Hello everyone, Long time no type! It's been far too long between my posts so I decided to give you all a quick rundown of what I've been doing since I finished work for the year: that yucky icky year which was 2019.

I might be a bit uncouth in the following post but please bear with me and keep an open mind: After all we are a community whose strength is built upon free and open expression.

Please take note that all of the Splinterlands / SteemMonsters graphics i've used are taken from this awesome post here by @flauwy on Steempeak. https://steempeak.com/spt/@flauwy/free-splinterlands-graphics-i-will-design-for-you . Show your support because he is awesome, his graphics are awesome!!!!!!!!!!

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Now lets get on with my binge...

and purge...

shall we?

Dirtcember 2019 is over...

I finished the year of 2019 with a great scowl on my face and the weight of the world bearing itself on my soul. December was gruelling and gave me one of the most arduous months I've ever endured in my entire working career. Wont go into the gruesome details but I left that last day of work for the year determined to blast my brain out of its current hyper-vigilant and overwrought orbit I seemed to be stuck rotating around and around, gravitational pulls of melancholy and exhaustion sucking me into the black hole.

I had enough halfway through that last work day of 2019; so much so I had a hissy fit and ranted loudly at the clients, the directors, my peers and the whole sloppy mess of this world. Fuck It, Fuck them, Fuck You and Fuck Me! I stood up abruptly and stalked my way home simmering in frustration. There was still half the work day left to go.

I had to, you see. I needed to break out of this plotted course of doom that my mindstate was being pulled and sucked into, I had to do something to stop crashing into psychotic calamity!

Ah it wasn't that bad, really. I'm being a bit melodramatic I think.

I arrived at home calmly, no longer in my tizzy of a huffy, puffy grumpy state and set about devoting the rest of the evening to learning more about Splinterlands. It's now around a week (and 800+ booster packs of Untamed) later and i'm sitting outside with my pen, paper, cigarette and cup of tea, drafting this looooooooong overdue post. No more procrastinating over what is a true passion for me. I must write again!

You see, I tend to take things too seriously at times. The previous weeks and months between posts on the Steem blockchain, my normally elastic and ebullient intellect was in no state of mind to author anything other than vitriolic angst which I would punctuate with abundant contempt and scorn.

So many started drafts and half finished investigations... Boy, I needed a Break. But real life that old chestnut with it's responsibilities like;

1. paying bills,
2. wiping your own ass
3. contemplating existential suicide by drowning within the office water cooler,
4. or scrubbing the befouled toilet bowl that our men's bathroom had at work

just would not let me get on with doing what I loved doing

So I dove into Splinterlands with gay abandon, losing myself in the delicious nostalgia of being a young boy again and discovering Magic The Gathering for the first time.

I went hardcore. I played, studied, read and interacted so much with the Splinterland online communities yet something was curiously amiss here. It was confusing to the layman despite the kindness shared with new members. I was truly amazed to see the senior Splinterlands players interact with new members earnestly and how their conversations were interspersed with charity & patient education. Yet it wasn't enough.

I wanted to help! I wanted to try to make the induction for newbies nowhere near as befuddling as it was for me (even with my 2 years experience posting on the STEEM blockchain). I see this still as a major obstacle in the widespread adoption & continued engagement of a global playerbase.

So what is to be done to overcome this obstacle?

Well, that is still a work in progress really.

Wanting to help is one thing, keeping up to date and educating others is quite the other. Outside of the Splintertalk.io SPT-generating content published there, it would be hard for the newcomer reading it to conceive that anything could be difficult here.

It sounds like Magic The Gathering, or Hearthstone but on a blockchain..

Well it is (to an extent). But how do you explain that to someone who has never used any blockchain technology or has no exposure to cryptocurrencies?

This isn't a simple concept to bring to the online gaming public. It could be easier understood by trading card game enthusiasts as well as existing STEEM members but not without at least some research with guidance through the concept of blockchain gaming, Non-fungible Tokens, how it all works and how to play the game itself.

There's also the whole financial side to the Splinterlands experience: Cryptocurrencies and speculative online investing go together like ball and chain, inseperable and likely to burden you with every step taken if you don't know what the fuck is going on!

