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!