I have been pondering from time to time about why perhaps my mindset has completely changed over the past year concerning competition in my gaming, primarally against another human being.I will be the first to tell anyone that I am not generally good at most games, and it takes a lot of practice to actually be able to compete. Sure I can play them just fine, but there is a certain level in expertise I hit and I cannot seem to surpass. This is usually why I never reach “pro status” even though I do (well did, before college came along) play a lot. I am decent. My most notable example is warcraft III and its custom games like DOTA. I am not bad, but not pro.That was until CoH came along. I am not one to brag (pet peeve) but I would say I am very good at this game. I gained a great deal of momentum even before the game came out, and I won game after game hands down. And with that came confidence.I never saw it coming, but I suddenly found myself becoming bored with winning, more specifically winning against players that never stood a chance, and were not close to my skill level. When a guy came along that was an equal however, dang, I loved that feeling. When I played against someone on a level to step playing field regarding skill, it was like a fierce game of chess, the victory never clearly decided until the very end.I enjoyed both winning and losing in those situations, and congratulated the opponent, thanking them for such a fun game and good fight, something I never did in any other game.My point is, CoH, without me really realizing it, changed the way I thought about competitive gaming.In a bad way.Allow me to explain.The only difference between CoH and WC3 regarding skill was I was much better at one than the other. I enjoyed losing in CoH because I knew I did my best (which I believed to be close to all that was possible) I was confident in my ability.After being placed into that mindset, I set myself up to fail when I played (DOTA) I found myself suddenly playing a game that I knew next to nothing about.I was so used to playing a game that I had mastered that I became frustrated when the poo hit the fan and I didn’t know what to do. There is a difference in “knowing” you lost the game because the other opponent bested you, or that you simply stunk the game up. The later really scrambled my eggs for me, a feeling I long since banished when I played CoH.It all started making sense when feelings of frustration I found so unique to WC3 began to show up in CoH, namely when I played team games with Drew. 2-2 was a new setting for me, and there I was, feeling frustrated again.Yes, I understand it is kind of strange that I even spent the slightest amount of time trying to figure these things out about my experience playing video games, but I feel for everyones sake it is a problem that needs to be fixed.Can’t say this knowledge will do anything, or that I am even correct, but at least I think I know what is going on.
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