Leiðleitatil Bindrún (The Pathfinder Bindrune)

I know that I hung
on a wind battered tree
nine long nights,
pierced by a spear and given to Óðinn,
myself to myself,
on that tree
whose roots grow in a place
no one has ever seen.

No one gave me food,
no one gave me drink.
At the end I peered down,
I took the runes - 
screaming, I took them -
and then I fell.

- Rúnatal, Hávamál, The Poetic Edda (Cōdex Rēgius)

First, as with most things necessary in this world of judgement and jumping to conclusions, a disclaimer:

This entry deals with a certain level of esoteric beliefs that, for many reasons I fully understand and acknowledge, may be completely irrational. 

I acknowledge that, when dealing with the subject of Norse Mythology, there is a modern take on the ancient Vikings and pagan beliefs that has elevated a certain level of mysticism that scholars simply have no reasonable evidence to corroborate on. 

This is primarily due to two inescapable truths:

1. Most of the surviving artifacts - items, rune stones, etc, have extremely mundane translations utilizing Elder and Younger Futhark runes. Almost always to denote some sort of factual, boring account: "So-and-so made this" or "Here I bury my son, so-and-so". 

2. The manuscripts that would go on to become things like the iconic Poetic Edda , containing all of the lore, originally come from manuscripts like the Cōdex Rēgius, translated hundreds of years after the peak Viking era, and well after those pagan cultures were converted to Christianity.  These second-hand accounts are especially confounding in their iconography, such as the popular Vegvísir (Viking Compass), and Ægishjálmur (Helm of Awe) which often appear in several variations, some of which  simultaneously invoke the divine powers of Odin, Thor, Jesus, AND Mary... all within the same spell. 

The reality of a people, concerned primarily with surviving in a harsh environment with limited resources, does lend itself to a more pragmatic view of their language. Elder futhark rune meanings likely had more mnemonic purposes rather than mystic symbolism. Bindrunes were more of a space-saving or "stylistic" way of combining runes, rather than “magic bindings”, and nearly all staves originate in manuscripts confounded with Christianity iconography which do not trace back to any truly pagan primary sources. 

End disclaimer...

Depressing. Well, despite all this very rational understanding – I still find myself in a difficult place trying to reconcile the scholarly views vs two key observations:

1) The idea, that for a set of otherwise "mundane" phonetic runes, the skálds would dedicate an entire section in the Hávamál to the excruciating trouble Odin puts himself through just to obtain them, seems odd to me. Having to sacrifice himself, to himself, at the world tree Yggdrasill and rip them screaming into knowledge gained from the Well of Urd,  and add to that, how other sections of the Edda speak to "wise men" knowing how to use the runes for more than just language - how to carve them, how to invoke them for spells, etc., it just seems a bit sus that the remainder of the culture would simply devalue the runes down to phonetic oblvision. 

I mean, not even Christianity dedicates anything significant to the discovery of language or letters - language simply exists. seemingly as a product of man..

"Now the whole earth had one language and the same words" - Genesis 11:1

A product that becomes a problem for God. when the people use this common language to try to organize and build a tower to heaven (Genesis 11:4), causing God to put an end to that nonsense quick, fast, and in a hurry:

"Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused[a] the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth." - Genesis 11:7-9

But, what do I know. Its hard to argue the lack of evidence. I tend to speculate that, perhaps, while the generic Æsir mythology may have been preserved by transcribing scholars, there must have been explicit instructions to leave out any details that would have accredited actual divine power.  Kind of a big deal when the conquering religion preaches the only true "Word of God" with no room for competition...

An example of this selective preservation comes at the heals of Christian Scholars transcribing the wine sacraments found in the Greek Dionysian Mysteries, which were the primary influence for the Christian Eucharist. They adopted the motions of consuming a blessed wine, but scrubbed the divine aspects like the role of psychedelics in the preparation, which was crucial to the true divine nature of the original sacrament. What survived, then, was a hollow simulacrum of the original traditions, which leaves me wondering how much of the magic of the runes were similarly scrubbed . (See: Immortality Key and the work of Brian Muraresku)

2) Second, and way more close to home, and the real point of this entire entry, is me trying to reconcile a scholarly perspective of a dead runic language, and a very real and modern inspiration I encountered on a vision quest that led me to this:

Now, this final iteration is obviously stylized – not only in terms of the graphic visuals, but also in the expression of the bindrune comprised of raidō, ansuz, and tīwaz in a repeated arrangement around the central hagalaz rune. The runes initially presented themselves in a singular alignment (more on this soon), so this particular "stave" arrangement came afterwards as reflection on my original vision, and an internal gut feeling to present the concepts as a "many roads lead out of chaos" wheel, admittedly and likely inspired by the likes of Vegvísir, and Ægishjálmur to create a symbolic, stylized representation.  

