Miedo en Quake

[Bloodwolf]

Me topé con esta noticia que publicó Keyro hace un par de años, y al leer el artículo me puse a pensar que es muy cierto todo lo que se dice de los miedos a la hora de competir.

El artículo utiliza ejemplos de Counter-Strike y WarCraft III, pero principalmente de Quake, razón por la cual lo "postié" aquí.

Es algo largo y las imágenes y videos que venían con este no se acomodan bien aquí, así que doy el link al final para que lo lean ahí si gustan. A continuación el artículo entero, en inglés (si alguien tiene tiempo para traducirlo go ahead):

What Do You Fear?

There is a monster in the pit of your stomach. It sleeps during the day, but when you fire up your favorite game, it wakes up. And sometimes it eats you alive.

The monster is fear, and gamers feel it whether they are playing casually (such as in public games) or competitively. We've all been there before: your mouth goes dry and you need to run to the bathroom before every match. Or you're the last man standing in a round of 'Counter-Strike' and need to kill five guys to win it for your team. Maybe you're just going up against a personal nemesis--you know, someone who's always got your number.

It's important to understand that all gamers suffer from fear to varying degrees. Nervousness, lack of concentration, bad decision-making, and just plain old choking can often be traced back to some lingering fear in a gamer's mind, whether or not he or she is willing to admit it. In first-person-shooter games, fear-afflicted actions are easy to identify to even casual spectators.

Missed shots, botched jumps, unwatched items, and ill-timed rotations are the confession of fearful shooter players everywhere. In real-time strategy games, fear tends to manifest itself in small mistakes that add up until there's no going back, says Reade 'Orlandu' Saunders, GGL's resident 'Warcraft 3' admin. This won't be obvious to the casual observer, but it's out there nonetheless.

The most basic example of gaming fear is any random 'Counter-Strike' player hiding behind a crate for three minutes so he won't die. In this way, the most fundamental utility of fear in games mirrors its real-life function: self preservation.

While playing competitively, it is vital for gamers to conquer their fear of virtual death in order to succeed against evenly matched or superior opponents. Go beyond that, however, and the real demons start to emerge. There is more to winning than simply staying alive, especially in team games where if you refuse to sacrifice yourself for the greater good, you're guaranteed a loss.

This, in and of itself, can become a source of fear. Teammates in competitive games often form friendships that extend well beyond the game. Letting strangers down is one thing; letting long-time friends down is an entirely different affair. No one likes to feel as though he or she was the weak link. Obviously, the bigger the stakes, the greater the likelihood that this fear will come into play. This is a fear of failure.

Other gamers fear success. It sounds odd, but there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into being the best at anything, and gaming is no different. "Why not settle for fourth place and avoid the pressure of playing for first? You know you're not good enough to begin with," whispers the voice of inadequacy. Luckily for most top gamers, the incentive of a large cash payout helps make this a minor nuisance. But those who play for pride only are not so fortunate.

The amount of people watching can also make people fearful. Some gamers are afraid of embarassing themselves in front of an audience or in front of special people. This kind of fear can come into play anywhere from a gigantic live tournament (such as the E-Sports World Cup, where audience reactions can literally swing the momentum of a game) to clan tryouts.

FEAR AT WORK, FEAR AT PLAY

Now that we've established some causes, let's look at famous chokes that were most likely a result of fear at work. The first that comes to mind is Sander 'Vo0' Kaasjager's loss to Johnathan 'fatal1ty' Wendel at the CPL World Tour 'Painkiller' Finals in New York City. Vo0 has said that he didn't choke during the grand finale of the tournament, but the expression on his face broadcast through the video stream said otherwise. The bottom line is Sander took home the gold at over half of the World Tour Stops (five of nine) and was a heavy favorite to win it all. His loss to fatal1ty only served to benefit Mr. Wendel's reputation as the world's number one gamer.

