The Stanley Parable and the Illusion of Choice in Video Games

I don't even know where to begin.

As of a few minutes before writing this post I had finished playing The Stanley parable. Normally I would write about something I had planned to talk about but in this instance I felt I should just get all of my thoughts down now.

Honestly I really enjoyed my time with it and plan to revisit it. It's very short but it's definitely a title that I can see myself sinking my teeth into and showing off in the future. I felt it was a good idea to go over the general feeling I got from The Stanley Parable or what I feel the overall point is. It's actually something I've had many conversations about and that is the illusion of choice in video games.

Pick a Shepard. Any Shepard.

I see a large amount of conversations pop up over how video games in general need to allow the player complete freedom. People will then give examples: Mass Effect, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls and essentially every other choice based video game that you could shake a stick at. But what people don't understand is that these titles don't actually offer "choice" as one would consider real life. A game can never offer you total and complete choice due to the restrictions set by the programming. Rather, you are given the illusion of choice. And that is honestly a beautiful thing. You as a player will never be able to deliver yourself from the constraints the game offers whether that be in the gameplay or the writing or the character creation. But a developer constructing an experience that makes you feel like you can do that is incredibly impressive. It's not easy to craft an experience that allows a person to feel that way.

Never has a choice so simple resonated so strongly with me.

I'm not going to spoil the experience for all of you but instead will talk about the first big choice of the game and nothing else. I got the point of the game right at this segment and had an enjoyable ride the second, third and fourth times I ran through it. In the first segment you are presented with two open doors. The narrator simple says, "When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left." The presentation here is absolutely brilliant. You can either choose to do what the game tells you to do or you can disobey and stray from the beaten path. But even in straying from the beaten path you can end up exactly where the game had intended you to go anyways. And that's it. That's the point. Some individuals say games are bad that games "don't have enough choice" but the simple fact is that there is no choice. Regardless of what you as a person choose to do you are still limited by what the designers have put into the game. But does this realization lessen the impact that the Stanley Parable has on you from this point? No. The experience is still great beyond this point. And the same can be said about any other title out there as well. Maybe it's time that we stopped asking developers to give us more choices and just simply ask for a solid experience. The Stanley Parable, the Witcher, Mass Effect, all of these titles, they all had "choice." Did a lack of actual choice lessen this experience? I think not.

So what do you guys think? Are you ok with "choice being in games rather than choice? What else do those of you that have played The Stanley Parable think it was trying to say? Will you play it after reading this post? Let me know in the comments and I'll see you all next time.

Competition is Healthy! Competition is Unhealthy? Well Which is It!?

JUGGERNAUUUUUUUUUUT!

Over the last few weeks I've been playing DOTA 2 and have really enjoyed it. To me it has effectively rid itself of almost all of the issues I've had with League of Legends. I've asked plenty of people to join me (so I can get more multi-kills) but some people haven't been so keen on it. And for some of these people the reason is very clear: They're just not that into player vs. player video games. Something about them just doesn't click. So I thought I'd take today to look at some of the pros and cons of competitive games based on my own personal experiences. I may reaffirm some beliefs or I may change some minds. But let's dive right in.

Pros

Competition Promotes Friendship

"Don't worry man, that scrub won't get away with this."

I know this isn't going to sound right at all after I have spoken of the toxic community of League of Legends but even there I have had friendships foster purely through our mutual desire to defeat our opponents. "Hey man, nice job there." "Don't worry, we'll end that guys kill streak on you." "You guys get out of here. I can afford this death." There have just been so many instances of friends and even strangers on teams banding together to beat the odds in front of them that I can't help but think that this is truly what competition is about. It's about a group of people working together to surmount the odds before them.

Competing Teaches You How to Talk to People

This has almost nothing to do with the obscenities you may scream during a session of Street Fighter.

I'm aware this doesn't seem like the case, especially after all I've said about the toxic community of League of Legends but I'm sure we all actually learned this over the course of the competitive games we've played. Whether or not you choose to or not to practice this with the people you meet online is a different matter entirely. Let's think about it, what option would most likely lead your team to victory?

A) "Wow kid you're so bad. Everyone knows you're supposed to do X with character Y. You should probably quit this game and then stick your head in the oven for an extended period of time."

or

B) "Hey man I see you're not doing so hot. It might help if you do X with character Y. I've seen a lot of people do it and it generally works out in their favor. Give it a shot."