So what happened? 

Well, I quite frankly “saw” these runes presented to me in a vision. I won’t sugar coat it. 6 grams of dried psilocybe semilanceata is a sure-fire way to put oneself in an altered state of consciousness where visions like these are entirely possible. 

To this end, I’ve had a small number of rare, ego-death level sessions where I’d asked the universe to reveal some level of esoteric truth or meaning to me, to which my subconscious and whatever other entities out there in the ether flooded me with roller-coasters of emotions, feelings, and visions.  

Almost always, the visuals are geometric – fractal, too complex to remember, and never really anything religious or otherwise branded and readily identifiable in the real world as sacred geometry or the like. 

But this time… this was the first, and only, time I had ever been presented with any sort of concrete iconography I could later recall.  I cannot underscore enough how odd this was. I’m not a “rune caster”, or a self-proclaimed pagan. Hel, I’m not even Scandinavian – my lineage is almost entirely Iberian, and as such, my family is almost entirely Catholic as a result. (I managed to escape)

Growing up, I only had the top level, basic understanding of Norse mythology that the average American possesses – of Odin and Loki and Thor and Ragnarök as surface level as any Marvel movie would care to portray.  More recently, I did have basic exposure to shows like Vikings, and games like God of War, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, so I was later exposed to a few more characters and stories, like Mímir, Jörmungandr, Hel… and generally exposed to the runes visually on carvings, shields, face paint, and other related visuals pertaining to those games/movies/shows.  

Finally, I had recently discovered the "amplified history" music genre, where the likes of Wardruna, Heilung, and Danheim exposed my subconscious to deeper lore (although I had no translatable knowledge of Old Norse, Norwegian or Islandic to guide me).

The only Futhark runes I could easily identify at the time were that of Tiwaz, aka Tyr’s “victory rune”, as one of the runes I looked up because I couldn’t understand why Vikings were obsessed with painting “Up Arrows” on all their war gear, and þurisaz in reference to the "thorn" rune used in one of the early Halloween movies as the mystical mark on Michael Myers. 

So one could argue that I was, perhaps, subconsciously primed for what came next, but regardless, there I was, an hour into an ominous trip where I stood face-to-face with a chaotic, turbulent swirling portal of… black sleeting ice, for lack of better identification. (it was a cold, yet burning, black swirl of fluid and hail). 

It was difficult to stare into, but at one point I felt compelled to do so, and I could see the slanted "H" shape of Hagalaz clearly within it. I recalled the shape, but had no perceived connection to a meaning, yet. The dread, at the time, was a gut feeling that, in order for me to “progress” or “move through”, I had to face this chaotic turbulence and somehow step through it. But I was scared, not knowing what was on the other side.

 After some immeasurable amount of time,  not wanting to gaze back into it, I decided to try to lean and look around the storm to the other side. There, on the far end of a trail, I saw that familiar “Up Arrow” (Tīwaz), like a shining beacon on the other side, pointing along a path flowing out from the backside of the chaos.  Seeing this one familiar shape would be the only thing that clued me in to the idea that what I was seeing were "Viking Runes". 

While I totally understood the “victory” concept of Tīwaz, I still didn't understand how to get through the chaos safely or why I was even being presented with the situation to begin with.

It was then that I noticed something else as I peered around the chaos storm. A second, different kind of arrow was just ahead of Tīwazit, also in line with the path leading out from the back of the storm. This arrow was odd, in that both arms of the point were on the same side. This rune was Ansuz, but I had no frame of reference for this rune either. It simply... gave me comfort, and subconscious peace to see this overall arrangement.

