263: The Regiment
- Thread starter Nicholas Branch
- Start date
I'd have to agree that dressing the part sounds like one hell of a nifty way of increasing the immersion faction in a game. Couple that with holodeck type games, and gaming will be the closest thing to perfect as you can get.Straz said:I will admit, the cowboy idea was largely inspired by RDR, but I will take credit for having that aspiration for some time before I even knew of such a game. It was such an awesome idea.Gunner 51 said:The cowboy idea sounds like a total hoot, I'd totally do it for RDR. XDStraz said:
I guess what the foul-mouths need is supervision, ideally by their parents. I'd bet not many of them would be as foul mouthed if their parents were around and dope-slapped them every time they cut out of line.
But parents are busy people and the kids will continue to curse. I guess I should just try to take the rough with the smooth when it comes to foul-mouthed kids on XBL.
OT edit: I suppose, if one was inclined when one is playing with such impressionable youth one might gain their trust and then discourage foul language to present a slightly more civilized facet of gaming culture to them, but I have my doubts about such a plan.
Yeah, I clicked on this thinking you were a REAL ranger who was comparing his experiences to realism in video games or something. What I read is the most offensive article I've yet seen on the escapist. Congratulations, your clan was strict. But you have no IDEA what it takes to actually be like the people you pretend to be. Basic training for you was sitting at home on your computer and playing video games. Oh, and you had to read the forum EVERY DAY *gasp*.
Aside from regular basic training (which is no cake walk itself, I doubt your clan ever stuck you in a gas chamber and told you to take your mask off), rangers hopefuls have to attend ranger school, one of the hardest experiences anyone in any military will go through for training. Over these 60 days, they have to experience non-stop battle drills, little food, and even less sleep (about three hours a night if they are lucky).
I'm a sophomore in college currently, and in my second year of Army ROTC. I understand a decent bit about how the military works, I know my battle drills and such shit, and I have to pass a PT test every month, in addition to the drills we do every week. I actually have a military ID, something I doubt your clan could provide you with.
But if I tried to pretend I was a ranger, I would get my ass kicked for it. Last semester, a couple of guys in my platoon gave themselves ranger cuts (haircuts you see in black hawk down). One of the sergeants, who had just gotten back from Iraq where he was infantry, was furious, and rightly so. By comparing yourself to the men who not only serve our country, but strive to be better than all others, strive to be ELITE, you are comparing THEM to YOU.
Don't tell yourself that you have any idea what it's like. You will never make a life or death decision online, no matter how strict your clan is, you can always log off.
Aside from regular basic training (which is no cake walk itself, I doubt your clan ever stuck you in a gas chamber and told you to take your mask off), rangers hopefuls have to attend ranger school, one of the hardest experiences anyone in any military will go through for training. Over these 60 days, they have to experience non-stop battle drills, little food, and even less sleep (about three hours a night if they are lucky).
I'm a sophomore in college currently, and in my second year of Army ROTC. I understand a decent bit about how the military works, I know my battle drills and such shit, and I have to pass a PT test every month, in addition to the drills we do every week. I actually have a military ID, something I doubt your clan could provide you with.
But if I tried to pretend I was a ranger, I would get my ass kicked for it. Last semester, a couple of guys in my platoon gave themselves ranger cuts (haircuts you see in black hawk down). One of the sergeants, who had just gotten back from Iraq where he was infantry, was furious, and rightly so. By comparing yourself to the men who not only serve our country, but strive to be better than all others, strive to be ELITE, you are comparing THEM to YOU.
Don't tell yourself that you have any idea what it's like. You will never make a life or death decision online, no matter how strict your clan is, you can always log off.
Is he saying that through this experience he now knows what being a soldier is like? No he didn't, so could you lot just quit it? This isn't about comparing being a soldier to being a clanmember.
This article is about gaming pulling people through a bad spot. In his case it was a militaristic version of a clan that he used to aim his mind again.
This article is about positive real world effects that can result from dedicating yourself to a game. Something most of the people standing outside and looking in seem to want to ignore wholesale. We need more articles like this out there.
Trying to play a multiplayer game to get to a high level is just as much serious business as trying to compete in a sport. It confronts you with yourself. No, you may not strictly call it fun, but the rewards when you hit that next level of understanding or get to grips with a certain mechanic thats been eluding you are grand indeed.
I've been through stuff like this solitarily in Virtua Fighter 5. Picking yourself back up after getting your face smashed in by the same guy ten times in a row and trying to learn something from it instead of just quitting is a harrowing experience. The fact that it is a video game and not an actual sport doesn't change the mental impact of it.
Cool to hear something about the teamplayer version of that.
