Gaming as a part of my life

respect

great reading :) hope u get better, e-buddy shiva is giving u good vibes. xx

It's because of people like you that this game is dying.

good read :)

One of the best things I have read on this site in a LONG while, thank you for taking the time to write it.
To answer your question, NO, it really is not worth it.

GL

"take me from behind" :D

You know this is so fucking true bro. My brother showed me this game around 8 years ago I've been playing it ever since. He wasted 4 years in college while my dad was paying for him. He wouldn't go to class and instead go play ET. He has wasted 4 years of his life which if he hadn't he could have been earning up to $50,000 a year. At least he managed to quit now and he is doing everything correctly now.
As for my self, I'm addicted to this game. My dad fucking hates it. He doesn't let me play it and what not. I mean I can see why. As much as I tell my self I'm not addicted I know I am. It's an amazing game. I wish I never found out about it, so I wouldn't waste as much time as I do on it now. At least I'm not skipping classes to play ET. I have a job and I managed to get As in all my classes and a B+ in one of them.
As for you, I really respect the fact that you were able to make the decision to not play this game. I wish I could do the same. And I would also never show my kids this game or any game that is addicting as this. This game is so fun, it's so hard to quit.

nice read, I was really bored :)

dont think I lost much tbh from spending that much time in gaming, I actually learned some things (not only about games), I met amazing people really, I miss talking bullshit on vent/ts or whatever, I miss so much things actually but yeah, "real life" is somewhat a bitch but can be nice.

I skipped so much classes in my life (probably not only to play tbh, but when I didn't want to do anything else I was just coming at my pc), skipped so much things in my life and missed some others but it's definately not because of gaming

For me it was my educator at boarding school that showed me this game; I was playing Gunz Online back then, in 2004. (|>B<|4R3ND if anyone recognizes him) and I never quit the game since then.
Been playing publics for 5 years tho, and started playing ETPro around start 2009.
It kind of ruined my youth, yeah, but as long as I'm successful in my life, I'm not going to regret any of this.

Could write a wall of text as well but I can't be fucking arsed to do that at 6am lol
Nice read though, reminded me of the good ol' days on |>B<| :')

depends. yes it was a huge time wasting, however looking at it that way, 'partying\ or just hanging out is pretty much the same. you can both play and create social connections, in both worlds. the only thing is the limits. i remember enormous memories of great times with a few mates i met online and i wouldn't trade them for anything, it was a huge fun and laugh.

Nice read , if i watched back i "managed" it better as some other guys :-)
Im happy to play ET, started it playing 2004 a friend show it to me and i was like omg nice game, i still play it, started playing it in clans middle 2004 and still playing it... had my "first love".. n shit , finished school normal as others , weekend party . after school join pubs till into night or went out sometimes, ...


WoW was hard for me ... ~ 1 year i was hardcore playing it in 2007 but then i said to , that cant be longer my life.. woke up - play go sleep... that was hard and i dont want it back :X


If i would quit ET i would miss something and its nice to think back and say myself : ,, it was awesome " ...

Is it worthy ?

Yes! if you dont lose your priority of life

well the thing is...whats actually more important than having a good time?
i mean as long as you feel joy when playing games its just as much worth it as going out gettin drunk or hanging with friends, because seriously...the things in real life you do instead are probably also as unneccessary as gaming, you may grab a pussy or two instead yes, but in the end you dont miss much

i quitted et a while ago already, due to not having too much time (and if i got some time, i would sleep/browse pages instead of gaming anytime), but im pretty sure that i got some people over the internet, who would be better friends to me than any of those guys i got in real life anytime...

(and no, im not forever alone or socially awkward penguin, but people you meet in real life are more or less all backstabbing and devious, friendships over the internet however are alot more loyal,honest and not so pretending because its build upon totally different values)

therefore no, its definitely not wasted time in my view...but as i stated before, the only thing which might be a problem is that you probably miss out some sexy time with the ladys due to being not as often around outside your room (if you got a gf already however, this point may not apply)


e: column plx!

If you can differ between ET and friends, differ between E-Life and Reallife, then it is no problem at all. Well I dont know you and you probably dont know me at all, but just look at the recent journal by krosan "Top Contributers of CF in 2011". I was placed as 7th. Does it make me a nolifer? No not really. I spend much time in the internet day by day, but i also spend a lot of time with my friends and my university. ET and CF has become to some kind of hobby and i dont want to miss it tbh. It makes a lot of fun, to check crossfire day by day after waking up. Reading through some trolljournals and flame mates. To wish your good friends good luck in their recruitmentposts or just read through the awesome news of Baggiez and others. I dont think that is wrong or something like that.

