Nerd Cred, MMOs and Aion
So.
By which I mean, I am getting pretty tired of chasing gamer cred despite how much it irritates me when I am not given any. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to these things now than I was a few years ago, but it seems to me the nerd-sphere elitism has gotten a fair bit worse in recent years, and is especially bad among the gaming crowd.
I don't think it's my imagination. I think it's people's irrational hate-on for the Wii and the "casual gamers" it brought in. Like it's some sort of lifestyle challenge that fairly regular people play WiiSports and Guitar Hero from time to time.
Some of the hatred's also probably residual from the very mainstream audience Xbox usually targets, but any way you slice it, it's really fucking stupid. And gamers, also in my experience, are already a pretty competitive, reactionary, defensive and not entirely bright bunch with very strong allegiences who are very hostile to percieved "invasion." I mean, we're already looking at a group with no qualms about spending hours and hours and hours on tasks that are repetitive and tedious just for bragging rights.
Which is I guess where I separate myself out, in that I don't play games for a ridiculous challenge or to accomplish something I will be able to brag about to like .03% of the population, but rather I play them to have fun. And I do not see anything wrong with other people playing video games to have fun, either.
Do a lot of people just not realize that gaming is a relatively mainstream hobby these days, not some esoteric secret clubhouse with culture built ground-up and no outside involvement? I don't really know. I'm going to guess so, because like I said, gamers are more of a passionate than a bright bunch in general and the people who're most high profile seem to be on endless tirades about kiddies, maturity and fanboys without any kind of self-awareness whatsoever.
So, moving on, I'm playing Aion.
I do not know what to say about it yet, other than that I love it, fileplanet is giving out free keys, and it would be pretty sweet if anybody else I know is playing? I am going to buy the game and when it launches I'm going to go Elyos, on the grounds that I feel that Asmodians are kind of douchebags, and also share a lot of negative traits with gamers as a collective body, now that I think about it.
Tying back into above: I'm am probably also a casual MMO player? I mean, call me a casual, but I was about as tickled pink by blue drops as I was by purples, doubly so if the drops were attractive on equip. I don't think I've EVER cared about having better gear than other people or whatever, even though I liked to keep my gear reasonably decent, and the way I played was not all that achievement-oriented. Lots of people complain about MMOs being work. I'd say it only felt like work when the content got old and boring (at which point I'd usually get shadowsilt to level my characters until I was to a point that I could take over and do something new and fun). But then, I never raided, I never grinded for mats... Uh, I don't think I ever grinded for anything, at least not unless I was in a group of reasonably entertaining people who were happy to assist me. I do not like grinding. Perhaps mysteriously, I have no problem whatsoever with killing 10 wolves and reporting back to kill 10 more, which maybe dodges feeling like grinding because it's task-oriented or something like that, IDK. I spent a lot of time on WoW, but I don't regret the vast majority of it and I don't feel that it ever interfered with my life/schoool/whatever, except for this one awful, awful LBRS run which was definitely the low point of my WoW career and which shall be spoken of no more.
By which I mean, I am getting pretty tired of chasing gamer cred despite how much it irritates me when I am not given any. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to these things now than I was a few years ago, but it seems to me the nerd-sphere elitism has gotten a fair bit worse in recent years, and is especially bad among the gaming crowd.
I don't think it's my imagination. I think it's people's irrational hate-on for the Wii and the "casual gamers" it brought in. Like it's some sort of lifestyle challenge that fairly regular people play WiiSports and Guitar Hero from time to time.
Some of the hatred's also probably residual from the very mainstream audience Xbox usually targets, but any way you slice it, it's really fucking stupid. And gamers, also in my experience, are already a pretty competitive, reactionary, defensive and not entirely bright bunch with very strong allegiences who are very hostile to percieved "invasion." I mean, we're already looking at a group with no qualms about spending hours and hours and hours on tasks that are repetitive and tedious just for bragging rights.
Which is I guess where I separate myself out, in that I don't play games for a ridiculous challenge or to accomplish something I will be able to brag about to like .03% of the population, but rather I play them to have fun. And I do not see anything wrong with other people playing video games to have fun, either.
Do a lot of people just not realize that gaming is a relatively mainstream hobby these days, not some esoteric secret clubhouse with culture built ground-up and no outside involvement? I don't really know. I'm going to guess so, because like I said, gamers are more of a passionate than a bright bunch in general and the people who're most high profile seem to be on endless tirades about kiddies, maturity and fanboys without any kind of self-awareness whatsoever.
So, moving on, I'm playing Aion.
I do not know what to say about it yet, other than that I love it, fileplanet is giving out free keys, and it would be pretty sweet if anybody else I know is playing? I am going to buy the game and when it launches I'm going to go Elyos, on the grounds that I feel that Asmodians are kind of douchebags, and also share a lot of negative traits with gamers as a collective body, now that I think about it.
Tying back into above: I'm am probably also a casual MMO player? I mean, call me a casual, but I was about as tickled pink by blue drops as I was by purples, doubly so if the drops were attractive on equip. I don't think I've EVER cared about having better gear than other people or whatever, even though I liked to keep my gear reasonably decent, and the way I played was not all that achievement-oriented. Lots of people complain about MMOs being work. I'd say it only felt like work when the content got old and boring (at which point I'd usually get shadowsilt to level my characters until I was to a point that I could take over and do something new and fun). But then, I never raided, I never grinded for mats... Uh, I don't think I ever grinded for anything, at least not unless I was in a group of reasonably entertaining people who were happy to assist me. I do not like grinding. Perhaps mysteriously, I have no problem whatsoever with killing 10 wolves and reporting back to kill 10 more, which maybe dodges feeling like grinding because it's task-oriented or something like that, IDK. I spent a lot of time on WoW, but I don't regret the vast majority of it and I don't feel that it ever interfered with my life/schoool/whatever, except for this one awful, awful LBRS run which was definitely the low point of my WoW career and which shall be spoken of no more.