Why I Took a Break

Hello, everyone.

Recently, I decided to take a break from Twitter.

There is actually more than one reason for this and I have decided to tell you what those are and how it could affect my future.

I have only told you one reason, publicly. Basically, I am quite an academic person. In a month, my GCSE exams officially begin and these are very important to me since they have some sort of impact on my future. They determine what kind of person I appear to be when I move on to college and university. I want to succeed in my GCSEs and, so far, I believe I have confidence and I really hope I can continue to aim high. So, that’s the main and evident reason.

The other reason is that I am exhausted. Ever since January, I have been increasingly more attached to Club Penguin because it was close to shutting down, at the time. I organised the So Long CP project and that was a lot of hard work. It was a project I was really proud of but it got too much for me. It was just so big!

I was overwhelmed by the responsibilities but I carried on and I think it was a successful project. However, the aftermath has been a bit different that what I expected it to be.

Although I treat this project as a success, I still think that there was no achievement. Normally, when you accomplish something, you get that sense of pride. Unfortunately, I haven’t felt that. So, when I look back on these past few months, I just sigh and bother myself about this issue.
Operation: Shadow, for example, took ages and ages to organise. It was so stressful and lots of sacrifices were made to push it forward. While I was happy with the result of the project, there was no “completion” feeling. I doubt that many of you have even heard of it. Let’s just say, the videos didn’t get a lot of views. Nor did the meet-ups get a lot of attention. It was quite a disappointing turnout for that particular project within So Long CP – and it happened to be the most time consuming out of all of them.

Therefore, I look back on Operation: Shadow and think “was it really worth it?”. I don’t think it was.

Then there’s Penguin Chat: the weekly podcast hosted by Daisydoo14 and I.

Penguin Chat is also something that is on the back of my mind a lot. We created this podcast to have fun and it has been fun recording with new guests every week, so far. Again, the process behind it is a little more complicated than you think. And – of course – there has not been a lot of interest in it. Even though a lot of people asked for it and agreed with it, the turnout has once again been undelivered.

I am now…exhausted.

Sometimes I feel that I work too hard for something that isn’t even worth it. Working on projects, like these, mean sacrifices! Now, I have realised that those sacrifices are too big of a risk to take. Which is underwhelming and very depressing to think.

I took a break because I have to recover from these falls. On the outside, I may be the positive Blue you like to think me as. However, on the inside, I am feeling blue and a bit depressed. I am just lucky that I have some really supportive friends who have helped me through this stressful time. I mainly want to give Daisydoo14 a shoutout for being considerate and understanding.

I apologise that this wasn’t a happy post, but I just wanted you all to know the truth. Now, I have decided to cut down on my ambitious attitude and be simple, especially in a community like this one. There’s just competition everywhere you go, whereas I don’t want that; I just want to find happiness in the community.

Hopefully, this break will help me. When I return this Summer, I did have something I wanted to work on, but now I am in doubt after So Long CP and Operation: Shadow. I will miss a lot of you. I will miss being on Twitter.

I just want to try and pursue my manner outside of Club Penguin so that I can be happier and find appreciation.

Thank you for reading.

Waddle On!

Blue21102

Keep on Smiling!

Hello, everyone!

Club Penguin has done a great job at entertaining its penguins for (more or less) eight years. The question is: what about the three remaining years? From 2014, parties have been noticeably lacklustre which means that, for us, we may not be having as much fun as we had back then. And that gives us the right to go wild about complaining, am I right? Not really. Did you know that Club Penguin is working on something big? I am sure you did know that! I’m afraid that big things like the project they are working on, currently, require some sacrifices. We are lucky that Club Penguin hasn’t sacrificed its life, but instead its quality. We can still play the game! The whole Club Penguin community have a massive online game still in grasp, and it has come to a time when we don’t know what else to do with it anymore. Maybe it is time to revisit some techniques that have been pushed away in history. Maybe it is time to grant your sceptical ego a rest while we keep on smiling, together!

