Writing: FOR ESPORTS!!!!

Skimming through this blog for the first time in a long, long while, I find myself amused at how many times I promised to kick my lazy arse into shape and maintain this blog properly. It even worked, on occasion, for about a week or two, though I quickly slipped back into my old habits of inconsistent, hurried and half-hearted updates. Ironically, though, it has been about two months since my last post - one where I promised to post more regularly, of course.

As you no doubt know (or can swiftly deduce regardless), that didn't really happen. There are a number of things I could blame for that, but it really just comes down to StarCraft. Basically, it suddenly became insansely fun for me. Like, really, really fun. I fell in love with laddering; spending hours on end playing game after game with the aim of hitting that spot in the Top 8 of Platinum League, advancing to Diamond, and getting indefinitely better because of the effort I was putting in.

I think one of the things which makes StarCraft so attractive is that there is a direct correlation between effort and reward, or, said in non-douche, it is easy to see the results of the work you put in. I played a lot of StarCraft, saw myself improving, and hungered for more improvement, so I kept playing.

Recently, though, I hit a slump. I started losing more than I was winning, and against opponents I knew I should be beating - my hands just weren't doing what my mind wanted them to. Laddering (playing games of StarCraft) became significantly less enjoyable because of this - 'this' not being losing (I always go on about how important it is to enjoy the game regardless of whether you win or lose), but being not playing at the capacity I knew I could - not fulfilling my potential.

Thus, I decided that it was time for one of my famous StarCraft Holidays. Fine, perhaps they aren't that famous (or even famous at all), but 'one of my ordinary StarCraft Holidays' doesn't sound nearly as epic, does it?

As you can probably infer, a StarCraft Holiday is a time where I don't play, you guessed it, StarCraft. I put my time into other games, or even occupations entirely separate from gaming, and get my mind off the game for a bit, so that I can come back after a week or so with a new perspective, feeling fresh and rejuvenated, ready to ladder and improve.

It was during this time off from StarCraft that I forced myself to sit down and think seriously about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to achieve with my love of StarCraft - casting or commentating? progaming? As in pro-gaming, by the way, not programming.

Going pro is all but out of the picture, as I simply am not prepared to devote so much of my time and effort into such a competitive sphere, especially when all of my effort goes into something I can't really make a long-term career out of. I don't have a competitive enough mindset. I don't want to put myself under the kind of stress pro's have to endure and, most importantly, I can't see myself putting 11 hours a day, seven days a week into StarCraft for years on end. I love the game, I really do, but there is so much besides it that I want to experience and do in the world.

Casting is more of an option - I'm a decent, relatively charismatic speaker and I think I would make a not-too-shabby caster. In fact, my main metagame-man, Greg 'Grack' Muller and I had the great privilege of casting the finals of a StarCraft Tournament held by Organised Chaos (a monthly LAN attracting around 1000 people, which takes place in Cape Town) this December. It was a truly memorable experience, one which I really enjoyed and would love to have the opportunity to repeat, but I can't help but feel that while there is a call for casters, it is one which I simply cannot practically answer. Streaming casts is completely out of the question - the price of South African internet dictates that I simply would not be able to support a stream at all, let alone one of high quality. This does leave Youtube, though I wouldn't fancy my chances given how saturated it is with content I would have to compete with. Even if, however, I did manage to make it on Youtube, I couldn't take my casting any further - I'm in school for another two years, and then there's the question of further studies at university - I wouldn't be in a position where I could attend events in Europe and North America to cast anyway. Betting university education against the off chance of being discovered as a caster doesn't sound like such a great idea, either.

So, with this analysis in mind, I found myself asking the following: "Why devote my life to a career with very little follow-up, or try to compete as a nobody in an oversaturated market?"

The answer is a simple one - there are no good reasons. The answer to the follow-up question, that of what I should try and do in eSports, is the reason I am here.

In terms of comparative advantage (what I am better than myself at), the answer has been obvious from the start - I've always been better at writing than metagame knowledge or general StarCraft ability, so I figure that the stupidest thing I could possibly do in my situation is spend hours every day developing a skill I'm never actually going to use, when that time could have been potentially spent on improving my writing.

Writing is great for me for a number of reasons - firstly, the world of eSports needs writers a lot more than they need commentators or players, and I believe that, especially if I start kicking the amount of time I put into writing into overdrive, I could actually be competitive in that market. Moreover, writing is not exclusive to eSports - all of the hours I've (hypothetically) put into writing about eSports have made me a better writer more than anything else - all I would need to write in another sphere is knowledge (which can be quickly gained), or I could just write a book. Lastly, I love writing, and now that I've actually articulated all of the reasons why I should spend time trying to improve myself as a writer, spending the rest of the day writing feels not only like the most logical course of action, but also the most awesome one.

So, if there was any tangible contribution to the eSports community I could make, I think it would be through my writing, and this blog (as well as eGamer, of course), is where it starts. The huge mistake I made in my previous attempts at writing here is that I tried to appeal to or please other people with what I wrote, meaning that my writing was not only inefficient, but tedious and it really amounted to nothing more than a chore. What I realise now is that this blog (just like any other medium in which you develop a skill) is the same as the StarCraft ladder... well, perhaps there are one or two pretty distinct differences, but go with me on this:

Just like the budding StarCraft player must, at the core of it all, play a butt-tonne of games, I, as the budding writer (or you, as the budding photographer) must write a butt-tonne of articles (or take a butt-tonne of pictures). So, this is my ladder-blog. My goal here is ultimately to improve my writing through two methods: writing a lot (mainly about StarCraft, but with a bit of everything as well) and getting feedback and criticism on what I write. 

So, with that in mind I encourage you to check back at this page regularly, and spam my Twitter (@TydVirTaal) if you don't see anything new (for the good of eSports, of course), and also to please, please (please) tell me what you think I can improve in my writing.

Duncan 'TydVirTaal' Hobbs
Out

I'm Alive! And Other Schemes for the Future

Wassup kids!

My word, it's been a while since I posted. In fact, it's been a while since I really wrote anything.

Waterpolo started up about two weeks ago, and I've been physically powned ever since then. My days pretty much revolved around killing myself for an hour and a half at either 6:30am or 5:15pm, surviving school, eating and sleeping. I only barely managed to get my column for last Friday done, and it was of a quality which, I believe, was far below my capacity. But we'll talk more about that in a second.

I'm going to be trying to post a lot more. It should become easier as I adjust to the rigors of waterpolo (he said hopefully).  In terms of what I'm going to be posting, I'm going to keep doing what I have been, with the addition of another column piece on every off week (to make it once a week, basically), and I'm also going to start doing 'Retro Reviews'. These are born of the insight that I need to get more experience in terms of reviewing specifically, but I'm too povertous to afford most new releases and there are a lot of good games that I've missed out on in my time. In all honesty, the games really won't be all that retro, but they will probably be releases from at least a year or more back.

Stay tuned for my Portal review, coming tomorrow!

On to my column. I really would like some feedback on this one, as it was done in great haste and I feel like there are a lot of issues with it - if, however, it still manages to be of a decent quality, it would be a good indicator as to the extent of my growth as a writer, and the areas in which I really need to focus on improving.

I'll just shut up and give you the link now. Here it is.

One last piece of news. First off, I'm in the process of downloading The Witcher 2, which, by all accounts, sounds truly epic. Before I do that, however, I need to finish installing and patching StarCraft 2.

Why, you ask? Because, being the genius I am, I was going through my Games folder in a fit of conscience and deleting all of the games which were pirated (there weren't many - promise). In the process, as you've probably guessed, I managed to accidentally my StarCraft folder. By accident. So yeah, now I'm stuck applying all 21 patches for the rest of eternity before I can play again. Durptacular!

Anyways, that's about all from me. I've got some zombies to shoot, or something. Until tomorrow (he said hopefully)!

Duncan
Out

Please, Don't Be A Fanboy [Column]

Before I say anything else, I would just like to mention that the original Portal is now free on Steam. Until Monday. So, all of you cheap asses who couldn't afford it before (myself included) best start downloading it. Right now. So, without further ado, here's some writing in italics:


This is a column written for eGamer.co.za, where I have an internship. If you want to see it on eGamer instead, for some weird reason, click here.

Before you read this, I would like to point out that this is probably the strangest thing I've ever written, and the strangest thing which I am likely to write for a while. Oh well. That's what happens when you write columns at 4:30am.

Were I a lesser man this would usually be the point where I once again hate on Adam for being a Durbanite and stealing my column ideas. Luckily for Adam, however, I am not a lesser man, and everyone already knows that he is a Durbanite. He also didn't happen to steal my column idea, but that's more of a peripheral issue.

What isn't a peripheral issue, however, is the epic story of how I got given a flying high-five by Tarryn van der Byl of NAG/MyGaming via Twitter. Yes, that happened. I'm going to tell you the aforementioned epic story now. Before you say anything, bear with me here – I swear I'm going somewhere with this.

