Reply With Quote"Deus Ex."
(Just testing a theory, here.)
Note this is not about getting obsessed over ONE game, but games in general.
I just started playing STALKER again last week. Initially I thought it was interesting but it was a bit too hard. Now that I understand the world and the combat a little better I'm doing much better and it's clicking. So now when I'm at work I'm constantly reading STALKER forums, looking for tips and tricks, reading about weapons and items, etc. In fact I'm thinking about taking off work early today to go play it. I did the same thing with Oblivion, and the same thing with Rome: Total War and X-COM, and MOO2, and many others.
I've noticed games are kind of hit or miss for me. I'll play a game and either give it a big "meh", or it will really, really click and I'll obsess. Usually I can pull myself out but sometimes I wind up in "quarter to three" moments where I just want to do "one more thing" in the game. This is one of the reasons I don't play "pay to play" MMOs. Or MMOs in general. I know myself and I'm not certain but hearing the stories, I think I'd get obsessed.
Now I know the demographics are going to swing to the obsessive here, but I'm wondering how much. How many of you consistently get obsessed/grok a game and read all you can about it, play it to death, etc.? Not just one game (say, WoW) but consistently through the entirety of your gaming hobby?
"Deus Ex."
(Just testing a theory, here.)
This paragraph applies to me too.Originally Posted by ElGuapo
I get sucked into big sweeping RPGs. If I was smart I'd just call in sick and play them to death when the fever hits, but instead I go to work and quietly read forums and FAQs all day. BG2 and PS:T and Morrowind bit me terribly.
I've noticed games are kind of hit or miss for me. I'll play a game and either give it a big "meh", or it will really, really click and I'll obsess. Usually I can pull myself out but sometimes I wind up in "quarter to three" moments where I just want to do "one more thing" in the game. This is one of the reasons I don't play "pay to play" MMOs. Or MMOs in general. I know myself and I'm not certain but hearing the stories, I think I'd get obsessed.
This applies to me as well. My weakness are party based strategy/rpgs, superhero rpgs, and most 4x games
If I were a hiring manager, right about now I'd be making a mental note about not hiring gamers since all they do while on the job is browse gaming forums on the Internet. :)
*reinstalls*
On a serious note, this is a gaming forum. P Chances are everyone here is already past the point of mere obsession.
That's the whole reason I play games. I love those obsessive moments, though they are increasingly rare for me these days.
I absolutely love video games of all forms (except dirty evil sports games) but they are competing with ten other hobbies and a PhD thesis so I don't have the time or motivation to become obsessed with them.
I'd hesitate to call it 'obsessed', but lately I've been trying to force myself to just focus on one game at a time, or else my attention will wander, I'll get distracted by the next shiny new game, and it'll be left half-finished.
While I'm focusing on that one, I will try and do as much as I can in it though. Doing all the side quests, exploring all the nooks and crannies, min-maxing stats and loot...
Some days I just don't feel like playing it and I will still get distracted, but I try to let it be with something much 'lighter'. E.g., right now my primary game is STALKER, but I'm also fiddling with Rez and Sam & Max 202 on the side, and they won't last long.
Damn you! Reinstalling...
I see your Deus Ex and raise you a Planescape: Torment.
And yes, I get obsessed. Ask the kids in my class who all last year had to listen to Oblivion quests as examples of everything.
If there was an answer that constituted a more intense yes than yes itself, I would have selected it.
Last edited by Unicorn McGriddle; 02-01-2008 at 12:16 PM. Reason: eelcome
Same here, U-Mac, same here.
Yes I obsess if it clicks with me. I'm either in deep, or I don't really like the game that much. Example, I got in the boarding party for Pirates of the Burning Sea based on Tom's thread and now I can't wait to get home and play and when I am home and have to take a break, I wander around with the Prima guide looking at the next ship or skill I want to get.
Around my game monitors there are Post-It notes of various game related things I needed to know, or scribbled notes on something for a game. I would call that obsessive, but the complexity of some PC games is what drives that, and to be honest is a big part of why I love PC games.
It's the obsessive moments that drive the "it's a quarter to three in the morning" situations that we all love.
My obsessions died several years ago. I was obsessed with WoW for about 6 months arounf 3 year ago, but there has been precious little that has held my attention for longer than a couple weeks before or since.
I blame RL for infiltrating/insinuating its stresses and anxieties on my psyche, which result in restlessness every time I sit down at the PC and want to crank something up.
I love games. I love the idea of gaming. I have a hell of a time playing any one game that's not an MMO regularly, and even those in the last few years come in spikes.
I think ultimately my problem is my time comes in spurts. If I have a lot I get bewildered by all the cool games I *could* be playing enough to the point where it's hard to choose the one I *am* playing. If I don't have a lot, then everything takes too much time to get into, reorient myself, and get something meaningful out of. A game finished is a true testament to the addictiveness (or ease of pick-up/put down, or both) of the game.
Right now Assassin's Creed is hitting a nice sweet spot. The breakdown of tasks means I can feel like I accomplish something in 30 minutes to an hour, and I enjoy the mechanics. God of War hit much the same note, as did the X-Men Legends/Marvel UA games. Stuff like Bioshock, on the other hand, no matter how much I really love the game, can't keep me because there's no clean break to let me put down/pick up the game.
