I'm a gamer,because... - Page 2

MidgetMage55 · 06-21-09, 08:55 AM

I'm a gamer very simply because of my father. He was big in to technology and games as entertainment in general. We used to play all sorts of games from card games to board games. We had a family gaming night where each week we took turns picking the game we all would play.

Hell my father was the one who got me in to DnD when i was 8. He used to take me to arcades to play the early games and would hold me up to the controls. =)
Since then I've always loved gaming in most any form. PC, Table top and just about anything in between. He especially loved flight games of any kind, Be it a simulator or a shooter it didnt matter. If it had flight involved we owned it. I've picked up that addiction as well lol.

I now carry on that tradition with my own kids. The whole family plays games (the mrs. my 2 boys and myself) We still play classic table top games as well as PC and console. Just the other night we came up with a team Katamari thing (not in 2 player mode hehe)on the ps2. It was a hoot.

My wife is a bigger gamer than i am. **flex** She has been writing her own RPG for a few years and was the one that got me in to WoW. She runs the guild we play in. Its a social one and i wouldn't have it any other way. I play MMO's for the community and to an extent the end gaming concepts. Nothing like figuring out a boss to make your day special.

So in the end I owe it all to my father who 25 years ago decided i was old enough to enjoy gaming with the family. If he were still alive today I would guarantee he would be playing WoW with all of us. I could see him playing a Tauren warrior. That was just his style. =)

Sepioth · 06-21-09, 10:12 AM

I'm a gamer because .. well because I just grew up with them ...

I been gaming for just about as long as they been around. Started when I got my first Atari 2600 (Still have it by the way in working condition too) in the early 80's. I remember playing games like Pac-Man, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Missile Command and Adventure for hours on end (looking back I wonder how we stared at our TV's for so long .. hehe )

My parent bought most of the major systems as they where released. Atari 2600, 5200 and 7800, Intellivision, Coleco-Vision, Sega Master System, NES, Genesis, SNES, N64, Dreamcast, Saturn, PS1, Gamecube, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii and PS3. (Not in that order

) Most I still have as well.

We never got into the computer type gaming systems in my family. But we did do handheld gaming. I remember my first handheld gaming system. The old Matell handheld games like Football and Baseball. Nothing but some buttons and red lights .. hehe .. those where the days .. beep boop beep .. hehe.
We also had a few of the old Nintendo Game & Watch games.

I was born in 1974. So I have seen gaming just grow to what it is today and continue to watch it grow into the future.

nostress · 06-21-09, 11:32 AM

I'm also a gamer because i grew up with them. My first gaming system was an NES, which i used to play classics such as Super Mario and Contra in Single or Multi-Player with my cousins.

PC gaming for me started out with various gaming magazines which I used to buy religiously. My first PC (~2000) was rubbish for its time, but it could run some of the goldies, which I will never forget (I still love NFS Porsche).

My second PC (~2003), however, was what got me into what I call 'real gaming' and made me a tech junkie as well. I got it as a birthday present, but sadly, nobody asked me what kind of configuration I wanted, so I ended up with another sub-par machine. I could play some of the older games, such as Mafia, but I was pretty much restricted by the graphics card.

Luckily, that's when I got an internet connection, and was able to start digging up information on the net. I was instantly hooked and the tiny gears in my head started turning. I found out how to properly configure games, what terms such as Antialiasing and Anisotropic filtering meant, and lots of stuff normal people don't even bother with. Having a low-end PC put hair on my chest (hell, I played Far Cry on a GeForce 2 MX). Now, I'm the guy people call for help, advice and tech support.

WoW, on the other hand, is on a whole different level. It started out with a friend of a friend, who, at the time, was the only one playing (around patch 1.8, late 2005). One by one, he got my entire circle of friends to play, and we all got hooked. My first summer of WoW (pre-BC) was the most epic adventure I had gone through.

Levelling my character to 60 (remember, levelling was hard back then), gearing it, and then doing raids and PvP was my idea of time well spent. Needless to say, the addiction soon set in. I did have some problems because of too much time spent in-game, mainly my grades, but that gradually went away, as I learned to better organize my schedule and balance play time and study. Also, since I plan to focus on programming in college, WoW's interface customization capabilities allowed me to go rampant and see what coding really is.

