How Often Do You Play Ns?
TheChuckster
Join Date: 2003-09-20 Member: 21056Members
Join Date: 2003-09-20 Member: 21056Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">Obsessed.</div> I've got to commend Flayra for creating such an addictive game. How often do you guys play NS? Me? I find myself playing for hours on end if possible. Because rounds are so long, I can play a lot longer than other games such as Counter-strike or Warcraft III. And the other thing -- it's the most fun game I have EVER played. Considering that you are playing online against real people rather than AI or your little siblings who can't aim to save their lives, it is a lot more of a challenge, too.
Until recently, I haven't had much of a problem with playing NS. Until now. Unfortunately, my parents are angered by my "obsession" over it. They believe I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. They know what OCD is because of a relative that has it. But he does activities such as washing his hands until they bleed, not sit around and play NS. Other people watch TV or play sports just as much as I play Natural Selection, but that's "normal".
One day I put off eating lunch an hour (I woke up at 10:30 AM and just ate breakfast). <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> What an exaggeration... They say I gave up eating for it (WTH?), going to the bathroom (Oh yeah, I'll just sit and let my bladder explode</sarcasm>), studying (No wonder I have straight As), and friends (as if I had any to start with). And sure NS is fun and it's what I do in my spare time, but I haven't given up necessary tasks for living. What's next? Breathing?! Well, I imagine I won't be playing any more NS for a long time with the new rules that have been made.
Like I said, I play NS as much as I can now. Of course, it's not the only thing I do. I earn straight As in school, run 3 miles every other day (but I have to get nagged a lot because who wants to burn themselves out in 3 inches of snow?), and I do other online activities. The problem is, surfing the web has grown dull because of the lack of websites. Type Gamecube or Super Mario 3 into Google, for example. What do you see? Not the horde of fan sites that you'd expect 2 years ago before the economy died. Now you see Amazon.com shopping sites, gaming sites with expensive subscription fees, and maybe a review. If you continue to look through the results, you find more of the same along with the occasional dead fan site. Clicking cache reminds you just how wonderful the web once was sans the images or the other pages, which never seem to be cached. IRC is also pretty addicting because I can meet other programmers, but half of the people are always away or idling.
I used to program 3d games in my spare time, but without people to help with the artwork, they end up looking like trash. Also, I made the mistake of writing an Operating System. That went well up until the point of handling interrupts. My interrupt descriptor table would cause the computer to panic once the ISR was called! At least I had a memory manager, display driver, keyboard driver, and partially written floppy driver. But I could not get help. There were only 2 good books written on the subject of OS development. The one I bought was all theory! Also, the OS development message board users were stumped! I tried the web too, but it seems Microsoft bought off all of the good OS programmers and prevented them from publishing any useful information. Last, the Linux source code is just too confusing with symbols, types, and functions being defined who knows where in the million line mess of header files. So, that was it for programming and I am at an all time low for motivation as far as that's concerned. My parents did not care that I was winning contests with my programs either. Of course now they're mad that I'm not even doing that.
The other thing I do is run, of course. The problem is, I'm not fond of running in sub-freezing temperatures in three inches of snow. Who is besides that die hard runner who comes in first every race? Maybe when track season starts and my school day lasts 12 hours again, my parents will respect the fact that I have no time at all for NS, let alone homework.
You see, they want me to socialize. But I'm not a social person. People ask me, "What's up?" or "wasssssup n2m u?" in their immature AIM slang. If I answered honestly and said "Just working on a PHP content management system..." or "Playing Natural Selection..." they wouldn't know what I was talking about. It's just too far above the average middle schooler's brain. And don't even get started with girlfriends even though I am not ugly at all (no glasses, normal height, face in correct proportions <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->), I am "the smart, NICE guy" -- a curse without a doubt. Also, I may sound arrogant but you have to realize that I speak words of the truth.
All I want to know is, am I alone? Are there other people that play NS just as much as I do? And do they suffer the same or similar problems I am?
Until recently, I haven't had much of a problem with playing NS. Until now. Unfortunately, my parents are angered by my "obsession" over it. They believe I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. They know what OCD is because of a relative that has it. But he does activities such as washing his hands until they bleed, not sit around and play NS. Other people watch TV or play sports just as much as I play Natural Selection, but that's "normal".