The final rune, raidō, didn't actually manifest as a giant "R" in my vision, it simply appeared as a literal path leading from the backside of the freezing chaos portal, passing directly through the two beacon runes in a straight line.  

As I mentioned, seeing this road, with the pleasant outcome on the other side, changed my fundamental feeling towards the chaos storm. I was still apprehensive, sure, but no longer afraid to pass through with dignity and honor.  

Sadly, I can't tell you how the journey went, though, because the moment I took the step into the portal, I was immediately snapped back to reality, lying in a dark, quiet room.

Later, sober, I immediately took to looking into the runes I was presented, and reflecting on the overall experience. I first had to figure that there were in fact two different runic alphabets, Elder and Younger Futhark.  Thankfully, the presence of Ansuz helped, as it is absent from the Younger Futhark. 

From there, (Please suspend scholarly skepticism for a moment), I discovered the general consensus among those who ascribe some level of meaning to each of the Elder Futhark runes.  In these subsequent studies, the shapes I saw made a whole lot more sense:

• Hagalaz - Hail, calamity, obstacles, chaos, uncertainty, adversity, etc. To me this felt like a fair representation of the amorphous storm portal I was faced with right at the beginning, and why this rune takes it's place front-and-center in the final stave. Chaos, adversity, and uncertainty confront us at every turn in this life. It's unavoidable. 
• Raidō - The ride, the journey. This rune, I attributed to the significance of the path from my vision. I initially added it to explicitly represent the significance of the road I was shown. Much later, as I learned about the concept of Bindrunes, I thought perhaps, the "line" of the path was shown without rune imagery as a dual-purpose of binding the ansuz  and tīwaz runes together, which visually creates a bit of a "road" naturally. As such, I suppose the raidō rune is therefore optional/redundant within the stave configuration, but I still like having it explicitly called out. Finally, as far as positioning, you will notice the rune starts partially within the Hagalaz circle - this is intentional to signify that there's a road out of chaos and uncertainty. 
• Ansuz - "God/Odin", but also wisdom, knowledge, understanding, communication. This later resonated as the "how" portion of overcoming adversity. This clarified my perspective on the original juxtaposition of Hagalaz to Tīwaz. Seeing Tyr's "victory rune" and having the freezing portal initially made it all seem very physical, but it was clear after looking into Ansuz that the vision was existential, metaphorical, and mental. This is is what primarily led me to concluding that it was a metaphor for personal growth - overcoming adversity, working through problems through communication, learning, and understanding. 
• Tīwaz - God/Tyr, victory, but also honor, and sacrifice. The deeper study of this rune, also proved to be a bit of a surprise over what I thought I knew about it originally. At first, I thought I was being shown "the payoff" or reward of walking the path; the "why do it". But it's fascinating that this rune can also be interpreted as further extension of the "how" that Ansuz begins - that is, to walk the path in such a way that you conduct yourself with honor, and with the understanding that sometimes it takes great sacrifice as means to some ends, as reflected in the rune poems for Tīwaz that recount Tyr's sacrifice during the Binding of Fenrir.  It was this duality of Tiwaz being both "how" and "why" which gave me the final design idea to arrange repeating path bindrunes around the circle, in each of the cardinal and intercardinal directions. A stylistic choice, sure, but also one that represents the idea that there are often several paths of freedom out of uncertainty - but no matter the direction, we should always strive to pick a path that includes  knowledge, understanding, justice, and sacrifice to achieve honorable victory. 

And that was it - I mulled around with this vision and these concepts for months and months as they resonated with me. I took to learning more and more about the runes, about the culture, and the lore of the Old Norse. Admittedly, like most ancient beliefs and traditions, not every concept translates well to a modern audience, nor would they be considered acceptable. 

But by-and-large, the practical advice given in the texts like Hávamál resonated with me more on a deeper level than anything I can vaguely recall from Bible study as a teenager. The absolutely binding commitment of giving someone your word, even if it most certainly leads to tragedy, is of the Nobelist virtues worth subscribing to.  The other themes related to personal accountability, being wise in many things (but not too wise), and other such concepts truly captured my soul as though I was raptured back into a previous life. I mean, who knows... before all this, I *did* go on to marry a 5' 11' Valkyrie with deep Scandinavian and Germanic roots. :)

So with this, dear reader, we conclude the origin of the "Leiðleitatil Bindrún" (Pathfinder Bindrune).  If you've made it this far, and any of this resonated with you - then take the stave with you and use it in good health. 

