Don't forget to teabag.

Yeahh..keeping track of what I ate sure didn't last long.

I've been sinking deeper into the world of MMORPGs lately. There's a kind of satisfaction..a presumably very delayed satisfaction in playing. The entire lifespan in the game is spent grinding, that is to repetitively perform the same menial task for hours on end. Eventually, the character is strong enough to handily slay every enemy and look good doing it. Anyone with tens, hundreds of hours could do it.

I'm definitely more of an FPS guy. First Person Shooters are to me the most fair and balanced form of gaming. Everyone starts the game with only their gun and their wits. There is no value added to the character because they are all the same. No legendary weapon refined from a thousand shards of ____. No armor gained through 50 hours of trading. Every gun does the same damage, and everyone dies the same.

What separates the strong from the weak isn't free time, it is a deeper understanding. In hunting prey, one must think like the prey. Leading fire into his strafe path, cutting him off at his destination before he gets there. Each map, each battlefield has it's own personality, it's own quirks and secrets. Where is the best vantage point if X enemies are concentrated at Y? If I were the enemy, where would I flank?

Eventually, one gets to know each map, each weapon better than the back of his own hand. As that happens, the field seems to shrink. No longer is the player moving across the map, but rather placing himself where he can point his weapon and pull the trigger. I find that at the point where I disassociate the weapon I hold as an actual weapon, the game becomes something else. It is something that I point at someone, then they die and I get points.

In that, I find my Gaming Nirvana.