I seriously don't get it. Real-life roleplaying seems to thrive, even though people have to usually drive around to get to each other's places, which can last for hours. Online, all they need to do is to be in front of the computer when the game is on, and could really do so rather often on their free time, which allows potential for much more gaming. Yet it doesn't ever seem to work.
Having been in a number of online games and real life games (at some point four online and three in RL, busy times) I've got some experience with both and I'm also guilty of joining an online game and leaving a way's in. Problem is; the Internet is really easy to avoid and RP's (online and offline) require a fair amount of work.
I'm in a Vampire the Masquerade game at the moment, online. We post once per day, maybe two so it's not amazingly fast (except for the evenings where we all happen to be online at the same time) but when I check, I have to read up on old posts, imagine it all going on, think of what I'm going to do and then write it down in a somewhat eloquent fashion. Or I could alt-tab and look at cats or games or boobs or whatever, telling myself "I'll post later". The latter is much less work and when the game isn't particularly interesting at that moment (and no game always is), it's also more fun.
Online commitments everywhere, except maybe work-related conference calls, are always treated as less-serious than real life. Online commitment to play a game with friends easily take a backseat to RL things. Friends stopping by, telephone calls, remembered birthdays, girlfriend/boyfriend time, it's all more important than sitting at a keyboard typing letters for some other people over the internet. A RL D&D game has you look those people in the eye while you explain why you haven't updated your character sheet. You see their annoyed looks and hear their scorn as you make them wait for even only 15 minutes while you add your d8hp and extra spell level. That's sufficient motivation for most people to show up and have stuff prepped. Online, it's just some text that says you missed something, it doesn't have the same impact.
Also, a lot of the time (in my experience when I still lived at home and my game-mates also did), family doesn't give a shit about your online stuff. If you have friends over, your mother/father might not make you come downstairs and clean stuff up/do groceries/see grandma until they leave, but "I'm in an online engagement at the moment" has never gotten a parent off anyone's back.
@Lythunyl: Now that's a gross generalization. It's not because my family acts like a jerk at times that all Dutch people suck. Family issues appear in every culture. I honestly don't see the analogy you're trying to make here.
I just thought it was interesting that, although you have Dutch people around who make your life miserable, you are still of the opinion that Dutch people are awesome. Regardless, it was a light-hearted comment, don't read too much into it.
As for the online thing, I don't think people on the internet are actually accepted as real people on a subconscious level. It's a very odd, and very sad phenomenon, which also poisons most forums and other online communities. It's (one of) the reason(s) I quit MMO's: everyone has this knee-jerk reaction that when they see an opportunity for a sarcastic insult, it has to be taken. It's also really strange to me, yet pleasant, that for some reason BG communities do not seem to suffer so much under this effect, as I remarked before.
Also, the "I'm in an online engagement at the moment" is so true. Explaining that you can't do X / go to Y because you have to raid is one of the most hopeless tasks ever.
Lol, you people still believe parents take games as an excuse for not doing something? I once got called a loser by them just because I love games. If I'm not studying till I see blue, they think I'm lazing around, messing up my life. Because true students study non-stop all day long. *sigh*
@Lythunyl: Still. My family do not symbolise ALL Dutch people. I don't see how you could link my personal problems with a whole culture. I don't even see the connection, nor how it is supposed to be funny. Oh well. Forgive and forget.
I believe the general civility in BG forums come from the fact that the average age of the BG player tends to be higher than on most other forums. There's a poll somewhere in the forums that showed most of us were in the 30-40 years range with a significant presence of 40+
And even if age does not always bring maturity, it does bring a tendency to behave yourself and act as if you're a mature adult.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud Enjoy it And don't worry in 15 years when the BG:EEE (Enhanced Enhanced Edition) comes out you'll be in the majority as well. And you'll probably get a badge for that
@Coutelier The thing is that the majority of people think that going to parties, drinking etc. are normal activities and being introverted(I kinda question these notions of extroverts and introverts but that's for another topic) is not normal or even pathological. Well, this is a point of view. If you don't harm anyone, what is the problem to do what you like to do? Even boundaries like "doing harm" are subjective but lets keep to them.
An example: You work in a team. You are supposed to collaborate with your colleagues and help the team reach its goals. Lets say you work on a project with your co-workers. You are doing your job just fine and the team is progressing and completing its goals. Lets say that he members of this team go out together for a drink or for a party but you don't want to go to party at all, so you skip. Their response is like "Why are you parting from the team?" and they take it as an insult. How ignorant is that? What they miss it that when they are partying, they are not ""the team". They may be the same people, but they are not the same team. Working with them doesn't mean that you should party with them. They don't understand that and think you are not normal because they are majority. The same could be said about diagnosing people psychologically(when their "sickness" has nothing to do with physiological factors like changes in the prefrontal cortex, just to name one). If you feel fine, then don't take every opinion or even diagnosis too seriously. Instead, try to find more opinions.
