Who here is a gamer? I proudly raise my hand and fearlessly say that I am among the ranks of dungeon crawlers, Dragon slayers, World travelers, RPG'ers and 1st person shooters. I am even an MMORPG'er. D&D online!

Games have made a huge impact on my writing style, Having seen fantasy worlds in depth, being able to freely explore them, help the people within, slay the beasts inhabiting it, being part of the story and seeing everything in 3d has really helped when it comes to describing things like landscapes, monuments, towns and the like.

Here is what I am actively playing at the moment and would readily recommend them to any fantasy writers.

D&D online. (The people here are great, not jerks as you'd often find in MMO's)
The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind,
The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, (Possibly the greatest fantasy game ever created... Untill 11/11/11 when it's sequel SKYRIM comes out)

Then you have the post apocalyptic games. Which won't do fantasy writers much good.

Fallout 3
Fallout new vegas

And then the 1st person shooters... Which are great for relieving stress.

Unreal tournament 4
Blood (An ancient Dos game dug from the caverns of the internet)
Doom 1, 2, 3, (Dos) and the newer Doom 3
Call of duty (the older ww2 ones are my favorites)

Who here will raise their hand?

Ditch D&D and join me on LOTRO

Or just actively play both...

I'll raise my hand, but I'm not really an online player (our internet was never up to par for me or my siblings to start playing online )

So, I'll raise my hand as the girl who played endless games of LAN multiplayers with her brother and our friends. When we were younger it was mostly RST games (like AoE and some RoN and Civ thrown in there)
But our current game of choice is M&B (this we've actually played online, I like it because unlike Eldar Scrolls you can fight from horseback! Their graphics might not be awesome, but they have a great open campaign and me, my brother and our friends have played their multiplayers maps endlessly.)

A female gamer?! I've heard rumors that they existed but only in the deepest caverns of gamer myth.

I tip my hat to you Vilisse, may your clicking finger never tire.

I really like Total war.

*rolls eyes* Lots of girls game, Whackem.

I'm not really a multiplayer gamer . . . more like one on one with the PC.
I play AoE; Age of Kings and Age of Conquerors. I am a failure at strategies normally, but somehow I survive with well placed fortresses and advantage of heights. I used to play Stronghold Crusader and RoN, but I'm not great at it.
I've wanted to try some of the games you've mentioned, but my parents discouraged multiplayer online games like that.

Anyway, though I'd like to play games more, now all my computer time is claimed by writing and HolyWorlds. Somehow I personally feel more fulfilled when I use my computer time this way.

Yes, girls do game. *Joins Villie & Ciela* I be a fellow AoE and RoN player! I shall put the games I love in a list. (this may be horrifying )

Age of Empires - Kings & Conquerors (#1! )
Rise of Nations
Big Game Hunter 2005
Big Game Hunter 2006
Ducati World
Need for Speed (on occasion, if we see it at someone's place )
Maths Quest (this is actually a really fun game: there are aliens in it that make this noise that, to this day, still make my brother and I jump out of our skin when we hear it!)

And the only online game I play is Horse Isle, and very rarely these days. My brother and I used to play some awesome multiplayer games of AoE. But HolyWorlds gets first place lately.

I stopped gaming the older I got. Other things clambered for my time. And then (seems to be a popular story around here) I stumbled on HW. Now this gets all my spare time, and like Ciela, I feel much more satisfied.

Doesn't mean I don't like to play the occasional game now and then, even now. Sometimes it is good to just let your mind fade from real life.

I'm a gamer in the sense that I love the idea and have greatly looked into it, but sadly haven't previously made the acquaintance of any fellows. It's definitely something I would love to do as long as it's free. Especially LARP, it would be the best opportunity to develop characters I think.

I am most humbly - the biggest gamer ever known...

I play: (And play them all rather well.)
0 A.D. - I also am on a mod team for this one.
Americas Army 3 - Not as good at AA2
Age of Empires 1 + ROR - Classic gaming here!
Age of Empires 2 + AOC - This the where it's at!
Age of Empires 3 + AD + WC - Not as great as 2
Alien Swarm - Mega Awesome !!!
Alien Arena - Was ok, but felt too much like UT2004
Assassin's Creed - Gaming excellence.
Battle for Middle Earth 1 - Really Good but not as good at 2
Battle for Middle Earth 2 + Rise of the Which King
Braid - It keeps you guessing to the end.
Blue mars - It's just in the developmental stages
Black Hawk Down - the Game - Not that bad for a game based on a movie
BattleField 2 + Spec ops - BEST MP GAME EVER!
Civilization 3 + All the add ons - kept me glued to the screen for hours
Call of Duty 2 - got to love the Russians
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare - I unlocked everything and now I don't really play
Cortex Command - really hard to get use to
Crash Day - like the movie death race
Eufloria - ummmm it was cool
Empire Earth + Art of Conquests - way to long of a game
Fable 1 - played through the whole thing then looked to set the difficulty to hard... It doesn't have a difficulty setting.
Flatout 2 - fun racing
FreeSpace 2 - the best space simulator out there
Full Spectrum Warrior - fun but it needed to have a MP mode
Halo + CE + 2 - More FPS excellence
Half Life 2 + ep 1 + ep2 - BEST single player game ever
Lord of Ultima - kinda stopped playing, but i got a set of 16, level 6000+ citys
Lord of the Ring - The Return of the King Game - where i started my gaming
Machinarium - puzzle work at it's best
Medal of Honer Allied Assault + Pacific Assault - it was good, just not great
Madden - if you like that kind of game
Mount and Blade - best MP game today
Need for Speed Shift - i liked carbon better
Need for Speed Carbon
Osmos
Overwatch
Portal - BEST puzzle game ever
Revenge Of The Titans - good and getting better
Rift - stopped playing after the beta
Rise of Nations + Thrones and Patriots
Sauerbraten (AKA Cube 2)
Savage 2
Sims 2 + Open for business + Free Time + HM + IKEA + Kitchen and bath + Mansion Garden Stuff + Seasons + Apartment Life + A dozen more... - Don't ask about this
Steambirds -fun free game
Star Wars Battlefront 2
Star Wars Empire at War + Forces of Corruption - another game i'm modding
Star Wars Jedi knight - Jedi Academy
Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds + Clone wars
Sins of a Soler Empire - the game goes on forever... like 7 + hours
Team Fortress 2
TES 4 - Oblivion
TrackMania
Tremulous
Tony Hawk Pro Skater
UFO - AI
Urban Terror
World of Goo
Wasnoth
War Zone 2100
Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory
WarLord
X3 Terran Conflict - this game is big!!!