This article is about gaming pulling people through a bad spot. In his case it was a militaristic version of a clan that he used to aim his mind again.
This article is about positive real world effects that can result from dedicating yourself to a game. Something most of the people standing outside and looking in seem to want to ignore wholesale. We need more articles like this out there.
Trying to play a multiplayer game to get to a high level is just as much serious business as trying to compete in a sport. It confronts you with yourself. No, you may not strictly call it fun, but the rewards when you hit that next level of understanding or get to grips with a certain mechanic thats been eluding you are grand indeed.
I've been through stuff like this solitarily in Virtua Fighter 5. Picking yourself back up after getting your face smashed in by the same guy ten times in a row and trying to learn something from it instead of just quitting is a harrowing experience. The fact that it is a video game and not an actual sport doesn't change the mental impact of it.
Cool to hear something about the teamplayer version of that.
Uh huh, okay, an interesting story I'll give you that
Not willing to comment on the whole "mil-sim, weekend warrior" thing, because I'm really tired of this kind of argument. But at least you're not one of those 13 year-old COD players that are self-proclaimed "soldiers"
Not willing to comment on the whole "mil-sim, weekend warrior" thing, because I'm really tired of this kind of argument. But at least you're not one of those 13 year-old COD players that are self-proclaimed "soldiers"
I must Say branches I enjoyed your article anout the 75th and the time you spent in it. Also, I believe you need more Cpl. Machi shooting us all in the head! Lastly, to all those who are offended by this article about how he is comparing this to the actual army I think you need to re-read the article I'm not going to say anymore than that.
Alright man, a friendly word of advice: Get the fuck over it.samwise970 said:
Alright?
Dead fucking set no need to be a whiney little piece of shit. Yeah, I understand this guy doesn't make a fair comparison to the armed forces but he's really just making a mild article about how a person can benefit from some discipline and helping people out and all that, and about how him playing army-men with a couple of friends on the internet, but honestly man, if you see a child playing with plastic army figurines you don't give him a kick in the head for trying to imitate life in the armed forces and tell him to stand up and get a real job do you?
We get that serving in the armed forces is bloody hard, but you think that the author thinks that it is easy just because he can play a game about it? Aren't you aware that imitation is the highest form of flattery? This man is just trying to apply some real social interaction to his online life, trying to liken himself to people he respects, and you think that is unreasonable? Well this man is allowed to compare himself to whomever he likes. Because they are, when it comes down to it, no better than him.
He's ALLOWED to emulate whoever he likes purely because he likes them so I suggest you deal with it.
You're a real hard soldier after all, shithead.
As a former member of a Call of Duty 2/Call of Duty 4 tactical realism unit, the memories of my time in it, while reading this article, hit me like a bullet train speeding towards me from the opposite direction. So thank you, Nicholas Branch, for the trip down memory lane. =) It is great in general that there is now an article presenting realism units to the general gaming community.
I was a senior officer in the 29th Infantry Division [http://www.29thid.us/] (formerly known, when it was a Call of Duty 2 clan, as the 6th Armoured Division). My first encounter with tactical realism was when I joined a United Offensive clan called the 1st Axis Division. I was preety young back then and I have very little memories of my time there. However, it was there that I met Malcolm, my immediate superior and a real-life veteran, and we became really good friends. While I did manage to gain a promotion and even almost got into an official match (unfortunately, my PB Guid was not set up, so I couldn't participate). However, my stay there was shortlived as the clan fell apart soon after (for reasons that I no longer remember). It was shortly after that that Malcolm decided to form his own clan and offered me a position in it. I accepted and things went on from there.
Sadly, as much as I hate to admit it, I wasn't very good at my job. I wasn't a very good player, my leadership skills were lacking and I sometimes had trouble gaining the respect of other clan members. Worst of all, I tended to be missing for great periods of time due to real-life obligations. While my friend was very understanding about this, he still expressed great disappointment and I could not help but feel deep shame for letting the clan down. I tried to ramp up my activity and, for a time, I even managed to participate almost every day. But then college and intern hit me, which finally made me realise that I just simply didn't have enough time to dedicate to being a senior officer in a highly competitive clan. With that realisation, I decided to give my resignation and no longer burden the clan with my presence (or lack thereof).
Honestly, the only thing which I could say was my strength was that I was preety good at writing texts and giving speeches. It was for this reason that my good friend tended to poke fun at me, calling me a "propaganda minister" (although I made it a personal policy to never lie in public announcements; I despise propaganda). Also, I was often charged with mediating in disputes and sometimes had success with that as well.
