It’s always fun to know when someone started playing what and why =)

For me, I don’t remember the details or the proper order of the games I’ve played, but I do at least remember which games it was. Before 2000 everything is quite unclear, I think I was playing stuff before 2000. My family had a average/bad computer at that time (I wish I remembered the system specs). The only thin I remember about that computer is that I called it Lillys, which meant small lol, and that it had a 20GB hdd, which I remember was much for that old machine. I’m a 97% PC guy and 3% Gameboy (the first one) guy, so no consoles in this little story =P

Before 2000:
Anyway, I remember how I ones sneaked upon my brothers when they were playing Doom, they didn’t allow me to watch because it was too gory ^^. My brother introduced me to Jazz Jackrabbit, I think that’s the first game I ever played and liked/understood it. Not long after my two brothers started to play Age of Empires, i think they tried the demo and then copied someones CD. I remember that my brother said that copying a game was hard. I hardly had any chance learning AOE before AOE2 came into the house, that was the next main attraction.

2000-2004:
I remember how I started my brother’s computer and tried launching Roller Coaster Tycoon, it looked so fun but I wasn’t allowed to play it somehow. Maybe this memory was from even before AOE, I don’t know. Two times I visited my older brother after he had moved out. The first time he showed me Civilization III, I liked it and started playing it as soon as I came home. Another time, 2 years later, he showed me The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and that game totally catched my interest. Started playing it as a madman. This was when I acquired a better computer at my dad’s place, I think it had a 64 MB graphic card. Oh before my mom and dad divorced, my brother finally let my play doom, and I liked it a lot (I probably only remember the ones I liked xD). That’s probably the base of my FPS interest.

2004-2008:
Halo, Half-Life and GTA: Vice City and San Andreas was 3 popular titles, among the ones already discovered. A while I had 2 computers next to each other. I invited a friend and we played AOE2 and Half-Life. Half-Life led to my connection to Steam 2006. I bought Counter-Strike: Anthology and played some over steam, but never really fell for it. Had my account banned because I used a cheat. Ever since I wont use that kind of cheats ever! There’s more games that I’m ignoring or can’t remember.

2008 to present:
I still had that old computer from 2003 so I decided to buy and build one my own, it cost 650 bucks. The main goal was that it had to run Oblivion on highest smoothly, and it did =). This was when I really started gaming, everything worked so I just went to the internet and started downloading ^^. Today I got around 400 GB downloaded, pirated games on a separate HDD, it shrinks though thanks to my habit of purchasing cheap games on Steam. I created my second steam account October 2008, and now I got a collection of 107 titles there from Doom to Civilization III, Oblivion to GTA. Too bad Age of Empires and Halo isn’t there =P

What’s your story? Doesn’t have to be only PC, just game related!

Discussion Topic: Your Gaming History

What’s Indie?
Indie is a category in the world of gaming (also in the music world), but what kind of category? What kind of game do we think of when we hear ‘Indie Game’? I think of game with a bit of a mysterious storyline, with mystic music and unique gameplay. This is probably true, but the real term for Indie is that the game is developed by someone independent. Which means he/she/them is not a part of a company working full time developing games.

All developers starts out as Indie’s, mostly. It’s usually someone or a team that made some mods or are just interested in programming and designing who starts working on an own game. Because of their dedication to develop games – they aren’t bound to have a major success once the game is released. That’s why they usually are free, or very cheap. This is also because there’s no big publisher involved demanding money. An indie developer could be working for years without any of their games becoming a hit and still seeing it as an opportunity to do what they love to do. I’d say there’s just 1 guideline for a Indie game to become a hit; The game needs to be unique. It needs to have something that’s not already taken.

Whenever an indie game becomes a hit, the developer usually continues to develop games, this time for the sake of the community/fans and not as much playing around. The developer may choose to start working as a developer full time and perhaps recruit more to the company and get an office, this makes them a developing team. They could still be indie but sooner or later they will have a contract with a publisher and suddenly they aren’t as indie as before. That does definitely not mean that they wont develop the same type of games as before, it’s just a small difference on the papers. The most of the game developers are a medium sized team but the developers we hear the most about is the bigger ones.