It's not as though fatal1ty is immune to the effects of fear, though. One of his most notable chokes came against a then-unknown Sean "Daler" Price in the QuakeCon 2002 upper bracket. Down 5-1, fatal1ty managed to outmaneuver Daler and get him down to a measly 13 health, chasing him to the yellow armor. fatal1ty decided to come up the jump pad to the YA to get the frag and spark a much-needed comeback. Here's what happens during a brain-freeze:

Instead of using his lightning gun to kill Daler in only a split second, fatal1ty tried to use the rocket launcher to splash him to death. The result? Daler railed fatal1ty downward, knocking him onto the jump pad and causing the first rocket to miss. On the way back up, Daler railed him again, and fatal1ty missed a second rocket. Inexplicably, fatal1ty decided to jump on the jump pad a third and fateful time, culminating in a final missed rocket and another rail slug to the forehead. It was painful to watch. Daler went on to win the match comfortably; so easily, in fact, that he stopped playing at the ~13:00 mark.

One can only imagine what was going through fatal1ty's mind through the course of this game. The questions: "Who is this kid?" "Why doesn't he die?" and "Why won't he miss?" are all leading candidates. Wendel downed a fear cocktail for this match, facing a dark-horse player who refused to roll over, with the winner advancing in a highly competitive tournament. His epic triple-jump blunder is a textbook case of a player so afraid to lose that he disregards the reality of the situation. Price would go on to place second in the tournament, pocketing a cool $20,000.

There's also at least one chronic choker in the annals of Q3 team deathmatch history. His name is John 'Gator' Carlson. Gator was an explosive player who, at his best, could dominate an entire team with his superb aim. Sadly, his composure wasn't always up to par with his reflexes. If most competitors have nerves of steel, Carlson's must have been made of papier-mache. Never has a player's state of mind been so fragile than any time Gator's Clan 519 went up against Clan Kapitol.

The clashes between North America's top two teams were titanic; Carlson's chokes were legendary. Here's a video of two separate occasions where Gator cost his team the match due to fear-induced insanity.

In the first incident, 519 is down by six frags with a minute remaining and Gator picks up the quad damage. He hurries to get some kills and instead loses two frags total; 519 loses. The second time around, during the Resurrection 2 Tournament playoffs, John 'Zer04 / Gestahl' Hill has just brought 519 back into the game with a monster quad run and the score is tied. Gator kills him and then pummels his teammate (-2 frags) and 519 loses the contest by...one frag. Gator's game-ending gaffes were so famous that similar chokes came to be referred to as "pulling a Gator."

A notable 'Counter-Strike' choke occurred at CPL Winter 2005, when SK Gaming met up against the Korean team Lunatic Hai. In a crucial round, Lunatic Hai managed to plant the bomb, but SK's Abdisamad 'Spawn' Mohamed killed three of their players and faked a bomb defuse.

Lunatic Hai's last remaining player, Garfiled, found himself in a troublesome spot. If he didn't peek out to try and kill SpawN, SpawN would defuse the bomb. If Garfiled did reveal himself, SpawN would simply kill him and defuse the bomb. The ideal thing to do in this situation would be to listen for the defuse sound, wait for a few seconds, peek around the corner and start shooting, and hide again. A player employing this tactic would continually interrupt the defusal, thereby drawing out the confrontation until the bomb exploded.

As it is, Garfiled peeked far too early, went for the kill, and was promptly riddled with bullets by SpawN. Had Lunatic Hai won this round, they could have forced overtime with SK and possibly won the entire event. In CS, being afraid for a fraction of a second is all it takes it lose everything.

When it comes to RTS games, fear is a bit difficult to examine. It's exceedingly hard for casual observers to tell when a player is affected by fear, because there is no "in-eyes" view and scores don't tell the full story. With that being said, at least one fear-fueled incident took place at the World Cyber Games in 2004 when Dennis 'Shortround' Chan faced off against Manuel 'Grubby' Schenkhuizen. GGL's Orlandu tells it best:

Shortround had won the first game against Grubby, and they were on the second map. He had destroyed Grubby's Town Hall and Grubby had no money to rebuild, while Shortround had his and an expansion still. So he had two incomes to Grubby's none. There was basically no way he could lose. But then, Grubby started playing like a machine and would keep pushing Shortround back and holding him off, until he eventually won the game in an epic comeback. In the third game, Shortround wasn't playing quite as well. He seemed a bit surprised and wasn't really sure what went wrong, and he eventually went on to lose and then lost 0-2 to Yoan 'ToD' Merlo the next day (after he had smashed every other world-class human player the previous day).

