I Had a Random Thought (About Video Games)

[Bjorn]

I've actually being wondering recently if the "dwarf" fantasy race bothers people with real-life dwarfism. I don't know why I only started wondering this recently, but yeah. I love love love the dwarf fantasy race, it's my favorite thing. But they're nothing like the real life condition. So I feel bad maybe I dunno. D:

 

I have wondered that as well, but of everything that fantasy has created, dwarves are my absolute favorite thing.  But I can't think of ever having encountered someone saying that it was offensive, and I just did a bit of googling and didn't come up with anything. 

 

I'm going to continue working under the assumption that our love of dwarves is safe. 

[Twig]

Okay I will also continue doing so, until informed otherwise!

[SecretAsianMan]

I don't use voice chat either unless I'm playing with people I know, which these days is far too rare.  It doesn't really help that the games I play the most are FPS games where these sorts of attitudes are rampant.  It's ironic how games rated M for mature attract the least mature people.

[Bjorn]

The only game that I routinely used voice chat with strangers on was Mass Effect 3 MP (which is where both the dwarf things happened).  Since it was a co-op game, and a mostly cool community, there were way more positive interactions than negative.  But you still encountered dirt bags now and again. 

[JonCole]

I haven't used voice chat in a really long time but I started using it in Destiny and man... so many socially awkward people. Haven't run into many offensive people there, but the co-op-only nature of the chat in that game probably helps by a huge margin.

[Mangela Lansbury]

It's ironic how games rated M for mature attract the least mature people.

Multiplayer games I've played are usually rated M for boobies and explosions, which are things that don't exactly draw a highbrow crowd.

I don't usually use voice chat except with people I know. When I played Dota more, I would sometimes use voice chat when I could tell that the people on my team were constructive and nice and just wanted to coordinate (which was more often than you'd think), but generally speaking... no. I have a bit of that homosexual lilt to my voice sometimes, so it could end just terribly.

[jennegatron]

Let's all get in voice chat and compliment each other on nice plays and be altogether pleasant to one another.

[SecretAsianMan]

I've gone ahead with my plan and changed my Steam name to S.A.M.  I feel a bit better already.

[Reyturner]

I made the switch from DevilUknow (an Econoline Crush reference of all things) to Reyturner (a slice of my name) right around the time I landed here. My login name is still DevilUknow actually.

It still hangs around in some places.

Neither have ever generated any greif.

[jennegatron]

My blood elf priest's name is Onegative in WoW and I would occasionally get asked if it was a reference to the band as if that makes more sense than a BLOOD elf being named after a blood type.

[SecretAsianMan]

My blood elf priest's name is Onegative in WoW and I would occasionally get asked if it was a reference to the band as if that makes more sense than a BLOOD elf being named after a blood type.

 

The only thing I know about the music group Da Vinci's Notebook is they have a song called "Secret Asian Man", which I only learned about because people used to ask if that's where I got the name.  (It's not if anyone was wondering)

[jennegatron]

I exclusively name the WoW characters that I intend on leveling goofy things, so I was always very hurt when people didn't think the name was as clever as I did.

(side note, Blizzard sent me a free week of WoW and it's got its hooks back into me, so if anyone wants to be bnet friends, feel free to add me and we can go kill old raid content together while pet farming.)

[Twig]

Ahhh WoW that game that every time someone mentions it I want to go back and play but never do!

[Mangela Lansbury]

I mostly named my WoW characters after historical or literary figures as little personal jokes, like a Tauren named Taft. I think I'm really funny but am usually wrong.

[jennegatron]

I mostly named my WoW characters after historical or literary figures as little personal jokes, like a Tauren named Taft. I think I'm really funny but am usually wrong.

 

I have a troll named Billygruff, an undead mage named Larrypotter, and a Draenei warrior named Cosmonaut... so, I think you're pretty funny.

[Mangela Lansbury]

I have a troll named Billygruff

This alone makes you the best

[Dewar]

Let's all get in voice chat and compliment each other on nice plays and be altogether pleasant to one another.

 

I was lucky enough to fall in with a good group of chaps when I was wandering around the internet trying to find some people to friend when I first bought my Xbox 360. The group has waned quite a bit since then, but we can still generally muster around 6 people to play together on things. I never do voice chats in games anymore, it's either party chat on Xbox or Mumble on PC.

 

I'm a bit shy, but I'd be willing to hop in on Teamspeak or something and play games together. I'd love to take a shot at Heroes of the Storm maybe. (I assume there's a multiplayer thread about it already?)

[Twig]

My old old guild once made a bunch of Tauren characters - wish I could remember my name, but it was so long ago, maybe Beeftacular? - on another server, got naked, and ran to the area above the dwarven city, while an inside-man on the alliance side of things advertised free burgers.

 

Then we all jumped off and died at the entrance to Ironforge. Our corpses remain there to this day. Well, in spirit, anyway. Literally. My dead Tauren's spirit is still sitting there.

