Are Modern Shooters Too Much for Older Gamers?

[belardo]

geofry: Funny and true.

I don't own a console, and while I'm okay with some trash talking and have had fun with it in a clan - it was mostly respectable "Ah! You fracker - you blew my head off!"(and laughing). A bunch of stupid 9~12 years olds cursing just to hear their own voices sounds as lame and gay as their insults. yeah, keep talking crap while I blow your head off.

*sigh* miss the old days of UT99 and UT2004.

 

[wavebossa]

[citation][nom]chronicbint[/nom]WOW has never taken any skill to level, at all, ever.[/citation]

Yeah... i'm sorry mate but that's just not true. If you got the latest version of the arena gear and 2 random equally geared partners, do you think that you could beat the top rated 3v3 team? Or do you think that if you were playing on a preBC server you could just pug AQ40 with people who have never been there before? Dont make sweeping blanket statements like that, it makes you seem foolish.

I remember back in BC how many people played enhance shaman wrong. Having good totem management, knowing how to twist GoA and WF, knowing the cooldowns of skills like wf, knowing boss armor values (to know when to equip ur ap gear + executioner), timing ss between strikes when not in flurry, knowing to use flameshock when raiding with druids/elementals and earth shock when ur not...

Ugh, i could go on for 10 pages about all the nuances in just 1 subset of the shaman class, but that would be pointless, i've made my point.

Every game requires skill, some more than others ofc. But WoW, like any other rpg i've ever played, is a battle of knowledge. In rpgs, skill = knowledge.

 

[Guest]

I'll second what was said about dedicated servers. The solution to the trash-talking idiots is to find one with a nice community of admins who are nonetheless ruthless when it comes to profanity and homophobia.

I'm happy to say I've found such a server, and it's like "Cheers." Everyone's friendly, everyone knows everyone else, new players are welcomed, and immature jerks are slapped off the server so fast you hardly even notice they were there.

 

[feroxus]

Mute All is a great feature.

 

[bounty]

Matchmaking instead of server list and dedicated servers.... = argg!

In games that are balanced I can hold my own (top 40%) just fine after about 2 hours of online practice (single player isn't the same.) The exception to that is games that unlock weapons and armor etc. That basically dooms new or casual players to quick frequent deaths. Quck frequent deaths leads to not unlocking your own stuff, plus you're not learning while waiting to respawn. Those games have maybe a 10 hour learning/unlocking curve.

 

[Regulas]

I agree with many posts here and the last best FPS game I played and still do is Fallout 3. I do not like 3rd person shooters but Mass Effect 1&2 did a pretty good job at it.

 

[zerapio]

[citation][nom]geofry[/nom]Let me predict something in 25 years or so, when the first generation of old school FPS gamers retire, a great wailing will fill the voice coms, of "How the heck did grampa and his gaming budies mop the floor with us again?!" and our response will be "Because junior, we were learning how to rocket jump before your daddy was even a gleam in my eye."[/citation]
That was awesome but you forgot to mention something. In 25 years or so we'll be retired or close to it and we'll have the time again to practice hours a day. Beware of the wrath of the elders... you've been warned

 

[anartik]

Yeah so what… been playing some COD MW2 lately and just mute all the trash talking little smacktards and don’t bother with a headset anymore. I have a demanding full time programming job, multiple businesses, a wife, a multitude of useless pets and a litter of smacktards and I still find time to play at 50. Maybe it’s because I really did not start playing until my early 20’s (not much to play before that except pong or pac man). I’ve played lots of games and pretty much every FPS worth mentioning (on PC… crappy consoles are for kids).

I might be able to mute voices but the really annoying part is blatant cheating and other douchebagery has reached an all time high especially in that piece of crap COD MW2 and useless Steam.

So just remember grandpa was literally jumping out of planes yelling hua when you were still crapping your diapers or were even a stain on your mothers sheets... bring it on maggots LOL.

