Mood: Friday Calm.
Music: Pulling Mussels (From the Shell), Squeeze
Game: World of Warcraft, Planetside, Call of Duty, Auto Assault Beta, Gunzonline Beta.
Book: None.
Muffin: None.
Punchline: None.
I've been playing online games with a bunch of guys for years now. Some names come and go, but by and large, it's the same core. The fellas at ijsmp are my online game buddies of choice. Along those lines, many of us have become pretty close friends, in spite of living in other states.
Recently, I suggested that we all play Planetside again. We'd tried it a few years ago, and it held our attention awhile, but other games called, and we bailed from it, some sooner than others. Because passion for World of Warcraft has been waning, Call of Duty is getting old, and there really isn't anything on the horizon for a few months, I realized that the majority of guys in ijsmp hadn't given Planetside a chance the last time around, and I thought they might like it.
Truthfully, most of 'em do. It's a pretty easy game to pick up, and it plays on our love of RPGs/character building and FPSs.
Last night, Firethorn, the "leader" of ijsmp gave Planetside a swing again, and after a little while, relatively unceremoniously quit the game, and bailed to another vent channel without saying much.
I put the word "leader" in quotes, because while most of us would say with little hesitation that he's pretty much the glue that holds most of us together, if you asked him, he'd say that he's no more leader than any of us. We all have our roles and foibles...but he (along with Smitty) pays for our servers, maintains the boards and such, and pretty much acts the diplomat when tempers flare.
Now, we all have our patience levels with games. I'm not unknown for saying "OK, fuck this. Break time" when I'm getting fucking owned, or when things aren't going well. Most of us do that at one point or another...and some do it more often than others.
Firethorn only picked up Planetside hesitantly, because he has bad memories of it. But I talked him into it, I think, and Smitty and Jeho and Andy and NeeHah all seemed to be enjoying it...so he picked it up.
Last night, he did his training (which pretty much sucks...) got into his plane, flew to where we were, and died within 15 seconds. Whereupon he quit the game, and, as I suspected according to his blog, quit the game permanently. He's not gonna come back to this game.
Now, yet more background on all this. The gang was cave crawling at the moment, mainly because I've been trying to advance something or other that can only be done in the caves. None of them really wanted to be there, but they were being supportive...and we were getting crushed. Not a fun scenario. This is the scenario that Thorn flew into.
Instead of giving Planetside another fair shake, he bailed on it entirely...as is his prerogative. Lately, Thorn hasn't been much for gaming online with us...and that's not all that unusual for any of us. We go through ebbs and flows as life takes more and less of our time. Now, the six of us who are playing, and for the most part, really enjoying it, are going to be playing without Thorn for now.
I feel badly, because if we had stayed where we were before we entered the caves, we were on the offensive, coordinating, and having fun. But because we all recently switched from one side to another, and are all making new characters, I wanted to get an ability back that I'd had on my old character, and that I had worked hard to acquire the first time.
On a side note, Smitty's been completely supportive of stuff I've been trying to do in particular...both here and in World of Warcraft. He and I have had some rough patches in the past, usually stupid misunderstandings that I undoubtedly created, so I'm particularly appreciative that he's being as supportive as he has been.
Anyway, Thorn says in his blog that he thinks it's exactly the same game he quit years ago, and it's no better or different. It's all exactly the same. Which isn't technically true. But of course, if he's not into playing it, he's not going to play it. He also said he didn't give it a fair shake exactly, but first impressions are first impressions, and for most of us, they're pretty accurate about how we feel about a game.
With Thorn not playing, I can pretty much guarantee that the rest of us are not going to be playing Planetside for a long time. Which is too bad...I honestly think that he'd enjoy it if he'd give it a chance when we weren't doing something stupid like trying to break a continent. It's just been the trend. If Thorn and Jeho aren't playing, most other people won't. And if Thorn isn't, eventually Jeho will walk away...not for any reason other than Jeho is traditionally our duration-setter. When Jeho leaves a game, we're already looking for other games.
I'll probably ask Thorn to give it another try, but I suspect it's pretty much a no chance kind of thing.
Unfortunate, because it's been a while since Firethorn was really in the thick of playing with the rest of us...when he's around, most of us stick around longer, play longer, and have a really good time. It isn't to say that we don't have a great time without him, we do. But when you have a bunch of guys that do something together for a long time, when one of them just isn't around as much, there's always something missing. He just isn't feeling the games we're playing right now.
Maybe I'll try to get folks back into playing some World of Warcraft...I think we could probably have a good time with the reduced group of us that are still playing. I'll keep at Planetside, and maybe folks will stick around some more.
What we really need is a new game that we all want to play....
Eh...Summer's always a slow period for online gaming. September will come with the pre-Christmas releases, then the Christmas releases, and we'll all be strapped in and gunning again. Maybe I'll get out to Wisconsin (where most of the guys live) and we'll have a barbecue, and generally cause offline mayhem to match the online mayhem.
And because I know most of the guys mentioned here read this blog, I should mention here that I wrote this as I usually do: with no thought as to who reads this. It's my blog, fuckers. It's what I do.
Posted by Glenn at July 22, 2005 11:20 AMYou didn't mention me there, Spartacus...
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