A quick note of praise.

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Bmen30

Sergeant Knight
Dear creators and developers of Prophesy of Pendor (and why not Taleworlds too <3),

I've been playing PoP since Mount&Blade and accumulated over 30,000 hours of it. As much as I love M&B in general, your mod was the firework induced cherry on top. The extensive amount of possibilities that I could choose were vast and epic to say the least. The difficulty made it fun and challenging while it also made me what to throw myself out of a window when I got caught out by a massive army spawn. The models are immersive and made me feel like I was the mightiest knight/archer/barbarian/horsearcher/viking who ever roamed the plains of Pendor! When I started to listen to Epica or Neo-Orchestrial music such as Two Steps From Hell, it just made the immersion even better! So much that it saved my life.

In middle school I was dealing with severe depression after having moved from Italy to the States, essentially losing touch with my friends. Not only that but my parents had a bad divorce which only got worse when my mom took us here (all is well now, don't fret!). To add to the list of negativity, I was bullied for whatever reason in middle school. As such I was ready to end my own life, dreading every day. Until I found Mount&Blade, and better yet Prophesy of Pendor, although my grades were bad as they were M&B and PoP allowed me to escape from the dread and cancer that was life at the time. That's when it hit me that this isn't what life was about. That everything has to be utter crap unless you manage to find a passion that will allow you to climb from the abyss that is depression.

It was then that I decided I was going to be a 3-D modeler and Animator (and why not a 3-D map maker too), every summer I've been going to iD Gaming Academy, which not only do you game with a bunch of other cool gamers at colleges such as Yale, Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford ( I went to Stanford which was epic) we also got to learn incredibly helpful things to aid us in our journey to success in the competitive game design industry. Now that I'm out of highschool and have a gap year this year ( just needed a mental break and so for it's be euphoric, I recommend 11/10) and I've come up with a plan of awesome animations that I'd like to call "Battlemations", think of the greatest and most epic music you have ever listened to. Not only listened but felt deep inside. What I hope for Battlemations to be is that feeling you get from listening. That epic tingling incarnated. I hope to start making some rough drafts early Autumn, so you heard it here first M&B modding community  :wink:.

Without further ado, with that last paragraph. I can't even begin to describe how thankful I am for your work on PoP. It has taught me so much, felt incredible things, and in general saved my life. Thank you PoP ( and Taleworlds <3 ) creators for giving me the strength get to where I am now.

-Bmen
 
how a game can save someones life is beyond me...

theres no reason in the world to kill yourself because of some kind depression, bullying, either youre a fragile person, or youre to much dependent on others.

If you learn to present confidence in ever step and move you do, theres no one who will bully you in job/school/wherever and as you grow self confident the whole structure of yourself changes.

Being bullied shows that you are in some kind of way weak AND different from the rest of the bunch, because the bullies are usually weak in an aspect of themselves and try to overcompensate it by bullying someone who they can bully.

I was once a bully, then switched school, became bullied, aaaaand used the fact that i was bullied, to grow on myself, i used the anger and focused it on sports, thuss became a fitness trainer and thats the best thing that happened to me, Im kinda glad i switched sides and became the bullied one. As a bully yourself you have to put alot of effort in every day... And one thing thats funny, people focus on you, after some time i saw them as my "haters gonna hate" fanclub instead of bullies :wink:
At some point you will be strong willed/muscular strong enough to either face it or they will loose interest in bullying you, that beaing said this only happens if you start growing from such input.

also: children can be very cruel.
 
Elensil the Numenorean said:
how a game can save someones life is beyond me...

theres no reason in the world to kill yourself because of some kind depression, bullying, either youre a fragile person, or youre to much dependent on others.

If you learn to present confidence in ever step and move you do, theres no one who will bully you in job/school/wherever and as you grow self confident the whole structure of yourself changes.

Being bullied shows that you are in some kind of way weak AND different from the rest of the bunch, because the bullies are usually weak in an aspect of themselves and try to overcompensate it by bullying someone who they can bully.

