When I started off with Rainbow Six as my first first person shooter on the PC, I had no inkling of this game mechanic called "respawn." When you died in the game, you had to wait until the end of the match. Depending on the map and type of players, it could take one minute to the end or in some cases, 20 minutes. This is where I learned about patience as all the dead players talked amongst themselves and watched as their last teammates get lost within the map and keep passing by each other without noticing. There would be talks about nice shots, tactics, and general everyday life during these afterdeath waiting periods.

As I continued my first person shooting career, I moved onto Delta Force series which introduced me to elements such as medics, spawn camping, and most importantly, the "Press Spacebar to respawn or wait for a medic" popup. I was amazed at the idea of being able to be brought back to life and how it made so much sense to me. The Delta Force series is about large groups of people battling other large groups of people while in Rainbow Six it was just your squad vs another squad with limited numbers on a small contained area and not a battlefield. Essentially, on the battlefield between factions, the leaders would not just send in some small unit, they would send their army to battle it out and continue to send in reinforcements so that the battle can be won.

I continued my FPS career through the years and when I hit Team Fortress 2, that was the first time I came across people complaining about respawning. "Respawns are TOOOOOOOOO LOONNGGG!!!!!," "Valve should balance the game for instant respawns, it makes the game better!" "Respawn timers were put in because Valve is too lazy to make good maps!" were the arguments I heard against timers.

It just doesn’t make any sense for me. Respawn time is there for you to observe your team, learn from their movements and strategy on where to go, what to do, and to celebrate awesome kills that people perform. Respawn time is also the perfect time to get up, stretch, relax, or use the bathroom. In an Arstechnica article I read, (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/02/study-fps-deaths-provide-sweet-relief-to-victims.ars) , there was a study into the effects of killing and dying in the videogame, "James Bond 007: Nightfire," and the study showed that with each kill a person got without dying, their stress increased while being killed gave them relief. I would say this mirrors my response in every shooter I play. When I kill another player, it adds to my kill streak, I become fixated on keeping my kill streak high and staying alive. I become even more paranoid of everyone around me, and I notice this happen to other players as well. As their kill streaks increase, they retreat out of battle faster and faster in fear of losing their awesome streak.

I always value each one of my deaths in any multiplayer game. I think back about my actions and how I would have handled it differently instead of staying stuck in the past about what should have or could have happen. I imagine the new scenario and practice it so I can change my timing. One example I would use is with the airblast on the pyro. With the Demo/Soldier update, I have dramatically increased my airblast reflection rates after many deaths and trying to understand when each soldier fires their load off and what is the best time to reflect.

Personally, I hate instant respawn in all first person shooter style games. For one, it doesn’t give me any sense of consequence for doing a foolish action that gets me killed and the game just says “It’s ok, now get back out there and do it again and again. ”I always feel like there is this pressure on me to move as fast as I can as soon as I spawn and I keep my body and senses in the "fight or flight" mode for an extended period of time. The body thinks there’s a threat everywhere, your heart starts beating, chemicals start filling your body and your brain shuts off non-vital processes of your body. Eventually, your body will deteriorate from this heightened state of alert and now things become more serious as video games start having a detrimental effect on your body.

To my readers, what kind of respawn mechanics do you like? Instant vs timer?

Games with one life are also fine

I first encountered Windows 98 in 1999, when we got a new computer and my parents allowed me to buy my first pc video game. That game was the original Rainbow 6 and every day, the Windows 98 startup sound would echo through the house from my speakers as I began my PC gaming career. Windows 98 is my childhood; it was there when I began PC gaming, it was there when I began my foray onto the internet and all its wonders and horrors; and it was there when I finished elementary school. Windows 98 is why I am here today. That startup sound will always remind me of my childhood and I will always hold it dear to my heart.

To explain further, that was the operating system where I truly began exploring other games available to me. Before then, I was just another kid who sat at home all day watching tv, but now, with my 56k modem and AOL, I began learning about things like other internet speeds, lag, and courtesy (back then where I played, there was no flaming, people were actually nice and helped each other out). It was like a sort of awakening for me. Windows 98 was the platform when I started making friends who didn’t care how I looked, just that I was a nice guy who played games with them. That’s all they needed in order to start a friendship and become a community. It was because of these friends that I made I was gradually introduced to other kinds of PC games such as real time strategy in Age of Empires, Role Playing Games in NeverWinter Nights, and text games called Multi User Dungeons (MUD). I would even say that because of Windows 98 and its introduction of video games, that I began geeking out and learning about technology and made me the “computer guy” in my family.