 

[basterion]

I am 44, I currently play TF2, and I kick plenty of younger crowd butt. Someday my sons will surpass me, but not yet.

I have played shooters since LAN parties and Doom.

And yes, I can't stand the idiocy of the younger crowd, so I play with voice off. My kids play with voice off unless it's with their friends.

 

[patchez]

reaction time differs from person to person
reaction time does slow as you age

but hard-eye coordination should also be taken into account while gaming

at 27 i'm still kicking a$$ in fps, but i can do away with all the whining chatter and the weapon spamming.
there's not enuff respect for skill and team work

(the most fun for me is still playing cod2 and cod5 on modded servers)

 

[Guest]

I'm 30, and one of the things I've always had is that I've never been drawn to 1st person shooter games.
For me a good story like a movie counts. A game must take hours of fascination, as opposed to the more boring 'point and shoot' games I see these days with 1st person shooter games.

Maybe it's just me, but I loved sims, adventure, and racing games. Not killing beasts or people.

 

[Guest]

BS!

I am 35 years old and have been playing FPS games online since Duke Nukem. 15 years of gaming!

I constantly place in the top 3 on Modern Warfare 2 while playing free for all. Usually I am the number one spot. My K/D ratio is 1.60.

If you're having trouble with a game, it isn't your age. You just suck.

 

[shin0bi272]

About the comments said over the mic... You dont get that with older gamers and pro gamers. You only get that kind of small minded abuse when youre on a public server and usually only on a console. With PC you are usually in a teamspeak server or ventrillo room with your teammates and the only thing you'll hear are your friends yelling about how they died etc. and telling you where they saw a guy for you to go get (or in my personal experience a teammate was speccing me while I was playing CS and he told me to reload because I was running around with about 5 rounds left in my mag and forgot).

 

[dancovich]

The only part I can agree with is the last, about swearing nowadays.

The skills-related-to-age part to me is just dead wrong. While it's true some people lose dexterity and vision with age, this affects gaming to a noticeable degree only aroung 50 years, give or take.

Time to play and practice is the most important factor. I'm 32 and a serious gamer. The only ones good enough to beat me on most games are those who practice the same or more time than me. There are a lot of teenager who beats the crap of me on online games, but they usually practice a LOT, their age have nothing to do with it as some of them are way worse than me (less practice) and some players older than me also beat the crap of me.

I play games like CoD, Halo, BF, Street Fighter, etc. with my 12YO nephew (who plays everyday and is a good gamer) and I just destroy him in every one of those games. I play since I was 12 and there is just no comparison to the amount of training I had comparing to him.

If I stop playing or start to play very sporadically, eventually I'll lose practice and he might surpass me, but it's a question of practice, not age.

 

[bucknutty]

I am not sure I agree. I am 34 and started playing PC games in 1998-1999. Quake II was the first multiplayer FPS I really went nuts for. I have played and loved every CoD game over the past 10 years, and when I jump on MW3 or Blops2 I'm always in the top 5. I just hit level 54 in Planetside 2. Maybe I am immature for my age but I find the clowns who yell crazy stuff over voice chat hilarious. I am like a catalyst subtly tying to edge them into complete meltdown.

One hard truth is as you get older you do have more responsibilities and less time. Its rare I get to sit down and game for more than an hour at a time. I am able to play for 4-8 hours week if am lucky.

 

[velocityg4]

I think it has more to do with how much time you have available to play these games. I still break out the NES, Genesis, Atari, &c games often. I can tell you right now the 10 year old version of me would totally school me on those games.

 

[lordjakian]

Hasn't everyone here laughed listening to the racially fired up hillbilly vs hoodrat trash talking in the COD lobbies inbetween matches? Or heard the responsible adult who tries to tell the six year old over the internet that he shouldn't be talking like he is, and that it is past his bedtime and he should get off and go to sleep, which ends up making the kid cuss him out more?

I find the colorful conversations entertaining most of the time.(I do mute everyone if I let my nephews play, though.)