Change And The Seven Stages OF KSI Despair

We are all familiar with the stages of grief. Maybe you learned about it in your psych class, or maybe, like a large portion of the population, you learned about it through pop culture. The Simpsons, for example (no judgment).

What fascinates me though, is how it can be applied to so many other things – like change, for instance. We all have to deal with it; new schools, new teachers, new jobs, new towns. But, we are creatures of habit and it can send us spiraling down a similar pit of despair.

Just ask the Destiny 2 players in my squad. Cast your mind back a few months to May, when Bungie announced that popular weapons were being nerfed. It is almost literally all that was spoken about in Xbox parties and the Discord chats.

How It Started…

An announcement is coming. There are the conspiracy theorists saying it’s all going to hell and perpetual optimists with hopes of exciting improvements. Then the actual news comes.

Denial

“Maybe it was misread…” “You didn’t hear that correctly…” “Prove it.” “They won’t really do that…will they?”

It’s hard to accept that something you have sunk so much time into can be made obsolete, just like that.

Anger

“This is ridiculous!…They can’t do this!” Actually, there was some very unfriendly language used. It was more along the lines of, “*insert choice expletive here* what the hell is this *more swearing* I worked so #*%$^&# hard to get my *%#$#! hand cannon!”

We forgave them their venting. Hours had been spent, meeting some rather boring, grindy objectives to get those weapons. I have friends who still weep when the terms Gambit or Crucible are uttered.

Bargaining and UltimatumsA?

This step was very closely linked to and overlapped with anger. In parties it sounded a little like: “They better not &$%^* do this or I will never play again!”A?

Depression

This hit the eternal optimists we saw in stage 1 the hardest, but everyone felt it. The inner Eeyores came out in droves and sounded a bit like: “I wasted so much of my time…” Or, “I guess I’ll never get another Crucible win again…”

Acceptance

“Hey, who wants to run this raid?” It was almost as if the announcement had never happened. Not quite though. If you had the privilege to sit in on one of those raids the banter involved discussions about how to move forward with the changes that were coming.

The Grind Continues

Some gamers moved on, starting new characters in Borderlands 2 in anticipation of the fall release and to play the new DLC. Others found new games. The majority continued their commitment to Destiny 2 as if it had never happened, finding new joys in a slightly revamped game. They didn’t love it any less for the most part and are thoroughly looking for to the Fall 2019 DLC.

Of course, how does the game repay them? Solstice of Heroes armor. Happy grinding!

All joking aside, change is a hard thing to process sometimes and the summer/fall months tend to be full of it. School years end and begin, new graduates looking for new opportunities, new schools, new routines and moving out. KSI has it’s own life cycles: members come and go, transfer divisions, Squads and Divisions split, officers move up and down the ranks, but it continues to be a place to meet like-minded gamers and enjoy each others company.

Without change life gets a little stale. So do your video games and so would the community. If the creators didn’t make shifts in a game, it would get boring and be abandoned. Likewise, you can start to feel a little stuck in life or a community without new experiences.

Within our community branching out to see what Departments and the Forums have to offer and joining events are great ways to keep KSI exciting and interesting. With every change comes some doubt and trepidation (see denial, bargaining, ultimatums and anger above). This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Give a change a chance. Don’t bale on it before you see what a change might have to offer you, even if it is a little grindy.