Walker Postings

Blogging account for WEB214-201

[hunterwposts]

When even the mighty have fallen, will you still rise to the challenge?

Coming soon in 2020, prepare yourselves

[hunterwposts]

Are you prepared to venture forth into a new and unexplored land? Can you stop the Banshee Queen?

Coming sometime in 2020.

[hunterwposts]

“Are you prepared?”

[hunterwposts]

World of Warcraft: Damage Control

To those who have been vaguely aware of Blizzard, they should know of the most recent Bad Press that Blizzard has suffered. They have banned a pro-player, Blitzchung, for one year for expressing their own political and personal beliefs during a livestream hosted by Blizzard. The player said the phrase "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times!" in response to the current climate in Hong Kong currently. Blizzard is largely owned by Tencent, a Chinese super corporation. Blizzard handled this by banning the player, revoking all his prize winnings and subsequently igniting a flame of canceled subscriptions to their games, protest, and awareness campaigns against them. All of their products suffered due to their swift and unreasonable decision.

           To prevent this or rather damage control this situation, Blizzard should have sat on the decision for longer. A hasty ban is always viewed negatively in most gaming communities, especially since there was no option to appeal the ban. Blizzard could and should have issued a temporary ban at most if they insist on making a quick decision. To add more fire to the flames, Blizzard blacklisted the journalist and interviews who listened to Blitzchung. It seems that Blizzard just caved into pressure from one of their parent companies and made every wrong choice. It would be hard to mitigate the damage they’ve done and rebuild trust in the company.

           The first step to recovery, would be to apologize for the hasty decision and reduce the punishment issued. Blizzard has taken this step already and said they reacted to quickly and reduced the ban from 12 months to 6 months as well as giving back the tournament prize winnings. However, this is not nearly enough. Employees and game casters have been stepping down or voicing their discontent. Blizzard needs to regain trust and prove that the values it stands for means something.

           Blizzard should create a new department focused solely on public relations. Their current one is clearly not up to the task. They should create post, tweets, short videos or gifs that express their regret at making such a hasty and wrong choice. They need to promise to reevaluate themselves, and go about making changes to their policies, and staff. They should clearly define what is and isn’t allowed in tournaments and livestreams in 10 or less, straight forward sentences. They should understand that the world is not always a happy place where we can all just watch a game and relax. Promising to investigate ways to bring about a better world where everyone can just relax, and watch would be a good move.

[hunterwposts]

Social Blade and Accounts

Youtuber: Pewdiepie

The Youtuber that I search on SocialBlade is PewDiePie. Why? Because for the majority of YouTube lifetime he has been the most subscribed to Single Creator. By single creator I mean someone who is self-published and is not a company or business of multiple people. I’ve learned that he is the 142nd in terms of Social Blades ranking system despite have the 4th most subscribers, the 15th most viewed views, and being the number one creator in the United States and number one in the entertainment rankings. I didn’t pay much mind to the estimated earnings because PewDiePie has consistently made fun of and laughed at these rankings for their inaccuracy. I think these metrics are mostly accurate except for their estimated income. If I was managing this channel, I think the only thing that could be improved upon would be the actual quality in terms of pixels(4K) in the videos uploaded. That and maybe manage to avoid quite as many controversies.

 Part Two: The accounts that I believe would be beneficial would be a Twitter, Instagram and reddit account.

[hunterwposts]

Despite talking so much about Wendy’s roasting other, there are countless responses like this one where they are actively listening to customer complaints and issues. They are both formal and informal in very effective manners.

[hunterwposts]

Wendy’s will roast customers just as quickly as they roast their competitors. However, at this point it is currently considered lucky or fun to get roasted by wendys.

[hunterwposts]

A prime example of how Wendy’s talks very informally towards competitors but it is so entertaining to witness.

[hunterwposts]

Wendy’s, and their presence

The brand that I’ve chosen for this assignment is Wendy’s. The Wendy’s Twitter account.

Currently the Wendy’s Twitter account is known as being anything but respectful and polite. They constantly roast or rag on their competitors and it is loved by customers. The most recent example I can find is Wendy’s saying “Here lies mediocrity. #EggRIPMuffin” with an image of a tombstone attached reading “RIP Egg McMuffin 1972-2020”. There are countless more examples where they’ve target direct competitors and unrelated ones as well. It appears they follow the mantra of any press is good press if you have a sassy remark and the final say. However, this is mostly how they speak to competitors. Their customer service skills on the same account, when they’re not roasting someone, are exceptional. The interact and engage with customers, they respond to any complaints asking for information and promising to escalate the issue until it is resolved, and use clean, clear proper language.