I can't actually tell you the epic story in question, however, before we give it a bit of context. So, here's some context:

I've been an avid NAG reader since about Grade 7 (which isn't as long ago as some of you may think), and when Tarryn started writing for NAG I began to follow her writings on an almost religious level. Every time I got my shiny new edition of NAG, I would open at the back to read her column, before working systemically through the previews and reviews to find which ones she had written, prioritise them in order of relative awesomeness, and then read them. And then read the rest of the magazine.

Some of you who might be feeling a little creeped out by my obsession devoted interest at this point (#pedobear?) will be glad to know that my pseudo-religious following of Tarryn has calmed down a bit over recent months. It may be more a product of a lack of this resource called cash monies than a regression of my aforementioned devoted interest, however.

The question I'm sure we're still asking here, however, is what did I find so appealing about Tarryn? I'm going to have to call 'inb4 bcoz gurl' really quickly, 'cause if anyone actually manages to get biologically interested in a gaming column because it is written by a girl, they should probably seek the attention of a specialist. Unless it happens to be of the vaguely NSFW variety, in which case you'd probably be afforded a fair trial.

But I digress.

The point I'm making here is Tarryn van der Byl was and still is one of my personal legends of gaming journalism. She wrote (and still writes, I'm sure) about some of the most arbitrary, awesome stuff ever. She uses a lot of words which sound really cool, which I don't understand at all, and she was (is) funny besides. I really just dug (and continue to dig) her style of writing.

So, imagine my surprise when on Thursday (also known as yesterday), after getting Twitter the day before (also known as Wednesday), I found out that not only did Tarryn have Twitter, but our good old friend, Caveshen, followed her. And knows her. Virtually.

It goes without saying that when I found out that Cavie knew (on a virtual level) one of my personal heroes of our games journalism generation and idols in terms of writing, I had to get out of my chair and do my little Jig of Awesomeness, which I choreographed a while back to celebrate moments like those which I just described.

Story even shorter, Cavie totally twitterduced us (like 'introduced', but via Twitter), and Tarryn totally tweeted me a (and I quote) 'FLYING HIGH FIIIIIIIIVE!'. Needless to say, my Jig of Awesomeness following this was significantly longer and more energetic than my previous one.

What am I trying to say here? Tarryn van der Byl, one of my most admired writing idols, totally tagged me in a tweet. It was awesome.

What's the point I'm making? A good question; we should move on to that, shouldn't we?

You see, while I may regard Tarryn as a quasi-deital figure, and herald her writings as text of near religious value, at the end of the day I'm still a noob who has hardly earned the write to call himself a gaming journalist, let alone say that I'm part of the South African gaming journalism community. The thought of Tarryn van der Byl actually being human only really occurred to me yesterday.

Other people, like Caveshen for example, who are part of this South African gaming journalism community, might actually know her on a semi-personal level. They probably aren't as likely to idolise her as much as I do, because they're less starry-eyed about pretty much everything to do with games and South Africans who write about them.

Yet still other people might hate what Tarryn writes, comparing it to things like stomach bile and the proverbial turd on metaphorical toilet seat of life. I'm not sure why they would, I think it's pretty awesome, but there you have it – views differ.

“So wait, Duncan, what are you getting at again?”

Fanboys, dear Martin (that's my hypothetical reader, just by the way), fanboys.

As you may or may not have noticed, over this last week eGamer has been covering the Modern Warfare 3 versus Battlefield 3 debate pretty extensively (and, in my subjective opinion, pretty objectively as well), in an attempt to be able to wash our hands of this nonsense for the next little while. At the moment, the MW3 vs BF3 debate is probably the most fanboy-rife one out there, although luckily none surfaced on eGamer (who lived to tell the tale, that is).

What we learnt in the process of doing research for the articles in question, however, is that fanboys suck. They have this innate ability to degrade every comment section on the interwebs to the most deranged, facepalm-tastic flame war you're ever likely to see. Sure, they may have their benefits, and I'll talk about those in a later column, but some of them just deserve a good punch in the face (even more so than dolphins, in some instances!).

Loving something (whether it be a game or a writer) and engaging in an intellectual manner about the pro's and con's of it are, contrary to popular fanboy belief, not mutually exclusive. You can do both and, believe it or not, you won't defy any laws of physics in the process.

Like I said, I really dig Tarryn's writing. Not only do I enjoy the style, but she's been an idol to me for a good few years now, and I'm not just going to turn my back on that. That doesn't mean that I can't accept the fact that she has faults and that her writing may not be the best the world has ever seen in the history of forever, but it does mean that I stand by her and I stand by my advocation (that is totally a word. I swear) of her despite those things.

So, all you fanboys (if any are reading this. If not, please just go to a BF3 vs MW3 thread on reddit and then link them to this, so that there are fanboys reading this). Instead of loving something and crapping on, from a dizzying height I might add, everything that isn't the thing you love, how about loving something and replying to those that differ from you with something that doesn't start with a public display of your homophobia or of your intimate biological relations with their mother (she's probably like, thirty years older than you anyway – if you need to hit something that old, you should probably start rethinking your life).

Hell, it's just a thought. But then again, so is Einstein's Theory of Relativity.  

Levelling Up

Wouldn't you agree that there is something touching about watching a character of yours progress through their gaming lives?

Whether it be your iteration of Commander Shepard saving the universe like only he can, seeing the World of Warcraft Paladin you've ground (grinded?) your ass off for hours on end to level up hitting level 85 or, as is the case with me, your lovable (that's a loosely defined term if I ever heard one) Fallout 3 character, Tate Fortaal, progress from being a measly Vault Delinquent to a fully-fledged Scourge of Humanity...

*nostalgic pause*

Sigh. Good times those.

Anyways, the point I'm getting at here is that measurable progress is a truly awesome thing to behold, certainly in our respective avatars, but even more so in our real-life selves.

Recently (this morning, in fact) I had the opportunity to marvel at the level of progress I have made since I signed up for my internship at eGamer a few months ago. You see, we (myself and Caveshen, my editor - on a completely unrelated note, how crazy is that name?) had a feature we were co-writing (a Battlefield 3 vs Modern Warfare 3 comparison - click here to read that, by the way) due for today. In true eGamer fashion, I only found out what I was actually writing on at 8pm yesterday, as the following extract from our Google Talk conversation shows:

8:00 PM Caveshen: Okay I spoke to dean.
It's just you and I working on this.
Me: Oh hell
Cool
Caveshen: Now, there's four aspects to cover that I know of. Singleplayer, Multiplayer, Fan bases, Graphics engines. Tim will do Steam vs Origin so that's fine.
8:01 PM Caveshen: Now, either we can each take two topics and talk about it like that, or we can cover all topics from a specific perspective debate-styled. Which would you rather do?
8:02 PM Caveshen: I'm inclined to go with the former because debate-styles are hard to pull off effectively without sounding like we're just being fanboys.
Me: Yeah, I think we'll sound more objective with the former
8:04 PM Me: I'll take mp and fan bases?
Caveshen: OKAY!

Because there is this thing called 'life', which dictates that I don't have endless reams of free time to spend at my leisure, I only actually managed to start writing at 9pm. In the hour between then and my mom telling me to go to bed, I wrote the rough equivalent of piss-all. I don't think I've ever been so uninspired. Ever.

Being the honourable columnist that I am, I obeyed my mother's command and hauled my ass into bed - setting my alarm for 4am this morning, and readying myself for what would surely be an epic writing slog.

So it came to pass that my alarm did indeed wake me at the time I had specified, and after about ten minutes of dozing, I hauled my lazy ass out of bed and, with a few choice words regarding the hour, sat myself down at my PC and wrote. And wrote. And wrote.

Before I joined eGamer, I wouldn't have had a hope in hell of churning out 2,000 words of decently witty, relatively intelligent commentary (well, that's for you to decide, really - how do you think my parts of the Head-to-Head were?) in two hours. I would probably have curled up in the fetal position, cried a bit and come up with a really good excuse for Caveshen.

Since joining eGamer, however, both my writing and crisis management skills have progressed pretty significantly, to the point where I can churn out the aforementioned 2,000 words of decently witty, relatively intelligent commentary within the space of two hours.

Seeing that article now published on the site, after I woke up ridiculously early to do my part at the last minute and having managed to do it pretty well, as well, I don't think there could be a truer testament to the progression of my writing ability.

I'm really amped about my improvement so far, and I really hope that I manage to keep entertaining those awesome enough to read what I write, and manage to accrue one or two new fans along the way - who knows, maybe when I finally get my ass out of matric I'll be able to use the experience the awesome peoples at eGamer have given me a chance to acquire to actually make something of 'all this'.

Enough about all that, though (lol).

