Too intimidated to try.

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!