Location-Based Narratives

Good Day Guardians,

Unlike last week's post, this one is going to be a bit different. Specifically, with today's post I will be delving into the world of Gaming, and how the focus of this blog intertwines the concepts of Social Media, with that of a Location-Based Narrative.

However, there is quite a drought of narrative content when it comes to community managers on social media platforms, specifically ones that focus on interaction between people. The most common platform for communication, however, leads us to Twitter and Reddit.

A lot of the focus is placed towards referencing to creators themselves. When Bungie, as a company, wants to communicate to its player-base, much of the storytelling is done by referencing creators within the community. The "Location-Based" narrative begins to stem off into the various community members around the world. One's person story may be in reference to the game, but the narrator, themselves, are shaped by their own culture surrounding their beliefs toward the game. This may be influenced by their environment, and would, in turn, influence their narrative. 

Each platform then allows the creator to develop their own language and tone toward a subject. Their communities absorb those narratives and begins the cycle anew. 

Reset Day

Good Early Morning Guardians,

You're probably all wondering why this post is being delivered at approximately 1:30 a.m. Well, let's just say I recently woke up, and felt inspired. As you may know, it is currently early Thursday morning, which means we got our weekly update two days ago from Bungie's Twitter:

On top of this week's reset, there were a few achievements completed by some players within the community as of late. To celebrate them, I wanted to share them with you. xGladd is renown Speedrunner and a marvelous PvE (Player vs. Enemy) player within the Destiny 2 community. Part of the notorious Redeem Destiny clan, they undertook the challenge of being the first team in the world to complete the latest major expansion raid back in September of 2018. The total challenge took a total of 19 consecutive hours to complete.

**Upon further editing on my part, the clip does contain MATURE language, view at your own risk**

xGladd's ahievements don't stop there however, this past week, Bungie had a controversial release when it came to the opening of the game's newest weapon forge, Bergusia.

**A quick editorial note, I have yet to figure out how to embed Twitch Clips into this Blog, so for now I will have to leave you with a link to the completion of the clip itself. Hope you enjoy nonetheless!**

Overall, the opening of said forge took over 30 HOURS to complete. A non-raid activity took over 30 HOURS. This wasn't even a three-man job. This community challenge undertook over thousands of people pouring into Gladd's stream to view and support him, as well as the countless members of the r/raidsecrets community and Discord. In total, the total team collaboration was able to complete the opening of the forge, and provide the world's first in receiving the newest exotic Ghost and Hubris of Niobe emblem.

Upon great collaboration across various social medias (Twitch, reddit, Twitter...) Gladd was able to complete this accomplishment as well as relish in yet another World's First completion within the game, this makes it a total of well over 10 WF achievements within the game.

As always, may RNG be in your favor in farming this week.

See you all next time.

-OVBDavid

A New Guardian Enters the Tower!!

A new year brings new light, which brings new Guardians. Hello, welcome to my home, The Last City, where today I will be introducing myself. 

My name is David, and currently I'm a university student studying at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. The reasoning for the creation of this blog, yes, is for a class, however I do not wish to treat it as the typical every-day assignment. I plan on incorporating my thoughts and feelings into discussions that will be updated regularly upon this site. Hopefully, I plan to discuss the futures of new tech/gadgets, but I will mainly be keeping my focus towards Bungie and the respective development cycles for their game and their community as a whole. Specifically I will be using platforms such as: Twitch, Youtube, and Twitter as sources of my information, but I will also be researching various topics if need be!

I started University with a passion for computers. Completely tearing down old ones. Refurbishing them, and making them run smoothly. A mechanic for a car lets say, but for computers. However, I ran into some trouble at school as I started my career as as student in Computer Science...I hated coding. For hours on end, I would struggle with "simple" assignments that could take some of my classmates the last 15 minutes of class to finish. 

Needless to say, there were some ups and downs, and ultimately the decision came to be that I knew my passion was with computers, but it wasn't necessarily within the language of computers. More importantly I discovered new passions and hobbies. As an escape from my struggling reality I would come to play a game called Destiny 2, from the developer Bungie. Here is where I found another love in my life. A truly masterfully produced game, Destiny 2 continues to bring me hours of entertainment a week and place where my friends and I can play online with one another.

I later began to do research into the company and decided I would make it my goal to one day work for them. Whether it be in QA with bug testing in early dev builds. Or working alongside community managers to be able to relay information to a broad audience that loved the game.

It is from here I decided to follow my dreams, and to focus on school with a major in Multimedia and Digital Culture. I wanted to educate myself and learn about what it means to have an online presence and to be able to interact and effectively communicate with those I meet online. Whether it be behind the scenes at a workplace, or up front on the face of a weekly blog, I aim to make my dream a reality. 

I look forward to updating you all more, and I hope you look towards growing with me and my plans on dominating the online blogging community! 

See you starside.
- OVBDavid