The Secret Lair

Part 1 – Myths About Introverts

I was recently in need of some educational credits for work, and I decided to check out a book about introverted leadership. To my dismay, I quickly discovered that the book was written by an extrovert. I gave up about halfway through the small tome, feeling ickier and more ill-used than usual.

After stewing on the issue for a while and writing a scathing review on Amazon, I decided to set the record straight regarding those whom society has judged based on their personality types. I have a personal hypothesis that geeky pursuits tend to appeal more towards introverts for a number of reasons, and so introversion may be overrepresented in that crowd. Feel free to use the following as a quick and easy reference for understanding the introverts that walk among us.

Myth: Introverts are shy and socially incompetent.

The first thing you need to understand about introversion is that it is all about energy. Where does your energy come from and what causes you to burn it? Introverts live in their heads, where they indulge rich and vivid imaginations. They charge their batteries with solitary activities where their minds are free to wander and explore. By contrast, extroverts live outside of their head, processing their thoughts out loud and gaining energy through interactive experiences.

Introverts are not shy. They simply do not feel the need to verbally share every thought that crosses their mind. Find a topic that interests an introvert or something about which they are passionate and you will find more conversation than you bargained for. At times, an introvert may seem unresponsive, but in fact they may be internally processing what is being discussed. Unfortunately, conversations often leave introverts behind, moving on to other topics before they have fully processed their thoughts. This reinforces the stereotype of shyness.

Myth: Introverts are afraid to speak in public.

Speaking in public is a skill, just like social skills or any other. It can be developed and honed through practice and training. You would be surprised at the number of actors, instructors, and professional speakers who are actually introverts. Anyone can be afraid of speaking in public, and being an extrovert does not give one a natural advantage at the skill. We have all seen the person who gets to a microphone, is obviously quite nervous, and then won’t shut up. Their abundance of words does not make them a good public speaker. It makes them an embarrassment. An introvert that overcomes a fear of speaking and hones that skill may actually make a better speaker, remaining succinct, entertaining, and on topic.

Myth: Introverts don’t like to socialize

Correction: Introverts don’t like to socialize with large groups of strangers making small talk about topics that do not interest them. To an introvert, that is a waste of words and emotional energy. Introverts prefer small groups of close friends discussing things about which they are passionate.

Myth: Introverts don’t have any friends.

Think in terms of breadth versus depth. An extrovert is more likely to have a broad group of people they refer to as “friends,” but an introvert might refer to those same people as “acquaintances.” Placing value on their private lives and thoughts, introverts may bring fewer people into that inner circle. It is mostly semantics. Introverts may have many friends, but only a few that they consider “close friends.” Extroverts are certainly capable of deep relationships, but may not draw clear boundaries between those and others they know.

Myth: Introverts are a minority.

This is actually a myth that stems from bad data that has been quoted and requited until it has become its own source reference.¹ The collective results of years using instruments like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has shown that introverts, like most personality traits, represent half of the American population if not a little more. The problem is that we have created a culture that values extroversion. Professional expectations, the entertainment industry, and pervasive myths place introverts at a cultural disadvantage for success.

Myth: Introversion is a disability to overcome.

Baloney. Knowing that I am an introvert does not communicate anything about my skills and abilities. It tells me how I gain and spend my emotional energy; what will feed my soul or drain me. I don’t need to “overcome” anything in order to communicate effectively, manage people, or be productive. I just need a little self awareness.

Introvert husbandry is not such a difficult line of work. If you find yourself in a position to care for an introvert, understanding how their brain works will go a long way to smooth the road in developing your relationship. If you consider yourself to be an introvert, remember that a little self awareness is good for anyone. Understand the myths that exist out there, the expectations of an extroverted society, and your own natural tendencies, and you won’t seem like such a weirdo.

1. Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength, by Laurie Helgoe Ph.D. – an excellent read, if you are so inclined [↩]

I confess. I am a wannabe junky for Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs).  I say wannabe, because I have yet to find the right game that scratches my itch for the MMO experience. Perhaps the closest I have ever come to that level of passion and devotion was when playing the original Everquest.  That experience ended with the birth of our first child, when my wife said to me “I don’t think you realize the extent to which this child has changed our life.”  She was right, of course. Being a dad is a lot more important (and fun) than camping for another <generic creature> to kill and acquire another <generic material> to make another piece of <generic armor>.

