Tag Archives: Recreation

OPINION: Casual players have less fun than competitive players.

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Do any of the following phrases sound familiar?

“I just want to have fun.”

“I play for fun.”

“You’re ruining games by playing competitively.”

Maybe you’re one of those who says this to others when getting beaten to a pulp. That’s okay, I understand; I’m just going to point out that your ego is bigger than my ego, and I play games competitively.

Outrageous? Not at all. When hardcore and casual – especially in games with a competitive scene – collide, there’s an almost instant animosity: casuals do not like competitive. Why? Because we, the collective competitive, take away from the experience (apparently), and make games not fun.

Before I delve further, I’m going to define what a casual is for this post (as to not offend everyone. LOL). Casuals are not retired competitive players, they are not players who only play every once in a while, they are not players that respect competitive play; casuals are players who degrade competitive play and players, and complain when they lose to said competitive players by utilizing those three phrases (among others similar to those).

See, the problem with those three phrases are that they implant this kind of hierarchy onto “how to have fun”. “Having fun” is at the top, and “playing competitively” is at the bottom.

I guess now is as good a time as any – casuals, you’re not having as much fun as I am.

See, no one likes to lose. We like to succeed. When we lose, we stop having fun (this is somewhat true – you can learn to accept defeat and still have fun, but I’m digressing). When casuals say they want to play for fun, they’re not just playing a game to “have fun”. No, they’re playing with friends that they can beat, or with a randomness factor so large that sometimes you can’t tell who is better and winning is almost purely by chance (Mario Party comes to mind as an example).

Casuals say that playing a game at a high level takes away from the experience, but think about this: have you ever played through a game and not gotten better at it? Difficulty curve is part of game design; the game is designed to become more difficult as you progress and improve. That means all the casuals who are beating these games are doing so because they’re improving, getting better; they’re playing at a higher level.

They’re justifying their losses by putting down those who are better, or put in more time and effort than they do, but it’s still not fun to lose. They’d be having more fun if they accepted that they’re not going to put effort into a game and will lose to those who do most of the time, or if they start putting in that effort and seeing some results. They’d have more fun if they learned how to take a loss and still have fun instead of getting salty and trying to make excuses as to why they’re getting their ass beat. They’d have more fun if they respected competitive play.

Oh, you play for “fun”? Yeah, right. Everyone wants to be good at what they play. The difference between casual and competitive is that casual blames the competitive for their loss, while the competitive blames themselves (or the game. LOL) for their loss.

Just Sayin’.

Vacationing 101 (Part 2: the vacation)

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Good evening, class! Taking off from last week’s class, tonight we will be going over what to actually do when you reach your destination!

Section 1: To-Do’s

While I don’t actively do this on my family vacations, I would make a to-do list of things to, wherever you’re vacationing. Go see a certain show, try a certain restaurant, etc… the possibilities are endless, and they will help you plan out your vacation. Just remember not to go overboard, but I’ll cover that a little later.

Another thing: don’t feel bad if you don’t finish your to-do list. It gives you a reason to come back, and when you go to big spots like New York or Las Vegas, there’s no way you can do everything you want to in one trip, so keep that in mind.

Section 2: Food

Every year, my family and I try to not eat a ton of food, but let’s be real: it’s vacation, and the consumption of mass quantities of incredible food is going to happen. I would resign yourself to that unless you have food allergies or something that prevents you from eating a ton…or you’re really dedicated, which means I’m jealous because I don’t have the willpower that you do.

Section 3: Time Management

Two paragraphs ago, in section 1, I mentioned not going overboard with your to-do list. Here’s why: you don’t want to run yourself down during your trip. However long your vacation is, managing your time is really important. While I’m all for going out and having days upon days of nonstop fun, you have to have some downtime to relax and recharge your energy.

Just a little tidbit, if you’re going to the beach for your vacation, do keep in mind that sitting out in the hot sun all day is actually tiring. If you don’t believe me, try it next time you’re on the beach.

Section 4: Back-up Plans

Much like what I said in my Con 101 entry, things don’t always go as planned. It rains, you’re not feeling up to it, a tropical storm (I’ve been through two of them while staying in Florida) rolls through, a place is closed, the times times for a show were changed, you name it. With that in mind, when you’re making plans, have a few back-up ones in case you still want to do something. If not, I suggest you take that time to relax. The important thing is to not let a mishap get you down. Make the best of whatever happens and you’ll find yourself enjoying the day even if it didn’t go as planned.

