We sat down with Charles Boyd, the Creative Director for Star Wars: The Old Republic, who is responsible for overseeing the game’s design and narrative, to talk about Game Update 5.10.
Flow is a mental state, not unlike a trance. You’ve probably experienced it in some shape or form either in games, in roleplay, or at work. Mihály Csikszentmihályi coined the term back in 1975 as a way to describe how the brain can reach a state where all of its mental processing ability is focused on a single task.
Consider for a moment what inputs your brain is dealing with right now. Do you have YouTube in another window? Are you stressed about homework, work, or even preparing an event? Are you sneakily reading this while you’re waiting for someone to pop out an emote? There’s more on that later.
We’re all pretty rubbish at multitasking. I’ll crib an exercise from this video to demonstrate. In your head, silently, try reciting the alphabet silently from A-Z, then count from 1-26.
Go ahead.
You can probably do that pretty rapidly, and it probably isn’t very difficult for you either. Now try the same thing, but pair letters and numbers as you go. So, A1, B2, C3, etc. Go until the tenth pair.
When you're ready.
Different, right? If you tried it, you can probably work out why I asked you to do the whole alphabet on the first one, but less than half the second time. We’re bad at multitasking - really bad. In other words, the worst state for your mind to be in is one where it has to consider many things all at once. In fact, this can lead to a stress response, which takes control away from your human bits and puts your lizard brain in charge.
It seems that a loud mouth will indeed eventually get you heard, but sometimes that draws attention of those who have the power to bring silence. The Golden Beetle has operated under the pillars of good reporting for the entirety of our time spent serving the community of Nar Shaddaa. We have striven to inform the people of what was unfolding around them and bring their attention to what we felt was important news. That has been put on hold as this reporter refuses to think that the voice of the people can be silenced forever. If not this paper, then another one like it will rise up to be a counterpoint to the official word coming down from on high.
An official cease and desist order came through to the Golden Beetle from a glorious Hutt who shall go unnamed least we wish to bring more misfortune to our door than has already been visited upon it. In this order, we were required to immediately cease operations for the foreseeable future making it rather impossible to continue as we are, but fear not, we shall see a voice rise from the Lowers soon enough. That is my prediction. Nar Shaddaa is gritty and untameable. No matter how hard the Hutts try, they cannot keep us all quiet for long.
In my parting words, I encourage you to not lose hope, to not give up, and to not remain silent.
This reporter has done his level best to serve his community well and hopes that the people have thought so too.
Ladies and gentlemen, beings and sentients of our fair Galaxy. From the far reaches of the Wild Space and beyond, I - Mystic Mog - have come forth to share with you the wisdom I have seen in the stars themselves. The Force has blessed me with foresight of the cosmos, and from that I divine forth what is in store for you the next month.
Heed this warning, dear readers, for the ebb and flow of the Force is forever changing. The future is a finnicky thing that even the most talented of us fail to fully interpret its meaning:
The title is straight on the nose. Last month it had been a year since the administrative downfall of our previous Enjin site and community migration to our new home here at Darth Malgus RP, marking this website’s first anniversary. Those first few weeks were rough, but this community successfully and efficiently rebuilt itself on this shiny new website, and I may be a tad bias, but if it you ask me, I think it looks better. Aaand then came the server merges that prompted our rename and rendered all of our the links in our posts and signatures obsolete. But bravely we still slogged on through it and adjusted each and every link in our threads to take you to its intended destination. Let’s not do that again though, please.
This all goes to show that this website receives a good share of tender love and care from the Malgus RP community, who it certainly cannot exist with without. A few months of being knocked down and getting back up again made us better than ever before! But the praise doesn’t belong to the Reporters, Moderators, or the Commander-in-chief, but to the entirely of the community who logs in here and shares their creativity with the rest of the server, gets roleplay rolling and sparks constructive conversation. You deserve a thumbs up! As there’s no reason for the admin staff to do anything without you. All in all, we’ve had our highs, our lows, but we just keep chugging on and solving our problems, regardless of how great an obstacle bars us from moving forward.
Whether or not you're a frequent reader of the Malgus-RP front page articles and happen to have any suggestions of what you'd like to see on the FP, please take a moment to deposit your thoughts in this thread.
Ladies and gentlemen, beings and sentients of our fair Galaxy. From the far reaches of the Wild Space and beyond, I - Mystic Mog - have come forth to share with you the wisdom I have seen in the stars themselves. The Force has blessed me with foresight of the cosmos, and from that I divine forth what is in store for you the next month.
Heed this warning, dear readers, for the ebb and flow of the Force is forever changing. The future is a finnicky thing that even the most talented of us fail to fully interpret its meaning:
