Rou

Reaching back into the vault for some old school ranting here.

I enjoy many roles when I play video games. In UT, I was a flag runner. And a damn sneaky one too. In 2k*, I moved into the world of flag defense. When I RPG, I switch between warriors, mages, clerics and thieves pretty randomly. In Madden, I go back and forth with all sorts of players. I pick a role and generally set about doing it to the best of my ability.

Regardless of my role in the game, I step back and consider my objectives carefully. I look at things from multiple perspectives. Not just how to achieve my goal, how my opponent will attempt to achieve his. Sometimes denying your opponent his objective is just as effective as a defeating him.

All of which brings us around to the point of the post: just because you can’t beat me doesn’t mean I’m cheating. It doesn’t mean that I’m lame. And it doesn’t mean I’m a one trick pony.

You see, if I’m defending a flag and you can’t seem to take it, it could be that your method of assault is flawed, or that you have not adapted a counter strategy to my defense. If my cornerback intercepts every other pass you throw, maybe you need to consider new efforts at disguising your targeted receiver. And just because I have a powerful RPG character doesn’t mean that I cheated or camped to make him that way.

Sometimes, things are the way they are because you failed to do your job. Sometimes it’s because I succeeded in achieving mine.

It doesn’t matter which explanation is true. Either way, I don’t appreciate being called a camper. Or a cheater. Botter. Hacker. Munchkin. Exploiter. Or any of the millions of other excuses I’ve heard over the years. None of them are true, despite your need to assuage your wounded pride. On top of all of that, I have a girlfriend of many years, a good job, a healthy social life, and I don’t spend all day playing games. I also don’t live in my mother’s basement and I’m not thirteen years old.

The truth is that I beat you. My game was better than yours. Maybe I was faster, quicker, or just plain smarter about it, but in the end, the scorecard tells the tale. So quit your bitching already. Suck it up. You lost. You can continue making excuses for why you got ass raped.

Alternatively, you can accept it, figure out what you did wrong and maybe try to correct it.

Until then, you’re just going to be a little bitch.