Realworld Skills Learned from Videogames

[Draz]

Originally Posted by Lyenae

Get a 2nd job, put in time at a homeless shelter, or coach a kids's sports team and put that on your resume instead of your 'MMO RL training sessions.'

Can I put Trolling internet message boards like Lyenae on my resume?!

[Arakkis]

Originally Posted by aychamo_aycono

Use the word "nigger" instead.

hahahaha

"What the fuck you say honkey?"

"No it's cool man, I play MMOs."

[Zeste]

I'm sorry, but people say "I learned patience and dedication from waiting 72 hours for my Ragefire/Raster spawn!"

No, you didn't.

You sat at your fucking computer as a teenager, doing NOTHING in a video game, waiting for a monster in the videogame to appear.

I'm guilty of it too, I've done dozens of EQ1 epics. But nothing from MMO's helps you in RL.

Crap, I played a fucking Bard in EQ. By this threads logic, I'm more qualified than Obama.

[Dabamf]

I've learned:

-Huge vocabulary, I too can thank everquest for getting at least 2 GRE verbal questions right, and a few questions right when watching Jeopardy.
-Knowledge of my leadership capabilities. Leading raids in EQ may have taught me a little about leadership, but more importantly it taught me that I already had natural leadership skills, they just never came out in the real world. That helped me realize that the only reason they hadn't come out was anxiety. So it ended up helping me discover the extent of certain social anxieties I had as well as ways to defeat them.
-Never to trust competitors to be ethical. When in doubt, slay every last one of them.

Skills that were severely hampered by video games:
-Social skills, without Everquest I would have had to seek that companionship & productive satisfaction elsewhere when I was young, which may have forced me to actually talk in high school. All was well in the end though.
-Punctuality, I always try to squeeze in one last daily or stay for one more attempt and always end up late.

There are probably more negatives. All in all video games aren't a good way to learn skills, but no one ever said they are and that's not the point of the thread so people need to shut up about it.

[Darus Grey]

Originally Posted by Zeste

I'm sorry, but people say "I learned patience and dedication from waiting 72 hours for my Ragefire/Raster spawn!"

No, you didn't.

You sat at your fucking computer as a teenager, doing NOTHING in a video game, waiting for a monster in the videogame to appear.

I'm guilty of it too, I've done dozens of EQ1 epics. But nothing from MMO's helps you in RL.

Crap, I played a fucking Bard in EQ. By this threads logic, I'm more qualified than Obama.

I disagree. Humans are rationalizing beings. There's plenty of times I've been able to do something(or more accurately...wait to do something, or not do it), because I could rationalize it as being less effort than Ragefire(something I already accomplished, a hell of a lot more than 72 hours since I got it "stolen" from me 1/2 a dozen times and kept trucking).

That is an example of something that is logical but not sound reasoning, however humans do that every-day and those rationalities are important to our health and goals. Just because these experiences take place in a virtual space does not mean that they are not part of our "real" lives.

People have this habit of separating the two with the entailment that the virtual being is somehow "fake"...when it's clear that it exists, and therefore must be "real", and therefore, has an impact on our "real" lives.

[roosta]

Originally Posted by Zhavric

Things that I've learned from video games... [*]Homosexuals aren't actually people who are attracted to their own gender. They're people who use hax / have slow connections to the internet / suck / suck at games / suck at life. Occasionally, they engage in something called buttsecks.

i love it.

[Fediel]

I would argue that those of you who 72 hour camped ragefire probably learned discipline. Even if you were not a melee class.

[Ronne]

Fired a gun for the first time in my life 2 weeks ago and 10-ringed 3 clips of .45, so I guess counter-strike was good for something!

[Melchizedek]

Originally Posted by Fediel

Raid leader = management + resource allocation
Doom = spatial ability + tactics
Mario Paint = artist + composer
Virtual Valerie = ?

People vilify video games all the time as causing everything from school shootings to the downfall of man. They did the same about D&D in the 70's.

What examples of real world skills can you think of that are derived from video games?

Falcon 4.0 = Next Generation UAV Driver ie unmanned fighters pulling rediculous Gs

[Picasso]

I was always curious what would happen in a Wolverines type situation after the entire fucking continent had played CS, CoD, etc

All the kids would probably be more worried about their k/d or getting a headshot than actually dying.

[Nako Mistako]

I've learned quite a bit about the world around me with respect to the intellectual level of the people (children) inhabiting it. They're lazy, selfish, stupid, inept, apathetic fucks.

I've learned a lot about the level of parenting that goes into creating such magnificent beings... one part bad example, one part low expectations, thirty parts zero discipline whatsoever: blammo, instant internet inhabitant and future coworker. The sheer number of hellspawn that are completely unable to figure something out for themselves and/or do what they need done independently is astronomical.

The magical art of "use your brain, figure it out" or the voodoo tribal practice of "read the instructions" have been long lost in favor of the sheep mentality championed by the hordes of apes unable to understand or appreciate the concepts presented in measly high-school educational offerings. Instead they somehow end up playing team-based objective games with me. Shit.


Aaaaaanyways...

With regards to "learning skills" from games, the results are completely relative to what you put in. It may be hard to pin down exact skills anyone can learn just by playing games (e.g. social skills/behavior learning, different for all people), but I can certainly appreciate the value gained from the sheer amounts of time spent on certain activities. I am constantly engaged in researching, experimenting, and questioning whatever environment I choose to engage myself in: critical analysis in many varying forms. These things can be difficult to formally rationalize and attribute to sources, but I can say with certainty that my tendencies and ability to encounter a design, plan, or strategy and draw benefits from the "what's wrong with this/how do I break this shit" mindset, whether the intent be to improve/replace a design or simply seek personal gain, would be far different were I to spend all my time lounging in front of the TV, for example. /grammarslaughter off


If that's not concrete enough, there's always being completely able to fly and properly maneuver an aircraft before ever being behind the controls for the first time. Fuck yeah Jet Fighter III/Falcon 4.0/Jane's Longbow/Microsoft Sim of today and yesteryear. Good exposure to the science behind it all too, plus military background. Damn, I miss the military sim genre I grew up with.

[dak]

I learned not to stand in ground effects unless otherwise told.

[Fediel]

I learned that odd groups go left and even groups go right and that there is no such thing as too few dots.

I also learned that during raids, having some guy yell at you and tell you how incompetent you are (no matter how true it may be) is unlikely to actually do anything but lower morale further.

[roger]

i've learned that i wasn't made to be a real life boxer when i got my ass kicked for the first time,

thank you, mike tyson punch out !

[T-rex]

When I got tired of twisting and started using MacroQuest I learned that if something is boring and repetitive, just let a computer do it for you.

And then when I used warping and MQ maps and what not I learned that when a computer does everything for you, it really isn't fun.

And then I understood the Matrix.