For those who were wondering: a belangenbehartiger is someone who represents your interests. No English word exists afaik.
I wonder why gamer comunities always have such a heavy Dutch representation.
I think more like a representative.
Both, if taken in a liberal sense: being advocate for a cause, being representative of your own kind of people. But it's not a profession. I wouldn't be able to deal with the stress being paid to perform in my work would take, I'm pushing myself to my mental limits as it is already. It's a volunteer's job, done out of love for doing something right, creating a better world.
BTW: 'Dutch people are awesome', wasn't the statement meant to be a joke in itself? I took it that way. It seems very strange to say one people is more awesome than another, like they're an actual entity you could put a qualitive measure on as in being better or worse. 'Dutch people' is just a collection of 17 million individuals with as much differences as things in common.
I take my comment about Dutch people being awesome back. Seems it's only being taken out of context and overanalyzed anyway. Just give it a rest already.
BG:EE on Steam makes me unhappy. It just goes to show that small companies eventually still fall into the claws of bigger ones. Fucking Valve now profiting from a game they had nothing to do with in the first place... (this goes for many other games on Steam as well). It just seems unfair. I just hope these forums won't be overrun by moronic idiots and their stupid requests. That much eye-rolling wouldn't be good for my health.
Speaking of steam and unhappy: I bought a game on vacation, then it turns out it has no CD-key when I'm home. I write them explaining the situation why I can't go talk to the retailer and after waiting a week, they send me an e-mail with 5 lines of fluff + "you should go talk to the retailer".
Helpdesks are supposed to help. Which involves reading what I'm telling them.
Steam= greater exposure + more money for Beamdog and Steam. Likewise I'm happy enough buying food from shops that didn't grow the vegetables or milk the cows themselves.
Steam= greater exposure + more money for Beamdog and Steam. Likewise I'm happy enough buying food from shops that didn't grow the vegetables or milk the cows themselves.
Yeah, but Beamdog could've still gotten better profits. Now they still got some profits, but they gotta share it with guys who in fact haven't been involved in the enhancing of BG at all and who are just sitting on some documents to justify their money leeching. Not really fair.
It's unfair that Steam takes a giant cut, but the massive exposure should compensate for it. In the end, it'll lead to greater sales numbers, which is only good, despite using an unsavory platform (I say, while having 87 games on Steam).
Let's hope the Achievement munchers stay on Steam. The forum was stable enough to withstand the massive backlash when the game was released ("The game won't boot up, fuck this, gimme my money back you hacks!" x300), it can handle some Steamers.
On topic: Fuck trains and fuck snow, took me almost two hours to get home yesterday while crammed like a sardine in the train with a thousand other people for a 20 minute ride, this morning cost me more than an hour.
Speaking of steam and unhappy: I bought a game on vacation, then it turns out it has no CD-key when I'm home. I write them explaining the situation why I can't go talk to the retailer and after waiting a week, they send me an e-mail with 5 lines of fluff + "you should go talk to the retailer".
Helpdesks are supposed to help. Which involves reading what I'm telling them.
Helpdesks are useless. Trust me. I've lost my faith in them after EA's mess of what was supposed to be 'customer service'. When they got your money, you're basically on your own.
You Dutch too, @Drugar? It's abominable what happens to our trains when one snowflake hits the tracks. Completely laughable. And the EA Helpdesk is indeed a fine example. "Hey, guys. The key for Bring Down The Sky which I bought isn't working anymore? Can you guys get another one?" "Lol, no. Figure it our yourself." Something like that was my experience.
Yeah, EA has the tendency to send you around from one technical team to the other, making you spend hours on the phone. I think it's a gimmick and they're secretly making extra money out of it. Wouldn't surpise me. XD
I've worked for a helpdesk for several years, I like to think we did a lot of good. Of course, we were all about customer friendliness, more than I figured was needed. Problem with your product? No problem, here's a new one. It didn't arrive? No we don't need verification, you just get a new one. Problem with your software? Oh you're running windows on a mac but still want to use the mac version of our software? No problem, we'll just rewrite part of the program so it'll work just for you.
But, we had like a 98% satisfaction rate, so in the end I guess it was worth it.
Edit; My point being; Helpdesks can be useful, it depends on company policy. Since it's clear from *every* action that EA doesn't give two flying shits about their customers, I'm not surprised their service is crap. Smaller companies are usually better, since they're still actively trying to keep/acquire customers.
