Gaming

Strange Tree

World Building – My Hobby

Posted by | Gaming | 7 Comments

Or, what I’ve been doing in my spare time with Cris out of commission and healing up with her family back in Tabasco :)

Long-time readers are familiar with my life-long hobby of playing video games. I’ve covered it a few times in my Expat Gamer series. That led to me paying more and more attention to Kickstarter and Indigogo projects as I’ve begun moving into the crowdfunding world over the past couple of years, and the rise of independent game companies with niche audiences is something that I’ve been interested in for a long time.

Backed by the knowledge that I was already planning on getting back to the four-book fantasy series I started writing in 2008 later this fall after we get settled into Palenque, I had an idea. Why not, instead of simply finishing the series and marketing the books, create an entire media enterprise out of the lore and characters? Read More

Character Sheet

My Secret Life as an Expat Gamer – Player Character Versus Non Player Character

Posted by | Blogging, Gaming, Human Evolution, Quality of Life, Traveling Tips | No Comments

Everything had been going well up until the point the guard had woken himself up by snoring and just happened to catch Terrik in mid-pick on the lock of the door across the hallway. Purely chaotic, bad luck. Until then he’d made it past the three first-level guards, a tired manservant pushing a broom and an outbound prostitute before he’d made it to the door, completely undetected. And it was inside this very room that his whole reason for breaking in existed.

A quick jab to the throat sent the guard down in a gasping heap, but not before he’d let out a startled shout. After that, there was no point in worrying about silence and stealth anymore. Terrick wasn’t going to leave empty-handed, so boot to door made the most sense.

Splinters flew, heel jerked in pain that would turn into a bruise tomorrow, a yelp from the bed as the owner clutched his sheets around his frame and fumbled in the dark for his sword. Or a crossbow. There wasn’t time to find out, and a quick scan was all that was needed to locate the book he had been hired to retrieve. Impossible to miss, tucked away behind colored glass as it were, all displayed with pride and joy.

Other heel down, shattered glass, book in hand, into pack and out the door, only to come face to face with three charging guards from the left and two more from the right. Quick glance over shoulder reveals iron bars over the window. Not an exit. Take deep breath, commence getaway.

A couple of quick lunges got him up to speed for the right, and he spun slightly on his heel as he leapt, hoping to clear the guards. They cursed and tried to catch him mid-run, fingers wide and reaching, but he was above their claws. All clear, and then the toe of his left foot impacted with the left guard’s face, sending him into a stumbled landing, crashing into the wall, knocking a painting to the floor.

Two crossbow bolts shot from the three guards firing over the two sprawling guards he had just bowled over buried into the wall next to his head with a thunderous thwump thwump. He jigged to the right as he ducked and tried to recover from the landing. The rasp of steel drawn behind him, then horn blast, then another two guards coming up the stairwell as he reached it.

No choice but to avoid, so he swung himself up over the stair railing and took the leap down to the first floor, a good ten foot drop. He was ready for the impact, remembering it from earlier, crouching low to absorb and rolling forward into a somersault directly in front of the guard on the right hand side of the front door, both he and his fellow guard on the left in mid-turn as they heard his tumbled landing. A leg sweep for the one on the right, then as the one on the left reaches for his collar and swings a blade he ducks under the steel and half-stumbles, half-falls out onto the stairs of the front entry.

Cold night, torch light, shadowed burrows stretch out before him. The night is his element, and it’s time to disappear. He sprints for the nearest building with a first-story access and quickly scales its walls even as the shouts ring out behind him, “There, on the roof!” No worries. Six rooftops later and he’s slowed his pace to a casual run, springing from roof edge to roof edge as he makes his way back into the heart of the downtown district.

Time to get paid.

Being The Player Character

Terrik is what is known as a Player Character in the gaming world. He has something that sets him apart from the rest of humanity: PC Status.

PC Status is the defining skill that sets you apart from the rest of the masses. You are more than just ordinary, and you are much more than average. Rather than rolling a bunch of 8s and 10s and only a couple of 12s during your character creation, you got 14s, 16s and maybe an 18 or so.

