When he was playing WoW I thought he would be neat to observe because his time in game was something like 8 hours a day since release which was over a decade at the time. I found him off-putting and annoying even before he became the politics guy. He really valued an anti-intellectual play style.
I actually kept a couple nuggets of wisdom from him. I suspect that his influence has to do with the way he’s capable of distilling topics into memorable nuggets. First, he described wanting to play games that were good where good is a measure of how many people ruin their lives playing it. People only collapse in Internet cafes and turn into Asmongold for good gameplay loops. Lootboxes could never. Second, he showed me how internet fame works. I mentioned his anti-intellectual play style right? When he would need an item that he couldn’t afford, he would sit in the middle of Stormwind and ask people to give him money - and they did! They donated thousands and thousands of gold at a time so that people on stream would react. The question for a streamer is whether or not they’ll allow their audience to boost them so they decide their relationship to other power players (like in leagues style events). It cemented for me how there’s no such thing as bad press and inspired me to write a “person lost in an MMO” novel because I think they all misunderstand what it means to be an e-celebrity (especially Ready Player One the movie and another novel of comparable premise). Finally, he showed me how to break into opaque, choice rich games. The way he likes to play WoW is to covet mounts (cosmetic skins for a ridable creature/machine that lets you move 100% faster in ground or fly). Even having competitions to see who has more and rarer mounts. What he said to someone one time was to “simply look for a mount you think is cool and go one track mindedly towards it. Then you do the same for the next.” That, combined with the idea that you’re playing a game with a good gameplay loop, means you’re doing something that activates your neurons which is something I admittedly also value.
I wouldn’t have recommended him as entertainment then and especially not now. There’s plenty to dislike about the streamer, as much becomes apparent as he seeks other avenues of content to fill the void that a shitty game company turning the game into a skinner box/money extractor for the shrinking rate of profit. But I definitely watched the same way I might enjoy a pig playing in the mud. He has a certain X factor in the way he occasionally says something that sticks with you.
inspired me to write a “person lost in an MMO” novel because I think they all misunderstand what it means to be an e-celebrity
You ever publish this anywhere one could read it? Because I’d love to. I’ve been noodling around my own take on Portal Fantasy/isekai for some time now, which I’ll probably never write because I have a lot of other things I want to write first (and also right now I’m honestly not well-versed enough in the genre to do it right), I’d love to see someone else’s take on a similar idea, particularly that of a fellow traveler.
I mean, don’t share it if you can’t without doxxing yourself or anything, I’m just interested is all. Sounds cool as hell.
I have it a third of the way done. Do you have any suggestions of how to upload it without doxxing myself?
I had a lot of ideas for it. For instance they live in a diverted apocalypse Earth where China saved the day on climate change and they’re entering a later stage of communism 100 years from now. IIRC there are a dozen entities that can be called states. The MC is from the western US which is separate from the east. You don’t get a fleshed out look at the landscape because he really doesn’t give a shit about politics because he’s a . He has a persecution complex about it and eventually fucks off to the “gamer ghetto” of Akihabara where they’re more supportive of nerd culture.
Apologies for the late reply. As to the security side of sharing it, I’m the wrong guy to ask. If it was me I guess I’d upload it to google docs (but I don’t know if your email would be visible to people viewing the doc) and have it restricted so I’d dm a link. But it’s one thing sharing that on, say, a writers forum/subreddit/discord and doing that through this site, where I feel like the risk of doxxing or other security threats is a bit higher. I imagine someone on here knows about safer ways to share this sort of thing, but that’s my only thought.
Regardless, if you ever want another pair of eyes on it or maybe a beta reader or something and you’re willing to trust a fellow anonymous poster on our niche leftist shitposting website I really would be down to read it.
the “gamer ghetto” of Akihabara
What this makes me imagine is a guy who thinks he’s in, like, Night City from Neuromancer except instead of being surrounded by junkies and dealers and the dispossessed and street assassins he’s surrounded by, like, dudes who are really into the metaverse.
