Games and gaming.
I like games. Mostly I like computer games, but board games and card games are fun, too.
Let me back up a little bit. In grade school I read a lot of science fiction books. This gave way to fantasy books in medieval settings when I got to high school. I like the swords and axes, bows and arrows, orcs and trolls, dwarves, elves, and gnomes.
This is also the time when I started playing the pencil-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) game with some friends. I was always leery of D&D, having grown up in a Christian life-style, but I really didn't know much about it. My friends are Christian and I trusted them. I joined in and ended up having a lot of fun. In a way, the game allows you to create your own story and participate in it. The "game master" sets up a scenario and you decide what you want to do. (As you walk through the woods you see a cave. Do you enter or continue on? A group of goblins attack. Do you run? Do you attack the small goblins and finsh them off quickly or concentrate your efforts the big ugly troll that's behind them?) It's very wide-open and I found it appealing. It fit in with my interest in stories and being creative.
Then computers started supporting D&D-type games (SSI's "Gold Box" series, "Pool of Radiance", "Curse of the Azure Bonds"; "Eye of the Beholder", etc). With the growing Internet came "Ultima Online", a massively multi-player online role playing game (MMO RPG). Hundreds of people could log on at once, create a character, equip themselves, and wander the countryside looking for evil to slay. Or you could kill animals for leather and become a tailor, cut down tress for lumber and become a carpenter, or mine in the mountains for ore and become a blacksmith. If you worked on trade skills, you could create things to sell to other people. Most people created groups to go hunting monsters.
The first computer games were turn-based and scripted. In the world of Ultima Online (UO) you could do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. You didn't have to be a warrior or adventurer, you could be a merchant. There was a group of people that would gather, practice, and put on plays in the game (I bet the designers never planned on that!). People would hold archery contests and single elimination fighting tournaments.
There was no end-game and no way to win; you just kept trying to improve your character. I played this game for four or five years, much longer than any other computer game I've played.
Next I started playing EverQuest (EQ), another MMO RPG. It didn't have the freedom that UO allowed, but it still had its own challenges. I've been playing EQ for four years now, but it's starting to wear on me. I just don't have the time to play, like I used to. I have 9 of the 10 expansions but didn't do much with the last two. And Sony (the parent company) just announced the NEXT expansion. One group of friends has already passed me by with their skills, and I seem to keep falling behind. EQ isn't a game you can sit down and play for an hour. It's time consuming, but I have fun with it.
I doubt I'll quit anytime soon though. I can't keep up, but I can find different ways to have fun. I found a group of people that are working in one of the old expansions but I'm even having trouble keeping up with them.
Oh well. I'm not sure what the point of all that was...I think I had one when I started, but it sorta petered out. I have screen shots from EQ (and maybe UO) in my flickr account, with many more EQ screens shots to add.
-- C.
Let me back up a little bit. In grade school I read a lot of science fiction books. This gave way to fantasy books in medieval settings when I got to high school. I like the swords and axes, bows and arrows, orcs and trolls, dwarves, elves, and gnomes.
This is also the time when I started playing the pencil-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) game with some friends. I was always leery of D&D, having grown up in a Christian life-style, but I really didn't know much about it. My friends are Christian and I trusted them. I joined in and ended up having a lot of fun. In a way, the game allows you to create your own story and participate in it. The "game master" sets up a scenario and you decide what you want to do. (As you walk through the woods you see a cave. Do you enter or continue on? A group of goblins attack. Do you run? Do you attack the small goblins and finsh them off quickly or concentrate your efforts the big ugly troll that's behind them?) It's very wide-open and I found it appealing. It fit in with my interest in stories and being creative.
Then computers started supporting D&D-type games (SSI's "Gold Box" series, "Pool of Radiance", "Curse of the Azure Bonds"; "Eye of the Beholder", etc). With the growing Internet came "Ultima Online", a massively multi-player online role playing game (MMO RPG). Hundreds of people could log on at once, create a character, equip themselves, and wander the countryside looking for evil to slay. Or you could kill animals for leather and become a tailor, cut down tress for lumber and become a carpenter, or mine in the mountains for ore and become a blacksmith. If you worked on trade skills, you could create things to sell to other people. Most people created groups to go hunting monsters.
The first computer games were turn-based and scripted. In the world of Ultima Online (UO) you could do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. You didn't have to be a warrior or adventurer, you could be a merchant. There was a group of people that would gather, practice, and put on plays in the game (I bet the designers never planned on that!). People would hold archery contests and single elimination fighting tournaments.
There was no end-game and no way to win; you just kept trying to improve your character. I played this game for four or five years, much longer than any other computer game I've played.
Next I started playing EverQuest (EQ), another MMO RPG. It didn't have the freedom that UO allowed, but it still had its own challenges. I've been playing EQ for four years now, but it's starting to wear on me. I just don't have the time to play, like I used to. I have 9 of the 10 expansions but didn't do much with the last two. And Sony (the parent company) just announced the NEXT expansion. One group of friends has already passed me by with their skills, and I seem to keep falling behind. EQ isn't a game you can sit down and play for an hour. It's time consuming, but I have fun with it.
I doubt I'll quit anytime soon though. I can't keep up, but I can find different ways to have fun. I found a group of people that are working in one of the old expansions but I'm even having trouble keeping up with them.
Oh well. I'm not sure what the point of all that was...I think I had one when I started, but it sorta petered out. I have screen shots from EQ (and maybe UO) in my flickr account, with many more EQ screens shots to add.
-- C.
posted by Cerpicio at 11:16 AM
1 Comments:
All that time of typing you could have spent playing EQ ... for shame!
I would know nothing of game addiction. Wait! I'll change that. I know about stupid, time-consuming addiction. That is why I never bought one of those soul-stealing machines (PS 2, XBox, GC, etc.)
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