Look on my profile. Look on my profilepic. Do I look like a nerd to you? Seriously I dont. I have a lot of friends (500 facebookfans :D:D just kidding ;D). I meet my friends nearly every day. We go party hard a lot and I got still enough time to play football, go to the gym or go to the cinema with my mates. As i said. ET or CF is nothing bad. It is just important to differ between reallife and e-life. If you cant manage this, then this could be a monster, right. But same goes for things like going shopping, playing football, learning for college etc. If you spend too much time on it, you wont have a realllife.

So dont call our beloved game a monster, just because you couldn't handle it.

e: you say it in a way as if we dont have any reallife at all. I mean do you really think we are all some kind of nerds who never go out? Do you really think that we stay every day in front of the computer without doing anything else? Who do you think we are ? Some UBERNERDS?

Good shit man.
Most of the longer stories on crossfire, are boring. But this one is great :).
Everyone of us will someday get the encounter to end ET.

tl;dr should have put as colum thingnyyn

Gaming is gaming. Overcomplicating it is moronic.

We all have our reasons. I highly doubt any of us would prioritise ET over RL.

We do it because we have nothing else to do, welcome to internet gaming.

i used to play over 50hrs a week for 2years straight.... women what? now i'm making up lost time meeting and talking to lots of women to improve my skills! i had to sell my pc to finally stop playing....

i don't regret my gaming time like someone said above either play hard go pro or don't...

Nice read. I had a similar experience. I've always been a guy who went all-in when he found a new passion. I've had years that I lived for basketball or skateboarding. But when I started getting health problems which lasted for a few years (tyroid/surgery) I started playing alot of games and wasted a good 5 years on them. I can honestly say I've learned some valuable things during those years, but they can not be compared to what I could have learned if I had spent my time more wisely. It hasn't been easy to get back on my feet with alot of friends giving up on me because I just couldn't be bothered to meet up with them during this time, but I'm slowly managing.

Short story: I agree with you, despite the fact that I don't regret my entire gaming past, it's not worth it. Even if you are having health problems, focus more on getting better and less on fighting boredom, it's great to escape reality for awhile, you just need to remember you will have to return to it eventually :D

I love ET.
ET never was any problem for me.

WoW was my problem couple years back, spent like 1½years playing it. Played till night, wake up after 2-5h of sleep, go shool, come home play till night repeat.
WoW was one reason i stopped all my sports basicly.
Another one my back :<

cool story bro.

Didn't read lol. Nah, anyways. I only play ET when i'm bored or want to have some fun with friends on teamspeak. Cba to serious practise/train or whatever, since the only thing you earn is flame/whine/pocals/ and e-fame.

tell us more about your dads.... how does that work?bukkake?

So did most of us here. We spent a lot of time for this game. The question is, was it worthless or not? In my opinion it was definitely worth the time, because I had fun and met mostly nice people. I don't know if I would have been as successful as I am today in real life without ET. It gave me the time to focus on other things than partying. When you are at home you can study and so on. Do that on a party :d
I don't regret anything and I would do it again.
Nice article mate and keep going :)

play videogames = nolife

nice stereotype

I would blame sfin :D

reported, this guy trying to kill even more ET players, callvote ban imo

True, had the same problem. Quit a year ago (also because of /!\). ET is such an addictive game and it destroyed a little part of my life either. Cancelled dates with gf because of the game and didn't go out chill with friends.

Really happy now! keep on playing CANCERRETARDS

how can u get addicted to such a shit game?

Same as me... I had a small play on RTCW, and then went to ET in 2003. I played every single day for 3 years, when I was ill and holidays. I actually remember spending 3 Christmas's, birthdays and Halloween playing ET. I missed all of my homework, the only exam I revised for was IT(computers), as I enjoyed that the most, and I was alrteady on my computer(lol). I had many friends at school, I was quite popular as everyone did know me. Before starting ET I was a badboy who listened to RAP and Jungle(Drum n Bass) with a skinhead... after 1 year I changed my appearance and like in music (thanks to ET movies), and this decision was because of e-friends changing my personality for the better.

I went from potential drug abuser (lol), to well respect gentelmen (which I still am lolll)...

And I must say ET was the best time of my life (apart from GF and child), and I wouldn't change that for anything.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to them times, and have as much fun as I did back then... everything on ET seemed soo good to me.

