the "Smoke Incident", I stopped making fires. And no, you don't need to know anything else about that other than there were damp logs, a surprise backdraft, and an idiot (me) who had issues getting a proper fire built.

***Before you say that shortwave doesn't require a lot of manual dexterity, you've obviously never built or repaired your own outside antenna.

****Oh, the stories. My first car was a 1976 Plymouth Volare, which was a rust bucket in the truest sense. When I first began working on the car I discovered a bird's nest where the air filter would go, which was just the beginning of my life with what was christened the Silver Bullet. It even had a hole rusted through in the floor of the driver's side where you'd normally place your left foot, so to compensate I'd place my foot at a weird angle. To this day, I still use that angle for my foot which eventually makes my left hip ache if I drive for over a couple of hours.

When the Well Runs Dry

Another question nobody asks me is "Red, where do you get your ideas?"

That's not because I (sort of) answered the question way back in 2013 when I participated in the Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI), but because it's not something that anybody ever asks these days. The presumption is that you have a method for coming up with ideas, because otherwise you'd not be blogging in the first place.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it's not true.

You might not start out with an idea problem, but sooner or later your pile of writing ideas will dry up, and you're staring at the blank page, saying "Now what?"

If you come up with a foolproof method for generating ideas, let me tell you that you could sell that and make a ton of money, because everybody hits dry spots when they can't come up with something new. Even my own method of jotting down whatever comes to mind into a text file or a notepad doesn't help when the ideas are obsolete a short time later.

So, what do you do?

Well, this is a gaming blog, so that means you do two things: play games and read other blogs.

Playing games for inspiration isn't exactly new territory here, but perhaps trying something new, or out of your comfort zone, will result in a few ideas. Or maybe you end up in a particularly memorable instance run. Or, to turn things on their head, you have a completely boring and predictable run; why was it so boring and predictable, and what kept you from dropping from that "boring and predictable" run? Or have you been reading Gen Chat, and watching the conflagration of lunacy over petty topics? Now is your chance to get the entire thing off of your chest.

That last idea leads into the other big source of ideas: other blogs. Those fellow gamer blogs aren't going to all mimic your own; people have different opinions than yours, can you can't tell me that those opinions won't clash to an extent that you'll want to write a "YOU'RE WRONG!!" post.*

Yes, I'm old enough to remember when Saturday
Night Live --and Dana Carvey-- spoofed the
PBS political show The McLaughlin
Group. (From Gfycat.)

Even if you do agree, explaining why you do is worth a post. Or perhaps the post inspires you to delve down a similar matter and approach things from a different angle.

***

So there are plenty of potential posts out there, you just have to be open to finding them.

Or, if worse comes to worst, have a pic of a cat in a box.

From ohmagif.com, ~2014.

Not what you expected, is it?

#Blapril2020




*Hopefully nicer than that.

Advice From Not an Overnight Sensation

If you're old enough to be part of the workforce, you've likely noticed that different companies have a different approach to employee development.

Some companies have shadowing for a couple of weeks, and then you're on your own. Other companies have formal training, but the net result is that once you're finished you're thrown into the deep end of the pool. A lot of service oriented companies take either of these approaches toward training, and I've experienced both. My first job --as a janitor-- was the first example, and a job I had just after I graduated from university* used the second.

Other corporations have a different approach to "employee onboarding", as it is described in corporate speak. Some take the approach of formal training, but in addition to that training they have a "training website" where you can access whatever virtual class you want. Proponents of such an approach talk up the ability of the employee to pick and choose the path of their career.

And finally, there are corporations that assign you a mentor when you're hired, who assists you with your initial training and then periodically meets with you to provide guidance, contacts, and training to progress in your career.

That last approach seems to be losing favor in the corporate world over the "self service" model, and the primary reason why seems to be the bane of all corporations: cost savings. It takes time (and correspondingly costs money) for one to one mentoring in corporations, and by offering a "self-service" model a corporation can say "Hey, here's all the training you could possibly need; go ahead and pick and choose what you want so you have control over your career."

