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brea
Meowsed
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
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Mega troll fr
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I really like video games, but I could literally live without them. I can’t live without food.
You can get food without cooking it, but if all you eat is stuff that you don’t need to cook, odds are you aren’t eating healthy. If you’re always eating food prepared by others, that’s expensive. Most people can’t afford to exclusively eat healthy food that someone else prepared for them.
If playing a game is a chore like cooking can be, you are playing the wrong game. I get it, at times I play games that are repetitive, and it feels like an obligation or an unpaid job. That’s when I know it’s time to move on from that game.
Not that I dislike cooking, I enjoy coming up with recipes and learning how to make new things. And cooking for my family is satisfying. But most of the time I cook because I need to eat.
Why do I play video games? It depends on the game. Puzzle games exercise my brain and give me an interesting challenge, and teach me things. RPGs are a form of escapism where I can experience things as an avatar that are fantastical. Action games are exciting and get my adrenaline going.
Sometimes I’m inspired to play a game because I’ve read a story or watched a show that make me want to experience what I read/watched in an interactive way. After watching John Wick 2 I was inspired to go play a FPS for a while. Reading comic books might make me want to hop into City of Heroes. One of the things that drew me to AoC was how it reminded me of the first season of the anime Sword Art Online.
Virtue is the only good.
Just for example, in mmorpgs most casual players go into a raid with the attitude of "we must kill the boss", whereas a top tier raider will go into the raid with the attitude of "we must do all the mechanics well". That's because the top raiders know that if they don't die to any of the mechanics in a fight, they will win.
There are some parallels that jump out immediately to me, to be honest.
In the creation side of things, there are two major aspects to both. There is the technical skill involved in actually producing the thing, and then there is the theoretical knowledge involved in knowing how to take the many different components - and subtle variation of components - and work them together in a way where the sum of the parts is far more than the whole.
On the consumption side, there is the ability to actually appriciate the skill and knowledge that went in to the thing, and then there is the raw, plain consumption without any more thought given.
The vast majority of people that consume a product don't notice the bulk of the small details. Most players that played EQ2 wouldn't have known that the raid zone The court of Al'Afaz was in part inspired by the 1969 song Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson - yet the few of us that know that got slightly (very slightly) more out of that zone than other players.
Likewise, a dessert I put on my menu well over a decade ago (about the same time I was raiding the above zone) that I added a layer of oven dried apple to rather than using dehydrated apple - as I wanted a light caramal flavor to go with the apple - would have been noticed by less than 1% of the people that ate it - yet I have no doubt those few that did notice it would have appreciated it.
In both cooking and game development, there are people that think they know what they are talking about, yet clearly don't. I have a lot of people tell me they would make great chef's because they eat food every day - several times in fact. These people are dead serious - and it isn't until I tell them how little time they have to make food for someone that is going to judge it harshly, that they will be making food for up to 50 others at the same time, and that they will be doing that in a 55°c (~130°f) kitchen that they realize that maybe they are better off sticking with eating, not cooking.
Likewise, game developers constantly have people telling them that they would make awesome game developers, because they play games all the time. As I am not a game developer (though I could be, I play games all the time) I don't have any examples like the above as to what makes people realize they actually don't know what they are talking about - I'm sure if any game develoepr read this though, there would be a dozen things jump in their head immediately.
Both also have people that complain about things when they have no idea what they are talking about. If a customer complains that their creme brulee is cold, and insist I heat it up, they will then complain that I sent them out a small bowl of runny split sweet scrambled eggs with a light caramel flavor - but turning in to split, sweet scrambled eggs is what happens to creme brulee when you heat it up - and the caramel flavor was the best that could be done to approximate the "brulee" aspect of a liquid creme brulee.
Likewise, game developers have people say things like "I know you don't want RMT, but you should make it so we can send store items as gifts!", seemingly without realizing that the act of doing the thing they want done, will enable the thing they don't want done.
Then there are the "helpful" people, that try and tell you how you should do your job, how you should allocate your resources. Like telling Intrepid that tulnar should be the first race they work on, rather than the one that should be done when Intrepid think it should be done (last imo, as it is the most complex, so best the developers have the experience of creating races in Ashes before attempting the most complex - but that is just my opinion that I am not actually suggesting).
In kitchens, we had no shortage of people telling us we were doing it wrong as well -
Why is my bread crunchy?
Because it's toast, Karen.
Well I want my eggs on bread, not toast.
Why are the eggs next to my bread?
Because that way they don't make your bread soggy, Karen.
Well I want my eggs on my bread, since you put it on the toast.
Why is my bread soggy?
Because it has poached eggs on it, Karen.
But the toast doesn't go soggy when you put eggs on it.
That's because it's got a toast-based crust and butter on the outside that prevents it soaking up water, which is why we toast it.
Well why didn't you toast my bread then?
Actual conversation with a regular customer over a few days, many many years ago.
So yeah, in terms of making a game and making food professionally, I can see some similarities.
I could go on and type about as much again on the similarities on consuming both, and then again on the similarities of the amatuer/inexperienced side of creating both as well, but I don't think I want to type that much out right now.