I'm here today to ask your advice on what I should do. Right now I'm semi-playing DMC4, League of Legends and osu! - semi-playing meaning I might play one one day, then get bored and play one of the others, etc. This is all well and good, but I'm not really getting anywhere with this tactic. The lack of full-time playing means I hardly stand a chance of mastering DMC enough to even stand a chance at any of the harder difficulties; League of Legends just goes on and on, and you can't really achieve anything - you just play for the fun, and when that fun starts to run out because you are always solo queued with brainless fucktards, there's not much incentive to play any more; as for osu!, I see it as more of a pseudo-hobby than a game. In my free time I might find a nice map and play a few of the ones I already have, and I find it fun, while it simultaneously opens a gateway for me to a whole new 'culture' of music.
So, what's the problem? Excluding osu!, I'm just not drawn into games enough to enjoy them/ play them long enough to start liking them or even complete them. I remember the good old PS1 days, when I literally funnelled my life into games like Alundra (which I never completed because it was so damn hard, yet SO DAMN LUCRATIVE. I remember printing out 50-page long walkthroughs because I was so determined to get further.) There were games like Front Mission 3 and Final Fantasy 8 which I absolutely loved and enjoyed thoroughly - even when the timer on the FF8 save slot screen went red because it hit 99:99, I kept playing.
But now I limbo around between games and start to get into them, and then get nowhere with actually enjoying them or completing them. I read about these same games that I try to get in to and people say, "It was a really enjoyable experience and I played it through at least three times..." or something along those lines, or for MMOs, "I've put over 300 hours into the game and still love it."
And you know what? I envy them. I envy them so hard, because no matter how hard I try, I can't force myself to be drawn into a game.
What is the cause of this is? I wish I knew, so I could stab it in the fucking face. At the beginning of this summer holiday, I went through the process of jail-breaking my Wii so I could play Monster Hunter Tri, because I didn't have any money and it looked like the sort of thing I'd really like to play. I played it for a few days... since then my Wii has sat there gathering dust, and no matter how much I want to play it and I want to enjoy it, I just can't bring myself to turn the thing on again.
A few weeks ago I downloaded Eden Eternal... I played it for about half an hour, then quit. It's not like anything was bugging me, or I specifically disliked an aspect of it - I just exited the game. Since then it's been sat here on my desktop, and my train of thought is one of defeat. I think, "That game could be really fun..." but something within me just irks me with, "Why the fuck would I play it anyway? Surely there's something better out there."
Methinks this is part of the problem. I'm trying to find something better, and every time I just can't force myself to enjoy it and get disappointed. Buddhism springs to mind, eh? No desire, no suffering.
I'm trying to re-create that enjoyable experience I faced a few years ago as a child, when I could play FF8, FF10, FM3 and even games that were widely considered sub-par, such as Zone of the Enders - and I could damn well enjoy them and play them more and more. And in this quest I find my downfall.
So I have these moments - sometimes even days - when I sit down and look for games to play. And I always fail. Just now I spent roughly two hours on mmohut looking for a fun game. Instead of picking a game that exists and taking all the fun enshrined within, I seem to be seeking a 'perfect' game, and I will always fall flat on my face. All these MMOs that I saw today, even looking at the blurb makes me cringe;
"Play up to 45,679 classes from 667 races! Spend some fucking expensive currency on items that give you stupid transient boosts in playing a game that's fucking grind grind grind grind grind all day long! 16,000TB of content, and more added every day! (Un)Cooperative player community! Extreme user (un)friendliness!"
I'm sorry, but what the fuck? This isn't fun. BUT THAT'S THE PROBLEM. People find it fun I WANT TO FIND IT FUN. So many games that I've downloaded that I've played for a slice of an hour and then stopped for a mysterious cornucopia of reasons - Lord of the Rings Online, Lands of Chaos Online, Last Chaos, Maplestory, MU Online... and the list goes on. Why can I not just settle down with a game that I fucking enjoy and get drawn into it? Why can't I re-establish that same bond that I had with gaming a few years back?