In today’s Waddle Guide (it sure has been a while), it is time for me to share with you some tips and suggestions that may help you with your online experience of Club Penguin. To be fair, everyone – including me – has been getting bored of the parties lately. It doesn’t help when they are augmented over a couple of months either. Funnily enough, we don’t need these parties anymore. Yes, they may be Club Penguin’s most important and advertised feature of the game. Yes, they offer new experiences to the island. But anyone can conjure up new experiences, am I right? Indeed, I am.

Club Penguin players, I hope you will find this post helpful and hopefully you will be enlightened by my ideas that can make your Club Penguin legacy something to remember. Let’s begin!

Be the party animal!

Statistically, over 80% of Club Penguin’s audience, on average, log on to the game for less than 10 minutes (I totally did not just make that up). That is not a satisfying statistic. It proves that so many players are getting bored; all they do is log on, see what’s new and log off. Club Penguin is about waddling around and meeting new friends. Well, it was about that originally. Most of the older audience should still live by this motto so don’t be afraid to get the party started. If you see a penguin lifelessly present in your chatroom, get them to dance or tell you about their favourite things. In other words, act compassionately. You may not behave like this usually but, when you are living online, you can get away with being the best person you can be. On Club Penguin, you can exaggerate it even more because (why not?!) you are a penguin!

Club Penguin allows you to conversate with anyone! You have access to emotes and the speed chat function. You even have the will to communicate hand coordinated messages providing that they can bypass the chat filter (if you know what I mean). Club Penguin is not just a game; it is also a party that is waiting to be kicked off! How about you be the party animal? I am almost 100% sure that at least one penguin will join in with you. If they don’t, you are clearly freaking them out. Do not over-do it!

Unite the server!

What is Club Penguin without a little bit of roleplay? On Club Penguin, you have the chance to let your inner child run wild. If you want there to be a dark force awakening, let there be one and warn your fellow peers that they will come and attack you. Tell them to hide somewhere and convince the server to rendezvous in one chatroom. It may sound cruel but what is there to blame other than your “overreactive imagination”? Managing to gather as many penguins as possible is something impressive, and it will naturally influence other penguins to go along with the story.

Club Penguin Space do an excelling job at this so I thought that promoting it, even more, will result in more surprises for players online. It is something fun to witness. I guarantee that the conflicting imaginations from every penguin the room will progress the story in many, odd directions! It – certainly – brings a smile to your face and it makes you feel like you have achieved something. Moreover, other penguins are likely to appreciate it because we all know that nothing ever goes on in their average, penguin lives. You can be the hero and inspire other penguins to do what you do. Of course, you can even be the villain. Do whatever your heart desires!

Little acts of kindness!

Did you know that making someone else’s day also makes your day too? If you see a penguin with vibrant hair or a penguin with a cute puffle, remember that it doesn’t cost a penny for you to acknowledge and compliment on these things. Just think. Saying something kind to someone can boost their self-esteem. You can save a person from having a bad day; all it takes is a couple of seconds! Little acts of kindness can make you
feel like a better person and, most importantly, it benefits the lives of other people too. Do not restrict yourself to online only. Be kind and compassionate to people you know in real life or to a random stranger who inspires you. Again, I am sure a smile will appear on their face. Everyone knows how contagious smiling can so don’t be surprised to find yourself doing the same thing.

Take a step forward!

I mentioned earlier that parties are no longer a priority to Club Penguin. As right as I am, that cannot stop a creative community from organising their own. Any tweeting penguins out there know, for a fact, that we love a good party. Almost daily, when I log onto Twitter, I see invitations going out to every single penguin. You may have seen ‘CP Around The Clock’, ‘Club Penguin United’ and birthday invitations flying around your Twitter Timelines. In the past, there have been extraordinary events such as ’31 Days of CP’ and the ‘Club Penguin Elections’. ‘Rare Records’ was an event created by myself; it was a celebration of music. Events like these portray dedication that the community is willing to give for its game. That is why Club Penguin has an amazing community.

