Character Battle Royale

I’d like to talk about a game that a friend (who also loves video games) and I came up with a couple of weeks ago. Essentially, we pit two Video Game characters together in a verbal battle royal – basically calling each characters action in a turn based battle to the death.

In previous games we’ve generally used characters that we have created ourselves (so a character from any game with a custom character creation or stat building feature – mostly RPGs) and we’ve always drawn from RPGs or stat-building games, mostly beacuse those games offer a wider variety of skills and abilities to draw from, but I don’t see why a pre-defined character couldn’t be used as long as they are pitted against something similar (i.e. pitting Ezio Auditore [Assassins Creed] against The Lone Wanderer [Fallout 3] probably wouldn’t work, while pitting Ezio against Gordon Freeman [Half Life] probably could – and would be absolutely awesome!).

To start a match, you simply need to say which game you’re pulling a character from. Character strength can be completly variable – but having the max level and/or best equiptment for your character is advisable unless you want to cripple yourself for a more interesting match. However, it’s against the rules to have a character that breaks the rules that define the gameworld the character hails from (i.e. you cannot have a character from KotOR that possesses all of the force powers and feats – it’s impossible in the gameworld – or a Fallout character with perks that don’t match up with their skills and attributes – a non stealth character with the ninja perk is impossible to come by). You don’t immediately need to list every aspect of your characters skills and equipment – but you will need to keep track of what skills/abilities you’ve already used (so you don’t get caught out breaking the rules of the game).

To compensate for the differences in damage levels between games (i.e. Final Fantasy characters have very high health and damage (often over a couple of thousand for both), while my characters in Fallout are lucky to top 500 HP), damage roughly scales to fit the target (so a hit from a 2000 damage weapon from the FF character will do less than 100 to the Fallout character, and vice versa). Attacks and skills based on a probability system (the percentage to hit system in Fallout’s VATS system, or the modified DnD rules that KotOR is based on) that system roughly carries over (my friend and I agreed pretty much on just averaging the probability as simply as we could – but if you really want to get the dice out, feel free).

Other than these few guidelines, the game pretty much plays out like a complicated game of chess. Each player takes turns calling out a move (and explaining it if necessary), either as a defense against the last move that your opponent made (which cancels or reduces their last attack), or as an answering offensive move. Generally the win goes to the player who is the most imaginative (using a combination of the Metal Blaster and the Mysterious Stranger [Fallout 3] to take down a completely defensive player was my best win), and the one with the best grasp of their character’s abilities, and their opponent’s weaknesses (my friend using a Final Fantasy spell to lock my Jedi Guardian [a KotOR class that's terrible with a lightsaber] into a basic saber attack was inspired).

I don’t know if I get any serious gamers reading this (at least, they never comment if they do), but I’ve spent a fair amount of time playing this with some of my friends, so if this sounds like your sort of thing, feel free to give it a go.

An R18+ Rating for Video Games in Australia?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about politics (which is a shame, cause I actually enjoy following what’s happening in Australian Politics), but this is an issue that has been knocking around for a long time, and finally it seems to be getting somewhere.

Between this video, and the tweets of my local minister (who is surprisingly interested in informing people about how this debate is going – still waiting on a reply to some of my responses though….), I’m really looking forward to the possibility of playing games that have – for a variety of reasons – either been cut down or completely banned from selling in Australia. I want to share a few more thoughts about the debate in general, and the video specifically tonight. Again, this post won’t replace the second part of my Who Am I? Series – I should have that written up and published sometime in the next few days – but it’s something that I have at times been incredibly passionate about, and while I can no longer get as riled up about it as I once could, it’s great to see a conclusion on the horizon.

On a broad level, this issue doesn’t affect Australian Gamers at all – if people are that desperate to get their hands on a (proper) copy of the game, they can easily import it – customs only stops banned games/movies/entertainment at the gates if they can prove intent to distribute (i.e. more than a couple of copies) – so getting their hands on stuff that cannot be sold here isn’t a big issue. In fact, it’s often easier and cheaper to just import or use digital distribution for all of your games, as the pricing system for games in Australia is incredibly bad (Big budget games start out at $60 US in America – compared to $80-$120 in Australia when the currency is going incredibly strong), so it’s not that big an issue for Australian Gamers. What this is a major issue for is the Australian Games industry, and for the retail businesses that sell Video Games.

