23
Dec
2019

Walkthroughs are not a bad thing.

categories: personal; word count: 357 words

In so many circles have I seen walkthrough use lamented as the actual bane of other people’s existences — the idea that other gamers might need enough help to use them, or the idea that other gamers would use them. Allegedly you are not a “hardcore enough gamer” if you need to use them. Some people devote way too much of their time to defining what is a “hardcore enough gamer” to come up with arbitrary requirements as to what this… entails, and I try to avoid these conversations and associating myself with these people, but I’ve seen enough peripheral complaining about walkthrough use that I had to mention it.

You are not a bad gamer, or “not hardcore enough of a gamer”, if you need to use a walkthrough.

Even if you need to use a walkthrough for every single game you play, that does not define you as a gamer.

You are not “less than” for needing assistance in games.

This is an insiduous form of gatekeeping, and I dislike it a lot. God only knows that I’ve used walkthroughs when playing games, especially with Bub, to cut down on the amount of screen time that I expose myself to in the name of not giving myself an unnecessary migraine. If I can plan out what I’m going to do in a game when, I can shorten my exposure to the screen, which is an extremely good thing. This allows me to continue to enjoy something that I love, let me play video games with Bub, all while not walking myself into a particularly severe migraine — for me — because I spent hours wandering around lost in a video game.

So far, walkthroughs have allowed us to enjoy games in that they allow us to shave off time that would otherwise have been spent wandering around absolutely lost causing a migraine for no reason. We achieve short objectives, frequently save the game just in case, I monitor for symptoms, and we continue from there…

But there is a reason that there is the ongoing joke that our backlog is far taller than Bub. No shame in that.

22
Dec
2019

Please watch your children online.

categories: personal; word count: 478 words

As a child, I never thought that I would actually make this blog post as an adult…

But as a child, the only way that I had to get online was America Online, and most of my formative years were spent on dial-up with my parents having an idea who I was talking to, not quite approving of the “crowd of people” that I associated with for most of that time, but never really doing anything about it. I lived in the day where it was forbidden to give my full first name, or even my last name, to my friends, did so anyway to “rebel against my parents”, and had my so-called friends “use my name against me” whenever I did something that they did not like. Now, with the advent of Facebook, everyone knows your legal name (unless you’ve intentionally created an account where you’re not using it), so that’s almost absolutely moot.

But since you can do so much more on the Internet now, I feel like more parents need to be aware of what their children are doing online… and that more children don’t need to be given significant, unfettered access to the Internet. Even if it “makes their children mad”, mad is safe. As long as they’re young, they don’t need to have social media accounts in their own name, at least not unless their parent is friended with them on that account, has access to it themselves, and knows precisely what they are posting. Children do not need to have “safe spaces” on the Internet where they can share things away from their parents’ eyes, because this usually leads to bad things. They need to use age-appropriate sites that are either monitored by adults and used in an appropriate capacity, or they need to be monitored by their own parents to ensure that they remain safe online until they are old enough not to require monitoring. This is how we keep children safe.

Facebook has an age requirement for a reason. So do several popular chat programs.

But this doesn’t mean that parents should let their children “have at it” and not monitor them on their own.

Even if they’re busy working, they should either at least know what their child is doing or install parental control programs on their computers at home to ensure that their children can only access safe, age-appropriate websites or use the Internet at certain times or only for a certain number of hours per day.

“Worst-case scenario,” there is also the possibility of placing a password on the computer and putting it in themselves when they are around to provide monitoring, if that is absolutely something that has to be done.

Sure, a lot of the Internet is good. Most of it may be. But there are plenty of places on it that are not good.

21
Dec
2019

Please know what games your children play.

categories: personal; word count: 313 words

I can’t begin to tell you (or, more literally, write about) how many times I’ve encountered a parent who “doesn’t really know what their kids play,” even though in most cases they’re the one who’s bought the game for them. Most of the oversight is because they’re too busy working, so they buy whatever game their kid asks for, so I can kind of see why this happens… even though I wish that wouldn’t. I wish that more parents could, or would, take the time out to do at least a little bit more research into the games that their children own, especially the ones that they are actively playing, particularly the ones that involve online play — I’ve actually surprised parents by telling them that online play is not rated as interactions can not be controlled, only punished after the fact if someone breaks a rule in an online game, is reported, and is actually punished for breaking that rule. They seemed to think that online play was encompassed by the game’s ESRB rating.

Good things to do to get a feel for games for your child:
· check out the ESRB rating, of course, as this gives you a general idea
· Google the game and read the summary, as this helps even better
(as you can get a feel for whether or not a game is appropriate for your child if you have not bought it yet)
· read the back of the game if your child already owns it for a synopsis
· Go to Amazon and read the reviews for the game (this is where you’ll find the most honest assessments)
· ask gamer friends if you have any for critiques on the game
· know which games require online interaction and Google how that tends to go

Hopefully some of these tips can help, as not many of them take a whole lot of time!

20
Dec
2019

The “forced microphone” policy.

categories: personal; word count: 416 words

Whenever games allow you to use the microphone, Bub and I opt out of this without fail. We also tend to mute the mic on games that allow us to do this. But whenever games force you to use the microphone and listen in on others’ conversations and there is no way to prevent this, even if this game is otherwise the best game, this is a game that we take a hard pass on. And we have to do this because Bub has to be protected.