Anyway, realism units aren't without their faults. If nothing else, they certainly are not immune to drama that is typical for gaming organisations. Quite the contrary; beacuse people in realism units tend to be so emotionally and personally involved, internal disputes end up being an even more serious matter. A big problem is when members are hesitant to speak their minds about what troubles them out of fear of being chastised for it. Thus they end locking it up inside themselves until they can't take it any longer and they decide to quit the clan. And since they have made some good friends in the clan during their stay, those friends might decide to leave the clan (and join another) along with them, which can result in a mini-exodus.
Looking at the above paragraph, you might be thinking that the idea that realism units are "weird angsty nerds pretending to be soldiers" holds true. But that isn't the case. Far from it, infact. In order to become a recruit to begin with, you needed to be at least 18 years of age. Exceptionally, we also accepted people of 16 years of age or older if they were deemed mature enough to partake in the clan's activities, but those were rare examples. So while there were a few teenagers in the clan, the members were all adults for the most part. Infact, some of them were well into their 40's or even 50's. In general, we didn't have any "xenophobic kiddies" that otherwise plague online games. If someone like that tried to join the clan, they either quickly realised that it wasn't for them and left or they were given the boot.
While conflicts did occur, as mentioned before, they were generally few and far in between. For the most part, the atmosphere in the unit was mature and civil. We were generally layed back when we were just hanging out. During official meetings, however, we spoke in turns and nobody was interrupted while they were talking unless absolutely necessary (even then, it was done so politely). While the clan wasn't completely democratic (afterall, the chain of command needed to be respected), all participants were allowed to have a say. Eventually recognising the problem that people tended to be too quiet about what was troubling them, the HQ (as in the commanding staff) and our leader in particular encouraged people to speak their minds during clan meetings.
Also, even though we were a realism unit, our server enjoyed a great deal of popularity. To be fair, we actually had two servers: one was a standard Search & Destroy/Headquarters Hardcore mode server, while the other was a Search & Destroy server with the Tactical Realism Mod applied (although we later switched mods due to disagreements with some of the changes in TRM). But even our standard server had a great deal of additional rules applied (things like bunnyhopping, dolphin diving and nade spamming were forbidden, for example). In spite (or should I say, precisely beacuse) of this, we never had trouble populating the server. Thanks to the strict rules and policing, people liked coming to our server in order to avoid the rude and disrespectful behaviour that was rampant elsewhere.
Overall, realism units aren't for everyone. Different people look for different things when playing a first-person shooter. Some just want a standard shooter to have some fun with while others want to compete by using skills that apply in a purely game environment as opposed to ones that apply to an environment that has artifically-enforced rules in order to promote realism. And yes, no matter how realistic you make a shooter, it will never match the experience of entrusting your life to someone else while rockets, bombs and bullets are flying past you. Nevertheless, that is how we members of realism units, both former and current, enjoy our games (at least first-person shooters, anyway). Plus, among online communities, the civility, comradeship and espirit de corps enjoyed among members of realism units is second to none and is a unique phenomenon in online gaming.
Also, those of you claiming that realism units are somehow an insult to soldiers serving in actual militiaries...well, clearly you were never in a realism unit. If you had been, you would have known how grossly inaccurate such a statement is. Infact, our unit in particular was formed in memory of two members of the actual 29th who died during their tour of duty in Iraq and who were good friends of our leader (who himself was a former soldier). Several of our members were either former veterans or soldiers that were not deployed at the time, drawn to realism units due to the generally more mature atmosphere enjoyed in them. In general, it was an unwritten rule that you needed to have at least some understanding and respect for the men and women who were putting their lives in danger for their respective countries. So members of realism units are very much aware (in some cases, intimately so) that a game environment doesn't come even close to an actual war environment and generally have more respect for the men and women in uniform than most other people.
So anyway, that is about all I had to say. It ended up being fairly lengthy, but I hope it gave you some more insight as to how realism units work.
I was a senior officer in the 29th Infantry Division [http://www.29thid.us/] (formerly known, when it was a Call of Duty 2 clan, as the 6th Armoured Division). My first encounter with tactical realism was when I joined a United Offensive clan called the 1st Axis Division. I was preety young back then and I have very little memories of my time there. However, it was there that I met Malcolm, my immediate superior and a real-life veteran, and we became really good friends. While I did manage to gain a promotion and even almost got into an official match (unfortunately, my PB Guid was not set up, so I couldn't participate). However, my stay there was shortlived as the clan fell apart soon after (for reasons that I no longer remember). It was shortly after that that Malcolm decided to form his own clan and offered me a position in it. I accepted and things went on from there.