Option B seems pretty nice in comparison right? Now, whether or not that person will listen to you is another matter entirely but it's clear that generally the teams that work well together and win in games don't talk angrily or spout obscenities at each other. The highest success rate comes from being kind and courteous. And this doesn't just apply to cooperative competitive games. Even when it's just use versus one other human being learning how to lose gracefully is a valuable life skill that quite a few people lack. Don't be that guy that rages or gets angry at losing and storm off. Be the man that helps your team. And if you lose be the man that doesn't throw a hissy fit and has their day ruined by it.

Competition Teaches You to Set Goals and Reach Them

If your goal was to master Frank West and you succeeded then my hat is off to you.

We've all been there in at least one game. An object seems insurmountable. A boss can't be beaten. It seems like it's unfair. But with the rise of the online scene in gaming players have been met with a new dilemma. No longer do players sometimes just get trounced by their friends (though that is still a concern.) Sometimes you just keep running into people online and they keep just pushing you down. Some would just quit but for those that choose to continue onward they find they have something to work for. They find they have a goal. Maybe it's researching that perfect item build. Maybe it's finally nailing that combo. Maybe it's finally figuring out what trick your buddy's been using to take you down. But no matter what it is if you've accomplished any of those things then congratulations. You set a goal and you met it. And that's a beautiful thing. There's so many people that would just give up when the going gets tough but competition stirs something in a person. Being able to surmount a computer is cool. But being able to surmount another person is just fulfilling in an entirely different manner. And in setting that goal and achieving it you have learned a valuable life skill. Quitting when the going gets tough is easy. But realizing where you fail, taking steps to correct it AND succeeding at it? That's an awesome thing.

Cons

The Drive to Win Can Bring Out the Worst in People

Goddamn invaders.

Now competition can have those positive effects on people. That is true. but in some individuals it can bring out a darker side. Sometimes the drive to win is so much that this leads to people developing tactics that some would tend to see as....well as unfair. Beating an opponent when on a fairly equal playing field is one thing. But competition in games has brought up some tactics such as spawn camping. Now it's technically not against the rules in any capacity, but to a lot of players, myself included, it can seem a bit underhanded to just lock a player into a situation where they can't do anything and defeating another player just for the satisfaction of it. Sometimes players will needlessly prolong the game just so they can make these other players feel worse. Sometimes players will target the same individual over and over again, hoping to get them as angry as possible. Regardless there is in fact plenty of scenarios where a competitor could be achieving victory not for the satisfaction of victory, but for the satisfaction of making another person feel bad by doing it.

A Focus on Competition Can Lead to Winning Being the Only Satisfaction

"If my KDR goes below 8.0 I'm breaking this disc in half."

Winning is definitely the primary objective when you compete in any capacity. But competition can foster the unhealthy feeling that winning is everything. I've experienced this issue myself in a number of online shooters. I've asked to play with players who will outright refuse to play with me if my Losses outweigh my Wins. There's no guarantee that all of those losses are my fault but those players will not risk another person staining their perfect record. But the thing that got me ruled out of the most games was KDR. KDR stands for Kill-Death Ratio. It determines you average kills versus deaths. If my KDR is 2.0 then that means that I usually average two kills before I die in a game. To some players KDR means everything and this is a problem. This can lead to instances mentioned above where players intentionally target others with a low KDR seeing them as easier targets. But I have also experienced players refusing to party with me because of a low KDR, seeing this as a liability. This even mattered to them in games where the objective was not to get kills but to capture an objective of some sort. In the end KDR was the magic number that determined a person's fate. If you had a low KDR then other players saw that you weren't likely to win and would avoid you, either choosing not to help you or targeting you, reducing this magic number that was supposed to determine your skill level.

Do you fight to win or simply fight to prove you're better?

 If winning is all that matters then how will new players to be expected to learn? If a player can't take another under their wing to teach them the ropes because they're so worried about a potential loss then I have to ask: What's the point of community in these games anyways other than just a group of targets to pick from? If winning is the only satisfaction then regardless of the experience would a person really say they had a good time losing? This is not a healthy mindset, be it in gaming or in the real world. Losing gracefully is important but sometimes competition can just foster the exact opposite.

Well there you have it. I have tried to be as fair as possible and consider many angles but in the end I think competition is a good thing. Being able to have fun with or against your peers when trying to reach a goal is healthy. it's not something a person is going to escape in the real world, whether it be competing with co-workers to give the best presentation, trying to become the employee of the month or just a simple bike race with friends. So why fight it? Embrace the competitive spirit within you in a healthy fashion and I promise you will not disappoint yourself.

