#gaming
12 posts tagged gaming. All tags
Leadership in Gaming
Leading a World of Warcraft raiding guild sounds silly, but recruiting, setting rules, distributing loot, and keeping 25 people happy is real management practice. Here is what running one taught me about leadership.
No Girls Allowed!
Why a lot of top World of Warcraft guilds explicitly ban women, and why I don't think it's really sexism so much as raid leaders dodging drama. With a case study from my own guild that drove me and my girlfriend to quit.
Reward Systems and Instant Gratification
Top WoW guilds run like a perfect communism, people working harder for virtual nothing than they ever would at their real jobs. The difference is instant gratification, and I wonder what life would look like if it worked that way.
Professional Gaming
Pro gaming is a real way to make money now, but the games change fast and there's no contract or retirement plan. On the kids dropping out of school to chase it, and the parents who let them.
Living in digital worlds
After years of MMOs and finally quitting them, the thing I notice most is how players rationalize the time, the friendships, and their loyalty to one game. Quit, and you get written off like an ex-addict by your old guild.
Maslow's Needs and Gaming
Why games, and MMORPGs especially, are so easy to sink into: mapped against Maslow's hierarchy, they quietly satisfy nearly every need a real life would. I've been addicted myself, so this isn't me judging from above.
Go play a real guitar...
Everyone asks why I do not just play a real instrument instead of Guitar Hero. My answer: gaming is a waste of time, but so is everything else you do after work, and the plastic guitar is no sillier than a plastic steering wheel.
Anyone wanna watch some Metal Gear?
Metal Gear Solid 4 has so many cut scenes that my friend and I started asking each other if we wanted to go watch some Metal Gear. Somehow it still made me believe in the PS3.
Online behavior, hiding behind the keyboard
A field guide to the kinds of people who argue online and how the keyboard turns everyone into a tough guy. I sort them into types, then admit I'm two of the worse ones.
The Future of Video Cards
Intel says the graphics card is doomed once the GPU moves onto the CPU die; nVidia says the CPU is dead. My take on why the separate video card sticks around, and why competition is the reason I want it to.
Age of Conan, Initial Impressions (Part 2)
Level 30 in Age of Conan, and this time I focus on the game itself instead of bashing Funcom. The combat genuinely shines, the UI is rough, and the music is still on, which says a lot.
Age of Conan, Initial Impressions (Part 1)
My first impressions of Funcom's new MMO, most of which I spent watching unannounced server outages instead of playing. I plan outages for a living, so I had opinions.