Question: What are your thoughts on the video? Have you experienced any of this in your life, or the life of someone you know?

I hope to blog soon about some of my experiences with video gaming.

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“We will send them a message” – Jake Sully, Avatar

I just watched Avatar, and couldn’t wait to blog about a few thoughts that stood out in my head. This series is digested best after watching the movie – the movie is definitely worth watching. First the trailer to set the stage:

“I cannot tell which world is real.”

In the movie, Jake Sully steps into an “Avatar”, a Na’vi body made for him, so he can work a deal for the humans with the Na’vi. He ends up being immersed in the Na’vi world for so long, that he has an identity crisis – is he human, or actually Na’vi?

In Jake’s case, this is fine, as both his conflicting worlds are real. However, in our case, it’s not.

Many of us abandon our real physical worlds for virtual online worlds. Instead of seeking God when we hit bottom, we dive into worldly pleasures to fill us, which for some of us is getting immersed into a video game online, or building a fake personality for ourselves on facebook, among others. This can ruin our lives.

Andrew recalls his experiences quitting World of Warcraft 4 times on his blog:

“My relationship with my wife was threatened by a fight over a petty game item. I was appalled that such a meaningless entity could intrude upon my relationship”

It is not just our physicial relationships that can suffer because of our indulgence, but more importantly, our relationship with God can be threatened. Things that practically consume our lives are our practical Gods, and God does not like his spot being replaced in our lives. From Rom 1:24-25:

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity… because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator”

We all begin there – we’ve all replaced the real God with fake fantasy and worldly pleasures.

Question: What are some of your struggles in the pursuit of happiness or satisfaction?

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“Papercraft Model”s are models you make out of paper instead of clay or lego. Guild Wars is giving away four build-your-own “Papercraft Model”s this Christmas for our “assembling enjoyment.”

I’m gonna try to assemble one, maybe you can join me. Crafts can be exceptionally fun!

Happy Crafting*

*Or whatever you’re gonna be doing this Christmas!

Are you planning something out of the norm this Christmas?

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The line ups at stores still baffle me – apparently the line up at my local Game Stop was 250 people long at midnight and took till 2:30am to clear. There was even a line up when I went to get it at 2:30 this afternoon. I remember picking up Modern Warfare two years ago without any line-ups. Way to go Infinity Ward!

Based on their past record, I trusted Infinity Ward to know what they were doing. MW2 has definitely proven worthy. At the very least, MW2 is definitely waaaay better than it was predicted to be, atleast among the PC Gaming community.

On a side note, this kinda reminds me of trusting Jesus in a sense – because of the things he did, and the reasons to believe in him – get the parallelism?

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• It will not support dedicated game servers (hosted by companies) or server lists – this is unprecedented in gaming history.
• It might not support user-created content or mods.
• Unclear, but talked about: Matches have to run on Private “listen” servers hosted on a player’s computer – so the number of players and your ping will totally depend on the player’s computer and connection.

On the positive side:

• All the changes are made to make the game “more accessible” and cheaper to play.
• The game installs through Steam.
• No more Punkbuster, in comes Valve Anti-Cheat.
• Match-making and servers will be handled by IW.net, “which is completely seperate from the steam system”. This can revolutionalize PC Gaming. If it works.
• “Anything is possible with IW.net in the future.”
• Infinity Ward usually seems to know what it is doing.
  

Below is the one thing PC Gamers hold close to the heart, more specifically the competitive gaming community:

• Multiplayer games CANNOT be hosted on a players’ computer: Most PC gamers cannot support more than 6 players without performance loss. Aditionally, the player hosting will have NO LAG compared to the other players, offering an advantage similar to using hacks or performance enhancement drugs in real life.
  

Another important note for IWD and game developers which might seem obvious:

• PC Gamers don’t know Console Gaming. PC Gamers ARE NOT Console Gamers. The same interface and methods that worked for console gaming might not work among PC Gamers, where the community extends beyond the game through voice chat servers, websites and forums!

To be honest, after listening to the interview, it does not seem like fourzerotwo was very clear/knowledgeable about the specifics of how IW.net or the PC side of things work – are the public servers hosted on one players’ computer, or are they hosted by IW.net guaranteeing a good ping and support for more than 6 players? Fourzerotwo briefly confirmed when asked that public games are indeed hosted by IW.net, and at about 45 mins in the edited version of the cast, fourzerotwo said that private games “are ran by us instead of a server”, meaning that match servers could be run by IW.net.

We can still hang onto hope! There is a petition for dedicated server support if dedicated servers are close to heart.

I’ll leave you with a video that reminds me that the PC Gaming Community is an integral part of this series:

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It’s usually more fun to get in the game, than simply being a spectator. It’s way more fun to play the game in the video above than to watch it being played. I like playing soccer way more than watching soccer being played. It’s more fun to kick the ball myself, work through the chaos with a team and feel the air rush past you than to sit on a couch and watch someone else having fun.

This might seem like a simple concept. But I think this applies to many spheres of our lives, not just sports or video games.

It applies to leadership. It’s a lot easier to be lead than to lead. When possible, take the initiative to get in the game and lead – you’ll be challenged and there’s usually guaranteed hard times, but it will be worth it in the end.

It applies to ending poverty. If your heart is burdened for poverty in the world, you don’t need to spectate and watch others fix it. You can get in the game and be a part of the solution.

It applies to serving Jesus. It’s quite easy to go to church, get served, go home. It’s a lot more awkward to get in the game and serve, give back, but it’s soooo worth it! I’ll tell you how the video below applies next week – until then, may it serve as an inspiration.

Get In The Game!

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TeamJL is short for Jesus Lives. We are a Competitive, Christ-Centered Gaming team. I’ll explain the terms in our context.

• Competitive: We are gamers, but we take gaming seriously. We play in online leagues, tournaments, anyplace we can find good competition.
• Christ-Centered: While we take gaming seriously, we do it in a Christ-like manner, and try to create a healthy, God honoring atmosphere to game in.

Our vision is to:

“Help change the world by leading gamers to become fully devoted followers of Christ.”

(adapted from Campus for Christ’s and LifeChurch.tv’s vision)

Hope this post was a little enlightening. Questions? Please comment! Off to game now, String out.

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