The biggest developers are a whole office with developers, usually with cafeterias, gaming rooms and other really cool stuff that we usually see on interviews. These teams have had many successful games in their past that is the origin of their wealth. They are being supported by big publishers and their games will have huge booths at every year’s E3. These companies were indie developers 10-20 years ago and are being so successful thanks to their early dedication.

What I think is sad is that these huge developers rarely brings any new content to the gaming community, they release a game from their favorite series every year without really trying anything new. This is where the Indie’s are the best, because they bring so much new stuff that we have never seen before. The bigger developers can’t produce these games because there is some magic line (=P) between being independent and being bound with 100 contracts. These huge developers have so much power to create the most epic game in years, but they lack in inspiration and creativity. So they spend all their money, which is a lot FYI, on really nice looking games – but they are just the same as the last year.

Its easy to forget the indies when bigger games get so much attention. Remember that the indies are the key behind a successful company.

Discussion Topic: The World of Indie Part 1: A little about Indie

Zombies
A mutation of the human being, a virus spread throughout the planet that infests the majority of the population. They only got a slim sign of intelligence but they’re also strong and determent; they only want one thing – eat your face off! There’s different zombies, but that’s the main similarity.

Some are somewhat intelligent and will feel your present while others will just stand, drool, bleed, vomit, or eat each other while you silently walk among them. The virus spreads extremely quickly and only immune or extremely isolated people have a chance of escaping it. The mutation goes quickly, just a several hours after the infection and you’re a walking dead. The virus operates on its own in your body, which means you will still be able to “operate” even if you’ve lost your head, your leg or got a big hole through your stomach. This is the Apocalypse.

Zombies haven’t really developed the horde instinct properly but if one attacks, it’s likely nearby zombies reacts and start running towards you. As all viruses, they come and go, your mission – Survive! Best tactic – load up on ammunition, weapons, alive companions then simply hide in a basement or a tall building. Shoot everything that moves.

Aliens
They are out there. We don’t know anything about them except one thing – If they know how humanity operates then they will defend themselves, cause humanity is a warfare civilization, even though we wont admit it. They are the one thing we are most afraid of – unknown. We don’t know how they work, we don’t know if they’re hostile, we don’t know their technology, we don’t know their intelligence.

The only way to go is to be diplomatic until we know what we are dealing with, they will do the same, war is eventually inevitable. We can just hope that they will fear us more than we will fear them. If we are lucky – they are a peaceful race, if not – we are screwed. The best alternative would be if they were diplomatic but not afraid of war – just like us. when the war comes; get yourself a gun, wait for an invasion and pray.

Androids
Aka AI, Aka Robots. They seems like a harmless creation from the human race, but as soon as the development goes beyond our control, everything could happen. When we develop an android that get’s the ability to think on its own – we’ve created AI. Imagine it learning how to create itself and also if it learns what it is, who created it and for what purpose. Then they are practically slaves, and slaves always rebells. Imagine slaves that can develop themselves, making them smarter and starts mass producing. It wont take long until We’re the slaves.

The human race is known for making mistakes. Creating herself a superior android would certainly count as one of them. The question is how we would tackle that dilemma. We can imagine that the robots would need some sort of power supply, developing powerful EMP’s would easily solve it. But the Androids could obtain a unstoppable amount of intelligence only by creating more of itself and start developing it’s own species. They would learn how to stock an energy reserve. If this would happen, simply ignore the problem until it’s too late, then hope they wont dodge bullets.

Discussion Topic: The Ultimate Enemy

Do you think that gaming is causing more violence? More and more violent games are been sold now and some like grand theft auto really do advertise violence. Do you think gaming is killing? If you do can you think of a way to stop it? I myself play games like that but I do think that it does encourage violence to some people. They want to be like the game character so they start fighting and so on. One way to stop it a bit would be to make a violent game have a notice at the start telling them to leave the actions in the game, in the game and show what happens if they don’t leave it in the game(prison). So what is your verdict?

Discussion Topic: Does Gaming Kill?

Check out some of our members’ comments

Gamrpro wrote;

I don’t think so because they can steal your contacts which are called “Mutual Friends” or anything related to that without your permission. Then they steal their contacts and it goes on forever. They can also have the ability to sell your emails to people who are buying them which is why we have spam.

fluffybunny wrote;

Whether they are safe or not I would never leave Facebook due to security problems.

dan213 wrote;

I don’t feel that social networks by themselves are dangerous, I think the people that use them can be. Social networks are great for keeping in touch with family and friends but there are some that abuse it and cause a risk to others.