From the industry perspective, it allows developers here to branch out into games that can more fully explore aspects of life or the human condition (something that I’m eager for all games developers to do), and allow for those games to be released here. From a retail side, it means that more games will be bought in Australia, with Australian Dollars, and the economy will continue to do whatever it is that economies do when people buy things locally. The number of people who, upon hearing that a game is getting released with an MA rating only after the developers/publishers agreed to cut certain content from their game, cancel their pre-orders with (or their plans to buy the game from) companies like EB games, and find themselves an uncensored import version is significant, which means that the amount of potential profit lost for the Australian retail companies on those games is significant (I think – I’m not sure about the inner financial workings of the games retail industry).

As for the video itself, I found some of those figures to be incredible – I’m not sure about where they got some of them, but that’s not the point. 9 out of 10 homes having at least one gaming device, Women making up nearly half of the total number of people that play games, and the average age being in the early 30′s (5-10 years older than I was expecting), over 58 thousand submissions to an inquiry looking at what people thought about an R18+ rating for video games. These are not insignificant figures – this is a hobby that many people are engaged with, and one that a large portion of people are passionate about to the point where they will get involved with the putting of a reform to Parliament in whatever way they can. For the portion of society that doesn’t play video games: you cannot ignore the social phenomenon that gaming has become in the last few decades. For the various Christians that I know condemn video games as violent and dangerous to society: Don’t just write us or our hobby off, there are a lot of us, many of whom you’re potentially pushing away from ever hearing and accepting the words you know to be true. And for those of you who are Australian Gamers: Here’s to a swift resolution to this reform, and to a bright future.

What I’ve Learnt Through Gaming

Before I begin this post, I want to announce that I will be doing my best to update this blog weekly (most likely on Tuesdays or Wednesdays at this point – subject to change), and I want you – my readers – to help keep me on track. I’ve had a backlog of drafts and post ideas for a while now, and I want to do something about it – I figure making myself accountable to you all in regards to regular blogging is a good way to get some of those finished and available for people to read (turns out I need a stick as well as a carrot – even for things I enjoy doing……). And now, this week’s post:

I’ve written before on the potential Video Games have to be a tool for learning, but over the past week, I’ve been particularly hit by the realisation that playing my online games (Tribal Wars and The West) has either taught me, or reinforced for me, quite a few different life lessons. I thought I’d list  some of them here for your enjoyment and reflection. This is by no means an exhaustive list of what all games have taught me – being only about 2 games in particular, and only a few  skills from those games – but just something to think about.

The most major of the lessons Tribal Wars and The West have taught me are concerned with what people look for in the workplace. In one of the servers I am a part of on The West, I joined the town I am a part of as a general member – I was happy to help out in any way that I could (both within the town, and in the alliance of towns we are a part of), but other than that, I didn’t have any responsibility. Over time, still being generally just out to help wherever I can, and communicating with anyone from my group that I can, I have been given more and more responsibility, not just within my town, but within the alliance my town is a part of – to the point where I have recently been appointed as a leader in my town, and one of the voting members of the alliance council. I know this has been a more rapid rise than would occur within ‘Real Life’ (not the best term in my opinion, but good shorthand for life outside of the game), but the principles are generally the same – being open to helping wherever possible, and being eager to learn and help others can often lead to more responsibility within any area of life.

Further than that, over the years I have been playing both of these games, I’ve been part of groups that have had good organisation and leadership skills; groups with bad leadership, but good organisation; groups with charismatic leaders, and terrible organisation; and groups with bad organisation and leadership. I’ve learnt to cope with all of these situations, and even thrive under a few of them. I’ve also been a part of running groups of both large amounts of people (in the case of the group previously mentioned, almost 100 people), and smaller groups (less than 20 people), with varied success at both. These are management skills, and experiences that I can call on again if I am ever in a similar situation. Tribal Wars has a lot of strategy involved, as much of the game revolves around building a village, and using the various soldiers that the village can train in order to both defend the territory I already hold, and taking the territory of rivals in my area. Because of this I am no stranger to making what can often be hard decisions about what works best given the current situation (which can often be in conflict with my natural tendencies – which is towards defense, and a strong economy), with both a short term, and a long term goal in mind.

There are more things that I have learnt throughout my experiences with both of these games, and with many different games in general, but I don’t want this post to get any longer – it already seems to be looking like an extended resume, and I’d hate for it to get any longer……

So have any of you learnt anything meaningful from playing a video game? Has it just been something trivial? Have you not learnt anything (or haven’t played enough to see any learning happen)? Do you have any thoughts of the subject? Is this (either the topic, or the asking questions at the end of a post) something you’d like me to do again?

