Esports Feed

Finishing out this chapter is the most basic emotional wellness technique: accepting others. Treat others the way you want to be treated.  Meeting new friends can be a challenge.  Strangers being mean because of perceived skill makes it extremely difficult to make friends in video games.  

Online games with others allow people who may struggle with social interactions to make friends.   Communication trouble start when we make up our mind about a topic and are unwilling to listen to others.  If you accept others have different experiences that dictate their belief system, it will make you a terrific teammate.

Treating others, the way you want to be treated is something everyone can agree on.  Try to put yourself in that player’s shoes.  Would you want a whole team that doesn’t talk to you—even worse a team that insults you?  I remember really struggling with a dungeon run in Guild Wars 2.  I had become a high enough level to try a certain dungeon. I wasn’t an avid fan of the game that did research of difficulty or what loot would be dropped; I knew it would be fun because I would have a friend.  

My friend and I needed more people to join our group because of how difficult the area was.  There were strangers who joined us who then tried to get me kicked from the group. Saying things like, “No noobs. Under-leveled gear.  I am not carrying that waste.”  I felt hurt. We had opened our party to these people only for them to insult me.  I told them their words were hurtful and before I could continue they said, “Too bad. Leave the group.  You aren’t wanted here.”  I asked my friend who was head of the party to remove them.  It may just be a game, but things like that shouldn’t be said in community-based games.

If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.  I understand that people don’t want to play with inexperienced players.  This is your downtime that is meant to be enjoyed, not turn you into a teacher for the game.  However, telling other players they aren’t wanted and assuming control is more likely to backfire for you than go well.  

The things your type of other people in the game are seen by that other player until they mute or kick you.  You could leave a group if you are dissatisfied.  There is no reason to continue your suffering by playing that game.  Every avid gamer has more than one game to play so they won’t get upset.

You just rage quit from a game with friends.  You screamed at them in call and typed all your grievances to the enemy team.  More is at stake than your ability to play.  It is easy to ruin a friendship when you are passionate about the game.  We can genuinely be sorry for yelling at friends in call but not fully understand how to correct our behavior.

Damage Control

Good PR does this and so should you.  You need to talk to your friends about what happened.  This is your mistake and you need to take ownership of your anger.  If you are too angry to talk to them in the moment macro a message to your keyboard or mouse that says, “I am sorry I lost my cool.  I will talk more once I have had time to calm down.  I am isolating myself for the sake of others around me.”

After you have calmed down you need to talk it out with friends.  This isn’t about the game or mistakes made in it; it is about feelings.  You can say what things upset you, but you need to ask how they felt when you raged at them.  Your friend’s feelings are just as important as yours.  You need to talk about ways they can help you calm down so it doesn’t escalate to that level.

You also need to apologize for your behavior and be genuine about it.  Don’t say sorry if you don’t mean it.  Think about how it could have gone better and what you would want someone to say if they treated you that way.  

An example of mine: I had been playing ranked games all day and was on a losing streak.  A higher ELO friend invited me to play with his higher ELO friend for some normal games in League of Legends.  We were in call and everything seemed to go just fine.  I told them as long as there was no pressure I wanted to learn a new role as well as how to play a new champion.  

They told me to lock in a champion that I didn’t understand and made jokes at my expense when I started to lose.  (Note there is a difference between general joking and mocking someone for not understanding).  I tried my best to perform in game but became upset.  I asked for help via voice chat.  I also typed in game for help from other teammates.  Ultimately after he said, “maybe you are just bad and shouldn’t be playing this game.” I became furious.  

I dropped call, muted everyone’s typing and pings.  I stopped communicating with my team and watched as the game went down in flames.  After the game was over I blocked the other high ELO player my friend had invited on both voice and the game.  I sent a private message to my friend that said, “I am willing to learn and play with you but I will not play with him again.”  My friend understood the way my anger works and gave me space to work through it.  I messaged later wanting to know if I could do 1v1 matches privately so I could learn mechanics without the pressure of a game.  This helped me to grow mechanically and I was able to talk out the things that I was upset about.

Justified Anger

There is a difference between toxic anger and justified anger.  When we respond out of anger to remove people from the game or our life it usually is justified.  Make sure you have tried to talk to them that their behavior isn’t acceptable before your remove them.  If they don’t listen or change the behavior then you need to remove them from your friends list.

You have a friend who is gaming with you but starts insulting you.  They talk down to you.   They use profanity to insult you.  They threaten you.  Tell them their behavior is not cool.  If they continue to berate you then you have every right to remove them from your life.  Do not stoop to their level and try to correct the behavior further.  If they try to connect with you on other social media (this one is particular for female gamers) block them and report them if you can.  

No amount of groveling or claiming to be reformed should be taken seriously.  The anger they expressed in that moment, especially if threatening with violence, should not be taken lightly.  This is for your mental health.  You acted out of anger to remove them and shouldn’t be forced to accept them back into your life.  

If they are higher ranked than you and promise to carry you, but then act violent in game, they aren’t worth it.  You can go on Reddit and find new friends or higher ranked players.  Regardless of the things they promise, by keeping them added you are saying that toxicity is okay because they are good at the game.  

Humans are passionate creatures; it is one of the things that separates us from beasts.  There is a fire that grows to the point of volcanic eruptions while gaming.  When you have put your effort and time into a game only to be cut short by mistakes it is hard to control your temper.  

The first thing about controlling your rage is recognizing it is there.  If you deny it and say you are just a little upset then scream at the game, you most definitely are having issues recognizing your rage.  

The ways you can recognize rage:

1.       Your breathing has changed.  Either quicker or slow and deliberate, you have become conscious of your breathing pattern.

2.       Your jaw or shoulders are tense.  The jaw being tense can be felt in your temple, while your shoulders can pinch at the side of your neck.  You may not be a violent type, but this physical tension can be toxic to your own health.

3.       The game has drained you of joy.  You are doing a “hail Mary” attempt to reconcile a score, a point, a match.  Point is you aren’t having fun and more likely to be upset.

4.       You are screaming.  Whether you are in a call with the people in game or not, if you are screaming you are raging.

5.       You feel the need to type to justify your actions. You don’t need to explain anything. It is a game.  You aren’t their teacher.  If you mess up, then learn from it.  If someone else messed up, then you typing messages at them won’t fix it. Regardless of the information you present, it will not change anything.

Now that you can recognize it, you need to control it. First and foremost you need to understand video games are for leisure.  The esports scene is competitive and pays. You may be a streamer making income off of your content, but if you lose your cool then you can lose sponsors.  If you take the game seriously that is great!  Everyone loves a great teammate who will do anything to win a game.  Your motivation can dictate how your rage comes up.

In example: You love playing ranked games of Hearthstone.  You are on a 6 win streak but get cut short.  You proceed to lose the next 8 games.  You are upset by this.  The beauty of the system is you can’t type to people, just spam emotes and those can be squelched.  Consider getting something to review your games to watch where you could improve. Sometimes you get a bad draw, other times there are ways to play something better.  It is your ability to remain objective to get better that can help with this kind of rage.  Always take a loss as an opportunity to grow as a player.  

Another example: you are in a dungeon run for Guild Wars 2 with an inexperienced player and a single friend.  You need the group to get through the dungeon but none of your other friends are available.  The new players will die repeatedly and may not be privy to your experience.  Get off your high horse to explain before the dungeon run in chat.  Let them know how the run is supposed to go and set them up for success.  If you are mean to an inexperienced player, just remember you used to be that player to someone else.  Be a mentor that the community wants.

Final example: You are in a ranked game of League of Legends.  You are in your final game of your series.  If you win, then you are promoted.  You are with a group that made some questionable bans and picks.  You chose not to speak in a polite manner to get a great team comp and you also didn’t dodge the game.  Now you are 17 minutes into the game.  Mid has died 3 times and lost their tower.  The jungle is far behind and unable to help anyone. You won your lane by not feeding the enemy team, but you haven’t roamed and aren’t fed.  Your mid wants to surrender and you are livid that nobody wants to try to win.  This is a very real scenario.  Sometimes you just need to understand that there are things out of your control and play the game “law of averages”.  Play more games. You will lose, but you will also win.  Not every game is critical.  You aren’t going to die from losing.  Complaining will only ruin your mood for the next game.  Breathe.  Make sure you have eaten and drank.  Take a break from the game if you haven’t.  You can be just as much of the problem as your “feeding noob team”.  Think of different ways to win or rotations.  Don’t get hung up on mistakes. You are human and will make a lot of them in your lifetime.

Communication and gaming go hand in hand, yet gamers are always perceived as flawed in the communication department.  If you have ever played a game with friends, you know communicating in the game is critical.  For how important it is to communicate there are a lot of gamers who ignore it or over-communicate.  

When to Communicate

Letting teammates know when your skills are on/off cooldown and that you are waiting to engage based on that.  This will improve your gameplay and help others understand why you are playing the way you are. If you are really aggressive when you have all your skills and an escape let your team know so they can plan accordingly. If you are really passive and run away easily in fights let them know so they can recommend things to work on to help you feel confident to fight.

When you are building items that help the team, this is so you don’t stack them to allow for more dynamic fights.  In League of Legends having 3 Randuin’s Omens on your team probably won’t work in your favor in a team fight unless you coordinate them really well.  At the same time if you stack banners in Guild Wars 2 it helps everyone defeat a giant foe more quickly.  Know how the game functions to help your team as best you can.

If you need to do something that requires you to walk away from the game.  i.e. telling teammates to turtle while you have to take out the trash.  This is pretty critical.  If your team is expecting you to commit to a 30-minute dungeon run or for an entire ranked game of League of Legends they need to know if you are around to actually play the game.  It’s a bummer to have to leave but your team will be more understanding if you tell them first.  

Reminding teammates to check their set up in the game before going into a dungeon or a game is pivotal to winning.  Spells, specializations, masteries, runes, build path.  This will help them be set up for success and you will be able to depend on them to do what they intend to do.  If you play a character or class that is expected to be tanky and then build damage and you were the only ‘tank’ for the team, you may have just screwed up for your team.  Make sure they know how you plan to build so they can play accordingly.  

You need to understand the limitations of what their character can do as well as yours.  Sometimes fights don’t go well if we don’t understand the fundamentals of how our character functions in that setting.  For example,  you may be an Attack Damage Carry in League of Legends which means you are squishy but have a lot of damage while attacking from a safe place.  You can also be hard focused by the enemy team which will allow you to kite around your team.  You may die in the process but set your team up to get all the kills and push to win the game.  Know how your role can change in a game if you are ahead of behind.

Sometimes we just can’t avoid the tilt of being upset. Let your teammates know so they can guide your focus back to the game; do the same for your teammates.  I usually focus on giving positive feedback.  A carry position may have just died in League of Legends, but map control may have been gained.  Macro and micro are both things to be positive about.  You may be a tank that has died, but really strong in cs mechanics which has allowed you to maintain being tanky to help your team in the late game even if you didn’t win your lane.

When Not to Communicate

You are already tilted before the game even starts and hate everyone.  Leave your emotions at the door.  You have a new team and new enemy.  The past can’t be changed and dwelling on it will ruin your own mood.  Rise above that.  At the end of the day, it is just a game.  It doesn’t affect you eating, drinking, breathing, or sleeping.

That you are muting ______.  They don’t need to know and you don’t need to tell them this. This invites them to continue talking to you.  If you don’t mute them after typing that you are tilting yourself and probably need a break from the game.  Commit to the game and your word.  In the words of Sejuani from League of Legends, “Deeds not words.”

Insults: They never help and most likely will make your team play worse.  This is different than constructive criticism.  If you are calling them names and not offering feedback to help them improve you are just as bad as them.  Your game-play is probably suffering because you are busy typing instead of playing, even if you type really fast. This is your chance to show off your knowledge and skill to help them improve as a player.  If you really are a high skill cap player then raise the community around you.

Sarcasm: unless you are with a group of friends who understands, don’t do it.  People will take it as an insult.  I did a social test in some 20+ games where a friend of mine would type a question mark into all chat after they killed an enemy player; it literally had no connotation at all but the players became infuriated and it affected their game-play. Remember your teammate could be a 9-year-old or 45-year old dad.  Both react differently to sarcasm.  Internet culture is not always understood by everyone.  If you can joke like that with your friends then keep it with your friends, not randoms from games that you don’t know.

