Category Archives: Games

I wrote this in response to someone quitting Diablo Immortal because he spent too much money on the game. Original reddit thread here.

In this situation I feel that you really have no-one to blame but yourself for your unhappiness and negative attitude towards the game.

I’m 47 years old and have been a gamer since I got my little hands on an Atari 2600. What I’ve loved most about gaming since the internet was invented is being part of a community, mostly on discord.

I’m a member of a Diablo Immortal clan that’s active on discord. We have some members who haven’t spent a dollar on the game, and we have some whales too, but ultimately what I value the most is just playing the game and talking shit and getting to know people over the mic on discord. Full stop really!

I made this response to Heazy, the clan leader of Australia (a Diablo Immortal clan I’m a member of). I put a bit of effort into it so I thought I’d post it here too.

I’ve spent a lot of my career founding, building and running communities and I’m no stranger to either having to hand over leadership or terminate communities, so I’m more than happy to give my input here.

I think you have a lot of great leadership qualities Heazy; you’re welcoming, approachable, empathetic and you generally have a positive attitude. You involve the members when it comes to making decisions, you’re respectful of others and you’re active on this discord.

Life and leadership are 2 completely different things though. We all know life can get in the way but as a leader you’ve got to have a plan for when it does, so it’s great to see you take action on this.

IMHO being able to see the bigger picture and nailing delegation are massive parts of being a good leader. Your in-game level or stats have nothing to do with whether or not you’re a good leader (there’s always going to be someone else out there with higher stats, or more free time to play the game). Whales, casuals, they all come and go.

I think there’s a LOT to learn from what went down with The Bearded Ninjas, as well as the strongest Australia clan members leaving to join an Immortal clan when we didn’t win Immortality. We have to be aware that Blizzard has designed a game system that encourages hostility, clan wars, clan hopping, naming and shaming and more general negativity. The bigger picture suggests that we’re all into the same game, the even bigger picture suggests that we’re all into gaming and thus a lot more potentially like-minded than we realise.

I like that this discord community is called Guys & Girls Gaming (GG&G). Within minutes of being a part of this community I noticed that there were indeed a mix of both guys and girls on here (I love that). I also appreciate that there’s a level of maturity and acceptance on here. IE: I’ve read (and been a part of) some heated debates and discussions where not everyone agreed or understood each other, but hey that’s life and it goes without saying that it would be near impossible to have everyone in a community agree with each other at all times.

I love that some people on this discord are from other clans. IMHO that fits the G&GG concept. IE: It’s about guys and girls gaming, not guys and girls playing Diablo Immortal. If Diablo Immortal dies it would be a real shame for this community to also die.

End of the day Heazy, as a leader you have to be passionate about what you do. If you’re no longer excited about your role and responsibilities, nor gain energy from motivating community members then 100% maybe stepping down is worth thinking about, but I think it’s early days, and delegation of roles (maybe making new community roles to reward members who do grind all day as well as whales who put their money in etc.) could be a really solid step forwards.

X

Lots of bugs this season!

Screen grab before the final boss.

After finishing Elden Ring I wanted more, so I started a New Game Plus (NG+) and beat that too, half way through NG+2 I thought I’d take a break, but I still wanted more.

Enter Dark Souls.

I bought Dark Souls 3 years ago but never got past the first boss. I’ve been playing it non-stop for the past few weeks and tonight I finished my first playthrough.

I died many many many times. Sometimes over and over again for hours at a time and sometimes (like Elden Ring), I’d be stuck on the one boss for days. There were times when I thought I’d quit, for sure, but every morning I’d just get up and go again. 100% brutal, addictive, masochistic fun!

Tension, stress, learning on the job, having to be a team player… these are just some of the reasons why I hate raids in Destiny 2.

Clocked it.

It’s been raining non-stop since the launch of Destiny 2 – The Witch Queen last Wednesday, and I’ve not stopped playing since. I finished the campaign on legendary difficulty solo in 2 days. I reached the power level cap at the end of the first week, and today (on the first day of the new week) I reached level 100 of the season pass with 83 days to go… what can I say? Old habits die hard!