Interestingly, it is not that difficult to prepare an event of your own. It would help you out a lot if you had access to some form of social media, like Twitter so that you can promote it to other players. You can celebrate anything you want. The more unique it is, the better! Taking this step forward and offering a new experience to players of the game is a courageous and scary thing to do but it will make a lot of penguins smile. Because everyone in the Club Penguin community is caring, everyone will support you. There is nothing to worry about regarding this since the community is appreciative of these events or parties. The key to an event is always the enjoyment. Sometimes, things may not go your way, but as long as it keeps the community entertained, you will have succeeded!

That is all of my tips, that I had in mind for this post, covered! I am hoping that at least one of them inspired or motivated you to become a happier penguin. Now, since this post is all about smiling, I cannot finish this post without leaving you with something that will bring a smile to your face. Are you ready for a little bit of magic?

                              

Thank you so much for reading and please do me a favour: keep on smiling!

Waddle On!

-Blue21102

 

Island Discussion #28: New Dimension

Hello everyone!

We have reached the end of May which – importantly – only means one thing; we are slowly creeping towards a finished project that yet remains “super secret” to us. Project: Super Secret can be a lot of things that we possibly couldn’t even imagine. Even though it has been through a few years of production and will continue to do so for the rest of this year (possibly) this project still lives up to its name and I applaud Club Penguin for that. On the other hand, it makes it so much harder for us to assume what it could be and the hype may end up driving us completely insane – if it hasn’t done so already!

To be fair, we have received several sneak peeks since last year and they are becoming more frequent and expected. By the end of each month, the team will continue to give us a sneak peek into what they are creating until they finally announce it. Now, from what we have seen, the project seems to have a lot of depth and by that I mean a variety of aspects that could push the boundaries and turn Club Penguin into something totally new! Maybe it is a good thing? Possibly not? Well, I think it is about time Club Penguin takes a new step since they have succeeded for a noticeable amount of years as an Adobe Flash based game. However the last couple of years haven’t been so good and that is not because the team are becoming lazy. It is quite the opposite, in fact! They have been working on this super secret project for a while now and we are soon from witnessing the final outcome, possibly by the end of this year.

So in this post today, I feel would be useful to recap everything we know about the project but what I am really interested in is how we get there. Not just from one game to another, but also from Club Penguin (2D) to Club Penguin (3D). It highlights a huge leap so it would be fair to say that some people will be blown away by this game. But because of how different it is, will this make the acceleration from one game to another unrealistic? It depends how creative the team are. But I am going to be talking about this later because, right now, I need to recapitulate what we know about Project: Super Secret – currently. We are going chronological so back we go to June/July 2015 when we received our first sneak peek.

Remember when Riyita (owner of Club Penguin Space) visited the Club Penguin Offices in Kelowna last year? It must have been a pretty amazing opportunity that I would snatch up any time, if I could. Anyway, Riyita was lucky enough the test out a “small” sample of Project: Super Secret. This was the Clothing Customizer. So after he had left Kelowna and was able to manage his blog once again, Riyita was given permission to show what he had made – with the Clothing Customizer – to the rest of the Club Penguin Community and (believe me) we were drowned with hype! This was the first time we managed to have a look at a physical representation of Project: Super Secret so you can imagine how surprised and thrilled we were.

A few days later (early July) Club Penguin officially confirmed this sneak peek and showed off a little video of what the early Clothing Customizer looked like at the time. Since it was a year ago, development of the app was obviously not final so what you see in the video may not appear in the official product. Below I have left an image of a fully customizable hoodie that featured in the video. If you want to see the video, click here. You can also check out Riyita’s small sneak peek right here! 

You Choose: YouTube Video

15/04/16

Thank you for everyone who voted; the results are now in! The majority of you chose my next video to be… A Club Penguin Documentary! Stay tuned for this video to happen next month and keep an eye on any sneak peeks I may give to you in the near future.

-Blue21102

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Hello everyone!

To celebrate my two years of blogging, I have decided to make a YouTube video dedicated to this celebration but this video can be anything of your choice. As a gift for all of your support with this blog, I am allowing every single one of you to decide what category the YouTube should fall into. I think I have covered all of the popular requests so just vote for your chosen video now since you only have 23 hours to vote!