It’s wild to me that this man is so popular. The only things I know about him is that he lives in filth and hates women.
as a former online gamer w/ decades long online friendships:
I think slop like this is popular fills the role of reality shows or fox news for tv heads
When he was playing WoW I thought he would be neat to observe because his time in game was something like 8 hours a day since release which was over a decade at the time. I found him off-putting and annoying even before he became the politics guy. He really valued an anti-intellectual play style.
I actually kept a couple nuggets of wisdom from him. I suspect that his influence has to do with the way he’s capable of distilling topics into memorable nuggets. First, he described wanting to play games that were good where good is a measure of how many people ruin their lives playing it. People only collapse in Internet cafes and turn into Asmongold for good gameplay loops. Lootboxes could never. Second, he showed me how internet fame works. I mentioned his anti-intellectual play style right? When he would need an item that he couldn’t afford, he would sit in the middle of Stormwind and ask people to give him money - and they did! They donated thousands and thousands of gold at a time so that people on stream would react. The question for a streamer is whether or not they’ll allow their audience to boost them so they decide their relationship to other power players (like in leagues style events). It cemented for me how there’s no such thing as bad press and inspired me to write a “person lost in an MMO” novel because I think they all misunderstand what it means to be an e-celebrity (especially Ready Player One the movie and another novel of comparable premise). Finally, he showed me how to break into opaque, choice rich games. The way he likes to play WoW is to covet mounts (cosmetic skins for a ridable creature/machine that lets you move 100% faster in ground or fly). Even having competitions to see who has more and rarer mounts. What he said to someone one time was to “simply look for a mount you think is cool and go one track mindedly towards it. Then you do the same for the next.” That, combined with the idea that you’re playing a game with a good gameplay loop, means you’re doing something that activates your neurons which is something I admittedly also value.
I wouldn’t have recommended him as entertainment then and especially not now. There’s plenty to dislike about the streamer, as much becomes apparent as he seeks other avenues of content to fill the void that a shitty game company turning the game into a skinner box/money extractor for the shrinking rate of profit. But I definitely watched the same way I might enjoy a pig playing in the mud. He has a certain X factor in the way he occasionally says something that sticks with you.
You ever publish this anywhere one could read it? Because I’d love to. I’ve been noodling around my own take on Portal Fantasy/isekai for some time now, which I’ll probably never write because I have a lot of other things I want to write first (and also right now I’m honestly not well-versed enough in the genre to do it right), I’d love to see someone else’s take on a similar idea, particularly that of a fellow traveler.
I mean, don’t share it if you can’t without doxxing yourself or anything, I’m just interested is all. Sounds cool as hell.
I have it a third of the way done. Do you have any suggestions of how to upload it without doxxing myself?
I had a lot of ideas for it. For instance they live in a diverted apocalypse Earth where China saved the day on climate change and they’re entering a later stage of communism 100 years from now. IIRC there are a dozen entities that can be called states. The MC is from the western US which is separate from the east. You don’t get a fleshed out look at the landscape because he really doesn’t give a shit about politics because he’s a
. He has a persecution complex about it and eventually fucks off to the “gamer ghetto” of Akihabara where they’re more supportive of nerd culture.
Apologies for the late reply. As to the security side of sharing it, I’m the wrong guy to ask. If it was me I guess I’d upload it to google docs (but I don’t know if your email would be visible to people viewing the doc) and have it restricted so I’d dm a link. But it’s one thing sharing that on, say, a writers forum/subreddit/discord and doing that through this site, where I feel like the risk of doxxing or other security threats is a bit higher. I imagine someone on here knows about safer ways to share this sort of thing, but that’s my only thought.
Regardless, if you ever want another pair of eyes on it or maybe a beta reader or something and you’re willing to trust a fellow anonymous poster on our niche leftist shitposting website I really would be down to read it.
What this makes me imagine is a guy who thinks he’s in, like, Night City from Neuromancer except instead of being surrounded by junkies and dealers and the dispossessed and street assassins he’s surrounded by, like, dudes who are really into the metaverse.