My youngest girl, 10 months, is sleeping in my arms as I type. She doesn't feel well, and hasn't been sleeping well. My wife was frustrated with the crying and lack of sleeping, so I was finally able to convince her to let me use my secret weapons to get the baby to sleep: the reassuring sound of automatic weapon fire in Counterstrike, and gangsta rap. The baby seems to prefer the blast of an unsilenced M4 (though a couple of belts out of an M249 seems to work, too), and her favorite song is "Real Muthaphuckkin' G's" by Eazy-E (being a native Californian, she seems to prefer West Coast over East Coast). If I ask nicely, do you think they will play that at naptime in school?

Keeping in mind that her sisters (5 and 3.5) fight over who gets to play computer games next, and the oldest never leaves the house without her GameBoy Color, I think I'm doing an admirable job as a parent. The family that frags together, stays together.

Heheh, true :)
Just wait until your girls are a little older, though. You'll have the occasional girl who lives a normal life and spends a lot of it gaming (one of my coworkers, Jody "Cali Girl" Robinson, for example), but the rest will either be severely sheltered, or won't want to game at all. I've only had one girlfriend who liked playing games... It's unfortunate heh.

I'm picturing the teen years like this:
"Dad, can I have the car?"
"No."
"Deathmatch you for it?"
"You're on."

"so I was finally able to convince her to let me use my secret weapons to get the baby to sleep: the reassuring sound of automatic weapon fire in Counterstrike...."

Heh -- game of the year!

My youngest are twin boys, and when they were two they would sit on my lap and watch me play Heroes of Might and Magic. That game was perfect for them because it had spells, treasures, and monsters. They could kind of get what was going on.

Baack when i was there age we didnt have music for our fragging (or the term frag either)and we were extremly luckly if we could find the big-ass gun in Wolf 3d. We had to type two or more commands into DOS to even get to the game, none of that fancy point and click stuff. And that was a massive improvement over Tetris (cause it wasnt in Russian :).

I know a girl who like to watch her b/f play StarCraft and the fact that shes one of the hotest gilrs i know (instead of being a one legged troll) is a bonus. Any ideas on how to break them up?

Password carrying memeber of Womengammers.com
ShiningOne

"I know a girl who like to watch her b/f play StarCraft and the fact that shes one of the hotest gilrs i know (instead of being a one legged troll) is a bonus. Any ideas on how to break them up?"

Heh. When Verant had an EQ fan event in St. Louis most of the fans were the usual lot -- pretty normal looking, but leaning towards looking like typical game geeks. However, one woman was just gorgeous -- I mean she was pin-up material. And she played on the hardcore PVP server too.

As to how you break them up, get her hooked on the Sims and then they're fight over the computer.

"However, one woman was just gorgeous -- I mean she was pin-up material. And she played on the hardcore PVP server too."

We had a little picture exchange program going on the Vallon Zek (Team PvP) server on one of the server specific chatboards. I was amazed at the number of female characters that were actually, you know, women! After all these years of playing multiplayer games, I usually expect someone with the name of "Angeleyes" to be in reality a 44 year man with severe emotional problems. It also surprised me how many military folks there were on the server I play on. It's strange to get a message from a guildmate saying "Sorry, I'm not going to be on much for the next 3 months. We're heading to Quatar and the ping down there is a little too high".

"get her hooked on the Sims and then they're fight over the computer."

My recent ex-girlfriend hated computer games, period. When she would call me up I would have to turn off my speakers so she couldn't hear the joyous sounds of ion beams crashing against the hulls of Beast ships in Homeworld: Cataclysm. One day she shows up unannounced and I'm playing The Sims. Instead of her normal "Why are you always playing that computer?" speech, she sat next to me and started asking questions. Two hours later she wanted a crack at it and created her own little lady to play with. From that point on, she was completely hooked and would come over for the express purpose of raising her new little family. The roles were reversed and I was the one who had to pry her hand off the mouse so we could go out and get something to eat. It may not have been the direct cause of our breakup, but I can see it as being a contributing factor. :)

"The roles were reversed and I was the one who had to pry her hand off the mouse so we could go out and get something to eat. It may not have been the direct cause of our breakup, but I can see it as being a contributing factor. :) "

Ha ha -- yeah, my wife loves that game, and that's the only one she's ever taken an interest in.

