A Conversation About Games

I recall a conversation I had with someone not too long ago. We were talking about social media and it shifted towards online gaming.

One of the things that caused me to remember this conversation was when he said that games today try very hard to have an active online community playing and interacting with one another.

A very good example is 'Clash of Clans', where, in order to progress well, a player should find a clan and participate in organised 'wars' against other clans. The player would also ask for and receive units from their friends and clan members to further their cause.

I never played the game precisely because of what seems to me to be an over-reliance on other players. If I wanted to play a game on my own, I should be able to do so without being penalised for it. As such, I refuse to play community-driven games like these.

Yet, what my conversational partner was telling me was that this is the direction that online gaming is taking. If it's not a community-driven game, it wouldn't do well and people don't take to it. I find it ludicrous but it seems to me that he is almost certainly right.

It got me wondering why I don't like participating in community events in a game. I figured that I already have enough community events in real life and don't need to be forced to be take part in yet another one when I'm gaming at home or on my phone (which I very rarely do because many phone games "encourage" communities).

It is rather an odd thing, too, that games are going the way social media is heading - towards large communities of acquaintances who barely know one another. I can't say that I'm pleased about this, yet I can't say that I'm surprised. 

Copyright belongs to Clash of Clans by Supercell

The Real Work Begins

With only a few weeks ahead of me to get my book out of the layout stage and into the final, printing stage, I'd better get moving.

Once the book is printed, I'm going to have to organise the book launch. It's going to be slightly daunting, to be honest, but I'm going to have my publishing team guiding me along the way.

Hey, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I need to approve the layout changes, and there are quite a few! The slightly annoying thing is that some of these changes are changes back to what I originally wrote, but was changed during the editing process. Essentially, I'm doing two times the work for the same result.

Point to learn here: We need to better communicate with our team to make sure things like this don't happen to waste time and energy.

Welcoming June with a Networking Meeting

June is finally here. I've also just finished my last school project for the first half of the year, and here comes my breather. Whew!

To reward myself, I got myself a new keyboard. My old one was annoying me to no end due to lousy key placements and bad tactile feedback, as well as stuck keys. This one, the C3500 from HP, is so much better! I thoroughly recommend it. It does come with a mouse that I don't need at the moment, but it's always good to have a spare.

So this June is all about reconnecting with people, plans, and projects to come. My 3 p's. To kick that off, I attended a networking meeting yesterday. I was a little apprehensive because I had lessons in the morning, and was concerned that I would be too tired to interact. 

To make up for that, I went home to rest before the networking meeting and was glad that I did. It was (surprise!) a gathering of introverts. Of course, I know it sounds ridiculous, but that's because society has always placed erroneous labels on introverts like 'shy' and 'unsociable'.

Well, I got to meet a couple of familiar faces and a number of new ones. It wasn't a business networking session but a more casual, social one. Thus, there was much less pressure to talk about what we do and more freedom to talk about who we are instead.

I hope to meet some of them again some time soon. It's always great to meet people with whom we share an affinity.

End of May

As we approach the end of May, it feels like time is really flying by in 2016. Before I know it, almost half the year is over!

My forever-busy-Singaporean mind tells me that I could have done so much more than I have so far, but my more rational mind is telling me that I have already accomplished a number of things and that I'm on my way to accomplish more. Perhaps it is slightly slower than it could possibly have been, but why beat myself up over it? At least I am still moving forward.

The end of May is also the end of the first half of the school year. There have been a large number of projects this year, and one more next week that will spill into the first week of June. Finally, I can have a break before the craziness starts again.

I am seriously considering dropping some of my roles in preparation for new ones. I would like to focus less on teaching in schools and more on teaching adults. I see a way forward and I am keen to take it. 

Here's to a bright future moving forward!