As gamers we all lose our cool at some point. We may be completely calm with our friends being new to a game, but we lose our minds if we don’t know who it is that is feeding like that.  Maybe a hit box is too big or small which effects our expectations in the game, or lack of communication from teammates.  Whatever your rage is, I want to get to the heart of it.  Within my personal experience the breaking point has been people intentionally doing things bad.  The afk from a game seems the most heinous but I find those who intentionally hurt the game play for their team to be the most reprehensible.

The game above shows one of my ranked games in League of Legends.  The Kennen was supposed to be the AD Carry and people get upset when others deviate from the norm.  (Kennen isn’t a standard AD Carry champion)  In this case our mid laner Twisted Fate got upset and decided to run down each lane and give the enemy team kills.  The Kennen had not fed and was building normally; he kept up with cs in lane and had good mechanics.  Our mid laner was having none of it though.  He decided that they were a troll, so he was going to feed every lane to make it “even” in his mind.  Legit he typed in all chat asking where the jungler was then went to him in the jungle to give him a kill.

Riot Games takes a strong stance against people who make it difficult for others to enjoy the game; this is a team game and with the way the meta shifts you need to play like it if you want to win.  Sona mid can be played, that doesn’t mean it should in ranked games.  Just because attack speed Soraka can be built, doesn’t mean you should and that you deserve praise.  Even if someone on your team picks something that seems to make you upset doesn’t make you in the right to intentionally feed everyone on the enemy team.

This next chapter I will be working on is about emotional health while gaming.  The main topics discussed will be:

Healthy communications skills in game

Controlling rage

Coping skills for when you or a friend rage

Accepting others

With the exception of one friend, all of my friends get upset at a game at some point in time.  Sometimes we don’t pay attention to how we are feeling outside of the game which will bleed through and make us aggressive towards others. (Ever been hungry or tired while gaming? That is what I am talking about) More often than not people are trying to find an outlet for their anger or for entertainment.  I see behavior that is aggressive and harmful to a person if they keep it in within a lot of the games I play.  I am one of those people who needs a physical outlet for anger.  It doesn’t matter how much I game because I will still have the need to get physical tension out via a punching bag or cardio.

People need to appreciate the arts.  We give you the things you enjoy in your spare time; from the pretty graphics, to making you feel emotions, to the pretty noise that graces your ear drums and you need to respect them for being able to do what you couldn’t do for yourself.  I am thankful that I have had a rich involvement with the arts to develop my creativity because I take it for granted; not everyone can create a symphony in 3 days or dance a lyrical performance to a song on the spot. There are many aspects of the arts that are developed from video games.

Dance

Every game has some kind of dance that their character/champion can do.  These can be culturally relevant like the haka maori all the way to the dougie. Dance is a form of expression to get someone’s feelings into the open and entertain that person as well as others. I personally like ballet/lyrical dance and hip hop dance because they make me feel more in control of my body. Even if you have never danced before you could become inspired and move like a character does because it makes you feel better self-esteem wise.

Music

Every game has music in it. Cinematic trailers capture the essence of a moment and make people suddenly happy or fearful of what is to come.  The ambient music in League of Legends is meant to just have noise besides what happens in battle; however the champion select music is meant to create urgency so you select quickly and are excited to play the game.  After the warwick update came out I became terrified to hear the music and see the mark above my head forcing me to try to get out of lane or heal.  This isn’t just about the music created for while in game, this also extends to people who create their own music for amusement.  Instalok is a prime example of parody music that addresses game-play in a creative way.

Graphic Design/Art

Moding is a huge thing within the gaming community. People become inspired and use their knowledge to create a new skin or texture in the game to entertain others. There are content additions that cost money put in by developers to expand the gameplay; logical gamer conclusion is if you have the knowledge to create it and release it for free. This type of creation in the community has made people smarter in looking for these codes, installing them and even further modification.  This is a form of digital art that is for the aesthetic beauty that creates satisfaction.  People also create fan skins for in game by hand if they haven’t created it using a client for the digital rendering.  My favorite concepts to date are the pop star series.