You were smarter, prettier, stronger, faster, more skilled at something, but in some way or another PC status is what sets you apart from the rest of the meat suits. It’s what makes the difference between Bill Gates and anyone else who was born in the same year, lived in the same area and went to the same schools. It’s that special something.

It has nothing to do with luck. PC Status is what sets a Hero apart from the serfs. He’s the one who isn’t afraid to pick up the sword, to rob the castle, to brave the spider-infested dungeons of Kranthagol because deep within the lair lies the Sword of Thalius and the Bow of Bethar.

A Hero braves the cold, the heat, the sprawls, the dumps, the dungeons, the sewers, the mountains and the sea to achieve his or her goal. They inspire others to go along with them, leading through strength, bravery, wit, genius and beyond, based upon what their primary PC Status character trait is.

Someone with PC status makes their mark on the world and is remembered after they are gone. They are the Masters of their own Universe. They aren’t afraid to go out into the cold and the dark with nothing more than a torch and a sword or spell, because they’ve handled challenges like this before. It’s just one more step on the evolution to perfection, the learning experiences that shape us into the Heroes that Player Characters were born to be.

In the world of Terrik, he is the Player Character and the fumbling, bumbling guards are the Non Player Characters.

Player Character

Life Skills

I’m a long-time D&D fan. Up until the point I left the U.S. at the end of 2007, it had been as much a part of my life as MMORPGs and video games had been. The 12+ years I was living on my own up until that point had been an accumulation of all those roleplaying experiences. Which in mind lead to some of the most critical thinking anyone will ever achieve as a result of continually brainstorming and finding new ways around challenges through group interaction with a dedicated team of like-minded thinkers and artists.

I’m a firm believer that gaming leads to life skills. You’ve seen it in the other Secret Life of an Expat Gamer entries. Just as I was running 15 to 25 man crews for the construction business back in the day, I was also running teams of 30 to 40 players through raids and dungeons for six years, leading the guild to two different top 10 lists in my time as a hardcore gamer (EQ2, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes). Management. Team-building. Teamwork. Leadership.

Puzzle-solving as you come up against dungeon traps and in-game quests require critical, out-of-the-box thinking. You can’t just pass the buck to someone else when you are playing a video game and walking your character through the depths of a dungeon or in the middle of a quest. The decision rests on your shoulders, and you and you alone are the only one who will gain the glory and credit if you pull it off. Or you’ll die trying.

Non Player Characters aren’t born with innate PC Status, but they can earn it. Just as in the games there are often tomes you can find after achieving lengthy quests or overcoming challenging odds that lead to stat increases, or earn more experience points as you go along to enhance your abilities as you see fit, in life there are many things which lead to experience that can in turn be traded in for enhanced skill in a certain area.

A person who wants to paint, for example, not simply dabbling in it in their spare time, but choosing instead to spend four to six hours a day, every day, for four years working on their craft, building and doing it for their own betterment as well as to get good at it. Studying under a master, serving a mentorship, spending day upon day, hour after hour, on enhancing that one specific skill. The reward is an enhancement of that attribute after hard work and persistence. It might take you 10 levels (10 years), but eventual you always enhance your status through long hours of study…and that’s no different than reality.

Being The Hero

Being a Player Character is hard work. You don’t get to be a peon following someone else’s lead. Rather, you are the leader. The one people follow. You have the power, while others only dream about it. You have the freedom, while others only look on and wish. While the stable boy sweeps stalls and shovels horse shit, dreaming of winning the hand of the princess in marriage, you are out there, sword in hand, slitting the throat of the beast that was set to eat said princess, a night of steamy passion ahead as she sinks into your arms, not his.

You take the risks others are afraid to. You push yourself further, working longer hours, pursuing your passion with all your strength and dedication. Where others spend 10 mninutes a day focusing their time, you spend five hours. Training. Preparation. Becoming the best you can possibly be.

Giant spiders, dragons, the dark recesses of the Earth, glory, destiny and the phat lewts belong to you and those who are brave enough and skilled enough to come along for the ride. You are the Hero, the one the bards and storytellers will sing and write about for centuries to come. Your time…is now. 

