Bishop
01-14-2002, 01:23 PM
Hello everyone.
I only blindly stumbled across this page (link from a link) and it certainly held my interest. Starting from the top, I first read article #16 and found it rather informative.
The article got me thinking about exactly what I had been doing last year (I swear, it’s going to be March soon) and what games have offered the most enjoyment for me.
Having been an avid “EQ’R” for the last two years, I’ve recently changed to Dark Age of Camelot and I’m still enjoying it. It really got me thinking though, what do I get from games and what do I give in return, here is my thoughts on it –
“How do I play games?” and “How do games play me?”
Part One – How do I play games?
I was once told by someone, with the amount of time that I spend on computer games (not just online ones either) that I have a psychological disorder sometimes referred to as “Immersive Reality”. I try to run and hide from the real world, by immersing myself in an alternate reality.
It doesn’t really sound that bad to me.
The game has to be pretty. Some have already referred to this as “eye candy” and exactly that. I want to walk around and go “wow” when I see something. Gone are the days of text based games (“You see two exits, one leading <north> and one leading <west>”). However, it’s got to taste good as well. So there has to be an underlining story line behind the scenes, driving me to go through the door, or kill the baddie.
When I thought about this, I then realised that during the last few years, only a few games have been “revolutionary” in either their own genre or in making a new one. Obviously Everquest could be seen as one of these for the MMORPG’s out there. Same goes for Half-Life for the FPS. To continue with name dropping, I’d probably follow up with Fallout for the RPG and X-Com for the TBS. Go back a few more years and you get into the real classics (which I’ll skip as I should really get back to work soon)
Social interaction. It’s a requirement that I’ve found slowly creeping up my priority list, certainly with my current fascination with online RPG’s. Many a time I found myself just logging into EQ and chatting with my “online” friends and it’s starting to develop this way with DAOC as well. Player versus player interaction is still something that Player versus AI will always try to compete with and presently, fails. AI levels are surely increasing from the games of the past, but you never can beat the complete randomness of the good old fashioned human brain.
Part Two – How does that game play me?
For me there are two aspects that I see myself getting sucked into.
Firstly, pay per play. It’s a system that for me has been around since EQ first entered my life. I’m sure other games have been using this subscription based system prior to EQ. However it does bring a new aspect to the role of the game developer. It’s one thing to have a game crash every 30 minutes while you play Half-Life (not that it did mind you, was quite stable, just using HL as an example) but if I’m paying a monthly fee for the ability to play it online, I want to be able to play it. If something is wrong, it has to be fixed or my $9.95 USD a month would go elsewhere.
That’s all good in print, but EQ certainly had its fair share of “bugs” shall we say and I still stuck it out for two years. Mainly because I felt it too hard to let go of my high level characters (this was quite amusing to my psychology friend). I’m not even playing EQ at the moment and I’m still paying the monthly subscription, just on the “off” chance I return for good.
Money is certainly something that the new generation of games have managed to play me for. It wouldn’t be surprising for me if we see a whole slew of games coming out that are free and you just pay to play them online.
However, there is also the side of the coin that is used to keep my computer “up with the play”. Impossible really. I need to completely upgrade my computer every two years, solely for the reason of being able to keep up with the specifications of the next generation games, more money from my coffers. Interestingly enough I don’t think this is going to change. As software developers push the current hardware to the limit to try and tout the “We have the latest and greatest graphics, sound, game play, etc, etc”, hardware will follow suit and continue to try and offer blindingly fast graphics with a bazillion squillion polygons per pixel, it’s enough to make my head spin.
The other big play that games take from me is something I can never find enough of – time.
If I was to sit down and work out how many hours last year I spent starting at a monitor, I’d be getting ready to start going to counselling. Immersive reality you claim? Hell YES! To the point where some nights I even forget to have .. ah hem…dinner. Ah well, it could be worse I guess. Some could say that time is more important than money. I’m still at two minds which is more valuable.
Anyway, I have to finish this off pretty quickly as I should really get back to work.
Keep up the interesting articles and I’m sure I’ll keep visiting back.