WHat do you guys think? is competition good or bad in games? Is there anything I missed? Let me know in the comments and I'll see you all next week.

It Just Needs That Special Something

Sorry about the lack of a post this past week. My computer wasn't working but now it's all fixed and we can get right back into it. But my computer being out of commission wasn't all that bad. It led to me jumping into more console games that I still need to finish, one of those being the absolutely phenomenal Dark Souls II. I've always thought about the core reasons that the series has appealed to me and I feel one of those reasons is that special something: perfect ambience.

I've never been more attached to a "home base" as I have been to Majula.

This is a shot from early in the game. You walk out of the dark and musty cave you started in and face the seaside town of Majula. Up until this point all the game has told you and shown you is that there is no hope for you. You wander through a dark and musty cave, filled with monsters and insane men who wear equipment that looks exactly the same as what you are wearing. It's implied that these men are the same as you, who gave up all hope shortly after their journey began. But as you exit the cave and first gaze upon Majula you are filled with this serenity, this pure feeling of contentedness that you haven't felt at all in the game thus far. And this feeling sticks with you upon each subsequent return to Majula. If it wasn't for this stark contrast between the warm sunlight and colors of Majula to the darkness and mured tones of the previous area, Things Betwixt, it's safe to say that this wouldn't feel like home as much as it does the second you first encounter it and its colorful characters.

But this is the main place we're going to talk about. The corpses burning are actually the least unsettling part!

What prompted me to write this particular article was my experience in an area called Brightstone Cove Tseldora. This is an area that comes along fairly late in the game. But it's been the area that has had the most profound effect on me in the entire series so far. When you arrive in the Cove this is the first thing you see: a deserted camp with broken scaffolding and piles of burning corpses surrounding it. Since you've spent the entirety of your game fighting creatures that seem to be some sort of soldiers in the old king Vendrick's army you pretty much expect something of that nature to come charging you. But as I explored the area around the camp what ambushed me shocked me. A lone man with a pickaxe charged me and tried to strike. I dispatched him without too much trouble but it made me come to a realization. I had not thought that any of the peasants of Drangleic had been affected by the curse of Undeath. So I traveled through the rest of the Cove, slaying the peasants that tried to cram a pickaxe into my skull, but it made me sad as I continued onward. These men had no means to fight against the Dark and it consumed them and drove them mad. Compared to the previous people I fought that actually could fight against the curse somewhat it struck me as a shame that I had to see these men in this state.

Here's the area boss. Isn't he cute?

You continue traveling through the area, eventually getting to the homes of the peasants you fought earlier, now infested with spiders. You pass a clergyman and his congregation on the way there, now undead and insane but still praying for hope. You need to kill them too. Eventually you enter what seems to be the lair of the spiders and you find this thing at the end. This is The Duke's Dear Freja, who at first seems like a hideous monster. But after you vanquish this giant two-headed spider you learn the truth. This is the Duke's pet. It attacks you, defending its lair and you are forced to slay it to progress. It's hard to say who's right in this situation but you slay it, press onward and slay the now-insane Duke because that's what you're supposed to do. The whole area's design, from enemies to building to ambient sounds, just exudes this feeling of hopelessness and compounds regret on you as the player, moreso than any other area of the game.

But why does Dark Souls II and other games evoke these feelings in players whereas others do not. There are plenty of next-gen games out there that look absolutely gorgeous: Call of Duty, Titanfall, Assassin's Creed, the list goes on. Yet when exploring these areas they lacked that special something, something that made me really appreciate that world, that area, the characters residing in it. And it's funny that Dark Souls manages to bring out those feelings considering that most of the characters aren't named and any lore about the area must be discovered through conversations and items. So why does Dark Souls succeed at this where other games with arguably prettier visuals and more named and developed characters fail? Well it's a combination of things to be sure and it's really hard to pin down.

Silent Hill 2 achieves this too. The entire time you're in this world you just feel unsettled.

Gone Home achieves this too, not only do you manage to be unsettled but the layout of the house still makes you eager to explore.

It's not all sad and somber either! Proteus' world in delightful!

So what's leading to these worlds being interesting? What's making them great to explore, terrifying, and absolutely wonderful? It's simple everyone. It's just a case of great level design.

