League of Legends Anger Issue

When you first enter a new multiplayer game, its always expected that when you first start, you will be bad. You shouldn't feel bad because you are learning the rules of the game. Each games learning curve is different, but as you progress you learn more. When you lose, accept your loss and learn from it. When you win, don't let it get to your head because it will breed arrogance and you won't get any better by playing beyond what you are as a player, intended to do by the game's developers. As a gamer, I've accepted these conditions because a game is just a game, I play to enjoy, and yet I also play to win. At least thats what my goal is, whether or not I can achieve a victory does not affect my attitude because I want to continue. FPS's is a genre I stick to whenever I play multiplayer, but its been recently than I've been expanding my gaming library and have gone to PC gaming. League of Legends is a fun, memorable title that sens me into dark pitts of hatred and anger, but keeps me coming back for more. 

League of Legends, a real time strategy, or RTS, that involves teams of 5 vs 5. It's one of the only games that I have ever encountered...ever...that can actually infuriate me. All the while, I still enjoy playing the game even if it upsets me to the point of punching my pillows, and I never lose my cool. It's highly intense, and its very rewarding when you win a game. It feels like everything went right. But the opposite can be said for when you lose a match, it feels very humiliating and infuriating when you lose when you could have had a chance. The game is centered around teamplay, and you cannot engage by yourself. There's no chance, just run and hope and pray to any or all deities that you can run away. I prefer to play ranged characters, but that also makes them the squishiest, meaning...easily killable. I have to rely on others to engage first and I come in to clean up, but when I'm the one the enemy focuses on, I have to rely on my team members to prevent my death. More often than not, I'm the first one killed because my team members failed to protect me. This is the fact that gets me wrapped up in anger because in this game, teamplay is crucial. It's only very recent that I started not to care, but the initial feeling of victory and loss when first starting the game is very strong. When you enter this game, try not to let the victories get to your head, this is by no means an easy game. Take it with a professional attitude because in the end, its still a fun game.

What is old school gaming?

This is something I've always wondered to myself, "when is it that we as gamers consider a game or console to be "old?" I happen to walk into a 3rd party gaming seller, the type that has all sorts of gaming equipment and rarities and I overheard some kids say some things that made me think. Saying things like "Super Nintendo is too old" and "Playstation 1 is crap because the graphics suck" when they say them on the shelves. It made me think.."Those consoles are still relatively new." This industry only recently started to boom within the past 2 decades. And yet their tone and attitude seemed as if they were observing a black and white film before 1927.

A peeve of mine is that younger generation  of kids are growing up, but they were not there to see the revolution as it progressed as the older generations of gamers like myself did, they were born into it when it already as gone through its changes. And this gap can put off younger generations from trying out real gems because their standards are too high because of what they are already used to. So in my mind I'm thinking "What right do they have to talk as if they know what happened if they haven't experienced games from our past", and when I say "our", I mean it as our collective past as gamers.

I grew up with gaming, and the industry has really come a long way from pixels and Mode 7 to fully rendered 3D cinematics and animations. Games back then were short, beatable within an hour or two given if you know what to do and where to go, maybe 5-10 hours if it was your first time. Now games can last for more than 5 hours, and thats if you know how to complete the game. I've been playing Disgaea and I saw my hours reach over 250 hours! Which is amazing to me - for a console game, but thats beside the point.

The thing about video gaming is that the structure that is set is very broad and flexible, opposite from the music or film industry. They have their set ways to make their products. We don't. We craft the rules and conditions to everything. The conditions needed to progress, how to win or lose. We have to balance the game and make sure nothing is broken or game-breaking through careful and precise calculations. Even if there were instructors or veterans telling us what is the proper structured way to make our creations, their decisions are still relatively opinion-based. Especially back then.

