Youtube needs very little explanation as to what it is and what it's used for. Youtube is also, however, a different experience from most of the other online communities I've been in. It's almost like what one puts into it is how much one receives out of it. Because everything is video based, depending on the types of videos one makes, that person can join a very large variety of groups and friends. If I were to recommend friends on Youtube, get to know people that can be talked to outside of the site. I show how I did this via Skype, but there are other clients that can be used.
There are a few favorite Youtube users of mine that I followed with no account of my own to claim. GarlandtheGreat, ProtonJon, and TheMeInTeam were some of my favorites to watch. However, checking every account I liked without subscribing to them proved to become tiring. I then decided to create my own Youtube account called TheDragoon1140, and I had an incredible amount of fun editing everything on my account.
Here is my first Youtube account along with my first video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDragoon1140#p/u/45/_ndaeI9mWo4
I've always liked a certain type of video called a Let's Play. Essentially, the user plays the video game whilst commentating. There are quite a few websites dedicated to the subject and some people make a living off of judging how well people create Let's Plays. I had a microphone, I had Hypercam, and I could play video games on my laptop. Thus, I started to make videos that are, arguably, the horrible incarnation of the swamp people; they were bad. After creating a few videos of a game called Syobon Action, a user named DDRManiac007 posted some comments relating to the video.
Though I didn't know it at the time, DDRManiac007 (now DDR) found my videos while he was searching information about it since he was going to Let's Play it soon. After chatting for a while, he helped my setup my Skype account. We then started communicating by webcam and it neat talking to a Canadian who was actually quite stereotypical, much to my amusement. He was even nice enough to create a collage of all of my videos on my birthday. At that point, I decided I really needed to collaborate with other Youtube users to have any hope of actually being noticed. I then started Let's Playing a game called World of Goo, which is easily one of my favorite games ever. After about twenty or so videos, I finished it and gained about five subscribers, which was amazing to me then.
After that is where the problems started. Fans of mine will notice that "TheDragoon1140" is not the account I use now on Youtube, which is now just "Dragoon1140." What happened was that I chose the option of always staying logged on, which means I never had to type in my password when I wanted to use my account. Much to my endless frustration, Youtube logged me off one day and I couldn't remember my password. To this day, I still have no idea what I typed for my password. I created my account Dragoon1140 a proceeded to recover what I had lost.
My Youtube account that was much, much better than the last one:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Dragoon1140
After another Let's Play, I quickly realized that I didn't just like Let's Plays, I liked challenges. I've always been a fan of GarlandtheGreat for completing very hard Final Fantasy 7 challenges, and I was curious if I could do the same. Final Fantasy 7 is one of my favorite games, so I figured I should try out an easy challenge to see how I well I would do. I finished the challenge quite easily, but I met a few more people in the process, including EmpressAeris.
During the Final Fantasy 7 challenge, more and more people started to be included in the Skype group. Zettovyker was the third person in the group and he is definitely going to go far in the Youtube world if he continues. However, things started to change quickly. A few weeks later, the small group of DDR, Zettovyker, and myself were joined by almost twenty more people. I'm not sure why DDR added so many to the group, it's something I'll have to ask him one day. I didn't like it all that much since I didn't really know anybody but a few, and half of the people in the group were less than fifteen, which is less than appealing. I decided to uninstall Skype after the group started growing ridiculously large.
After I left the group, I was looking for another community to join. I then found Elements, and I've already explained that story in the previous blog post. I was growing rather tired of Let's Plays and I wanted to begin helping the Elements community, so I chose to begin creating solely Elements videos. As I've explained before, the videos were rather bad, but I was the very first to do anything like it. After a few months, I ended up at about one hundred subscribers, and it was an amazing feeling to reach such a number.
Moving on to the next phase in my life, I ended up not posting videos for a long while. Perhaps I'll make more in the future, maybe even on a new account, but not for a while. I met and lost quite a few friends on Youtube, so I would recommend the experience to anyone, but friends have their own goals as well. The one thing I learned on Youtube is to keep friends close and accept any changes they make to their personality.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
The "Elements (the Game)" Community
"Elements is a free online fantasy card game"
For such a simple statement, it has consumed darn near a year of my life. Elements, otherwise known as "online crack," is a gem among stones. It's a simple card game based in Flash, so it is played online. The thing about Elements is that it is kind of like an old toy. It doesn't have the "Super-Awesome-Amazing-Punch-Some-Faces-In" button like most toys today, but it can be used a million different ways if the user is creative. In this case, Elements is so special because there are a bunch of different things you can do with it if you're involved in the community. Of course, we are not here to talk about the game, but the community behind it, how I became to be involved, and my eventual leaving of the community.
