Not long ago my manager asked me if the 3DS was worth buying, since I'm a gamer and all. After giving my opinion on it and whether a casual gamer can justify that amount of money, she commented on how nice it is to have someone around who knows about "this sort of thing". I replied that I've just always been into gaming and I'm pretty much a geek so "this sort of thing" is right up my street.
"Well at least you're not a total geek who plays World of Warcraft or something!" she laughed.
Actually...
I stopped playing WoW two months ago after three years continuous subscription. Most of the people I enjoyed playing with had either jumped ship, cancelled their accounts or simply disappeared. It seemed like a good time to stop. My sub was being renewed automatically every three months and when I cancelled it there was still two months left, so I had plenty of time to reconsider. In the end I completed everything I wanted to do, so just let it expire. I've not really thought much about it since despite retaining my officers' position in the guild. The community had expanded far beyond just WoW to many other games and meetups at LANs are now pretty regular. My mage is now another footnote in the guild history.
However, a few days ago we had what could be described as a "diplomatic incident" in the WoW side of the community, as several members left together to join another guild. For some reason the staff decided to remove all their alts, got confused and kicked out the wrong people, which led to them getting banned on our Minecraft server and almost getting their forum permissions removed. After a good couple of hours talking with another ex-officer/current guild website admin we got a basic idea of what happened and most of the people involved are ok with how it's turned out. Mostly, anyway. Can't please everyone.
But what it made me realise is that despite all the complaints, boredom, rubbish game updates and poor service from Blizzard and WoW, I still miss and care about the game massively. Perhaps not the game itself as the sense of community. I miss being able to log on after a bad day and unwind. I miss the laughs and jokes on Ventrilo, the staying up til 4-5am with a small team of friends deep in enemy territory fighting and evading hundreds of furious Alliance players.
Yes, I was a pretty major PvPer. Not the best in the world but smart enough to not die. And compared to the average players on our realm I was pretty bloody awesome. My videomaking skills, not so awesome.
At its peak we were co-ordinating the entire Horde side of Wintergrasp battles and organising massive server-wide battles through friends on both factions. But when the Cataclysm expansion hit things rapidly declined and within a few months we'd lost most of our core members. I'd lost motivation and ended up spending more and more time playing alone. Eventually, just a week before my subscription ran out, I got the last achievement I wanted - the Conqueror title. But with nobody left around to see it or celebrate with, it was massively hollow and underwhelming. I logged off at the top of a mountain alone and left the game quietly. Nope, not even a forum thread about it. Go me.
Anyway, that sense of community doesn't seem anywhere near as strong at the moment. All of our old circle of friends are spread across all sorts of games, and some no longer game at all. The former officers have all taken up their respective roles as admins over various parts of the community with the exception of me. Compared to how it used to be with not being able to get 5 minutes peace without someone asking about the next/last event or any number of other guild related matters it's hard not to feel like dead weight.
Maybe Guild Wars 2 will turn things around when it's eventually released. But a lot is being pinned on it not being a letdown.
And I'm still not sure it'll be able to match the mayhem of Tram Time. Apparently they don't like it when you occupy their transport network.
At least in GW2 you can destroy buildings. I'll destroy all the buildings.
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Sunday, 8 January 2012
The difficult second entry!
I'm a big fan of one of the nerdiest game niches there is: sim racing. In a gaming world where racing games are increasingly arcade-y and easy to play, with some even giving you the option to pause and rewind the race to try again if you crash (DAMN YOU CODEMASTERS!), sim racing is an escape for those who want a racing game that's actually satisfying and rewarding to play.
The downside is that a lot of people take it extremely seriously, even to RP levels, thanking their teams and pit crew (even though it's all automated AI) after a win or inventing reasons why they didn't finish if their internet connection drops out halfway through the race. I'm not that extreme, but I do have a racing wheel simply because it's impossible to compete with a keyboard + mouse or even a controller when racing against people with wheels and pedals.
I know this because my wheel broke a few days ago (the mounting assembly burst out of the back just because I was leaning on it, and I'm not even that fat or muscular), and rather than buy a new one I decided to try using the keyboard and mouse. I even created a new profile with a new name and car colours just so people wouldn't realise it was me. Terrible idea. It's akin to having your mouse break in a game of TF2 and deciding you can use the D-pad to aim. First attempt, I crashed out on the first lap because having a car on either full lock or no steering at all will only end one way. Usually in the wall or the side of someone else's car.