My oath, bound here with these words, as the seer and creator of Leiðleitatil, is that it is an open gift to those who need it, and will never been copywritten, or restricted. 

Skål!

Nú eru Háva mál
kveðin Háva höllu í,
allþörf ýta sonum,
óþörf jötna sonum;
heill sá, er kvað,
heill sá, er kann,
njóti sá, er nam,
heilir, þeirs hlýddu.

 

Want to use the Leiðleitatil ? Start here: https://leidleitatil.art/

Five Things

A friend in our circle recently asked if we could come up with "five things you wished someone would've told you before you were shot from a cannon out into the real world". These were my responses:

1. Your peers will hand you everything you need to get ahead in a career; just listen to what they complain about (or fear) and act heroically. Nearly every innovation, process improvement, and subsequent promotion I've enjoyed came from running towards a fire everyone else was running away from. There's little competition in solving hard problems, and taking the initiative to even try is great material for your performance review.

 2. Finding a companion should be viewed less like handing someone a delicate egg and hoping they don't break it, and more like inviting them along for a long morning jog.  That is- there's no real bond to be formed if you immediately outpace them, or if they immediately outpace you. Piggy-back rides are cute precursors to long term resentment, while real, healthy love comes from a jogging partner that has a natural pace equal to yours. And true love? That soulmate shit everyone desires? That's when you jog beside someone who makes it feel like you aren't jogging at all and cultivates a positive feedback loop that improves your pace. (And vice-versa- You should be providing these same boosting benefits for them!)

 3. In all failures, no matter the magnitude, rip the Band-Aid off quickly and face the consequences with an explicit plan for correction. In nearly every situation, the loss felt now will always be less than the sum of the situation plus the delay in avoiding it, or worse, any extra steps taken to try to hide it. Don't be afraid of failure. Failing (with a plan to resolve) cultivates a resilient mind that embraces adaptation and suffers less the trappings of anxiety, regret, and embarrassment.

 4. The world is 95% NPCs. Your first goal should be to strive to become one of the 5% active PCs. Your second goal should be to surround yourself with the other 5%. What's an NPC? A scripted individual with no real actionable dreams, and nothing of unique intellectual or spiritual value to add to the mix. While there's nothing inherently "bad" about being an NPC, if you want the most content-rich experience moving through this reality, then seek and seek-to-be interesting, dynamic, helpful, and adventurous.

 5. Limit, to the greatest of your ability, the number of capabilities you outsource to others. Learn how to build stuff before you buy them (where feasible). Learn how to perform basic maintenance and troubleshooting on your vehicles and appliances before just sending them in. Learn how to properly cook (not just reheat). Decide what your own first response is in the event of an emergency rather than assuming 911 is the best you can do. People will say that there's just not enough time in the day to "learn all the things", and that preparedness is wasted in a modern information and consumer age. This is a myth, but assuming it’s true, the things you elect to outsource should be inversely related to the risks & consequences of that dependency being severed.  In the extreme, it’s better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.

Political Lines Amidst a Pandemic

Guess it's been a hot minute since I've posted to ye ole blog. Lots has happened over the past year, but coming back here was an idea that popped up after my wife reviewed a post I made on Facebook in response to a divisive article that was posted by a friend.

The article, 'Jared Kushner makes coronavirus briefing appearance, draws backlash for 'our stockpile' comment', was met among friends with the usual for-or-against points that attribute the sum of the federal government response to the President and whether he's #mypresident or #notmrpresident.

I was tagged in to the conversation by another friend of mine who made the assumption that I was one of his "liberal friends".  Although I have never claimed to be either, the assumption may have seemed fair as I have been calling out other hypocritical behaviors Republicans appear to be quite guilty of when it comes to the also-current Oil Industry Crisis between Saudi Arabia and Russia, where Republicans conveniently forget about letting the "invisible hand of the free market" work things out on their own.

So before I commented on the Federal Stockpiles, I wanted to clear up confusions on my political position and remind folks that the only "us vs them" team I'm concerned with is the Government vs. The People.