Acting

This one is very encompassing of cosplay and streaming.  You have a multitude of people worldwide who cosplay as their favorite characters from games.  Without the games they would have never taken the risk to dress or act in that way. Some people fully commit and will talk in the voice of the character for the day to truly become that character. Streaming allows acting on the spot. I remember my friend having a streamer who di impressions call me and talk like Twisted Fate from League of Legends. I haven’t forgotten that to this day because it made me feel so much better and like I was talking to the champion Twisted Fate.

Economics is usually lumped in with government which is further lumped into history classes but I believe there is a distinct separation here.  Economics is about supply and demand which is controlled in and out of game depending on the game you play.  

In Guild War 2 if you do the ascalonian catacombs dungeon and are already level 80, the items you will get will be less valuable to you, however you can farm this easy dungeon to sell items to get more gold.  Keep in mind you are causing an excess supply, which if demand doesn’t keep up for those items you will get less if you sell them within the Trading Post; Same if somebody doesn’t really find these items and they are rarely in the Trading Post.  There are players who make a living from farming things like this in game to get IRL money.  Specifically in World of Warcraft players can farm items in game to then convert into a currency that can pay for the subscription to the game.  You no longer need to buy things outside the game but for those who can’t commit time they aren’t able to do these methods but can pay someone else to do it.  This is simple supply and demand.  If the demand is there for an item then the supply will be readily made available.

In League of Legends however players don’t control the value of items in game directly.  There are people who analyze the game to see how the cost of an item in game rewards or punishes players.  Most players criticize the lack of balance on these things but there are simply too many factors to put your foot down and see something as a permanent solution.  What will help assassins in a heavy meta will suddenly be rendered useless when tanks are buffed to counter that.

In analyzing game play Riot has specifically tweaked the jungle in XP and gold given.  Junglers were taking too much damage without being able to make their rotations so the previous two small monsters at blue and red buff were taken out, but to counter that the main monster was given more health and gives more gold. Jungle is a very temperamental role because it is dependent on how laners perform.  If AD Carry becomes very strong then junglers need to be able to clear quickly or gain extra XP for ganking and helping them get kills without being punished for lack of farm in the jungle.  If a jungle requires a harder leash to start the game it in turn can punish the laner by denying them experience of being in lane to kill minions so they have to look at when minions spawn in game and the most common damage on a carry to give a leash as well as a reasonable amount of time to get to lane.  The problem is never a simple fix.  Besides the addition of new champions which causes changes for effectiveness of previous champions, patches and items there have been updates with new items which have to be factored in when nerfing/buffing a champion.  

All of these taken into account is how Riot adjusts the cost of items in game and if they recommend them to be built. Trinity Force used to be standard first item on a bruiser, but now due to cost it is more like a mid to late game item.  The times that blue build Ezreal became very popular but in the current meta now punishes if a player gets too developed into it.  Pay attention to the next patch notes about the cost of items going up or down; that is a direct economic structure of players are “demanding” an early access to an item or abusing it which will effect it’s cost “supply”.

Gamers are not the people you go to when you want to work on your grammar or spelling because you will most likely come out speaking like LolCats, however within the game itself you can adopt the style of writing like those who write for the game.  This can be:

 the press releases for the game

the social media accounts officially published for the game

stories in the game

dialogue from characters

Very loosely you could also use chatting with other players in game, along with chat boards like Reddit and the ones moderated for the game to improve your writing skills.  Again you are more likely to be trolled and come out worse than where you started, but you can try.  

If you read through story lore it can help with developing tone for a back story that you can utilize in your own writing. League of Legends has thought out lore whenever a new champion comes out. [Not blaming you Rito for having the change things and how sometimes it can be lacking…..Sivir] A great example of well-developed voice is looking at the most recent Demaca updates.  http://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_US/   This develops bios with more personality of the champions as well as capturing the spirit of Demacia.  

Within releases on Surrender@20 you also hear the tone of those who publish updates.  This is for the most part informative update style writing.  There is comparison of previous information and updates for the new.  Occasionally you will see some gamer-ish speech but it is meant to relate to those who are reading the information.  Understanding the purpose of your writing and your audience makes a huge difference in how we communicate.  

For example fans of the game also get into role-play on the boards and develop their own back stories for champions which develop creative writing skills. This is obviously regulated by board moderators but there is other after-dark type writing that fans have written on platforms like tumblr.  A writing exercise you could do it writing an encounter between Garen and Darius.  Both have different ways of addressing a problem and tone in their voice, and they carry themselves differently. The more detail you can use in creative writing the better it will be for the reader.