Speaking of EverQuest, a couple of major league baseball players are avid players. Curt Schilling's one of them. They were miked before a game by This Week In Baseball and the mike caught them talking about wizards and castles and dragons and stuff like that. Kind of funny.

>>a couple of major league baseball players are avid players. Curt Schilling's one of them.

Todd Pratt of the Mets is a regular at UO fan faires.

Curt Schilling owns a company that produces add-ons for Squad Leader. He used to message on Compuserve.

---

Quote:

>>a couple of major league baseball players are avid players. Curt Schilling's one of them.

Todd Pratt of the Mets is a regular at UO fan faires.

Curt Schilling owns a company that produces add-ons for Squad Leader. He used to message on Compuserve.

---

"Curt Schilling owns a company that produces add-ons for Squad Leader."

Is this because he's interested in the game, or does it just happen to be an investment of his?

Or did he just stake a gaming buddy with enough money to start a business? It's kind of surprising.

"There's a feature story for a mag in this somewhere... :)"

You have to be careful. These should good on the surface. I used to think that stories about celebrities who like gaming would be interesting, but then I read the stories about rockstars in Incite PC Games.

Knowing that Curt Schilling is a big Squad Leader guy and the owner of Multi-Man Publishing, hemight be a good choice for a feature on celebrity gamers. He's even "old school" and into board wargames! Not sure what his involvement is in computer gaming though, which would be the key. A feature like this would be hard to put together unless you already knew some of the celebs that played Computer games specifically. I'm sure there's plenty of them out there though. Maybe even reading this site? (Halllooooo!)

This is no joke either. Check out the website at... Multi-Man Publishing They have the license to a lot of the old Avalon Hill properties now. Here's a picture of Curt the wargamer... Curt Schilling, Nerdy Gamer.

Since I live in Reading which is just up the road from Philly, I had read a lot about Schilling's involvement in this when he was with the Philadelphia Phillies. Of course, he took the money and ran to Arizona last year. :(

Still, if you were to find more people like him, and not "rock star-ize" the article, it might be a fun read. No one wanted to read the stuff in Incite because the writers had no F-ing clue how to write nor were they interested in presenting something you'd enjoy reading.

Gawd that mag was bad...

--Dave

"Ha ha -- yeah, my wife loves that game, and that's the only one she's ever taken an interest in. "

Urination sim.. you guys should be ashamed of yourselves. Any game that increases the audience of gamers-- particularly of women and other traditional non-gamers-- should be celebrated, not mocked. It's good for everyone.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

>>You have to be careful. These should good on the surface. I used to think that stories about celebrities who like gaming would be interesting, but then I read the stories about rockstars in Incite PC Games.

Yeah, been there, done that. I tried to contact Schilling a few years ago through Phillies PR but it went nowhere. And as you said, these articles rarely turn out interesting... who cares if they're gamers?

Bill Roper of Blizzard did tell me one funny story. He was at a Dodger game and was sitting behind Robin Williams. Roper and the person he was with started to talk about work on Diablo II and Williams turns around and says, "You guys made Diablo?" Turns out he's a BIG fan, and he was more excited to meet them then they were to meet him.

>>Or did he just stake a gaming buddy with enough money to start a business? It's kind of surprising.

As Dave found out, he's hardcore. He's a huge collector of WWII memoribilia, and a serious board wargamer. Which isn't surprising; consider the connection between wargaming and baseball. The focus on minitia, on stats, on accuracy, and reproducing historical results... those were some of the things I'd planned on asking Schilling about.