I would appreciate it if you could vote as soon as possible so that I can begin working on the project so that it can be finished before my anniversary. Below is the poll from my Twitter timeline.

I need all of your suggestions for a type of video you would like to see as my new YouTube video! Please vote! 🙂

— Blue21102 (@Blue21102) April 14, 2016

 In the next few weeks, I will post updates on how this video is going with a possible chance of a sneak peek to arrive by the end of this month.

Thank you everyone and please vote for what you want to see; you have less than a day so be quick! If you have any questions, please comment them below.

Waddle On!

-Blue21102

My Decision

Hey everyone!

In my last post, I was explaining to you how difficult it is for me to find time for Club Penguin in my life. I was mainly talking about how my dedication to Club Penguin and my blog has started to decay as time goes on since I find that my time becomes limited almost all the time. Like lots of other people, I have priorities such as education, family and other hobbies I dedicate my time to. Blogging has only been one of my recent hobbies as of two years ago. So I have thought a lot about it and I have made a decision.

I am going to break it down:

Club Penguin

Club Penguin is going to go through a lot of changes in the future. Project: Super Secret will transform it and hopefully make it better! My dedication to Club Penguin, however, does not just rely on this. Time is the main factor; when I don’t have it, I cannot play Club Penguin. Therefore it is difficult to judge when I play Club Penguin. I have always been interested in its parties so I will try to log on to experience the new parties and collect items to expand my inventory too. I also find that Club Penguin lifts my mood so when I can go on it, I will do my best to spend time with my buddies to make most of the time.

Twitter

Over the last few days, I have come to realize how attached I have become to Twitter. For nearly two years it has been part of my routine so it is going to mean changes if I just abandon it. Fortunately, I am not a big fan of changes. So I will just rely on myself to keep logging on to Twitter when I am bored. Besides, who can not resist checking out the latest trends within the community? Without Twitter, I feel restricted so the least I could do is log onto it often to see what is going on. Plus, I have so many amazing friends who I do not want to lose. Maybe I won’t tweet so often (something I am surprisingly good at) but I will still be there now and then. Also my Twitter is also connected with my blog so when a new post arrives, Twitter is there to share it with all of you. But what is going to happen to my blog?

The Blue Blog

I have always stressed how unique my blog can be compared to other blogs on Club Penguin. Instead of posting daily updates issuing any Club Penguin related news, I post my own authentic ideas that some of you have grown to like. From what some of you have been saying to me recently (about my blog), I feel flattered and very proud. To know that some of you will miss my Island Discussion tears me a bit since I also loved making Island Discussions too! But when can I find the time?

What if I just keep things the way they were before? In fact, my blog was never meant to promise any fluency with my posts. If you read the welcome page, it mentions how I feel much more comfortable to post “what I like, when I like”. This means that I will strive to produce unique and original content when I can and that basically brings across the message. The reason why I am suddenly iterating this now is because over the last few months my blog was beginning to take on a new route with new posts always around the corner and even though it sounded like a solid plan, it was never meant to be. That is clearly my own fault since I was not aware of the power of time. Also I am getting to an age where exams can have a lot of responsibility for what I could do in the future and I do not want to mess this up. Therefore I dedicate a lot more of my time to revision in preparation for these exams.

On the whole, I can promise you one thing. The Blue Blog is not yet at its end. I will try to post when I can but now you know that you cannot always rely on the time I have in my hands. It’s almost as if I am juggling, most of the time, as I gain more responsibilities. So what I said in my last post echoes a similar message but now you know for sure!

In case you found all of that difficult to understand, I will now present to you a basic refinement – in big font – of my decision.

“I am staying in the community but I will not seem active on all occasions. I will strive to post content when I can and I will try to engage with the Twitter Community when it is possible.”

So there you have it! If you have any questions at all, please let me know in the comments and I will respond to them. Thank you very much for your continued support and time to read this post. I am happy to stay a blogger for all of you – please don’t expect a lot, though! XD

Waddle On!

-Blue21102