By: Jason J. Koole
Happy no-shave November everyone.
So this is my first post, I’m going to be doing the gaming blog, so bare with me. I’d figure I’d give a little bit of background before going into what I wanted to talk about.
For starters I am a copy editor at the Western Herald. Basically I’m one of the people that lays out the pages and edits articles that people write, so it is my job to make sure that they end up all nice and pretty and to make sure they fit into the designated space on the pages that we have for them.
In my spare time (which that time is getting smaller and smaller) I am a gamer. I play card AND video games. Yes, nerd I am. The video games that I play are usually indy games and League of Legends as well, I’ve also played pretty much every card game you can think of.
For the sake of this blog my main specialties at this time would be discussing League of Legends video game (which is a free Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, if you want to learn more about it, click this link) and casual Magic the Gathering, although I know enough people that I will be able to talk about other games by getting their opinions and probably do some sort of Question and Answer thing with them, or just by trying to get a consensus.
Today, I want to discuss something that is universal to the gaming world and something that is often forgotten about. The idea of actually having honor when it comes to playing and the good sportsmanship that goes along with that.
Now most people probably don’t think an idea of honor applies to gaming and that since it is just a game then it shouldn’t be taken seriously, but I would disagree. Gaming is very serious business. Okay, maybe not that serious, but when people play games they like to win, I mean nobody likes losing even if winning is not the main goal for the person (for example; I usually play games because they are fun, I like winning, but I don’t play for the sake of it).
So what role does honor play when it comes to gaming? I’d offer the idea that it directly ties into good sportsmanship. Before I go deeper into the subject, I’d like to share a story about what happened when I played LoL (league of legends), if you don’t play, you can still read the example because I’d say it still applies.
So as we were playing the game last night (the game is usually five people playing against five other people, for this game I was playing with four of my friends that I know) we where fairly even with the other team, but my team started making mistakes and we ended up losing the early lead that we had.
Eventually as the hour long match drew to a close, one of the enemy teammates left the game so now we were up a person, we easily overpowered the enemy team and were about to win. Then one of my friends suggested that we just surrender the game to them. The game was a well-played match from both teams and the enemy team was respectful to us, which led us to the decision to ultimately concede the game to them.
This is a rare occasion, as me and my friends usually don’t do that, in fact the usual response would be a tough luck approach and just end up beating the other people into the ground.
This would be an example of good sportsmanship. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m the pinnacle of a great sport but I am saying that a lot of people just think winning is the only concern that they should have.
Honor and good sportsmanship leave impressions on the people that you play with. That would probably be the most important thing about it. You want people to have a good time while playing with you, while completing the goals that you may want as well.
As a player you should also control your temper. Not only does getting angry impede your gaming judgment, but it can also make people miserable. Not everyone’s goal is to have a super special awesome fun time but that doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk to people that do want to play.
People playing should also have some degree of pride and respect for oneself. I think confidence plays a pretty big role in whether people get angry a lot. So confidence also a role, and that is what I mean by pride. Usually, in my case, if I get frustrated it generally stems from questioning my own skill or lack of. My response would be to accept the fact that a player might not be perfect, your own skills might not be perfect and then focus on trying to make the situation better to the best of your own ability.
That goes for other people you are playing with as well. Instead of getting angry at someone for being bad at something, offer them advice and do it in a respectable way. More often than not, I’ve seen teams do worse after they start yelling at the guy that might be holding them back.
Anyway, I guess this all I have to say at the moment. Have pride in your own skills, be a good sport, all that stuff. It might even improve your game. It is impossible to not get annoyed at things, but always be in control of the situation. Also: beware of the trolls.
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