So then I spent an hour getting my PS3 controller to work and mapping all the keys to that. It was better, but still an absolute nightmare to drive! I was 8 seconds off the pace in the first race with the controller, and in the second one I got kicked from the server because the brake button (L2) decided to stop working and I wrecked two other people due to not being able to stop.
So after discovering why "controller" has the word "troll" in it, I set off for B&Q with a few ideas of how to fix the wheel. After messing around with superglue, then a hacksaw to cut my way in to reattach the bolt, and finally attempting to tie it to the desk I gave up. It's only a cheap wheel and by this point I'd spent about half of what the wheel was worth trying to fix it. Rather than head back to B&Q to try my next two ideas - heavy duty velcro and suction cups - I'm just gonna buy a new one.
Funnily enough, this will be the third one now. When I cancelled my WoW subscription I thought it would save money. Ironically I'm spending more on this free-to-play racing sim just through buying peripherals.
All this just to be tooling around at the back of Race2Play events! I can't help it, it's fun.
Profile here. http://www.race2play.com/homepage/show_member/22073
ADDENDUM: Got this wheel just in time! Had a mail from R2P saying the first of their members has received rFactor 2 keys. Seems like the sequel we never thought would arrive is finally almost here!
The downside is that a lot of people take it extremely seriously, even to RP levels, thanking their teams and pit crew (even though it's all automated AI) after a win or inventing reasons why they didn't finish if their internet connection drops out halfway through the race. I'm not that extreme, but I do have a racing wheel simply because it's impossible to compete with a keyboard + mouse or even a controller when racing against people with wheels and pedals.
I know this because my wheel broke a few days ago (the mounting assembly burst out of the back just because I was leaning on it, and I'm not even that fat or muscular), and rather than buy a new one I decided to try using the keyboard and mouse. I even created a new profile with a new name and car colours just so people wouldn't realise it was me. Terrible idea. It's akin to having your mouse break in a game of TF2 and deciding you can use the D-pad to aim. First attempt, I crashed out on the first lap because having a car on either full lock or no steering at all will only end one way. Usually in the wall or the side of someone else's car.
So then I spent an hour getting my PS3 controller to work and mapping all the keys to that. It was better, but still an absolute nightmare to drive! I was 8 seconds off the pace in the first race with the controller, and in the second one I got kicked from the server because the brake button (L2) decided to stop working and I wrecked two other people due to not being able to stop.
So after discovering why "controller" has the word "troll" in it, I set off for B&Q with a few ideas of how to fix the wheel. After messing around with superglue, then a hacksaw to cut my way in to reattach the bolt, and finally attempting to tie it to the desk I gave up. It's only a cheap wheel and by this point I'd spent about half of what the wheel was worth trying to fix it. Rather than head back to B&Q to try my next two ideas - heavy duty velcro and suction cups - I'm just gonna buy a new one.
Funnily enough, this will be the third one now. When I cancelled my WoW subscription I thought it would save money. Ironically I'm spending more on this free-to-play racing sim just through buying peripherals.
All this just to be tooling around at the back of Race2Play events! I can't help it, it's fun.
Profile here. http://www.race2play.com/homepage/show_member/22073
ADDENDUM: Got this wheel just in time! Had a mail from R2P saying the first of their members has received rFactor 2 keys. Seems like the sequel we never thought would arrive is finally almost here!
Monday, 2 January 2012
First post
Oh hi. This is the first post on my new blog so I may as well make it a good one. So I'll be explaining why gaming as a 'nerdy' thing is a stereotype that belongs in 1990.
My family and workmates are vaguely aware that I'm a gamer, but it almost never gets talked about. The exception is my brother who's an avid gamer, but only on Xbox, so our conversations usually end up being about what the best console is (clearly not Xbox). And the only time gaming gets brought up in work conversations is when a major title like Modern Warfare 3 or the latest FIFA game is released - neither of which are really my thing. So my gaming persona is mostly overlooked and ignored like a massive spot on the centre of my face that everyone's too polite to mention.