One day I put off eating lunch an hour (I woke up at 10:30 AM and just ate breakfast). <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> What an exaggeration... They say I gave up eating for it (WTH?), going to the bathroom (Oh yeah, I'll just sit and let my bladder explode</sarcasm>), studying (No wonder I have straight As), and friends (as if I had any to start with). And sure NS is fun and it's what I do in my spare time, but I haven't given up necessary tasks for living. What's next? Breathing?! Well, I imagine I won't be playing any more NS for a long time with the new rules that have been made.
Like I said, I play NS as much as I can now. Of course, it's not the only thing I do. I earn straight As in school, run 3 miles every other day (but I have to get nagged a lot because who wants to burn themselves out in 3 inches of snow?), and I do other online activities. The problem is, surfing the web has grown dull because of the lack of websites. Type Gamecube or Super Mario 3 into Google, for example. What do you see? Not the horde of fan sites that you'd expect 2 years ago before the economy died. Now you see Amazon.com shopping sites, gaming sites with expensive subscription fees, and maybe a review. If you continue to look through the results, you find more of the same along with the occasional dead fan site. Clicking cache reminds you just how wonderful the web once was sans the images or the other pages, which never seem to be cached. IRC is also pretty addicting because I can meet other programmers, but half of the people are always away or idling.
I used to program 3d games in my spare time, but without people to help with the artwork, they end up looking like trash. Also, I made the mistake of writing an Operating System. That went well up until the point of handling interrupts. My interrupt descriptor table would cause the computer to panic once the ISR was called! At least I had a memory manager, display driver, keyboard driver, and partially written floppy driver. But I could not get help. There were only 2 good books written on the subject of OS development. The one I bought was all theory! Also, the OS development message board users were stumped! I tried the web too, but it seems Microsoft bought off all of the good OS programmers and prevented them from publishing any useful information. Last, the Linux source code is just too confusing with symbols, types, and functions being defined who knows where in the million line mess of header files. So, that was it for programming and I am at an all time low for motivation as far as that's concerned. My parents did not care that I was winning contests with my programs either. Of course now they're mad that I'm not even doing that.
The other thing I do is run, of course. The problem is, I'm not fond of running in sub-freezing temperatures in three inches of snow. Who is besides that die hard runner who comes in first every race? Maybe when track season starts and my school day lasts 12 hours again, my parents will respect the fact that I have no time at all for NS, let alone homework.
You see, they want me to socialize. But I'm not a social person. People ask me, "What's up?" or "wasssssup n2m u?" in their immature AIM slang. If I answered honestly and said "Just working on a PHP content management system..." or "Playing Natural Selection..." they wouldn't know what I was talking about. It's just too far above the average middle schooler's brain. And don't even get started with girlfriends even though I am not ugly at all (no glasses, normal height, face in correct proportions <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->), I am "the smart, NICE guy" -- a curse without a doubt. Also, I may sound arrogant but you have to realize that I speak words of the truth.
All I want to know is, am I alone? Are there other people that play NS just as much as I do? And do they suffer the same or similar problems I am?
Comments
I still PT 3.0 a little bit, and I'll probably be back once it's finalized.
Have you tried talking to your parents and explaining to them what you are feeling? My parents told me that if i joined a sports team I would be able to use the computer again. They lied. I joined the crew team and I am still not allowed to use the computer. I feel for you.
Hope you get your problems solved.
First two weeks of winter and summer vacations are strictly to playing NS (mostly NS, but I do play some other games also), organizing the computer, etc. The rest of the 4 weeks are dedicated to finishing the freaking books which I have to read (I kinda hate English or any other school subject which does not involve numbers).
Now, forums is when I'm using the computer. Even when doing homework I check in the forum once in a while.
Keep up with your coding! This will be very useful when you try to go to college, and will prepare you for school. I would recommend trying to set up a database at some point of your life (like high school) and maintaining it throughout your career there. Microsoft LOVES to sell their product to schools, and usually give a "first hit is free" for fledgeling developers (then make you buy the upgrade 2 years later, stuff like that). Try to talk your teachers into something like that later on, but for now, you're screwed.
Stay in shape, keep doing well in school (don't let gaming interrupt your study times! Make sure you always leave time for that), and make the occasional attempts at finding friends at school. It got easier in Middle school because I wasn't with the same people every day and met more people who thought like me, enjoyed what I did, etc. In High School, clubs will help this even more, but for me, Middle School was just a nebula of boredom.
