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.

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Get a (Half-)Life!

Author's note: Sorry that this is a bit late in getting posted today. I had some last-minute additions that needed to be reviewed before I could post. Thanks for your patience.

You might be wondering why it is that I haven't been as regular with articles lately. Well, there are a variety of reasons: We've been busy at home lately, and with our Christmas vacation, there was a lot of catching up to be done around the house. I had been lax in getting the checkbook up-to-date, and there's the fact that I'm historically lazy. However, a large part of the reason is that I've found myself sucked back into the world of Half-Life. Now, I have a designated time during the week which I set aside for playing video games. However, that time is spent with Frederick III and his brother-in-law playing Diablo 2. We're currently running characters in the 60's in case you were wondering. I have a paladin. Trust me, someone out there finds this interesting. However, there are various times throughout the week in which I can maybe squeeze in some time for myself. Nap time on Saturday and Sunday for instance. It is within these time periods that I would normally try to get some writing in. Lately, though, I've found myself getting back in to Half-Life. Half-Life can make a good argument for being called the greatest game of all time. Engrossing story-line, high tension followed by frantically running for a safe place, and never taking the player out of the game for a cut scene make for a game that gets the player emotionally involved. Everything that happens occurs within the context of the game engine to help the player feel as though they are in the game and it's all happening in real-time. To a certain extent, they could have named the main character Jack Bauer instead of Gordan Freeman, but that's neither here nor there. The sequel picks up where the first one left off but has the added bonus of fantastic graphics and an amazing physics engine. Again, someone finds this interesting. Even being a game that is approaching ten years old, it maintains its re-playability. I'm currently in the process of going through the sequel again at a slightly higher difficulty rating than the first time through. It's just as fun as the first time that I played it.

I'm the type of person that will read a book that I've read many times previously if I enjoyed it the first time. I've read through Tolkein's Lord of the Rings and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series several times each and will probably pick up Lord of the Rings again here soon. I'm the same way with my video games. If I liked it the first time through, I'm very likely to go back and play it again. After all, I'm regularly playing Diablo 2 which came out in 2000 and another game which had its origins in the 90's. Then again, I mainly listen to music that came out when I was in high school. Maybe I just need to get a life. Or play less Half-Life. Nah. Couldn't be that.

Anyway, that's my word of explanation of what I've been up to. As you can see, it really can be traced to the fact that I'm pretty lazy and tend to avoid doing much of anything. I promise that I'll try and be a little more regular with articles. In fact, I have a couple of articles already stubbed-out. It just becomes a matter of finding the time to do it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some Half-Life to play. I hate those Overwatch guys. Especially when they throw grenades. That's just mean.

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