Are you a Player Character? What are you doing to enhance your skills? Haven’t broken out of the NPC mold yet? Have questions or comments? Leave them below or shoot them to me in an email and I’ll get back to you ASAP!

This blog post was inspired by Luck Is Just the Spark for Business Giants.

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LOTRO

My Secret Life as an Expat Gamer – Entertainment, Pure and Simple

Posted by | Gaming, Live Like a Local, Quality of Life, Traveling Tips | No Comments

This post is part of an ongoing series that is being written through April. It covers gaming or, more specifically, MMORPGs and how they have benefited me personally over the years in terms of business relationships as well as entertainment value while on the road living the nomadic existence. Stay tuned for later installments of “My Secret Life as an Expat Gamer”, as well as “The Secrets of My Success”, which is an upcoming series starting in May covering early retirement and how to get yourself out of debt and into living a life of absolute freedom as an expat in countries around the world.

When you get right down to it, playing video games is a form of entertainment. And like all forms of entertainment it’s a type of escapism where you can shed your daily responsibilities for a wide array of activities ranging from shooting pool, watching a movie, hanging out at the beach, surfing, skateboarding, reading a book or any other hobby/activity performed for pleasure’s sake.

Something that I think really sets the pace in the modern era is how when a new book series begins to become popular and gets made into a movie or a TV show, it is usually accompanied by at least one or two video games that can be played alongside the other media. In some cases it’s a stand-alone game that mirrors the source material, and in other cases it’s actually an interactive social media campaign meant to draw players in through a series of extra story lines and media that is otherwise unavailable to the normal viewers. Nothing sells more copies of a product than a social media campaign that gives the participants additional source material.

A perfect example of what I mean by this is the current phenomena that is The Walking Dead. It started out as a comic book/graphic novel, then moved into a television show, which has since spawned merchandising and more important to this conversation, a video game title as well. That means they are maximizing their exposure to far more people than just those who read comics; it’s targeted towards the television market as well as the gamers, which means they have a fairly wide spread of the “nerd” market. Yes. I’m a nerd. Yes. I know what boobhats are. Lawlz, woot, and I know the birthplace of the word/phrase newb/n00b.

Now, when you are traveling on the road there’s usually downtime here and there. I also happen to watch a lot of shows, one of which is The Walking Dead. For me…it’s the TV show that got me into the franchise. I never read the comic, and have no desire to. But I love the show I’ll be playing the video game at some point this summer, just because it’s part of a franchise I enjoy.

Which brings me to the point of this whole post: you don’t have to worry about missing your shows, games or anything else when you are on the road. Too many people think that a life of continual travel means giving up your shows, your games and your normal routines and that’s just not the case. All of this entertainment can be had anywhere in the world, so you can just as easily be camped out on the shores of Lake Michigan as you could be tucked away in the Rhodopes on the border of Greece; entertainment is global.

What are your favorite types of games to play when on the road or in between adventures? Leave a comment below and let me know!

 P.S. Who else played the Diablo III open beta this last weekend? :) I was in Playa for 5 hours on Saturday, but I still managed to level up a Wizard and Demon Hunter through the beta. Looking good so far, but Guild Wars 2 has my eye drawn towards its release date….I’ll be biding my time in SW:TOR until then :) 

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With over 1,500 copies sold, our flagship 568-page eBook is what started it all. Learn how to travel the world like I do: without a budget, with no plans, funded completely by your website and online ventures.

The Expat GuidebookGet Your Copy Today!

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Guild Wars 2

My Secret Life as an Expat Gamer – A Hobby That Travels Well

Posted by | Gaming, Live Like a Local, Quality of Life, Traveling Tips | 2 Comments

This post is part of an ongoing series that is being written through April. It covers gaming or, more specifically, MMORPGs and how they have benefited me personally over the years in terms of business relationships as well as entertainment value while on the road living the nomadic existence. Stay tuned for later installments of “My Secret Life as an Expat Gamer”, as well as “The Secrets of My Success”, which is an upcoming series starting in May covering early retirement and how to get yourself out of debt and into living a life of absolute freedom as an expat in countries around the world.