Abolitionist Sunday

Yesterday was Abolitionist Sunday – a day about raising awareness about the continuing problem of slavery in our world today. As this is something very much on the hearts and minds of many people from my church, we set aside both services yesterday so that a group from our church could talk about slavery, and what we can do about it.

This was a bit of a challenge for me. I’ve been aware of the fact that there is an illegal slave trade going on around the world (that’s affected more lives than the English-American slave trade that many people condemn outright) for some time, and I’ve struggled a bit lot with the question of ‘What can I do about it?’ Yesterday the speakers encouraged everyone to think about how they can use whatever gifts they have (whatever is in their hands – which I can’t tell if it’s Christianese or not) to do their part towards the abolition of modern slavery. I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about this, and (as usual for me) I finally came up with an idea while I was trying to sleep. I’m still considering this, but I thought I’d share it anyway.

I’m currently thinking – somewhat inspired by the ongoing Desert Bus For Hope (A gaming marathon that raises money for Child’s Play) –  that maybe I could set up some form of Gaming Marathon for Children that don’t get a childhood (the situation that most distressed me about slavery being that most of todays slaves are children – who are enslaved to fight in wars, work to produce coffee, tea, and many others, or as prostitutes). I’m still working through details, but the money would go towards one of the many groups working to bring people out of slavery and help them through the trauma their experiences produced. I’m thinking about playing through one of the games of my own early childhood (Word/Math Rescue; Commander Keen; etc) in a sort of ‘revisit my own childhood for those who don’t have one’ theme – and doing something along the lines of the more donations that come in, the longer I (and anyone else who wants to join in – possibly taking shifts for health reasons) play for. I might even (if this idea comes to fruition) set it up so the experience is taped and posted on Youtube or something – although if that happens maybe something else should happen throughout as well……….

As I said, this is a halfbaked idea that came to me in the middle of the night, so I’m completely open to input/suggestions/critisisms/etc. But I do want to encourage all of you to make a stand on the issue of modern slavery, and use whatever gifts you have, whatever positions you hold, and whatever influence you can exert to affect a change in the world – whether large or small.

catching up

Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted, life’s been a bit hectic lately – so once again we have a (possibly long) catch-up post. Here goes…..

I’ve gotten involved again this year with the online game Tribal Wars - something that forces beyond my control (such as my brother completely using the download limit in a day early in December) caused me to quit at the end of last year. It’s been great getting involved again, and ministry wise I’ve learnt a lot from the mistakes I had made the last time I played. So I’m not involved in running the tribe I am a part of, and I’m once again simply putting out an offer to talk to, and pray for the other people who are in the tribe. The response so far has been interesting – the first time I posted the offer there were over 200 replies to the forum post within a couple of days (an impressive feat – as people who are connected with forums of any sort would know). While most of these replies were people trying to bait me into saying something rash, there were some genuine questions about what I believed, and a few of the other Christians in the tribe joined in, and were encouraged to come to the defense of both me, and the faith that we share – which is encouraging in itself. I’ve also had several people – Christian and Non-Christian, take me up on the offer to just talk (about all sorts of things, from serious things, to a random swapping of jokes), and the offer to pray for specific issues that they are going through. From a gaming perspective, the world that I have joined this time around is a ‘trial’ world that removes one of the major strategies that players use (the ability to loot and take resources from other people’s villages) – which has caused the world to be much slower, and to be more politically focused (since wars are now harder to win). This has been perfect for my playing style, since I was never very good at ‘farming’ (as the looting of other villages is called), and (while I get sick of the sheer under-handedness of the politics sometimes) there is always a lot to catch up on when I log back in of a morning, and there are very few dull moments when the politics does get into full swing.