Based on this information, I believe that their target audience is majority focus on younger generations. The less than >30 age bracket and online communities all exhibit similar communication patterns and styles. It would hold that their audience is members who actively participate in online posting like Twitter etc. with roasting style dialogues. Their goals are to be relatable and fun while still marketing their brand and products. Their language is both informal and formal depending on their target. If it’s a competitor its clearly mocking in nature but for customers, its caring and thoughtful. They chose to write like this to assert they are better than their competitors and to assure customers they are valued.

[hunterwposts]

Self SWOT

Goals: My goals are to graduate from CCC and find a job and eventually a career in the IT field. Whether it be in coding or website design and management or something else entirely I’m not very picky.

Strengths: My strengths are my abilities to code in several different languages, quickly learn new ones, and being open to any and all criticisms.  

Weaknesses: My weaknesses are my lack of specialty in any one area and the fact that I lack connections in the fields I would like to work in.  

Opportunities: The strongest opportunity I have currently is that I can further my education and skill set while here at CCC and make myself more desirable as a worker.

Threats: The biggest threat to me is myself. Being late on assignments or late to class are bad habits that I’m working the break because they will Not be tolerated in a working environment.

[hunterwposts]

SWOT: Blizzard and WoW

Goals: The goals of Blizzard and World of Warcraft are to create an enjoyable yet alluring MMO that rewards players time and effort invested while still giving them something to chase after and play to achieve, all while turning a profit.

Strengths: Their well-known brand of Warcraft. Easily and massively available product. Cheap price to play. Years' worth of content already available as soon as you buy the game.

Opportunities: Their biggest opportunities are wide. They recently created a successful movie, they make amazing CGI shorts, they have multiple games in a wide variety of fields that are mostly successful and near the top of their respective genres. The company sells physical merchandise for all their IP’s and could have a market in physical attractions as well if they ever decided to go that way considering the success of Blizzcon, their own convention dedicated just to their products and worlds.

Weakness: The fact that Blizzard has majority invested in World of Warcraft. Their success greatly depends on the game state at the time. However, they are moving away from this by acquiring other successful titles and by creating new IP’s and making remasters or sequels to their most popular games.

Threats: The biggest threat that WoW faces is bad press. Blizzard is well-known for making bad decisions, having bad stances on political matters and a lot of times ignoring playing feedback. This last point has changed a lot in the past years, but Blizzard seems to always find itself in some controversy from their stance on the FreeHongKong movement, to banning a pro player for expressing their own opinion, to questionable business practices that enforce addictive behaviors. Another key threat is the success of other major MMO’s stealing away players when WoW is in a content drought or lull.

Audience: The goals audience is peoples ages 13-early 20’s and then late 20’s-30’s. Mostly males with plenty of free time. Why? Teenagers have the freest time among the target audience and that allows for them to play the game much more. If you can draw in a few teenage their friends will surely follow to play with them. We skip the 20’s however because 20 is the prime age for people to start working or going to college. They will have the least amount of free time among our audience. We start again at 30’s+ due to these college students graduating and seeking 9-5 jobs guaranteeing they have free time on weekends or after work.

[hunterwposts]

World of Warcraft as a Brand

The brand that I would like to use would be that of World of Warcraft or Blizzard Entertainment, the games company. Blizzard is a game developer that started way back 1991 on February 8th. It was founded by three UCLA graduates interested in online gaming who mainly converted other games to computer systems. However, they would launch The Lost Vikings in 1992, Rock ‘n’ Roll Racing in 1993 and Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994 where they changed their name to Blizzard Entertainment. Later in 1996 Blizzard would launch Battle.net with the release of Diablo. Battle.net allowed their players to play Diablo in a multiplayer experience and chat with each other. Ever since Blizzard has excelled at selling multiplayer games with the customers at the core of the experience. The unique graphics, sounds, and fantasy behind each of their games led to immersive gameplay that kept drawing in more players and guaranteeing their return for years on end until the release of the next title. Their biggest success was to come in 2004 with the release of their next Warcraft title, World of Warcraft. It is a MMORPG and one of the most successful ones ever. The highest peak in concurrent global players was 12 million back in 2010, however WoW follows a cyclical pattern. When new DLCs or expansions release it gets a surge in players, and as they complete or finish the content and wait for new experiences they stop playing. The next huge peak would be in 2016 at 5.67 million players.

[hunterwposts]

Module 6: Post One

What is my personal brand? What does it look like? What is the brand awareness level like?

Currently my brand is that of a willing to learn student. I am not overly committed or specialized in any one field and can adapt and focus into any field. It looks like me. I am a student attending Cleveland Community College taking classes towards achieving a double major in Web Dev. And Design as well as Cisco Networking. My brand awareness would be greatly tied into my networking skills and my ability to express my current skills but more importantly the skills I am capable of attaining. Website likes Linked in are a great tool for this.