Whenever I speak to a person about great level design they seem to take it as just a mechanical conversation. Enemy placement is well done, puzzles are spaced correctly and are challenging, that platform you need to jump to is perfectly in reach instead of being impossible to get to, etc. But people often forget that these important things are just part of great level design. If you're trying to bring the player to feel a certain emotion whether it's sadness, happiness, a sense of wonder, pure terror or anything in between there are more things than an impassable wall or a puzzle with a time limit that brings that out in the player. Lighting alone can do so many things. Entering a dark hallway after a lighted room in incredibly unsettling, while just the opposite will fill the player with a huge sense of relief. Enemy design is the same thing too. Games like Silent Hill and Fatal Frame keep you horrified when you see the monster because their design is horrifying, whereas enemies in Rayman: Origins are colorful and comical so you simply chuckle when they explode.

This is one of the huge reasons why so many indie titles are able to evoke feeling within the player. Their art, music, lightning and level design are all working in tandem to make the player feel a certain something. Call of Duty or Titanfall may make you feel pretty badass but even though the levels are pretty and the gameplay is frantic I want you to ask yourself something. Is this game really going to stick with you? Are you really going to remember or appreciate this experience? Or will you completely forget it and move on to the next big thing?

So readers let me ask you? What games have you played that had excellent level design? What games have you played that had a world that sucked you in and just refused to let go? What games had areas that really stuck with you and made you think or feel? Let me know in the comments and I'll see you next week.

Those Guys I Play With. They're Pretty Cool.

Have you ever asked someone why they play a video game and had their response be "Well all my friends play it," "The community is really fun" or anything of that sort? Of course you have. A great deal of us have. Some of us will even go as far as saying "Well this part of the game is lame but whatever, my buddies play it." Why is that so? Why are some of us willing to overlook a game's flaws just because our friends play it? Why will people play a game that they're unskilled at just because the community is good? Well honestly, a great community is a gameplay feature and can often be just as important, if not more, than even things such as balanced classes and great mechanics in some titles.

I've played plenty of online titles with my two mainstays right now being Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and League of Legends. The first game is one I continue playing and enjoy a lot. League is another story however. A big part of they I continue playing Final Fantasy as well as why I've stopped playing League stems from the community.

Here's Costello. He's a Monk on the Brynhildr server. Still not perfect until I become a giant green Roegadyn though.........

I've talked a lot about Final Fantasy XIV. But one of the main reason I've stuck around is because my friends and the community are just great. Things have gotten a little worse with the launch of the PS4 version (more tanks dropping out of dungeons, I actually run into random people insulting me, etc.) but for the most part everything is still great. My guildmates, who consist of both real life friends and people I have met over the game, are all very friendly, helpful and just generally fun to be around. The interactions I have with them are a integral part of the gameplay experience. When the player encounters people that are generally rude, unhelpful and just plain terrible to be around their gameplay experience is usually not as enjoyable because odds are that this person was encountered to help them finish content and they are making tackling that challenge more frustrating than it should be. In games that are single-player this is no issue but when surmounting a challenge is so heavily dependent on everyone working together it's truly best if all of the players can get along.

Plus friends make enjoyable things like Ghost Beach Parties happen. If you can't see the enjoyment to be found in a Ghost Beach Party then we're probably not friends. Credit to my friend Pumpkin Spice for this picture by the way.

Now let's look at the game that I have stopped playing and that I'm really not sure I'll ever open again without a friend asking me to.

League of Legends on its own is honestly a pretty enjoyable game. I came from DOTA back on Warcraft III and it was pretty easy for me to hop in. The champions are pretty unique and most of them are fun to play. The graphics are pretty good, music is good, and the gameplay on its own is pretty awesome. But the defining factor that is keeping me from returning of my own volition is the community.

You cannot expect to enter a League of Legends game without someone getting angry and taking it out on the team. You cannot expect to enter a League of Legends game and not see one player insulting another. You cannot enter a League of Legends game and honestly expect at least half of your team to be people you would ever consider playing with again. This is League's main issue.

