Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 On a completely unrelated topic- howd you guys convince your family that its totally normal to game for 1-2 hour on weekdays and 3-4 hours on weekends while maintaining a healthy social life and gaming can be easily interchanged with tv to draw on the obvious analogy? In my country its still considered kiddish, so im forever explaining to fam that its a normal adult activity :/ Unmarried right now, but im pretty sure its gonna get worse with marriage in a year or two.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 13 Author Share Posted March 13 1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said: You know im actually suprised you beat DOS2 but are struggling a bit with BG3s combat. Man the combat here makes BG3 look like a fucking fable game! Oh I've yet to finish DOS2. I'm still making my way through it. I know the combat gets absolutely ridiculous in later parts of the game, but that's a future me problem, as far as I'm concerned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 13 Author Share Posted March 13 57 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said: On a completely unrelated topic- howd you guys convince your family that its totally normal to game for 1-2 hour on weekdays and 3-4 hours on weekends while maintaining a healthy social life and gaming can be easily interchanged with tv to draw on the obvious analogy? In my country its still considered kiddish, so im forever explaining to fam that its a normal adult activity :/ Unmarried right now, but im pretty sure its gonna get worse with marriage in a year or two.... Point to the number of adults here who have rich and developed social lives, partners/spouses/whatever, jobs, who still get exercise in their day, plenty of sleep, and do all sorts of other shit. It's a valid hobby. I have friends who had babies and kept the baby in the rocker next to them hoping the damn thing would go the frell to sleep while they played any number of games to keep themselves sane. As a friend recently said to me: "We're the first generation that's normalised videogaming as a valid hobby, and when we have kids, none of us are going to be shaming each other for playing whatever we enjoy while the baby sleeps next to us as we rock it sleep or breast feed it or whatever." My parents eventually came around to it because I also made a job out of it as a games journalist and travelled around North America, got paid, etc., but that's obviously outside the norm. So just collect stories from here, about the well-adjusted folks here who went "yeah, I'm not into sports, or working on cars, but hell, I can assemble a computer, I can teach computer literacy, and fix stuff, and have unconsciously come to accept that my skills are taken for granted by my elderly relatives who think I can somehow MacGuyver an EMP and fix their computer in five minutes time". If that's not good enough, show them My Grandpa and Asheron's Call and tell them about Shirley Curry. And then ask them how they like them apples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underfoot Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 (edited) I'd argue video games are a much more "valid*" way to spend free time than TV as it is active (requires full attention for the most part), engages problem solving skills and motor function, and can get you into a "flow state." For multiplayer games there's also a social element, even if in many cases it's quite toxic. TV is often super passive and easy to get distracted during and look at your phone while you half watch. *Not that there should be any judgment of what's valid/isn't valid. Edited March 13 by Underfoot typo Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II and Durckad 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darryk Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 (edited) 2 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said: On a completely unrelated topic- howd you guys convince your family that its totally normal to game for 1-2 hour on weekdays and 3-4 hours on weekends while maintaining a healthy social life and gaming can be easily interchanged with tv to draw on the obvious analogy? In my country its still considered kiddish, so im forever explaining to fam that its a normal adult activity :/ Unmarried right now, but im pretty sure its gonna get worse with marriage in a year or two.... My parents banned me from playing on school days; other than that they didn't have an opinion on it one way or another. My uncle wouldn't let my cousin play though, he thought they were mindless. That always irked me. To actually answer your question though, I guess you can only show them through actions? ie. pursue a rich social life and they'll see it doesn't affect your social life. I don't know how open-minded your parents are so don't know what it would take to convince them it's a legitimate hobby. Maybe if they saw you playing some highly story-driven games or sophisticated strategy games they'll change their view. Obviously if they see you playing violent first-person shooters it's going to negatively impact their view. Edited March 13 by Darryk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 13 Author Share Posted March 13 The 14 or so pages of notes I took for Myst, including making sketches, was indicative of some kind of merit, as it applied my drawing skills. To say nothing of the obvious merit of more "literary", creative problem-solving skills utilising games like The Secret of Monkey Island, Syberia, and even in its own fascinating way, Walden. And it's a hobby that develops and engages with soft and hard skills and reasoning and logic skills, patience development, horizontal thinking, pattern recognition development, and more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 13 Author Share Posted March 13 See also: the astounding level of scientific depth on display in the Factorio community. