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Puppy adventures in both reality and fantasy continue in their typical haphazard fashion and whilst I'm in little danger of ever getting confused between the two it's still something of a wry amusement to my excessively analytical mind how the two comapre, contrast and complement each other. Still, the fun news be that having enjoyed some charming travels with Mr. Scuttles, the pet spider, I have now picked up what is perhaps a somewhat more appropriate travelling companion in the form of a friendly white wolf to gamely scamper ahead and face off the monsters whilst I fire my arrows from relatively safety. Here be the charming little pixelly pet who is now my artificially intelligent ally!
Doesn't he look all noble and brave yet at the same time friendly and cuddly? Umm, well anyways, as you may also see, in keeping with the season, and also the start of Guild Wars 2 Christmas holiday event, I have journeyed to a land of wintry snows and frostiness although admittedly as I have now just about outleveled that zone I will shortly be departing from it but even so I thought I might share one little view from the area.
My playings do continue to prove reasonably fun and entertaining, although the more I do so, the more certain of the peculiarities of the game do begin to stick out a bit. By and large I have still been enjoying the game more than I did World of Warcraft although it is starting to seem more and more that scratching the surface beyond the presentation differences between the static quests in WoW and the dynamic events in GW2 the difference isn't really quite so huge. Although it has more of the look of a living world with events just happening and seeing their results rather than just having an NPC standing around with an exclamation mark above their head telling you do go kill a bunch of other creatures who seem largely to just be standing around themselves, since so many of the events I've done seem to occur on a regular cycle in precisely the same way each time it soon starts to feel little different to the usual quest hub system. Some of the events that expand out into larger chains of events have been more fun to go through but it's a bit strange clearing out a fort of invaders, chase the invaders back to their base and defeat their commanders only to find that same fort occupied by the same invaders barely half an hour later. Indeed I start to see some ways in which WoW actually does things better than GW2. For all the complaints of how annoying it was to have to go to an NPC to pick up a quest and then return to the same NPC to get your reward I found it actually gave a sense of a bit more connection to the place and the characters than these events that can occur and you can be rewarded for completing without needing to talk to anyone. Still, despite that, so far at least, I still find it a more enjoyable experience than completing quests in WoW that quite obviously made absolutely no difference whatsoever to the game world as a whole. Guild Wars 2 is starting to show some signs of that though but if more different and varied events start appearing then hopefully that sense can be kept to a minimum.
I think though I can recall remarking on these pages some months ago when I was playing World of Warcraft how the lack of any obvious results from the efforts made in the game somehow ironically seemed to mirror the lack of any much change in myself and the real world that all my efforts to make progress in my actual life. Heh, and in the real world I haven't even got any pretty new items, although mayhap that will change with Christmas on the horizon! Another irony that, thus far, Guild Wars 2 has managed to share with both World of Warcraft and real life is that by and large I still find myself playing all these massively multiplayer games by myself. Having said that, Guild Wars 2 does make it easier to play alongside other people than WoW did, but I've yet to have any real social interactions although I have occasionally uttered the odd line or two to the fallen warrior I was resurrecting. For the main part though I have to confess I don't go out of my way to hi to passing players either. Of course for a foolishly timid and naturally introverted creature like me the suggestion of going out to that busy bar where you could introduce yourself to a bunch of new people sounds rather akin to the suggestion of going and standing in the midst of that bunch of ravenous lions over there and doing your best injured wildebeest impression. Nevertheless there was certainly a time when I was a lot more forward online than I am now. Indeed, the person who is now my longest standing friend (*waves*) is someone I met playing with the random chat function on ICQ. Heh, whatever happened to ICQ? Is it still going? For some reason though I'm aware that these days I don't seem to log on to any of my various messenger programmes. I've lost the habit it seems, maybe too many other stuffs have distracted and I just let it sort of slip. Not being a naturally social person, although I might think I want to be more social, it's still not something I naturally think of to do. If you see what I mean. It's a bit odd but then I suppose it isn't the only area of my existence where I know that I know better than some of the unhelpful actions I naturally find myself defaulting to. Hm, still for all that I may yet fail I can but keep trying though I'm not sure livings should have to require quite so much of this kind of effort.
