Yes people have their own likings, and things that they enjoy more than others. For instance, I would consider myself a PC gamer. A semi-casual-regular, who occasionally dabbles in consoles. Mostly X-Box (We've never had a Playstation, cept for the PSP I won once for taking photos of Computer Games Boot Camp as an attendee the first year I went). My main games, as you already know, are EVE Online and Mincraft AT THE MOMENT. That's one of the things I love about gaming. If you get 'over' a particular game or types of game, you can very easily find another one. You can start and stop anytime you want.
But I think my favourite thing about games in general, mostly the multiplayer ones... is the community.
I know some people complain and rant about the stupidness of people in online gaming, but honestly, I find that avoiding such people, and finding peeps that you actually get along with is quite easy. Cept maybe in LoL... HONESTLY.... one of the most shocking player communities anywhere. It's the only game I've ever got bagged out for playing in my first ever match. Go figure.
But anyways, that's not my point. The communities of the majority of MMO's, and other games with multiplayer capability, is the CREATIVENESS of people! Seriously... the creative genius of so many random gamers is amazing, and just so vast in scale.
Anyone who's a gamer knows what I am talking about. Hells, EVE has one of the biggest collection of blogs that I have ever seen. There are stacks and stack of Minecraft skins, texture packs, songs, mods.. all player made! There is art for all sorts of games, plastered on DeviantArt. There's animations, movies, even TV series all based on games- written and made for people who play computer games.
This all occured to me when Vanderie and Fern were sitting with me on comms, and they were talking about a Left for Dead mod (I think it was LFD)... that makes everything look like Minecraft! And this isn't just one way. Minecraft has endless and endless variations crafted from OTHER games. Someone's made Skyrim in Minecraft, another made Cruise Ship Mysteries.
Don't Starve- a game being still developed by the DEVELOPERS, already has fan made characters, animations and content. Before the game is even complete! o.O
Even I, today, was playing a modded version of Torchlight II. It is a mod that adds new pets and skins for them, plus extra customisation options for characters, as well as a few others (the max is 10 mods at any one time) that change and develop the game over and over again in so many different ways. And people MADE these mods. Not the developers or the programmers of the creators of the game. The PLAYERS.
People use the skills they gain in their real lives to make the world of gaming a more interesting and rich place for their gamer companions. One of the most talented I know is a guy by the name of Joe Struck (http://spacejoe.blogspot.com.au/). I've known him since my early days in R1FTER, and he is no less amazing to me now than he was then. Check out some of the sigs he made for me when I joined ThC:
And one I edited myself when I left corp (cause it's the one I still use :P):
By adding these new contents, these mods, and these fun things that become almost god-like to gaming communities, and using them over and over again, we keep alight the enthusiasm and excitement that sometimes gets lost in the serious side of games. This is apparent in EVE Online- and here I'm going to branch into a quick sorta side point (that WILL lead to my point!)
People take EVE Online incredibly seriously. They mourn every loss of a pod, or give [great] tears to whoever can be bothered to listen because they get shot at. There are others who see it as just another game, and laugh and move on when they get podded, or make a mistake that leads to the loss of a ship. Sometimes, despite even myself, I find myself getting swept up in it, seeing negatives in a game that I got into because it seemed like fun! I could FLY A SPACESHIP! And not around some stupid, pixel-y space... around some actually carefully made, legit looking, actual spacescape! You can fly to stars, to planets and even make structures of your own around those planets. You can shoot at other spaceships, and they can shoot back, and you can laugh and talk about it afterwards. Something so simple... you get podded... YOU COME BACK! Yes games are the land of no perma-death, but I mean... how much would it suck if you had to start again, from scratch? Yes sometimes its expensive, but its worth it.
I've been playing this for over a year now, and I STILL feel the excitement, the racing of my heart and the tenseness of my finger on the mouse, just waiting for the command to pounce! The excitement at the shout of 'POINT!', and then the mad dash to shoot at whoever was silly enough to get caught. The satisfaction and smile that comes across your face as you see the pod in your overview, and desperately try and grab it, though already you're pleased. I love this game for that, and still do. And yes, sometimes even me- exuberant, happy-go-lucky Naughty Cargo becomes serious and gets depressed when I make a stupid mistake.
It's at that point, that low, horrible feeling point that I hop onto YouTube, find Future Proof, (an AMAZING fan made video- if you haven't seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJn2i6jJiaU) and sit there for the first part of it, hear that awesome music, meet the fleet, and I'm ready to shoot things again, a big smile on my face and the music dancing through my head. And its euphoric. I'm not Caldari, but its the principle.
Anyways, to my point. This video, this 12 minutes and 7 seconds of awesome was made by someone who plays this game- a gamer just like you and me. How many communities are you part of in your ordinary, working, studying life, where such creativity flows freely and so expansively?
It's something that us as gamers will always have, and this makes me happy. What's a game without its gamers? Lines of code.
To those of you out there who are part of this amazing and spectacular creative force, I say thank you. And don't you dare ever stop making the awesome stuff you do.
AUTHORS NOTE: I make my own fan-made videos with EVE Online trailers + music. Channel link: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMkZc-CwQRKPK3X5qFariLQ :) There's an EVE Online playlist. :)
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