dA post
9/30/09
Neopets/Stalking Grounds. I left (got banned) once because of another member who was more experienced at drama and pinned the blame on me. Drama carried over onto dA, and resulted in a ban (!
janishta) 2 years later I went back again, but only for a couple weeks before I lost interest in favor of WoW.
Runescape I left because of a membership billing issue that put my account under lockdown for owing Jagex money. By that time I had become pretty bored with the game, so I didn't feel much loss when I decided to not bother trying to restore my account.
Maplestory... I will say this with all honesty,
best goddamn time of my e-life. For those that have only recently experienced/learned about MS, it was an entirely different game back when I played. Back then, there wasn't fourth job. Hell, there wasn't even third job. Cash Shop hadn't come out. ...much was different. Back on topic though, the social aspect of MS. Contrary to most MMOs out nowadays, MS has a buddy system where your messages typed in the 'Buddy Chat' channel can be seen by ALL your buddies. As not all your buddies will be friends with each other, you'd often end up overhearing one-sided conversations and broadcasting announcements to all of your friends at once. It was a strange system, but back then I hadn't played any other MMOs aside from RS... so, I wasn't battling with any preconceptions. I was around to witness the implementation of Guilds, Cash Shop, third job, and fourth job. I quit shortly after the introduction if iTCG items. My good memories of MS are largely linked to the guild I was in, Archer Council. The AC used to be a rather large forum comprised of various players who had archer-type characters. What I loved most about that place, was that it didn't discriminate. Perhaps the cuteness and low-stress environment of MS (back then) made everyone relax, or perhaps (more unlikely) I simply got very very lucky and met a group of people I could get along with well. There really wasn't much skill involved in the game. I could even play on dial-up. The people in AC... accepted me for who I was. I didn't lie about my age (I was barely 13 when I first started playing MS) and the age range of the people I interacted with was huge. There was little to no drama. We had fun, had in-game meetings with mini-contests and rewards, but never with rewards that would make people jealous. I made friends with several artists in the Council, who were a major inspiration and helped spearhead my artistic progress. I was somewhat of a mascot within my guild, with my unending hope and optimism, and young outlook on life. I miss that part of myself. The downfall of AC began with the introduction of guilds to MS, I suppose. Back then guilds were 30 members max, so we had to divide up into squads in order to fit everyone in a guild. People from other servers joined, and of course we couldn't play with people from another server. The final blow was, ironically, the Council leader suddenly ditching all of us to go play WoW. The second-in-command was very driven by whims, and unsuitable for suddenly shouldering the weight of the entire AC... we broke apart, although me and a few others stuck it out for a while and tried to revive things. Eventually that didn't work and I became more or less solo on MS, while talking to people on my buddylist. The advent of fourth job and high level raid bosses (Zakum, Horntail) spelled the end for me. The elitism and discrimination that I now look upon with such disgust crept into MS, except in this game it wasn't about skill, gear, or Achievements - it was about how many (thousands of) hours you spent leveling your character. It was at that point that I essentially hit a wall. I no longer wanted to invest my time in grind that increased exponentially with each level. It was also getting harder and harder to find good grind spots/deal with KSing as the number of players increased. The AC was gone. The time invested v.s. reward ratio was no longer appealing to me. I had been talking quite a lot with :devninjahbu: in real life, and he got me into..
GuildWars. Back then, Nightfall was relatively new. I found the game fun, although by modern standards we were both extremely noob. I had difficulty earning money and we wiped a lot due to using inefficient builds. My interest in GW at that time was mild at best. I played when I felt like it, and not when I didn't.
PerfectWorld MY-EN (the Malaysian version of the game) entered open beta during this period of time. I heard about it from a friend at school and checked it out. The beautiful graphics, flight, and music won me over instantly. I met one friend on PW who I still talk to today. This friend and I went from guild to guild, but we encountered guild drama. The territory ownership and PK features of PW led to negative sentiments and rivalries. I also felt that the FBs (dungeons) were disproportionately difficult for on-level characters. Aggro also went flying all over the place. Back when I played, there were nowhere near as many quests as there are in the game today. As a result, loneliness and leveling block caught up with me at level 53 and I quit once more.
Following this, I experienced a long lull in which I spent more time drawing, and posting on
Gaia. My friend from PW got me interested in R.A. Salvatore's books, and I spent a while fascinated with Drow. I still am very interested in Drow and Forgotten Realms lore, but not to the point of obsession as before. During that time I met and befriended :devspoonzmeister: over shared interest in Gaia and .hack. I opened and closed 3 art shops. Each time, I left because of being burnt out/receiving too many requests, as well as seeing the work of other artists and feeling despair. I have a negative reaction to extreme inferiority. Instead of being motivated to improve, I enter a passive-aggressive state where I become very counterproductive and moody. The Gaia community was also extremely active, which meant frequent bumps were needed to keep art threads on the front page. This tired me, as well as the knowledge that all of the contests I saw being hosted I had no chance of winning. (This isn't pessimism, it's truth.) By nature of the avatars, Gaia was also a very anime/chibi-centered place. I drew (draw) in a serious, semi-realistic anime style that had no chance from the beginning. I tried to draw in the popular styles around Gaia, but trying to deny my own halfassed style was disastrous (my art came out terrible and I had no interest in it) and burnt me out even more quickly. Eventually Gaia's overemphasis on cash shop, as well as the unforgiving community (unforgiving because of how vast it is...) led me to quit. I still update my profile once in a while, and my avatar's outfit once in ten whiles, but I'll never be really active on there any more.