Perhaps one of the most appealing aspects of gaming, at least for me, is that it travels well. At least, MMORPGs travel well since they can be played on a laptop. Console games are another story, and while I pick up most of them when they port over to the PC (I haven’t had a console since I sold my XBox 360 on the way out of the States in late 2007; they don’t travel well IMO and you can always pick a used one up when you touch down on local ground and use it for the six months or a year or so you’ll be there), I do miss out on a couple of titles here and there.

However, the point is that gaming is something that lends itself well to traveling around the world. No matter where you are traveling there are always moments when you have downtime in between adventures. Although my primary passion is traveling and I certainly take it in at every opportunity, it’s not the only thing I do when I’m on location. Taking a look at Cancun, where I’ve been based the last year and a half while exploring other South American destinations, I live here like a local. Which means I keep a local-based schedule, and if I want to explore local haunts and adventures with my friends here it’s usually done on the weekend when they have time off work. While my schedule is flexible and I can work anytime that I want, not all my friends are digital entrepreneurs.

So, during the weekdays when I’m working on the newsletters, blogs, social media campaigns, backlinking and SEO and marketing and management I like to manage my schedule as mentioned in one of the earlier posts: I game in the early mornings, work in the late mornings and early afternoons, then enjoy my social/outdoor stuff in the afternoons and evenings. However, that changes up when it gets really hot here in Cancun around late May and into early June, because it gets to the point where between 11 in the morning and about three in the afternoon you just don’t want to be outside, even on the beach, because you will fry like a lobster. Instead, most people hit the beach between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. before it gets hot enough to boil eggs, so my schedule changes up a bit for beach and ruin-exploring.

In Bogota it was the opposite, because it was raining most afternoon so you just can’t really go out and do anything for a few hours per day, which means you are stuck in the house for a few hours per day. You can either use that time to work on projects or you can use it to get in a few hours of your favorite hobby, whether that’s reading a book, watching your TV shows, cooking, catching a movie, hanging out with friends or delving into your favorite virtual world via an MMORPG. Then Sofia you have the traditional winter cycle, which means for several months out of the year it’s just too damn cold to really go out and do anything unless you are a ski junkie, which means there’s a lot of indoor activities going on, one of which was always gaming.

Another reason games travel well is because they don’t take up additional space like books, magazines, consoles or otherwise. Most people travel with a laptop or a pad of some kind, and with that and your backpack(s) you are good to go. Books are more weight, more space and more stuff you have to pack and arrange. It’s always nice to have one tattered copy of something to go along for the ride, but multiple books are as aforementioned. With a laptop or pad you’ve got work and play combined into one device, perfect for any setting.

I will say this: while I’ve taken my gaming on the road with me I certainly play less than I used to before I started traveling full-time back in January of 2008. Most of that has to do with the fact that there are just so many other things to do when you are in another country. There’s parks to explore, mountains to hike, forests to uncover, ruins to discover, adventures to be had, new cultures to be experienced, new friendships to be made…the life of a digital nomad is certainly not one of being socially shy, at least not in my opinion. Part of what makes this lifestyle so bountiful for those who live it are the connections that we make along the way.

Don’t forget to sign up for our free newsletter for several-times-a-week, your-eyes-only travel and entrepreneur tips, plus receive a complimentary copy of our 85-page starter book on location independence and living abroad, 30 Ways in 30 Days.

With over 1,500 copies sold, our flagship 568-page eBook is what started it all. Learn how to travel the world like I do: without a budget, with no plans, funded completely by your website and online ventures.

The Expat GuidebookGet Your Copy Today!

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Game Shot

My Secret Life as an Expat Gamer – Lifestyle Preparation

Posted by | Gaming, Live Like a Local, Quality of Life, Traveling Tips | No Comments

This post is part of an ongoing series that is being written through April. It covers gaming or, more specifically, MMORPGs and how they have benefited me personally over the years in terms of business relationships as well as entertainment value while on the road living the nomadic lifestyle. Stay tuned for later installments of “My Secret Life as an Expat Gamer”, as well as “The Secrets of My Success”, which is an upcoming series starting in May covering early retirement and how to get yourself out of debt and into living a life of absolute freedom as an expat in countries around the world.

