Praise the STEEM!

Demon Souls / Dark Souls - not sure if you've played or heard about these games before. I happen to love everything about them, especially for their unforgiving difficulty so uncommonly found in modern video games. It's an action-survival masterpiece that turns insurmountable obstacles into fun gameplay. Here's what a writer from Slate said about the game:-

There is real beauty in Dark Souls. It reveals that life is more suffering than pleasure, more failure than success, and that even the momentary relief of achievement is wiped away by new levels of difficulty. It is also a testament to our persistence in the face of that suffering, and it offers the comfort of a community of other players all stuck in the same hellish quagmire. Those are good qualities. That is art. And you can get all of that from the first five hours of Dark Souls. The remaining 90 or so offer nothing but an increasingly nonsensical variation on that experience.

So let's talk about the currency used in the game's rather enigmatic universe - Souls, something that's quite genius as a game design element, also serving as social commentary about currency. Here's the use and lore of the currency, as stated in one of its Wiki pages. It's mildly interesting, but bear with me:-

Souls are required for players to become stronger in the game by raising their soul level as well as buying and upgrading Equipment. Players will lose all souls upon death, but may regain them by touching their bloodstain. They are lost permanently if the owner dies again before they reach their bloodstain.

The soul is the source of all life. Losing the soul will drive the owner into madness, causing them to attack anything in sight in an attempt to regain their soul.

Since the fall of the kingdom, souls have become the prime currency of the land. Merchants, who do not bear the skill to reap the souls of others be they sane or otherwise, sell goods in exchange for souls to preserve their sanity. Those who fail to maintain a steady flow of souls become insane and attack the sane due to their possession of souls. The insane do not recognize friend from foe, only distinguishing between those who have souls and those who do not.

King Allant used the power of the soul to bring great fortune to his kingdom of Boletaria. When the Demons arrived, they enslaved the soul-starved humans.

The souls, as well as preserving sanity can be used as a power source, used to focus the power of magic. This magic is called Soul Power and imbues the self or the magic emanated from the self. This lead to the two branches of magic, known as the Soul Arts, which are sorcery and miracles. However all magic, be it 'holy' or unholy, is derived from the Old One because the Old One's presence is the source of magic.

_{This might also be a dramatic illustration of your experience on Steemit}

The reason why I brought this up is to compare Souls to the many different currencies found in other games, ranging from something as simple as the high-score in Pacman, to something as complex as Mana in Magic: The Gathering. And not to forget so many other IRL currencies too, like USD, EUR, XAU, GOOG, BTC, STEEM, etc. What about Facebook likes and Youtube subscribers? Do these currencies have their own "soul" or "spirit"?

It all ultimately boils down to perception and preference. While I do not relate much being the best in attaining the many different currencies out there, I'm sure that we have many motivations in us to put our time into whatever we do. It just depends on what game or currency that happens to attract us.

I can't really explain why I love the charm of Dark Souls as an insanely difficult game. Maybe it's simply the satisfaction of overcoming obstacles, and no doubt a one-of-a-kind experience made alive in its rather well-designed universe. It's a hit-or-miss for sure, but the popularity of this game shows there may be something worth spending some time thinking about when it comes into thinking about the soul of STEEM. What's the spirit of this post? How shall STEEM be attained? What's the goal of the currency?

Let's take into consideration about the platform's inevitable difficulty spike for most of us at any point in time, quite simply because we're all limited by attention, money, morale, etc. If you look at my blog history, my posts in the past were very well rewarded. Several four-figured posts. I had it rather easy just posting whatever that I really wanted to write about, so I was happy, and lucky there's a group of people looking after my posts (which is why I think many different kinds of curation guilds are essential as the network grows to look after behind the scenes). But I know these kind of things won't last very long, and true enough, the rewards have dwindled for me. But still more than Facebook, lol.

And that's okay - it's not like I need obscene amounts since I'm not in a rush of spending huge amounts developing stuff for the network at the moment, nor do I have any desire to lose my mind over money. It's more exciting to learn, evolve, and more importantly, adjust dependency when it comes to expectations of money. The network is not just about me. But my eyes are still on the prize, as always lol.

It's just quite romantic to work and design something that can somehow grab attention, while imparting or delivering something of value - something that's a part of me. About posts not getting rewards.. in all seriousness, I've been writing pretty long posts on Facebook for the longest time - about 10 years for free, and without much of an audience. Intrinsic value is a thing.

So what soul shall STEEM have? Here's what I said in one of my first Steemit posts called Praise the Steem!

Writing in here improves the valuation of my stakes in other cryptos as well.. all good.

Wrote that because I felt there's a community of people in the same adventure, and if everybody's onboard in building a second life in this new world of cryptocurrencies, spending my time around here would invariably improve my overall "blockchain game", which is arguably something big and life-changing.

So to learn from Souls..

• Inherent, inevitable difficulties can be turned into something fun and satisfying.
• There needs to be a perception of receiving value - extrinsic or intrinsic, despite managing to lose one's soul.
• Try not to lose your soul in the process, for it will be a painful experience.
• But no matter how difficult, please try again.
• Make it known that the game is difficult and requires effort.
• Of course, there also needs to be some agent / device that helps players every once in a while.

All said, this is just like anyone's experience on this platform. It's certainly insanely difficult trying to make a self-governing social platform that surpasses our self-defeating tendencies. We have all types ranging from overprotective parents, to wake-up callers, to trolls (still people). For all of us still hanging around for whatever reasons, let's have fun playing the most difficult game in the world! Try not to lose your soul!

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Some interesting articles about embracing difficulty as part of UX:-

_{http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/178262/deep_dungeon_exploring_the_design_.php?print=1}

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