BEATING THE MONSTER

How does one beat fear? Can you ever stop it from holding you back?

It is unlikely that gamers, especially those who compete in high-stakes matches for pride or prizes, will ever be able to totally neutralize the fear they experience. It's a consequence of the pressure and other conditions they play under. But there are ways to mitigate the damage.

First, lay off the caffiene, in all forms. We all know that gamers love their legal stimulants, however, a common side-effect of caffiene is nervousness. Caffiene might help your reflex speed and mental sharpness, but while playing it's important to realize that reflex accuracy probably matters more than simple speed. There's no use in being able to headshot someone across the map in ten milliseconds if you're a meter off.

A more active solution to the problem of nervousness and fear is to do some kind of exercise before a match. Twenty pushups before a scary task can do wonders for your peace of mind. It's just a way to get the nervous energy out of your system before the real work begins.

For deathmatch gamers, a constant problem is losing your train of thought in the middle of an important task. Often times there's so much going on (especially in team games) that any task other than "kill the enemy" gets lost in the shuffle. When mixed with apprehension, this lack of purpose is extremely self-destructive and generally leads to lopsided defeats. Constantly ask yourself where you're going and why, and what the greater plan is, or ask your teammates. If you can't visualize the task at hand, you've just become a thousand times more susceptible to fear and hopelessness.

If you are relatively inexperienced, just play through it. There's no other way to get used to competition than to compete. Once you've got years of matches under your belt, a national championship will make you only slightly jittery. Understand that the greatest professional players in all games have been at it for years and have logged hundreds of matches, and all competitors need to put in their time.

Cut yourself some slack. Understand your limitations; don't pull a fatal1ty and force encounters that no one can win. Likewise, if you don't want to carry your team, don't try. You might end up like Gator. Take a few deep breaths, sit back, and realize that even if you're playing for $30,000, it's still just a game and not life and death.

Above all, you must believe you can win. All of the chokers featured here had one thing in common: they lost their cool when faced with a strong opponent. Boastful arrogance won't go very far, but calculated and methodical play only occur when you are confident in yourself. If you don't think you can win, you've already lost, and have set yourself up for a choke. If you came prepared and know you can win, you're halfway there.

Lo que me llama la atención es la veracidad de estos miedos. Yo los he vivido, y he visto como otros lo han experimentado. Es algo natural. Y en Quake, saber aprender de esto y enfrentarlo forma parte fundamental de su calidad de juego, que conforme más se juegue más experiencia acumulará.

Por eso es bueno que los jugadores acostumbrados a solo LAN con amigos salgan de sus círculos y tomen nuevos retos. Esto les ayudará tanto en su juego como en su mentalidad de alcanzar metas en esta vida.

Claro, obviamente que lo que ud sepa del juego al igual que cuanto haya practicado afectará su rendimiento, pero el factor psicológico de torneos, por ejemplo, es otro aspecto sumamente importante a la hora de jugar.

Ver: Noticia Original por Keyro

Fuente: GGL.com: What Do You Fear?

[b52.Psytechdragon]

Me borraron el post, y nada de esto es cierto.

[override]

El sabado me cague jugando contra Blood pero aun asi le entre... hubieron varios q se le corrieron y se dedicaron a jugar Crysis :S

A q voy con ese comment... q el Nick de un mae hace temblar...

[fr4gus]

A q voy con ese comment... q el Nick de un mae hace temblar...

QFT

Me acuerdo cuando blood apenas le estaba entrando a CoD 2 (yo ya llevaba rato de jugarlo) y cuando veia su nick lo pensaba dos veces jajajaja.