They start off small. Single player games which offer puzzles to solve, challenges to overcome, things which engage our brains. It’s the equivalent of going to the gym for three hours a day; the three hours or so of pure entertainment that you give your brain when it is engaged in a challenge that it enjoys is worth three hours of the gym for your muscles. And there’s nothing wrong with having the best of both worlds and being physically fit as well as a gamer! (I’m a health enthusiast; I’m currently ending my first round and heading into my second round of P90X, and I’m doing the lean version this time. Should finish around July, and then I’ll be off to do something else for balance.)

It builds from there. Puzzles become more complex and require longer time investments. Nature kicks in and our minds naturally begin to discover the quickest way to achieve the end results, naturally evolving to overcome challenges. Shortcuts are taken, risks are introduced. Eventually it builds to the point that the player needs to interact with other people and work together as a team to overcome obstacles. The group dynamic emerges.

All of these things mimic real life. It’s the reason why it’s called virtual reality, that idea-space inside video games. It really is just that; a virtual copy of real life, only with certain twists. The worlds are fantasy-based, or science fiction and historical. They all share the same trait in the fact that they are all still copies of our own reality. They require time investments, energy, dedication, commitment and interaction. These are the same qualities any recruiter is looking for in new, educated recruits: people who are full of energy and dedication, commitment and interaction and they’ve got all the time in the world because it’s their passion.

Gaming teaches people to work together, which is of primary importance. This is especially true when you are abroad as an expat living the lifestyle. It’s far more easier to meld into your current area when you are already accustomed to working well with others in a virtual environment. Working relationships are forged on similar likes and motivations in life, and it mirrors virtual reality where gaming relationships are forged on the same ideals. Everything comes together in the central focus of people working together for a common goal. This is reality, virtual or not.

For children, this means learning teamwork as part of a social unit, not just in the classroom. For adults it’s a sense of accomplishing something together with a group of friends, and it’s the social activity that is important. People interacting together towards similar purposes, like Bingo night, bowling or going to see live performance artists. In both cases the interactions help you in the real world.

The one thing I honestly swear by is the power of friendships forged as a result of gaming. I’ve met friends over the past 15 years who I’ve stayed in contact with since then. For example, some of my regular contacts today on Facebook are still people that I grew up playing EverQuest 1 with back in the late 90s and early 2000s. Others are those I met over the past six to eight years and gamed with throughout EQ2, Vanguard, LOTRO and other games. I’ve met many of them, chatted on Ventrilo with the lot of them, made online friendships with dozens of them over the years, and while some of those are just in passing they are connections nevertheless.

All of these people turn into connections, and the friendships that are forged can lead to exciting new opportunities in places you least expect it. For example, I once met a friend in Bulgaria purely by chance who also happened to play EQ2 on the same server as us, and I also played with some local Sofia players in Vanguard for a brief period of time. Some of my earliest EQ1 friends also happened to live in the same area as me in Colorado and we used to go out on Tuesdays for fries and pizza at this place in Longmont. And all of them I’m still in contact with today. I’m even working with three of them on current projects.

None of those connections would have been possible without gaming being a part of my life. And while one could argue that you could have made those connections out doing “physical” activities like golfing, being in a sports team or something similar…the point is that you can meet people doing all sorts of social activities, not just the ones related to the “real world”.

Don’t forget to sign up for our free newsletter for several-times-a-week, your-eyes-only travel and entrepreneur tips, plus receive a complimentary copy of our 85-page starter book on location independence and living abroad, 30 Ways in 30 Days.

With over 1,500 copies sold, our flagship 568-page eBook is what started it all. Learn how to travel the world like I do: without a budget, with no plans, funded completely by your website and online ventures.

The Expat GuidebookGet Your Copy Today!

Unplug from The System, cure yourself of The Greedy Bastard Syndrome, tap into your universal potential and create your own reality. Build a brand, travel the world and realize your cosmic consciousness.

Beyond Borders - The Social RevolutionGet Your Copy Today!