I started playing Elements around late March of 2010. I remember it was late March because, about a week after I started playing, a card named Holy Cow came to Elements as a joke card during April Fools. Curious about what the card actually did, I went searching for it and stumbled upon the Elements community. My very first interaction with any of the players was in the chat client, and I found myself quickly in over my head. Two renowned players named Puppychow and Jmizzle7 were debating about a card in the game called Shard of Gratitude. "What is Shard of Gratitude?" I thought. "What does metagame mean?" I pondered. Thus, it peaked my curiosity, so I observed the debate and learned as much as I could before I posted.
Here is the forum I stalked: http://elementsforum.co.cc/index.php
Now you may be asking yourself why I didn't just ask these things while I was there. I am the type to observe a community as much as possible before even registering an account, and, in this case, it took me a good month and a half before I finally registered my account Dragoon1140. Why I chose that user name is for a future post, but for now I'll emphasize that, no, it isn't from Legend of Dragoon.
My very first post can be found here: http://elementsforum.co.cc/index.php/topic,7171.msg84909.html#msg84909
Now if one looked at that thread I posted in, they would notice that I have the biggest "stats" of the thread, like the most posts and so on. However, that is now and not then. Back then, I was a young newbie who wanted to get into a debate with Malduk and MrBlonde, both very prolific players, both then and now. Of course I was totally wrong when I was debating, but I did like how well the community debated and it made me want to help out a bit more than the average player.
I have a Youtube account called Dragoon1140, which will definitely be the subject of a future blog post. On that account, I decided to switch the focus from my other videos to Elements. After making my first twelve or so Elements videos, which should never see the light of day because they are quite horrible in my opinion, both the administrator of the forum, ScaredGirl, and the creator, artist, and programmer of Elements itself, Zanzarino, posted responses about them whilst I was with them in the chat client.
[05:21:57] zanzarino: I saw your youtube tutorials dragoon, good stuff.
[21:35:16] Scaredgirl: I'm really blown away by those videos, Dragoon1140. Very nice work indeed.
They were just being nice, of course, but it was still neat to be talking to the developer of a decently popular game compliment something I made based on his creation. This feeling encouraged me to create more videos about Elements and, thus, I became popular rather fast among the community. I remember a time when, every time I would create a new video and link it in the chat client, somebody like Gl1tch or a few others whom I considered friends would point out every single pronunciation error I made in a five minute long video. Hilarious. I started talking with more and more people and came to know people on a personal level, including Jmizzle7 (whom was mentioned earlier in this post), Gl1tch, Purity_Riot, and a few select others. It was awesome meeting new people and hearing their stories. After that, though, it when things started changing fast, and not necessarily for the best.
Something came around called the Council. The Council was created by the admin of the forums, ScaredGirl, to ease some of the workload he has on the forum. I figured I had a decent chance to make it onto Council if I played my cards right, and, much to my surprise, I ended up with the third most votes on the forum. To me, that was the greatest virtual honor I've received, and I did the best I could at the position. However, I quickly realized it's really not all it's put up to be. We just made the occasional thread about needing a staff position on the forum, talked about it a bit, created a poll, and voted. Sure, we got some perks like alpha testing a forum game, but it really was nothing more. After about a month into Council, we realized that we need a few more people to fill the position called Competition Organizer. Competitions on the forum are basically contests to see who is the best at doing random things, whether it be taking pictures or creating cards for Elements. I thought it would be awesome so I applied for the position. In the end, three of us got the position, all Council Members. I loved that position more than anything else on the forum, and the people I worked with like Kuroaitou were just plain fun to be around.
Two months later, we're looking at the election for the next Council, if it could be called that. I apply again, hoping to do at least as well as I did last time. I'm still not sure why I applied again, since I didn't really like being on the first Council, but I quite a few people wanted me to stay on so I did. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had the second most votes on the Council this time, meaning that I was the second in command. A vice president, if you will. However, instead of the same process as last time, there was an added goal: Debate. When I say debate, I mean debate like the life of a kitten was dependent on it. Council wasn't boring anymore, it, instead, turned into a giant mess of people arguing until they got what they wanted, at least in my eyes. Things still got done at the same pace, but a whole lot more discussion went on in the meantime.
After some time, an event on the forums called Trials were starting again. Trials, essentially, is a competition where a total of sixty players would compete for twelve titles. One title, called Master of Aether, was the one that I wanted to earn. After all, and without getting into too much detail, I helped team Aether in a very large Player vs. Player event. There were three others signed up for competing: icecoldbro, pikachufan, and Higurashi. In the spirit of competition, I looked at the chances of me beating them in the popular vote section of the competition, since my Elements skills are rather mediocre. I knew I could beat icecoldbro easily, since he was easily tempered and not well embraced by the community. pikachufan was somebody nobody heard of at the time, so I wasn't worried about him. Higurashi, on the other hand, was incredibly popular on the chat client, which made a huge difference in the Trials, and is somebody whom I helped make a Tournament Organizer and, consequentially, a moderator of the chat client. I ended up failing the PvP phase and, since the organizers decided to switch the sections of the Trials, I also failed the popular vote because of it.