Since that time, I have sampled many MMOs, but I have not stuck with any of them for more than a month or so. I have also spent a lot of time thinking about why those games fall short of what, in my opinion, prevents them from being great games.  Let us hit a few of the highlights:

Endless Combat
Is this all the Role Playing game has become? Must everything be about the next kill / battle / raid?

Grinding
Constantly repeating actions in order to advance skill just so you can reach the next level is not that much fun. I have seen people wedge their keyboard keys down so they can keep running or swimming just to increase those skills.

Career Options
Really, you can only be an exceptional craftsperson (merchant) if you have the fighting skills to go out and get your own supplies. Want to be a priest, monk, or cartographer, you’d better be a fighter first.

Instances
“Lord Muckgrunk is a real challenge to take down, so we’re going to let everyone kill him once every ten minutes.” or “That other group just entered that dungeon, but don’t worry about running into them. They have entered a parallel dimension where everything is fresh and new for them.”  Instances might as well be minigames in a pub for as much as they contribute to a persistent game world.

Yard Trash
Apparently, all major metropolitan areas within games cannot extend their peaceful existence more than about fifty yards from their front gate.

NPCs, or Lack Thereof
I played a game for a while where frequently I was the only person in the entire city, and the only NPCs in the city  stood stock still in their shops all hours of the day and night. There were no wandering NPCs, no other players, and apparently undead shopkeepers. It was creepy.

Ganking and Consequences, or Lack Thereof
I’ll address the accusations of “Care Bear” gaming a bit later, but giving gamers free reign to kill or take advantage of other players without consequence is just dumb. I’m all about dangerous gameplay, however there should be consequences beyond “this faction now hates you and you have to sneak into this city.”

The list could go on and on.

Why do games fall victim to these common and worn out elements? Personally, I blame the wildly successful consoles. The rise of the console gaming platform has contributed to a decline in role playing. If not a decline, then it is certainly transforming role playing as a genre. Role playing was originally born of the desire to explore and develop a character as though one were living in a story.  Gamers were less concerned with loot and power than developing a memorable character.  Console games have created an endless loop of “cut scene for exposition, follow with mission, follow with training or loot, follow with cut scene, follow with boss battle. Rinse and repeat.”  Since those games make lots and lots of money, it is only natural that all games try to mimic that success by using the same formulae. Unfortunately, it is the traditional roleplayer that gets left out in the cold. It may not be the most lucrative market, but I think there is room for a healthy niche.

This is where the Minister of Crackpot Schemes earns his title. If I had the capital, I know exactly how I would design and implement an MMO appealing to real roleplayers. Take a stroll with me now through Crackpot Scheme Number 763:

Permanent Character Death
This should go a long way to shut up all of the griefer gamers who complain about “Care Bear” games. Time to put your money where your mouth is.  Before you go up against an enemy or another player, better be sure you can win or escape, because there is no such thing as a “corpse run.” Your character is gone and so is your stuff. Sneaking through dangerous areas is much riskier now, not to mention raids. Big, bad monsters are big and bad for a reason. How much of your guild is an “acceptable loss” when going up against a dragon guarding its lair?

Consequences, Consequences
Want to be a thief? Assassin? Fine. Are you prepared to have a price on your head that other players can collect? If you ganked another player, how would you feel if his guildmates put a bounty on you? Let the thieves actually sneak into homes and businesses to steal things, but also create a way for some Crime Scene Investigation to occur that might reveal who they are. Combine consequences with permanent character death, and you have yourself a recipe for excitement that does not require massive monsters and demigods.

Limit the Grand Storylines
Provide an expansive and interesting world for your characters to play in and populate it with lots of NPCs and human actors. Leave out the global cataclysm. The only reason anyone cares is because it usually opens up high level raid areas to keep the 1337 crowd happy.

No Levels. No Classes
The open skill trees have been explored a little with existing games, but I’d take it further. There’d be no such thing as level. Skills and abilities come as you explore, train, and use other skills.

