Final Fantasy 9: Complete

Cleared FF9.

Of the FF games, this is probably my favorite of the PS1 era ones that I've played (7, 8 and 9 -- 10 still not played).

Paranoia in Table Top Role Playing.

In real life, if a group of people find a discarded doll in a forest, they'll, maybe comment that's weird. Maybe take a picture. Move on. But, if a high-level adventuring party finds a doll in the woods, things are not that simple.

Design Problems With Legion/MMOs in General

Not even a few weeks into Legion's release, normals were no longer relevant content. At this point, if not at the same time, Heroics were no longer relevant content. As it is, for players who started on release day and pushed, regular Mythics are no longer relevant either. Which leads to players complaining they have nothing to do, and developers complaining that players blow through their content too quickly.

This Book of Essays Was A Bad Purchase

I regret buying this set of essays by Herbert Kohl called "Should We Burn Babar."  Kohl has, in his introduction, reached the following conclusions:

1. Taking a bunch of books and burying them in a dump because he thought they were offensive was a reasonable, laudable act.

2. That, unless under the wise and careful care of an elder, wise progressive like himself, certain books (like Babar!) just should not be available in libraries because they are Dangerous.

That's possibly the most paternalistic thing I've read, and Kohl is an alleged progressive!

The worst part is that he probably doesn't even REALIZE how patronizing it is. Near the end of his introduction, he goes on about how noble and right it was to bury books about Columbus. Yet, despite deciding "Some books are so offensive to me, I should bury them," he feels, despite a South African teacher discussing how offensive Babar is to him and his students, Kohl's belief in his ability to "properly" teach the book trumps the teacher's dislike of the book.

And I'm only on the introduction! I don't know how I'll make it through this sneering mess of a book. I was ready for an imperialist reading of children's stories, and how the Rich Lady is really a colonial take over of indigenous elephants. I was PREPARED FOR THAT SILLINESS. I was mentally prepared for something like "Power Dynamics and Gender Politics in the Boxcar Children," which is not a real essay, but I bet some one could get a PhD writing it. I was not ready for "Some books are dangerous without Smart People to Talk to You About What They Really Mean."

I plan to see the rest of the book through, but it did not have an auspicious start.

Compromising and Moving Forward on the RPG Maker Game

Tonight is a night of utter nerdom: I am going to make spreadsheets for ALL the weapons/armors for ALL the characters in the RPG Maker game and define a power curve and itemization for them. I've realized if I want to make this project happen, I need a more systematic approach to it. I spent a lot of time [nearly a year and a half!] on just getting Chapter 1 and 2 how I want it to flow.

UPDATE appears below as well!

Toxicity in Games

I've been playing more MOBAs and MMOs lately. One problem in both of these genres is the other people I play with. Not the people I personally know; the random people. If you're a non-toxic player, then, you can probably stop reading here. If you ARE a toxic player, then please keep reading. The "you" from here on in is to be understood to be toxic players. This is my attempt to explain why I want them to stop being toxic. So, if you aren't part of the intended audience, this isn't for you.

Zone of Caring

I made this for a friend I was talking to on Facebook, but I realized it is a perfect example of Matt Philosophy.

Behold, the one tool you need to help you manage schedules and make decisions. I call it: The Zone of Caring.

Christmas -- 2014

Merry Christmas! Next year, I'll be trying to write more.

For now, go spend time with your family. Because that's more important than my blog.

Merry Christmas 2013

It is that time of year again. I'm reposting something I repost almost every Christmas. Merry Christmas, see you next year!

The Google+ Graveyard

There's, right now, a conversation going on Google+ about how it is a graveyard, in two places. One place is here. There's some concerns due to the loss of engagement, even among people with lots more followers than yours truly, who is ALSO talking about it. In fact, I shared the same post.

I have an explanation. Look at Jay's thread (the first link). Notice how we've got a decent conversation going? Now, look at my thread. That conversation is gone. In fact, completely unprompted, one of my friends (who writes here and has a blog) popped in to contribute to my post. Jay, and everyone else talking about it? They will never see his post without coming to my page.

The reason for that is that shares start a new thread, I think. That means, when I share this, our conversation is lost. It should point back to the main post so that the conversation doesn't get diluted.

So, if you share my blog post, my followers won't see that the conversation is continuing elsewhere. They just see a fresh post (originally I said blank form, that's kind of wrong), and can +1, share or comment on that. But the rest of the conversation is lost. Each share dilutes the conversation more and more.

Sometimes, for example with Chris Pirillo, I'll see five or six shares of his latest Video Log. There's no way I'm hunting to find one where people actually talk about it. So, Google+, that's how you can increase engagement. Have a share share to the original post. Let people actually contribute to a conversation.

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P.S.,

Sometimes... sometimes I write about social media. Then I feel dirty.