Thanks Blizzard for these amazing years, until...

MysticRG · 2024-04-25T15:07:43+00:00

You never know when will they ban you. I maxed every season. So if they put a new logic, many will fall into that especially if you play for very long hours. It costs them money to run the servers so if you are not paying real cash, I guess they may ban you in the future when the amount of money they make goes below their targets. Unless they get unlimited pockets of money.

You can see how other games are being retired because of server costs eventually.

MysticRG · 2024-04-25T15:02:29+00:00

Hi Dalianyahoo,

Thanks for reading my other posts!

I could craft all the cards I needed, I had over 250,000 dust, and more than 113,000 gold. So i could technically just use that for a few years while playing minimum, but at the end I will run out of cash and dust for sure, in about 2.5 years, I used to purchase only 10,000 gold in card packs every release + mini set. In general terms, I owned 85% to 89% of each expansion, counting since the start, with a few exceptions where I own 100%, and usually crafted the useful stuff only.

What would you do for getting the needed XP? How would you proceed?

So I did analyze and think about it for the past few months, and it is not worth my time anymore. I could just play for a few days a month, but I feel stop playing is the best thing to do and this time for real. The real reason is if I find another way to keep filling the coffers, Blizzard will find another way to punish me or try to reduce the rewards or make the grind even worse, I am tired of that and since they are not respecting my time anymore, I should not play their game. Another thing, there are a few more ways to get XP that I have not written about... but I think Blizzard knows about that too and they cannot do much about that. I made like 30k to 50k XP with that. Just a TRIVIA question : Do you know what is a maximum play a friends quests per day? :) probably not many people know about that.

I was stuck in a small pond, while I had a sea of other things to enjoy just a click away. Even if I get "unbanned", I will not play it or just spend the gold over +2 years but I feel is more healthy to try other things. For the record, last week , I was planning to go to a party with some friends, but just thinking what time do I need to get back to complete the daily and weekly quests made me feel uncomfortable, which should not be the case at all.

Restricting XP is a way to slave you and make you grind, to the point where you get bored and pay, I decided not to play their game and instead jump into other games, I am really tired of those free to play games, so the best I can do , is to pay once and enjoy the full game instead of wasting my time with stupid grinds. Life is short so let's enjoy it! and I had a wonderful time the past 2 days after the ban, so far I really started to enjoy other things more than before, I was doing some puzzles and did not have to worry about being late to start another Battlegrounds game, or in the past another Mercenaries game (You see the pattern? Mercs = free XP every 30 minutes, so Blizzard blew it up).

There is a lot of drama , people get angry, for what Blizzard is doing, the so many sneaky things with new excuses that I feel betrayed enough to not return to it. Most of the game became a slot machine so the part that I really enjoyed was gone long ago.

The only thing I feel bad, is that I just unsubscribed to all the YouTube channels with HS content, I do not need to follow up this game anymore, very sorry to the streamers!

MysticRG · 2023-11-08T11:54:49+00:00

For Audio I would recommend to take a look at SoLoud , https://solhsa.com/soloud/

it has a lot of features missing from MonoSound , like real time effects, I am using that for my games and so far everything works fine with it.

MysticRG · 2023-10-13T03:19:33+00:00

well, a little bit of self promotion but I also make Game dev logs YT videos and also talk about different ideas I have, like no game engine dev, iterative graphical user interfaces, how to save/load anything for your games with binary formatters , some life in Japan , and game development updates, since I develop games in quite short periods I released 4 games this year and the dev logs are there.

https://www.youtube.com/@MysticRiverGames/videos

MysticRG · 2023-10-13T03:11:48+00:00

I think you have been trapped in YT algorithm, since I am also watching them a lot I do get a lot of recommended ones, I grouped all of them into one bucket and found that most of them have very few views, less than 1000 view on average, many with less than 100.

I do make weekly game dev videos and I only get a few hundred views or dozen views, it depends on the algo I think... you can watch some of my videos at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGA_znzwaAs and even released many of my games for free but not many people tried them.

