"That Guy"

[Playaa]

so this was an article written in an old e-zine called gamepig. It was written about Quake 2 but it holds truth for all games.

read and think:

 

"THAT GUY."

 

I think at one point in time, way back when, we were all "That Guy." You know the one I am talking about, the newbie, llahma, and dumb guy that runs around and doesn't kill anybody. We all, at one time or another, were that guy. Now what I wonder, is how do we get back to being that guy?

 

A long time ago, maybe not so long for some, you can think back and say "golly gee! I cannot believe I used to just play with a keyboard". What you won't remember is how much fun you had doing that. When you first get into online gaming more than likely you start with keyboard, unless you have someone tutoring you. Even still, just getting one frag makes the whole game. You have died 200 times, but you got that one guy, and who cares if it was with inf ammo on Heat.net and the guy had a 999 ping, he is your frag now. You know where the chain gun is on every map; you have blown yourself up with the rocket launcher more times than you can count. Your l33t crouch style gets you killed a lot but god knows it'll work one of these times. You are in heaven. In your world there are no bots, no cheats, and god mode is turned off. It's you vs. them.

 

Now for stage 2. It starts to dawn on you HOW THE HELL ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE SO GOOD the fever then sets in. Your brain gobbles in anything it can about the game. You go through super newbie phase. You have someone tell you "to get better use the keyboard and mouse combo". How is that going to help me I can't even run like that, can't pick up the mouse n run it across the pad like one of them rev it up cars I sit still for too long. With that given up, you go for the first gamer's option. Hello wingman15000 joystick/microwave/allinwonder. Your joystick can make toast it's so great. You calibrate, you go through the joystick setup and bind all the keys to weapons/crouch/lookupanddown/strafe. You are now ready to go be on top. You play the game first, wow new joystick is great, you're gonna kick some donkey! Then you log into the net. Go to your online craziness place of choice, and get in the game. Your donkey gets kicked again. Not as bad but still not what you need. You still have that intense feeling though, that newbie intense gotta play as much as you can feeling. We all used to know it.

 

Onward and upward. You are in your computer toy store, browsing for you don't know what, maybe a new joystick, maybe a new computer, you're just hanging out. As you stroll through the help books, you find it. THE QUAKE 2 COMPANION(or whatever it was called) hrm you kneel down and start reading. Yada yada yada, I have already won the game. Then you get to the chapter, "Thresh's guide to online gaming". Whoa, who the hell is Thresh? As you read, your brain gathering all the information it can handle, you realize just what the mouse keyboard combo is. You find out about shooting at peoples' feet with rocket launcher. It tells you about latency, which you still don't really know or care about, you could have a 400 ping and not care one bit, just as long as that phone jack thingy doesn't rear its ugly head, you're still in bliss.

 

Brain packed with new information, you drive home. It takes a while to get used to, probably about a day or two, But then you are doing better then ever. Getting 3-5 frags instead of your normal -2. You are all powerful! You are in the game!! Now what's this lag poop? You start noticing people always saying it. "Lag golly gee! lag". You research pings and latency and find out why the guy with 70 ping is normally on top. This would be great you say, but not an option yet in your area, so you still play and you are still happy. The taint of lag is slowly seeping into your system though. PJs begin to drive you nuts, you start to actually feel when you have a 400 ping. It's the beginning.

 

Now you move onto different mods. What for god's sake is CTF?? As you take 3-4 hours worth of downloading mods, updates, maps, and whatever else the good guys tell the newbie to get. You get into different mods. CTF, you find out what the Spiderman thingy is, RA2 you find out just how high you can jump and still not blow yourself up. Some other might have spun off into different mods, but those were mine. Now in ctf you have found out what the spider thingy is, and how to bind keys, you get quad timers and cfg's, figure out just how much the power shield helps, and how those guys get out of the room in McKinley (then you get to stop looking for the secret door that you knew had to be there). You are addicted; you learn of offense and defense, of clans, the good ones the bad ones. You absorb the online game, it's what you think about, it's what you talk about, it is what you have become.

 

Now you are the gamer, you have a cfg from hell, you have timers for.... well a bunch o stuff, you are getting better and better, and starting to get known. It is a good time, BUT WHAT THE HELL IS ALL THIS TALK ABOUT BOTS? You hear it at almost every server you goto, golly gee! another bot (note, this is not to you but about somebody else, c'mon yer on a modem and you still suck, but yer a legend in yer own mind). You inquire and find out the horrible, auto aim. WHAT you mean they have things that aim for you!! This comes as a great shock, who would do such a thing, why? You do research on the aim bots; find out what's out there, upon a few servers you randomly say "ratbot" just to test. Sometimes you get a response, and then this turns into a great melee of trying to get the bot kicked along with the ritual cussing of the cheater. This turns into great fun, with sometimes people all joining the opposite team, or just reckless flaming of the cheater. Good times had by all, well for the time being anyway. You sink deeper.