That’s the end of Vacationing 101. I hope you learned something about taking road trips and vacationing! And remember, taking an airplane is pretty much a guaranteed A in this class because it’s not driving for 16 hours.

Just sayin’.

ACen 2012 Recap

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Finally, I have time to write this! It’s a couple days late, but I had homework to do. LOL.

ACen 2012 is over, and school is back in full swing. It sounds like it sucks, but it’s May, which means (hopefully) nicer weather and a month left of school!

While it didn’t go as planned, ACen was an awesome weekend filled with jokes, jokes, and a lot of swag! A small recap of some of the more interesting things I experienced at ACen 2012:

– My friend Jerome paid $60 and got a Saturday pass, so a couple friends and myself went as his backup posses to help him claim his full-weekend pass.

– McCormick and Shmucks (the seafood restaurant, right by the Intercontinental, which we stayed at, is actually called McCormick and Shmicks, but I actually thought there was a u instead of an i).

– My friend Mike drove into a car wash thinking it was the parking lot for Potbelly.

– My friend Arthur brought a real crowbar into the con (real weapons weren’t allowed, so he made it look fake).

– Tournaments at ACen have to be single elimination. I found out the hard way when the Brawl tournament went on for more than three hours. I won’t be entering any tournaments unless they’re single elimination.

– I didn’t go to a single panel, but this turned out to be in my favor because many of the panels were rescheduled or were running late.

– Friday night, I took NyQuil to quell any cold that might try and get to me while I slept on the floor and to drown out any noises I’d hear. It didn’t work. The four kids on the beds proceeded to talk about:

  • Body Pillows
  • How chocolate is made with cow’s blood (and by extension, filling steaks with chocolate) – I don’t even know if the cow blood and chocolate thing is true.
  • Fresh Prince of Bel Air
  • BLONIC
  • Belinda Wanda
  • How they’re in the beds and talking, while the kids on the ground were actually trying to sleep
  • How I say, “swag!” all the time (and by extension, replacing smurf with swag)

We were up until at LEAST 5 AM (one of my friends had to leave the room and attempted to sleep in his car. He ended up going home to sleep).

– My friend Jerome, whom we convinced the Wednesday before ACen to go, thought he’d have nothing to do. Instead of doing nothing, our group didn’t know where he was half the time. Friday, he disappeared into the night, and after trying to call and text him with no answer, he came back at 4 AM. The next day, I encountered him and a few other friends, and I asked Jerome if he had been playing Street Fighter all night. He said he wished he had. I then had a revelation – my friend Arthur and I had been talking about going to Hentai Hell, which, unfortunately, was at 3 AM, so we decided not to go because I wanted to sleep (oh, the irony!). I knew right away what had happened, and here’s how the conversation went:

Me: You went to Hentai Hell, didn’t you, Jerome?

Jerome: No.

Friends: No!

Me: Oh my god, you guys went to Hentai Hell! You fucking went to HENTAI HELL!

And then Jerome proceeded to tell me that it wasn’t actually hentai. It was live-action…I’m so glad I didn’t go!

– Seth Rogan and David Spade on Tai Chasers (and starring in Samurai Jack as Seth Rogan and David Spade as his sidekick Seth Rogan as Samurai Jack)

– Galick Blast!

– Spirit Blast!

– Special Beam Blast!

– The laser light show in Yu-gi-Oh!

– Fryception

– Shakeception (offered only at Steak’n’Shake)

– Driving 7 people in a 5-person car to T.G.I Friday’s, both times two different ways of fitting everyone in!

– There was a waiter who only refilled drinks of two of our group. He took my friend Propit’s water as he was drinking it, then two minutes later refilled it again after he had only had a little of it. My other friend, John, had his coke refilled, and when my friend Mike waited 10 minutes for a refill, John switched cups, the waiter refilled the cup, and then John gave it back to Mike!

– Hey, Ryan, you’re taking us to IHOP, right?

– So, we’re going to IHOP, right, Ryan?

– What, we’re going to IHOP?

– The rude waiter at Culver’s (what do you want on your burger?). Yes, the emphasis is there.

– The random people dancing to LMFAO as we blasted it on the way back from Culver’s (raise the roof!).

– The CPU Luigi in Mario Party 2 had 10 stars at the end of the game. How many did the next highest have? 2 stars.

