Observations from an older gamer.

I'm right there with you. Not quite as old as you are, but I started gaming pretty young on the Intellivision and then NES and pretty much every Console up to the N64. After that, it was purely online gaming and MMOs starting in 2001.

This is what I wanted to talk about. The funny thing is, these kids don't even understand it either. This crap started right on the edge of the millennium around 1998ish. It was called netspeak and started gaining popularity. In my MW3 (That's MechWarrior 3) unit we banned the use of netspeak because it was hard to understand. VOIP wasn't very good just yet, so even though we were getting into voice comms we still used alot of text based communications in our matches.

Just do what I do and chalk it up to immaturity. Its not only younger kids doing it, but people our age and even those a bit older doing it. They're just trying to get a bit of attention and nothing more.

At 47, I thoroughly enjoy being described as a "console kiddie" by individuals who are typically younger than me ...

Agreed. The thing is that it's going to get more and more difficult for parents to control what their kids do unless the parents start getting computer-smart. Nowadays, we don't need our parent's credit cards to get our violent games because now some of those games are free. I was able to keep this game secret from my dad for a while, but I know that if I tried harder he would have never found out (because I was playing the game in the exact same room as him, and he was two yards away...). While I would hate if my dad were to do this, but I think that parents need to look in their kids' computers and consoles to make sure they're playing the games they're supposed to play (and they need to give a crap about the games their kids play).

Things I dig about older gamers.

1. Competence: They understand strategic and tactical intricacies that others won't.
2. Experience: Game is art. Good art steals from old. Older gamers have seen this art before so they have seen the tricks before.
3. Above all: Sportsmanship! Old gamers grew up on games but they learned "multiplayer" from little league sports. They are humble winners and gracious loosers. And yes, they shake their heads at cross faction "ginyu force rules" taunting.
4. And can't forget: We out drink you, out smoke you, out curse you. Get off our lawn or expect a beer bottle to the head and a rocket to the feet.

Yep. I let my kids play the crap out of Minecraft. There is no actual game. It's a sandbox. The only game they get is what their imagination can produce.

My kids will learn 3D shooters only in my presence. They WILL display maturity and sportsmanship or they will get outside and run some laps. (yeah I do this to 'em).

aah good to see some of these ages.
Recently hit BR100 and threw a thread in off topic section about br100's and AARP
Didn't get any "old" timer replies and was thinking that at 53 somethings wrong (with me?) if I'm at the head of the 100's Elders Table.

Wasted use IMO, should have been used in response to a terribly error ridden post.

That's what I'm saving it for, but he just stole some of the shock factor

It's not difficult either to read TBH

3 = E
4 = A, or 'for'
1 = i or L
0 = O
9 = G
5 = S
2 = Z or 'to'
7 = T
8 is usually used to replace 'ate' sound but also sometimes B

I'm only a couple years younger than the OP (33) but I've been on the interwebz consistently and so kept up with the changing "language".

I have fun with the bastardization of the English language, but only if you know how to do it properly. IMO it's only acceptable to flub the rules if you know HOW to flub the rules. If you're using bad grammar simply because you don't know better... U needz git learndid son

LMAO and don't you forget it

lol I'll have you know GOKU is a mature outfit that only accepts members over the age of 11 (the age at which Gohan becomes the first living being to achieve Super Saiyan 2, a symbolic act of surpassing the wisdom of your forebears, or becoming mature). Please do not espouse such pretentiousness without yourself being up to superior standards.

I remember when I was 12 (I'm 16 now), I always wanted to play CoD: MW3. One day, my mom actually got the game, and I was so happy. But then, tragedy struck. The laptop I had could not run the game. She tried it on her computer, and it didn't work, too. I was so sad, seeing my mother trying to figure out what to do to make the game work. Then, 2 years later, my father received a promotion. Along with this great piece of news, came a BRAND, NEW, SONY VAIO laptop. It could run anything, my father said, and I couldn't wait to play MW3, which I had kept with me for those two years. The next day, the school shootings at Newtown occured. My parents were actually afraid of me becoming a killer, so I could no longer play anything violent. I was so angry. And then, I changed. Civilization V entered my life, and it became my first REAL PC game. I loved it. Then came Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (Can't wait for 2015), and it blew me away. I kept playing it for so many months. And then, I saw this. Planetside's turn was up. So you see, children can get immersed in so many games, some of them very beneficial, some of them very cultural, and some of them simply epic. This is what parents should be looking at in games, and they should make sure their children are old enough to play and play games that actually don't turn them into serial murderers.

48 here, thank God, I thought I was the only "senior" gamer on here! First system was the Magnavox Odyssey I got for Christmas 1972, right before Pong came out.

Remember when winning a game and finding out your character was a girl was considered a "twist"? Guys didn't choose it on purpose. Remember when we had no reason to stare at our phones while sitting on the toilet? Remember when we would need to jump platform to platform to reach an ending. Now the game never ends and we are lucky if it's even completely written as we play it. And if someone tked you or trolled you, you had their phone number. No ADD or assburgers either. Just parents with belts and paddles.
Remember those days?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.

40 here but have played of owned every console played on PC since 1978 just about everything since Pong.

I find it keeps me young and it's my way of being completely politically in correct and vile....all in good fun of course.

Here is our outfit profile I put together for us on Emerald (via Mattherson): http://wiki.planetside-universe.com/ps/Outfit:NUDE_GAMERS

Its not strictly over 40 (there are many younger) but anyone on TR Miller (soon Woodman too) is welcome to look up/join OCB (hint, its all in the name: owld crabbit bastarts )

Games don't make people violent.
If your child shows signs of "serial killer" behavior, it is not a video game that is the problem.
Question all conventional wisdom.

"I do not subscribe to the traditions of man" - Ddolbok

If you didn't feed quarters to the Asteroids game at the roller rink, you are not an older gamer. I have done exactly that; I am an older gamer.

Here's what I do. When I see something in chat I don't understand, I either:

a.) Type in yell chat, or its equivalent, wtf does bbq11111 mean? Amazingly, people will actually answer. People like to show how much they know.

b. Say on TS/Vent, "WTF does bbq111111 mean and what are all these Ginsu Knife force references about?"

c. Send a tell to one of the people saying stuff like this. For example: /t Wisdomecube wtf are you talking about on leader chat, did you take your meds today?

Questions beget answers.

You also have to remember that you're dealing with Generation Text. You and I remember that the fastest way to have a conversation is by phone, where you have to say real words. All the codez in text are an ill-informed attempt to make an inherently inefficient process effective. Seriously, texting on your "smart phone" to somebody else on their "smart phone?" I can do the same thing with a Selectric and a good pair of sneakers.

Anyway... The hyper movement is simply a twitch reflex. MOST FPS games require highly tuned reflexes that result in twitching similar to an epileptic seizure. The truth is, anybody who is actually good at this stuff has some kind of nervous disorder that is enhanced by Mountain Dew and tweeting about the latest app on their smart phone that alleviates the burden of actually using it as a phone.

So, relax, pop another Bud and remember that none of these poor dumb bastards know the joy of getting drunk off their *** and asking a woman way out of their league for her phone number. (Half of them reading this last sentence are quivering from hormonal overload right about now.)

Be bold, be old(er)!

Yeah the battlefield is not nearly as dangerous and hostile as the NC Warpgate...

I had one of these:



And one of these: (I still have short stories I wrote with one of these when I was 14)

Lol what is that!
Doesn't seem anyone can have any fun with that.
Pong maybe?