The Minecraft 1.8 patch got released today! Huzzah! If you don't know what that is, check out my last post. If you just fire up Minecraft and log in, it will do all the updating for you. If you don't have Minecraft, buy it here for 15 Euros (about R150). Trust me, it is worth it, especially with the 1.8 patch.

Hopefully I manage to find the time to get back into it... after I finish my Space Marine review, of course.

Prompted by the release of the 1.8 patch, and a post I saw on FaceBook, expect a post on why pirating Minecraft makes you a terrible person within the next few days... Just saying.

That's about all from me... have you read the Head-to-Head yet? Have you entered eGamer's FIFA 12 and Space Marine competitions?

Yes?

Good to hear.

Look out for my columnage, coming this Friday!

Duncan
Out EDIT: I almost forgot! The aforementioned Caveshen also introduced a female (inb4 'there are no girls on the interweb') reader to my blog! Whoever you are, I hope you enjoy your stay. Rock on!

Battlefield 3, Competitions, Minecraft and Space Marine!

Hey all!

It's been far longer than I initially realised since my last post, for which I do apologise. Hopefully as my time management slowly creeps to a skill level of well over 9000, I'll manage to fit these in more regularly. I've been really busy with eGamer nonsense of late, as I said in my previous post, so this blog is going to double as a portal I can use to keep you guys up to speed with everything I'm writing, everything I'm going to write, and other cool, eGamer related stuff.

So, in terms of keeping you kids up to speed, I've had two articles published in the last little while:

- The first was a Warhammer 40'000: Space Marine Preview/Hands-On, which you can access by clicking here.

- The second is a preview of the multiplayer component of Battlefield 3, which went live today. Click here to read it (it's part of a full preview article on BF3, covering both the singleplayer and multiplayer; I just did the multiplayer).

For interest's sake, I'm busy playing Space Marine at the moment (it's awesome!), and have managed to land the review for it, too (which is also awesome!), so that should tie into my preview quite nicely awesomely! Seriously, if you don't have it, get it. Or win it in a competition (we'll chat about that in a second). Or, wait a week or so for my review to come out, read that and then decide! Read my review regardless of which option you choose, by the way.

Battlefield 3 also looks awesome. But I'll chat about that in a later post - read my preview while you wait!

With all of that firmly out of the way (because if it was not-so-firmly out of the way, I suppose you would be lacking closure, or something), let's chat about competitions.

eGamer is currently running two competitions:

The first is FIFA 12 competition, which will have two winners - one person will win a copy for XBOX 360, and the other will win a copy for PS3.

How do you win? Basically, post a comment in the article explaining the competition, and then post as many (meaningful) comments as you can on as many articles as you can. It's that simple. Click here to read the article detailing the competition in more depth.

The second is a Warhammer 40'000: Space Marine competition. The entry is via a form this time, and there are a number of ways to increase your chances of winning, but they are a tad complicated and I can't remember them off-hand, so check out the article explaining the competition by clicking here. There will again be two winners for this competition, the difference being that you can choose which platform (PC, PS3, X360) you want the game on (if you win, of course). Major props to Ster-Kinekor for sponsoring us the games for the competition.

Seriously guys, the competitions are awesome. We don't have too many (less than 100, easily) entrants for both competitions, so your chances of winning are pretty damned high. I really encourage ya'll to go for it! And then share with me when you win, 'cause, you know, the Bro Code and stuff.

Anyways, enough about all of that.

You'll all be glad to know that I saved the best for last in terms of this post (given the awesomeness that has come before this, that's saying something!)...

The Minecraft 1.8 Patch has been leaked!!!

For those of you who don't know what Minecraft is, go find a dolphin and get it to punch you in the face. Or Google around a bit. For those of you who don't know what the 1.8 patch is, here's a link to a handy article with some links to a nifty video series detailing the changes.

The 1.8 patch introduces some pretty major changes to the game - strongholds, NPC villages, a levelling system, the ability to charge bow shots for greater damage, critical hits, a sprinting ability, a new mob (which teleports you if you stare at it, as rumour goes), a hunger bar, rivers, pork no longer heals health, ravines and, most importantly, pigs now have snouts. And so, so much more.

Basically, this is an absolutely huge patch, which is really going to change the game in terms of making exploring and combat both more interesting and more rewarding, adding an unprecedented level of depth to the game as a whole and making the urge to waste another week of my life building rollercoasters, using gold blocks as a foundation all the more tempting.

I'm not going to be playing the leaked version, I'd rather wait for the full release, but for those who are interested, you can download it by clicking here.

Hope all of that manages to keep you kids both excited and busy - don't forget to read my previews, enter those competitions and provide me with some feedback!

I'm going to play Space Marine now.

Duncan
Out

Reporting Back

My word, it's been an age.

Much as I would have loved to keep posting in the interim between my last blog post and now, I really haven't been able to find the time.

I've started taking a lot more upon myself at eGamer now - in fact, let me just show you my schedule for the next two weeks or so outright:

Warhammer 40'000: Space Marine Preview - 7th September
One rather large preview I'm not discussing just yet - 12 September
One other rather large feature I'm not discussing just yet - 14 September
Column (The Necessity of Unity in Gaming [Working Title]) - 16 September
Might and Magic Heroes IV Preview - 23 September
Hard Reset Review - No deadline, but it releases 13 September

Despite the fact that I've got a metric ass-ton of writing ahead of me, I'm pretty excited for it. I'm really loving my time at eGamer so far. My editors are really awesome guys, who give me a lot of support, feedback and freedom and are genuinely interested in both what I have to say and seeing me develop as writer. I get a platform from which I can express my views, and, thanks to the nature of the competitions eGamer runs (the more you make worthwhile comments, the more likely you are to win), I get a lot of outside opinion and commentary on what I write. I really do love interacting with my readers, so hopefully that does nought but grow in the future.

As you can see on that schedule, though, I'm starting to do previews and reviews as well as just columns.

These are kind of a double-edged blade, though, as it seems like until I get a console I may well have to buy my own games to review, and otherwise stay largely to previews. According to my editor, getting review copies of PC games is about as easy as getting out of a cage containing twenty near-starved wolves alive, after you've been plastered in bacon fat and sheep blood.

Which is to say, pretty hard.

Hopefully contacting international suppliers yields different results, though, as Steam and other such services make it far, far easier to access games and give access to games. "I should do a post on Steam sometime," Duncan said to himself.

If I manage to find any left-over time after I get through all of my writing, though, I've been given the go-ahead to experiment with Let's Plays and Video Reviews, which I'm really excited to do. Hopefully I manage to lose that retarded voice I put on during the few Fallout 3 Let's Plays I did, though.

So, there's a brief and slightly all-over-the-place summary of what's been going in my gaming/writing life of late - hopefully when I get time I make a more cohesive, more awesome post detailing with significantly more detail and wit the awesomeness I've been lucky enough to find myself in.

Before I go, here are two slapped-on thoughts:

1) Most of you have probably already read my column from the link on Facebook, but those who haven't can find it by clicking here. I'm really amped by the response it got, there were a ridiculious amount of comments (something like forty, though about half of those were mine, admittedly), so hopefully I manage to keep delivering.

2) Warhammer 40'000: Space Marine is so kewl! I've got my preview of it publishing on eGamer tomorrow, so I'll make another post and link you guys there when it arrives. I've already pre-ordered my copy, just by the way.

In other news, please pray to the machine god (Warhammer 40k references for the win!) for my hard drive. The little guy is on the verge of crashing, which would really suck with Space Marine so close to releasing. I've got a disk repair doo-dad running at the moment, though, so hopefully that sorts things out.

Duncan
Out

Reflecting On My 'StarCraft Holiday'

A Reflection On My 'StarCraft Holiday'

Before I say anything the least related to the topic detailed above, I would like to provide some commentary on FaceBook's recent 'Ticker' innovation, using a popular, contemporary (redundancy makes me all happy inside, as you no doubt gather) medium of satire:

Hell, maybe they took it away now, but I think it was a pretty good meme nonetheless.

And that, dear Martin (Martin is the name I have assigned for my hypothetical reader, for those who didn't see my last post), is all I'm going to say on the matter.

Anyways! From here on in I'm going to be taking the type of egocentric view typical of pretty much ever other blog in the world ever, and discussing what I referred to above as my StarCraft 2 holiday.

Before that, however, we need to establish two truths pretty fundamental to any of this making sense; the first is that I play StarCraft 2 (the multiplayer, that is – the singleplayer isn't quite as demanding) and the second I sort of already spoiled – StarCraft 2 is a pretty demanding game. That is, if you consider sitting at your computer for 20-30 minutes on end with enough adrenaline to kill a horse pumping through your veins and your fingers moving around faster than a cold-turkey crack addict trying to overcome the safety lid keeping him from his next fix, while your brain does roughly the same amount of work which goes into a quantum-theory thesis in the space of about three seconds.

