Multiplayer

I have been a gamer since the age of 4, playing Donald Duck's Playground on my dads Commodore 64, but it wasn't until getting my hands on Warlords and playing it multiplayer with my cousin, that I turned into a real computer geek. Why? Because multiplayer makes gaming social and I love socializing!

This thursday I got to add multiplayer to the baby experience as I attended my first mothers group. My little daughter got to meet 4 other babies between the age of 5 and 6 months.

It was awesome hanging with people in the same situation as yourself and because my daughter is only 4 and a half months old it was really interesting seeing the slightly older babies and what they were able to do.

It felt like when you as a complete noob joins a guild full of highlevel players. You get a glimpse into the future and you get to benefit from their experience and advice.

My daughter seemed  to mainly enjoy the experience although she did have a slight meltdown towards the end of the gettogether. In the long run I think she will benefit hugely from watching the other babies in action and I know I thoroughly enjoy discussion strategies with the rest of the "players".

ROFL

It used to bug me to no end when gaming that some people would abuse the LOL, ROFL, ROFLMAO terms. 

I would be on Ventrillo with my guildies and there would be dead silence or someone would be explaining tactics, meanwhile ingame one of the guys would be goofing around on his character prompting at least a couple of ROFLs and a good deal of LOLs in the chat... 

Liars! I can hear you on vent (actually no I can't thats the point!). So unless you have push to talk on and forgot to press it you are not making a peep!

The whole notion of rolling on the floor laughing is quite ridicolous. Who does that? I have always thought that rolling on the floor from laughter was only something that happens in cartoons, well I was wrong!

Yesterday my daughter laughed for the first time. She has been flashing me cute little smiles for some time now and lately her smiles has grown so big that her entire face is transformed into a baby version of PacMan. There has, however, been no laughing sound even though it has been clear that she has been trying to produce laughter.

That was until yesterday. We were playing on the floor and she was in a really good mood making contend and happy noises. She was looking around the room, but not directly at me so I took a piece of fabric and held it up between us, hiding my face, then right in front of her I dropped the fabric and heard the sweetest sound in the world. My baby's belly laughter.

It didn't last long, as she then proceeded to practice her rolling over moves which still takes all her concentration, but it was amazing while it lasted and I can't wait to hear her laugh again and again.

So yeah, yesterday my baby was ROFL'ing on the floor and I was LOL'ing next to her.

Accomplishments

My previous posts have been a lot about frustrations, so this one will center on the positives. Why we raid, why we play challenging video games, why we have babies.

In the autumn of last year I bought the re-release of Baldurs Gate. Since then I have spent many hours reloading save games to do the same  fight over and over again. Why? Because BG is really, really hard. It is one of those unforgiving oldschool games from before the instant gratification generation of gamers. You know, one of those games where you actually feel like you accomplished something when you completed it. Where you celebrated winning the game and bragged to your fellow gamer friends about it, because it was an accomplishment and not a given that you got to the end of the game.

In short, we play these games because when we beat them, it feels amazing!

And it is all about the reverse of instant gratification with babies as well. You spend weeks, sometimes months changing them, soothing them, blabbering at them, cooing at them, smiling at them and get NOTHING in return. But you don't give up, you "reload" every morning and start over. Adjusting your tactics based on the previous experience and you try again. And then suddenly, after an uncountable amount of tries and "wipes" you get that flashing toothless smile one morning while changing your baby.

And that... that is why you have babies.

Showing off my Legendary

Created with wowitemcreator

I have recently completed a roundtrip to show off my baby girl to the whole family and I was reminded of when my guild got the Warglaive set back in TBC. After a huge celebration on Ventrillo, we all rushed to Shattrath where we stood around showing off what we as a guild had accomplished. Many people passed us and uuhh'ed and aaah'ed while admiring the legendary weapon set.

It was a similar experience to introduce my daughter to my friends and family. Rarely have I received so much attention without the attention being on me. Everyone wanted to see the baby in action. To test her out and to hold her.
There was the same sense of pride and the same feeling of unity (albeit of course on an even bigger scale).
In my WoW guild we told the story of how we finally got our Warglaives over and over again and the same was true for the story about the birth of my daughter.

I even sensed slight envy from other people (especially women) who are in the right age to be able to "equip" a baby. Just like you got when you were the one carrying a legendary item.

It has been awesome showing off my little Legendary, but unlike the Warglaives she would be amazing even without the admiration of others.

Writing this made me think. When a baby enters a family it is like looting a Legendary, but bringing her up is like integrating a newbie into the guild. Maybe I will write a post about that in the future.

Boss Fights

Imagine a boss fight where the strategy changes every attempt. Where everything is random. One try "don't stand in the fire", the next attempt you die if you don't. A fight without any logic to it. Wearing shadow resist gear against a boss that does shadow damage, may sound logical, but here it may help, it may hurt and it may do nothing at all. Oh and that will also change every time you try the boss.

Does that sound like a fun encounter? Hardly. The basics of great game design is that it is challenging, but that you with practice can get better and better and up the chance of beating the boss.

Sometimes comforting a crying baby feels like a boss encounters as described above. Just as you think you have found a surefire way to get your little munchkin smiling, it fails horribly and instead turns a slight wimpering into fullblown hysterics.

I thought I had the magic solution trinity down. Feed, Change or Carry. But now that my baby girl is almost 3 months old she seem to delight in being inconsolable at times and to make matters worse she is giving off completely deceiving clues.

Sometimes she will be making sucking noises, but go completely hysterical if you try to feed her. Other times her eyes will be so small she can hardly see out of them, but she still insists in keeping herself awake. The fact that she is colic and that her stomach pains gets worse in the evening does not help.

As you will probably know wiping over and over on a boss can be very taxing and you start looking for help anywhere you can get it.

If someone comes to you and says that in their old guild, they were using a tactic that never failed, you will be very likely to jump on it.
That is why when a doctor told me that she would prescribe some drops for my little girl that could sort out the issue, I happily accepted.

The only problem with those kind of miracle solution is that they rarely work.
The reason they never wiped in the old guild was not because of the tactic, but rather because they were overgeared for the encounter. And the reason other babies stop fussing when using the drops is because.... well I don't know, but they did not work for my baby girl, so it is back to the old tactics and to just keep going until I succeed in soothing her. There has better be some epic loot when I finally have this bossfight on farm!