A real world brand that we have not talked about is World of Warcraft. Their brand is that of a massive online role-playing game that wants to draw you in for hours and hours at a time multiple times per week. It is a fantasy world to get lost in. Their Logo is “Choose your allegiance” as the game world as two major factions, The Alliance and The Horde, fighting for resources and power in a constantly war-torn world. Their logo is the name World of Warcraft in big bold text with a world behind the text. It changes based on the current content the game is experiencing such as major DLC’s or new updates. The game uses an amazing score of music that some 15 years later, I can still remember it and the memories made in game when I hear it. I have played the game since it launched in 2004 and despite this much time in game, due to updates, DLC’s, and an overhaul of the game world I still find new things to do or places to explore.

[hunterwposts]

Why?

I chose the topic of DND as I have a theme going and would like to continue it. Writing a script helped for sure. Beside some slight stuttering, I almost completely avoided “Catch-up” phrases like “Um” and “ahh” and it kept the story straight. I originally was going to do both audio and video but decided on just audio as I am not confident in my video editing skills. My thoughts on AV Media is that it is extremely useful if done right and extremely distracting if done wrong. It can enhance any message you have but information overload is much easier when it comes to visual and audio media versus just text based media.

[hunterwposts]

Visit Original Link

Short story summary of the first part of the mines of phandelver DND campaign

[hunterwposts]

The Mines of Phandelver

Module 5: Audio/Video - Dungeons and Dragons

Not far from Neverwinter, the jewel of the North, this is the story of a group of four adventurers who set out all with their own goals in mind, but fate would have them become intertwined. Some 500 years ago, a clan of stout dwarves and gnomes made an agreement here, known as Phandelver’s Pact. This pact would be an agreement to share in a rich mine known as Wave Echo Cave. In addition to the rich mine, the cavern contained great magical power which led human mages to ally themselves with the dwarves and gnomes. With their combined might they created and powered the Forge of Spells. A powerful forge capable of creating strong magical items. With plenty of wealth and power, they prospered as did the surrounding towns, especially the town of Phandalin. This prosperity wouldn’t last, however. An orc horde, a menace to everyone, soon swept through the lands destroying and pillaging everything they came across. To make matters worse, these orcs were working in combined effort with evil wizards who sought to attack and steal the powers of Wave Echo Cave. The resulting conflicts nearly destroyed the cavern, causing cave ins and tremors. Thanks to this battle and the sheer loss of life the location of Wave Echo Cave was lost to time.   Centuries have passed and though countless rumors of famed riches brought many treasure seekers, none were ever successful in finding the caverns. However, that is all about to change as the Rockseekers, a trio of dwarfven brothers, have gone missing and their escort hires you and several other adventurers.

The new age tale begins with a group of adventures hired to escort a wagon of supplies to town. Typically, an easy job, as no bandits want to attack a guarded wagon, but today was different. Goblin raiders from the Cragmaw tribe attacked. Blocking the road was the bodies of two dead horses, their bodies riddled with arrows. Upon inspecting the horses, four goblin ambushers leap out and attack the party. After a quick battle they are easily defeated, and the party continues to discover their hideout. Deciding to fight and defeat the goblin to ensure the roadway remains safe for others they venture inside. Inside they find a Bugbear, a massive goblin looking creature who's easy to anger. He rants about his master instructing him to pillage and steal from everyone especially the Rockseeker brothers, giving away his connection to them. After defeating him, the party heads to town where they learn of a bandit group who has been harassing town and might have information about the trio of brothers. Finding them was as easy as looking valuable, and soon the party found themselves at their hideout. Venturing inside they faced many traps, puzzels and weak fighters before finally encountering a strong opponent in the mysterious Glassstaff who flees before the party can make their way to him. In his hasty retreat though he left behind countless important papers and documents.   Glazing over some minor encounters and clue chasing the party finally find Wave Echo Cave where their true battle with mastermind at work will begin!

[hunterwposts]

Why?

I chose a theme of DND because I love the creativity it allows and the immense community behind it. Players can do literally anything they set their minds to (with their Dungeon Master or DM allowing it). Twitter is a great place to find artworks, stories, and characters for Dungeons and Dragons because of the simply use of Hashtags grouping lots of good content together and making it easy to find. I found lots of interesting art and stories but elected not to use anyone elses work or experiences for my own post. My photographs don’t tell a linear story but more of an experience. They highlight some tools uses, the fun of making unique characters, and the freedom in map making. I 100% believe that micro-blogging can allow for great meaningful conversations. The reason is simple. We people talk to each other day to day, we don’t talk in monologues for 13 paragraphs but rather shorter, quicker, responses that get responded to and so forth. Micro-blogging seems more like a natural conversation to me than any other articles of writing etc.