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I've never really been a huge fan of online gaming. I can't really say what it is... but it is likely mostly due to the fact that when I am gaming, I want to lose myself in my own world, it is my own private sort of entertainment and relaxation just like reading a book or something like that. I know that other people like to do gaming more as a social sort of thing, and so it is a place where they play together... much like going out and seeing a film together or having a social football match. Not for me... it would irritate me no end to have someone reading the same book as me and talking to me whilst I'm reading!

I was thinking about what sorts of online gaming that I had done... in my student days, we would take over the university/college network to play our games of Counterstrike (1.6), Quake and Starcraft.... those were the days when almost no-one had emails and computers were still a thing that only nerds really had. However, that wasn't technically online... as it was all on LAN and we didn't rely on online comms... just yelling and screaming at each other from our dorm rooms and irritating all the cool kids who would be busy trying not to get infected by our extreme nerdiness! Those were the good old days...

However, I thought a bit longer... and now I do remember a time when I did quite a bit of real online gaming. It was the years just after moving to the Netherlands, where I first experienced really decent internet speeds at homes that didn't cost a fortune (Australia's residential internet access was best described as poop back then... ). During this period, I almost stopped playing single-player games completely and had a couple of years of purely online gaming...

So, what were the games that I played during this time?

Counterstrike: Source

Ah... this was the first attempt at real online gaming. I had already had many many hours of Counterstrike 1.6 under my belt as a mandatory study at university.... and so, it was only natural that I return back to my roots and find myself a server to frequent with the new and shiny updated version in the Source engine!

Interestingly enough, I started playing on a French server... my French is pretty rudimentary... I can get by with numbers and some musical terminology... and "c'est pas moi". So, enough to get through my musical work! However, it was a completely different experience with Counterstrike!

Thankfully, I could just mute myself and pretend that I didn't want to speak... but I did learn to type "dsl" often enough! It was always hilarious when I was one of the last players... I never really could figure out what the strategies were... but I just read the room and did my best to keep up! Well, it was always a pub server, so there wasn't too much effort and strategy involved!

Team Fortress 2

My big game of the time though was Team Fortress 2 (TF2)... I loved this game, and I found a great UK server that had regulars that would check in most evenings to play a pub game or two or hundred. Many of us even paid up for team subscriptions to be able to have priority access to the servers!

This was the game that introduced me to Mumble as well... there, we would just chat and laugh whilst playing the game... and it was the one and only time that I would use voice comms in ANY game! People would talk about their lives, and everything... and people would go together to gaming events in the UK. I was even tempted to go one time...

There was a pub team and a competitive team, and people would switch between them as required... I sometimes played a competitive match or two, but it was always great fun regardless of the seriousness of the matches!

My wife would always complain about me chatting through the night with my "friends" online...

My primary class in TF2 was the Medic... and I was a tolerably good one. As any TF2 player knows... you NEED good medics to breakthrough chokepoints. MEDICCCCCCCC!!!!!! I even had that as my phone ring for a while!

But, if there were too many medics or I just didn't feel like playing support... I would be a tolerably decent sniper. Just only with the gun... I always sucked with the bow and arrow!

However, like many good things... this eventually came to an end. And not in a good way... during one of the IRL meetups, something dodgy happened between one of the girls and one of the guys... it was a rough few nights on the Mumble chats. Things weren't overly clear, but it stressed and then eventually broke the close knit group apart.

League of Legends

League of Legends (LoL) was another game that I played for quite a while. The competitive nature was something that I enjoyed... however, as many people know, the community is best described as toxic. I played and got pretty decent at the ranked matches, and along the way collected a number of friends who I knew were both decent players and not complete arseholes! It is surprising the number of people who would play and turn out to be horrible people or rage-quitters... which would make a night of gaming turn into a less than pleasant affair.

My main character was Lux, although I did have quite a lot of unlocked characters in my roster. Even looking back at the trailer... I still have some muscle memory and twitches in my hands in reflex to the images!

I would often enjoy playing Ashe as well... it is a bit of a noobs character, but there is nothing more hilarious than clocking someone with that Ice Arrow Ult from the other side of the map!

Recently, I decided that I would try my hand at LoL again... I tried out some alt characters, mostly support. However, the game has changed quite a bit since I first played... and the community is still the same. I have no patience for it... and I don't have the hour or so of uninterrupted play time that is required to play a decent match.

I also tried watching the eSports games... but again, if I have time.. I don't want to watch people playing, I would rather be gaming for myself!

Wrapping Up

So, these were my experiences with online gaming... I had a fun few years whilst playing these games, but in the end, I tired of them. Perhaps I just got too old and slow...

... but I would say that I got tired of the hamster wheel feeling of online gaming. I desire depth and narrative in my gaming... I want to be transported to a different world and I want to be taken on a story ride, either emergent through gameplay or through a crafted narrative. I'm afraid that online gaming is completely social, and I can see the appeal in that... but I feel like there is no progression, and most importantly... no end. After several years, I felt like I was running the same maps and tactics... getting that little bit more efficient or deadly... but still doing essentially the same thing.

So, I've returned back to offline single player... I'm off in my own world again!

DON'T TALK TO ME, I'M GAMING!

I can also be found cross-posting at:
Hive
Steem
Publish0x

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