To translate that out of the metaphor for you, and ground it in a bit of reality, StarCraft is demanding in that you are constantly active both mentally and in terms of simply playing the damned game fast – in an average game at the moment, I am pressing and/or clicking around 100-110 buttons every minute. Beyond that, you become emotionally involved in every game – like I in the previous paragraph, adrenaline pumps madly and by the time you come out at the end of a game, you are either at the height of euphoria or burning with rage and ready to beat the living fecal matter out of your desk (or screen, or mouse, or keyboard, depending on what the case may be), because that bastard deserved it!

I'm not even kidding here. There's a twenty-three page thread on TeamLiquid (a StarCraft forum) with pictures like this one, detailing the aftermath of StarCraft rage. Click here to go to it:

So anyway, the point I'm making here is that StarCraft is (or, at least, in the majority of cases becomes) an extremely stressful game.

Usually, however, it doesn't really get to me. I'm the sort of person who doesn't stress or anger easily, and am generally a pretty good loser on top of that – “give respect where respect is due” is usually my motto when it comes to losses... but more on that in a later post.

As I'm sure you all know, however, usually isn't all the time (I know, right!? It's pretty crazy...), and Sunday the 14th of August (two weeks ago today) certainly wasn't a usual case.

You see, I lost. Quite a bit. Eight games in a row, to be exact. What made it worse was that almost every single one of those eight games I had lost because of moments retardedness so awe-inspiring in nature that were we living back in the Middles Ages dizzle (dizzle being the hip way of day or time period, of course), I would probably have approached a bard, minstrel or similar maker of (then) contemporary music and presented to them the idea of taking my tale and creating a ballad of epic scale and proportion, to be passed down through the generations until someone accidentally set the sheet music alight or got hit with a sneaky case of amnesia.

But I digress.

I remember the moments after my eighth consecutive loss quite clearly: Overcome by a zealous hatred of my own incompetency and the sheer overpoweredness of Protoss (a race in StarCraft), I struck a mighty blow to my desk with my fist, in an attempt to vent my rage. As it turned out, the desk was just as solid as it looked, and with that in mind and throbbing knuckles on (in?) hand, I did what any man of noble stature who found himself in my position would do: I ragequit. Because ragequit is a verb.

For two whole weeks, I avoided StarCraft the same way a washed-up rock-star with heroin shoved up his rectum avoids sniffer-dogs at airport security. Well, perhaps not exactly the same way, but you get my drift.

Instead of playing StarCraft, I invested my time in other things – Metro 2033 (a post on which is imminent), the demo for Might & Magic Heroes 6 (another post on which is also imminent) and other so-called 'real-life' things like guitar. I even tried that 'human interaction' nonsense once or twice (trust me, it's overrated). For the first time in a long, long time I played games simply to enjoy them, without stressing over whether I was winning or losing or my ladder ranking or any of that other nonsense.

And I loved it.

I think that with all the stress and obsession over self-betterment it becomes very easy to forget the reason one actually plays games in the first place – to have fun. I suppose that for others it may be different, in that they play to improve and hopefully make something of their gaming abilities, but given that I've come back to StarCraft after a two week period of down-time playing exactly as well as I was and feeling better about it, I really do question whether or not putting yourself through hell really is the most effective training method.

I am back in business (StarCraft business, that is), however, and I must say that I'm loving it and moreover that I'm excited to improve my play – not because I hate the fact that my play sucks at the moment, but because I'm genuinely enjoying the game once again, and I really think that that aspect is an extremely important one.

Anyways, that's all I'm going to say for now. Rock on.

Duncan
Out

The Nerd Stereotype: Enough is Enough

Whazzap kiddies! Sorry it's been so long since my last post, I really need to get my ass back into gear. Work just doesn't stop. Well, that's a bit of a lie, I've been playing the Heroes of Might and Magic VI Demo... but more on that a bit later!

Before I actually get started, I'd just like to make you guys aware of the Reader's Digress initiative over at eGamer. Basically what happens is we publish a compilation of shortish articles (+- 500 words) which are submitted by both the authors and by the readers in one compact, newspaper-esque publication. Why am I telling you this?

Well, if you want to rant about or comment on ANYTHING (literally), here's your chance. Just type up whatever you want to write about, send it in to digress @ egamer.co.za (without the spaces) and you may well be featured in our next edition!

But, without further adieu, let me get down to what I really want to talk about...


For centuries, just like the ogres of The Kingdom of Far Far Away (that's a Shrek reference, just by the way) have been - to name but a few examples - harassed and mildly inconvenienced by pitchfork-and-torch-wielding mobs of villagers who have nothing better to do in their free time, we as the noble gamers of the world have been proclaimed heathens and thusly burnt at the stake by over-zealous menopausal female columnists and, indeed, ostracised and socially persecuted by our peer groups and society in general.

Granted, there may have been some exaggeration and dramatic hyperbole in the above paragraph, but the crux of the issue I’m poking at remains the same:

Haven’t we as gamers, as nerds, endured enough by now?

In an age where society is finally starting to view gaming as a mainstream, generally accepted pastime, where the nonsense attacks on gaming in general which I’ve been talking about in my columns for the past few weeks are finally being treated the way they ought to be (which is to say, with a firm, heavy-handed pimp-slap), one would think we could put all of this nonsense around the stereotype of ‘nerd’ behind us.

Make no mistake, I’m not taking this as an opportunity to cry because people call me a nerd - I welcome and flaunt the title, flying our nerd flag as high as humanly possible, with great gusto and aplomb – but what I do want to do is take this opportunity to comment on just how pointless and unnecessary I find it.

You see, I find that the sort of thinking which premises or underlies a stereotypical view of nerd doesn’t really follow a logical course depending on the arguments for or against gaming; rather, it is born of the view that “What I do is cool, therefore if what you do isn’t what I do, it’s stupid.”

And that, my dear reader (I think I named you Martin in an earlier column), is simply not cool.

An example which illustrates the flaw in this sort of mentality quite nicely comes, ironically, from a recent LAN competition in America – MLG Anaehim.

During the awards ceremony for the Halo Championship, the winning clan (whose name eludes me) was booed off the stage while receiving their awards. By the StarCraft 2 fans. Purely on the surface, that sounds like a blatantly immature and stupid act, which would only serve to create divisions instead of unity in the gaming community. But that isn’t even taking into account how damn well Halo clan Whatsitsface did at the tournament – I can’t give you exact stats, but I’m pretty damn sure they won every single map they played. And they only lost one at the previous tournament as well.

In the Halo community, that’s freaking unheard of.

And these gods-incarnate of the Halo world, who have risen beyond the heights of all the mortal men who have dared to go before them, get booed off the stage? That is just not right.

As Day[9] (a legendary StaCraft 2 commentator, for those who don’t know) said in a Podcast after the event, it is symptomatic of a pretty flawed ideology.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if instead of people bashing other peoples interests because they aren’t in line with their own, we could engage positively over our interests with one another – letting the jock explain to you why he loves getting up at five o’clock every morning and to go and train for his ‘polo (bru), and then him listening to you while you explain why so few experiences in the world can match the sheer epicosity (now officially trademarked as a Duncanism) of blowing a zombie’s face off with a double-barrelled shotgun.

I suppose what I’m trying to say here is that if we could swallow our pride and stick our prejudices where the son don’t shine (an airlocked chest, or the Mariana Trench, or whatever), then maybe existence could be more pleasant for all parties involved.

Man, I took my hippie pills this morning. No euphemism intended.

Duncan
Out

PS: Greg published new posts! Clickity here to see them!

Hard Reset: This Ought To Be Interesting

Those of you who don't yet know what Hard Reset is, educate yourselves by clicking here.

When I first heard mention of Hard Reset, I must say I was more than a little intrigued. A PC exclusive? Being released in the same year it was announced? With no multiplayer?(!) To quote my fellow eGamer writer, Alessandro, “Hard Reset must think it is from the 1990′s or something.” Best of all, there are (as yet) no announcements regarding any sort of retarded DRM function to screw legitimate buyers over while the hackers frolic in the comparative joys of convenience and illegality.

In short, it seems like Hard Reset’s developers may well have their heads screwed on right. While I am not quite optimistic enough to hold thumbs about the prospective awesomeness of this game just yet in terms of actually delivering to the market what they bloody well want (see: announcement of no LAN support a month before the release of Call of Duty 6), I am excited nonetheless to see how well this game does.

On paper, it seems to be set up to be a pirate’s playground: lawless oceans inhabited by numerous boats full of bountiful booty lack of annoying DRM (as yet), no multiplayer (and, as such, no incentive to buy the game legitimately in order to connect online) and it is coming out as a PC exclusive. Need I say more?

On the other hand, this seems to be the first game in a while to (as I said earlier) really care about delivering an experience which their market can enjoy — an emphasis on visuals for the Graphics Whores, greater environmental interaction and destructibility, story-focused, quality-focused singleplayer campaign… I could go on, but you get the idea. If you want to find out more on all of this specific nonsense, check out this article.

