Holy crap it’s March already?
I think I’ve been playing a little to much Eve….
I don’t’ know is 4 hours a night to much?
Some people would say yes…. I say… it’s either play a game that utilizes my mind and forces me to interact with people to achieve a common goal. Or veg out and read a book / watch television.
That is the thing that gets me about online gaming… people are very down on it… a lot of the comments I get tend to be of the flavor of
-It’s anti-social
-It’s violent
-Gaming makes you dumb… or some how seem less intelligent.
Anti-social…. This is a two edged sword here…. in the traditional sense of the Console game, yes it’s very anti-social. It’s you VS the computer. In the world of MMO’s and Online gaming it actually very social, your main opponents are real people and for years now games have included apps that let players speak to each other. Most groups however then to use Ventrilla or Team-speak as their preferred method of communication and use the in game voice client for working with mixed groups. As a direct result of the MMO’s I play, I have made several friends. (Friends defined as people I would like to hang out with on my personal time) (Personal time being defined as the most valuable of my time and for me to use at my discretion)
Violence… yes some games are violent. It’s a not a graphical violence (outside of the realm of the FPS). It’s more of a cartoonish violence. One could argue that the board game Battleship is violent, or any of the various versions of Risk that are out there. Violence in the MMO’s is no worse then what you would find in a Old school Saturday morning cartoon.
Gaming makes you dumb? I still don’t understand why people feel this way. I can read 1,000 books and have all the knowledge in the world. If I can’t communicate that knowledge, well who is dumb now? This point goes back to my first point "Gaming is Anti-social". You can turn your mind onto cruise control while reading a book or watching tv just as easily as you can playing Tetris. You can also have alot of brain activity while watching tv or reading a book. The difference is in the MMO you have alot of the cognitive higher brain functions going on then you do when participating in other forms of entertainment.
Ok that is my diatribe… so hopefully this little f-list blogger will move to the E-list some day.
Your normal drivel will return with the next post.