Confessions of a Groghead

[MarkShot]

There is a general trend in software (as a consumer, look at office productivity suites, or as a professional, look at database systems) where each new release adds more features and complexity.  This happens because of competitive pressures to differentiate one's own release N+1 from release N and versus products offered by other vendors.  It, also, happens due to the ever increasing availability of disk, memory, CPU, and GPU.

The same is also true of the computer games industry.  So, if you look what was modeled and the complexity of the UI, in a genre at 5 year intervals ... I think you will find a steady increase of distinct features and complexity.  Again maybe it is not all age related.  Maybe the very nature of games themselves have changed.  Perhaps the games of 1990s were much more approachable from scratch than what is being released today.

Since although hardware and software has advanced by orders of magnitude of the last 20 years, our brains have not.

On the other hand, the younger generation is not being first exposed to digital interactive entertainment as young adults or adults, but instead it has been surrounding them from their birth.  So, perhaps, for the younger generation, it is more easy and natural to assimilate complex new game releases.

It might be interesting to hear from some of the younger gamers here who are in their early 20s.

[JasonPratt]

i wear silly socks that suit a strange hobby

Those socks are awesome beyond all reason!

This could be construed as evidence for why I am still unmarried...

[JasonPratt]

I am reasonably sure I haven't played a computer game for more than a year, or more than three different titles over the past three years--having basically abandoned PC gaming for PS3.

I still spend a nauseating amount of money on PC games 9 or 10 months, of course. For the principle of it. Just in case.

[Bison]

I consider Left 4 Dead 2 a combat simulator and as such it is a wargame.

[DennisS]

In the first X-Com: Enemy Unknown game I ever played, I shot a rocket launcher round into a gas station complex, during a terror mission....

...and killed EIGHT enemies, and four civilians. At LEAST a dozen secondaries. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

My brother in law STILL talks about this, now about 20 years later.

[MarkShot]

Confession ...

I happily play Aces of the Deep under DOSBOX and feel sorry for all those SH3/GWX players that are missing out.

[Bison]

I think Battle Academy maybe one of my favorite TBS wargames.   I secretly wish Tiller games had as nice of 3d graphics.

[LongBlade]

i wear silly socks that suit a strange hobby

Panzerkampf slippers

Hard core. Love them.

:D

A gift just arrived...

[Bison]

Sweet.

[bob48]

Oooh, the envy! :P

[undercovergeek]

ninja'd by Bob

i know he was looking for a pair of those LB

if one day youre out in the mall and you see some old man limping towards you, looking like hes had years of kitchen implement abuse - its Bob, hes come for the slippers!

[Longdan]

Those are really cool but if a couple or three Shermies get a rear shot
or somebody lands a PIAT bomb on your achilles heel you are out a pair
of slippers.

[bob48]

ninja'd by Bob

i know he was looking for a pair of those LB

if one day youre out in the mall and you see some old man limping towards you, looking like hes had years of kitchen implement abuse - its Bob, hes come for the slippers!

Hmmmm...slippers.....(lurch, lurch...gloiiinnnggg).

[Barthheart]

i wear silly socks that suit a strange hobby

Panzerkampf slippers

Hard core. Love them.

:D

A gift just arrived...

Lucky, lucky bastard!  :-[

[LongBlade]

ninja'd by Bob

i know he was looking for a pair of those LB

if one day youre out in the mall and you see some old man limping towards you, looking like hes had years of kitchen implement abuse - its Bob, hes come for the slippers!

Heh.

My sister knits, but these are crochet. She had someone make them for her. Apparently the woman will hire out, but wants a pound of flesh for them. I haven't spoken directly to her, but my sister says she's probably looking for somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 (nowhere near what my sister paid, but I think this woman knits professionally).

So, if you know someone who crochets you can buy the pattern online and send that to them.