Today's Gaming Tip: Don't be a Dink

Here's a confession: I'm not a very high-level gamer. Sure, I enjoy playing video games and spend quite a bit (too much?) of time playing them, but I'm not very good. In a real-time strategy (RTS) game, I tend to "turtle" or hang out in my primary base building up my forces, fending off the paltry attacks that the computer brings to bear until I'm ready to break out and demolish them. In a first-person shooter (FPS), I walk very slowly and carefully, making sure to uncover every thing possible in a room before moving on just in case there's that extra health pack or ammo laying around that could make a difference in the next room. Neither of those practices is conducive to playing these games online. The people online playing an RTS have the first five minutes of any match mapped out to the point that they know exactly what each character will be doing, what will be built and what forces they need. It's like playing Axis and Allies against my brother (old-school geeky reference). The people playing FPS games online have obviously been bionically enhanced to heighten their reflexes so that the commands sent through their FIOS connection (to make sure that they have minimum ping) are exactly the right move at the right time. That or they have ESP so that they know exactly where to fire the rocket so that it splatters my virtual self all over the floor. But I'm not bitter.

Here's the thing, though: I know I'm not good. I'm OK with that. What I'm not OK with is a player who is more advanced being a dink. Let me give you a couple of examples.

I had been playing WarCraft 3 with a friend of mine online. Both of us were not very good. We both acknowledged that fact. We would play 2 vs. 2 battles against other people that the WC3 service would deem as being "on our level." We were playing one such match and completely got our butts kicked. As we're congradulating our opponents on a well-done match, one of them makes the comment that they created new accounts to play against lower-tier players. In other words, they were "slumin' it." So much for the match-making service.

Lately, I've been playing a bunch of Team Fortress 2. This is a completely online FPS, so there isn't a single-player campaign to get your feet wet. You're immediately thrown to the wolves, trying to learn the ropes. I was momentarily overwhelmed by the sheer number of servers on which you can play when by happy chance, I stumbled on a server marked as being just for someone like me: a complete Newbie. I was over-joyed. I was still noticably worse than the other people on the server, but I felt like I was among my own, for the most part. Then, tonight as I was playing, I asked what I thought was the fairly innocuous question of what control I use to activate the cloak for the spy, since I hadn't much experience running the spy before. Someone voice chats, "Don't tell him! Because then he'll play the spy and suck. Read the manual, noob!" In fairness, could I have looked at the keyboard layout in the options menu to find out? Yes, of course. It just didn't occur to me at the time. However, I didn't expect such a response on a server marked as being for people who aren't completely up to speed on the game. Silly me.

Destructoid had a very good tongue-in-cheek article about online gaming. One of the best lines in there, using the ever-interesting second person point of view, is "You, however, were never a noob. You were playing games online before the Internet was even invented." Let's try to remember, folks, that we all had to start somewhere. I'm starting with TF2. I'm trying to get better, and I think that I have. For one thing, I'm not trying to be a front-line soldier with my medic any more. That was just silly.

My name is Jeff Kamp, and, for now, I'm a newbie. So if you see my spy fumbling with his cloaking watch, please pause for just a second before killing me. I'm sure I'll give you ample time to actually take me out. Thanks.