Online Gaming Update

Last night, Boneman8 (known around here as Anonymous) and I played some Resistance: Fall of Man on a private map, so that he, the online First Person Shooter virgin, could experience it in a less chaotic and frustrating environment than what would've greeted him if he'd simply joined a regular game. We just did the one map, but we killed over an hour at it, with him learning some of the weapons, and the map, and discovering that when you see a grenade symbol show up on your screen.. run like Hell! We had a lot of fun, and he got appreciably better just over that short period.

Tonight, we met up again, and this time yet another co-worker, codename Snowman23, was online playing so I invited him, too. We explained the idea to Snowman: just a little goofing around to give Boneman a chance to get used to the different maps, weapons, and so on. Snowman was a great addition, as with three of us on the map there was always the chance that while you have someone dead in your sights.. someone else has you lined up in theirs! We played three more maps tonight, and for the first time I realized that the game expands or contracts each map, depending on how many players you set the game up for. I'd never seen these maps so tightly constricted until tonight... which of course makes sense, as 2 or 3 people running around those huge maps I'm used to, trying to even find each other, would be pretty boring. Once again, I saw improvement in Boneman through the hour and a half or so that we were playing (Snowman is a more seasoned veteran, and was getting the better of me quite often). I obviously took it easy on Boneman, as what fun would it be for him if I just killed him every time I saw him? I've no doubt that he'll soon progress to the point where the playing field's more level, and then I can notch it back up to normal.

The funny thing is, I'd hoped to send an e-mail out at work today, asking if anyone wanted to be involved in a Resistance night sometime in the next couple weeks. I know of at least two other people who have the game - besides the three of us who played tonight - so that seemed like it had some potential. But as luck would have it, today was a complete write-off, with the Iteration planning session running long (right through lunch) and a company all-hands meeting right after the planning was finished. Thus no such e-mail came from me at any point. In fact, now that I think about it, I didn't even get a blog entry posted at work today!!

In other R:FoM news, I recently got promoted to Captain (1 pip so far). Captain Kimota94 sounds so good that I'm almost hoping that maybe I've reached my glass ceiling, but on the other hand I'm really enjoying the challenge of improving every week, so I guess I still want more advancement!