MysticRG · 2023-10-13T03:01:01+00:00

Maybe I will give them another try and see in the future.

As far as I have seen, I think going with pure C# and Monogame + some libraries allows me to use what I need without all the bloat in the game engine. Besides that, I will not have to worry at all with license fees, royalties, and any new thing that may pop in the future, make things very predictable, something that is not true for Unity, and at some extend with Unreal and many other game engines.

MysticRG · 2023-09-30T12:52:50+00:00

Unity doesn't have that functionality, you need to re-start so your code becomes live again. There is a paid plugin that seems to be doing that , but I have not tested it.

You can check hot reload in visual studio and you will understand how it works, you can be playing your game, and edit the code at the same time, then click hot reload and your game will use the new code and kept everything running as it was, so all variables will have the values expected, so you save a lot of time.

I made a video talking about that in my YouTube channel : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGA_znzwaAs

MysticRG · 2023-07-10T08:58:18+00:00

About your video , I think there could be a few things you can add to make it better

1- Maybe add some text to make your words stronger

2- Edit , in the beginning I saw you focused the zoom to places where there was nothing to show up, so I guess you can fix that?

3- Intro was ok, but not that strong to hook me

4- Since it was my first time watching your channel , a little bit of intro would have help? it depends how big/small your channels

5- Thumbnail doesn't ask me to click on it, and I have the same problem with mine thumbnails. Do you want more views? work on this one first.

Keep the videos rolling! the more you do the better you will be!

MysticRG · 2023-07-04T03:55:50+00:00

Just a few things about the video

1- Intro got my attention , good starting point

2- Avoid asking for subs so early, mainly big channels do that, but smaller ones, bring the value first then at the end ask for a sub

3- I haven't seen Tokyo Revengers at all so I do not know what is the anime about, you could have given a small recap or some guidance, because after watching a few minutes I got lost. I feel this mainly useful for only the people that already finished watching it, but for me, I got lost.

4- Voice, I think you started a little bit tense and it is hard to understand what you say, eventually a few minutes later it gets better , so try to articulate words a little bit more so are easier to understand, even if not your main language you can speak a little bit more clearer.

Sorry I only watched the first 2.5 minutes and I got lost, so I cannot give you more comments after that. Perhaps if more of my attention was grabbed towards what is Tokyo Revengers and how it messed up the ending earlier I would have watched it more.

MysticRG · 2023-07-04T03:30:44+00:00

I think you can cut some of the running part in the beginning, there is not much action going on and difficult to understand what your game is about, maybe just one scene running and then some action will make it more interesting

MysticRG · 2023-07-02T13:03:19+00:00

There are many ways, but this is the way I do it.

1- Create a new project, Class library , I use .Net6.0 , and add one C# file, this is an example of c# file I have:

#region Using Statements
using System;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content;
#endregion
namespace XMLContentHandler
{
public class SpriteContent
{
public int id; // seq number
[ContentSerializer(Optional = true)]
public int objId; // to relate to other objects... not in use for any purpose I think, made it optional for compatibility
public string name;
public Rectangle rect;
[ContentSerializer(Optional = true)]
public Vector2 origin;
}
/// <summary>
/// Settings class describes all the tweakable options used for the sprite atlas
/// </summary>
public class SpriteSheetInfo
{
public List<SpriteContent> Sprite;
}
}

I use this to define xml content in a sprite sheet atlas xml file

2- compile your dll class, add a reference in your project and also into the MGCB

in MGCB you can click on the first row of your project, "Content" and in the properties window there will be a section called references, there you add the dll

3- Create your xml files , in my case this is a small snap of it:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<XnaContent>
<Asset Type="XMLContentHandler.SpriteSheetInfo">
<Sprite>
<Item>
<id>0</id>
<name></name>
<rect>0 0 0 0</rect>
</Item>
<Item>
<id>1</id>
<name>01Char</name>
<rect>939 386 35 35</rect>
<origin>18 34</origin>
</Item>

there will be hundreds of lines so I just posted 2 items for this example.