Another thing that’s happened recently is that I’ve picked up a new series of games – a series of role playing games (i.e. I take control of a character, chose what path they take – what weapons they use, what choices they make, etc) called the ‘Fable’ series. This series is famous (in the circles of those who like games like this) for offering the player a lot of choices – i.e. your character can buy up real estate (pretty much every house, shop, tavern and landmark is for sale), take jobs doing various things (hammering swords, chopping wood, bartending, etc), take on a variety of side quests (in addition to the main storyline), and marry Non-player Characters (starting a family, which offers some small benefits to the player – for example, they will randomly buy you gifts if you keep them happy) – and I have been having a ball playing through the series (so far – I’m partway through the second game cause my brother gets upset if I get further along the story than he is). However, I have noticed something that says quite a few things about myself while I’ve been playing through these games (particularly the second one). I’m starting to feel guilty – personally – when I direct my character to take an ‘evil’ action (not whenever I do something that the game considers evil – i.e. eating food that has had animals harmed during it’s production [still not sure why that's evil] – but when my character accidently broke down someone’s door [cause I pressed the wrong button trying to knock], I felt bad). It’s even at the point where I’m having issues with the way my brothers play the game (as two of them are currently trying to be the evilest person the game will let them be – to the point where they gun down random NPC’s in the streets), cause they shouldn’t be thinking like that. I’ve got a feeling that this might be some sort of outward sign of the change that God’s working in my life – but I’m not sure. I’ll think about it some more and get back to you – and hopefully have a few more implications of this to share with you.

Finally, I found an interesting article that links back to some of the stuff that I’ve said earlier, and you have no idea how encouraging I found it. There’s not much else to say on the subject that I haven’t already said, or isn’t covered in the article (which I encourage you all to read), other than I hope to one day be able to attend (or help out at) CGDC (Christian Game Developers Conference – the conference in question).

So thanks for reading another long post - there’s been a bit of catching up to do – and hopefully I’ll be able to post more regularly for at least the near future, so this shouldn’t be necessary until at least the next time I have several assignments and exams due in a short period of time.

Cheers,

Fr33

A truly fulfilling experience with a video game

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted here, there’s been a lot of things on my mind – some of which I’ll probably talk about later in a large, many topiced, post.  But this evening I want to talk about an online game I discovered during the day – Alter Ego.

Alter Ego is a computer game that Activision released in 1989 which give the player complete control over the decisions and life choices of an imaginary character (their alter ego, in a sense). It was developed by Peter Favaro, who had previously completed a PH.D in Psychology (in addition to learning programming and game design. While it was fairly successful, didn’t end up starting anything major in any sense of the word.

The way I found it was quite interesting. I’m a regular visitor to a gaming magazine called The Escapist, and one of the articles pointed to this game as an outstanding example of how morality should work in video games (morality in games being the topic of this week’s issue). With both morality and video games being particular interests of mine, I decided to look Alter Ego up on wikipedia, and found that they had a link to an online port that someone had written for the game. So I started playing, and ended up guiding the character of my story through life, from birth, to childhood, to high school, and into adulthood, and eventually through their declining years and towards their death. During this time he got into fights, had a wonderful relationship with his family, got through high school, started a family and got a job, had two kids, went to uni (late in life), got fired, got a better (well, at least better paying) job,  saw his kids grow up and get married, slowly and surely start wearing down, retired, and lived a full life until his sudden passing during his sleep. All through this there were wonderful tidbits of psychological advice, informing me that the choices that I made for the character were healthy, and why they were healthy, or whether the game thought I should have had a bit of a deeper think about a particular problem that the game posed (such as whether I should have pushed my character to confront his daughter about coming home late – and smelling of alcohol – immediately after she walked through the door, rather than have my character wait until the morning).

The funny thing about this game is that everything is text-based, the only images are in the menus where you pick what life experience you’re going to have next, and the only available game-play is to select what kind of response you will have to the varying (and sometimes very funny) events that life throws at your character, yet this game is one of the most engaging games I have ever played, and the act of bringing my character to the conclusion of a long and (mostly) happy life was, personally, more fulfilling than saving the universe and defeating the forces of evil a million times.

So try it out, I only managed to have one play-through today, and I was being fairly cautious with the game, but I’m interested to see how many different endings there are, and whether I can find a character who matches my personality a bit more. The link to the game is here. Have a go, it’s not complicated to learn, but it requires a lot of thought. Warning: this game has very heavy thematic elements, (due entirely to the subject matter that it discusses), and can be thought of to be fairly adult-oriented. While the game generally throws up a warning when a random event is sexual in nature (and gives the option to back out), I would recommend that parents should definitely look over the game before they let their kids play it.

On Christian Video Games

It’s no secret that video games are one of my major interests. And if you’ve read my blog for any length of time it should be no secret that I’m a Christian. If you’ve been reading my last few posts, you should also be aware that I’m currently beginning to write a book about the way religion is depicted in games – although the total scope for that isn’t set in stone. These three things come together to form the topic that’s on my mind at the moment – Christian Video games.