Discussion Topic: Social networks safe?

I hate making a new thread, but this is only about speculations about the game, while the one in the News section is for news and smaller discussions than the ones that might go on here. I got 3 speculations regarding 3 texts, what’s said in the teaser, UESPs article about Dragons and The Lost Prophecy from Morrowind. There’s none facts confirmed yet, so all this could be way of the grid.

What’s said in the teaser

You should have acted.
They’re already here.
The Elder Scrolls told of their return.
Their defeat was merely delay
Til the time after Oblivion opened,
When the sons of Skyrim would spill their own blood.
But no-one wanted to believe.
Believe they even existed.
And when the truth finally dawns:
It dawns in fire.
But,
There’s one they fear.
In their tongue, he’s Dovahkiin: Dragon Born!

My Speculations
They are probably the dragons, which The Elder Scrolls told would return, Their defeat was merely delay. This event is after the Oblivion crisis in Cyrodiil. A civil war might be going on in Skyrim, and the Sons of Skyrim doesn’t necessary means the Nord race, It could as well be the elven race Falmer. Or both of them could be seen as the “sons of Skyrim”. At last the Dragons fear the Dragon Born – Dovahkiin. No records on who that is.

My Speculations
Does this picture ring a bell? It’s the symbol of the land east of Tamriel: Akavir. (also the cover picture of Morrowind, which is very confusing)
It’s the same symbol as the emblem of TES5.

And it’s a picture of a dragon, presumably. Akavir is also known as the Dragon Land. According to ancient visitors to Akavir, there’s two types of dragons, Red and Black. They are common in Akavir, well they at least Were. They have been in Vvardenfell, but they were cased away by the cliff racers, which those who played morrowind knows; they isn’t really a threat. Then they entered Cyrodiil where they were treated well by other races, they live in mountains.
I’m assuming they aren’t a total dominant race, it’s like in all tales – they were impressive, extremely intelligent and strong, but they were few!
In Daggerfall you can fight small dragons called Dragonlings, also a man namned Cyrus have killed a dragon.

There’s no sources that indicates there have been dragons in Skyrim though, they have been seen in mountains of Cyrodiil, which means, technically the mountains of Skyrim. As mentioned before, they have also been in Vvardenfell, perhaps that’s were they landed coming from Akavir?
There’s also some cases where races has transformed into dragons, Akatosh for example, as seen in the end of Oblivion. Also the leader of the tiger people of Akavir – Tosh Raka, have transformed to a dragon, but he has been seen in both forms. So the conclusion of that rumor is that dragons might be able to transform into another avatar.

The lost Prophecy from Morrowind

From seventh sign of eleventh generation,
Neither Hound nor Guar, nor Seed nor Harrow,
But Dragon-born and far-star-marked,
Outlander Incarnate beneath Red Mountain,
Blessed Guest counters seven curses,
Star-blessed hand wields thrice-cursed blade,
To reap the harvest of the unmourned house.

In Morrowind you play as the one to become the Nerevarine, the Dragon-Born and Far-Star-Marked. which simply tells us: “Born under foreign stars and the sign of the Dragon — the Imperial sign.” As if the Dragon-Born was born in Cyrodiil, which you are, playing Morrowind. So Dragon-born in this case doesn’t mean anything special. The Dragon-Born in the teaser is something else, probably. Perhaps this is over-doing it, but maybe Skyrim got connections with Vvardenfell (Morrowind) rather than Cyrodiil (Oblivion).

Discussion Topic: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Speculations

The modern society is build on a lots of thing. If we look back to the 80′s and guess what they thought earth would look like 2010. We though we would have invented the flying vehicle, robot assistances, weird space-looking clothes. (Yeah I’m kinda referring to the “Back to the future” movies xD). During the 70′s, right after we landed on the moon they probably though we would’ve colonized it and walked upon the surface of Mars by now.