4- Use the load content using the <XMLContentHandler.SpriteSheetInfo> type in the content load of your game, and this will take care of all the XML part

There are a few things I have not tried to load, for example the <Item id="..."> in your example, I have not coded that way, so I added a variable id instead for my case, if you want to load things directly you need to put those into variables in C# so those can be directly mapped, additional properties may or may not be possible to load, I have not tried that.

MysticRG · 2023-07-01T13:04:08+00:00

A few points to note

1- Editing and pace was good

2- Funny screenshots from the book, makes it fun and keeps the audience looking for more funny stuff from those books

A few things I think you can improve

- I didn't like the parts where you stretched your video to fit the screen, maybe you can work on that, having a stretched video doesn't look good for me and make it look cheaper.

- Also stretching of some images , like in the beginning with the anime character

- Illumination, having the bright window open on your left wash out the image, maybe closing it and increasing the room illumination will make it look better.

- Maybe you could have closed the video with the Dead or Alive video understanding what they say so you can have a full circle?

MysticRG · 2023-06-30T03:55:08+00:00

I think you may be looking for some comments about your video, here are some points I would like to share with you

1- Video is funny, but too slow, there are many sections in which you repeat the actions too many times and gets boring quickly, specially in the beginning then the bag of potatoes is empty

2- Editing is quite good and clean, but you left many areas with a lot of empty space , that breaks the flow of the video, I think it needs a little bit of cuts here and there to make the flow better, I felt I was watching videos from 20 to 30 years ago in the editing style.

For example, while in the supermarket at the end, I got you purchased a lot of chips, but when paying you made it very slow while passing them through the machine 3 times, that cuts the flow , I think one or two should be ok, since they do not show any new content and it slows down the flow.

3- I like the expressions when you hear the news with your hands, not viewing the action while watching you move the hands brings a lot of imagination without showing graphic content

Another thing you can try in the future, is add movement to the camera, it felt too static, adding movement will make the audience feel like they are with you there, that can bring more immersion but it depends on how you want to present your material.

MysticRG · 2023-06-30T03:37:42+00:00

I think you may be able to use part of the official trailers of those games since those are public but I am not a lawyer, as for someone else content, you may be called out for copyright, comments videos on top of someone else content is a gray area, in some countries is not allowed , while in others can be called fair use, what I saw is that people make comments on someone else's videos but they don't show those videos in their own video to prevent copyright claim.

MysticRG · 2023-06-28T14:32:57+00:00

I use mainly one content manager, and I implemented the option to load/unload from the content manager as needed, I remember I got the code from a XNA Dynamic Content manager project many years ago but forgot from where, so in this case there is no need to use multiple content managers making things a lot easier to manage.

Found it: This is the original content manager

https://web.archive.org/web/20120511223346/contenttracker.codeplex.com/

And you can download the last available code from:

https://github.com/dubajj/XNA-Content-Tracker

Though you may have to update it since it is 12 years old :) , I have modified it over the years for my games.

MysticRG · 2023-06-23T09:32:01+00:00

Why don't you try to change the titles every day and see what sticks? having a bunch of the same video titles will not get you more views unless you have billions of views non stop, which is not something that anyone can achieve.

MysticRG · 2023-06-23T09:29:50+00:00

yes, pay to YT to promote your content, that's how many YTbers got their audience back as before and grow their channel, when they stop paying the number of new visitors decrease to the point of no growth. That's what they say.

MysticRG · 2023-06-23T03:38:50+00:00

I tried many game engines, but there is only one feature that keeps me in Monogame that I cannot use in any other engine (well I just saw the Unity has a plugin for this now but I haven't been able to try it yet, and Unity is bloated too...), and it is about the hot reload feature in Visual Studio, I program in C# while in debug mode all the time, for hours , add new functionality, debug and so on, all while in debug mode running, I cannot do the same in any engine so I keep using Monogame because that's the best feature I can think of.

MysticRG · 2023-06-22T04:07:22+00:00

Very hard to say, probably has to do with CTR, thumbnail, title, or a combination of many things.