This was my post, with only the most minor of spelling/grammatical corrections afforded. One last bit of context, when I was tagged in, my friend was also asking if he was a "colossal shithead" for wanting to defend his position :

I’m not a liberal. Not a conservative either. You’re not a shithead either. The issue is tying oneself too closely to politicians simply because they have a D or an R next to their name and you have a D or an R next to yours.

The issue is cognitive dissonance. It’s like when the “only 2 parties allowed” sat down at the draft they purposely decided to exchange 2-3 critical positions that make absolutely zero sense for the other side to have, just so it’s always a guaranteed shit-show when the family gets together to talk.

I post, speak, and comment to point out the hypocrisy that exists on both sides of the isle. I constantly remind family and friends that the shitty things we attribute to Mr Trump are some of the same shitty things that happened on Obama’s watch as well. Doing so rarely gets met with an objective admittance from the Left. Usually just name calling and excuses.

It’s an uncomfortable fact when people look back on H1N1 and realize that National Emergency (not to be confused with Public Health Emergency, which is declared by the Secretary of Public Health, not the president) wasn’t declared until October and after 1000 Americans had already died.

It’s an uncomfortable realization when you show people clips of that October time-frame where people were in lines for hours trying to get vaccinated even though the administration had months to mobilize and prepare between the public and national emergency states. Yet we sit here and call our current situation a delayed debacle as if it was the first ever, and when in truth it only took about 40 days and 1 death to declare Covid-19 a National emergency. 

You see, I do this on both sides because I have the pipe dream that everyone I care about will one day wake up and realize they don’t have to don the Dem or Rep team jersey featuring some of the ideological brand logos they believe in but also the giant kick-me sign on the back for the things they have to pretend to agree with and rationalize to fit in. 

The only teams we should care about are: The Elected Officials and The Rest of Us (aka We the People).

That means holding everyone in office equally and objectively accountable for in their actions and behaviors regardless of what camp they originated from.

Those aren’t Democrats OR Republicans. Those are Senators and Congressmen. That guy is a President. The moment they became those things, they became job functions entrusted to keep the interests, prosperity and safety of  everyone in this nation in mind.

With that perspective, it’s fairly obvious the dude we elected is, overall, a poor choice. Not poor, perhaps, from a “make shit happen now” perspective, but one where the ramifications of his actions will be carried by generations to come. But you know what? It’s not entirely his fault, just like it wasn’t entirely Obama’s fault then.

Given the fact that the president’s ability to MSH is almost entirely dependent on all of the other committees, agencies, and branches that support him, it’s painful to watch him take sole credit for the positive outcomes, while throwing other agencies and individuals under the bus for poor outcomes and negative consequences.

In short, if you're going to grandstand and say “I did that, you’re welcome”, you’ve also gotta be ready to say “I did that, I’m sorry”.

At Dell, I don’t just get measured on my outcomes. I get measured on “How Behaviors” deigned to stop people from becoming supreme assholes in a quest to make a name for themselves hiding behind achieved target goals. We have to consider a President's "How Behaviors" and stop giving him the "Yeah he's a dick, but..." pass. 

On the Stockpile- Also a dick move by the Feds to take this position. This is tantamount to sitting at a dinner table with all of your friends, agreeing to split the check, and then lambasting the ones who can’t afford their split when the check comes and “it’s way bigger than anyone could have imagined”.

At the dinner table (i.e. in the middle of the crisis) is NOT the time nor place to throw shade, or decide you’re only really wanting to help Billy because Bob was kind of a dick to you last week.  

I’m also extremely troubled by our carelessness as we high five him when he asks these falsely-provocative “Why the hell” questions without considering the risks.

“Why are we throwing away the masks” - Well, because this is the proper, reviewed, and accepted SOP that has been in place for decades as the safest way to deal with biological waste in a hospital setting to prevent cross contamination or reinfection.  The supplies that protect us in those risky contact situations are disposable BY DESIGN to ensure our safety!

It’s why swabs, needle tips, bags, gloves, masks, gowns and alll that other shit is meant to be collected and disposed of properly. Now you got a guy saying “Hey fuck all that smart shit, why are you throwing those away let’s save on supplies.” and people are like "Yeah! Cut that red tape Mr President!!"