 

You start trying out for clans, getting accepted into some, and also creating a few of your own. The taint has started though, you find yourself getting mad more than having fun. Your desire for winning is starting to consume you. golly gee! THE LAG, BAH GG BOT!! You find that you are saying these things more n more. The game is still fun, but not great like it used to be. You find it to be your competitive edge, is it really though. Through ladders and scrims, matches and FFA's your skill increases. So does your cynicism.

 

golly gee!, golly gee!, you are now LPB!!!!! The game gets super fun again, rails are easier, and everything moves faster, this is great!!! This phase lasts for at least a couple of months. The competition is greater though; you are now on the open team ladders. Competition is fierce here, and the release of the nose-pak has just become a prominent factor, as well as the hacked ratbot. Everything on servers all around is going downhill, bot this bot that, nose pak, cheater cheater!!!! It's frenzy, clans getting forfeited because of bw-admin. Crazy fites about servers and bots and nosepaks and just basically anything to fite about. Frustration about pl, matches running late, and cheater cheater pumpkin eaters!! Every now and then you have a few GG's but other then that you just wonder if it's the bots that own you or the people. Turns into only fun everysooftengame, instead of superfunallthetimegame. Now you might say "no this is not me" but really think about it. Have you witched about lag? Have you called someone a bot? Have you had a really fun game lately?? Today? Yesterday? Last week? Week before?? Or can you remember truly having fun playing an online game within the past 5 months or later??(This obviously directed at the long-term players, if you just started playing a month ago you should still be that guy).

 

I am not saying that we should all delete our gaming directories and go fishing, not in any way shape or form. Online gaming is still great fun. Even with the cheats and the hacks and such. Still a good time. It was a couple of days ago though, that I was on a server, and I saw "That Guy"(or maybe it was twitch taking a break from eq, Hrm). You could tell he used nothing but a keyboard (wouldn't strafe or aim up or down), and he died a lot, but never complained and stayed on server the whole time. I am willing to bet he was having the time of his life. I find online gaming still truly fun; it is still the great time consumer it always has been. It's just not the superdupergreatestthingofalltimeholywowthisisGREAT

that it used to be. So now that I have spent all this time evolving from being that guy, I always wonder what it might be like to be "That Guy" again.

[nut]

wow.. that is really good at explaining that we where N00Bs. and man how could we possibly play CS with just a keyboard... how did we do that..

 

Nice post man..

 

NuT-

[ConGregation]

Boy, he sure nailed it on a lot of things. I even bought a Wingman joystick I can still remember the total thrill of realizing that I was actually playing with real people. And just like he said, getting completely owned but having the greatest time of my life.

 

I doubt anything will ever give me that experience again.

[Gond]

I remember my initiation into wasd. I was playing my boss in Duke Nukem 3d, bear in mind, I never did the keyboard only thing. It was always the keyboard for left right and the mouse for aiming...however, I used the left mouse for fire and the right for forward. I think this was default for Duke (or an idiot friends idea...couldn't have been mine...LOL). Anyway, I could NOT touch him...he was amazing at running backwards and shooting me. Once I figured it out I was able to kick the donkey out of my friends with that move...well, till they caught on

 

I think I still remember my first CS game(s). Back then my heart would pound so hard it was amazing. I felt the same thing in my first MCC match.

[THX1138]

that takes me back a ways. the first multiplayer fun i had is when my friend LaMeR used to come over and we played doom2 and heretic on 2 486's linked with a serial cable. Then we got tricky and used procom plus to dial out on a 14.4 modem to his brother so we could have 3 people playing in heretic. boy oh boy that was awsome. thats around the time when we all started going to m0ms house every other saturday to LAN it up. then soon after that CS came out then DLM came around and here we are today, still flinging poo and purple goo!!

[Playaa]

I still remember my first experiences.

it was with Quake 2.....SUCH a great game....so many memories.

I remember playing with keyboard only, then hearing about this +mlook setting....WOW!!!

then finding out how to taunt/salute/wave in that game....

then discovering what a "rocket jump" was.....

then finding out how to pull out a chaingun or super shotgun after hitting them once with the rocket....(basically make a good shot with rocket then...SPRAY AND PRAY!!!)

 

oh, I remember playing every night during the summer at a friends house. He had a good internet connection (we'd get 150ping sometimes WOOHOO!)

he had a Voodoo2 video accellerator and a 400mhz processor (WOW!) with 32mb of ram (DEAR LORD!).

I'd go over to his house at 8 or 9 pm every night after dinner (summer time, I had no job and neither did he) and play until 3 or 4 in the morning then head home to sleep, eat and do it all again. As our skills progressed...it seems like the fun did die down because it became more about being the best than having fun.....I remember the first time I got first place on a map....was intense....only got first by 2 kills but man...I was the best that map....

freakin best summer of my life....why'd it hafta end?

[YoMamma]

hehe, my 1st online game was Mech Warrior 2. I played it on my old 100mhz on a 56k. My first day online some1 invited me into a major MW2 clan, but I never really got into the game... It was still really fun!

[Xterminator]

too lazy to read, but i'll agree with you all

[THX1138]

[rackish]

Starcraft was my first in 2000, been playing ever since