But here's the kicker: that self-service model only works well for some people; it is most definitely not a one-size-fits-all solution.

***

Because I've experienced all of these different approaches to employee training and development**, I have definite opinions on what works and what doesn't. And the answer is "it depends".

Yes, I know it's a way of weaseling out of an answer, but there really is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Some people like the full mentoring process, and some people have a clear vision of the road ahead and are fine with picking and choosing which path forward. And still others are happy with some up front training and then just running with it.

And if you can see where I'm heading, then I'll salute you with a beer after hours.

***

Yes, employee training and development is pretty much the same mentoring in any other activity, including blogging. Some people prefer to dive right in, and others will pepper old hands with lots of questions.

As you can guess by the out of date nature of this website, you should probably not be asking me for design advice, although I will say that if you go the gif route make sure you can customize a gif to your liking. I've never bothered to replace the main graphic here at PC because every attempt I made at making it look more interesting --or timely-- just never came out right. I will say that ease of reading and accessibility to mobile reading are two things that I'd place a high priority on. Apparently Blogger made a change several years ago that prevents people from commenting on Blogger blogs using Safari (especially the iOS version) without requiring that Safari relax some security rules. If you're not fond of that solution***, I'd suggest looking at Wordpress. (PC is too ingrained here in Blogger for me to just up and leave, unless Blogger gets sunset by Google, which is always a distinct possibility. See: Chromecast Audio.)

Okay, that aside, I can't tell you how to write. I can't tell you that "if you write A, you'll get response B". I can't even tell you how to monetize a blog, because I've been bound and determined to never do that. There are friends who read the blog and I don't want to try to monetize their friendship, because I value their friendship too much.

But what I can tell you is that you have to write.

You must write.

A blog thrives on material, and if there isn't any, there's no blog.

Go with what you want to write about. Pour your guts out on the virtual page. You'll get better the longer you actually write posts --hell, I'm proof of that-- and you'll have content that you can point to when you comment on other people's blogs.

Also, don't try to be fake or hipsterish. People see through that shit almost instantly, and unless you're very good, any facade you create will eventually crack, and the real you will shine through.

And finally, don't go into blogging thinking you'll catch lightning in a bottle and become the next Pewdiepie. Just don't. Influencer culture is --effectively-- a way for companies to shill their products without having to pay excessive amounts of money. The most popular influencers out there --including the aforementioned Mr. Pie-- rake in tons of money per year, but their effect on pop culture is pretty damn big as well and more than makes up for whatever money companies through at them. If you really want to become an influencer and wonder how you go about doing it, there is a book out there called Influencer: Building Your Personal Brand in the Age of Social Media by Brittany Hennessy that goes through the details of starting a blog, building a brand, and pretty much a "how to be self-employed" manual without the details about how to report income on taxes. Yes, the book covers fashion for the most part --that's what the author is familiar with-- but the ideas are applicable to influencer culture in general. And yes, I felt somewhat in need of a shower after seeing the details about a career that simply didn't exist 10 years ago.****

So why blog?

You tell me. What do you want to say? Why do you want to say it? And answer those questions when you write.

If that's mentoring, then so be it. But that's the same advice that I'd give to anybody else who is starting a blog: you may not have a voice (yet), but you can write. And through writing, you'll find your voice.

#Blapril2020




*I worked at Radio Shack for about six months after graduation, before I was fired for lack of sales per hour. Yes, the now defunct (or effectively so) Radio Shack. The sales levels required to maintain your employment pretty much required you to sell a computer per week, and when I worked there the Tandy computers being sold were inferior to the 386 and newly released 486 PCs sold by other companies, and I simply could not recommend Tandy computers over Dell, Gateway, or other custom built machines by small businesses all over town. I could spend lots of time talking about Radio Shack and some of the idiotic decisions they made over the years, but that's definitely another time. But I will say that their audio equipment from the 70s and 80s are worth the investment.

**Sorry, I can't mention other employers other than Radio Shack because reasons. Rat Shack is now gone, so they can't come after me with torches and pitchforks.

