Adios MOBAs

Since coming back from Catalonia (Spain), I have decided to stop playing all MOBA games. I realise it is not healthy for me. In the last two years I was aware that that type of game wasn’t healthy, but I didn’t realise how unhealthy. I am talking about playing by myself however. Though playing with friends has its problems too.

All the communities for all the games are toxic. Understandable as to why. You are 5 complete strangers shoved into a team randomly. Within a short space of time (a minute or two) you must decide between yourselves who is doing what and where. You have no idea how skillful each team member is. A lack lustre player would be less crippling in other team base competitive games. However, this less skilled player, if it dies to the enemy, will grant the enemy bonus gold and exp. The death on an ally will empower the enemy. Making it a lot harder to win.

Every time a team member apologises for dying, I wish I could say “it’s alright, do not worry.” You cannot, that would be dishonest. You cannot say “you’ve made it harder for us to win now”, as it’d cripple them, and probably cause them to be a bigger hindrance. This is why there is such a toxic atmosphere to these games. Not every game is like this, but they are frequent enough to erode away at your soul. Each match is 35 minutes to 45 minutes long. Is it enjoyable to exist in an atmosphere of this nature? Even if you win, did you really have fun? If you lose it’s awful. Perhaps you sincerely enjoy playing MOBA regardless of the outcomes. That is cool. Please help foster a warmer environment in a game where the mechanics actively encourage awful attitudes.

Now to discuss why even playing with friends can be a bad thing.

It’s difficult teaching and guiding strangers how to improve their play. It’s impossible to do it for a friend. Well, the sort of friends I had when I used to play HoN and DotA2. Upon reflection, and in comparison to the company I keep now, it’s questionable. You encounter a situation where individuals who are meant to be friends ditch you for the sake of improving their own performance at the game. Gaming is a hobby, it’s not a lifestyle unless you achieve the point of being in the top 0.1% of skilled players of that game.To get there is hard. Most people are striving there. I say gaming is a hobby because… is that all you want from life? It’s nice being able to do your hobby all the time, but what do you actually achieve? What do you gain? These questions can be hard to take.

I love the game mechanics of all MOBA. It’s unfortunate that it’s the human interaction that hurts my experience of the game.

Past, Present and Future

I’ve recently came back from a trip away to Catalonia, Spain. I went on the trip expecting a lovely social trip with me being able to do some sketching and stuff. I have returned with so much more. I am aware there are people who get scared by talk of anything that is explicitly faith related. I say fear because I recall last Easter an Independent Video Game studio posted an explicitly Christian Image wishing love to everyone on Easter. They received some abuse including some users who were like “omfg, i wil unlike c0z u cristean” . I can understand the perception overall of organized religion by some people isn’t healthy. But it is incredibly short sighted to paint every single person who “represents” a “group” with the same brush (yay cliche expression).

So yeah, i tried to avoid making this post explicitly about faith and I’ve just gone and made it faithy.

 

We are obsessed with the past and future. We look upon the past with love or regret and we get lost there. We dream of the future, but in the process we lose track of what is happening now. The immediate now. Your current surroundings and environment. We do not appreciate the now. By only looking forwards and backwards, we ignore what is beside us.

We may at times wish we could travel backwards to do things better. But is this a good idea? We may repeat the actions that originally caused us to feel shame. Only by having foreknowledge can we ever change the past. So far, this is impossible. Current Scientific Theory for this idea is restrictive. You could only travel back to the point where time travel first gets invented. Reliving the past so you could spend time amongst people/a person or in a place may also not be such a good idea. The foreknowledge of what to come may affect your emotions. This could bestow you a burden.

So, try to focus on the present more, before it flows away and becomes the past. I would be lying if I said I could do this. These thoughts that compose this post comes from my own faults.