But notice, the smart ones have to come in later and interpret this careless behavior to say “Well, I guess we could try to sanitize and reuse.. but it’s unproven and each time you do so, the mask degrades, and you risk not getting it all”. And the part no one wants to talk about: You better hope it actually gets done properly, and no one cuts corners or forgets to sanitize between patients.

Consider this: Would you reuse a condom? Up to 20 times? Or just grab another one to be real sure? I know what I'd do. 

“Hey let’s use all the drugs and see if they work” is also a bold move that brings with it high risks. The fallout is at least less than the PPE situation. The patient rolls the dice on dying to the virus or dying from liver failure right, what’s the difference? I get it. Give them the choice to use the experimental drugs or wait for the clinical trials on the correct drugs and call it a day.

But where we should care indirectly as a taxpayers is the liability when the law suits come from groups given ineffective or adverse medicine in this knee jerk “screw clinical trials” reaction.

It’s the public and legal amnesia that will arise months and years later when no one wants to remember the bold “people are dying!” sentiment and the narrative shifts to how “irresponsible” the administration was for allowing these treatments to go out unproven.

A crisis shows people’s true colors when the chips are down- and that’s the point of this article when it comes to the Stockpiles.

The message from the Feds to the rest of the States was made quite clear...

“We are here to ensure *our* masks are on first before assisting others”.

The [Re:]humanization of the MMO

Foreword

A month ago I posted some comments on the psych-state of affairs within the online gaming experience expecting it to be just another rant in the books. To my surprise, two interesting (and positive) things happened.  First, I got a re-tweet on the article from a total stranger.  Not just any total stranger, but one of the younger demographic that my very rant crucified as a generation of TL:DR gamers.

Second, I received a great email from my good friend Dacian who not only read my post, but had some very insightful points from his unique perspective as a gamer who happens to work for a online gaming company. 

Rather than trying to paraphrase - I decided to post his email (mostly) in tact with the obvious personally identifying details removed so that you might enjoy the journey as much as I did.

~ iRonin

P.S. - I apologize to anyone who ever tried to comment here and had the same issues Dacian had - I never realized the default security setting was so crappy, and have since opened it up so that anyone can comment.

--------------------------------------------

God dammit, this is way too close to the blogging line than I ever wanted to get. I apologize if the thoughts are all over the board, since this was a type and go to meeting, type more and go to meeting, kinda effort. For the love of God set up that remote podcast or something…

I recently stumbled across your The Dehumanization of the MMO post and felt the urge to toss out my two cents, thoughts and experience. Why am I doing this in email and not in the comment section you ask? Well it’s actually relevant to the larger topic and hand and the line of questions you ask such as:  

Do these people try out a new sport or a hobby, and if they aren't immediately good at it, do they just give up? Do they practice enough to get into their first competition, and then as long as they keep winning they'll keep playing? And what if they suck at those hobbies, or their job, do they even know it?  No one seems willing to provide real feedback - or maybe they just don't hear it? Does their boss give them negative feedback and they just blank out, taking none of it to heart and just quit, or nod and move on passively? Are they even equipped to deal with the consequences of failures where you can't just walk away and try some other time or not at all? Is it just me?

Now I shall reconstruct for you the timeline of events and thought process that has lead me here.

Log in for work today… stumble on http://decipi-revera.blogspot.com/... Notice recent post… Notice topic on video gaming… read entire post word for word…. Re-read entire post again….think on post…

I pause here to point out that my time investment for reading that whole post twice has well pushed me into over the 30 minute mark of time I have invested. This is important to note leading into part two.