There are plenty of people who question the semantics of story points, especially after a lore update, this can help you with academic writing in terms of continuity/consistency.  Within academic writing you need to explain where your source came from and why it is relevant as a source.  Ex. 3 different sources about a team roster update.  Look at how the writers address the update and their date of publication relative to when the roster update went through.  If you examine a lore update for a champion overhaul you can see where skills and quotes can become relevant due to context.  [I am still waiting for that Soraka update since Warwick had a new story update]

Within gaming we are all scientists.  Science is about learning about the world around you and experimenting with it.  At some point in time we have all tried a junk build in game or had a terrible set up until someone told us that isn’t how it is supposed to work.  Within Guild Wars 2 you some-what learn about the earth sciences in mining for ore, harvesting vegetables, and generally with items transitioning to land or water weapons.

Even if players aren’t thinking in terms of where iron or copper ore naturally occur they are thinking about it and can experiment in crafting to make items.  [That is also a waste of material, time and effort if you don’t know what you are doing but you can always do it.] Understanding the world you are in also can help you in understanding what kind of items you are likely to find; for example being in mountain areas is likely to lead you to ore while being in heavy forested areas will giving you logging material which is like learning about biomes.

Physics is probably the biggest one that gamers’ complain about.  Game engines have come quite a long way in graphics and pixilation to be able to do a jump puzzle or dodge a skill shot.  Within League of Legends knowing the hit box of your skill as well as its range makes the difference between a good player and a great one.  Whenever you are screaming that “that totally should have hit” or “Why did that even hit?!” you are expecting a certain level of physics in game than what you are getting.  With the new training mode that came out about a month ago in the client you can learn these hit boxes by practice so people will stop calling you a noob.  Physics is also about timing. In real life you measure how fast something is moving for purposes of study or to control an experiment; the same can be applied to video games in how long it takes for an attack animation to go off as well as the reliability of your own physical capabilities.

This is the most obvious common core subject that is in gaming.  Gamers don’t outright have to do the math in any game. Anybody can keep clicking on an item until they can afford it or farm small items to sell to get what they want.  A smart gamer will utilize their time by doing the math.

Math question: how many minions in League of Legends does it take to afford a BF Sword [1300g] pre level 6? Factor in that you earn 1g every second once you reach the two minute mark which is when you can farm.  Canon minions come every other wave.  Standard wave is 3 melee and 3 caster minions. Presuming you don’t get additional gold from harassing enemy champions and the values of the minions are set at melee-20g,caster- 17g,canon-45g.

A.      65 cs

B.      39 cs

C.      10 cs

D.      55 cs

111g is the most you get in a non-canon wave, 156g is the most you get in a canon wave.  With the passive gold of 1g per second after two minutes you can get away with 39cs and have just enough to afford the BF Sword, without getting a kill in lane. [That is what I got with missing several minions] You can get this in under 5 minutes if you are really good at farming. That is a lot of math to process that most players don’t think about, they just want to get kills which aren’t as valuable for easy income within League of Legends.  

Video games have their own money system so they aren’t always the best at teaching money value, but they do teach break down of higher currency into smaller currency.  In Guild Wars 2 their money system makes logical sense but isn’t like any money system within a country, save for the copper pieces which is like pennies in the U.S.

100 copper pieces =1 silver piece

100 silver pieces= 1 gold coin

This can be helpful for counting how much goes into something, however, if your cognitive function is learning 100cp go into 1sp you are probably going to have bigger problems in the game with hand-eye coordination.

When it comes to gaming lore most people don’t think of it as history, but it is the time line for races which counts as history. There are writers that are staffed at all gaming corporations that write all of this and have to check for continuity flaws.  

People have joked within League of Legends that nobody pays attention to it because when a massive character update happens, so does their back story and every champion involved with them.  

Specifically in World of Warcraft there is a lengthy history that is set up for different maps, dungeon runs, species, battles, and rulers.

 Guild Wars 2 had the expansion of Heart of Thorns which expanded much like how World of Warcraft does in raids and weapons.  

 Halo has story line that changes for the campaign mode with each new game.