I spent a short period of time playing
CABAL Online, during which I joined a guild named
. I played until level 71, when I also began to get burnt out. The lack of variety in the game (you were playing on the same three maps from levels 1-50, with only two types of instances) was mind-numbing and as it became also Cash Shop-oriented, I quit. From what I heard, the guild broke up not long after.
Mabinogi was my next big game. (I should mention that I have tried a lot of other free MMOs, but quit so quickly that there's nothing worth mentioning.) I played immediately when the game launched (I was a few days too late to sign up for closed beta) but lost interest rather quickly. I returned to the game during a lull in WoW and found some of my old friends. I went through G1 and started on G2, before the game suddenly filled me with disgust -- Mabinogi is toted as being a strategic, rock-paper-scissors based MMO with 'virtual life' (RS) elements built in. However, it had also given rise to an extreme class of elitists and the combat was anything but balanced. The elitists lived by the credo of "a level 1 can accomplish ANYTHING. If you're dying/failing, it's because you suck and you're doing it WRONG." There was an extremely steep learning curve and from my experience, there were NO ' pros' who held sympathy to less experienced players. I regret having quit Mabinogi so early on. If I had kept going, I would've progressed and become a veteran player alongside those that are now considered pros. I more or less ragequit Mabinogi after getting into an argument with a middle schooler about proness.
WoW - I don't think I need to write more about this. I've already detailed it in many, many journals.
---
Guild Wars Redux - After falling out with WoW, I returned to GW. It was the only game where not having played for a while didn't put me so far behind that I had no chance of getting up to speed again. This time around I paid more attention to meta builds, read guides, and started farming. My original intention had been to obtain a Voltaic Spear through farming. Along the way I began checking GW Guru again, which then led to me opening a commission "shop" on the Nolani boards (Guru's art subforum.) I have studiously avoided using the word "shop" on guru, because the term implies a focus on money as opposed to art. There were already a couple of artists offering commissions by the time I made myself known on Nolani, but I brought my past Gaia experience with me and set a new standard for commission threads - that is, highly organized and colorful introduction posts. I suppose, given this, I am to blame for what happened next. My thread was originally intended to operate only until I had enough money to afford a VS in-game. However, I met several friends through my art shop (I don't think they want their names known, so I'm not going to reveal who they are) as well as... several enemies. Around that time I developed a new art style (seen in the back half of my :devduranin: gallery) and instead decided to make my shop permanent. Back then Nolani was, to use an analogy, a sleepy little medieval village. In comparison it is now New York.
Nolani changed drastically in the following months after my arrival. Several other art threads became active again, and an alarming number of new artists suddenly appeared, each opening up an art shop as well. I had the sinking feeling that my own thread's success had attracted 'artists' who were more interested in money than actual art. How do I define art? Certainly not by skill or content. It's the spirit. Although I ran my thread as a shop (in all but name,) the characters I drew were still largely dictated by what I wanted to draw. I drew because I liked to draw. The money was more or less a side feature that remained after my quest for a Voltaic Spear was completed. I was swamped with requests, and over the months the price for a waist-up CG went from 30 Platinum to a horrific 20 ectos (~80k) and 40e (~160k.) Why did I raise my prices? Your guess is as good as mine. My stock answer is that I had too many requests and wanted to thin the crowd/make people spend longer getting the money, so I had more time in between requests. To be honest, though, I think I was getting bold. Past commissioners advised me to raise my prices. So I did. There was then a sudden random influx of chibi artists, several of whom were also ex-Gaia shop owners. Most faded away in under a month, but it caused several of the preexisting artists to add chibis to their commission threads. I did it too, after some deliberation. I had originally intended it to be sarcasm, because chibi + GW = spoiled atmosphere. A few months ago, Nolani positively exploded in activity. In the center of this activity were two artists who painted at a much higher level of professionalism than pretty much anyone else on Nolani. Some ridiculously rich players, including an entire guild [yumy] began to visit the subforum in search of high-end art. With the distinction of 'high-end' came, once again, elitism. As mentioned above I have a terrible reaction to elitism. To add on to that, I politely (I think?) but defensively declined to listen to their almighty suggestions on how to improve my art. I don't think they took that particularly well. Even more recently Nolani became a money-fest. Bribes and auctions were all over the place. Bribes/auctions disguised as contests. Rich people making threads asking for the artists to come to them.
I've been in drama before, but this was the first time online that I was being actively singled out for trolling. From? You guessed it, the top two artists - most notably BlueXIV, (he hasn't revealed a dA account) as well as YunSooJin, the richest person on Nolani. I'm not an adoring fan who religiously listens to every morsel of professional advice that is offered, so I'm out to get you. Right. Right?!
Yes, I'm calling you guys out. Stop being such narrow-minded dicks.
I feel sorry for whatever has happened in your lives that make you people such miserable elitist sadists, but I don't need to be involved.
Am I fed up? Yes. Am I near tears? Sadly no.
I'm pissed, plain and simple.
Forums are not my playing ground. I have no interest in e-peen, popularity, trolling or otherwise. I leave Nolani of my own accord, not because you're trying to speed up my departure.
All things aside, though, this vent has made me feel much better.
I don't care either way whether anyone feels like having some words with the people I mentioned above, but if you do, refer to me as duranin or Lumi/Araiia.Labels: drama
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IGN: Soul