I have long held that Christian Video Games would be a great thing for the Video Game industry as a whole. I’m not talking about the kind of educational games where you memorise scriptures and get in game rewards for it, but robust, entertaining games with either Christian values, or with Biblical events, at their core. I am, however, yet to see a wide variety of games that I would like to play coming out of the various Christian developers. As it stands, there have been two games that I have played and enjoyed, both of which were First-Person Shooters. There are a few games that are on my wish-list that also seem interesting, and that have a couple of different genres, but most of the games that are being produced by Christian developers are the disappointing educational games that no-one outside of a Christian environment will ever use.

The problem with the Christian Video industry at the moment, as I see it, is that the focus of the developers is wrong. As it is, they are not targeting people like me – that is, people who pick up a game to delve into a story, or to shoot things for a few hours. That demographic is one of the largest sources of income for the mainstream industry, and I’m almost certain that if a Christian company made an FPS or RPG that was based on Christian values/theology, or on biblical stories, without being in-your-face about it, the game would be supported by one of the big developers, and they would be able to make a world-wide impact. The world is searching for answers to questions of life, and they are searching almost everywhere for it. If the mainstream Games Industry can notice this, and respond by developing games about a biblical apocalypse, or about a variety of new age ideas, why can’t the Christian Developers? They don’t even have to violate their morals in order to make something like this – non-combat games are becoming more popular each day.

I guess the worst part about this is that Christians are the best friends, and worst enemies of this kind of advance in the industry. On one hand, we have groups like the Association of Christian Entertainment, who encourage their members to make games that don’t belong in the ‘educational genre’, and sponsor a yearly conference for Christians in the Games industry. I think that something like this – a group that supports both Christian development studios and Christians working for mainstream studios – will help the Christian sector produce the kinds of games that I (and hopefully many other people) would like to play, and distribute these games in such a way that anyone can get their hands on them. On the other hand, you have Christian gaming Magazines that promote the kind of senseless writing off of much of the medium that has the potential to cripple the industry irreversibly. I know there isn’t a middle ground between these two points, but it would be more helpful if Christians weren’t so two-minded on this sort of thing.

I believe that the Christian Games Industry has the potential to make a game that is more fun, and more engaging than many of the games that I have played so far in my life, and I believe that they can do that while exploring and wrestling with the diversity that I also desire in a game. I believe that this can be done with a range of different genres, styles and settings, and that the results will be awe-inspiring and thought-provoking. One of my dreams is to see this become a reality in my lifetime, and I sincerely hope that this will happen.

Video Games – not just children’s playthings

Over the past year or so (and particularly over the past few months), I’ve been becoming a lot more involved in various issues and schools of thought, many of which I’ve shared about here. One that I haven’t shared as yet has to do with video games.

Video games have long been an interest of mine, from the early 2D sidescrollers of the early 90′s to the epic RPG’s and frantic shooters of today, games have been a part of my life. Yet it’s only more recently that I’ve become more involved in the wider community surrounding games. This has accompanied a change within myself concerning the way in which I view  games – and a rather interesting one at that. I moved from using games as a method of escape from my life – particularly during my teenage years where I felt I had a lot to escape from – to seeing them as something which I can learn from. This view was further bolstered when I discovered that I was not alone in how I view games. Within the video game community – those who either develop and play games (or both) – there has long been a school of thought that believes that video games are a burgeoning artistic medium that can be every bit as valid as the movies, music, or traditional visual arts. This school of thought holds that, as an artist medium, games have the potential to enrich lives, and cause people to think (and learn) about themselves and the world around them (one example of this, which I really appreciate and identify with can be found here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/1974-Enriching-Lives ).

This has particularly hit home for me as I was playing the game ‘Dragon Age: Origins’, and several things that the game brought up caused me to think. The first one was concerning free will and the suppression of the mind. Essentially, Mages in the fantasy world Dragon Age is set in are conduits to a dangerous world, and the inhabitants of this world seek to invade the real world through them, and those who are deemed too weak to defend themselves against these dangerous creatures are forcibly ’made tranquil’ – the things that make them special are stripped away (their personality, emotions, ability to cast magic, etc). Discovering this in the game caused me to consider the value that I place upon my free will, and the importance of my emotions and personality. I realised that if faced with the definite possibility of losing everything that made me human, I would take a similar action to one of the minor characters within the game – I would fight back in any way possible – something that took him to forbidden practices and eventually a life of being hunted.

