To use a mic or not to use a mic: that is the question

For all you gamers out there who already use a microphone you probably understand how much it can influence your gaming experience. You can do everything from calling out “Bomb down!” in Counter-Strike to chatting with friends on Vent. The very act of incorporating voice into the game allows a gamer to decide what level of reality or intensity that they want to bring to the game. If you were to play with all players muted, then one might argue it’s no different than playing against bots, but when they aren’t muted it’s a constant reminder that you aren’t only playing a video game and are still a member of a world outside of your monitor’s screen.

It’s interesting that a person’s voice can connect you back to the real world, but at the same time create an intensified gaming experience. I doubt that there are very many clans/guilds that scrimmage, go on raids, or fight bosses without using voice communications.

I always love hearing fellow gamers use their microphone because it adds a different dimension to who you can imagine them to be: who they are, what they do, how they act, etc. And for the relationships you do form, however meaningful and real they are, I think that using a microphone helps to facilitate their creation.

Plus, microphones are slightly addicting.

Using my microphone immediately draws attention to myself. Suddenly I get hounded with questions similar to “are you a girl!?” or “how old are you kid?” Yes, I am a girl. No I am not a little boy. And at 21 years old I am older than the high schooler who just asked me that question. A funny note is that even if I had a really girly character / id name, sometimes guys will just think its another guy fooling around and it isn’t until I use my microphone that they suspect I am female. A quarter of the time I’ll be accused of using a voice modifier.

The issue is this: Even today while playing L4D I had a gaming buddy say that I was the exception to his rule “Dicks before Chicks” when picking teams for video games. A lot of guys just don’t think that girls are very good at video games. When I am doing especially well on any of the games there are often a lot of comments flying around like “you just got pwned by a girl”, “how does it feel to lose to a girl”, or “I must really suck since a girl just killed me”. It’s frustrating how once you’re recognized as a girl you have to restart building up your reputation for being a good player. Sometimes I just don’t want to use my microphone so that when playing I never have to deal with the preconception that girls suck at video games (I once wanted to start a guild called G3 – Girls Got Game, but that’s a topic for a different post), but at the same time I don’t want to lose the benefits that come with using a microphone.

Spring Break

So far, slightly awesome and slightly depressing. I thought that I would be able to take this week off of school and be able to sleep in, play a massive amount of video games and in doing this finally catch up in level on Warhammer Online. Instead my 6 hour drive home turns into a 10 hour one when my car dies, my phone starts to break, and life just always has to throw in a few obstacles before you get to do what you want. So when I had hoped to be lazy and gaming I am now car shopping, phone shopping, doing homework, applying for internships (thought I really hope I get one), running errands, and dreading the fact that I leave for school tomorrow.

Although I have been able to get some solid gaming in. I’ve gotten 2 more levels on Warhammer Online, but at lvl 33 I am still many, many hours away from 40. Played some more gun game, and on one of my regular servers went back up to rank #2 only to fall back down to rank #7 when I happened to have an awful time on nade level. Some pretty fun news is that I joined a new clan. :|EvO|: I’ve played with some of the guys from this clan pretty regularly now and am on their tournament team for L4D. We’ve signed up for TWL and will sign up for CAL when it gets moving again. Have to say that I’m pretty excited and think that we have a pretty solid team – especially after getting in some practice scrimmages this week. Still have to improve the aim of my crazy-death-from-above hunter pounces.

Posted after the fact--lol win for procrastination! I promise I'm gonna do better about writing my posts and then posting them quickly rather than week(s) later! I only have like 4 or so more to catch up posting on. xD ]

Hello there!

It is probably appropriate to take my first post to introduce myself and my gaming experience. I have a life passion for video games and playing them are some of my earliest memories. Memories include racing my Dad in FZero, competing against my Mom in Tetris, winning a Halo tournament in High School, going on raids with my brothers and guild in Warhammer Online, and my own adventures beta testing games like Lord of the Rings Online and Warhammer Online and playing games like Black & White, the Sims, and Spore. From the Atari to recent releases of the Wii, Xbox 360, and the PS3 I have grown up and experienced the evolution of video games and I believe that this gives me a different and unique perspective. Especially being a female in a still male dominated gaming community.

I’ve gone by numerous handles differing by clan, name and game version. My main tags include |RAWR|, |DoD| and most recently :|EvO|:. Names include Kitty of Doom, Kiss of Death, and my latest Revy. PC games that I play most frequently include Counter-Strike: Source, Warhammer Online and Left 4 Dead. Less frequent ones include The Sims and Dota. Console games include Harvest Moon, Little Big Planet, Soul Caliber, Legend of Zelda, Mario, and others.

If you would like to play some CSS/L4D with me hit me up with a friend request at chibineko or message Pyra for Warhammer Online.

More personally, I am a 21 year old Ivy League college student. I’m a bit of a jock, nerd, gamer, artist/designer, and basically crazy conundrum of a person. Other than playing video games I love reading/writing, playing lacrosse/ice hockey, designing fashion, creating computer graphic designs, watching scary movies, photography, traveling, and going to estate/vintage sales.

Hope you enjoy reading my blog!