Y bueno a los gB nos paso mucho de eso en el torneo de CoD2, lastima que no nos volvimos a apuntar a torneos en grupo.

[kLorD]

Y bueno a los gB nos paso mucho de eso en el torneo de CoD2, lastima que no nos volvimos a apuntar a torneos en grupo.

con 30h semanales de WoW es díficil

a mi me dió miedo cuando esta carajillo y jugué RTCW, las criptas me daban miedo.....

Edited August 26, 2008 by DarKross

[override]

Blood da miedo pero x feo.... jaja y Tuky ni pa q!!!

[Guaro]

La verdad no leí ese paredón de texto... mucha pereza, pero bueno a mi parecer no salirse del grupito de compas por miedo a que lo majen es una lloradera. O decir que equis juego es malo y que ya no lo entretiene a uno después de haber jugado mucho, solo por miedo a no ganar y no poder soportar la presión de la competencia es todavía peor (Hi Bahdilla)

En fin siempre hay que jugar para ganar, pero hay que saber perder, pero lo mas importante hay que divertirse a toda costa, que para esto es esta p1ch@.

Para lo que no agunaten ahí estan los SP... o WSW (hi again Bahdilla)

[vOv]

Dey, si ese fuera el caso no habría jugado ni el torneo de cod ni el torneo de q3ctf ni el torneo de q4 online

Además, el que en efecto ya no me guste no significa que me haya retirado por miedo.

Hola guaro

P.D. También he jugado en torneos de wsw =]

P.P.D. Scila también juega wsw :>

Edited August 27, 2008 by Báhdom

[Guaro]

El día que lo vuela a ver en un torneo LAN 1vs1 me cierra la boca. pq ahí está la presión que cierta gente no soporta... y no se pq =/ como si fuera algo de vida o muerte.

P.D. estoy casi seguro que si aqui hubiera una comunidad "grande" de wsw a ud ya no le gustaría

P.D.2: Eres mi mejor amigo Bahsurilla <3

Edited August 27, 2008 by Guaro

[Bloodwolf]

Dey, si ese fuera el caso no habría jugado ni el torneo de cod ni el torneo de q3ctf ni el torneo de q4 online

Dey, si los jugó... peerooooo....

CoD= D6 06? mmm desp de ahi desapareció

Q3CTF = jugó si acaso 1 partida, el resto de las 3 horas q estuvo ahí, estuvo programando en las gradas junto al local con sus compas de la U

Q4 online = di, es online ... para efectos de este thread... LAN pesa más ...

P.D. También he jugado en torneos de wsw =]

Los de la U donde nadie le gana? :S ...

Bueno, no digo q se haya retirado de "X juegos" por miedo ni mucho menos, pero en su caso particular si sería más agradable verlo "perform" en una LAN en vez de tener q leer los porqués en los foros .

...nada de esto es cierto.

Care to elaborate?

[vOv]

CoD= D6 06? mmm desp de ahi desapareció

err, no se si se acuerda, pero despues del D6'06 fue que empecé con quake

Q3CTF = jugó si acaso 1 partida, el resto de las 3 horas q estuvo ahí, estuvo programando en las gradas junto al local con sus compas de la U

fueron 2 y dey, U primero, el brete era para el día siguiente XD

Los de la U donde nadie le gana? :S ...

yo no jugué en ese torneo (lo cual ya le he dicho mínimo 4 veces, 5 con esta). Me refiero a torneos extranjeros, donde de hecho jugaban los mejores jugadores de NA de wsw. Scila fue spec en la final de uno (aunque el que vio fue el noobcup, no el de la gente buena).

ah just in case, uno de mis compañeros de la u si me ha ganado :>

P.D. estoy casi seguro que si aqui hubiera una comunidad "grande" de wsw a ud ya no le gustaría

lo insto a hacer la prueba

P.D.2: Eres mi mejor amigo Bahsurilla <3

<3

Edited August 27, 2008 by Báhdom