Click comment link to respond…  Post a comment section comes up… I can’t click in the box to start writing… Hrm… Check top of the page… Oh there is a sign in button…. Oh it’s a google account… attempt to remember google credentials… hrm…. This is getting annoying… why can’t I just comment…. Remember that dthrax wasn’t available try other names…. Finally remember right now…. Now can’t remember password…. Remember password… Sign in…. Ok sweet now to comment…. Click link back to George’s page… hrm still can’t comment…. WTF still not signed in…. Sign back in…. maybe I have to subscribe…. Subscribe to blog…. OK HERE WE GO FINALLY!............... #&$*(@ STILL CANNOT COMMENT OK FU YOU KNOW WHAT OFF TO EMAIL I GO…

Now all this leads up to a realization of “Wait… did I just prove his post right? Am I unwilling to commit to figure out what the problem is and get my just reward? Am just seeking the path of least resistance as a means to an end? I spent 30 minutes reading this and am not willing to invest more than 10 to be able to comment to help ease my friends wondering if people are out there. To participate in lively discussion that I miss so much. To let him know that his post is so awesome and that I recently found the world’s best bacon cure at  http://himtnjerky.com/ and I as a BBQ fanatic endorse this product and for the low price of 6.99 it is super best deal and he buy now! What the hell is going on here?!? How did it get to this point!!!”

Recounting my Journey

My real MMO experience was when as a Microsoft Fan Boy I picked up a copy of Asheron’s Call, installed it and log in. I had zero idea what the hell was going on as back then MMOs seemed to be more punishing and a lack of tutorial and guide to weed out people with short attention spans or inability to logically deconstruct failures and find ways to improve yourself. After figuring base mechanics I set out in the world and found myself in a zone that I did not belong where mobs preceded to play “wack a mole” every time I respawned near my corpse. Luckily for me a more senor player wandered by and took pity on the poor noob, easily killed the mobs, and informed me how to get back to the starting area so. Before leaving he geared me out with higher level gear that seemed to me at the time as if Odin himself had handed me a set of Destroyer amour and Mjöllnir.

Point 1: Early MMOs seemed to require you to pay a much higher ticket to entry price. There were no tutorials, no hand holding, if you were dumb the game punished you for it and delighted in doing so. The counter to this is the community stepped up wanting to bring more into their fold and this fostered an early sense of belonging and assistance and help. I can remember nothing about that game, but I still remember that guy rescuing me and gearing me out in a genuine attempt to help bring another player into their community. Current MMOs now having gotten better at tutorials and entry level zones and areas seek to guide the player more through their experience and don’t really foster that sense of belonging until it slaps you in the face in the first time you are “forced” to group to complete your objective. I say forced because giving the high amount of focus on solo content and improvement on things like mob spawning, zone design, etc there really is no reason to group with a stranger when doing your normal quests or grind. And given that most solo content is designed to be well… solo able… you don’t really experience a failure unless you yourself do something stupid, pull to many mobs (harder to do, due to those improvements in mob placement, aggro mechanics etc). So the first time you group and fail its shocking because you’ve been doing all this stuff yourself and haven’t died… so it can’t possibly be your fault…. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to do all this stuff right?!?.

From Asheron’s call I didn’t really play an MMO again until Star Wars Galaxies. Thinking back on it now… Again lack of tutorial, but there we had Fatal Exception, who had figured out all the tricks in beta and was there to hold hands, help gear out and ease the transition of noobs into the world and into the world of an MMO. This was in turn passed on to other people brought into the fold who signed in. Looking back on Galaxies though I think it might actually be a good precursor for what would later happen with WoW, due to the popularity of the Star Wars license suddenly lots of people who had never really played an MMO were picking up the game and trying that game type out. Galaxies further supported this by having the social classes and crafting classes that did not require the understanding, skill, and awareness that more traditional combat roles required. Eventually though the casual player either through their own desires of wanting to try something new or perhaps having to overhear war stories of how awesome it was taking a Rancor down, or destroying the rebel base and owning the revival rebel guild, decided that they too want to start down the combat path. Now I honestly have no idea what Galaxies overall market penetration and share  was or what its subscription numbers were, but it felt big. The power gamers who had long since figured out the OP builds (Rifleman/TKM/Brawler, Pistoler/Fencer/Smuggler, Combat Medic/Anything) welcomed their new casual friends into their fold as they have always done and shared with them their builds and how to own (with one button pushes). It’s here were downfall started I think, and it wasn’t just Galaxies either. Think about City of Heroes, the Matrix Online, etc.

