Imagine that you were invited to play football for your country in an important international match that was being televised to a global audience and when the referee blew his whistle to start the big game, you confessed to your captain, that you did not know the rules of football, in fact that you had never played the game before, but that you had played pool a couple of times.
How do you think that you, your captain, your team mates and the whole viewing public would feel? Mortified, outraged, upset, let down? This is how a lot of novices (newbies) think about going into a colossal, online, interactive multi-player game like ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ for the first time. They are concerned that they will ruin the game for everybody else.
And it is a valid point, but everyone in that game was a newbie once and there are steps you could take to learn a couple of tips before you begin playing. The very first thing to do, is find the game that you want to play and read the manual. And then read it again and again. The game you decide on might also have a practice area, where you won’t upset the experienced players.
If you see the letters RTFM after you have asked a question of someone, you will know that you did not read the (effing) manual thoroughly enough and that it is time to read it again.
You could also join forums to do with the game in question. Often there is a forum attached to the game itself. People are far more friendly and will be much more indulgent in the forum than in the game. Believe me, the Wizard of Daz would rather get asked where the bathroom is when he is in the forum than while he is battling his archenemy!
You also need to familiarize yourself with the controls of the game. There will be shortcut keys for things like inventory, spells, weaponry, jump, cast a spell, turn left etc etc., so learn them until they are second nature. Again, it is very boring if every time someone meets you in a game, you ask: “Excuse me, but how do I ….”.
Don’t be surprised if players begin shooting you on sight, if that is how you propose playing the game. Which brings us to a different vital point: it is just a game. You win some and you lose some and like chess or checkers, if you lose, you just reset the game and start again. Don’t let your demise become boring when it is unavoidable. Resign yourself to your fate, fall on your sword and start again.
The last necessity for a great online multi-player interactive gaming experience is a fast Net connection and a moderately new computer although the connection speed is the more important.
Fellow players are not going to wait for your arrow to kill them as it leaps from your bow and speeds across the screen towards them at a snail’s pace – they will just side step it, walk across to you and put you out of their misery with a sword before your arrow gets to where they had been.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on many subjects but is presently involved with cat cannon games. If you would like to read more, please go over to our website entitled Kitten Cannon 3.