League is a pretty enjoyable game on its own merits or with your friends. But the second internet anonymity is introduced that all goes downhill really quick. League is a competitive environment. one team must win. One team must lose. And it is something about this environment that tends to bring out the worst in people. Losing can lead to frustration. But so many people on league take it to new heights that it is almost unreal. And this hyper-competitive nature is leading to an incredibly toxic environment. I have tried many different ways to facilitate a better environment for my teammates personally.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• Giving a fellow player advice when they are doing poorly
• Not intentionally attempting to antagonize the other team
• Not intentionally attempting to antagonize my fellow teammates
• Always trying to have a positive attitude
• Always trying to be the one who facilitates teamwork between my teammates

Unfortunately, most of the time none of this works. A player may spurn the advice and see it as someone talking down to them. A player may be antagonistic anyways and catch one of your teammates in his attempt to make them angry. A player may just feel so badly about their performance that there is no way to bring them out of their funk regardless of how hard you try. The list goes on. Riot has tried many ways to facilitate better player interaction such as using a system to punish/ban toxic players and an honor system to help reward players that aren't hurting the community. These are nice attempts but unless every player makes a conscious effort to do so it's not actually going to work. 

But why the difference? From what I can surmise there is a big distinguishing factor between Final Fantasy and League. Final Fantasy is for the most part a cooperative game while League is a competitive one. It may be that the competitive nature of League simply ends up frustrating players more than Final Fantasy when a fail state is reached because they know they haven't lost to a computer, they've lost to another person. This fact that another person has bested them tends to get under a lot of people's skin.

So what do you guys think? Is the competitive nature the cause of the communities of these games being like night and day? Or is it something else? Let me know in the comments and I'll see you all next week.

The Square Enix Phoenix

I don't think it's a big secret to all of us that Square had been in a bit of a rut in the West during the last console generation. Final Fantasy XIII wasn't really resonating all that well with fans, XIV had earned the not-so-coveted title of Worst MMO Ever and Tomb Raider was deemed a complete failure after selling even millions of copies having only achieved profitability THIS YEAR.

You did good Lara, you did good.

But it seems as though things are starting to turn around, which makes me very excited. I've been a fan of Square's work ever since I was young and even consider Final Fantasy IX my favorite game of all time. It seems as though Square is finally realizing what its fans truly want. But what steered them wrong in the first place?

I really do like you, but here's where it all went wrong.

Square simply got caught up in what some have taken to calling the "Hollywood-ization" of gaming (or the less subtle term "The Call of Duty Effect") You see, Square noticed that big blockbuster games sold well. Pretty cutscenes, lots of action and the so called "epic" moment had become the main selling points of gaming. If you consider this it's easy to see part of the reason that Final Fantasy XIII went so, so wrong. An overly-simplistic level design coupled with an insane focus on graphics over both gameplay AND story led to a pretty mediocre title overall that instilled a fiery rage in many a Final Fan. I personally didn't mind the titles that much but compared to their earlier work it's easy to see that this route would make anyone who was a fan of a deep story that didn't require reading a Codex to understand a little bit angry. Square did begin rectifying its mistake recently. I actually consider Lightning Returns one of the most fun Final Fantasy titles I've played and praise its difficulty and inventive battle system. But two titles are really turning Square around and that's Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and Bravely Default.

I love you guys. Especially Ringabel......mostly Ringabel.

I'm not really going to delve into FFXIV because there's actually an entire other post I have dedicated to that game and Naoki Yoshida. But Bravely Default really deserves some praise. It's a prime case of a company going back to their roots and realizing that they didn't need to fix what wasn't broken. The battle system is complex and challenging, the jobs are unique and fun and every character you encounter is absolutely delightful. I hear the game has some issues with repetition late into the title but I actually haven't finished yet just because I'm having so much fun grinding away. The success of Bravely Default has made Square realize that the West does want JRPGs. That's an absolutely monumental achievement. I'm hoping this will make them rethink their strategy overseas. And maybe they'll do something else for us. Like, I don't know, release Final Fantasy Type-0 in the West?

I just want it so badly.

It's clear that Square-Enix has realized that there is a better path to achieve the success they want. And they're taking the opportunity presented to them instead of just continuing to do things the way they have. I'm hoping this turnaround means a second coming of the old Square I knew and love. I'm hoping it leads to a rebirth of the JRPGs that garnered so much love in the PS1 era. But that may be asking a little much. Right now, I'm just hoping this means Final Fantasy XV is as awesome as I pray it's going to be.

Hope Noctis is less moody than I think he's gonna be. Oh well, his blonde buddy seems fun.

Pokemon X & Y: Easy Doesn't Equate to Bad

I’m sure many of you are knee deep in Pokemon X and Y. Most of you have probably even beaten the main story by now and are moving on. But there’s one thing that’s been causing quite a stir with fans of the series.

I am talking, of course, about the new EXP. Share.