I played 3 years solid of ET.... and I loved every moment... yes it affected my lifestyle and schoolwork... but so what? I turned into a better person, with a lot of pateince... before I had none, I beat kids up for fun, now I can stand there and honestly be calm...

in 2006, I cut my long hair, when I went to prom... everyone was shocked, and to this day I have short hair, and I'm still the same person, and I still listen to heavy metal...

4 of my school friends played ET as I got them into it, but we all have to grow up sometimes :(....

ET 4 EVER IN MY HEART..

I get your point, but I think it depends on where you set your priorities. If focus only on the competitive side you probably have to invest a lot of time in order to keep improving. I needed to spend at least 2-3 hours per day in order to stay "in shape". Now is it worth it? I think not. In ET there isn't much money to be won and unless you're really disciplined, you'll probably damage your health and social relationships.
But there are also the people you play with. If you focus on the social aspects (go to LANs, meet in real life), ET can be beneficial to your life. However, staying in touch after you quit gaming is very difficult imo, unless you share other interests.

nice read!

but to be honest, if you cant decide between friends and gaming there is definately something wrong with you, nice that you solved this issue by yourself. Surely i also preferred playing over learning often enough in past, but still theres a limit and i never choose gaming over meeting friends.
ET is addictive idd, and it gets even more addictive the nicer people are youre playing with :-) ... but now as the game is obviously dying quite fast, most of my buddys also draw a line under it, the will to continue this game and investing time is close to 0 anyway (at least for me)
e: i do not regret anything by playing ET and other games over the years.

tl;dr version pls

I'm a massive nerd and have spent a LARGE amount of time playing games. In memory I've never turned down drinks with friends to play games though.

Just about where you draw the line really?

Nice read man ;)

Got told to start playing this game back in 2005, my nephew and reallife friend(s) of mine were playing this game too. SO thats how i started to play this game. About a week later, my dad started to play the game too on his free-off weekends/evenings ;)

After 1 year free-lancin' on different public servers, i found a community which fits me in some way.. |>B<|Bunker2, i still remember some members of them such as |>B<|St!g, |>B<|Falkes,Saevio,Kaizi,Goku-san1993 enjoyed the game with them.

The reason why i started to play ETpro was because of the Bunkercup back in the days 2008 & 2009.

xx loveeeee, - my english sucks on iphone, oh it sucks anyway -

make it a column

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I remember being young and careless

Some people still make their homework/pass their exams AND game AND have a social life...

Edit: Both going out & gaming can be fun. Just do what you like the most.

Good read :)

I started playing ET in 2006/2007 or something. My friend showed me this game, which he found somewhere on the internet. I thought it would be fun to play with him so decided to download the game aswell, and play some jaymod with him. I still remember when I first joined into the game, toke the panzer, and failed hard :-). Weeks/Months passed, and at some point, after scrolling for the 1000th time in the server list, I saw a new thing for me. Server called NQ. Decided to join it, was like 'wut' when I saw the new weapons which soldiers had, and played it. Meanwhile, my friend joined 6b, and the more serious ET scene, while I was still on .55, making some fun in Jaymod. He asked me if I would come to 6b, didn't want at first, but I decided to come anyway. That was like 3 years ago. :-)

just say NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Probably, not like the most of people around here, my gaming so called career started because of my dad. I don't remember exact date but i think it was 2003. He showed me this game called Enemy Territory, simply by letting me log in on an empty server and driving around on Fuel Dump. I remember being to scared to exit the tank as if some one could take me from behind or because of a smart sniper, just sitting there up in the mountain, just waiting for me to exit the tank to humiliate me in front of nobody. As soon as a couple of players joined he made me switch with him just so I wouldn't make him look bad in front of bunch of no ones. Obviously this is not a healthy way to deal with a kid (I was around 9 or 10), but I didn't realise that at such age. At that point I wanted more which ended up dragging me into world of Jaymod, xp-save, communities, cheating and so on.

I remember being young and careless. I didn't give a crap about homework or important tasks, gaming was a big part of my life. I can even fast rewind a couple of years which most of went to ET. Right now I find it amazing as well as horrifying how something as irrelevant as video games can ruin someones youth so badly. If only I had the mind to tell myself STOP!
But that is not what my story is about. The story is about how someones life can be wrapped in the whole amazing community of ET.

At first I was just messing around with my dad. We were playing some 1on1 maps, we had some mild problems, the other player always appeared as if playing dead on Jaymod. I still don't know what was the problem back then but it was fixed soon after some patches came out. After that I got dragged in some NQ communities, which soon expanded with many other mods as Jaymod and others (I've been so distant from the whole community I have even forgotten mod names). After playing hard for a long time but without any success (I wanted some admin lvl or some regular lvl back then so bad) I found trickjumping. I still remember being amazed by how someone could develop such speeds in this tricky gaming engine. It took me about 6 months to become a decent TJ'er. But it gave me some leverage against other "noobs" on all the jaymods and so on.