Given these two aspects, Hard Reset seems to be a game which, upon its release, is going to do one of two things...

Thing 1: Get pirated to Jupiter and back, make an enormous loss, fail horribly, and get laughed at by all the consoletards (and Activision) because it dared to stick its neck out, only to have it chopped off. Viciously. With some sort of blunt implement. Probably a spoon or something.

Thing 2: Be (as Borat would say) great success. The PC market receives it with favour, no one decides to pirate it out of spite (as some have with titles such as Modern Warfare 2, where their most beloved elements, such as LAN support and the lean function, were removed) and it does pretty damn well… regardless of piracy.

I would say whether Hard Reset tends towards my oh-so-elaborately titled Thing 1 or Thing 2 is actually pretty damn important for us as the PC community and market.

You see, if Hard Reset just gets pirated a lot, makes an enormous loss and has to run home crying to its publisher, it would simply act as more ammunition in the metaphorical clip of those developers such as Activision (and, with the recent announcement of the DRM of Diablo 3, Blizzard too), who disregard the wants of their market under the justification of DRM or more general piracy prevention. Which is not that cool.

BUT! If Hard Reset doesn’t epic fail into the ground, does well and is well received by the community then we as the PC community don’t just receive a clip, it would be pretty full of ammunition as well.

Why?

Well, if a game which is almost ideally disposed to being pirated to ridiculous heights manages to succeed regardless of piracy, developers using the excuse of piracy to remove things like LAN play are going to have far less ground to stand on. We are going to be able to call them out on their decisions and maybe, just maybe, see a bit of positively inclined changed from our perspective.

Only time will tell, however, and with the release of Hard Reset due for sometime this year, the best thing we can do as the upstanding PC gaming community is to indoctrinate all of the pirates we know into actually purchasing the damn game. If that doesn’t happen, beat them to death with a blunt object. Preferably a chair in this case.

For legal reasons, however, you didn’t hear that last part from me.

The Abridged Version of the Way Forward for This Blog

So, I said in my previous post that I was going to be making a post soon with the intent of outlining my general vision for this blog. That idea died with the realisation that 'visions' and knit picky things like 'definition' (if you got the joke there, you're awesome :D) boring. So, instead of giving you an extremely long-winded, self-important and more than a little TL;DR version of my vision for this blog, I'm going to be presenting you kids with the abridged version instead.

So, here goes.

Ultimately, this blog aims to be a place where I can express two of the things I love most in the world: gaming and writing. Some of the pieces I do will be in-depth analyses of certain topics, others will be more general opinion columns, others will simply be my commentary on random stuff I see in the gaming industry and yet others will document my day-to-day thoughts about gaming.

What this means is that I'm going to be posting more often (hopefully 2/3 times per week, time permitting), and that most of my posts won't be as long as my columns have been. Except for, you know, the columns.

I'd really like this blog to become a place where I can engage with my audience on the levels of both criticism in terms of my writing itself and in terms of the actual subject matter I put forward. As such, please feel free to comment your hearts out, debate, criticise, compliment, or just comment - all is welcome and appreciated.

I would naturally also love it if this blog became more well-read, as it would mean I would both be able to engage and share my views with a wider audience and be able to justify spending more time on getting posts up. So, if you like what you read, tell your friends! And make sure that they tell their friends! Preferably on pain of death or something, but if you have what you believe to be more effective persuasion techniques, feel free to try them out.

Basically, I'm going to be posting more, so hopefully when all of you faithfuls who have my blog bookmarked in your questions check anxiously for an update, you'll actually find one. Rock on.

One last request - the site I'm currently writing for, eGamer, has just implemented Google AdSense, in the hopes of generating enough cashola to both remunerate their writers for the hard work they put in (at the moment we are all volunteers who receive no such recompense), and create opportunity for the site to develop. So, when you load up eGamer every day to check what's what in the world of gaming (if you don't already, please do. It would be most appreciated), feel free to open a few of the ads you see in new tabs, to do your little bit to fuel our initiative. :)

That's about all I have to say; this post intended mainly to get me back into the routine of posting, to let ya'll know what I'm intending in terms of this blog, and to implore you to both refer to eGamer for all your gaming needs and fool Google into thinking you care about our ads every now and then.

For those of you who don't know the URL, you can click here to go to eGamer.

Thanks!

Duncan
Out

Does Gaming Perpetuate Antisocial Behaviour? [Column]

Hey guys - sorry I haven't managed to get a post up since my last column. Life's been really hectic what with my long weekend being taken up by Debating Provincials and what not. But! I hope to have my post on my overall vision for this blog up by the end of this weekend. Heaven help us all.... anyways! Here's my next column, due to go live tomorrow, part of my mini-series on dealing with attacks on gaming. Hope you guys enjoy, please do comment with feedback and opinions!

Column starts here


Now that I have been graced with the honour of my very own soap box to shout nonsense from for a little while now, I would like to keep this theme of dealing with attacks on gaming by taking a swipe at one criticism of gaming advocated by the parental advisory committees and menopausal female columnists I mentioned in my previous column which irks me in particular – that is, the attack on gaming for its alleged antisocial nature.

You probably noticed how I prefixed my topic rather pompously with the word ‘alleged’. This is for the simple reason that I find most of the attacks in this regard to be so weak that I shudder at even the thought of affording them the status of a legitimate attack… ultimately, I just don’t think that they hold water. Or any other liquid for that matter, regardless of viscosity. The amount of rebuttal on this issue is enormous, and I’m not going to go into much detail concerning most of it, as I’m sure the majority of it is as much a knee-jerk reaction for you as for me. As gamers seeking to defend our beloved past time, we simply need to point to the hugely social focus of events like LANs, the communities of friends which we develop by playing games (specifically multiplayer games) and so on and so forth to debunk these rather emotionally founded attacks. I personally have made and maintained a number of solid friendships which I would never have had the opportunity to be in were it not for our shared hobby (of gaming, that is). In fact, now that I think about it, I am really unable to think of someone I know who is antisocial because of games – if anything, the opposite is true because of the influence games have in their lives. Granted, I may not know them because of their antisocial behavior, but in this case I’m talking largely about people I know from school. If you disagree or know to the contrary, please do comment, as gathering some casual data on this especially would be something I would find quite interesting.

Let us take this a step further, however, and make some slightly more in depth analysis on the matter.

Now, some counter-rebuttal to what I have proposed would be to say that while the majority of gamers may not be subject to the perpetuation of antisociality (we can just pretend like that is actually a word) as a result of gaming, there are still those who do. To that ends, we would probably be painted a picture of the stereotypical antisocial gamer – alone in their room with discarded pizza boxes forming a makeshift barricade around their swivel chair and nought to illuminate their cave but the dim glow of the computer screen shining upon this poor nerd’s pale face. This scene certainly does present us with a problem, a problem which most would feel something should certainly be done about –however, to paint video games as the cause of this problem would be a classic example of a causation-correlation fallacy… Or, in the English that most normal people speak, video games would be blamed for a problem which they are not, in fact the root cause of. Now, let’s set about exploring that. Imagine, for a moment, a world where video games do not exist (heaven forbid!). The assumption made by many of gaming’s critics in this regard is that without video games to perpetuate antisocial behavior, the child or individual concerned would instead have grown up to be a regular hipster about town.

In the interests of logic and reason, I cry nay! The problem with this argument is that it assumes an alternate outcome under a certain set of preconditions – the problem is that were these preconditions to be met, that outcome would not be achieved. If video games had never entered their lives, these people would have remained just as socially awkward (if not more so) as if they had grown up with video games.

Why?

Because people do not go so far down that road without something else being wrong in the first place. The difference in this situation would be that they would have grown up without video games as a mechanism to help them escape the reality of being part of a peer group to which you do not truly belong, and having to suffer through the torment which often accompanies such a situation. In fact, even in this most extreme case, video games are still incur benefits and not harms, as they give this woefully socially inadequate person something to be good at. This in turn spawns benefits in the form of things like self-belief and self-confidence, which make one more likely to be successful at social interaction anyway. Ironically, these people would be even more confident in themselves if video gaming’s critics were less vocal than they were in undermining video gaming as a hobby, because they would not only see themselves as good at something, but something which matters to a far fairer extent. But I digress.

More than that, however, I would go so far as to say that gaming actually creates social benefits in that it makes people who, without video games, would probably just hole up in their man-caves all day (like the one described above) and read, or plot their gun-toting revenge on society, or whatever, more likely to be socially active.

Why?

Because it creates a middle-ground on which people can interact and form friendships. Socially awkward person A and socially awkward person B, with video games, are now able to form a friendship because of a shared passion, where previously one did not and would not have existed.