Apart from developing my tech skills, gaming on a daily basis also helped me with my English and social skills (I don't know if this counts, but Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic actually left its mark on me regarding diplomacy and conversation skills), as well as introducing me to people from around the country and the world from various religious, ethnic and social backgrounds.

After reading the previous posts, I'd like to congratulate all the gaming dads out there. I can only hope that I'm going to become one of you.

Hope I didn't bore you too much with my ultra-long post.

us2006027321 · 06-21-09, 12:52 PM

BEST THREAD EVAR AWARD!!

I'm a gamer because...

When I was a child, I was raised a Christian, and faith meant something very special: it was an exercise of the imagination that said anything was possible. When I was six years old, my aunt gave me a series of books by CS Lewis called The Chronicles of Narnia. That was the first time I ever learned to fall in love with a fantasy world where authors who wrote something other than the Bible told me anything truly was possible. That continued on when I read Lewis's Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength). I kept going in literature and didn't stop, even after I read all the works of Shakespeare. I fell in love with tales about Camelot, and all the Canterbury Tales could no longer sustain me. My imagination was fed on brilliant, intelligent things.

When I was 14, I made a friend who pulled me out of my books. His favorite RTS to play was Warcraft II, though we played other things with frequency like Final Fantasy VI (though at the time it was III), Diablo II, and Heroes of Might and Magic III. It was a little like being involved in some of the stories I'd read, and I loved it.

When I was 18, I rolled my very first d20 and set of percentile dice by invoking divine intervention as a cleric in AD&D. Not only was I involved in the story, but I got to write some of it. What's more, I got to have a great time with my friends where playing wasn't about beating the guy across the table, but it was about helping him accomplish his goals and mine, too. Later, I would play Vampire: the Masquerade and then LARP that and many other Whitewolf games. These games became an opportunity to explore aspects of my personality I would not otherwise have been comfortable admitting were there, and they helped me be less timid around other people.

I'm a gamer because gaming keeps my imagination alive and blazing. It puts me in situations no other part of my reality ever would.

My games are:
Final Fantasy (pick one)
Diablo (both, and I also await the arival of the third)
Heroes of Might and Magic III (IV and V just weren't that good)
Warcraft (pick one)
Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D is better!!)
Magic: the Gathering
Star Wars
Vampire: the Requiem
Vampire: the Masquerade
Vampire: Dark Ages
Mage: the Awakening
Changeling: the Lost

Sepioth · 06-21-09, 01:45 PM

AHHH .. AD&D ... I remember those times.

My mom was not to fond of me playing at the time. Mainly because of THIS and well and the fact I was hanging out with people twice my age in some cases.

We used to play in the basement of our local Comic Book Shop. We would all get together, bring drinks and food, and play for hours. Some playing in character and even dressing up and others where just themselves. We usually had PVC/Foam (and sometimes real) weapons and armor.

I had SO MANY DICE it was crazy. From your basic d4 up to a crazy 100 sided die. I even had a few lloaded dice that always rolled the max number .. hehe ... never used them for anything important when we played but it was fun to have them. I also used to paint miniatures.

MANY time we would get together for HOURS and NEVER finish a campaign or sometimes we never even started playing. It was a social event. A way for friends to get together and just have fun.

Now I do the same with Video Games. Whether it be playing a MMO like WoW or hanging at a friends house playing anything from a simple game of cards (pick the game),board games like Monopoly, Clue, Risk or Uno (to name a few) to all out Rock Band events. I even have a friend who used to put together a yearly gaming competition.

My biggest problem in my gaming as a youth, be it console, board or pen and paper, was the lack of funds to get more of it. My parents didn't have much money when we grew up (Government blocks of cheese any one?) but we survived. And some form of game was always at the ready when ever we wanted to play.

One thing I will say .. when it comes to gaming I will NEVER get bored of it. I will never stop gaming. I will play until I'm at my death bed.