I have been playing computer games for a long time, starting with Oregon Trail in first grade, SimFarm in 2nd grade, and then Civilization in 4th. We didn't have a Nintendo growing up, so no 'video games' but we did play computer games. Video games were frequently multiplayer, with multiple controllers attached to the system, while computer games were usually solo, until networking multiple systems together became more common, but then everything still had their own system. My parents were opposed to violent computer games, so no first person shooters until college, and even then I am far more attracted to the teamwork aspects of those games than the actual shooting. That is why I like Battlefield, and not Half-Life. I do remember when my dad sat me down to talk about the realities of war in 8th grade, before allowing me to buy Command and Conquer. Age of Empires was set in history, so the death of those units was not as concerning to my parents as modern warfare games.
I got into first person shooters due to LAN parties that my high school friends were having after I graduated, and was home from college on the holidays. I got into Battlefield 1942, and bought my own copy, playing it at school, but only against computer opponents, because my school blocked access to the multiplayer servers. When BattleField 2 came out, I bought it on release day, and played out the limited single player options for two weeks, before I happened to click on the multiplayer menu. When that server list populated with options, it was like witnessing a miracle, and many hours that summer were spent becoming one of the top 1% of helicopter pilots, out of a million active players. I still played that game until recently, in it iteration as Project Reality. I am not very good at shooting people, just trying to keep a positive kill to death ratio, but I am good at leading a squad of 6-8 other people across the world, to accomplish objectives and win games. And I still play Age of Empires II, now in its third iteration, with my own son now. But these are all very old games, over 20 years old. I haven't played hardly any modern games, besides spending a couple hours in the mess that is Fortnight, for the purposes of a graphics card technology review.
I don't even know what initially attracted my attention to WarDogs last month, probably some online article, but I decided to give it a try. In certain ways, it is similar to the games I have liked in the past, but with some significant differences. Battlefield offered a couple of unlockable weapons, but that was it in the way of progression. And that progress was never reset in the form of 'seasons' as a way of leveling the playing field. (Although AoE2 does offer limited time special scenarios, that disappear after a few months, so you have to play them while they are available if you want to try them. Similarly they have limited time rewards, to encourage playing more within certain time frames. But this new games has hundreds of levels of gear to unlock, and that progress is reset to zero on a monthly-ish basis. That levels to playing field, to keep people who have earned extra powerful weapons from maintaining that edge forever. But it also means that players who have barely escaped the challenging first couple of hours with limited options are right back in there again, struggling to get to a decent place that full time players got back to within a day of the reset. It is also a three way battle, and for some reason, one team always loses. This might be influenced by factors like uniform visibility, but is also influenced by the online culture that develops around the game. If I never check out online discussions, I would never have noticed that 'blue never wins.' But now that I have, and recognized that it is usually true, I am further perpetuating the trend. The season reset was the perfect opportunity for a giant social experiment, to rotate the consistent team starting positions, to see how much of that phenomena was based on the culture compared to the game programming. The creators did a bit of that, but took a different route to rectifying that issue, in the form of discounts and bonuses for that team.
I also had a strange interaction with a teammate last time I played that has really stuck with me. I group of teammates showed up at a position I had been defending for a while, and one of them had an extra gear bag next to them. I didn't know (and still don't) how it got there, since players can only hold one gear back, but they can swap with one on the ground, left by a dead player, which can be looted. So I came over to see what was in it, and hear what I thought was an argument between two other players on the local voice channel. The bag had good stuff in it, but the only thing I had room to carry was a med kit, to heal teammates. Suddenly one on them team kills me, and tells me that he is going revive me, and that I am going to put what I took out of his bag back into it. And he was very much a jerk about it. So when I recovered, I replaced the med kit and moved on, but it really bothered me, and I am not even sure why I did that. Possibly because of an innate respect for the concept of ownership, or just to avoid conflict. But I literally found it on the ground, and there are clearly no 'rules' about that in a sandbox game. Just the impulses involved are interesting. And there is a new mechanism to punish team killing, which I forgot about until I saw the message that the 90sec window for me to do that had expired. Next time. And I would assess that the player involved was also cheating, at least in some form, because he ended the round with 62 kills, and the 2nd place player had 15. And I saw his kills while he was near me, and we was banging away at the sky with a sniper rifle, and shooting people out of overflying helicopters and such, which is clearly impossible. The creators post highlight videos online that show similar accomplishments, and I am confident that it is impossible for a human to have that level of mouse accuracy, even in a game, so gamepad users apparently have some form of auto aiming assistance, which is far too powerful compared to mouse and keyboard. It really challenges one's concept of fairness, or what exactly comprises cheating. But it has been interesting and enlightening to play a modern game, to see what functionality has been added to new games, to increase the level of engagement and addiction. I also find this surprising since it is a one time purchase, not an ongoing subscription, so the incentive for the creators to keep their players coming back with that level of frequently seems limited, without micro-transactions as an ongoing source of income. But knowing what is happening in that regard will help me be a better parent, and guide my son, if he finds himself playing games like that. Because it is very different from when I was a kid.
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