Rock, Paper, Shotgun has been my gamer literati hideout of choice since The Escapist plunged out of its heyday with foot in mouth (final straw: chasing off the Extra Credits podcast). They write some marvelous narratives about games, especially longform strategy games of 7+ friends that I can only dream about - such as Solium Infernum, and Neptune's Pride.
Yesterday, I found another blog courtesy of RPS who had given Neptune's Pride a go. The resulting tale is an epic worth reading - The Aspiration - Collector's Edition.
Especially since the guy managed to keep in roleplay character throughout, and constructed a fabulous operatic saga of betrayal and space empires out of the game.
One thing bears thinking about - the juxtaposition between the author HM, and another player Laura.
HM went into the game thinking that he wasn't going to have time for it. His personality was such that he did become borderline obsessive about it, from reading up strategies and tips on the game, to crafting a spectacular story out of it. He may not have ended up the victor on paper, but wow, what a fantastic tale and what glorious memories.
In contrast, Laura gave up before the game even took off, two days in. She just didn't prioritise it as highly as other things going on in her life and chose another winning move, that is, "not to play" at all. However, the one sour note in this otherwise perfectly understandable and very common happenstance was the rationalization in her part of the tale that Neptune's Pride is thus a bad, negative, "Facebook" game that of course, she was best not playing anyway.
To me, that seems... Undignified. Shallow. Sure, you can profess a love and a preference for faster paced strategy games, but there is something as well to the longform emotion. You can also respectfully decline not to play further, if it turns out not your cup of tea at all, but there is no need to jump and stomp on the game like it tried to sacrifice your baby, and ragequit in silence.
Look at Seance. Also female. Also newbie. Also bumrushed and popped like a pimple from the start. She stuck around to bow out gracefully.
For the record, I am wary of and mislike games that require you to set an alarm clock and live life around them and on their scheduled terms. I do think it's not very ethical design, and not very healthy to give one's life over completely to them, as it feeds an addictive personality/impulse turning it into a compulsion.
But I do respect that such games exist, that some people like playing them, and I don't mind reading their blogs to find out what makes such games so thrilling.
A month is not a very long time in the greater scheme of things, why not stsy the course if you commited to it?
Ultimately, I suppose, it shines light on the person. In one case, they view "game" as a disposable timewaster of no real importance. In another case, the "game" is not just a game because there is real people behind the character facades. Call me biased, but I much prefer and give kudos and respect to the latter perspective.
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