@Drugar: I don't want to be trated like a customer. I want to be treated like a human being. And you did a good job there. Mutual understanding and respect are very important, especially in work-related relationships.
Comments
I'm in a Vampire the Masquerade game at the moment, online. We post once per day, maybe two so it's not amazingly fast (except for the evenings where we all happen to be online at the same time) but when I check, I have to read up on old posts, imagine it all going on, think of what I'm going to do and then write it down in a somewhat eloquent fashion. Or I could alt-tab and look at cats or games or boobs or whatever, telling myself "I'll post later". The latter is much less work and when the game isn't particularly interesting at that moment (and no game always is), it's also more fun.
Online commitments everywhere, except maybe work-related conference calls, are always treated as less-serious than real life. Online commitment to play a game with friends easily take a backseat to RL things. Friends stopping by, telephone calls, remembered birthdays, girlfriend/boyfriend time, it's all more important than sitting at a keyboard typing letters for some other people over the internet.
A RL D&D game has you look those people in the eye while you explain why you haven't updated your character sheet. You see their annoyed looks and hear their scorn as you make them wait for even only 15 minutes while you add your d8hp and extra spell level. That's sufficient motivation for most people to show up and have stuff prepped.
Online, it's just some text that says you missed something, it doesn't have the same impact.
Also, a lot of the time (in my experience when I still lived at home and my game-mates also did), family doesn't give a shit about your online stuff. If you have friends over, your mother/father might not make you come downstairs and clean stuff up/do groceries/see grandma until they leave, but "I'm in an online engagement at the moment" has never gotten a parent off anyone's back.
It's a lot easier to read like this!
As for the online thing, I don't think people on the internet are actually accepted as real people on a subconscious level. It's a very odd, and very sad phenomenon, which also poisons most forums and other online communities. It's (one of) the reason(s) I quit MMO's: everyone has this knee-jerk reaction that when they see an opportunity for a sarcastic insult, it has to be taken. It's also really strange to me, yet pleasant, that for some reason BG communities do not seem to suffer so much under this effect, as I remarked before.
Also, the "I'm in an online engagement at the moment" is so true. Explaining that you can't do X / go to Y because you have to raid is one of the most hopeless tasks ever.
And even if age does not always bring maturity, it does bring a tendency to behave yourself and act as if you're a mature adult.
An example:
You work in a team. You are supposed to collaborate with your colleagues and help the team reach its goals. Lets say you work on a project with your co-workers. You are doing your job just fine and the team is progressing and completing its goals. Lets say that he members of this team go out together for a drink or for a party but you don't want to go to party at all, so you skip. Their response is like "Why are you parting from the team?" and they take it as an insult. How ignorant is that? What they miss it that when they are partying, they are not ""the team". They may be the same people, but they are not the same team. Working with them doesn't mean that you should party with them. They don't understand that and think you are not normal because they are majority. The same could be said about diagnosing people psychologically(when their "sickness" has nothing to do with physiological factors like changes in the prefrontal cortex, just to name one). If you feel fine, then don't take every opinion or even diagnosis too seriously. Instead, try to find more opinions.
BTW: 'Dutch people are awesome', wasn't the statement meant to be a joke in itself? I took it that way. It seems very strange to say one people is more awesome than another, like they're an actual entity you could put a qualitive measure on as in being better or worse. 'Dutch people' is just a collection of 17 million individuals with as much differences as things in common.
Helpdesks are supposed to help. Which involves reading what I'm telling them.
Likewise I'm happy enough buying food from shops that didn't grow the vegetables or milk the cows themselves.
In the end, it'll lead to greater sales numbers, which is only good, despite using an unsavory platform (I say, while having 87 games on Steam).
Let's hope the Achievement munchers stay on Steam. The forum was stable enough to withstand the massive backlash when the game was released ("The game won't boot up, fuck this, gimme my money back you hacks!" x300), it can handle some Steamers.
On topic:
Fuck trains and fuck snow, took me almost two hours to get home yesterday while crammed like a sardine in the train with a thousand other people for a 20 minute ride, this morning cost me more than an hour.
Problem with your product? No problem, here's a new one. It didn't arrive? No we don't need verification, you just get a new one. Problem with your software? Oh you're running windows on a mac but still want to use the mac version of our software? No problem, we'll just rewrite part of the program so it'll work just for you.
But, we had like a 98% satisfaction rate, so in the end I guess it was worth it.
Edit;
My point being; Helpdesks can be useful, it depends on company policy. Since it's clear from *every* action that EA doesn't give two flying shits about their customers, I'm not surprised their service is crap. Smaller companies are usually better, since they're still actively trying to keep/acquire customers.