***I have friends who read PC but can't comment because of the weird restrictions that Blogger threw up for no good reason. If you google "why can't I comment on blogger with my iPad" you'll find the solution to the issue, but I'm reluctant to tell people to give up some security for the sake of a comment. PC isn't immune from being hacked like any other site, so why risk it? Although I'll also admit loving to hear from friends who have those restrictions.

****I personally don't see how any real influencer worth their salt would accept freebies from another company and try to walk the fine line of promoting said product versus being "objective". I put that in quotes because --from my perspective-- being truly objective means you have to be willing to tell a company that their product sucks if it is warranted. Trying to soften the blow so you can keep the money flowing, in my opinion, compromises your integrity.


EtA: Sometimes I really hate cut and paste on Blogger's toolset. Corrected cut-and-paste issues.

Journey's End

Well, I now have my answer to the question posed in the last post.

Azshandra dinged in the throne room in Blackrock Depths. On trash, no less.

To be honest, it was very touch and go at the end, as our group wiped twice in the room with all of the Dark Iron Reserves, and it was a judicious run down the left side after some of the roaming mobs had wandered away that kept us from wiping a third time.

Well, there was also the bar fight that almost wasn't, because we simply couldn't start a fight by throwing ale at the patrons, so we resorted to stealing ale and turning the entire bar against us. A long time ago I recall myself as Quintalan, Soul's wife, and Soul trying to three man BRD and getting stopped at the bar by wiping on the hordes of angry bar patrons, so this was a bit of a flashback. Still, we persevered through that only to wipe in the next area because an Anvilrage Marshall healed a runner who then aggroed the next mob over, causing a wipe.

But in the end, the BRD run was totally worth it. It was a great group to run with, and I know I had a blast.

I still have a ton of BRD related quests in my queue, but the big overarching question of actually completing the instance is finally over.

***

Finishing Blackrock Depths, especially after all of my failed attempts in the past couple of weeks, demonstrates the power of persistence in the face of mounting odds.

Speaking of overcoming odds....
Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)
From 2016, Tommy Shaw of Styx and Damn 

Yankees playing with the Contemporary Youth 

Orchestra of Cleveland.

Oh, I don't think that Az couldn't finish the instance, but I was fighting a headwind where tanks were more interested in other instances than just BRD. Back when Az was attempting to get into Zul'Farrak, I was fighting the crowd where the first wave of players had largely passed Z'F and were no longer interested in running there, so it took me a couple of weeks to get Az into a Z'F run that actually finished.*

But the BRD headwind was completely different. The first wave had already reached L60 and were running end level instances, raids, and battlegrounds. With the exception of slowpokes like me who spent way too much time enjoying the ride, the second wave of alts was passing Az by.** And, it seemed, that there were few tanks willing to step up for a full BRD run.

To add to the frustration, the quality of interactions in LookingForGroup seems to have declined a bit of late. A few players have taken it on themselves to provide commentary on some guilds who host open raids, and that provoked other reactions from even more players, and in true MMO fashion the shit hit the fan. I'm actually surprised that the player made LFG group on the Myzrael-US server hasn't seen more traffic lately, given the lack of drama there.

However, I didn't give up on Az's Blackrock dreams. I deal with enough drama in real life that I wasn't about to let the crap in LookingForGroup --or anywhere else in MMO space, really-- get to me.

***

And now it's done. Az is at L60, Blackrock Depths is complete, and I can move on in the direction of Scholomance and Stratholme. And from there, Dire Maul and Blackrock Spire.

Leeroy Jenkins, here I come.

#Blapril2020



*Ironically enough, Cardwyn has experienced no issues getting into Z'F --or any other instance-- for that matter. I suspect the reasons are twofold: Mages are in demand (Rogues not so much), and people are running alts all the time now.

**It's been kind of weird seeing people in Cardwyn's friends list show up in groupings with Az. "Oh hey, [insert name here]. We've run before, but on my Mage alt, Cardwyn." "Oh yeah, I remember Card!"