As a bit of a Christmas
present to myself, I bought Total War: Warhammer One and Two together
with some of the DLC. As an old school Warhammer Fantasy fan, I've
been eyeing these games for years. So why haven't I gotten them
before? A small part of the answer is money, huge games are
expensive, and I hate paying a lot for something I'm not even sure
I'll like, but the discounts on the Steam Winter Sale were really
good.
The bigger part of the
answer though, is intimidation. I'm not much of a strategy player to
begin with, and the Total War games are in themselves a bit daunting.
I did play Total War: Empire ten years ago, and it was fun but I
never went back. Now I figured it was time to get back on the
warhorse.
That is the topic for
today, being too intimidated to try something you want. This can
cover anything really, learning a new language, taking up sewing,
joining a club etc, but I'm looking at it through the lens of gaming.
When I first fired up
Cyberpunk 2077 it intimidated me in no time flat. Everything seemed
threatening, and I had no idea what kind of consequences my actions
would have. Then I did the tutorial which appears just before your
first proper mission and wow that was a lot to take in! Sneaking,
hacking, quickhacking, melee with parrying and dodging, cybernetics
and so on and so on. I closed the game and it was over a year before
I tried again, but now it is one of my all time favorite games. It is
absolutely superb! What I came to eventually realize is that you
can't do everything in Cyberpunk, you also don't need to even try to.
Don't feel like melee? Stick to guns. Annoyed at hacking? Get a time
slowing Sandevistan and kill your enemies in slow motion. Once I
understood this, I was liberated and free to just have fun.
Back in 2010 I watched a
Skyrim preview event and saw the hero dual wield weapons, sling spells and
cause a storm that forced a dragon to land before killing said
dragon. Epic stuff, but I wondered how I was ever going to manage all
that. Turns out that none of it was difficult once you got a bit of
practice, and certainly nothing you had to do immediately. I have
over 1000 hours in Skyrim across several versions.
I have never been a
Soulsborne player, in part because of the intimidation factor.
FromSoft are geniuses at making their enemies terrifying. The most
likely first boss in Bloodborne, The Cleric Beast is a perfect
example. How it looks, how it moves and definitely how it sounds are
all intended to scare you into screwing up and failing. But if you
look at an experienced player you'll see that they are not
intimidated. They know what they are doing and although you can never
let down you guard in games like Bloodborne, they can kill The Cleric
Beast with ease.
Getting over the
intimidation factor isn't always easy, but at least in games you can
ask “what do I have to loose?”. Time is the answer. Even if you
screw up so badly that you have to restart the game, you have learned
something, which is never a waste of time.
Applying this logic to
other parts of our lives isn't an exact comparison. If you're
learning to sew, the fabric can get ruined if you really mess up, but
with all learning, you need to start small, start with raw materials
you can sacrifice on the altar of knowledge and try. Theory and
Practice are two different things.
This brings me back to
Total War: Warhammer. I have watched a lot of lets play's from
different creators. What they have in common is practice and lots of
it which makes it looks so easy. Then I fire up the game and nothing
works like what I saw, and of course it didn't. I haven't practiced
yet, but I'm getting there.
I'm not sure I've made any
sense today, this is just something I wanted to get off my chest. I
guess I want to encourage you to do something you've wanted to, but
haven't yet. Besides, if you mess up, you don't have to tell anyone.
That's that and all that.
Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!
