But I Digress... Quake 3

I haven't posted anything for a while (I've been very busy doing a lot of work for very little pay), so I feel a little sheepish about this post, which has little to do with pen and paper roleplaying games.  Still, I like talking about video games, especially from a roleplayer's perspective, because the attitude and approach are completely alien to what an RPG should be.  Granted, there are video games called RPGs, but that title is only an approximation rather than an accurate descriptor.

But this post doesn't even deal with that.  It deals with first-person shooter video games - specifically, Quake 3.

About 15 years ago (was it really that long ago? How old I feel!), a friend of mine, right out of high school, got a job working as a techie for a high school computer lab.  On the weekends, he'd use his door key and let us in, where we would play Quake 2 on a LAN line.  There were from four to seven of us, and even though I was never really that good, I had a great time.  We talked trash across the room and generally yelled and made a ruckus in the high school after hours.

Online, I don't get that kind of fun and excitement.  I never really played video games for the game itself.  I always enjoyed the comraderie and party atmosphere.  I bought a Nintendo 64, and later a Game Cube, back in the day because their group games were fun and fantastic.  But those days are gone, and every game system has thrown out (with the exception of the Wii, which I don't like very much) in favor of faceless competition.

That being said, I was looking for a nice little FREE online game to play as a time killer (okay, as a procrastination device), and I found Quake 3, online, for free.  Right now, the game is a beta test, as the providers want to see if an older shooter game can withstand a group connection in a browser game.  So far, it can.  When the beta is finished being tested, I hope they keep the game free.

Anyway, they have a ten minute test game for you to play and find out what your skill level is, so you don't keep playing games against disastrously weaker or overwhelmingly stronger opponents.  I took the test and dominated it, reliving some old fun times.  When I sat down to play the game, though, I had my ass handed to me.

Part of my problem is that I have a terrible sense of direction, even in non-virtual environments (read: real life).  Jumping around a 3D world gets me hopelessly turned around, and I never know who or what is behind me at any given moment.  The other problem I have, and maybe the bigger problem when it comes to playing games like these, is that I am a roleplayer, not a gamer.  I put myself in the role of a military or mercenary figure, working his way around an urban battlefield.  I skulk, sneak, wait, evaluate, act.  That's easy to do against a single opponent in these games (like the skill test I had to take), but in a free-for-all, or even team-based, Quake 3 environment, I'm cannon fodder.

The way characters move around in that game is crazy!  All the jumping, running, moving, ducking, and mostly blind indiscriminate use of firepower overwhelms me.  I can't imagine that there is anything in that style of gameplay that is at all realistic.  That might not seem like a problem, but I wonder about what that says about cognitive strategy.  Are realistic forms of strategy and critical thinking dulled?  Surely some kind of strategy is formed, but like most video games, those strategies are entirely dependent upon the nature of the game rather than any skill set applicable to the outside world.  Even games I enjoy, like the Civilization series, have strategy guides built for maximizing points that do not reflect the way countries and culture actually operate, which is what the game makes a pretense of doing.

As a roleplayer, I can't imagine the world.  There it is, right in front of me, and I have no idea what's going on in it.  Where does this place exist?  Where could it possibly?  Outside the stylized arena, I have no way of putting myself in the world, I don't know why I'm there, and I have little motivation to continue.  And the mentality that developed this game is at work in most contemporary pen and paper games - or the .pdf facsimiles thereof.  What good is a roleplaying game when the rules make sense only within the context of the game itself?  What does it mean, then?  People claim that it is a tool to be used however I see fit, and I can add or remove roleplaying elements as I wish, but I don't ever see groups do that.  They play their games 'right out of the box,' and that idea is encouraged.  You're not supposed to personalize it much, but you can plug in someone else's mod (once used shorthand for 'module' now used as shorthand for 'modification.'  What does that tell you about a game?) and away you go.  The general game is unchanged, except for a few personalized 'elements' that some programmer (read: DM) felt like adding for personal amusement, and most of those mods have nothing to to with story or even the intended style of the game - just sound and fury, signifying nothing.