So, what we’ve seen so far is that in cases such as woefully socially inadequate WoW-addicts, video games are first of all not to blame and, second of all, actually create a mechanism through which they are able to restore some semblance of their self-belief and deal with the issues facing them. Which beats the living fecal matter out of just lying around being depressed. Not only that, but video games actually benefit people who would otherwise have been marginalized by their peer groups in that they create a middle-ground on which they are able to use their shared interests to make friends, which perpetuates social activity.

So, even in the most extreme and passionately touted cases argued against video games, the arguments don’t stand.

What I’d also say is that I’m actually being far too nice here, in that I’m giving these arguments a chance at all. The reality of the situation is that they are straight up, plain and fundamentally incorrect. While antisocial stereotypes may exist around games and those who play them, that doesn’t mean they’re right, or that we should entertain them. Gamers aren’t some backwardly developed, alternate species or something. They’re people. They have friends, they enjoy social interaction. The only difference between them and jocks is that instead of discussing rugby they discuss Call of Duty.

In reality gaming is a catalyst for social behavior. Groups of friends use it to pass the time, have a laugh while doing so and make more friends. Those who take gaming more seriously than others still develop groups of friends with whom they play and practice. To use myself as a pretty hardcore StarCraft 2 player for an example, I stay at home on Friday nights instead of going to movies, because I don’t enjoy crowds and I find that sort of social interaction fickle and tedious. Instead, I play StarCraft with my four or five odd friends who play as well, and I can honestly say that it is because of StarCraft that they rank among the closest friends I have.

In short, to say that in the majority of cases gaming perpetuates antisocial behavior is just retarded.

I’ll stop my ranting there, before it gets too ragetastic.

At the end of the day, both the gamers and the anti-gaming activists want the same thing – to help that poor kid in the basement. We simply see our games as a means to an end, or a coping mechanism, while they see our games as the cause of the issue – which, as I have already mentioned, is not the case.

In conclusion, I would in fact say that gaming has given many, many people who were not that great at sports, or socially inadequate, or whatever the case may be the opportunity to form friendships and social relationships on the middle ground which it creates. The unfortunate reality is that too many people will only how great an asset video games can be in bridging social divides once gaming becomes more generally socially accepted than it is now, by older generations as well as younger.


Column ends here

Hope you enjoyed it, commentary/criticism is always welcome!

Duncan
Out

Does Gaming Have Benefits? [Column]

The following is the rough draft of my eGamer column, which is due to go live tomorrow. Tell me what you think, I really want feedback on this one.


Reader! I have something truly ridiculous to tell you! This column ISN'T going to be talking about Call of Duty! Believe it, for it is the truth! In what is quite a monumental step forward in my writing career, and ultimately my overall development as a person, I have indeed decided to cover a topic other than the one I have been harking on about for the past six months or so (for those who didn't pick it up, the topic in question is that of Call of Duty). Anyways, enough about how I'm not going to be talking about Call of Duty, otherwise this is introduction is going to become very counter-intuitive very quickly.

Instead of talking about Call of Duty (last time I'm saying that, I promise), I'm going to be taking the liberty of using my next few columns to expand and otherwise further discuss issues pertinent to the realisation of a concept which I referred to in my previous column as 'The Dream'. For the sake of continuity and in the hopes of generally not confusing the living nonsense out of you, I'm going to keep referring to it as The Dream. Only without the apostrophes.

Anyways, for those of you who forgot or didn't read what I wrote in the aforementioned previous column and are too lazy to dig around the eGamer archives looking for it (I don't blame you, it's a pretty fat mission), here is a convenient linky-link to the column in question.

Now that I've got a few extra views on my last column (and as such, now that I view myself as a more worthwhile person), let me quote the particular extract I am referring to:

“For now, accompany me as we envisage ‘The Dream’… what on earth is the dream? The Dream is gaming popularised. The Dream is to turn on the TV and see Super eSport showing the highlights from a recent StarCraft 2 match. The Dream is professional gaming being a viable career. The Dream is ultimately gaming becoming as fully integrated into our society as sport is.”

Lol.

Hopefully you get the idea of what I'm talking about from that, 'cause devoting an entire column to defining something which can essentially be described as the popularisation of gaming in general (boom! Inadvertent yet effective clarifications of definitions for the win!) would be somewhat of a cop-out in my opinion.

So, to kick off this general theme of the realisation of The Dream, I'm going to be using my next two or three columns to discuss some of the more fundamental attacks on video gaming as a hobby – after all, only once the arguments against video gaming have been thoroughly rebutted and gaming's critics been ruthlessly silenced can we truly see The Dream fulfilled.

Before I actually get started, level with me here: did that previous sentence not sound like an extract from a speech given at a political rally for a Big Brother-esque, autocratic dictatorship. Just saying.

Anyway, let's get started for real now.

The attack I'm going to be discussing this week is that of the point or benefit of gaming. It is without any shadow or semblance of a doubt that I am able to state that behind every corner lies a member of the Family Policy Institute, in every alleyway hides a menopausal female columnist and in every classroom rules a teacher, all of whom would tell you the same thing - “gaming is stupid, you're wasting your time and you could be doing something far more beneficial for yourself.”

I believe that many articles which argue in defense of gaming in this regard go about it in completely the wrong way. Instead of attacking the assumptions and implications behind the argument being proposed, they opt instead to try and present some sort of paltry evidence showing that gaming can have benefits – if you make a simple Google search of 'the benefits of gaming', you will see that many of the arguments and proposed benefits are pretty situational and rather inapplicable in most instances.

The reason I believe them to be generally useless defenses is that they focus on over-specific benefits; for example, some games help surgeons with their motor functions, games can help rehabilitate patients recovering from injuries or suffering from pain, games improve one's hand-eye co-ordination and reflexes... the list could go on, but none of them really provide tangible, everyday benefits that apply to the average gamer.

All of what I've mentioned above may well be good and true, but for the most part it applies to other people – if someone accuses you directly of wasting your time on games and you're not a surgeon or in the rehabilitation process from a major injury, those aren't going to give you much in the way of rebuttal.

The reason for this is simple: gaming as a hobby does not provide much in the way of tangible benefits. This does not, however, mean that it is inferior to other hobbies or ways of passing time as the aforementioned attack would suggest.

If you are a casual gamer (we'll get to more hardcore gamers in a minute), then take a moment to think about what you would spend your time on if you didn't game. The chances are that you would simply browse Facebook idly, chat to people on Mxit, maybe do some light reading... who knows. The point is, you aren't really spending that much of your time playing games, and if you aren't spending that much of your time playing games, then if you were to stop playing games and devote your time to something else instead you wouldn't really be able to see yourself gaining any sort of tangible benefit from it, because you simply wouldn't be able to put enough time in to get anything out.

In the case of the casual gamer, gaming usually assumes the role of a relaxation or de-stressing mechanism, which is totally legit. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy... and I'm pretty sure that Jack is a casual gamer.

So, let's stop and just take stock of what I've said so far. If you're following, skip this paragraph. We've established that the criticism of gaming we're addressing is one made using an argument of comparative benefit, which is a really douchey way of saying that people like to criticise us as gamers because we could be doing something better with our time. However, what we've seen in terms of casual gamers is that in the majority of cases they don't actually spend enough time on games that if they were to stop gaming and take up another hobby, which they spent the same amount of time on (guitar, for example), they would not find any sort of tangible benefit, because they simply wouldn't be spending enough time on their new hobby.

Everyone following? Awesome.

Now let's take a look at hardcore gamers. Hardcore gamers are characterised by three things: they tend to focus more specifically on a certain game (CoD4, DotA, StarCraft 2, WoW, etc), they tend to spend more time on that game and they tend to specifically try and improve their ability in that game.

The interesting thing about games like the ones mentioned above is that as soon as you start getting into them, playing clan matches and trying to improve your play, tangible benefits begin to pile up. What is even more interesting is that the benefits don't come in the form of over-specific skills (like increased finger dexterity, or something equally retarded), but rather come in the form of lessons which one can apply to almost any situation you find yourself in, in life in general. Too many 'in's in that sentence, but whatever. Moving on.

One such example of a life-applicable benefit is the development of a correlation between effort and reward. Gaming is remarkable in that the more effort you put in, the better you get at what you are trying to do. Any hardcore gamer worth their salt should be able to look at where they started, then look at the point they have reached and realise that it was one thing, and one thing alone that got them there: hard work. Putting in hour upon hour behind your PC, blowing people's faces off. Said gamer would then be able to apply the same logic to their work environment: the harder they work, the further they get.

Other examples come in the form of things like strategic thinking, learning to work well in a team and learning to interact as a member of a team.

In terms of my own experience, I am able to draw direct parallels between what I have learned in my time playing StarCraft 2, and the benefit it has in my life. Foremost among what I have learned, I would say that StarCraft has taught me effective problem solving; when confronted with a problem in StarCraft, one analyses it in a logical, rational manner – if you keep losing to a specific strategy, you man the hell up and figure out how to beat that strategy, by thinking through all of the options at your disposal.

