Monday, May 05, 2014

We Are Legion

One of the big announcements from EVE Fanfest was that DUST514 was being ported and rebuilt and rebranded as Project Legion of the PC.

So time for a bit of history with Bill and because this is my blog, you have to read it. Or, I suppose you could leave, but your loss if you do.

Back when I was in university, Doom and Doom 2 were the big hits around the dorm. I played that game obsessively, even having nightmares about it, I was that enthralled. However, as much as I enjoyed the game, I was not a brilliant player. I inched my way through using tricks, caution, and lots of reloads from save files.

Hand eye coordination was never my thing.

We eventually lugged our PCs into one person's room and connected them with serial cables (it was like the Dark Ages, people!) and managed to get multiple players in a deathmatch, I found myself struggling. The next year when Quake came out and multiplayer was THE way to play, I found myself acting as cannon fodder for the other players. Embarrassed I told them and myself the lie that "twitch" games were not my thing and I only liked to play slow turned based games, and proceeded for the next 15 years to pretend that there was no such thing as a first person shooter genre.

The lies we tell ourselves can be reinforced over time, or chipped away. The myth I built around myself that I was clumsy and uncoordinated was reinforced at first but I as grew older and matured I started to break it down and discovered through sports like tennis and Jiujitsu that while I may not have an inclination for physical abilities, with practice I could overcome my innate inability and actually become proficient at these types of things.

EVE, of all things, was the penultimate blow that nearly broke that lie I had built up from that initial failure in Doom many years ago. By playing EVE and deciding on a PvP lifestyle, I found that despite near crippling panic and eye to mouse coordination I could be a passable PvP player in EVE.

About two years ago my friends at work started playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare during lunch breaks. I was encouraged to join in but I declined at first, old denials about being terrible at First Person Shooters coming to the fore out of reflex. But I had grown a lot in the decade and a bit prior and the peer pressure was significant... so I joined in. And yeah, I was bad. VERY BAD. I decided on a screen name of TerriBill I was so bad.

But as bad as I was, I loved it. I loved it so much I started playing online with strangers, another huge hurdle for different reasons we won't go into today. And there against players who lived and breathed first person shooters I was even worse! Hilariously worse! But I was able to laugh at myself and keep at it and slowly but surely I got better.

Last year at work the group upgraded to CoD: MW2 and then MW3. I played online with MW3 and continued to improve to the point where in most matches I'm solidly in the middle of the pack in terms of kills and in a few matches even near the top. And at work, I an no longer TerriBill as I have one of the best Kill/Death ratios when playing with those noobs. ;-)

All of this was to say that I was very disappointed when I found out DUST 514 was Playstation 3 only back when it was coming out. I wanted to give it a try but lacked the funds to drop on a PS3 with no other compelling reasons to do so. When I heard about Project Legion that was bringing DUST to PC I was ecstatic. I'm so looking forward to being bad at a new FPS game and slowly getting better.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the "One Universe" approach that CCP is copying from Wargaming.net.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:05 am

    I am happy to hear this, now I can actually use that Dust code from the Collector's Edition!

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  2. Funny story : did the serial cable thing myself at university. Ran it under the door into the next room to play Doom. It took my housemate a few months to realise I was turning off my sound and triangulating his locations by listening to the shot sounds from his PC coming through the wall.

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  3. Hmmm... I actually feel kinda bad reading your post. I started playing Doom in the 2nd week it was released... A friend got me a set of disks and he and I spent a few weeks PBP... playing-by-phone. He was on his phone, I on mine while we both player single player and kinda talked each other through stuff... then he called one night screaming that we could KILL each other IN THE GAME... what? Modem connect. Hmm...

    Not too many months later a bunch of us were at my work death matching with what was then the max possible, 16 players. It WAS AWESOME! and my bro and I were top killers. Hence the bad feelings... =]

    (I was a 2nd shift IT tech rep and my Director was OK with us setting up a Doom server over the Co. internal FDDI LAN (!!!) during 3rd shift... we just had to agree to get off the game and take calls if the call count went over the 3rd shift staff... no problem!)

    So I was Hooked and hooked bad. TurAmarth was born in Doom. Tur is the Sindarin (LotR Elvish) honorific for Master/teacher and Amarth is the Sindarin word for Doom... put em together and you had me! LOL

    Anyway... I was a FPS player ONLY even after MUDs and MMOs came out. The opposite of you, I tried MUDs and MMOs and was BORED to tears... chat? text? HOURS of traveling from here to there??? Oh please! and TBH (as much as my name is Elvish) I don't wanna BE and elf much less watch them run all over the place nor do I want to wield magic, unless you consider lasers and missile 'magic'.

    Ima SciFi guy, have been all my life, LotR is the ONLY fantasy I have any love for so... I was bored in the vast majority of MMOs and the SciFi ones plus I am a PC guy, I own several consoles (not a PS) but I HATE with a passion console game controllers... Hate them with a red hot hate because you can't DO all the things you can on a PC. The console and it's controllers are, to me, incredibly limited.

    So nothing outside of PC FPSes ever really "grabbed" me... until EVE. I was as deeply hooked on EVE in 15 minutes as I was on Doom all those years ago... and the idea that I could "Doom" in "EVE"... OMFG!!! And just like you, PS3!?!?! oh well... so much for that idea I said...

    Until this past weekend! I CANNOT WAIT for D:Legion!!! AND as they are taking about us being able to be the one Toon, IE TurAamarth, and having Tur be my toon in ALL three!!! Oh hells yes!! I may have to raid the kids college fund for an Oculus Rift now! LOL

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  4. I don't think any "true" nerd doesn't have some kind of story about hijacking their work's network to play Doom back in the heady days of IPX.

    As for DUST porting to PC, I think people will find it is a rather uninspiring fps the same way console players do/did. Maybe player numbers will bump a little as Eve players might be afk and alt-tabbed out playing dust instead of WOT.

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  5. Anonymous9:11 am

    I remember those heady days of playing Quake and Doom in the campus computer lab in the middle of the night. I like FPS games even though I'm not very good at them either. I was really bummed when Dust was announced as a PS3 exclusive. I haven't owned a console for years, I just can't get the same mileage out of those types of games as I get with PC games. The Legion announcement was great news. Another way to be part of the Eve universe? Yes, please!

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  6. You'll be seeing me around more often when this gets released, I haven't played an FPS for a number of years, but I used to play them quite a lot. Yea, I did the serial cable thing, too. About 12 of us lugged our huge monitors and towers into my friend's house when his parents were away one weekend, that was a good time. I hope the other Aideron folks play.

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