Without Windows 98, I might not have become a PC gamer, I might not have begun my education into learning the latest tech, I might not even have all these e-friends that I now have and the communities I belong to which has lasted longer than real life groups and friends. So to Microsoft, Thank you for Windows 98 and beginning my career of pc gaming.

P.S. I also won Cities XL, woot!

June 1st, 2009, the day I lost faith in Valve. Left 4 Dead 2 was announced and I was in utter disbelief. I come home from a hard days work and start reading the rants on my twitter stream about a Left 4 Dead 2 and I could feel the anger that they were feeling. Announced seven months after the original, and to be released one year after the original at full retail price of $50,  that’s just not something Valve does.

Historically, Valve takes a long time to do any sequel but they make good games. Take Team Fortress 2 for example, I bought it bundled with the Orange Box only because I wanted episode 2. Everything else was just extras I was willing to pay for. I bought Orange Box for $45 and would have at the time, valued Episode 2 at $25, Portal at $15 and Team Fortress 2 itself at the full $45 because that was how fun and non beta like the game was. Team Fortress 2 felt like everything that needed to be there was there, all the classes felt balanced and there didn’t feel like a need to patch anything.

In the first six months of Team Fortress 2, the Medic unlocks were being released along with the new mode, Payload with the map Gold Rush. There were countless custom maps made, both horrible and good, and communities were founded around the game.

With Left 4 Dead, I have yet to join any custom server with any custom map nor do I intend to. With the server browser hidden away you can’t discover new maps to try out and the Left 4 Dead steam forums only talk about the Valve created maps, not any custom maps or any discussion for the custom maps. With the lobby process, there are no ties to any particular server unless the players know a private one from their own community before playing Left 4 Dead.

I could tell right away in the first week of the game that unless custom maps were released in a few months, people playing the game would be burned out from knowing all the maps inside out, with no important variable change. That’s why I liked the random tank and witch encounters and always playing survivor. You never knew what was waiting around the corner and you were always excited. Once Valve removed the luck variable, the games just started to drag and I started getting frustrated more and more with the minor bugs and glitches that would cause me to die.

By the time the Survival DLC was added in late April, I had already grown tired and burned out with Left 4 Dead. The new survival mode just didn’t draw me in and felt like a cheap add on where they just lock you in a room and turn on panic mode forever. The new Versus maps just felt too limited in spaces for infected to hide or attack from, unfinished in numerous out of bounds walls and ceilings, unbalanced towards the survivors, and today still feature the bug that lets infected players spawn before the survivors even leave the safe room.

It feels like Valve already know they’ve missed the prime time for Left 4 Dead 1. For me, the first six months of a game determines its worth. Left4Dead was not worth the $45 I paid to beta test this game for the past 7 months. Suggestions the players put in, the bugs they’ve found, will of course carry over into the sequel. Left 4 Dead feels more like a $25 game and the Survival pack does not cut it with the two versus maps should have been in since the start.

By saving the content they had planned in the original for a sequel, they can jump start their failed game after spending all these months gathering data from all the beta testers. Plus, it is for the console market which has no understanding of expansion packs. They’ve been exposed only to yearly sequels thanks to EA and apparently enjoy buying the same game over and over every year.

Left To Hang

For PC gamers, we actually remember when extra missions, monsters, characters, weapons were in expansion packs and only recently did games seem to start offering expansion pack content as free updates with the proliferation of broadband connections in households.

If Left 4 Dead 2 were priced as an expansion, I would gladly buy it, but at full retail price as if it were an entirely new game? That’s just shows to me that Valve is turning into the money hogging sequel every year publisher that EA has become.

Valve had initially announced similar update plans for Left 4 Dead as Team Fortress 2 such as new maps, new weapons, and new unlocks but with the Left 4 Dead 2 announcement, we learn that the team immediately focused resources into creating a sequel instead of using the resources to add onto the life of the original. If the new content were planned for the original, and they knew it would be a large increase in content, why not plan for an expansion instead of continually developing content which they knew would never make it into the original game for free.

If I had a choice, I would say keep the new characters, melee, special infected, and locational damage for the common infected to the sequel, but bring over the campaign and other weapon types.

Anyways, knowing Valve/Turtle Rock Studios, either Left 4 Dead 2 will be shipped as a beta like Left 4 Dead 1 or it will be delayed to Summer 2010.

Below is a link to the Boycott Left 4 Dead 2 Steam community and a few videos with player’s reactions to the announcement.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/L4D2boycott