Point 2: The start of the introduction of casuals and MMOs with poor balance and shitty mechanics created the perception that they too were awesome at this combat stuff. I can remember how awesomely proud you were running up a Martial Artist in the Matrix only to go into shock and awe watching the broken mechanics of a Hacker or struggling as a pure bounty hunter against people far, far, far less skilled that just happen to stack the right boxes in skill trees and to them they felt they were awesome. This again started down the slippery slope of “I deserve to be awesome cause I showed up” which is very similar to the “everyone deserves a trophy” mentality that was being pushed outside of the gaming world. I think even those who had been gaming for a while fell into the seductive warm embrace of how easy it was to win with some of the builds.

Out of these new MMOs relationships were formed, the internet was taking off more and more rapidly, social sites were coming up, forums were more and more common. Vent and team speak were taking off so it became much easier to stay in touch. EQ2 and WoW fired up their serves and joined the fray. Whats interesting to not here is both games had very good starting level tutorials and zones. Which we has power players loved cause it made our ramp up time even faster, but also allowed for the casual player to start figuring things out themselves and not having to form those bonds you mention for guilds and groups. Having played both with EQ2 seeming to take more to it’s EQ 1 roots and WoW taking inspiration from EQ, but by seemingly limiting choices on classes, spells and mechanics at higher levels it’s easy to look back and see atleast in my opinion why people moved from EQ2 over to WoW. WoW was less punishing on death. WoW seemed to balance more towards the solo content. And since all your friends new to the MMO scene were having fun over there why wouldn’t you want to play! It’s here where the irony of the Dehumanization of the MMO really starts to come to light. We dehumanized it by inviting more and more people in and setting expectations that they can be successful with little to no effort.

Path of least resistance and Email and choices

Vanilla WoW still held to a lot of the old rules of the grandfather MMOs, but over time the new crowd of subscribers who had not played began to complain. Often times on things that bothered the longer term players. Getting Warlord is a pain in the ass cause Alterc Valley takes too long! No one wants to PVP on my server! I can’t find a group at the time I play! All of these at the time seemed like valid things to us and we happily threw our voice in with the lot. Other shouts began to trickle up from the casuals who were not top end masters of their class or lucky enough to find a raiding guild willing to help carry them through. “We want to see top end content! We are also paying XX.XX a month!” What game designer wouldn’t want to expose more people to their work? What graphics artist wouldn’t want people to gaze upon the assets he spent hours or days rendering? What encounter designer wouldn’t want as many people as possible to talk about how awesome the mechanics he pieced together were? Gradually the bar was lowered whether it was  from 40 man to 25 to 10 for raids. Or introducing buffs or nerfing fights after top end guilds had already made it through so more people could go in and see the parts of the game. All of which again done with the pure intentions of sure let’s help get more of the community in to see how awesome this stuff is. What the designers failed to consider along with the rest of us is that as things got easier and easier and players got more and more choices, people will always move toward the path of least resistance. Just as you point out in your Game Theory PVP balance post.

Even I am subject to this by writing this in email. It’s not that I’m not capable of troubleshooting to figure out why I can’t post on the comment section. But why bother? Do I not get the same result by sending this in email? I have found the path of least resistance and am following it.  I literally had a half dozen choices and ways I could reply to you… and now so does the modern MMO player.

"The game design industry has made it so easy to do things that the time investment isn’t really there anymore. Your logic on waiting for 60 minutes to get in a group has one major fault. It fails to take into account that these players can go do dozens of other things while they wait. They can run dailies, grind rep, work on primary or secondary professions, advance achievements, all things they likely want to do anyway and can now do so from anywhere in the world. Why wouldn't they min max their chances for success. There is no real cost. Sure they don’t get in and may have to wait 60 minute to get back in, but it’s not a real 60 minutes to them. They have a list of things to do in game. We have given them too many choices of things to work on. It’s no loss. It’s not that they suck or even know they suck. Again your Game Theory post sums it up. Why would I invest the effort when there is an easier way with no real loss to me?"

I have dozens of other points to throw out about what BC and Wrath did to the MMO scene and on other games what an increased number of Save Points have done to gamers as a whole or things like Call of Duty Modern World at Special Black Ops Warfare’s multiplayer XP grind have done to a whole… but when I way the choice… it’s much easier to get you to set up a podcast than just keep typing J.

Oh and don’t forget. Super buy offer now on Bacon Cure!