That effort isn't much helped by the kind of squashy migraine that was infesting my head on Friday morning when I shuffled off to Scarborough for my last visit of the year to the fairy job folk. Perhaps though, the vaguely painful and nauseous trance I found myself enveloped in helped at least to suppress my usual sense of unnecessary anxiety, unless that is the migraine itself was a result of the nerves. Either ways, it was a fuzzy strange sort of experience, and achy icky one, but nothing really much of note came from it. Fortunately though, when I got back to the shop that afternoon I was able to unearth some tasty painkillers from the bottom of a drawer which helpfully took the edge off the squish for my time on the till. By then however some impressively dramatic rains had set in and though I did snaffle an umbrella from the shop for my walk out to the caravan it sadly proved incapable of coping with the mild breeze that accompanied the wetness and so I was a particularly soggy puppy by the time I finally slithered into the caravan on Friday evening. The weekend itself though proved fairly tranquil with tasty foods and kitty petting, before I wandered my way back for a curious little Sunday at the shop where I spent the majority of my time in the relatively comfortable habitat of the back cupboard, surrounded by a large delivery of books. When I did venture out on to poke at the till we seemed reasonably busy, so I was a little surprised to discover how pitifully low the takings were come the end of the day. It must have been somewhat deathly out there whilst I was hidden away in my little cupboard. Speaking of deathly though, on Monday I found myself oversleeping somewhat and then rather incapable of getting my brains up and running to do anything much during the day. Not that I imagine I will have missed too much at the Coliseum but it is still somewhat vexatious to have further evidence of a brain that doesn't quite do as it is told, but mayhap I shouldn't be too bothered about such a little thing.
Even so it was still a subject I found myself mulling over this morning as my brain is wont to idly wander in the hours after waking. It is a strange thing that though I can come up with a fairly comprehensive chronological list of the things in my life which have formed me into being this somewhat flawed creature today that understanding isn't in itself enough to alleviate the problems. I won't force that list upon you here as I've probably already gibbered in enough detail in previous posts, and doubtless even this one in a manner which seemed rather more succinct and well structured in my head that it now seems to be turning out on the page. Mayhap I'll delight you with it at some later date. Still, all those things in that list are now in the past and so behind me, whilst I am now nominally at least an adult with a reasonable degree of intelligence. Yet there remains so many of my emotional reactions, and indeed my actions and choices which seem to have little clear sense to them. I'd really like to be looking forward more to the prospect of Christmas and indeed not feeling a sense of impending doom at the coming of the job assessment day thing I has lined up in the new year. There's not much point playing a massively multiplayer game if I don't want to interact with other folks, whether that game is Guild Wars 2 or life. Although the only bits of Guild Wars 2 I'm really missing out on are the dungeons and the PVP and I'm not sure how great a loss that is. On the other hand though it would be nice if more of the things I know I want actually felt like I wanted them too rather than this motivational anhedonia I somehow seem to find myself with. I'm not even entirely sure how much might be me and how much is my circumstances but one way or another I hope I might bridge the gap one day and come to some more reasonable arrangement with both myself and my various worlds at large. There are though perhaps some benefits in existing in a realm with this certain touch of a ludicrous as I seemed rather more able to see the amusing side when I got to the shop today to be told the news that one of the radiators on the top floor had apparently burst, drowning not only that floor but the one below too! Apparently we had some delightful indoor waterfalls when assistant manager got in this morning, although she was generally just reduced to complaining about everything by the time I got in. I always do seem to miss out when anything really fun happens. Just my luck really. Still, it is perhaps at least a little reassuring that I am not always the sole source of the ridiculous when it comes to playing this game.
In any case, it's not long to go now before Christmas and the end of the year. The plan is for me to travel down to Sheffield on Christmas Eve, but I shall yet be at the shop until Sunday so I wonder how much my brain will be able to get itself set to actually look forward to the prospect. Then I think I will be returning on the 27th for a little more shop time before the New Year, and not soon after which I has big job assessment day thing on the 2nd. It doesn't really allow me much in the way of time to organise my feelings but hopefully I shall manage to construct some goodness in the days ahead. It does occur though that, certainly in the last two years and probably a few more besides, I have looked forward to the new year with the promising prospect of some kind of change only to find the situation fall apart fairly rapidly thereafter and leave with a year of the usual stumbling struggle to make way through it. This time I around however I find myself holding little or nothing of note to give any positive sign or feeling that this next year could be the one in which I might actually make some kind of substantive change in my world. So, given that previous hopeful new years seem to have surprised me by turning out relatively fruitless, perhaps this one where I stumble into it without any much hope at all will surprise me by being the one actually be will be the one to actually make the difference? That's positive thinking that is! Er, yeah. Well, whatever occurs I thinks for now it be time for me to scamper aways and mayhap I shall see if I can perhaps fit in just a little more imaginary adventuring before sleep claims me. Only one more week now before we are into Christmas! I can't say I am as yet overwhelmed with excitements at that thought but perhaps there may yet be some sense of magic to come and hopefully yet I could still be able to get my paws on some small fragment of it. In the meanwhile, I hope perhaps I may manage one more post before I'm away on my travels and doubtless I shall be passing on more Christmas wishes to folks over days ahead but in the meanwhile I hopes all my kindly readers preparations for the season be going smoothly and you all has some tinselly sparkle and pixie enchantments to look forward to. Regardless of anything else, my shiny best wishes remain to all of you nice peoples good enough to share any part of my silly existence. Be seeings you!