I suppose, all in all, this boils down to, "I want my childhood back." But what could change so drastically in a number of years which I have too many fingers on one hand to count? Is it that damn hard to just sit down and get sucked into a game instead of interspersing a handful of pseudo-enjoyable ones that I only play because I have little else to do, and not because I actually want to play them?
You could call this a reverse-addiction. Some people lack the willpower to quit a game - I'm struggling in vain to find the willpower to play one. I must be one of a kind, and I really hate it.
Please osu! community, help me. :'(
So, what's the problem? Excluding osu!, I'm just not drawn into games enough to enjoy them/ play them long enough to start liking them or even complete them. I remember the good old PS1 days, when I literally funnelled my life into games like Alundra (which I never completed because it was so damn hard, yet SO DAMN LUCRATIVE. I remember printing out 50-page long walkthroughs because I was so determined to get further.) There were games like Front Mission 3 and Final Fantasy 8 which I absolutely loved and enjoyed thoroughly - even when the timer on the FF8 save slot screen went red because it hit 99:99, I kept playing.
But now I limbo around between games and start to get into them, and then get nowhere with actually enjoying them or completing them. I read about these same games that I try to get in to and people say, "It was a really enjoyable experience and I played it through at least three times..." or something along those lines, or for MMOs, "I've put over 300 hours into the game and still love it."
And you know what? I envy them. I envy them so hard, because no matter how hard I try, I can't force myself to be drawn into a game.
What is the cause of this is? I wish I knew, so I could stab it in the fucking face. At the beginning of this summer holiday, I went through the process of jail-breaking my Wii so I could play Monster Hunter Tri, because I didn't have any money and it looked like the sort of thing I'd really like to play. I played it for a few days... since then my Wii has sat there gathering dust, and no matter how much I want to play it and I want to enjoy it, I just can't bring myself to turn the thing on again.
A few weeks ago I downloaded Eden Eternal... I played it for about half an hour, then quit. It's not like anything was bugging me, or I specifically disliked an aspect of it - I just exited the game. Since then it's been sat here on my desktop, and my train of thought is one of defeat. I think, "That game could be really fun..." but something within me just irks me with, "Why the fuck would I play it anyway? Surely there's something better out there."
Methinks this is part of the problem. I'm trying to find something better, and every time I just can't force myself to enjoy it and get disappointed. Buddhism springs to mind, eh? No desire, no suffering.
I'm trying to re-create that enjoyable experience I faced a few years ago as a child, when I could play FF8, FF10, FM3 and even games that were widely considered sub-par, such as Zone of the Enders - and I could damn well enjoy them and play them more and more. And in this quest I find my downfall.
So I have these moments - sometimes even days - when I sit down and look for games to play. And I always fail. Just now I spent roughly two hours on mmohut looking for a fun game. Instead of picking a game that exists and taking all the fun enshrined within, I seem to be seeking a 'perfect' game, and I will always fall flat on my face. All these MMOs that I saw today, even looking at the blurb makes me cringe;
"Play up to 45,679 classes from 667 races! Spend some fucking expensive currency on items that give you stupid transient boosts in playing a game that's fucking grind grind grind grind grind all day long! 16,000TB of content, and more added every day! (Un)Cooperative player community! Extreme user (un)friendliness!"
I'm sorry, but what the fuck? This isn't fun. BUT THAT'S THE PROBLEM. People find it fun I WANT TO FIND IT FUN. So many games that I've downloaded that I've played for a slice of an hour and then stopped for a mysterious cornucopia of reasons - Lord of the Rings Online, Lands of Chaos Online, Last Chaos, Maplestory, MU Online... and the list goes on. Why can I not just settle down with a game that I fucking enjoy and get drawn into it? Why can't I re-establish that same bond that I had with gaming a few years back?
I suppose, all in all, this boils down to, "I want my childhood back." But what could change so drastically in a number of years which I have too many fingers on one hand to count? Is it that damn hard to just sit down and get sucked into a game instead of interspersing a handful of pseudo-enjoyable ones that I only play because I have little else to do, and not because I actually want to play them?
You could call this a reverse-addiction. Some people lack the willpower to quit a game - I'm struggling in vain to find the willpower to play one. I must be one of a kind, and I really hate it.
Please osu! community, help me. :'(