[undermind9]

Ah ya, user name explanation time

Undermind is a relic of StarCraft time when I tried to use the handle "overmind" in our local play (AOL never let me on bnet, weird). Anyways, an uncle or cousin said "you suck, more like undermind" as a dumb joke. Its stuck and now my unilateral username

Wow character though was EdmndFtzgrld named after my favorite beer from Great lake's brewery in Cleveland...and the ship wreck in Lake Erie (also see Gordon Lightfoot's Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald)

In retrospect my entire internet identity is dumb, but probably never going to change.

On the topic pro esport players and their selected names have always baffled me. These people are tied sometimes to a silly teenage name before being famous and now stuck with a name like Ferrari, god, or sunsfan. Seems like that is a minor hurdle to the entry point for muggles

[miffy495]

Ok, if we're explaining user names:

 

When I was in Jr High school, I was on the phone with my friend. My sister, in the background, started calling her cat. My friend misunderstood and thought she was calling me "Miffy" and couldn't figure out why. He thought it was hilarious though, so he started calling me that. Then others did. The name stuck for most of high school. As a 6'3" burly dude, I just thought it was hilarious and embraced it. I've been Miffy to the internet ever since. The 495 came about because we were playing Battlefield and decided to add random numbers to the ends of our names to sound cooler or something? I don't know.

 

I'm always happy to voice chat with Thumbs (fuck you, Patters) because playing GTA and Forza (fuck you, Patters) with some of you guys over the years has been by far my favourite experiences playing online (fuck you, Patters). It's also lead to Patters (fuck you, Patters) and I telling the other to go fuck themselves at every possible opportunity. Always fun to explain the giant "FUCK YOU, MIFFY" on my facebook wall on my birthday, but luckily he has the same birthday so it's easy to respond in kind.

[SecretAsianMan]

I guess I'll explain my origin story as well.  In high school, I was one of two Asian people in my grade (and one of 5 non-white total).  The other person was a girl named Michelle.  We shared several classes, including AP Government.  I was constantly trying to raise my hand to answer questions but our teacher insisted on calling on her instead, even though she never wanted to answer.  Then, during the parent teacher conference, my parents went to talk to him.  Before they could introduce themselves, he said "Oh, you must be Michelle's parents".  When they said no, his reply was "Then whose parents are you?".  After that, my friends and I joked that I was a "secret Asian".  That eventually became SecretAsianMan after getting Secret Agent Man stuck in my head one day while taking a shower and goofing up the words.

[Bjorn]

I guess I'll explain my origin story as well.  In high school, I was one of two Asian people in my grade (and one of 5 non-white total).  The other person was a girl named Michelle.  We shared several classes, including AP Government.  I was constantly trying to raise my hand to answer questions but our teacher insisted on calling on her instead, even though she never wanted to answer.  Then, during the parent teacher conference, my parents went to talk to him.  Before they could introduce themselves, he said "Oh, you must be Michelle's parents".  When they said no, his reply was "Then whose parents are you?".  After that, my friends and I joked that I was a "secret Asian".  That eventually became SecretAsianMan after getting Secret Agent Man stuck in my head one day while taking a shower and goofing up the words.

 

I can't remember if I've asked you this or not before.  Did you used to be one of the regulars on Joystiq, probably 3-4 years ago?  When I started hanging around here, I was pretty sure I remembered you from the 'stiq, and it was a good sign for this community.  I used to comment there under my actual name (Courtney), but I think I had the same avatar pic.

 

My name origin is pretty simple.  Bjorn was the name of my first D&D character (a drunken Dwarf fighter who wielded a greataxe).  When I started making online accounts, it was just one of those natural things to use that name, since a lot of my early accounts were gaming related and I named soooo many characters Bjorn.  I've usually had to add something to it though.  I think the Idle Forums might be the only place I've ever had just Bjorn. 

 

Side note:  The lady and I actually met during that campaign, and to this day she also still uses the name of her character from that game for most of her gaming related accounts. 

[jennegatron]

I was accused of being a robot, and my boyfriend decided my robot name would be jennegatron (my first name is Jenna.)

It's a great username because it's close enough to my name that my real life friends know it's me but it's far enough away that my twitter doesn't come up when you search my real name.

Also I don't have to compete with anyone else for 'jennegatron' as a username.

[Gormongous]

I like this game. Unfortunately, my story is boring. In the tenth grade, I was in orchestra, and for months leading up to Christmas, the orchestra room's whiteboard had a massive (like, thirty-person) gift-exchange map for the main orchestra group. My friend encouraged me to erase two names and replace them with "Pete" and "Gormongous," which somehow struck him as the most absurd names possible to see on such a map. I did, to absolutely no effect, and then ended up using the name at a few LAN parties, which made my friend weirdly furious for stealing his "idea," but I guess we weren't close enough for me to change it?

[Mangela Lansbury]

Side note: The lady and I actually met during that campaign, and to this day she also still uses the name of her character from that game for most of her gaming related accounts.

This is adorable.

My screen name comes from some gender stuff I've mostly worked through and a desire to be JB Fletcher.

My longest running screen name is something that came from me mashing the keyboard then making that pronounceable in 7th grade, when I wanted to retire my old screen name Sekhem Em Pet (I think??? The Latin name for Anubis, the edgiest of Egyptian gods). I still use it a lot of places, but it's embarrassing to google so I'm moving away from it.