Doesn't he look all noble and brave yet at the same time friendly and cuddly? Umm, well anyways, as you may also see, in keeping with the season, and also the start of Guild Wars 2 Christmas holiday event, I have journeyed to a land of wintry snows and frostiness although admittedly as I have now just about outleveled that zone I will shortly be departing from it but even so I thought I might share one little view from the area.
My playings do continue to prove reasonably fun and entertaining, although the more I do so, the more certain of the peculiarities of the game do begin to stick out a bit. By and large I have still been enjoying the game more than I did World of Warcraft although it is starting to seem more and more that scratching the surface beyond the presentation differences between the static quests in WoW and the dynamic events in GW2 the difference isn't really quite so huge. Although it has more of the look of a living world with events just happening and seeing their results rather than just having an NPC standing around with an exclamation mark above their head telling you do go kill a bunch of other creatures who seem largely to just be standing around themselves, since so many of the events I've done seem to occur on a regular cycle in precisely the same way each time it soon starts to feel little different to the usual quest hub system. Some of the events that expand out into larger chains of events have been more fun to go through but it's a bit strange clearing out a fort of invaders, chase the invaders back to their base and defeat their commanders only to find that same fort occupied by the same invaders barely half an hour later. Indeed I start to see some ways in which WoW actually does things better than GW2. For all the complaints of how annoying it was to have to go to an NPC to pick up a quest and then return to the same NPC to get your reward I found it actually gave a sense of a bit more connection to the place and the characters than these events that can occur and you can be rewarded for completing without needing to talk to anyone. Still, despite that, so far at least, I still find it a more enjoyable experience than completing quests in WoW that quite obviously made absolutely no difference whatsoever to the game world as a whole. Guild Wars 2 is starting to show some signs of that though but if more different and varied events start appearing then hopefully that sense can be kept to a minimum.
I think though I can recall remarking on these pages some months ago when I was playing World of Warcraft how the lack of any obvious results from the efforts made in the game somehow ironically seemed to mirror the lack of any much change in myself and the real world that all my efforts to make progress in my actual life. Heh, and in the real world I haven't even got any pretty new items, although mayhap that will change with Christmas on the horizon! Another irony that, thus far, Guild Wars 2 has managed to share with both World of Warcraft and real life is that by and large I still find myself playing all these massively multiplayer games by myself. Having said that, Guild Wars 2 does make it easier to play alongside other people than WoW did, but I've yet to have any real social interactions although I have occasionally uttered the odd line or two to the fallen warrior I was resurrecting. For the main part though I have to confess I don't go out of my way to hi to passing players either. Of course for a foolishly timid and naturally introverted creature like me the suggestion of going out to that busy bar where you could introduce yourself to a bunch of new people sounds rather akin to the suggestion of going and standing in the midst of that bunch of ravenous lions over there and doing your best injured wildebeest impression. Nevertheless there was certainly a time when I was a lot more forward online than I am now. Indeed, the person who is now my longest standing friend (*waves*) is someone I met playing with the random chat function on ICQ. Heh, whatever happened to ICQ? Is it still going? For some reason though I'm aware that these days I don't seem to log on to any of my various messenger programmes. I've lost the habit it seems, maybe too many other stuffs have distracted and I just let it sort of slip. Not being a naturally social person, although I might think I want to be more social, it's still not something I naturally think of to do. If you see what I mean. It's a bit odd but then I suppose it isn't the only area of my existence where I know that I know better than some of the unhelpful actions I naturally find myself defaulting to. Hm, still for all that I may yet fail I can but keep trying though I'm not sure livings should have to require quite so much of this kind of effort.
