Tales of a Filthy Casual PT1

I am a gamer, by definition. I play video games in my spare time, as a hobby and sometimes as a social engagement with friends. But gaming has changed since the days when I was a wee child on her NES playing bubble bobble. I come from the old school days of console games, I grew up as systems grew up. Games went from P1 and P2 to four player games. They went from simple platformers and single player RPGs to competitive shooters and MMOs. I moved from console to PC. As I moved from student to working adult to busy working adult I learned gaming has moved beyond what I have time for. So I have moved from game to game come back to some, uninstalled others and now I am at a good place, I have accepted my casualness and where I fit in the gaming world.

Im the beginning there was Azeroth. As an avid RPGer from my console days, I was looking for something new. I had an odd work schedule as I worked part time serving and bartending. The first expansion was about to launch and I jumped in. I played for 2 years. I worked my way into a raiding guild, but quickly noticed that the game was about getting to max level as soon as possible. When playing with friends who had more time to play it became an issue of levels.

"oh you were not on, so I played for 10 hours, got to a way higher lvl then you and can just run you through the next few quests"

Personally I did not find this fun, I wanted to play with my friends, not have them run ahead and kill everything for me to catch up. I enjoyed the solo play on the quests and occasional PUGs for bosses and dungeons. Once I was at max level things where on a more even playing field. I enjoyed PVP as I leveled, when people played the objective, those maps where so fun. I remember once catching shit from PKers in the early lvls of CtF for capping the flag, apparently PKers are bad at math and did not realize you got more honor for winning that just trying to gank in the middle of the maps. Once I started raiding to was too much effort (ie: I just didn't have the time) to switch between my raid build and a PVP build. I raided one day a week, which was perfect for my lifestyle, but raiding was not cheap and I needed to find additional time to grind for gold to raid. As I didn't want to buy gold and raiding was mostly my guildmates crying about not getting a drop, I realized this game was pretty negative and move on.

After WoW I tried other games, but quickly realized online play comes with a series set of casual hardships, games now are like angry competitive team sports, even if your in a scrub beer league, there is always a player to two that takes things way too seriously. These people ruin the fun for most. I just don't have the time to "git gud" I have a job, friends, other hobbies and commitments. I can't practice (play) several hours a day, hell sometimes I can't play several hours in a week.
I can't and won't watch videos and read strat guides about a game, games are fun little breaks in life, little escapes and challenges, this requires a commitment I just can't give. I don't care to give it, I'm not a serious gamer, I am not there to be the best there ever was, I'm there to have fun. Fun to me doesn't mean being called a bunch of nasty names from little kids and no-lifers. I don't understand why gamers are so angry and rude. I worry their salt will ruin my computer.

And so began my search for where a Filthy Casual fit in to gaming...

https://steemit.com/gaming/@cheersbro/tales-of-a-filthy-casual-pt2-fps-and-me