One thing we did not predicted was the Internet. A digital network all over the world where you can do pretty much everything. Since I’m so young, internet is a part of my whole childhood so I don’t have a complete picture of it’s development but I do know that the progress of the internet and technology surrounding modern electronics. And it’s bad ass, 10 years ago we were surfing on 56k modem connection today there’s huge differences.

Anyway this Editorial isn’t about the development of the internet nor the nano technology. But it was a nice start. Digital Distribution is a service on the internet where you can purchase stuff and get it immediately, mostly. This is common for purchasing movies, music and most of all games online. When It comes to games, there’s usually also a community to connect players easier.

The most common digital distributions are Xbox Live Marketplace, Playstation Store and Wii Shop. These are of course the only digital distributions for their console, which makes sense. When it comes to PC, there’s a battle between digital distributions since no company owns this platform, but the biggest is Steam Store, Games for Windows Live and Battle.net (mostly because the got World of Warcraft).

The main battle is between Steam Store and GFWL since Battle.net contains of only Blizzard’s titles and they are not available anywhere else. There’s also smaller DD’s like D2D and GoG. So what are the pros and cons with purchasing games over the internet the digital way? pros: it’s usually cheaper than buying retailed in store and even retailed online (when you receive the game a couple of days later in a package). It goes fast, you got the game after the transaction. You will have your games at gathered on one spot wherever you log in from. cons: you don’t have a physical form of the game. You are not certain that you really own the game.

So what do I think of Digital Distribution, well I got different arguments. Having a retail game is wonderful, the smell of the manual and, if you purchased a special/gold/complete/collector’s edition, a lot of other goodies. It’s always nice looking on them, feel the package xD (I might have a fetish for game boxes)… Why do I then prefer DD? I am heavily interested in Steam compared to GFWL. This is mainly because i don’t have a xbox, I’m only PC. The steam community is much more open and simplified than xbox live. I can see the advantage of using GFWL and Xbox Live if I had a xbox. And look at the prices, Steam got at least one sale per day, from 10% to 85%. I’ve spend a maximum of 300USD on games for my steam account, while according to this calculation I’ve spend 900USD (and that site somehow says I got 71 games when I got 85 =S). Which means I’ve only purchased games when they are at least 66% off =P. There’s also some titles that are activatable on steam through the retailed CD-key.

One thing that really annoys me is that Valve (owner of steam) and Microsoft (owner of GFWL/Xlive) are so competitive that they wont allow their published games to be sold on each others DD’s… I want Age of empires and Halo to Steam, and I think many want Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead on GFWL.

Feel free to start discussions if you’ve read through the whole article xD

Discussion Topic: Digital Distribution and the Facts!

When I mention business systems to you, what comes to mind? Do you think of an IBM mainframe computer sitting in a big room in the middle of your building? Do you think of expensive, highly specialized software? That’s what many small business owners imagine. And they think it’s not for them. If that’s what you think, you’re only half right.

Half right because expensive, highly specialized software is probably not for you. Half wrong because good business systems most definitely are. A business system isn’t hardware or software. It’s the way that you do any part of your business. It’s how you do things. You are using systems all the time, you just may not be using them efficiently.

I regularly urge business owners to get everything they know about their business out of their head and onto paper. I’m urging you now to do the same with your systems. Start writing out how you do things in your business. At a minimum, write out how you treat your customers or clients, how your paperwork for each sale flows, how your production systems work, how you market to clients, and how you do your bookkeeping.

Do this in detail. For each area, make a very detailed description of every step in the process. Include what you do and why you do it. Include the subtle parts that make your company uniquely you. Include the parts that you are proud of. Include the tricks that make it efficient. Include what you tried that didn’t work and explain why. Each system should become a very rich, highly detailed system. Why so much detail?

Because this is the beginning of being able to consistently deliver results. And the beginning of being able to consistently deliver results even when you aren’t around. Documented (written) systems make delegating much more manageable. Delegating is one of the keys to success in growing your business while still having a life.

Maybe you don’t want a bigger business. Maybe you want to keep yours small. Still, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to go on a long vacation and turn the keys over to someone else to run and make money for you while you are gone? Without systems, that wouldn’t be remotely possible. With systems almost anything is. Now, does that sound like something that should only be for big business? I think not.

Discussion Topic: Buisness Systems Arn’t Just For Millionaires