Point is there are writers out there that have created this history.  In your common core study of history we have to examine time lines of why things happen in the order that they did.  When we fail to remember the past we set ourselves up to duplicate it. I typically ignore lore in video games because that doesn’t excite me.  I like to ship what species and champions I want together, regardless of what the writers intended.  Within World of Warcraft it has taught multiple generations of gamers about lore for the timeline in the game, but also for when other gamers have started playing the game.

When I wrote about the top 10 cinematic scenes in WoW I tried to ask friends of their favorite ones because the only ones I knew were recent and related to the Worgen. By stating my favorite you know that I am a recent WoW player.  My friends brought up multiple different raid cut scenes and could write novels about the lore and how those updates changed the community.  Those who have been fans for a long time have their opinion based on the movie as well that differs completely from fans who have never played the game.  Loyalty to lore from different time periods shapes gamers and how they treat other gamers.

 Halo and the Call of Duty franchise gamers know more about weapons and military strategy and may enjoy more war type content  Ex. WWII, Bay of Pigs

Students who like mystery/horror games might be more likely into documents that changed history (hint: the story only moves forward when you collect fragmented documents that tell it)  Ex. Zimmerman telegram, Deceleration of Independence

 Students who like zombie games may enjoy disease outbreaks in history Ex. Bubonic plague, Small Pox blankets given to Native Americans

Half Life 2 addresses social issue as does Deus Ex: Human Revolution.  BioShock: Infinite is that special one that addresses racism, classism, and religion. Ex. Civil rights movement, women’s suffrage

In League of Legends the way to tell history of players is by patch, updates on champions or new release champions. People don’t talk about the fight between Demacia and Noxus because it isn’t integral to game-play.  I have wondered about pushing updates on stories via content would bring new numbers to the League community; think like the blood moon map and poro king but for more champions and a once a month update for an area.

My favorite tasks in history classes were interactive.

When it came to social issues I remembered more when my teacher said it was a debate and gave us issues and teams. We didn’t study for weeks; we had 10 minutes to prepare an argument.  

One of the tasks that stands out from my 8th grade history class was about immigration to the colonies where we drew the map; the teacher gave instructions of how much to draw each time until we had an overcrowded paper

I would have loved if teachers had us devise our own war plans to make it through the WWII studies

When discussing native Americans, music would have helped to remember which tribes were from where.

You probably won’t catch your standard academic talking about how gaming and common core are related because they are trying to prove more in their fields of study.  When it comes to recognizing gaming as a sports as well as healthy, a lot of people within psychology and education are quick to say it is toxic to someone’s life. I see it as just as important to recognize the skills that are applicable in core subjects as well as video games.

 This section will be concentrating on these subjects and their relative content and skills in gaming:

     History

     Math

     Science

     English/Writing

     Economics

     Arts 

These are standardized core that you learn in school and somehow have no relevance the rest of your life if you aren’t in education or some type of math/science related job; they make you a well-rounded person and empathetic towards others. This will focus mostly on content and how it can be related to gaming, but skills from the subjects will also be touched on. Understanding those subjects allows you to move through other jobs in life than what your skills are in.  I enjoy learning new skills and have had a myriad of jobs because of how quickly I learn.

Due to my background in education I always look for a way to defend others for their choices in education.   I feel like a lot of people don’t think in ways like, “I use quick decision making in a game and accept the outcome be it good or bad, I can do the same on a test”.  When it comes to academics in core subjects many students are trained to think wrong means the end of the world. There are wonderful TedTalks by Sir Ken Robinson  He discusses school killing creativity because a lot of young teachers, as well as seasoned professionals who have become worn down, will become frustrated and tell students they are just wrong.  

I can attest that within education courses we are taught to maintain order, learn from the past education, and master our content; however we are not taught about talking to parents, and minimally touch on psychological development of how we present ourselves and our content. In my first year of teaching I made so many mistakes while teaching.  I did my best to explain to kids as much as I could but felt like I was a terrible educator because I wasn’t positive in a way that helped foster growth for my students.  I told them that motivation had to come from within and not performance in subjects.  When students tried to impress me that they learned something I was proud but had no way to show it because my teachers had given me books and talked about it, but I had no practical application of giving praise to students.