California is blessed with a certain variety of terrain.  I find myself in the enviable situation of being able to drive an hour or two to a nice beach, or three hours in the other direction to go snowboarding.  Additionally, I can go snowboarding well into April.  As I write this (several weeks after my trip), I think Squaw Valley is still open to service the needs of all those who like to hurtle down sheets of ice with their feet tied to sticks of varying length and width.

While I was up at Tahoe for the Chronicles of Gnar Gnar this year I made the transition from beginner to intermediate in my snowboarding skillz.  But that’s not the point of this blog.  After all, we’re gamers, not sports enthusiasts.

I went up with a group of friends, including dearest Rhoulette, who were all significantly better at the business of snowboarding than I was.  Even though I was slower, Rhoulette waited for me (never leave a Frag Doll behind!), and I pushed myself so she wouldn’t have to wait for me as much.  Somewhere in there, between all the spills, I got better.  A lot better.  By the end of our little getaway I was zipping around.  I feel downright comfy with my boots ratcheted to my trusty little board and I’d be unrecognizable to anyone who saw me the first day of the trip.  It helped a LOT to go with someone who could push me like that, but who was patient enough to wait instead of smoking me with her superior ability.

I’m getting ready to tie this into gaming.  Ready?

So can the same philosophy apply to fostering a new gamer?  A lot of people subscribe to the school of thought in which you can’t hold back on a new player; that new gamers need to love it in spite of being destroyed over and over and over.  If they don’t? Well, they weren’t cut out for it anyway.  On the one hand it’s admirable that they don’t want to breed weak gamers, but it’s also not going to do much to appeal to those people who are already intimidated by the idea of games.  Besides, I’m of the opinion that most gamers don’t care if it’s a brand new gamer they’re trashing, as long as they’re trashing someone.

In their own way, MMO games actually have this right.  The social aspects of the MMO world have fostered an online culture in which those who are higher level apply their skills to help newer players cut through the tangle and ease the curve that would ordinarily be intimidating for someone not used to the game.  Could this be part of the reason so many casual gamers love World of Warcraft but haven’t touched Quake?  Instead of competing against each other (at first--I am aware that something called Battlegrounds exists) they help each other along and learn practical application of their knowledge in the process.

In the same way, I hear a lot of guys wondering how to get their girlfriends into gaming, and all the people enumerating how bad it is to go easy. Is easing off in the beginning really so bad?  Would it be sexist?  Or is it fair as long as I take it easy on some poor guy the first time he plays?

Maybe I’m not a purist.  Maybe I’m a crazy hippy.  I just think we could all stand to be a bit nicer to new gamers.  I, for one, want to see more people playing videogames.  And I think being nice to people brave enough to try our deranged hobby will gain better results than giving them a thorough rundown of all the ways they suck.

- jinx

who made up all the rules