For those of you that don’t know the way the new EXP. Share works is that it gives all of your Pokemon a percentage of the experience points you gathered in the last fight. Because of this it’s quite easy to level up an entire team of Pokemon in less than half the time you could have in the other games. However, this has also presented what some people see as a problem. Your team of Pokemon is usually vastly overleveled when compared to your counterparts. This causes players to more often than not completely saunter through the main story with little to no challenge.

I’m here to say that’s completely ok.

A game doesn’t need to be difficult to be enjoyable. There’s a staggering amount of players out there that simply just want to be able to complete the game. There’s many that just want to sit back, feel good about the progress they made and be an unstoppable force.

"But what are the rest of us supposed to do?" Well luckily for the rest of you this Pokemon game has presented many different options for you to have a more challenging game experience. You just need to think outside of the box. Here’s some ideas:

-Turn the EXP. Share off: This is probably the most simple solution. Turn the thing off and simply play through as if the object never existed. That’s why this is presented to the player as an option, not a necessity.

-Do a Wonder Run: That Wonder Trade feature is pretty nifty right? Well why not trade for a bunch of random Pokemon? And why not make those random Pokemon your team for the entire game, regardless of type disadvantage? That should be interesting, especially since there may come a point where those traded Pokemon refuse to listen to you. That’s far more realistic in my opinion.

-Don’t use Mega Evolution: Some people like it, some people don’t but there’s no denying that mega evolution is insanely strong. If you decide not to use it that should surely up the challenge of your game.

-Nuzlocke Run: Nuzlocke is a popular way to play Pokemon that emerged around the Ruby/Sapphire era. If a Pokemon faints you can never use it again. This has lots of variations but no matter what you do you can be sure that the game will be more difficult as a result. In fact, why not combine this with a Wonder Run?

These games are far more accommodating to all of the players far more than we realize. The game itself has its own rules, but we can also impose are own rules on ourselves to make things more challenging. So many gamers are so used to games telling them what they can and can’t do that they often forget that they can impose their own rules when the occasion calls for it.

With all of these options available to the player can we really call this bad game design as so many have? I’m prepared to say quite the opposite. Pokemon X and Y are forcing players to think outside the box. They are being forced to use their imaginations to provide themselves with a greater challenge. Could it be that this was the developer’s intent the entire time? Who knows. But I’m convinced that it might have been.

Yoshi-P Shows Us That This Fantasy Is Never Final

After a month of playing I finally feel that I have enough experience with the game to write this article.

Let me be clear: I love Final Fantasy XIV. I think it’s an absolutely incredible MMO and an incredible game well deserving of all the praise it gets. But I didn’t always think that way.

I was like most people when they announced that Final Fantasy XIV was getting resurrected. “There’s no way they can ever do it.” “No MMO has ever been brought back. What are the chances of it happening now?” “Square-Enix is floundering. They can’t pull this off.” But one man caused me to look at the game a second time. He caused me to follow the dev diaries. He influenced my purchase of the game. That man is Naoki Yoshida or as fans affectionately refer to him as, Yoshi-P.

Yoshi-P was assigned to the FFXIV re-creation project. Honestly most would’ve considered such a job a waste of time. Subscription numbers were low and the game was a laughingstock. What could be done?

But he didn’t give up home. The man worked long hours and gained the trust of his team. And when they discovered that nothing could be done he and his team scrapped the whole old game and started anew. It was considered outrageous at the time. But time passed and Yoshi-P did not simply keep his fans out of the loop. He updated them, regularly about all of the plans he had for the game. And the fans sat and they waited and they listened.

Then the beta was released and Yoshi-P kept the updates coming. He kept the populace informed and made it his own mission to listen to what the fans had to say. the game was tweaked and tweaked and tweaked some more. Fans gave it a very positive reception. Launch looked like it was going to be a piece of cake. But then….

Huge server issues were present. People couldn’t log in and those that could were just staying on the servers. It doesn’t really matter if your game is good if people can’t play it. Some devs would’ve just brushed it off. But Yoshi-P was apologetic. He took it all upon his shoulders and accepted all the blame for every issue promising people that he would do everything in his power to fix the issues. And he did. And his team did. And now the game is in a better place than it has ever been.

The industry really needs more people like Yoshi-P in it. With all of the people in the industry that are so quick to completely disregard what anyone else says about their product. With all of the people that are so quick to say “If you don’t like my product don’t buy it,” it’s good to know that there are more people like Yoshi-P out there.

I used to be like those people. He made me change my tune. And his hard work brought me an amazing world that I can feel immersed in. Thanks Yoshi-P.