Bub’s vocal inflections let everyone know that he is disabled, and this is something that he can not hide. It would then make me make the incredibly hard choice of not playing the game with him so that people on the other end of the game did not hear his vocal inflections, or having him play alongside me and risking being asked inappropriate questions about him (“is he retarded?”, “is your son retarded?”), or making fun of him for the way he sounds. So I would either play the game that I had bought him without him to protect him, which would exclude him, or I would run the risk of Bub being bullied and made fun of by attempting to include him if a bully is on the other end of the mic. So the easiest way to solve both of these problems is: don’t buy games that force you to use the microphone. Research the game, find that out, make that decision. Done.

The only way that we work around this is if you can choose who you party, or team, up with. If I can select friends of mine who I trust to play the game with, that’s different. That makes the game playable. But if it’s a random distribution of players and there is forced mic use, I don’t purchase the game and we don’t play it.

I wish more game developers took this into consideration, because I am sure that Bub isn’t the only person that something like this applies to. I am sure that there are many other disabled individuals out there who have to stay completely silent on the mic during games like this in fear that they will be bullied if if they speak. There may be individuals who have severe social anxiety for whom forced mic use petrifies them, and this may apply to them too. There are aspects of gaming culture that need improvement. This is one of them.

19
Dec
2019

Another thing worth getting into.

categories: personal; word count: 491 words

I have actually encountered individuals who have stated that they “don’t want to have children because it would cut into their gaming time,” and the level of absurdity that it must take to make a statement like that and then proceed to follow through on it continues to perplex me to this day. It boggles my mind to the point that I actually wanted to come here and make a blog post about it, because there are actually people out there — for some reason, more males than females — who actually think like this. They are so… engrossed, and involved in gaming as a hobby that they absolutely do not want to have any children, because then they would have to step away from gaming, whether it be the console or the keyboard, to provide some level of care for these children. (Although I’m still not sure if this is better than those men out there who game and let their girlfriends or wives tend to the children while they spend hours at a time gaming. I mean, there’s also that to take into consideration, because that is a scenario that actually happens “after the fact”, as it were.)

For instance, I’ve actually had it said to me that I “shouldn’t have had children” (what?!) “because I’m such a good gamer that they take away from that” (are you serious?!), or “that it’s good that I stopped at two” (are you the arbiter of my childbearing decisions, seriously) “because any more would make it even more difficult for me to game” (no, seriously, do you hear the words coming out of your mouth). Some men that I have dated in the past have also stated that they “don’t want to have any children of their own with me” (good, because whether you like it or not, I’m stopping at two), “because that would make it even harder to game” (again, do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth). And these are actually worse than the ones that I’ve encountered in the past who have wanted me to have children of “their” own, who “don’t understand why I had kids with the men that I did, but won’t have any other children”… I mean, between my disabilities, my health conditions, and my own wants, you should have gotten in line sooner or considered finding someone else when you were in a relationship with me. I know what I want and I am not budging.

But seriously, it’s foolish to “decide not to have kids” because you want maximal gaming time.

To decide that you don’t want to have any children, or any more children than you already have, is one thing. It’s a respectable thing. But to decide that you don’t want any children at all because they take away from your gaming time is incredibly foolish… and it speaks volumes about you as a person that should be spoken.

18
Dec
2019

When your MMO has a “no addiction” Reddit…

categories: MMORPGs; word count: 520 words

This is when you should know that you have a serious problem, Blizzard.

Please note that this is not me “knocking” the Reddit for existing, as it clearly has a purpose and has helped a lot of people curb their addiction to World of Warcraft. It is doing a great thing by existing. I acknowledge that it needs to exist. What I am “knocking” is the fact that this Reddit even needs to exist in the first place.

I am “knocking” the fact that a sizable number of people are getting, or have gotten, addicted to World of Warcraft and that this is occurring in a disproportionately high number with this MMO than it is with any others out there. You don’t hear about this happening with other MMOs in anything other than trace numbers, adjusting with the fact that there are individuals out there who will get addicted to any MMO, any game, or anything that crosses their path (since I am not shaming anyone for addiction, that I know that addiction is something that an individual can not in any way help, and realize that someone may, say, get addicted to the latest Final Fantasy MMO because it crossed their path and World of Warcraft did not…).

I am also “knocking” the fact that with an MMO this size, and with the number of people that have gotten addicted to it, that Blizzard has done nothing to curb this or even mitigate it in any way. After all, their addiction lines Blizzard’s pockets. Being as vague as possible, I actually knew someone that was offered a lucrative job that could have turned into a career that World of Warcraft messed up for them. This didn’t even materialize into a job for them. They went right back to playing World of Warcraft after this job offer fell through for them, and I am almost positive that they continue to play World of Warcraft to this day not realizing, and probably not caring, how big of a problem that this is — that this is actually addiction if this cost them an actual job. They probably rationalize it as “this job not being worth it”. They are, or were, someone that I had known for a long time, and after this I honestly never want to hear from or see again. I don’t want them around my children. And although I just said up there that I am aware that addiction is something that a person can not help, rationalizing away one’s addiction, and treating people horribly is something that can be helped, and this is absolutely something that this person would do, so I don’t want them around me because that would expose my children to them and that is something that I do not want.

Based on my last interaction with this person years ago, they were plainly emotionally abusive to me.

At some point, Blizzard has to realize that their MMO is this addictive and step in, though.

The question is, when? When will they stop turning a blind eye to this level of addiction in their players?

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