At this point in this story we have reached year 2007 or something. I was still active on community based servers, at that point it was FA. I met a guy who called himself Sfinx or Sfinxter, it's been so long I don't even remember. He dragged me into ETpro which seemed pointless to me at the beginning, I mean, no xp save or cool promotions, what's the point?? Soon after I realized players were more skilled and training on such servers (yes, I had started to look at ET as a sport) meant improving my skills. Soon after Sfinx invited me to play with him on a couple of fun matches with his mates, I felt so excited as if this would've been a big success. After a while we even tried to make a team (recently, somewhere around 2010 beginning or so), we had even met one other guy from Latvia which meant 3vs3 possibility had opened up but because of our (my) lack of time the whole idea broke down. I was visiting my dads in USA, I had a summer job and so on. After this it sort of hit me-if I wasn't active enough, my skills weakened, it took me a week or so to get back on my top performance.

At this point I was in front of a decision-to either go hard on gaming or to take back control of my life. It took me a long time to decide, I didn't want to give up all the time I've put into gaming even though I didn't see any growth possibilities in this field. It was stupid, I know, but after a while I did make a decision-I've cut of ET out of my life. And I am satisfied with my choice. Few years back, if I had been put in front of a decision-to go drinking with my friends or to play a fun match with my mates, I would definitely choose a fun match.
What I want to say with this whole huge article which I'm sure won't be read by so many people is-do you really want this whole thing to be a part of your life? I've missed quite a lot from my life just because of this and I am sure, if I will ever have kids I will never make such a mistake my dad made. And I am happy that I've cut off this addictive monster called ET (as cheesy as it sounds). I still play video games, one particulary (Live for Speed, not relevant) but it just stays as a part of entertainment for rainy nights or a need to kick off some steam when I am to tired to go out or to work out. ET is really a commitment, you can't be good at it if you don't go serious on it.

But what I want you all to ask yourselves is-is it really worth it? Spending your precious time on something as trivial as games when you could go out, have fun with people you don't even know or simply catch up on some delayed tasks? Whatever is more important to you. Just don't waste your time on something as this. Trust me, it's not worth it...

you simply need a frame that suite you...

tbh you need to be rly talented to make a living out of gaming, if you can do that, np !

for myself, i ditch gaming since i joined the army
and i put myself rly hard in the army

and today im a very young and respectable officer in my unit

they send me to tones of very expensive courses :XD

np simply find YOUR FRAME

competitive? not worth it. For fun playing time to time? sure why not?

i think theres only these positive things in your real llife when you play games like rtcw/et:
- you become smarter on insights imo (if you play competitive)
- your reaction ability becomes better
- you become more fluent in english (if thats not your native language)
- you meet and hear new ppl from other countries and so you are basicly learning about other cultures in a way you don't even realise it

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I don't think you nescesarilly waste your youth. You can have online friends that you really bind with and meet in real life etc. I've had so many cool nights just here, behind my pc while also having friends I met in while I was in high-school.What I'm saying is you can have both. Nevertheless, never let gaming control your life.

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But what I want you all to ask yourselves is-is it really worth it? Spending your precious time on something as trivial as games when you could go out, have fun with people you don't even know or simply catch up on some delayed tasks? Whatever is more important to you.

Yes, spending my precious time on something I enjoy is definitely worth it. Gaming does not exclude one from going out and having fun with people (I hope this doesn't mean merely doing drugs which is even more shallow and destructive than gaming). Your idea of the required commitment for "gaming" in general sounds like something you'd expect from Korean StarCraft professionals, even relatively "serious" ET is very casual.

My story is actually a lot like yours lol :P My dad got me into gaming as well, only difference is, we played RTCW.

As for your question: Before I started gaming, I was very ignorant, cheeky and just immature as fuck. It kinda sounds silly but I met people through gaming who kinda brought me into maturity.. Also, I've visted places I never would have visited before, learned a lot about countries I never would have, and met some cracking people. So yes I think it's worth it. I don't really regret anything, because I have a good life, job, and go out at the weekends, while gaming during the week.

Nice read,
I think part of what you're saying is true, but i think you need to take gaming in global vieuw cause if you look at WOW you see a lot of the same story's apearing...

