Graham got me to watch a supercut of the episode of Law & Order: SVU (YouTube video - has some graphic violence) which seems to be inspired by the whole Gamergate incident. I found the episode kinda hard to watch with all the gaming terms shoe-horned in to make it seem foreign, and it seemed to really go for the whole gamers can't tell the difference between games and reality, and they're all violence-obsessed males who just want to feel up girls and kill people (note: I haven't seen the whole episode).
Gosh, I don't know where to begin. I'm sure there are tons of essays online about how it's just the loud, crazy minority of gamers making all the others look bad, and they're probably much better written than something I could ever write. Even though I do care about the perception of gamers, and I try to give people a good impression when I meet them and tell them that I play games, I wouldn't consider it a huge passion of mine anymore. Haters gonna hate, right? Instead, I'd rather channel my energy into finding other like-minded people.
I've been tossing up the idea of streaming, although our current Internet connection doesn't have enough bandwidth for me to do it and for MrMan5.5 to be able to play his games, so this is probably something that'll have to wait until we get the NBN or something like that. The reason I want to stream is that I want to find others who would play with me. I'm super paranoid that people hate me, and so whenever I play with strangers, I just try to fly under the radar and not be noticed so that they won't yell at me. It's actually pretty funny, during lunch at work, I was about to ask whether one of my co-workers thinks the new guy hates me, and I got about half the question out when he said, "He doesn't hate you!" I guess I must say it a lot. (Turns out he doesn't hate me, and we are now whiskey buddies, where whiskey buddies = me constantly reminding him that I'm never drinking whiskey again.)
I figure anyone who can put up with watching my stream must be able to put up with playing games with me, so it'd be a good place to start. And I think it'd be really awesome to push myself to do something fun. Intern Daniel posted a link to my Facebook wall with a Dota 2 fitness regimen, but I think it's a lame low-tier workout, since it's just like a drinking game except with push ups, where you do push ups if X happens in your game, and I think the things on the list happen rarely when people are playing seriously.
Here it is if you want (9gag link):
Game lost: 20 push ups
Russians in team: 10 squarts per Russian
GG called after firstblood: 20 cross punch sit ups
"Report XXX": 10 leg raises each time
5 Carry team: 20 tricep dips
No wards/courier: 20 jumping lunges
Pudge/Riki insta locked: 20 bicycle crunches
Not a huge fan of JennCroft's one either (Imgur/Reddit):
Pre-game:
30 squats
10 burpees
10 push ups
Every death (rotate):
10 jump squats
10 crunches
Plank until respawn
10 dips
10 push ups
Mostly because someone mentioned you're likely to be really dizzy after doing them, and it's just going to make you play worse, which means you need to do more of them, etc. I really like the idea of tallying them up, because in Dota 2, you can do what's called a "buyback", where you pay gold to have your hero respawn instantly, rather than waiting for the full death timer, and in some close games, this can mean the difference between a win or a loss. I don't want to let my team down by saying, "Sorry guys, I can't buyback, I need to do 10 dips first!" Also, I don't want to get sweat all over my rainbow keyboard! :(
Still, if I don't work out more, I'll be at 66kg for the rest of the year, gotta try harder! Intern Daniel laughs at my really bad push ups and burpees. He also told me about how his coach gets them to run laps with their hands in the air above their heads as a punishment, which I thought sounded stupidly easy, so I said I'd carry a box over my head all the way to the train station. So much pain, so so much pain, and he was laughing the entire time. He has challenged me to do one proper push-up by the end of the year.
Julian says people would be willing to watch a stream featuring someone doing push ups and stuff because of Dota deaths, so maybe that can be my thing. A push to make myself stronger, but also to meet new people.
Fodder's Dota 2 Work Out/Punishment
Starting set:
5 x sit ups
5 x push ups
1 x support rotation (front support, left support, back support, right support - 20s each)
1 x glass of water (gotta keep hydrated!)
Set modifications:
Additions
Death: + 1 sit up/push up
Enemy gets first blood: +5 sit ups/push ups
Enemy gets godlike streak: +5 sit ups/push ups
Enemy gets Roshan: +1 support rotation
Enemy buys a divine rapier: +1 support rotation
Enemy hero gets a rampage (kills all 5 of us): +1 support rotation
Subtractions
Kill: -1 sit up/push up
I get first blood: -5 sit ups/push ups
Assist: -1 sit up/push up for every 5 assists (rounded down)
Gold per minute: -1 for every 400 (rounded down)
The modified numbers for sit ups and push ups can be assigned however you like. If you are feeling the burn in your core, then assign extra push ups. If your arms are starting to shake, go for the sit ups.
I don't know how unrealistic this is, and I hope that the people I play with will be OK with waiting for me to do all of these things between each match. The support rotation will take at least 80 seconds. Maybe I should shorten that one down to 10s each. I think I'll run this by Intern Daniel on Monday to see what he thinks. If you have any feedback, feel free to leave a comment or email me!
But back to the original topic (I do seem to like being side-tracked), am I worried about being harassed online? A little bit. I don't think I have a thick enough skin to be able to handle lots of abuse. Requests to show my boobs and stupid stuff like that I can handle, but I think if people started telling me that I'm really bad and that I should stop playing, it would start to get me down. But to be honest, I think it's something I really need to work on. I can't keep relying on validation from others to give me confidence, I need to find it within myself.
This is especially true in the workplace, as people aren't going to constantly tell me that I'm great. Everyone is just expected to do their job without needing their hands held. If I ever want to be respected by my co-workers, I need to be able to be confident in my own abilities, even when it seems like everybody is so much better than I am that I feel like I must be the worst person in the world. As I tell people who flame new players in Dota, everyone was new at some point. Though I'm starting to get past the phase of being new, and I can't hold on to that excuse anymore either. My boss thinks that I should start working towards becoming a senior developer, so I've been trying to convince myself that I'm worth it.
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