Now, most of us gamers have heard one, or all, of the following:
"Videogames? Get a life!"
"Why don't you go outside instead?"
"Videogames are for kids!"
You get the idea. It's not quite as widespread as it used to be, but it still carries a stigma for some reason. If videogames are your choice of entertainment you're automatically a loser, a geek, a no-lifer, a hermit. And yes, some people are. But the same is true of music lovers, TV addicts, bookworms, in fact just people in general. But my beef is this.
If Billy is playing videogames for 6 hours while Bob is watching Xfactor for 6 hours, both of them have been sat in front of a screen for the same amount of time. At least Billy has had to use his head in some way. Meanwhile Bob's losing brain cells watching Gary Barlow trying his best to be as mean as Simon Cowell, or watching montages of people crying while Snow Patrol plays in the background. Bob's brain is rotting. He's zoning out and staring into middle distance while slowly sliding down his chair. He's slumped half on the floor with a sudden urge to buy the Little Mix album. He's doomed.
...Can you tell I'm not a fan of Xfactor? In the meantime, it's time that videogaming is accepted as an art form alongside movies, music, literature, and even the classic paintings you see in museums. You could even say it's the ultimate artform because videogames combine all of the above into one package. Take a game like Mass Effect. Epic story, great graphics and design, beautful music and brilliantly shot cutscenes. Any of these aspects on their own could easily compete with the best the 'real' art world has to offer, but combine them all onto a screen and they suddenly lose credibility. Why?
No really, why? In this day and age computers are everywhere in our lives. Saying you don't use computers in 2012 is almost akin to saying you can't read. And with that comes gaming. There's games to suit everyone these days. From pick-up-and-play popular games like Farmville and Angry Birds, right through to life-devouring games like EVE Online, it's one of the broadest and most accessible artforms ever.
And that's why I'm gaming in the evenings after work, instead of doing a Bob.
My family and workmates are vaguely aware that I'm a gamer, but it almost never gets talked about. The exception is my brother who's an avid gamer, but only on Xbox, so our conversations usually end up being about what the best console is (clearly not Xbox). And the only time gaming gets brought up in work conversations is when a major title like Modern Warfare 3 or the latest FIFA game is released - neither of which are really my thing. So my gaming persona is mostly overlooked and ignored like a massive spot on the centre of my face that everyone's too polite to mention.
Now, most of us gamers have heard one, or all, of the following:
"Videogames? Get a life!"
"Why don't you go outside instead?"
"Videogames are for kids!"
You get the idea. It's not quite as widespread as it used to be, but it still carries a stigma for some reason. If videogames are your choice of entertainment you're automatically a loser, a geek, a no-lifer, a hermit. And yes, some people are. But the same is true of music lovers, TV addicts, bookworms, in fact just people in general. But my beef is this.
If Billy is playing videogames for 6 hours while Bob is watching Xfactor for 6 hours, both of them have been sat in front of a screen for the same amount of time. At least Billy has had to use his head in some way. Meanwhile Bob's losing brain cells watching Gary Barlow trying his best to be as mean as Simon Cowell, or watching montages of people crying while Snow Patrol plays in the background. Bob's brain is rotting. He's zoning out and staring into middle distance while slowly sliding down his chair. He's slumped half on the floor with a sudden urge to buy the Little Mix album. He's doomed.
...Can you tell I'm not a fan of Xfactor? In the meantime, it's time that videogaming is accepted as an art form alongside movies, music, literature, and even the classic paintings you see in museums. You could even say it's the ultimate artform because videogames combine all of the above into one package. Take a game like Mass Effect. Epic story, great graphics and design, beautful music and brilliantly shot cutscenes. Any of these aspects on their own could easily compete with the best the 'real' art world has to offer, but combine them all onto a screen and they suddenly lose credibility. Why?
No really, why? In this day and age computers are everywhere in our lives. Saying you don't use computers in 2012 is almost akin to saying you can't read. And with that comes gaming. There's games to suit everyone these days. From pick-up-and-play popular games like Farmville and Angry Birds, right through to life-devouring games like EVE Online, it's one of the broadest and most accessible artforms ever.
And that's why I'm gaming in the evenings after work, instead of doing a Bob.
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