The random mumblings of a maid

Hey there,

I haven’t updated this thing for a while now.  It wasn’t even that I’ve been particularly busy, it was more of a case of “I’ll do it later” than anything else.  I seem to say this every time I post too.

I’ve been doing that thing again, you know, thinking about stuff that’s happened over the past year, especially since the end of 2011 is approaching fast, and there have been some happy moments, sad moments and mostly some stupid decisions.  I was reading over some older posts from earlier this year, I probably would’ve hated myself if I had met my past self.  It’s kind of funny, but irritating at the same time to know that that’s what I was like.

So after that ordeal in Korea, I’ve been living in America for the past year or so, mostly studying, doing my Masters degree now.  Felt like a train wreck for most of the year, apparently suffering from depression according to some of my classmates (though I will never really know, nor really care), but my grades have been actually pretty fine.  Got over the whole “Love” thing, have been feeling pretty refreshed and uninterested in any sort of relationship for a while too, which probably helped.  Though I have been feeling that I cut off some friends and sort of holed up into my own world for a while, whether that’s true or not is not really for me to decide.

Making friends in school has been non-existant, but that’s probably more due to the school being an Art University, and, well, I’m not really into the whole “hipster” thing (if it can be called that), so with no real common ground to talk to people about, I’ve been really just keeping to myself for the past year. Thankfully I have some wonderful friends on the internet to keep me company which I am very much thankful for.  To those people, I thank you for your company, I appreciate it more than you probably realise.

So, that’s pretty much me caught up in just a few paragraphs, loved and lost, feeling pretty alright with myself now.

But you know, emotions are a fickle thing.

Everything has been pretty enjoyable lately, and yet I seem to be falling for a certain person within this group of people I play video games with, and I’m not sure if it’s something that I want or prepared for right now.  She really is an interesting girl though, and I do enjoy her company a lot.  However, it’s not like I personally know her, I only know her through the internet, and don’t even know anything about “her”.  Though, I think I rather want for this friendship to continue the way it is though, so I shall keep this to myself.  I guess I’m just a little afraid of what might happen.

I hope you people had a restful Christmas, and if I forget, have a Happy New Year too.  Stay safe, everyone, and thanks for reading my stupid ramblings.

I leave you with Tenshi Hinanai.

It’s not that I forgot about this thing, I just haven’t been bothered to post anything new or interesting, because I’m mega lazy.  I’ll get round to it someday.

NOT DEAD YET.

I’ll just do a quick update: Currently doing my masters degree in Games Design in California.  Finals are coming up and I’m not sure if this work I’m doing right now is due tomorrow or in two weeks so I’m trying my best to finish it tonight and slowly dying.

Not much else to report, sir.

I haven’t been writing to here much lately, though it’s been on the back of my mind.  This mainly owes to the fact that I didn’t initially want to turn this into “just another blog where some random nobody talks about nothing which no one cares about” but it seems that just makes it into an unused blog.  What a shame.  So let’s at least try to remedy that in some way.

I am currently on another trip to America, this time travelling on my own to meet with a friend in San Francisco, California.  I am fortunate to have a very close friend who lives here who has been showing me around, and on top of that, many other friends who are in the area whom I have been having fun with.

The most striking thing about here I’ve noticed is that to really get around anywhere, you really do need some form of transportation.  Walking will really only get you do far.  Due to the expansiveness of the American lands, I’ve found that you really need a car to do anything worthwhile.  Compare this to little ol’ England, it really does show the massive size difference between the two countries.

I was fortunate enough to find attend the Distant Worlds Final Fantasy symphony which was playing on the same day I touched down in San Francisco.  After landing and a (relatively) hurried change of clothes, I went to attend the said concert.  Being honest, I wasn’t expecting too much from it, especially since it was a concert on Final Fantasy music.  That being said, I knew it was going to be decent at least.  But what I witnessed there was music so good that it completely took me by surprise, and blasted me off into some sort of musical euphoria.  Aside from the questionable English/Japanese cross-over singing, the actual orchestra was so fantastic and amazing I was absolutely enthralled by their performance.  I am so thankful my friends invited me to attend thisas I had a great time with people who I would have thought I would have never had the chance to meet.  To those people who are reading this, I thank you from the absolute bottom of my heart.