Post-It Notes? Really? Yikes.
I'll admit I'm serially obsessive about games. When one hits right I'll spend far too much time reading up on and posting about it. PotBS for me too right now. I'm posting in the forums there and our Society's forums. But if a game doesn't fire up my imagination I'll quickly dispense with it or set it aside for another day.
My obsessions, and they can be big, last right up until the moment that I find myself able to play the game in question.
For the past couple of weeks, I've been reading up on STALKER, reading about patches, downloading them to my flash drive - all in preparation and excitement for the second play through that is going to be totally awesome. Tuesday night, I actually managed to turn on the game, start a new one and get so far as almost ready to attack the first camp.
When Final Fantasy Tactics PSP came out, I spent days if not weeks pouring over Gamefaqs, planning the perfect party combinations, preparing my job progression. If it weren't for 30 minutes I spend on public transport two days a week I don't think I'd have turned the game on.
I certainly don't have the gaming time that I used to, but I won't blame that. It's just there's always something else. Why not play a little rock band, why not just start up peggle and play that for a bit - no load times there, hey rez came out, maybe I can break 400k in geometry wars this time...
It's a little depressing even. Because I LOVE pouring over reading materials and thinking about how awesome it will be when I get home and get a few hours to play. I've spent 10x easily as much time thinking about, reading about, greedily devouring others' play stories on games like Rome, M:TW2, Gal Civ2, Defcon. Thoughtful games that seem aces and can really give me some incredible gamey experiences - but it almost always comes down to trying to gold star in bloom or beat that next peggle challenge...
Yes, I played EverQuest for 3 1/2 years. I'm not the kind of person who plays a game once and goes on to the next big thing. Right now I'm playing exactly 2 games, TF2 and Civ4. That will be the case for the foreseeable future.
Hi, I'm Ryan, and I'm a binge gamer.
I'm pretty obsessed with the modding side of things for Neverwinter Nights 2, and future new content (Mysteries of Westgate, Purgatorio, etc).
Similarly I was pretty obsessed with World of Warcraft mods and redid my interface every month or two as new great things came out.
And long, long, ago I was obsessed with Quake 2.
I sometimes get obsessed with a game, but it's rare for it to last more than a month. Even "back in the day" that was the case. I finished Baldur's Gate in one run, but I was pretty burned out on it near the end.
There are games that I finish, but which I don't consider to be obsessive titles. I liked Mass Effect, for example, but never felt obsessed about it.
It does seem that the obsessions are less common now, though. I don't know if it's because my attention span is a factor, if it's age, or if it's because there are fewer games that being made that "click."
Hi, Ryan. Glad you're here. Keep coming back, man. We love you.
I'm YES with a 110%.
What's particularly interesting is the period when I spend more time thinking, surfing, discussing, and tweaking a game than actually playing it.
I've done this with both Oblivion and STALKER, and it's just weird. Sometimes the IDEA of the customization is more powerful than the reality of it.
Absolutely. I have spreadsheets and pages of emails with my friend Nathan in playing Civ 4. We have started countless games, broken down our tech advancement, pitted technology versus numbers, and spent hours discussing our new civ choices in a team game over shooting pool.
Last night we finally finished a game, for the first time in our Civ-playing lives.
Hi Dean, i'm going back to college next month. Can you transfer to my school here in Portugal???
EDIT
about being obessed, hmmm ... for FootballManager i usually make TONS of charts in Excel(actually it's Calc)to see how my teams are developing each season. Also, i have the need to research EVERYTHING about each game i like.
I used to, but not anymore. I still have games I like to play a lot, but I don't obsess over them and try to think about them at work and such.
However, in my teens and early 20s I would do such things. Finding stuff on the net wasn't as big then, so it was more about playing for insane hours and thinking about it all the time when I wasn't playing (I did this with the first two Shining Force games, for example, and once played PhoenixMUD for like 14 hours straight).
I'm like Tyjenks and Robert. I used to get obsessive about certain games but now that I'm older I just don't anymore.
Very rarely these days. When I was younger I played some games compulsively for a while.
Obsession is the goal, that means it's a good game. The kind of game you miss when it's over.
I voted for very, very rarely as saying flat out no suggests I understand what "obsessed" means in terms of gaming. For example, I got back into Civ4:BtS and can play it for several hours and will put off doing other things to play, but I don't "obsess" about it; I simply enjoy playing. If I want to do something else, I'll save the game, set it aside and know that I can come back to it another time. I certainly don't think about any games other than in an off-hand way unless I'm specifically discussing them on forums.
Fortunately, I don't binge very often, but when I do... oh baby, my wallet starts a-hurtin'. I tend to go on genre binges where I'll buy just about every driving sim I can get my hands on and then burn out in a couple of weeks. Even on genres I don't particularly care for, in my fighting games binge, I got a bunch of games I only played once or twice, and maybe even some still in the shrinkwrap if I could even be bothered to remember them.
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