I can only speculate that its heavy on the "out with the old, in with the new" attitude. Everyone being in a rush to have the best experience with the latest hardware and software and forget the past. But It doesn't always mean that being up to date with everything means you'll have better experiences though. Compare a bike to a motorcycle. If a bicycle breaks down you can see what the problem is and you can easily fix it and enjoy your time cycling again. With a motorcycle you can't see what the problem is, and its a very high chance you would have to take it to a mechanic, unless you yourself know how to fix it. 

Gaming companies like Sony and Nintendo port some of it's games into the newer consoles, but it's library is not that big, and they are missing sooo many gems. granted they have to go through procedures and permission to get the games up on the network, but so many great titles are missing! I know this wont change their minds, but if I could say something to each one of them individually, I would sit them down, give them a churro, and tell them "listen mang, you got to try this game, you wont regret it."

Introducing myself

Hello there Interweb. Fine day to talk about kittens and video games. First time posting and...I have no idea what I'm doing. I go by the alias GuardianZXZ and I consider myself a gamer, always have been since I've received my first Nintendo, I'm talking NES. Since then I've been growing with gaming and the gaming industry. I play First person shooters (FPS's), Role playing games (RPGs), Mass multi online RPGS, League of Legends is the only MOBA I touch. I feel like a balanced gamer. Not someone solely focused on one game, say something like Call of Duty and call myself a gamer. No, a gamer is someone who plays for the story and for the accomplishment, someone who plays with friends, and loves experience things as would reading something out of a book or an experience out of a good movie.

I'd like to share ad go over how it was that I completed my first game, only because I thought it was an amazing accomplishment, even to this day. You see...back with NES, I could never complete a game because anyone who played that early could tell you how iYou have to beat the game starting with 3 lives and 1 continue and such, varying from game to game. Trial and error was basically the only method because there were no guides or internet to read up on the section in the game you're trying to pass. Nope, you had to play it over and over and over until you succeed, and the process of doing so could take you a long time. I'm guessing that it was to give the games a replay value because video games were not treated as something seriously big, they were treated as toys, children stuff. You wont see that kind as much frustration in today's video games for a multitude of reasons. The biggest reason being a majority of gamers have access to the internet to read up walkthroughs.

The first game I completed was Megaman X on the Super Nintendo. Its thanks to Arin Hanson, also known as Egoraptor that I was able to find the words to explain why the game and that moment to beating the game was so amazing to me. In the intro stage, you learn how to play the game through the games design. You learn the rules and controls easily up until you make it to Vile, where nothing you do feels like it does anything. The feeling of helplessness is directed to you, as the player, DIRECTLY. Not through any cutscene as would a present day video game. As a kid, I felt powerless, and because I had no prior experience with any other game to draw upon, it only magnified it. As I progressed completing each stage defeating each boss without a walkthrough, I truly felt an accomplishment like nothing Ive played before.

When I finally defeated Sigma, the final boss, after hours of gameplay and countless retries, seeing his base in a fiery explosion over the coast, I couldnt read at the time, but the epilogue music in tie with the setting, made me feel like it was an empty victory, like...I've accomplished something wonderful, but it doesnt matter. It felt...reminiscent of something. The design of this music was brilliant beceause this is where the music for the story comes to make you feel unsuccessful for the plot as a whole, because I didn't know there would be future titles for Megaman X to continue the plot. Setting me up for future fights because I was "unsuccessful" in the first Megaman X title. Then come the credits and the music changes. Now I felt the victory of the game with the upbeat "make you feel successful" music. As I saw the pics of the characters I've defeated, and the defeated Zero which sacrificed himself to save me, the first words I've ever read, or at least...managed to make out for myself was, "And you, as Megaman X" with the picture of him dashing above the text, from that moment I felt a connection to the hero. I WAS Megaman X.

This amazing moment is something that is mine, and I cherish it. As a 24 year old gamer, I share stories and experiences with other people and other gamers, but when someone asks me why I still continue to game. Well...its an easy explanation. Gamers play because we can have 1000 lives, 1000 occupations, 1000 victories, 1000 losses, 1000 lessons. My answer? "People dont stop playing because they get old, people get old because they stop playing".