Tuesday, April 24, 2012

3 1/2 Time-Outs Tuesday


Video Game Edition
1
So I'm in the middle of writing a novel, and an entire pen & paper gameworld to go with it, but these dang video games keep getting in the way. So many games with excellent storylines/gameplay out right now, some of them are entire series worth; games like the Zelda series, Kingdoms of Amalaur (storyline written by RA Salvatore), Infamous 1/2, Batman, Mass Effect... the list goes on and on. To top it off one of my co-workers recently got me back into Lord of the Rings Online, because I didn't have enough other things getting in the way of my writing...


2
One of the things I really like about MMOs in general is the fact that people play them all over the world, it lets you run into people of opinions that run the entire spectrum. Not always a good thing, but overall it can give you a pretty good idea of varying viewpoints. Of course, the whole thing with being online is that a good number of those people tend to act like nobody is watching; there are a lot of jerks and selfish people that'd never have the guys to do/say the thing they do if you were standing right in front of them.

There are good parts to MMOs too though. I have friends of mine all over the world, comes from being in the military, a good number of my friends are military. Depending on which game I play it allows us to hang out even though they may quite literally be on the other side of the planet. Just too cool, even after all these years of being involved in MMOs (I've been playing since before Ultima Online even). There are a couple of advantages to playing these games with people you know too. 

First one is that if they act like total jerks, you can drive/fly/walk over to where they live and punch them in the face; if they're on the other side of the world, just keep track and give them all they're owed the next time you see them (that or harrass them incessently about how much they owe you for being such jerks). Second, you know these people. That means you're more likely  to work well together, you already know a bunch of their quirks and how to make up for them; it's also easier to make sure everyone gets what they want, you can more easily arrange forays to go after specific stuff without hours of waiting trying to get a group together. Third thing is great for those of us with families, if you need to stop in the middle of a group for a few minutes because you need to go take care of your kids being stupid, put them bed, patch them up, etc. most of the time your RL friends aren't going to have an issue.


3
Video games are also great stress relievers. It's nice to be able to come home from a day of dealing with people that annoy you, load up a game (FPS is my stress reliever of choice), and blow the crud out of stuff until you feel better. Of course, I have to generally wait until my daughters are distracted by their mother, each other, their toys, or the TV before I can play some of them, but those are the breaks. My daughter is actually getting pretty good at MarioKart, I may soon have a gaming partner to blast those annoying Bowser and Troopa Karts...


3 1/2
The following says everything that needs to be know about games...



This off-the-wall post type was brought to my attention by Foxfier,
and the individual I saw spreading it is thelarryd over at Acts of the Apostacy

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