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darryk Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 (edited) If I ever make it as a writer than it'll prove the benefits of games to my family as most of the writing I do is heavily inspired by games I've played. Quite a few filmmakers have said that games inspired them. Neil Blomkamp said Half-life 2 was a significant influence on District 9. Edited March 13 by Darryk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 1 hour ago, IlyaP said: Point to the number of adults here who have rich and developed social lives, partners/spouses/whatever, jobs, who still get exercise in their day, plenty of sleep, and do all sorts of other shit. This might not be as great a point as you might think given the self-selection of people on this forum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darryk Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 I finished Telltale Adventures' The Expanse and it hit me really hard in the feels. Really strong story with great characters. Only thing that drags it down is long sequences where you're floating through shipwrecks in your MAG boots to try find salvage. Those got really frustrating but they stopped roundabout episode 3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorn Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 6 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said: On a completely unrelated topic- howd you guys convince your family that its totally normal to game for 1-2 hour on weekdays and 3-4 hours on weekends while maintaining a healthy social life and gaming can be easily interchanged with tv to draw on the obvious analogy? In my country its still considered kiddish, so im forever explaining to fam that its a normal adult activity :/ Unmarried right now, but im pretty sure its gonna get worse with marriage in a year or two.... I was going to suggest that you use Elon Musk as a successful person who is also a gamer, but then I realized he is not exactly the best example of a normal, serious, well-adjusted adult. Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toth Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 2 minutes ago, Gorn said: I was going to suggest that you use Elon Musk as a successful person who is also a gamer, but then I realized he is not exactly the best example of a normal, serious, well-adjusted adult. In today's world, the name Henry Cavill rather comes to mind. IlyaP and Darryk 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 In BSG: Deadlock I reached the second additional story DLC, Resurrection. Quite impressed by this one. It definitely rolls back the XCOM meta layer, which was starting to get a bit wearisome after the main game and the first two DLC (which can add up to around a 60-hour playthrough between them). Resurrection switches the strategic map away from the entire Cyrannus star system to just the area around Galactica, and now the map is located in Galactica's CIC (as in the same as the TV show) and you can walk right around it! That's pretty cool. You still have side-missions but now it's all much more tightly focused, and there's a rhythm of main mission-side mission with the option to throw in a few more side missions if you want. Some of the storytelling remains weird but entertaining. Spoiler Galactica appeared to be destroyed at the end of the last DLC but in fact it crash-landed in one of Caprica's oceans, from where it was rescued (!) and restored to full functionality, which seems a bit much. New Caprica wasn't its first atmo-drop! The last DLC also had the other colonies throw Helios Alpha under a bus in return for a one-year ceasefire from the Cylons, which resulted in Caprica, Picon, Tauron and Gemenon being occupied by the Cylons, but apparently ground-level resistance continued and at the start of this DLC the other colonies have united to push them back out again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 10 hours ago, Kalbear said: This might not be as great a point as you might think given the self-selection of people on this forum Sure, if he were doing a research survey, then, yeah, I can see how that would be an issue. But for the purposes of just identifying a few people who don't fit the stereotype established in the heads of his relatives, it can be useful to at least present other models of personhood or behaviour. Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 (edited) Thanks guys, and it’s not just parents(although there are barriers there but since working as an adults it’s less pronounced now) and also to do with people I date who don’t understand the concept of video gaming as adults lol… Edited March 14 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II IlyaP 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 (edited) 41 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said: Thanks guys, and it’s not just parents(although there are barriers there but since working as an adults it’s less pronounced now) and also to do with people I date who don’t understand the concept of video gaming as adults lol… I know plenty of adults here in Australia, where, when we met, nerded out like school children discovering sugar for the first time, over our favorite games, what we all liked in common, etc. We've multiple friends here with kids who are gamers. Multiple friends who don't have kids but are dating/engaged/married who are massive gamers. Hell, I have a Pillars of Eternity tattoo and my wife has an Elder Scrolls-inspired wedding ring. My best friend back home was and still is a WoW junkie before he met and after he met his wife and continued playing FF14 and WoW after their kids were born. To think *anyone* would be critical of gaming in this day and age is weird to me, and makes me think that maybe you're just not meeting your found family or "your" people. Like, not kidding - we have buses here that I've driven past where they had WoW ads plastered across the sides of them. I've seen digital ads for CoD games in downtown Sydney. We even have a giant gaming cafe/club/bar...thing, called Fortress here. Edited March 14 by IlyaP Forgot a few words. Prince of the North 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argonath Diver Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 2 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said: Thanks guys, and it’s not just parents(although there are barriers there but since working as an adults it’s less pronounced now) and also to do with people I date who don’t understand the concept of video gaming as adults lol… When I was in New York, a best friend of mine was an art dealer from an affluent Indian family who were based in Dehli but raised him in Manhattan. So he was very much an American - in that he and I were degenerate day drinking clowns who had amazing times in that incredible city. Anyway he went back to Dehli for an arranged marriage to a stunning bride. But Akaash was simply too American (ie, kind of lazy, drank too much, and though he wasn't a gamer like you or I, his wife disliked his proclivity for binging Netflix and such). They had a relatively shocking divorce and he's now in Dubai. Anyway I understand your cultural disconnect from so far away. I hope you can show your fam and perhaps one of those dates that computer games and American movies are perfectly reasonable hobbies. As it were, I tricked my very Midwestern, no-spicy-food Mom into eating some wildly good but very, very spicy curry from a Kerala style spot in Manhattan. Her forehead was sweating but she loved it. Show your fam your best games, maybe they'll sweat but like it! IlyaP 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 Meanwhile, because of Rod, I'm back on the DOS2 train again. The game is just so aggressively gorgeous (especially the sound design), and an oddly relaxing thing to help keep me awake during the day after a bout with insomnia last night. Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 27 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said: When I was in New York, a best friend of mine was an art dealer from an affluent Indian family who were based in Dehli but raised him in Manhattan. So he was very much an American - in that he and I were degenerate day drinking clowns who had amazing times in that incredible city. Anyway he went back to Dehli for an arranged marriage to a stunning bride. But Akaash was simply too American (ie, kind of lazy, drank too much, and though he wasn't a gamer like you or I, his wife disliked his proclivity for binging Netflix and such). They had a relatively shocking divorce and he's now in Dubai. Anyway I understand your cultural disconnect from so far away. I hope you can show your fam and perhaps one of those dates that computer games and American movies are perfectly reasonable hobbies. As it were, I tricked my very Midwestern, no-spicy-food Mom into eating some wildly good but very, very spicy curry from a Kerala style spot in Manhattan. Her forehead was sweating but she loved it. Show your fam your best games, maybe they'll sweat but like it! Building on this: one of my closest friends back in Beantown hails from Goa and we met in college, and we'd spend our evenings drinking whiskey and playing C&C: Generals like there was no tomorrow, and his folks had absolutely no problem with it whatsoever. His housemate, who hailed from Malaysia, would join us as well, and the three of us had *the best times* having 3-way destructothons in Generals and then going to classes during the day and working in-between them. And I know both friends are still gamers to this day, despite having gotten married and having had kids. So for whatever it's worth dude, like, it's a legit real hobby, and honestly one of the better ones to have. I know there's a proclivity towards high-status jobs and having a healthy social life in parts of India, but you can do both of those things and still enjoy videogames. (It took my Very Soviet parents a few years to savvy this, but they got there in the end, and accepted their son was never going to be an engineer or mathematician, and was a gamer for life.) Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II and Prince of the North 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 26 minutes ago, IlyaP said: Meanwhile, because of Rod, I'm back on the DOS2 train again. The game is just so aggressively gorgeous (especially the sound design), and an oddly relaxing thing to help keep me awake during the day after a bout with insomnia last night. Relaxing until you hit any combat IlyaP 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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