Sadly, as much as I hate to admit it, I wasn't very good at my job. I wasn't a very good player, my leadership skills were lacking and I sometimes had trouble gaining the respect of other clan members. Worst of all, I tended to be missing for great periods of time due to real-life obligations. While my friend was very understanding about this, he still expressed great disappointment and I could not help but feel deep shame for letting the clan down. I tried to ramp up my activity and, for a time, I even managed to participate almost every day. But then college and intern hit me, which finally made me realise that I just simply didn't have enough time to dedicate to being a senior officer in a highly competitive clan. With that realisation, I decided to give my resignation and no longer burden the clan with my presence (or lack thereof).
Honestly, the only thing which I could say was my strength was that I was preety good at writing texts and giving speeches. It was for this reason that my good friend tended to poke fun at me, calling me a "propaganda minister" (although I made it a personal policy to never lie in public announcements; I despise propaganda). Also, I was often charged with mediating in disputes and sometimes had success with that as well.
Anyway, realism units aren't without their faults. If nothing else, they certainly are not immune to drama that is typical for gaming organisations. Quite the contrary; beacuse people in realism units tend to be so emotionally and personally involved, internal disputes end up being an even more serious matter. A big problem is when members are hesitant to speak their minds about what troubles them out of fear of being chastised for it. Thus they end locking it up inside themselves until they can't take it any longer and they decide to quit the clan. And since they have made some good friends in the clan during their stay, those friends might decide to leave the clan (and join another) along with them, which can result in a mini-exodus.
Looking at the above paragraph, you might be thinking that the idea that realism units are "weird angsty nerds pretending to be soldiers" holds true. But that isn't the case. Far from it, infact. In order to become a recruit to begin with, you needed to be at least 18 years of age. Exceptionally, we also accepted people of 16 years of age or older if they were deemed mature enough to partake in the clan's activities, but those were rare examples. So while there were a few teenagers in the clan, the members were all adults for the most part. Infact, some of them were well into their 40's or even 50's. In general, we didn't have any "xenophobic kiddies" that otherwise plague online games. If someone like that tried to join the clan, they either quickly realised that it wasn't for them and left or they were given the boot.
While conflicts did occur, as mentioned before, they were generally few and far in between. For the most part, the atmosphere in the unit was mature and civil. We were generally layed back when we were just hanging out. During official meetings, however, we spoke in turns and nobody was interrupted while they were talking unless absolutely necessary (even then, it was done so politely). While the clan wasn't completely democratic (afterall, the chain of command needed to be respected), all participants were allowed to have a say. Eventually recognising the problem that people tended to be too quiet about what was troubling them, the HQ (as in the commanding staff) and our leader in particular encouraged people to speak their minds during clan meetings.
Also, even though we were a realism unit, our server enjoyed a great deal of popularity. To be fair, we actually had two servers: one was a standard Search & Destroy/Headquarters Hardcore mode server, while the other was a Search & Destroy server with the Tactical Realism Mod applied (although we later switched mods due to disagreements with some of the changes in TRM). But even our standard server had a great deal of additional rules applied (things like bunnyhopping, dolphin diving and nade spamming were forbidden, for example). In spite (or should I say, precisely beacuse) of this, we never had trouble populating the server. Thanks to the strict rules and policing, people liked coming to our server in order to avoid the rude and disrespectful behaviour that was rampant elsewhere.
Overall, realism units aren't for everyone. Different people look for different things when playing a first-person shooter. Some just want a standard shooter to have some fun with while others want to compete by using skills that apply in a purely game environment as opposed to ones that apply to an environment that has artifically-enforced rules in order to promote realism. And yes, no matter how realistic you make a shooter, it will never match the experience of entrusting your life to someone else while rockets, bombs and bullets are flying past you. Nevertheless, that is how we members of realism units, both former and current, enjoy our games (at least first-person shooters, anyway). Plus, among online communities, the civility, comradeship and espirit de corps enjoyed among members of realism units is second to none and is a unique phenomenon in online gaming.
Also, those of you claiming that realism units are somehow an insult to soldiers serving in actual militiaries...well, clearly you were never in a realism unit. If you had been, you would have known how grossly inaccurate such a statement is. Infact, our unit in particular was formed in memory of two members of the actual 29th who died during their tour of duty in Iraq and who were good friends of our leader (who himself was a former soldier). Several of our members were either former veterans or soldiers that were not deployed at the time, drawn to realism units due to the generally more mature atmosphere enjoyed in them. In general, it was an unwritten rule that you needed to have at least some understanding and respect for the men and women who were putting their lives in danger for their respective countries. So members of realism units are very much aware (in some cases, intimately so) that a game environment doesn't come even close to an actual war environment and generally have more respect for the men and women in uniform than most other people.
So anyway, that is about all I had to say. It ended up being fairly lengthy, but I hope it gave you some more insight as to how realism units work.
