Hey guys,
I don’t know if you’ll read this but I just thought id give it a shot. I recently started playing Guild Wars 2 about 2 months ago and I have really got into the game. I instantly fell in love with how well rounded this MMO was. Having played a lot of MMOs, i could tell that this game stood out in ways most people seem to ignore or forget. For that, and for keeping on going despite criticisms, kudos to the ANet team. Now I’ll get back to my story.
I am from India. A country that condemns a lot of things right from gaming to creativity. Even since I was a child, having been a social outcast, games were my only refuge and i know this might come off as sad, but it was my only reason to live. I felt no shame in knowing that i was happiest when i was someone else, that too a game character and that there was no real person i wanted to be. No real person inspired me as much as characters in games. I quickly found myself entering the industry, testing games, playing competitively, and most importantly writing scripts.
It was my dream to one day work as a game producer, to write stories and design games that would share the happiness and goodwill i got from games all my life with other people. I was on the road to it too, till my parents, as all Indian ones do, decided my future for me. Everything I dreamed, everything i worked for, everything i loved was being mocked, ridiculed and looked down upon every single day, with the hope that i would change my mind and accept my fate as an “engineer”. My mind never did change though, I completely ignored my formal education and worked to create my own production company with a few friends to help independent developers and programmers go forward with their games. (www.badconductor.com) My efforts were yet again mocked and made fun of. In rage and disobedience, i deliberately failed my engineering papers. But that made things worse, and i soon regretted it. I had to come to terms with the fact that all my dreams of doing my masters in FIEA, or of moving out of India or of working with a game company was destroyed. I was stuck here either being useless or doing what my parents wished me to do.
Fact is, that gaming will always be a part of me and i will not taste success till i have been able to bring the smiles and laughter, the joy and sadness, on the faces on those who play the games I’ve worked on. Just as when i was little, the games of others did for me. I wrote a script outline for my portfolio for both FIEA as well as Ubisoft, both of whom appreciated it and wanted to actually work on making my script into a full fledged game. But again, society forced me, my creativity and my work to rot in the bottomless pit of conditioning and neither ever heard from me again.
i don’t know if i will ever get to do the job i love so much. The job i do at my leisure even when no one sees or pays me for it. The job i do because it makes me feel happy in the solitude of my home and my country of people who don’t understand. My work that remains in a folder on my computer because there is nothing I can do with it other than read it myself and know that i am good at what i do, even if no one around me is willing to acknowledge that its even a real skill.
The real reason im writing all this is because i envy each and every one of you. I have seen your work, admired it, lived in it and played it. I cannot begin to tell you guys how lucky you are to be able to do what you guys do. To be able to make people happy the way you do. I would give anything to be in any of your places or be among you doing what you do. But at the moment for me that is just a distant dream, and the way things looks right now, will probably never cease to be. So the best i can do is admire the work of those who live my dream; to let you guys know that you are doing and exceptional and wonderful job and to not let any of those destructive criticisms get to you because people who have never done this do not know, or even have an idea, of what it takes to make a game and even more so, keep one going as long as this has. I mean, think about it, would a writer take spelling and grammar suggestions from sum1 hu typs lyk dis?
Wishing you all the best for the future and the future of GW2.
Kieran Saldanha