I was once a bully, then switched school, became bullied, aaaaand used the fact that i was bullied, to grow on myself, i used the anger and focused it on sports, thuss became a fitness trainer and thats the best thing that happened to me, Im kinda glad i switched sides and became the bullied one. As a bully yourself you have to put alot of effort in every day... And one thing thats funny, people focus on you, after some time i saw them as my "haters gonna hate" fanclub instead of bullies :wink:
At some point you will be strong willed/muscular strong enough to either face it or they will loose interest in bullying you, that beaing said this only happens if you start growing from such input.

also: children can be very cruel.
Albeit it was middle school. It's pretty hard to be confident in a new school, in a new country, in which I barely knew the language while having to deal with a bad divorce and losing my old friends I grew up so I'd sure hope that I'm the only one that has to go through what I have. Anyways, I'm glad I was bullied (at the time not so much), it reinforced my passion for gaming and game design. It really affected how I wanted to live my life. I never go out of my way to go and ruin someone's day, in fact I want to do the complete opposite and leave them smiling by the end of the conversation. In your case I feel sorry that you were a bully, I don't hate you for it, but I'm just sad that at one point in your life that's what you were to someone/some people.

The way that M&B saved me was because it provided me an escape that I most certainly needed at the time. It was the only thing I was looking forward too during middle school. If the Vaegirs managed to finally take over Dhirim, I'd go ecstatic for the week. I would immerse myself into Calradia and imagine I was right there next to Yargolek fighting the human tin cans.

Edit: On another note, depression isn't a sign of being weak, it's actually something much deeper. I'm actually diagnosed with something that's commonish (4/10) in teens called Dysthymia which basically means I chronically get really, really sad. I've only had one freak out which was March of last year where I just felt super depressed and lonely (even though I have plenty of good friends).
 
Bmen said:
Dear creators and developers of Prophesy of Pendor (and why not Taleworlds too <3),

-Bmen

Thank you for such a heartfelt note.

I am gratified that this body of work was not only entertaining for you, but it served as a needed coping mechanism in a situation when you were young and unable to cope with the challenges of life on your own.

Further, I am happy for you that you have found a passion with which you can pour your creativity energies into that can also serve as a way for you to make a living.

Kindest regards,

Saxondragon

Elensil the Numenorean said:
how a game can save someones life is beyond me...

....  i used the anger and focused it on sports, thuss became a fitness trainer and thats the best thing that happened to me...

Elensil, I am also glad that you found sports and found a way to channel your anger into a more productive form.

We all have challenges in life.  They are different for each of us and how we meet, or fail to meet, those challenges defines us.

Very often we gravitate towards behaviors that help us cope with situations that we are ill prepared to deal with. When I say "Ill prepared" I mean by training, maturity or experience.

Entertainment experiences that are truly engaging and can serve as a "time out" from the insolvable problems of daily life, and are often used as coping mechanisms.

In other words, coping mechanisms regardless of their form, allow us to deal with situations and problems that are beyond our capabilities to deal with on our own.  They can give us strength, perspective, and the mental and emotional fortitude to cope with difficult situations.

Further, based upon the situation, person, mental health and cultural mores, suicide can seem like the only possible alternative to deal with the problems of life.  This is especially true for those people who are not fully adults as the brains neural pathways have not yet fully developed and it is physiologically impossible  for these young people to meet the emotionally complex problems of adulthood.  Thus they cope in the only way that makes sense at this point in their lives.

My apologies if I dipped into lecture mode here.  I hope that this perspective can be of some value to not only you but others who read this in better understanding the link between gaming and life.

Kindest regards,

Saxondragon


 
saxondragon said:
Bmen said:
Dear creators and developers of Prophesy of Pendor (and why not Taleworlds too <3),

-Bmen

Thank you for such a heartfelt note.

I am gratified that this body of work was not only entertaining for you, but it served as a needed coping mechanism in a situation when you were young and unable to cope with the challenges of life on your own.

Further, I am happy for you that you have found a passion with which you can pour your creativity energies into that can also serve as a way for you to make a living.

Kindest regards,

Saxondragon

D'aw shucks, haha this whole thread is leaving me teary eyed. I don't even think a "thank you" that's ten million characters long could truly express how grateful I am for you and your team for making something that has allowed me to be able to write all this today. Thank you so much Saxon for making something that's brought so many smiles and faces of abject horror. I'm so glad I was able to be apart of it and my memories of PoP will always be with me, reminding me where I've been and how to look ahead and do to something different while hopefully making something that touches lives like you and your team have.

A blank check worth of thank you's Saxon,

-Bmen
 
noosers said:
Over 30000 hours? That´s almost 3,5 years of continous playing, 24/7.

Finally someone who spent more time on PoP than me!  :mrgreen:
Absolutely shameless about it haha!
 
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