Real Player Housing
Put your house wherever you dang well feel like it, but you’d better be able to defend it. That’s where the mercenaries come in…

Mercenaries
Hire NPCs to run your shop, guard your house, and do menial tasks when you’re offline. You want to have a wizard’s tower in the middle of nowhere? Maybe you should invest in some guards. Are you an awesome blacksmith? Hire some NPC apprentices to create armor while you’re offline. It won’t be as good as yours, but it will provide you with a revenue stream.

Human NPCs
Less eye candy and more story. There are tons of people out there who would love to spend time as a game character in exchange for free play, in-game items, or even a small salary. Recruiting and managing a corps of gamers willing to contribute to the game world is completely possible.

Creating great MMOs should not be as hard as the industry has made it. I have notes upon notes of what else I would do regarding merchant classes, ships, mounts, physics, priests and tons more. That’s what it means to be the Kingfish – the crackpot schemes are a never ending stream, for better or for worse.

And if someone came to me with a pile of money and asked if I knew how to turn this into reality, the answer is yes.

Yes I do.

(A review of the animated cartoon Super Hero Squad)

Let’s start with confessions. I’m a DC Comics fan. Always have been. I am, in particular, a Superman fan with an appreciation for several other DC properties. Although I don’t collect comics and read them only occasionally, I carry a Superman pocket watch, my cell phone and iPod sport Superman wallpapers, and a large Superman poster adorns the wall over my desk at work. On another wall hangs a Captain Marvel poster (the cool, Shazam one). The top of my desk is home to a growing collection of Justice-League-related action figures, which essentially function as poor man’s statuettes.

That being said, my relationship with DC has really grown into something of a love/hate thing. For the longest time, I have harbored the sneaking suspicion that DC just doesn’t have its act together. It seems as though Marvel continues to crank out original ideas and products, leaving DC scratching its head and wondering where the markets are trending. Some entirely anecdotal, poorly researched examples:

• When Marvel came out with the Marvel Legends series of exceptional action figures, where was DC? It took them several years to offer the competing DC Classics line.
• The whole “build a figure” thing with DC also came after Marvel’s success.
• When shopping for action figures at large retail stores, Marvel items are easy to find and well represented. DC products are limited to whatever TV show or movie they’re promoting at the time.
• Marvel continues to set the bar high in comic book films, bringing us heroes we love portrayed by quality actors in engaging stories. Where is DC? Marvel is laying the groundwork for awesomeness for years to come, with upcoming Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Avengers films already in the works. From DC, we have unconfirmed rumors of Batman and Superman films, Jonah Hex and Green Lantern films in production, and a long list of projects that will likely never see the light of day (JLA, Wonder Woman, Flash, Shazam…).
• The direct-to-video animated films seem to follow the same pattern, with Marvel cranking out quality stuff and a lot of it. DC’s offerings — JLA, Green Lantern — have been of decent quality, but rather sparse.
• Lest I neglect the comics themselves, I’ll mention the Green Lantern Blackest Night storyline. I was on board and having fun until it turned into one giant icky zombiefest. Gee, didn’t Marvel have some success with a bunch of heroes-turned-zombies stories not too long ago? Sorry. I don’t really do icky.

So it was with this collection of personal baggage that I began sifting through our TiVo’s list of recommended animated shows for kids. Batman: The Brave and The Bold is a fun romp, if a bit strange at times, and is usually well received in our house along with the nearly as strange Teen Titans. I went off in search of similar fare, pulled up “kids animation” on the TiVo, and came up with Krypto the Superdog from DC and Marvel’s Super Hero Squad.

If Batman: The Brave and The Bold is strange (with villains like Babyface, Miss Manface, and the Music Meister), then Krypto The Superdog is just plain dumb. “Batdog” Ace makes a regular appearance with “Superdog” in a series of episodes that have the feel of an old Hanna Barbera cartoon. A created-for-TV group of super-powered pets band together to battle villains like Mechanicat and Barrump Barrump. In the end, I merely shrug and dismiss them with a yawn. My kids seem to enjoy them well enough, but they wouldn’t miss them if the show ended tomorrow.

Once again, DC fails to compete as the Super Hero Squad hits me as one of the funniest and cleverest shows on television. This show highlights the endless breadth of the Marvel Universe, bringing in a variety of heroes and villains from the comics and pitting them in an endless battle for “Infinity Fractals,” fragments of a universe-altering artifact. Dr. Doom and his regular henchmen MODOK and Abomination reside in Villainville, where they constantly scheme against the Super Hero Squad. The Squad is essentially an Avengers-type collection of heroes like Iron Man, Hulk, Wolverine, Thor, The Falcon, and others living on the SHIELD helicarrier patrolling Superhero City. While the show makes frequent trips to outer space and other locations, storylines tend to remain limited to these locations. Why they chose to limit the show in that way seems a bit odd to me, but it seems to work well. Each week, other heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe make cameo appearances in the constant struggle for the “Squaddies” to protect the fractals while Doom and his pals plot to steal them. Hilarity ensues.

Some things that make this show such a joy:

• The Mother of Doom. OH MY! This was a stroke of genius. Doom’s Mom shows up for an episode, complete with her own iron mask under white hair. I know I said that the show pulls characters from Marvel’s Universe, but this original character was just too rich to pass up. She nags heroes and villains alike until she is returned to exile in another dimension. And did I mention her name? She insists on being called “Coco,” because “Cynthia Von Doom” just doesn’t sound right. I’m still laughing about that episode.
• Good content for the grownups. There are plenty of pop culture references and innuendo to have the adults chuckling as well. My favorites include Iron Man taking a glance at his own backside while battling his doppelgänger Mystique. In another episode, I laughed out loud when Black Widow (Russian) was asked to say “Moose and Squirrel.” There is plenty of comic-related humor as well, such as references to “Quesada Joe” Mexican cheese.
• Fart Jokes. I admit it. Boys never mature past the fifth grade. As much as I enjoy cleverly disguised innuendo and subtle humor, I just can’t pass up a good gag involving body odor, flatulence, or belching.
  MODOK: “Ugh! … My eyebrows are melting. Abomination, open a window!”
• Stan Lee. The man himself doubles as Co-Executive Producer of the show and the voice of the costumed mayor of Superhero City. The character is reminiscent of Adam West’s mayor in Family Guy, if not as insane. Excelsior!
• One Liners. The show is replete with zingers, such as:
  • Dr. Doom: “Finally, my fool-hardy foes have found a fractal. Fascinating.”
    Abomination: “Hey, that’s pretty good. Try this one: Mister Sinister sold six stacks of silk slacks to Silver Surfer.”
  • Black Widow: “I have so much chocolate candy, darling. Do you think I should eat the caramel or devour the coconut?”
    Dr. Doom: “What kind of nonsense question is this? The caramel, of course. Coconuts displease me.”
  • War Machine (LeVar Burton): “Stop talking like you’re Iron Man.”
    Iron Man: “Stop talking like you’re on Reading Rainbow.”
  • Thor: “By Heimdall’s hairy headquarters, I have not seen the like. Yon toast landed jam-side up. ‘Tis against the laws of both nature and breakfast.”
  • Dr. Doom: (cell phone rings) “Private number? What the… hello?! Who dares reach out and touch Doom?!”

As of this writing, I am anxiously awaiting part two of the Galactus episode, where Galactus wants the Earth prepared for devouring right away. There’s a game on tonight and he’ll go for the Early Bird Special for dinner. Each episode brings an equally ridiculous plot and fun for the whole family. DC’s Krypto The Superdog may be a fine show, but it pales by comparison. Granted, things swing back and forth like a pendulum, and we may see DC driving the market again some day. After all, it was 1978′s Superman film that made us believe that a man could fly and that comic book movies could be worth watching. Market forces are almost never driven by quality but by potential earnings. I have long held a suspicion that DC being a subsidiary of Warner Brothers has done them no favors, relegating them to a tiny part of a huge uncaring media giant. It will be interesting to see if Marvel’s move into the Disney family of companies will have similar results.

In the meantime, my kids are being turned into Marvel Comics fans by the Super Hero Squad. Heck, who am I kidding? I may be turning into a fan as well. The only hope is that DC will follow suit with an equally clever version of the Superfriends.

One can only hope.