– Mike and I duo-texting Arthur about the Soap Bubble (and him not knowing what a Devil’s Four-Way is).

– The fire alarm at the Hyatt was pulled (and the Pat jokes that followed after).

– Cosplaying as Hoopz Ketchum (Ash hat worn backwards), Slam Dunkum (Ash hat worn forwards), and Ash Barkley (Ash hat worn sideways). Next year I’m gonna go all out and bring a boom box blasting slam remixes!

– Preparing for, but not going to, the Pokémon tournament (I was so confident I would’ve won…and I don’t even know if it actually happened!)

– The obscene amount of money I spent at the Dealer’s Room and Artist’s Alley (so, so worth it. My room looks awesome right now!)

And that’s all I remember. All in all, it was a fantastic con, and I can’t wait for Youmacon this year and next year”s ACen!!

Just sayin’.

Be Kappy LoL

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Once upon a time, there was a boy named Kappy. A rather peculiar soul, he seemed to influence a certain kind of hellish laughter upon many by ending all of his sentences with the acronym ‘LOL’. LOL. After years of of LOL’ing amongst his friends and acquaintances, a certain air for trolling and being-well, bad, to put it bluntly-began to swirl and hover about his person. OK, so this isn’t really about Kappy. It’s about what he thought about a certain LoL-that is, League of Legends. You see, boys and girls, Kappy thought LoL was a bad game. He hadn’t really played the game, but he had seen it being played and thought it was ridiculous that so many in the Smash community hopped on as time went by and played it competitively.

OK, it’s not really about him thinking it was bad. It’s about him being convinced to download it last fall when school started and not touching it until two weeks later and finding out that it’s actually pretty damn fun. That’s right, after months of bashing League of Legends, I picked it up a couple weeks ago, and now that I’ve gotten to play it a little more, I’m starting to really enjoy it.

It’s not even that I enjoy it as a game. I think the teamwork aspect and playing amongst my friends is really what’s fun to me. I had heard so much about the horrible community it had, and since I’m not really a fan of elitist pricks (which is what I heard many were), so even after downloading the game, I didn’t touch it.

Finally, I spent a night talking to two of my friends and they helped me explain the game, and I said, “Hell, why not?” I had already finished my work for the day, so I made an account quick-like, sat down, and began playing.

Honestly, it’s fun. Really fun. But it’s definitely NOT fun unless I’m playing with my friends, and I think that’s important to note. A lot of my feedback came from people playing pick-me-up style games with random teammates. There was no synergy, and if you didn’t follow someone’s specific style you weren’t received warmly by them.

But when I started playing against real people with my friends, there was an air of knowing what was going on. Lots of talking back and forth without a lot of silence, like a real team would during a match of Halo at MLG. I’m not saying the games stack up competitively, but I think the similarity of constant talking is what’s important, here. Most newcomers (like myself) look at a game like LoL and think, “how can this be fun? It’s long, it looks boring, and it looks really confusing.”

I remember specifically myself watching a game and asking, “what are you doing?” My friend said he was farming for gold, and I replied with, “farming? How can you enjoy this game? Why don’t you go kill someone?”

He told me that people farmed before they went and attacked, and that that can take around 10 minutes. Really? Talk about slow-paced.

Then I played a real game, and I died within the first minute. Yes, I was stomped on and my friends LOL’d at me, and I asked, “isn’t there an unwritten rule for farming?” They explained that it depends on the characters and what lane you’re in, and I began to really understand how the game worked on a social level. THere’s a lot that goes into when you should push or fall back.

As I got better (which isn’t that much, by the way LOL), I got to the point where I did farm, and here’s where I became hooked. If you’re with a teammate you’re constantly talking to them (and your other teammates) about what’s going on. Who needs help, when you’re going back and buying an item, what items to buy, when you get your ult and have it; really, there’s a lot to talk about, and I think that’s why I find this game so attractive. There’s a real sense of team that I never saw until I had a chance to play it myself.

There’s a little lesson to be learned here. While word of mouth and watching can be two excellent methods of computing content within a game and deciding whether or not you, personally, want to play it, it’s a good idea to get a little hands-on with it in different ways, especially if it’s multiplayer.

I’ll always advise offline multiplayer first over online (unless it’s a fighting game, but that’s for another blog entry) because playing with your friends is generally a better experience (unless you’re playing with a friend online LOL).

Just sayin’ LOL