Comments on "'Unreal' Musings" - Faerye Net

Re: The facts

2004-03-28T11:00:54+00:00

No, you’re not bitter at all. That’s why you magically crashed the server when I was driving said Leviathan!

Seriously, though, I think I was doing better than before last night. I think A) I’m getting more familiar with the maps, B) there were fewer people and therefore more vehicles to use, further reducing travel time, and C) talking about Onslaught and my shortcomings at it has improved my goal-focusedness :)

Thank you for nice compliments though. In the words of the immortal Garth, ‘I like to play.’

The facts

2004-03-28T01:24:45+00:00

Awright, after spending a few hours playing Onslaught with Felicity, here’s the straight dope: she ain’t half as bad as she seems to think she is. In fact, she’s better by far than most people I’ve played with. And for godssake don’t let her get in a Leviathan or she will frag your pansy ass all over the damn map. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Re: why I never learned to play...

2004-03-28T01:24:29+00:00

Huh. Well, I will say about the computer-frustration issue—that’s why I didn’t play FPSs for a while after I got the PS2. It’s so nice! I just pop in the game and goooooo! And since FPSs and RTS (real-time strategy {okay, pretty much just Starcraft}) are the only thing I played on PC, and are pretty much unavailable/unfeasible on console, they fell by the wayside. But UT2004 is YUMMY, so I’m back :)

Re: why I never learned to play...

2004-03-27T17:17:14+00:00

Repeat the above on why i dont play. Add to it my general frustration with all things computer related and you have a pretty succinct answer. Y’all would kick my ass, there is a ton of stuff to learn in order to be any good at all, and if i had any trouble at all installing the game i probably didnt want to pay for, i would give up. Also the few times i have played(lan parties and such) It just hasnt been that much fun.

Re: why I never learned to play...

2004-03-26T09:26:20+00:00

Hmm. Interesting. I learned to play these largely with Matt, who took the time to teach me technique—we would join a server alone, get out the weakest-ass gun in the game (Quake II at the time), and we would fight with that, him giving me pointers in chat. When I trained my friend, I literally started her against one bot on the difficulty setting where the computer DOESN’T SHOOT. I could definitely see it being frustrating to try to learn with multiple people playing all out.

Your account is exactly what I was looking for. As I said, I don’t think there’s any good reason girls shouldn’t like FPSs, but I’ve personally met very few girls that do—your account not only posits several good reasons why people don’t start playing, independent of gender, but highlights a learning curve issue I hadn’t thought of at all.

Re: Onslaught vs. Deathmatch

2004-03-26T09:13:22+00:00

You may have a point about ‘knowing where you need to go and how to get there fast’. I do tend to spend at least a little time wandering around figuring out which way the little arrow is pointed and which way I should go. Oftentimes, I make a decision about where to go and by the time I’m there, it’s no longer a hot-spot. Those times I DO feel comfy just heading for the spot without consulting the map, half the time I find I am turned around and have gone to the mirror image of the desired spot.

As to the rest of the stuff, I do know what I’m supposed to do. I do dutifully link-gun nodes, destroy enemy nodes, et cetera. I think quite possibly it is mostly the transportation/navigation that is primarily at issue—in which case, my performance may improve as I get more familiar with the maps. It is interesting to note, though, that the maps I hate are the big ones (GAWD I hate Severance) and that one of the most frustrating things in the game for me is spawning half a map away from where I need to be, the nodes being under attack so I can’t teleport, and no fast vehicle being in evidence. I trudge over hill and dale and get there, only to die in a hail of gunfire and have to trudge back from my distant spawn-point.

You may be right about the dodging-jumping-aiming thing. I have occasionally noticed that I’ll be in a fight, on foot, with some guy on foot, having a lovely time, and someone runs me over. It makes me feel like I was having a fencing duel and someone shot me in the head :(

I think it all links back to the fact that I am a tactical person, not a strategic person.

why I never learned to play...

2004-03-25T23:09:28+00:00

Back in high school my parents were the kind who wouldn’t let me play those kind of violent games that cause evil tendencies and would certainly cause me to end up a mass murderer on Death Row.

Then, come college, I had my own computer and lots of friends who play these games. So why didn’t I start playing? The problem for me is this: all of my friends have been playing for years, and are quite good at it. And I, having never played, SUCK. I don’t really enjoy playing games where I have no chance of doing well, especially in front of lots of other people. And I don’t have my own copy of any of these games, so I never have taken the time to become any good at it on my own.

That’s my reason. It’s not because I’m a girl, it’s because I’m too embarassed to play with other people and too lazy to learn on my own.

Onslaught vs. Deathmatch

2004-03-25T17:04:25+00:00

You taught a Quaker how to play Quake! That has the potential for all kinds of horrible syntactic punnery, but I’ll refrain for now.

I’m pretty good at Onslaught (almost always the top scorer, or at least in the top three), but I’m not very good at Deathmatch, and I think I know why.

The key to being good at Onslaught is always knowing exactly where you need to go and how to get there fast. Making proper use of the onscreen map (upper right corner of the HUD) is vital. If you don’t know your way around the map, including vehicle locations, shortcuts, and the default link setup, you’ll probably do poorly. After this, the next most important thing in Onslaught is having good teammates who know what to do without needing to be told.

If you want an example of really good teamplay and how much it can improve your game, spend some time playing on one of the Ars Technica servers. The people there are generally very good at the game, as opposed to the 15 year old morons who infest most public servers.

Similarly, being good at Deathmatch requires intimate knowledge of the map in order to obtain weapons and powerups, but your score is influenced by random encounters rather than by achieving specific goals. In Onslaught, you can achieve a respectable score without killing a single enemy, merely by linking nodes. In fact, if all you do in Onslaught is kill enemies, your score will suffer. In Deathmatch, your score is entirely dependant on the number of enemies you kill, and everyone is your enemy (unless it’s Team Deathmatch).

You’re probably better at Deathmatch-style encounters because you’re good at jumping, dodging, and aiming. I’m only moderately good at those things, but I’m very good at linking nodes and coming up with assault tactics, which have more influence over the score in Onslaught. I just have to remember not to get sidetracked trying to stunt the Hellbender off a mountaintop.