Something interesting was posted by Higurashi that I will never forget though:
"You've contradicted yourself while trying to trash-talk others, and now you want out. Very sad. I've lost a lot of respect for you."
Source: http://elementsforum.co.cc/index.php/topic,20041.msg277263.html#msg277263
Did I make a mistake by trying to avoid drama? Was I supposed to argue like an imbecile over the littlest of things like that? That is something that I suppose I'll never know. It's like a stranger insulting you on the street, cursing at you for something you've done in the past. They demand answers though they have no place in doing so, so you stutter in confusion, trying to avoid the stranger, but he is just there constantly going. I am over exaggerating, of course, but it hurt me a little that Higurashi never apologized for such a statement made. Anyway, after that, I tried to avoid that person to the best of my abilities. It didn't work since he is a chat mod and is arguably the most popular player in all of the Elements community, but I still tried. Because of that person, and among reasons posted earlier, I decided not to become part of the third Council. It seems others followed suit, and left as well. The third Council will have many new members.
And now, we reach the present. Whenever I log into chat, no longer can I have a civilized conversation without potatoes, a random anime, forum drama, or certain users entering the picture. There are exceptions to this, of course, since people like 3D House of Beef and Terroking still log on occasionally, but the new generation of Elements players isn't something that I'm fond of. They'll do great things for the community and the game itself, no doubt, but I just cannot bring myself to role playing in the chat client all of the time.
I'll stay on the forum as long as I am needed, but not likely long after that. If there is anything I've learned from being on the Elements forum, then it's one of two things. Either I learned to embrace the fact that communities can and will change, or I realized that I need to voice my opinion and not always play Mr. Nice, or, other wise, people will take advantage of me.
For such a simple statement, it has consumed darn near a year of my life. Elements, otherwise known as "online crack," is a gem among stones. It's a simple card game based in Flash, so it is played online. The thing about Elements is that it is kind of like an old toy. It doesn't have the "Super-Awesome-Amazing-Punch-Some-Faces-In" button like most toys today, but it can be used a million different ways if the user is creative. In this case, Elements is so special because there are a bunch of different things you can do with it if you're involved in the community. Of course, we are not here to talk about the game, but the community behind it, how I became to be involved, and my eventual leaving of the community.
I started playing Elements around late March of 2010. I remember it was late March because, about a week after I started playing, a card named Holy Cow came to Elements as a joke card during April Fools. Curious about what the card actually did, I went searching for it and stumbled upon the Elements community. My very first interaction with any of the players was in the chat client, and I found myself quickly in over my head. Two renowned players named Puppychow and Jmizzle7 were debating about a card in the game called Shard of Gratitude. "What is Shard of Gratitude?" I thought. "What does metagame mean?" I pondered. Thus, it peaked my curiosity, so I observed the debate and learned as much as I could before I posted.
Here is the forum I stalked: http://elementsforum.co.cc/index.php
Now you may be asking yourself why I didn't just ask these things while I was there. I am the type to observe a community as much as possible before even registering an account, and, in this case, it took me a good month and a half before I finally registered my account Dragoon1140. Why I chose that user name is for a future post, but for now I'll emphasize that, no, it isn't from Legend of Dragoon.
My very first post can be found here: http://elementsforum.co.cc/index.php/topic,7171.msg84909.html#msg84909
Now if one looked at that thread I posted in, they would notice that I have the biggest "stats" of the thread, like the most posts and so on. However, that is now and not then. Back then, I was a young newbie who wanted to get into a debate with Malduk and MrBlonde, both very prolific players, both then and now. Of course I was totally wrong when I was debating, but I did like how well the community debated and it made me want to help out a bit more than the average player.
I have a Youtube account called Dragoon1140, which will definitely be the subject of a future blog post. On that account, I decided to switch the focus from my other videos to Elements. After making my first twelve or so Elements videos, which should never see the light of day because they are quite horrible in my opinion, both the administrator of the forum, ScaredGirl, and the creator, artist, and programmer of Elements itself, Zanzarino, posted responses about them whilst I was with them in the chat client.
[05:21:57] zanzarino: I saw your youtube tutorials dragoon, good stuff.
[21:35:16] Scaredgirl: I'm really blown away by those videos, Dragoon1140. Very nice work indeed.
