I think Dave and I are talking about MMORPG games with vast universes or
country sides and very complex systems of combat and construction.
I enjoy station building more as I have gotten older and doing it
right. I agree that it teaches us many great lessons. Many online
gamers have built their own gaming computers or rigs and tweak them,
over clock them and understand that part of the game far better than
many. No they are not building their gaming environment. So do but most
are just playing on a system built for them.
In America it is becoming more difficult to find ham friendly
locations. We can thank a certain Florida Senator for not allowing some
very good ham legislation from being made into law. :(
Can we scale back the entry level "requirements" where everyone uses
WRTC like setups for each contest? How many hear would operate a
contest that way? Would it take away from the fun?
W0MU
On 12/18/2016 11:15 PM, Jukka Klemola wrote:
I beg to differ on at least the first count.
Online tictactoe on a 3x3 field does not match SOABQRPAssisted skillset for
the guy who operates at home, using his own hand-made true
two-radio-station.
No online counter strike competitor has built his own gaming environment
using hundreds of feet of cables and so on hardware.
Remember Twin Peaks, the TV series?
"Log says, things are not what they seem."
73,
Jukka OH6LI
2016-12-19 3:27 GMT+02:00 David Gilbert <xdavid@cis-broadband.com>:
I'm far from being young (I hit 70 this March), but as both a contester
and a gamer I think I could add a couple of things to your list.
1. Online gaming is extensive. At any point in time you typically use
more immediate skills than you do in contesting. I'm not at all saying
that upper tier contesting doesn't require amazing skills, or that overall
they aren't similar, but I think the breadth required every minute in
gaming exceeds that of contesting. Just my opinion, of course.
2. Gaming generates far more participation than contesting. The major
competitive games count their active players in the millions instead of the
few thousands for contesting. That means people have more opportunity to
enjoy the activity every single minute of the day. No waiting for the
weekend, no dependency on propagation, no disrupting sleep patterns to hit
prime time.
3. (Embellishment of your #6) Gaming is totally real time. You know
exactly where you stand every minute of the battle/quest/whatever.
4. This one may be the most relevant, in my opinion. Gaming involves
direct action/reaction against your opponent. It's constant
move-countermove the entire activity, sometimes with literally dozens of
overlapping actions/reactions directly against your opponent in real time.
I can't think of any aspect of contesting that approaches this ... and
trust me, I've tried to think up a format that would provide it. Somebody
smarter than me needs to work on this. I'm pretty sure nobody would be
doing online gaming either if they had to spend several hours playing more
or less in isolation relative to their direct competition and then wait a
few days before early results showed where they stood.
I certainly agree with your comment about the visual aspect. There's
really no comparison.
73,
Dave AB7E
On 12/18/2016 10:42 AM, W0MU Mike Fatchett wrote:
I had the opportunity to talk to my son in more detail and ask him why
contesting does not interest him. Here is what we discussed.
1. Cost to get in the game and have a chance to win is prohibitive. You
need a great station, land, etc to really win or compete. The playing
field is so unbalanced that it becomes a show stopper. For him he has no
costs when at home. I consider my station modest with a 70 ft tower and
land to put up Inv L's and full sized 80m verticals and some receiving
antennas. I could do more but we have horses and they need to roam and are
hell on things in the pasture.
2. You have to invest a lot of time to get good. If he can not have a
really good station then why invest the time to get good if you are not
going to be able to really compete.
2. The tools we use to contest, logging software, packet look like old
dos programs. He called them ugly and boring. He is used to amazing
graphics in games. I found this observation interesting. I feel that the
tools we have are pretty good and give me what I want to see readily
available. I was not expecting this answer.
3. He is far more interested in using packet where he can immediately
chase things. Packet essentially gives him a list of things to do or
goals. It is more visual so more interesting. He thought that more
automated systems would be interesting. Young people and even us older
folk expect things to happen much faster. They are the generation of
instant satisfaction and some of that even rubs off on us older folk.
4. Talking to someone over the airwaves is still pretty cool. You can
instantly talk around the world if the right condx exist, but we can talk
all over the world with our phones so it is not as amazing as it once was.
5. CW is interesting but he was surprised that we don't have better code
readers. While he would like to learn the code time is once again the
factor. They have so many other outlets for entertainment that it is hard
to find time for all of them.
6. Results take far too long to come out
7. He proposed that all participants use a scoreboard type system. Many
of us have said this was something we need to do but have instead met with
amazing resistance and a ton of excuses why people refuse to use it. A
system where everyone can check it out and see what is going in in the
contest. We are back to visuals.
6. Playing radio in the car driving is fun because there is not much else
to do but drive.
7. He has his general license but he does not have the technical skills
or electronic knowledge to build a shack or decent station. I am not a
great teacher especially to my own kids so I take some of the blame for
this but it is hard to teach people things when they don't want to devote
much time to it. I feel a reluctance to even try to do something without
having the proper knowledge. A far cry from when I was young and tried all
sorts of silly antennas and projects that mostly failed miserably but boy
did I learn from those mistakes.
That pretty much summed up our hour long conversation and I am no closer
to figuring out how to sell ham radio and contesting to them. I hope some
will find this information helpful and interesting.
W0MU
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|