(You'll find a lot of wargamers arguing about the merits of High Heat and/or Diamond Mine Baseball, just like they do between Close Combat and TacOps.)

"Bill Roper of Blizzard did tell me one funny story. He was at a Dodger game and was sitting behind Robin Williams. Roper and the person he was with started to talk about work on Diablo II and Williams turns around and says, "You guys made Diablo?" Turns out he's a BIG fan, and he was more excited to meet them then they were to meet him. "

Wow, cool anecdote!

Here's mine. A friend of a friend knows the Peg-Leg boy from Diablo... in a biblical sense. Well, the woman who did the voice, anyway.

I just think it's kinky to do it with the peg leg boy. The mind races.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"And as you said, these articles rarely turn out interesting... who cares if they're gamers?"

It's interesting, but only for a paragraph or so. Like your anecdote about Roper and Robin Williams. That's it. It makes for a great paragraph, but not an article. There's not much more you can do with it. If you got Williams to talk, I can't imagine hearing him talk about how much he likes Diablo would be entertaining. Maybe if there was something about the game that helped him with a scene in a movie, but just to hear him be enthused about the game -- who cares?

"There's not much more you can do with it. If you got Williams to talk, I can't imagine hearing him talk about how much he likes Diablo would be entertaining."

Mayhaps instead of doing full blown interviews and devoting multiple pages to one guy, you could do what PCGamer did in the Future Gaming Gods article. They had a full page picture of each person with a small amount of information about them. For something like this you just get some short answers:

Name: Robin Williams
Career: Movie star and ex-standup comedian
Favorite Genre: RPG-Lite
Favorite Game: Diablo
How long have you been playing PC games?: 6 years
Why is your favorite?: I do so enjoy repeatedly mashing on my mouse button and then picking up whatever pops out of the critter, nanu nanu

Or something along that vein. Then you're showing that there are these high profile people out there that are just as interested in gaming as the readers are. This would work best in a print magazine, but you could pull it off on the net I'm sure.

Yeah, what you suggest might make for an interesting article. The problem is trying to get access to these people. It's not easy. George Lucas, for example, just doesn't want to be interviewed even though he owns a game company. I never could get Tom Clancy for an interview either.

I once tried to do an article on celebrity gamers when I was doing a column for Daily Radar. I had heard about various famous people like games x, y, or z. So I went about tracking some of them down, hoping to interview them for their favorite rush strategies in Starcraft, which weapons they like in Quake deathmatch, yadda, yadda, yadda.

My first stop was Gary Coleman, who I had seen at a Diablo press event and later a Quake II release party. I hooked up with him through his agent and got to interview him on the phone. He was strictly a casual player, mainly on the Playstation. He went through a box of games, plucking them out one by one and offering obvservations like "This one sucks" and "This one's okay". It didn't sound like he played anything very much and he certainly wasn't passionate about the whole thing. He was more interested in plugging some local business for which he was doing celebrity endorsements.

My next stop was Gilligan. I had heard that Bob Denver was an Age of Empires fan. It turns out he didn't even really know you could play multiplayer. It was just something he did to while away the time. My conversation with him was one big shrug.

That's about the time I realized that we're weird. We like games more than most people. These silly statistics, like the figure the ISDA just posted that 145 million Americans regularly play computer or video games, are misleading. Most people don't play games like we do. They tinker around with them. They play online bingo or hearts. They buy The Sims and it sits on the shelf after a few days or they get RollerCoaster Tycoon for their aunt. Most people don't know what a mod is or that Morte's a skull or whether the sides are balanced in Red Alert 2. We're all weirdos.

-Tom

Great anecdotes and great points, Tom. Just one thing...

I like being weird. :)

--Dave

I had a GF once that liked to watch me play computer games. She mostly liked it when I'd play games that let me do funny and/or twisted things, though. her favorite was Dungeon Keeper 2. Slapping monsters, building a dungeon, "disco inferno," the mistresses...she loved watching me play that game. Too bad, but I've never found another girl with the same humor.

