As games of all sorts have advanced, they've also gotten more complicated. There's more to remember, more to do, different tactics or combinations to learn. Some recent video games I've seen have tried to revert to a simpler layout, or to make things more intuitive for the player, but that only makes things more complicated for the programmers, not to mention the fact that what's intuitive for one person may be completely foreign to someone else. And, of course, what's intuitive anymore? Now that we've all become so used to the non-intuitiveness of previous video games, have they replaced our instinctual coordination?
As they've advanced, there's also been a bigger push for video games that allow you to play with other people. But we've gone beyond adding a second controller, or taking turns to see who can get the better score. We have to all play at the same time, and be able to cooperate with (or attack) each other. But we don't always have access to a circle of friends that can come over and play with the console, now that we've bought the eight controller adapter and six extra controllers, not to mention the money to invest in all that hardware to begin with. So we've acquiesced to the fate of the friendless or isolated, and play online with strangers we've never met in the hopes they won't make us feel too inferior.
I have a wonderful new computer, thanks to my darling and beautiful wife. It was a birthday present this year. However, there's not much either of us can do about our internet connection, and if the baby knows what to do, he's not talking. We live just outside the city limits, so we don't have access to the cable or DSL the city provides. There's a DSL extension which would reach us, but it's full, and has been for a year with no expectation of vacancy. So we have two options: dial-up or satellite. I almost wonder if we should have stuck with dial-up. We're supposed to have 1MB/s download speeds, but we're lucky if we reach a tenth of that. Which makes online gaming rather lag-filled at best.
Despite this, we do our best to enjoy the games we play. Both my wife and I were avid game players before we got together, and that isn't likely to change. We've done City of Heroes/Villians, Neverwinter Nights, Age of Mythology/Empires, and a number of free MMO(RP?)Gs including Flyff, Runescape, and most recently Mabinogi.
It can be something of a hardship, at times, to play. I can see other characters perform skills at speeds that were engineered to astound, while I move in relative slow-motion. Others can shoot their arrows three times or more before I can manage one shot. Magical skills are another difficulty. The ice bolt skill, for example, allows you to shoot five bolts in rapid succession. I can maybe get in two shots before the enemy has reached and hit me. The healing skill, another rapid succession spell, I can heal once, maybe twice, before another character has expended all their charges. The majority of tactics which are in common practice with the playerbase are impossible for my wife and I to use, simply because our connection speed is too slow, something which we try to explain (with varying levels of success) to those we group with, so as not to have them think we're not trying to pull our own weight.
Sometimes, frustration over our plight builds, usually in me, and I become more stressed by playing the game, something which was intended as a means of releasing tension and having fun, than I would have by, say, reflooring our living room (not an arbitrary comparison, as I have very recent experience to draw from). Yet I continue to play. Am I drawn by the fun that I'm having despite the poor connection? By the fun that can potentially exist in the game, if things were going as they should? Or am I just a sucker for the shiny graphics?
Then I come across someone, in-game, who spends the better part of an hour complaining about how bored they are, and asking if someone can come revive their character, because they don't want to respawn back at the last town and have to walk all the way back. They ended up, eventually, taking a greater hit to their experience points by reviving on-the-spot, rather than having to make the trek across... two screen transitions? And they're still bored.
If you're bored with the game, it obviously isn't fulfilling its purpose, and you should stop playing. I might get frustrated, but at least I'm never bored.
