The Joys of Online Gaming
As a kid and teen, I never understood the appeal of online gaming. Don’t get me wrong, I loved video games but I didn’t get the idea of playing games with other people that didn’t live in my house. I much rather enjoyed firing up a single-player game such as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and having a grand old time by myself. I did play some online games but stayed by myself, not wanting to interact with anybody else. I did play local co-op games with my family, but that’s as far as I got. It wasn’t until this past year that I found the real joy in online gaming.
I recently graduated from college and for the last two years, lived with roommates in an apartment. My friends were into video games and we explored multiplayer games. All of us either had different consoles or didn’t own the same games so we stayed with local multiplayer. That led us to a lot of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate games and a lovely playthrough of Unravel 2. This also led to Pichu, the cute adorable weak Pokemon, being my main character in Smash but that’s another story. When we graduated, the three of us couldn’t sit in the same room playing video games and enjoying each other’s company anymore. It was absolutely heartbreaking.
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Then we had an idea. I bought Smash because I enjoyed the game immensely and wanted to play on my own console. I spent so much time playing by myself to unlock the characters then my one friend and I tried the online aspect. It wasn’t the same way as playing locally but we found a way to make it work. Mostly we battled against each other with random characters and talked. It was a grand time. We kept that up for a while until my work schedule got too hectic, and we couldn’t play. But while it lasted, this was great.
A few weeks ago, my other friend and I started up gaming. We couldn’t decide on a game to buy so we resorted to a game installed on both our computers: Minecraft. I had dabbled with Minecraft years ago but hadn’t touched it since. At first we played on Hypixel, a large Minecraft server with tons of minigames. That was enjoyable and we still go on but we really wanted a Minecraft server of our own. When we figured out how to get one up and running, we quickly invited our other friend, the one I played Smash with. Now we have a weekly time to play Minecraft and hang with each other.
I finally get it. I finally get the enjoyment that comes from online gaming. These are two people who have been my friends and roommates through college. I don’t know where my life would be without them. And of course, we live all across the east coast, way too far for a quick visit. Through gaming, we are able to recreate those times when we sat in the living room of our apartment, laughing our butts off after something stupid happened. Without texting and gaming, I probably would have lost contact with these precious people, my best friends. And now, we have discovered a way to keep up our friendship over long distance. And I absolutely love it. Online gaming brought me and my friends back together.
Originally published at http://twilightramblingsblog.wordpress.com on July 11, 2022.