Of course, this doesn’t really mean this trip is all unicorns and rainbows.  I’ve been having my fair share of unwanted stress from this trip.  From the moving I need to do on the 1st August to small little things like some friction between a couple of people, it really has been building up.  In all honesty, I don’t place the blame on them.  I’m sure they’re just doing what they do, but at the same time, I wish they would stop.  It just makes me feel that much more awkward and annoyed than I need to be and really does make me unhappy.  WELL WHATEVER SHIT SUX I DGAF 4 LYFE.  I still love them both very much.  I’m sure they’re not doing this on purpose (of course), and I don’t really want to be an intrusive guest so yeah…  I seem to be sighing a lot more than I need to be.  Oh well, oh well.  Chin up, stand tall, no regrets.  Sigh.

Regardless of these stupid little speed bumps in this trip, I have been having so much fun.  Whether my friends think I’m getting the most out of this trip or not, I’ve been really appreciating American life a lot more than my trip a few months back.  I’ve learned a lot more about the way things work and how different it is from England by just going around places and having someone who lives here show me around the place.  I’ve gotten a much more different feel for the way of living, and for that I am glad.

Yeah, maybe I’m being just stupid.  I tend to write dumb shit early in the morning.  I’ll just go get some more sleep.  I guess in the end this is only some small and weak outlet for some of the shit I’ve been up to because I seem to be finding myself holding back when I’m writing this.  Shhh.

Fuck I hate this shit.  Whatever I’ll publish this stupid thing now and worry about the repercussions later.  You reap what you sow!

I’ve been milling around some thoughts lately about the current gaming market and trends, and how everything seems to have changed drastically in the last few years.  This was made more apparent with a conversation I had with a friend just the other day.   I had a close look at Command and Conquer 4 recently and was intruiged that the game had changed completely in terms of gameplay.  I’ve never played any of the games from the C&C series, but even looking at this I knew there was something wrong with this game.  Now, this game was selling itself as being a “RTS”; a “Real-Time Strategy” game.  This would usually mean that there is some strategy; some thinking involved, in playing this game to utilise the player’s reactive, micro-management and tactical skills.  But all I saw in this was just mindless “spamming” of units to win the game (Even on the official forums, “spamming” of units was considered a “pro tactic”).  Can this really be called a strategy game?  More importantly, what has caused this once beloved game to have fallen so much, in a short amount of time?  I’m sure I can’t place the blame on one single element; the game market is too diverse, too large for that, but it can be mostly based on this: the casual market.

Ever since companies realised that there is a great big untapped ocean full of people who (would) enjoy video games, the whole industry’s been rife with medicore games which have been churned out by companies looking to make some quick money.  We’re all used to “shovelware” being churned out to try and hook the masses, but it has been getting worse over time.  If you look at the market of a decade ago, and compare it with the market of today, you’ll find that companies are now more focusing about quantity as opposed to quality.  This is not to say however, that all recent games are automatically bad, on the contrary, there have been some really good, high-production value games that have stunned and impressed me very much.  The issue here is the amount of shovelware games that are being pumped out, and the reasons behind it.  The market will eventually get oversaturated, and the industry will more then likely implode in on itself.  Along with this and the economy as it is, mass production of poor quality games will only cause its own downfall.

So, how do we go about fixing this?  It’s difficult to say.  The “casualisation” of games itself is not entirely a bad thing, it’s what it’s doing to the industry which is the main problem.  But as long as there are “casuals” who keep buying, the developers will keep making.

I’ve skimped on a lot of other factors, such as how bad piracy is these days, but I think that is for another day.