You can also use a "running machine" if you want to run indoor <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I can remember going on hiatus at the beginning of this year (2003) for a few months. Over the summer, I got back into the community, found me a leet new server, and played in moderation. I haven't looked back since :]
My recommendation is to try to moderate yourself - at the rate you seem to be going at, it won't be very long before you won't enjoy playing anymore at all.
Happy gaming.
But it tends to get boring after 2 hours.
In 2 days I play 1 or 2 games :\
Thats why when she leaves the house I go crazy and play the when shes gone. And I cant concentrate on my homwork if i know shes leave because of the participation of playing(it takes my mom lik 4hours to get ready, so I know shes leaving 4hours before she does).
Unfortunately I don?t get straight As in school. Its not that I?m not smart, I just don?t excel in the way school is structured. So that?s what my mom always yells at me about, my grades, and then she blames it on the computer and video games.
yeah...anyway...I'm pretty **** up
last year I was <i>litterally</i> playing solid all day, actually ..that was a pretty dark time looking back.
nowadays I dont play, ever.
between working all the time and 33bps (curse you BT internet!) I couldnt get a decent game if I tried.
hopefully I can reconnect to the world I prefer on the 12th when my Broadband lands.
till then, its cold hard reality for me.
*edit* oops, i meant bps <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->.. or.. whatever..
I dont play everyday though,maybe everyother day lol.
On weekends we play a lot.
Bewteen NS days im playing DoD or Sven Coop.
Ill probably start up again with 3.0 and see how that is but until then Im kinda going through with one of those "Im bored with ALL my games temporarily periods".
I beat all my single player games 2x on the harder difficulties and now im bored. Im waiting for HL2 or Doom 3 lol Then my life will dissapear all together. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
but...
Cant wait for NS 3.0 <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
bauds != bytes != bits
add: I play.. A LOT. Especially during vacation. But I also vary my games. I've been playing PoP (who didn't, GET IT) a bit of rpg'ing but mostly NS
You are not alone.
I too had the same problem of parent's who were never satisfied and looked at video games as an excuse.
You have to come down level with your parents:
- Tell them you like games, like you would like a sport or any other hobby.
- Tell them that restricting you from your game in absurd rules would only lead to depression, general unhappiness.
- Ask your parents to accept/love you for who you are.
- Point to your grades in school, you are physically fit, why can't you play a stinking game.
But really, the problem lies within the fact that they cannot accept you doing something outside of societies norm. I suggest you do some research on sociology (google it) and learn what happens to individuals who break away from the norm.
You basically have an uphill battle to play games till you get out of your house, try to be smart in how you work about it. Try to get your parents to understand.
It's not easy, but your individual happiness is always more important.
One word of caution, don't actually try to use force with your parents if at all possible, it only complicates the process, try to work with them or just outsmart them.
but one thing thou is i play ns A LOT back in the day but now im basically on irc a LOT more tryign to hang with pals (shoutout Nexxus and ArcticJoe) and sometimes scrimming w/ Forlorn
i play a total of like 3 hour days on vacation and like 20 hours on irc lol
as for cs, ugh, it's "quit one game, start another..."
cuz i'm a freak like that.
Yeah... one of the reason's I haven't played lately is because of Sven Co-op 3.0, it ruins NS so you can't play, I'm re-downloading the 2.01 Steam installer.
Oh and... LUNIXMONSTER FOREVER!
Sometimes i fire up the game stare at the readyroom for a minute and think **** it.
Then i log off, fire up irc and annoy esuna. <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo-->
Sometimes i fire up the game stare at the readyroom for a minute and think **** it.
Then i log off, fire up irc and annoy esuna. <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So so so true. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
But in the last week or two i've taken a break. Mainly because i've been doing other Real Life? things, and i probably won't be playing regulaly until after January 16th (My final deadline for this semester's uni work). But i guess after then i'll be back to my old habit of playing about 2 hours each and every day.
Usually i dislike going a long time not playing NS, purely since before if i missed playing for a day or two, i would instantly lose whatever skill i might have. Thankfully, this trend seems to be disappearing a bit. As i've mentioned i've not played in a week or two, but i had one game yesterday and totally tore it up as a skulk. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
*EDIT: Dirty Birdy! Stop stalking me! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->