"That's about the time I realized that we're weird. We like games more than most people. These silly statistics, like the figure the ISDA just posted that 145 million Americans regularly play computer or video games, are misleading. Most people don't play games like we do. They tinker around with them. They play online bingo or hearts. They buy The Sims and it sits on the shelf after a few days or they get RollerCoaster Tycoon for their aunt. Most people don't know what a mod is or that Morte's a skull or whether the sides are balanced in Red Alert 2. We're all weirdos. "

I am so painfully aware of that. Which is why I love the success of the SIMS and RCT. We need more true believers...

"My first stop was Gary Coleman, who I had seen at a Diablo press event"

Was that at SlamSite in California? I have some interesting stories about that.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"That's about the time I realized that we're weird. We like games more than most people."

It took you guys that long to realize that we are weird? Although, we're becoming more of a majority, I think...

This thread kind of reads like a group therapy session.

Amanpour

That's what it's all about, Amanpour!! That's why we're here. We all have things in common. People look at us funny when we walk down the road...The voices...They just don't stop!!! We have to speak to people who understand us, man!!

Just walk up to a stranger on the street and say "Dude, have you seen the new 4x antialiasing for the GeForce/Ultra DDR? Holy crap! It smoothed my splines with very little loss of frame rate."

One of two things will happen; 1) Stranger looks at you with pity and walks away or 2) nice men in white coats show up with a butterfly net.

But if I say that here, not only do people understand what I'm saying, they respond with similar comments. We're like a bunch of alcoholics sitting at a bar talking about which brand of wiskey burns the best. We have our own regional dialect.

And, seriously, ain't it great to have a place to come and say things like that!?!

"And, seriously, ain't it great to have a place to come and say things like that!?!"

This is really true. Given the very mainstream, grownup-style job I have, you wouldn't believe the odd looks I get from co-workers and clients if I happen to discuss gaming as a positive thing. The Scarlet G, I suppose. It is relaxing to hang out with fellow gamers & be able to drop the self-censoring for a while. Thankfully, my wife indulges my habit.

Here is a geeky gaming moment that only gamers can really understand. There is an arcade in Pasadena called Pakk Mann (though it may be gone soon, if not already). Pakk Mann is a hangout for the truly hardcore, and the competition can be fierce. Back when I had spare time, I held the high score in Steel Talons there for several weeks. I came in to play some one day, and there was a line of guys waiting to play. I put my quarters on the machine and started to wait. One of the guys ahead of me looked at me and said, "You're Supertanker, aren't you." "Yep, that's me." Just then, the game opened up, and the guy I was talking to was next. He motioned at the machine and said, "Go ahead." I looked at the other guys waiting in line, and they all nodded. So, I sat down, plunked in my money, and the crowd gathered to watch me play. Incredibly geeky, but incredibly fun.

How cool!

Yeah, that's the kind of story that you can't tell just anywhere...But, hey, tell it here, man! We can all appreciate a story like that.

Here's another little story that could be appreciated only here...

My best friend's wife just called me, for the third time, here at work. She's at work, too, and her husband's Warcraft II CD found it's way to her office. (I guess he left it there accidentally.) So, she's been calling me (he works midnights, so he's sleeping right now.) to ask me how to get more soldiers, and what does a lumber mill do, etc...It's so cool...She's playing Warcraft, at work! Surely someone here can appreciate the coolness of that!

I think you've got the makings of quite a steamy soap opera plotline there. Or perhaps a letter to Penthouse.

Dear Penthouse Forum, I never thought these letters were real until one day when my best friend's wife called me for Warcraft tips. She asked to see my lumber mill and soon we were discussing the size of my hard drive...

Amanpour

Sorry to disappoint you, Amanpour, but it's not like that at all!! You definitely get points for originality, though.