When it come's to me i think i kind of never had the chanse to get into it that bad.
I started playing ET when i was 13 or 14 years old and at that time i had to play on the only computer that was in the house, which was located downstairs some meeters away from the television where my parents were watching tv in the evening. So basicly my parents could see everything i did onthere.
Ofcourse i got quite addicted to et and wanted to play it all the time, so my parents gave me a limit of playing games to 1.5 hours/day or something. Ofcourse everytime they weren't home i was playing all day xD
When i got 16-17 years old i got my own pc in my room so i was basicly able to do anything i wanted...
But as i was older i didn't realy want to play et all day. Whenever there were friends inviting me to go out or to come over to their home i'd just say bye on ts or vent and shut down pc and have fun in rl.
That's also the main reason i was never realy good in ET. A lot of players were just always laughing at me because i'm always the noob, eventough i play ET for 7 years or something ( don't know exactly how long :s).
But i don't realy care, i still play this game whenever i don't have money or energy to go out because i love this game and i'll always will. And in some way you could say i'm addicted to this game when you compare it to other games. But it never ruined anything in my life for me, it only gave me great moments.
I did fuck up 1 year of university though but that was for totally difrent reasons.

Conclusion :
Maybe it is because my parents gave me the limit and never let me spend all the time playing et.
Maybe that's the reason why i later on decided to not waste all my time to play et while i was totally able to.
I don't know but it will certenly have some influence on it.
But it hink it's important how you look at gaming.
There's no way i would have put gaming before smoking weed and drinking beer with friends, listening to some d&b back in the days (chillin out as fuck xD ) or playing a game of football (or whatever sport) with friends or go out to the clubs in the town and dance with pretty girls and come home around 6-7 o'clock in the morning or go for a game pool/snooker/bowling and other stuff like that.

make priorities,don t let it go to addictive,it comes from your innerself,put real life first place,real problems first place and deal with it,let gaming be what it is:a hobby,a way to relax,even if this is not always what happends,but nothing goes as schedule nor in real life or here.if u choose to spend 10 hours daily to play et or any other game,is not et fault,is your own fault.don t blame et,blame yourself.is same like doing drugs,starting to smoke or alchohol,or masturbating to much cause u can t just concentrate not to get turned on by some bitch.u went to much in one side only u took this to far away,and u had to do the only natural thing and the most opposite thing a man can possibly do when smt that he does in his life is affecting him bad:quitting.

I don't really think its the time you spend on gaming, more like that do you even actually enjoy it? if you enjoy doing something, its totally worth using your precious time, no matter what it is. Nice read tho!

I've spend alot of times playing games, not just ET. But I must say, I do not regret it at all. Met so many great guys and girls through gaming, and even social life was not a problem (Especially at uni its easy as hell, since most people actually play the same game(s) as I do)

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But what I want you all to ask yourselves is-is it really worth it? Spending your precious time on something as trivial as games when you could go out, have fun with people you don't even know or simply catch up on some delayed tasks? Whatever is more important to you.

Everything is trivial anyway since in the end you just end up rotting in the ground, or if you prefer it another way you can also end up in an urn.

If you enjoy wasting your time doing <insert acitivity x>, then that time was not wasted.

tl;dr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJztfsXKcPQ

Yes, it's worth it! =)

I dont regret spending 7 years on playing it, it was rly fun for me and I've spent many great hours playing it with cool people, it was my hobby. would it be different if i was for example fishing or smth?? i dont think so, just another thing. i didnt waste my uni time, im actually @ 3rd grade, i had so much social life that most of my friends who never played any game couldnt even dreamed of. id do it again if i had a choice ;)

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I was visiting my dads in USA

You have two dads?

Nice article!
Glad to see I was one part of your path to nolife. :D
I have a couple of friends who are relly addicted to gameing as such. They are around 28 and still live at they parents house with part time job.

As long as gameing doesnt interrupt my RL(going to work, finish studies, go out with friend or gf) I think it is worth it. Somethimes when we get together with my friends we just play some games cause its lot of fun and laugh. Also you can meet a lot of nice ppl on TS/Vent. And then again there are those LAN events where these "nolifers" are getting kind of "life.

"So yes I put my so called real life before gameing. Gameing is for fun for me - such as traveling or climbing. You come back from your work/school very tired and just chill with your E-friends and I dont really see anything bad it that because feelings are real. But if I had to choose between chilling on internet or going out with my girlfriend I would choose my girlfriend with no thinking.

I have travelled, finished lots of schools , learned so much whitch is just amazing and I wouldnt change those years for sitting at my PC.
If you drop the phone because of gameing when your friends are calling you then I would consider to drop gaming or reduce it at least. Life and world is just too beautiful.
:)