The second was something that a major character said when she joined your party of adventurers. She claimed that she had received a vision from ‘the maker’ (the chief religious figure of Dragon Age’s world – based closely on the Christian understanding of God), which led her to find and join you in your quest. This, and several other conversations with this character, have resonated with my understanding of God, and the way in which He communicates with people – from the generalities of the beauty of the natural world, to the often cryptic personal answers. (On a side note, this in particular has led me to start writing a book – of sorts – about what we can learn from the depiction of God (and religion) in games).

So I guess my point is that Video Games aren’t just children’s playthings (which an unfortunate amount of people – especially those with power – around the world believe and act upon), they have so much more potential. Potential to cause people to reconsider their views on things, to cause them to learn something about themselves. Potential to cause people to cry and laugh. Potential to do what every other form of artistic expression has ever caused people to do.

As always – feel free to disagree with me, comment on something I’ve said, ask for clarification, anything!

My Life

I know that I haven’t posted anything for a while (but let’s face it, I have never promised regular updates!), but I wanted you all to know some of what is going on in my life right now, and get some of the thoughts swirling through my head written down somewhere.

Recently, I’ve started a ministry on the browser game ‘Tribal Wars’. There is a long history behind this decision, so bear with me for a moment…. For some time now I’ve wanted to get involved with the online gaming community and be a presence there. I’d had some experience playing online through Steam, and had forged some friendships within the heat to online combat. There were several barriers to this, many of which have not yet been overcome (things like a computer with which to play these games – I’d been using my brothers computer before and he was starting to get possessive – and my own internet connection over which to play – cause my parents were getting annoyed at the data usage). I’ve been praying for most of the year that God would open the way for these barriers to disappear, but they didn’t – and I grew increasingly discouraged. This came to the forefront again when I started my evangelism class at college, and I was told that one of my assignments would require 20 hours of ‘evangelism’ (with 5 of those being directly telling people about Jesus), and I began praying anew for these barriers to be taken away, since this was where I was convinced that my heart lay.

Out of these prayers came the prompting to rejoin ‘Tribal Wars’ (which I’d been playing on and off for about three years, and had given up ‘for good’ in early January), with the intention of being a light within that server, and particularly, the tribe that I joined as part of the game. So far it’s been a blast getting back into the game with a new focus, and the tribe that I joined is particularly friendly and a good platform for making connections and hopefully telling people about Jesus. I’ve been honest with the tribe about the fact that I’m a Christian (and a Bible college student), and have started offering to pray for people, and I’m praying that there will be something that comes of that. One thought that has come to mind recently has been ‘I’ve dreamed about being a light to Australian online gamers for so long, and God has opened up the whole world (with members of the tribe coming from America, Scotland, Germany, Tibet, and many other places)!’ So even if a ministry on Tribal Wars is much smaller in terms of computing power and interactivity (to a degree), I am content to serve God wherever He puts me.

Also, today has been a particularly good day for me. We had a farewell lunch for someone from my church who has had a particularly strong influence on me over the past few years (which isn’t a very good thing in itself, although I’m happy for the future potential he has as a pastor that the Church he’s moving to), and it was nice to let him know how much his pastoring and mentoring has meant to me (as I said at the event, he approached a shy, unsure 17-year-old (me at the time), and asked if I would like to join the Youth Ministry team – saying that he saw leadership potential that I had never seen. From there, I have started Bible College, begun preaching at Church, and am walking closer with God than I ever have, which is an enormous change that was sparked by that one event.), and the affirmation that I recieved from him concerning everything that I have been doing over the past two years touched my heart.

Also, within my growing ministry on Tribal Wars, today I discovered another Christian within my tribe (going by the screenname gaditewarrior), who is jumping onboard with the prayer ministry, which has encouraged me greatly, and feels like a silent affirmation that I’ve been doing something right.

So that’s the current state of my life at the moment (aside from mentioning the mass of assignments I’ve got to get done before the end of semester – but let’s focus on happy things for a while) I want to ask you to pray for my ministry on Tribal Wars, pray that the relationships that I’m forming would be as deep as possible, and that the other people within my tribe would be receptive to what I have to say. And please pray that I would be learning from any mistakes that I make quickly, and that God would continue to raise up workers for this harvest, because it seems to be relatively untended ground.