I find more and more that I am applying that same methodical though process to my everyday life, and I really am beginning to see just how tangible the benefit is.

Naturally, this is a topic of truly enormous debate, and I have barely scratched at it's surface. My intention with this column was not to cover every argument and rebuttal in the book – I can see plenty of places where I should do deeper analysis, where my arguments are weak and where I've oversimplified matters – but rather to expose you as the reader to some of the basic thought and argumentation which could go into an issue like this, and ultimately spur your own thoughts in terms of how to defend the point of your chosen hobby.


The end.

Duncan
Out

PS: Posts should be coming in more regularly now, as I'm through the bulk of my work - more on that a bit later, though.

Respawn Studios - Respawning My Dreams

Who didn't (and doesn't) love Call of Duty 4? I mean, really, that game was so full of win that I practically lost my virginity to it. I don't know how that is biologically possible, or even how that statements creates logical concord, but there you have it.

Point is, CoD4 was an awesome game, in the truest, most pure sense of the word - which is why the announcement that Modern Warfare 2 would feature no LAN play or dedicated servers and run through steam probably caused more than a few adolescent suicides. The game wasn't really a bad game... it just didn't deliver like everyone had hoped. I don't think it was because fans had unrealistic expectations, but rather because veterans of the series (and people who pretend to be, like me) felt betrayed by their most loved developers - the Inifinity Ward crew, headed up by Jason West and Vince Zampella.

As anyone who can use a forum will know, many rages and rants did ensue (admittedly, more than a few were my own) and Infinity Ward was generally hated upon.

But wait, there's more! For it was then that the whole legal debacle began, with allegations being thrown around left right and center - pretty soon it became clear that Zampella and West had been plotting and scheming with EA, but using Activision's boardroom or something to do it, because Activision found out and got pretty jealous. And when Activision get's jealous, their lawyers get itchy. And when lawyers get itchy, people get sued. People like Jason West and Vince Zampella.

Amidst the poop-flinging, pretty much everyone who was anyone at Infinity Ward decided to up and quit, leaving the coffee boys and interns to hold their own back at the shell of Infinity Ward. Anyways, those who quit Infinity Ward headed over to join West and Zampella at Infinity Ward 2.0 Respawn Studios, now under the wing of EA.

At first I was skeptical of these relative newcomers, assosciating them with what was, in my perception, the blasphemous bastardisation of my most loved and cherished franchise. Eventually, however, I was persuaded by a combination of boredom, curiosity and a need to procrastinate to visit the Respawn Studios website... contrary to my expectations, I was pleasantly surprised.

I'm not entirely sure what I expected to see - probably something along the lines of a frontpage welcoming you to the site by explaining Respawn's lawful-evil moral code (with bureaucratic tendencies) and a background of mutilated corpses of labrador puppies. What I found instead was a lively blog post detailing the journey the team had been through in the renovation of their office. While it may have been exactly as boring as it sounded, there was certainly no evil afoot there, and I really did try to read between the lines.

What shocked me even more than that, though, was the company section of the site. Upon scrolling down, one is greeted with a small bio of each employee - what really scared me was that upon reading them it seemed as if these people actually enjoyed their jobs and moreover, had a passion for what they do. After a stiff cup of rooibos tea to settle my nerves, I realised that the only logical conclusion was that these people really do love their jobs, and really are excited about making a game which they hope the community will enjoy.

That is a prospect which really inspires the optimist inside of me. We will probably never know exactly what the hell went down with the whole Infinity Ward vs Activision thing, but I'm okay with that. It means that I can blame everything I didn't like about Modern Warfare 2, like the lack of LAN support, lack of dedicated servers, lack of modding tools support, Steam and the lack of a freaking lean function (in all honesty, that's about everything I didn't like about Modern Warfare 2), on Activison. Whether it is true or not, I couldn't care less - it makes me happy.

What also makes me happy is the hope of a game devoid of all of the nonsense us gamers have had to face lately; one that let's me pew pew more and QQ less. Perhaps this is a hope born 90% of the simple fact that I am in love with the people who brought me the game that got me hooked on gaming and 10% the implication made by Jason West's bio (you'll have to go the site to see it, unfortunately, but it'll be worth your while), and perhaps I still have some pent-up fanboy rage issues to deal with, but this is all said in the hope that maybe, just maybe I'll be able to say "Told you so!" when Respawn's new game finally is released.

Post ends here. If you enjoyed it, please feel free to subscribe via either RSS or email, or follow with your google account - and recommend it to your friends, of course. Commentary is always welcome, and I've fixed the comments so that you don't need an account to post. If you didn't enjoy it, please don't hesitate to criticise - but please try and keep it constructive.

This is an article contributing to a daily feature call 'Reader's Digress' at eGamer.co.za. It should be going live with the other submissions tomorrow.

Duncan
Out

The Call of Duty Hype Machine, Fish and Other Things as Well!

*Edit: Comments are now fixed, so you guys can comment regardless of whether you have an account*

My column went up! Here is a copy of it, conveniently on my blog for your convenience (otherwise, you can click here to go to the actual article on eGamer.co.za):



Due to the fact that far too much of my time has been taken up by my school’s infamous (and rather enormous) reading project (cue dramatic music), I managed to forget until today (or yesterday, assuming it is Friday when you read this) that I have to write a column for tomorrow (or today, once again assuming it is Friday when you read this). It is because of this (and my reading project induced panic) that I had originally planned to do what anyone who has read my blog will know that I do best – rage about how Activision, the shell of Infinity Ward and the Call of Duty series from Modern Warfare 2 onwards have begun a long and tragically uncomplicated series of events which will ultimately lead to the death of destruction of us all. However, just as with my previous column, I’m not going to be doing that! This time, though, it isn’t going to be out of self control as much as out of a genuine maturing process in my outlook on all that nonsense.

You see, as I was mapping out my rant, I had a moment of such great epiphany that, had I not been already seated I would probably have had to sit down. So great was the epiphany that I no longer hate Modern Warfare 2, and now honour it with capital letters in writing, just as any normal proper noun deserves. Once again, if you read my blog you would know just how big that is.

“But Duncan!” you may be asking no one in particular as you sit in front of your computer, reading this column, “Are you not the same dashing young man who warned us never to tread near the path of Call of Duty ever again, just as a concerned parent suggests their child stay off the lawn of the convicted paedophile?”

To which I would reply, “Why yes, extremely complimentary reader, yes I am. That, however, was before my aforementioned epiphany!”

To which you would reply, “So tell me what this damned epiphany is, already!”

All right, all right. Long winded, fluffy introductions and arbitrary dialogues with my imaginary reader (who, from this column forth we shall name Martin) aside, let’s get down to business.

The realisation that has really changed my whole perspective on this whole issue is that the games industry is not one entity made up of one part, but rather one entity made up of a number of parts. But more analysis on that a tad later.

For now, accompany me as we envisage ‘The Dream’… what on earth is the dream? The Dream is gaming popularised. The Dream is to turn on the TV and see Super eSport showing the highlights from a recent StarCraft 2 match. The Dream is professional gaming being a viable career. The Dream is ultimately gaming becoming as fully integrated into our society as sport is.

While the matter presented in the above paragraph could fuel several columns all on its own, let’s ignore the debate for now and assume that The Dream can become a reality.

The question that assumption begs is then what would be necessary for this oh-so-awesome Dream to become a reality?

The answer to that question, given our tragically capitalist society is simply: demand. If enough people ask for it, it will happen. Perhaps not immediately, but we are already beginning to see the emergence of gaming as a far more popularised, far more mainstream hobby. Hell, even here in South Africa professional gaming is becoming a more and more viable occupation as we see new tournament organisation bodies emerging, and more and more companies stepping up to sponsor tournament prizes. Which is pretty awesome. But I digress.

So, we as gamers need demand, right? Right. The thing is, that demand isn’t going to come if the community doesn’t grow… which is where the post-Call-of-Duty-4 Call of Duty series comes in.

The hype created by each successful release of a CoD game is so enormous that I shy at the idea of creating an apt yet witty metaphor to match it. And that, dear reader(s), is exactly what we as the gaming community need. It is because of the massive hype created by games like Call of Duty that they draw in people who have never touched a game before in their life.

Ironically enough, my very own gaming career started as a result of the hype created around Call of Duty 4 (granted, that hype was justified). I saw the posters and huge cardboard cut-outs for it this one time in Look & Listen and realised that it had to be my Christmas present. I had no idea that I was buying what was arguably one of the greatest games of last decade, or just how hard I would fall for gaming at the time – all I knew was that the dude on the poster looked hardcore and had an assault rifle. For me, and many others like me, that is more than enough to justify a purchase that could alter the course of one’s life forever.

You see, those first time gamers / tragically uneducated noobs don’t give a flying fart about who the hell Infinity Ward are, or why dedicated servers and LAN support are so important to the hardcore crowd… all they know is that if they click the left mouse button (assuming they don’t have a completely retarded control configuration), the gun their in-game avatar is holding shoots. And that is awesome.