That effort isn't much helped by the kind of squashy migraine that was infesting my head on Friday morning when I shuffled off to Scarborough for my last visit of the year to the fairy job folk. Perhaps though, the vaguely painful and nauseous trance I found myself enveloped in helped at least to suppress my usual sense of unnecessary anxiety, unless that is the migraine itself was a result of the nerves. Either ways, it was a fuzzy strange sort of experience, and achy icky one, but nothing really much of note came from it. Fortunately though, when I got back to the shop that afternoon I was able to unearth some tasty painkillers from the bottom of a drawer which helpfully took the edge off the squish for my time on the till. By then however some impressively dramatic rains had set in and though I did snaffle an umbrella from the shop for my walk out to the caravan it sadly proved incapable of coping with the mild breeze that accompanied the wetness and so I was a particularly soggy puppy by the time I finally slithered into the caravan on Friday evening. The weekend itself though proved fairly tranquil with tasty foods and kitty petting, before I wandered my way back for a curious little Sunday at the shop where I spent the majority of my time in the relatively comfortable habitat of the back cupboard, surrounded by a large delivery of books. When I did venture out on to poke at the till we seemed reasonably busy, so I was a little surprised to discover how pitifully low the takings were come the end of the day. It must have been somewhat deathly out there whilst I was hidden away in my little cupboard. Speaking of deathly though, on Monday I found myself oversleeping somewhat and then rather incapable of getting my brains up and running to do anything much during the day. Not that I imagine I will have missed too much at the Coliseum but it is still somewhat vexatious to have further evidence of a brain that doesn't quite do as it is told, but mayhap I shouldn't be too bothered about such a little thing.
Even so it was still a subject I found myself mulling over this morning as my brain is wont to idly wander in the hours after waking. It is a strange thing that though I can come up with a fairly comprehensive chronological list of the things in my life which have formed me into being this somewhat flawed creature today that understanding isn't in itself enough to alleviate the problems. I won't force that list upon you here as I've probably already gibbered in enough detail in previous posts, and doubtless even this one in a manner which seemed rather more succinct and well structured in my head that it now seems to be turning out on the page. Mayhap I'll delight you with it at some later date. Still, all those things in that list are now in the past and so behind me, whilst I am now nominally at least an adult with a reasonable degree of intelligence. Yet there remains so many of my emotional reactions, and indeed my actions and choices which seem to have little clear sense to them. I'd really like to be looking forward more to the prospect of Christmas and indeed not feeling a sense of impending doom at the coming of the job assessment day thing I has lined up in the new year. There's not much point playing a massively multiplayer game if I don't want to interact with other folks, whether that game is Guild Wars 2 or life. Although the only bits of Guild Wars 2 I'm really missing out on are the dungeons and the PVP and I'm not sure how great a loss that is. On the other hand though it would be nice if more of the things I know I want actually felt like I wanted them too rather than this motivational anhedonia I somehow seem to find myself with. I'm not even entirely sure how much might be me and how much is my circumstances but one way or another I hope I might bridge the gap one day and come to some more reasonable arrangement with both myself and my various worlds at large. There are though perhaps some benefits in existing in a realm with this certain touch of a ludicrous as I seemed rather more able to see the amusing side when I got to the shop today to be told the news that one of the radiators on the top floor had apparently burst, drowning not only that floor but the one below too! Apparently we had some delightful indoor waterfalls when assistant manager got in this morning, although she was generally just reduced to complaining about everything by the time I got in. I always do seem to miss out when anything really fun happens. Just my luck really. Still, it is perhaps at least a little reassuring that I am not always the sole source of the ridiculous when it comes to playing this game.
In any case, it's not long to go now before Christmas and the end of the year. The plan is for me to travel down to Sheffield on Christmas Eve, but I shall yet be at the shop until Sunday so I wonder how much my brain will be able to get itself set to actually look forward to the prospect. Then I think I will be returning on the 27th for a little more shop time before the New Year, and not soon after which I has big job assessment day thing on the 2nd. It doesn't really allow me much in the way of time to organise my feelings but hopefully I shall manage to construct some goodness in the days ahead. It does occur though that, certainly in the last two years and probably a few more besides, I have looked forward to the new year with the promising prospect of some kind of change only to find the situation fall apart fairly rapidly thereafter and leave with a year of the usual stumbling struggle to make way through it. This time I around however I find myself holding little or nothing of note to give any positive sign or feeling that this next year could be the one in which I might actually make some kind of substantive change in my world. So, given that previous hopeful new years seem to have surprised me by turning out relatively fruitless, perhaps this one where I stumble into it without any much hope at all will surprise me by being the one actually be will be the one to actually make the difference? That's positive thinking that is! Er, yeah. Well, whatever occurs I thinks for now it be time for me to scamper aways and mayhap I shall see if I can perhaps fit in just a little more imaginary adventuring before sleep claims me. Only one more week now before we are into Christmas! I can't say I am as yet overwhelmed with excitements at that thought but perhaps there may yet be some sense of magic to come and hopefully yet I could still be able to get my paws on some small fragment of it. In the meanwhile, I hope perhaps I may manage one more post before I'm away on my travels and doubtless I shall be passing on more Christmas wishes to folks over days ahead but in the meanwhile I hopes all my kindly readers preparations for the season be going smoothly and you all has some tinselly sparkle and pixie enchantments to look forward to. Regardless of anything else, my shiny best wishes remain to all of you nice peoples good enough to share any part of my silly existence. Be seeings you!