Avid Gamer #1952949
I only blindly stumbled across this page (link from a link) and it certainly held my interest. Starting from the top, I first read article #16 and found it rather informative.
The article got me thinking about exactly what I had been doing last year (I swear, it’s going to be March soon) and what games have offered the most enjoyment for me.
Having been an avid “EQ’R” for the last two years, I’ve recently changed to Dark Age of Camelot and I’m still enjoying it. It really got me thinking though, what do I get from games and what do I give in return, here is my thoughts on it –
“How do I play games?” and “How do games play me?”
Part One – How do I play games?
I was once told by someone, with the amount of time that I spend on computer games (not just online ones either) that I have a psychological disorder sometimes referred to as “Immersive Reality”. I try to run and hide from the real world, by immersing myself in an alternate reality.
It doesn’t really sound that bad to me.
The game has to be pretty. Some have already referred to this as “eye candy” and exactly that. I want to walk around and go “wow” when I see something. Gone are the days of text based games (“You see two exits, one leading <north> and one leading <west>”). However, it’s got to taste good as well. So there has to be an underlining story line behind the scenes, driving me to go through the door, or kill the baddie.
When I thought about this, I then realised that during the last few years, only a few games have been “revolutionary” in either their own genre or in making a new one. Obviously Everquest could be seen as one of these for the MMORPG’s out there. Same goes for Half-Life for the FPS. To continue with name dropping, I’d probably follow up with Fallout for the RPG and X-Com for the TBS. Go back a few more years and you get into the real classics (which I’ll skip as I should really get back to work soon)
Social interaction. It’s a requirement that I’ve found slowly creeping up my priority list, certainly with my current fascination with online RPG’s. Many a time I found myself just logging into EQ and chatting with my “online” friends and it’s starting to develop this way with DAOC as well. Player versus player interaction is still something that Player versus AI will always try to compete with and presently, fails. AI levels are surely increasing from the games of the past, but you never can beat the complete randomness of the good old fashioned human brain.
Part Two – How does that game play me?
For me there are two aspects that I see myself getting sucked into.
Firstly, pay per play. It’s a system that for me has been around since EQ first entered my life. I’m sure other games have been using this subscription based system prior to EQ. However it does bring a new aspect to the role of the game developer. It’s one thing to have a game crash every 30 minutes while you play Half-Life (not that it did mind you, was quite stable, just using HL as an example) but if I’m paying a monthly fee for the ability to play it online, I want to be able to play it. If something is wrong, it has to be fixed or my $9.95 USD a month would go elsewhere.
That’s all good in print, but EQ certainly had its fair share of “bugs” shall we say and I still stuck it out for two years. Mainly because I felt it too hard to let go of my high level characters (this was quite amusing to my psychology friend). I’m not even playing EQ at the moment and I’m still paying the monthly subscription, just on the “off” chance I return for good.
Money is certainly something that the new generation of games have managed to play me for. It wouldn’t be surprising for me if we see a whole slew of games coming out that are free and you just pay to play them online.
However, there is also the side of the coin that is used to keep my computer “up with the play”. Impossible really. I need to completely upgrade my computer every two years, solely for the reason of being able to keep up with the specifications of the next generation games, more money from my coffers. Interestingly enough I don’t think this is going to change. As software developers push the current hardware to the limit to try and tout the “We have the latest and greatest graphics, sound, game play, etc, etc”, hardware will follow suit and continue to try and offer blindingly fast graphics with a bazillion squillion polygons per pixel, it’s enough to make my head spin.
The other big play that games take from me is something I can never find enough of – time.
If I was to sit down and work out how many hours last year I spent starting at a monitor, I’d be getting ready to start going to counselling. Immersive reality you claim? Hell YES! To the point where some nights I even forget to have .. ah hem…dinner. Ah well, it could be worse I guess. Some could say that time is more important than money. I’m still at two minds which is more valuable.
Anyway, I have to finish this off pretty quickly as I should really get back to work.
Keep up the interesting articles and I’m sure I’ll keep visiting back.
Avid Gamer #1952949