That is also when the bugs bites. When you play one awesome game, you want to play another. And another. And another. Eventually, you start to stumble across sites like this one, or a copy of NAG catches your eye on the way to the checkout counter. You start to educate yourself, start to form opinions, and take your next steps on the path to becoming a true hardcore-gamer-crackhead.

Now, let’s go back to that thing I mentioned earlier about the games industry being a multi-faceted entity. Now that we’re back there, let’s compare it to a fishing scenario!

So, the hook hangs in the water. Acting as the bait is a freshly caught, fat, juicy, delectable worm probably drowning to death as I write this. A fish of undefined species swims idly past, but returns upon catching the scent of the aforementioned freshly caught, fat, juicy, delectable worm (by now it should be dead). It sniffs (I think fish sniff?) at it a few times and depending on its temperament and level of sustenant satisfaction will either take a bite or leave it alone. Let’s assume this fish recently escaped from a gulag, and so it’s pretty hungry. Our gulag escapee takes a bite, and the hook drives into its fishy flesh, the barb securing a purchase. The fish is hooked, and the fisherman on the surface awakens from his stupor and begins to tug wildly on the rod, and reel the fish in. The fish breaks the surface of the water, suspended by the fishing line on the hook, and the fisherman reels in a tad more and, when satisfied that he can easily reach out and grab the fish, ceases to reel and surveys his catch.

Now, let’s analyse that rather narrative, probably a tad long-winded metaphor. The fish is, of course, our prospective gamer. The hook is the game itself. The line could be considered the level of their passion, with the amount they have been reeled in being directly proportional to the amount of forum posts and opinions they have under their belt. Finally, when the reeling in is complete, we have a fully matured hardcore trout gamer, just like the rest of us! The bait is, of course, the hype surrounding the game in question.

Naturally, there is a metric ass-ton of hype surrounding the release of Modern Warfare 3 (for example), and so the above scenario would be happening en masse. And if it happens en masse, we get more demand, which ultimately perpetuates The Dream!

You see where I’m going with this? Exactly!

With both of these scenarios, however, there is a price to be paid. In the scenario of the fishing trip, the dead worm was the price. In the scenario of attracting new gamers, it means we have to tolerate bureaucratic, backstabbing nonsense from a company which has forgotten how to listen to its audience.

While it may be a rather annoying price, I don’t think it foreshadows the way forward for gaming (thankfully), and ultimately if it leads to the realisation of The Dream, I will gladly pay it.

Besides, by the time those metaphorical fish reach the end of the line, they will have learnt the error their ways anyway.



For those unsure, the column just ended

Apart from my column (which I hope you enjoyed), please head over to my good friend Greg Grack's new blog, all about his adventures in the wonderful world of StarCraft 2! You get to it by clicking here, by the way. Give the man your love and support :D

If you enjoyed the read then please subscribe to me via either RSS or email (in the right hand panel over there) and/or recommend this blog to your friends. As always, I welcome criticism, praise, general commentary, debate and/or anything else you have to say via the comments.

If you have anything you want me to write about, put suggestions and requests there as well and I'll see what I can do.

Last thing! Just a heads up that my Warhammer 40k/D&D blog is also going to be going live soon, so if you're into that nonsense please do keep an eye out.

In closing, enjoy this picture of a cat pushing a watermelon out of a lake... (you were supposed to click there)

Duncan
Out

A week of firsts! :D (And a comparison of the Warhammer 40k vs online gaming communities)

The title provides enough introduction, so let's dive straight in, shall we!

The first (and most epic, from my point of view) first we're going to be talking about is my first officially published column! Weehaay! Hooray! Etcetera! I find it really cool that now I'm not just some idiot publishing his ramblings on a free blogging service, I'm an idiot having his ramblings published for him on an established, proudly South African (lol) gaming site! Yes, ladies and gentleman, I'm feeling pretty legit right now. For those of you who didn't see my Facebook status, or who I haven't already pestered enough, click here to go to the column in question.

Feeling pretty damned ampd about it. Got a positive comment from some random, my editor and a bunch of the other authors on the site liked it and it got like 32 Facebook reccomendations. I'm entirely sure what those are, but they sound pretty cool.

Second first, I got my first follower! No jokes, if you direct your attention to the box at the bottom right of your screen (you may have to scroll down a bit) you'll see a little block with a silhouetted head in it, and if you hover your mouse over that head it'll say 'mlpdarth'! Righteous! Now, let me tell you a bit about Mr mlpdarth. A lad by the name of Sam Wolski, I met him at provincial trials for debating last year (aaaah! What's that IRL doing on my gaming blog!), he embodies the phrase truly epic. I believe we spent all of 55 minutes of a one hour prep session talking absolute crap, and the other 5 realising we had to make a case. Needless to say, lulz ensued.

Regardless! He has a blog, which I have been stalking for more time than I care to admit. Two, actually, one covering his daily life and the other covering... wait for it.. his Warhammer 40k life! Aaaaaw yeah :D So, I started off stalking his 40k blog, but it doesn't update enough to sate my appetite, so I started reading his IRL blog as well. And it isn't half bloody bad. So I followed both his blogs, and now he's followed me back. And after that extremely lengthy explanation, I'm going to end that tangent with 2 statements:

1) Be awesome and check out his blog by clicking here, or be even more awesome and check out his 40k blog by clicking here.
2) I wonder if he realises who the hell I am, or if he was just following back out of blogger courtesy...

Ok, I don't really have any other major firsts. But two in one week is pretty decent! I did also finish painting my first Warhammer 40k model, and Nick Geffen (the only tame ginger yet known to man) and I hit the local nerd gathering to engage in a bit of glorious combat (I won :D). Now, before you stop reading, and start telling me how 40k is a stupid investment, I promise you that a full justification, explanation and defense (ification?) of my interests is on the way, but I'm tired as hell, so it's not coming just yet.

What I am going to spend the rest of the time talking about, however, is how awesome I find the Warhammer 40k community, compared to pretty much any online community for whichever game you care to mention.

Thing is, the majority of most any major game's online community can be summed up in one word: assholes. Granted, you find some cool people every now and then, and granted in the higher tiers of the StarCraft 2 community you get awesome people like Husky and Day9 who valiantly give their time to grow the SC2 community and the eSports community in general. But two men do not a majority make. The majority of gamers (myself included, many a time) look down on 'noobs' as if they were the scum of the earth, the proverbial dog crap on the sole of their shoe, which they are forced to waste their precious time scraping off. The problem here is twofold: one, it means that these poor noobs, who have very little idea of WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS SACRED IS GOING ON IN THIS MENTAL GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE, have an even worse time because of it, meaning that the game simply is not an enjoyable experience; two, it either makes noobs think that the manner in which they have been treated is the acceptable or correct way to treat noobs, or they get so pissed off about it that they take out their frustrations on the only people they can - noobs who are noobier than themselves. Thus the cycle of assholism (that's a word, folks) is perpetuated, and people are, if anything, driven away from eSports and online gaming in general.

As I said before, this doesn't count for everyone, just most people. There are those who realise that they were once noobs too, and there are even those who go out of their way to help the poor bastards, but, like I said, they are not the majority.

Why am I saying all of this? Well, contrast is to my and Nick's experience at the Battle Bunker last Tuesday. 'Twas 40k night at the aforementioned Bunker of Batlle, and Nick and I rocked up, with our command of the rules being directly proportional to the amount of paint on my models... which is to say, not a lot. The veterans were all there, and instead of leaving us to our misguided efforts to play a game we had very little experience in, they jumped into action and immediately made us feel right at home as part of the community. They took turns helping us out, firstly with the basics of the rules, then with more specific ingame advice and clarification and then more in depth strategy tutelage - hell, some guy who played the same race as Nick gave him a lesson lasting nearly 2 hours on how to be awesome with their race! The crazy thing is how excited they were to have us there. No matter the stupid question, they were more than eager to answer and make sure we had an awesome time.

Needless to say, we did.

The contrast between my experience of being a CoD4 and StarCraft 2 noob (and now seeing the reaction of the Team Fortress 2 community to all of the new players being added to their ranks because of the game becoming free), and being a Warhammer 40k noob is about as stark as you're ever going to get.

While some masochists may enjoy the petty jackassish behaviour and general idiocy of online gamers one has to suffer through in the early stages of the learning curve of a particular online game (and hell, even in the later stages, too), I am not among them. Where I more awake, I would do more analysis on that contrast, its reasons for existence and what to conclude from them, but as I said I'm tired as hell. So that'll have to wait for another day.

Last thing! My next column is due in two weeks, and I am now a proper, legit and official writer for eGamer! Sorry, still pretty ampd about it :P

Much <3 guys, hope you're sleeping right now.

Duncan
Out