They were just being nice, of course, but it was still neat to be talking to the developer of a decently popular game compliment something I made based on his creation. This feeling encouraged me to create more videos about Elements and, thus, I became popular rather fast among the community. I remember a time when, every time I would create a new video and link it in the chat client, somebody like Gl1tch or a few others whom I considered friends would point out every single pronunciation error I made in a five minute long video. Hilarious. I started talking with more and more people and came to know people on a personal level, including Jmizzle7 (whom was mentioned earlier in this post), Gl1tch, Purity_Riot, and a few select others. It was awesome meeting new people and hearing their stories. After that, though, it when things started changing fast, and not necessarily for the best.
Something came around called the Council. The Council was created by the admin of the forums, ScaredGirl, to ease some of the workload he has on the forum. I figured I had a decent chance to make it onto Council if I played my cards right, and, much to my surprise, I ended up with the third most votes on the forum. To me, that was the greatest virtual honor I've received, and I did the best I could at the position. However, I quickly realized it's really not all it's put up to be. We just made the occasional thread about needing a staff position on the forum, talked about it a bit, created a poll, and voted. Sure, we got some perks like alpha testing a forum game, but it really was nothing more. After about a month into Council, we realized that we need a few more people to fill the position called Competition Organizer. Competitions on the forum are basically contests to see who is the best at doing random things, whether it be taking pictures or creating cards for Elements. I thought it would be awesome so I applied for the position. In the end, three of us got the position, all Council Members. I loved that position more than anything else on the forum, and the people I worked with like Kuroaitou were just plain fun to be around.
Two months later, we're looking at the election for the next Council, if it could be called that. I apply again, hoping to do at least as well as I did last time. I'm still not sure why I applied again, since I didn't really like being on the first Council, but I quite a few people wanted me to stay on so I did. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had the second most votes on the Council this time, meaning that I was the second in command. A vice president, if you will. However, instead of the same process as last time, there was an added goal: Debate. When I say debate, I mean debate like the life of a kitten was dependent on it. Council wasn't boring anymore, it, instead, turned into a giant mess of people arguing until they got what they wanted, at least in my eyes. Things still got done at the same pace, but a whole lot more discussion went on in the meantime.
After some time, an event on the forums called Trials were starting again. Trials, essentially, is a competition where a total of sixty players would compete for twelve titles. One title, called Master of Aether, was the one that I wanted to earn. After all, and without getting into too much detail, I helped team Aether in a very large Player vs. Player event. There were three others signed up for competing: icecoldbro, pikachufan, and Higurashi. In the spirit of competition, I looked at the chances of me beating them in the popular vote section of the competition, since my Elements skills are rather mediocre. I knew I could beat icecoldbro easily, since he was easily tempered and not well embraced by the community. pikachufan was somebody nobody heard of at the time, so I wasn't worried about him. Higurashi, on the other hand, was incredibly popular on the chat client, which made a huge difference in the Trials, and is somebody whom I helped make a Tournament Organizer and, consequentially, a moderator of the chat client. I ended up failing the PvP phase and, since the organizers decided to switch the sections of the Trials, I also failed the popular vote because of it.
Something interesting was posted by Higurashi that I will never forget though:
"You've contradicted yourself while trying to trash-talk others, and now you want out. Very sad. I've lost a lot of respect for you."
Source: http://elementsforum.co.cc/index.php/topic,20041.msg277263.html#msg277263
Did I make a mistake by trying to avoid drama? Was I supposed to argue like an imbecile over the littlest of things like that? That is something that I suppose I'll never know. It's like a stranger insulting you on the street, cursing at you for something you've done in the past. They demand answers though they have no place in doing so, so you stutter in confusion, trying to avoid the stranger, but he is just there constantly going. I am over exaggerating, of course, but it hurt me a little that Higurashi never apologized for such a statement made. Anyway, after that, I tried to avoid that person to the best of my abilities. It didn't work since he is a chat mod and is arguably the most popular player in all of the Elements community, but I still tried. Because of that person, and among reasons posted earlier, I decided not to become part of the third Council. It seems others followed suit, and left as well. The third Council will have many new members.
And now, we reach the present. Whenever I log into chat, no longer can I have a civilized conversation without potatoes, a random anime, forum drama, or certain users entering the picture. There are exceptions to this, of course, since people like 3D House of Beef and Terroking still log on occasionally, but the new generation of Elements players isn't something that I'm fond of. They'll do great things for the community and the game itself, no doubt, but I just cannot bring myself to role playing in the chat client all of the time.
I'll stay on the forum as long as I am needed, but not likely long after that. If there is anything I've learned from being on the Elements forum, then it's one of two things. Either I learned to embrace the fact that communities can and will change, or I realized that I need to voice my opinion and not always play Mr. Nice, or, other wise, people will take advantage of me.
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