I found that a lot of the content on splintertalk.io tends to flutter around the periphery of the game itself, instead seeking to focus on the strategic investment opportunities and financial possibilities that this blockchain based card game alludes to.

I'm a little turned off by this: it's a card game folks (a very excellent, simple and addictive one at that). I bought what boosters and cards I did certain in the knowledge that I wanted to play the card game and not that other game, where everyone's a winner baby!

The Mac Tonight character at Solid Gold McDonald's in Greensfield, Wisconsin.

to the moon et-al, yada yada yada...

Tiresome Shit really.

• So this is my purge. It's only a brief excoriation of the self-serving nature i've witnessed in SPT and Splinterlands related posts. As a community, your strength is that of being able to take criticism, rebuke it and/or learn from it for the good of all the current community and all those yet to join your card game cavalcade.

Big Heart Y'all.

I mean no offence, I love this game and I want to see it flourish worldwide. It has soooooo much potential and the future possibilities excite me so much too but y'all need to calm ya farm and put on your Newbies hat first. The majority of posts on splintertalk.io are not going to entice or intrigue the public much and there is a glaring gap of any go-to reference for newbies.

They need education, they need up to date information and LOTS of it!

Almost every newcomer into the Splinterlands discord server is bamboozled, struggling with how to register, create a new account, manage steem-engine, manage your steemit wallet, manage your NFT (non-fungible token) cards, understand where they physically are and how they are accessible... It goes on and on and i'm still learning myself.

We need to do more as a community than just share our posts on splintertalk.io. Unlike Pink Floyd's - The Wall, we seriously do need more educayshun for the Newbies! We need to provide it in an accessible format that has all the detail anyone could want.
Most vital to the education of Newbies!, is a continuously updated FAQ reference page which reflects what the most common questions / problems amongst newcomers are.

Splinterlands.io must seriously make an effort on this. Otherwise the younger generation wont pick it up readily, the current generation wont care or understand it and the current player base could just wither under its own enervated familiarity with each other and the game.

Get that fresh meat into the grinder guys! No time to waste!

So then, What Next?

Well, I am going to propose something....

I know we are addicted to playing Splinterlands all the time and playing it as much as possible to buy those expensive cards with that DEC that we toiled so hard for.. But that is not going to do anything except generate your SPT driven posts on the splintertalk.io platform and perhaps fill your crypto wallet after some nifty market/ exchange magic.

Firstly: This needs updating... DESPERATELY!

• Steem.Center wiki entry for Steem Monsters
  Looks like it hasn't been updated since 2018... seriously??? Even the Discord server Invite has expired long ago

Anyone interested in generating actual buzz and educational content worthy of presenting to newcomers that also lures in the skeptics? Please let me know!

I'm usually in the Discord Server (current invite link is here). My first task is to compile all the latest media coverage regarding STEEM blockchain and Splinterlands then update that Steem.Center wiki entry with it, update all the contacts details and social media pages linked. Shouldn't be too hard? Just some Mark up wiki-editing?

Let's do this!!! First person across the finish line gets a genuine, minty ALPHA BOOSTER!

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Haha, that one was fake! Here's the real one...

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LOL, J/K here it is....

ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Post-Script:

In all seriousness, I've spent thousands in the last month on this game and have been doing quite well recouping that into STEEM, SBD and a collection of kick-ass cards I'm keen on collecting into the future. I'm also having a blast reliving the excitement of my childhood and indulging in near life-long obsession with collectible card games, i love the trading and all the ancillary ways to buy, sell, trade, exchange, rent etc etc and this is what feels the most revolutionary to me about Splinterlands' offering.

The Steem Blockchain itself is something I'm very fond of, been that way since I discovered it 2+ years ago. It would be quite an upset if by some freakish impossibility, this game does not do anything for #steem or worse, damages it. I don't consider that a possibility, infact I don't even have the technical know-how to understand how anything like that could happen. I'm still a Newbie on the blockchain really!

So! Let me reiterate that I'm committed to this place, it's continual evolution and keeping this chain full of fecundity : if not for the success of Splinterlands, then for the retention of my beloved STEEM Blockchain. This place is my lovely witches cauldron, my tinkerer's lab that will facilitate a new kryptonite for fighting the #informationwar with ;-)

Mwah!

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