Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What Video Games Keep You From Using Linux?
skade88 writes "Everyone knows content is king. Many of us use Windows or OS X at home instead of Linux because the games we love just are not available on Linux. With Steam moving forward for a Linux launch, I would like to hear from the Slashdot community on this topic. What are the game(s) you cannot live without? If they were available in Linux would you be happy to run Linux instead of Windows or OS X?"
the sound subsystem fragmentation is what keeping Linux from being an obvious target for game publisher.
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
I used to zone out for hours on games. I would enter that world and not come out until some sort of physical discomfort would result... needing to pee, eat or something. But lately? I just don't get those quality hours to myself any longer. Life is filled with "things to do" and crap like that. Worse, sometimes I look back at myself thinking "look at all the time I wasted." I don't want to think that way really. There is some value in it... somewhere... somehow. I guess my problem was that I can't really do it in moderation. So the games I play are games I can put down at a moment's notice. The pain of having to stop when I'm in the middle of an involving situation is just too much sometimes.
But I'm only one type of gamer. There are lots of others... others I can't understand. Like the cheaters. I seriously don't get that. Many of us are addicted to the accomplishments and achievements; The goal setting; The execution of a strategy; the prefection of trial and error. Then there are the troll cheaters whose only purpose is to make other people angry with their faux-god-like cheats making themselve believe that knowledge is the weapon. (Yes, in the real world, knowledge IS the weapon, but in games, it's about actually being better or at least the best you can be.) All the cheaters do is take away from others.
And then there are the kiddies who do a thing which annoys other players... camping and hoarding. Reminds me of a certain set of children... they had to have been between 10 and 14 years old. I was playing Halo2 online. It was one of those one-on-one levels where if you got the rocket launcher, you could pretty much run the game. And that's when the kiddies started arriving. It became a race to get the rocket launcher. Took the fun out of it. Finally, I just let him have it. I got the shotgun and somehow managed to hit him in the chest and point blank range 5, 6, 7 times in a row. He just quit the game. Another player... same damned thing. I countered with shotgun... another quitter. And a third. It's not quite "cheating" but it is playing in a way that sucks the fun out of it. Why do people have to do that?
But I just had to be the vigilante, fighting the injustices with counters and proving that their flawless strategies weren't quite so flawless. Reminds me of the Street Fighter 2 game days... where one person would play a favorite character and thought he could be anyone with it. What'd I do? I asked them "pick the character I will use to beat you..." And I did. Because in the end, it was their singular technique that made them weak. I simply worked out a counter to whatever strategy they wanted to apply.
Gaming is not about winning for me. It's about overcoming limitations and things that hold me back or making the most of any given scenario. Cheating is changing the scenario and a false win. It doesn't matter to me if I win each time just as long as I do better than my last try in one way or another. And I can make games last a lot longer that way.
I'm sure a ton of people will disagree with my approach(es). They are different gamers. Even a few will probably even try to justify cheats somehow calling it a service to others or some such thing. It's crap. It's trolling and seeks to get one's jollies by causing someone to rage. I pity those people. They have no idea of the harm they are causing to their character... their personal character... that is who they are as people. There are simply too many of those people... the people who bought up the Nexus 4 phones only for the purpose of dumping them on eBay for twice the price. They don't enjoy the gaming... they are just gaming the system... taking without giving anything back. "Flippers." I have no use for those dirt bags. A net loss on society as their gains don't even come close to the harm they cause like artificially raising values and creating scarcity where it shouldn't exist.
I guess I'm just about done rambling... it's time for bed. I'm tired.
I miss gaming.