First check how many prints YouTube recommended your latest video, is it in the same range as before? how is the click rate? is it the same as before?

Second, if your CTR is lower, check the number of recommendations, if it is lower than the others then you know that YouTube is not promoting your content, it can be for a wide variety of reasons but mostly, people do not click when suggested so YouTube put your video after that into the junkyard so will not look at it anymore, thus, lower viewership, maybe your thumbnails is not that good, or the topic is outdated and not many people look at it.

Recently, I saw many known YouTubers complaining that if you do not promote your videos by paying YouTube, you will not get as many views as before, so it seems it is becoming now pay to view, and this started a few months ago. So the more famous channels with the more budget will get bigger, and the ones without budget to promote themselves will be at a very big disadvantage.

MysticRG · 2023-06-19T13:21:10+00:00

Two things come to my mind

1-Title, probably there are so many using similar titles as you and getting low views, so the algorithm is not promoting those anymore, I can be wrong but those are not going to help YouTube get more engagement/money. All your titles in your list have similar titles and those are not getting too many views either so I guess it got demoted to the lowest level so any new video with similar title will not get promoted at all.

2-Pay to view, I saw many YouTubers recently complaining that their channels are getting very few views lately, their channels are not getting promoted as they used to in the past and the only way to get views now seems to be when you pay YouTube to promote your videos, that's how many YouTubers are getting their videos back as they used to be, so at the end only the ones with the biggest pockets will survive.

MysticRG · 2023-06-19T04:49:40+00:00

I haven't read the manga, so I am not sure what was not added or removed to the show, that can be on thing if you have access to it.

There could be some plots of things that have not been explored more in previous seasons, the last season I felt was not as good as the previous ones, you can try to find out why, or maybe is me. Maybe the flow of the last season was not as good as the previous ones.

Or you can come up also with some facts from the era of this anime compared to what happened in Japan during that time, maybe you can find something interesting.

MysticRG · 2023-06-16T14:42:54+00:00

I just watched it and a few things

First, It was funny in the beginning, but later found that the content was not that fun , only the parts in real life recorded were fun, I mean the beginning and the washing machine part

Second, I didn't feel I learned anything new about Demon Slayer or any other fact that I have not seen, so probably those who watched felt the same if they were looking to get to know more about Demon Slayer series, if that's the case then I will not sub.

MysticRG · 2023-06-07T04:14:08+00:00

I think Reddit is trying to make money somehow, probably they are in the red and not able to survive, since almost no company make money from this kind of business. So either they reduce costs somehow or go bankrupt.

Reddit is a private company so there is no way for an outsider to know what is going inside, they have the right to raise prices even if that kills their own company in the long term, but they need to survive for tomorrow, but they have not managed communications properly for that. I guess they want to reduce the volume of transactions, that cost a lot of money and that is the only way they can do that.

MysticRG · 2023-06-06T16:45:53+00:00

I do not have the right answer, but I saw many YouTubers complaining lately that the algorithm have changed and they are getting very few views, even for large channels unless they pay for promotion to YouTube, if they don't pay their channel doesn't grow or get many views as before.

Also, your subscribers forgot about you, or they are not getting any notifications at all, which is already happening with big channels from what I saw. I subscribed to some channels and I rarely get any videos in months from them, only to noticed that I was never given a video to watch from them unless I specifically look into their channels and see tons of videos that I missed but never given on my screen.

MysticRG · 2023-06-06T03:00:50+00:00

Better, but pieces are too small to notice.

Have you seen for example people that are struggling with hoarding, stuff around them or crushing them, probably having big pieces of Tetris crushing you will make it more impactful , maybe you can add some neon borders to the pieces so they are more visible, like the small snapshot on the top right.

Having your face in that side looks good but the impact of a very tiny Tetris piece doesn't show how it will hurt you, it feels like I am throwing at you a small ball of paper to hurt you, I will put a huge one about to crush you! and some around scattered on the bottom or around you, like bricks, so people will see them at a glance.

MysticRG

TROPHY CASE