This is just the quick list of games I play most often, And I won't include mods (I have a Lot of mods.)

I second, third and fourth.

I play Horseisle 1 and Horseisle 2. I'm a mod on both of them so I can be there quite a lot; but those are the only games I play at all really.

How's HI2 these days, Elanor? I joined, but I think I'm deleted by now as I haven't been on there in ages. The graphics were awesome, but soaked up way too much internet, so I couldn't go on it regularly.

I'll send you a PM as what I would say would go totally off topic.

Oh I have played RuneScape a long time ago, but not anymore!

*can't add another smilie... but you might can guess what smilie it would be*

I realize that, few will admit it though, I have an older sister with dreams of conquering the universe and without a single failure has completed EVERY AoE there is.

And with that it became clear that SOMEBODY has too much time on their hands.

I'm surprised Welt has enough time to list them all.

Holy moly guacamole, Welt! I'm now assuming that you have ten day weeks, instead of the standard seven.


I was seriously thinking the same.

I'll say! You must have oodles and cahoodles of time to play all them! I wish I had as much!

I consider computer games to be one of my hobbies. I...honestly probably play them more than I write. *hides*

Not going to bother with a list, though.

Trust me, Welt doesn't play all those on a regular basis

he has (in the past) played all of them... and I a few with him.

I don't play them all, every day. I just keep my skills up in all of them... So that at a moments notice I can pick up my mouse and rock a game of Halo DM: 25-1-0-0 (That one death was only because I let vili frag me.) And the last game of AoE 2 that I played didn't go too bad either. I castle jumped in under 5 minutes IIRC. And who doesn't like a troop of fully upgraded elite longbowmen on your enemy's doorstep within 7 mins?

Btw. Helpful note: Always be on my team.

*cough* Welt, the last AoE game we played was the one with Ethan and we played the computer on easy

Remember? We tried playing chess after giving up on swamping the computer! Then someone had a party with the "delete" key and we lost

I'm not much of a gamer. =P I've played AOE in the past, and I've played RPG games on my smartphone (plus Civ 2) but not much any more. I still play OpenTTD, though, which is a really fun game where you're a transport company and have to expand and all that.

eruheran

I thought my brothers were the only ones who had parties with the "Delete" button!

I've played a few. Seriously though, I don't have all of the time Welt appears to.

I think RPG's like Elder scrolls really help with writing fantasy. It really gives you the feeling of being in a real world.

Yes, not only being in the world but playing a role in the story helps as well.

I love video games, but I haven't played that many, and have beaten very few.

I don't play any computer/online games. Just Nintendo.

*sigh* Why did we have to bring games into this?

A video game is not allowed to pass over our doorstep. (Unless a friend brings over a system for a sleepover.) My dad and mainly my mom, believe that video games are ruining the lives of many young men because they've abused the entertainment and have made it a lifestyle. (Mom also considers it a waste of time.) I even had a customer come one day and in our conversation she made some negative comments about how her husband only plays video games when he's not at work. :/

My brother and I can play video games at our friends' place, but we're not allowed to own any ourselves. Nowadays, I thank my mom for that.

I will admit I used to be an occasional gamer. I used to play Runescape for a couple years when I was younger. I also played a game called AdventureQuest. Those are the only online games I played. Regretfully, my brother and I played those games dishonestly.

There's my bit.

In a way I agree, thanks to video games 75% of the young men in this country would not be able to serve in the military due to being so out of shape.
I had SEVERAL restrictions on my gaming time. Thirty minutes per day on the computer, with thirty minutes on the Playstation every sunday. No more.

With so little time, me and my friends after our time was up would arm ourselves with blades I had forged and roam the hills speaking in the old english sentence structure, using ridiculous accents and having our own adventures. We make life a game.

Joe can back me up on this. Many a time he himself was armed and venturing with us on our adventures.

It's not the games that are evil. It's self control that is the key. (A lot of people don't have any.)

I agree.

My parents are the same. I doubt a video game console will ever see the inside of our house. But that's fine with me; the internet takes up too much of my time already, without playing any games.

Mom absolutely refused to let us get any form of video game . . . until the Wii came out. We can play games, but only if they involve active moving and working up a sweat. So some days it's more worth it to just go outside.
I'm an internet addict too.


My brothers and I used to do that all the time. It was so much fun, but I was always afraid of getting hurt. We should pick it up again.

A Larping we will go, a Larping we will go! Come sing with me!

Sword fights! Woo! We only get to do fun outside stuff on the weekends, usually. Because my brother works during the week, we get all our fun together on his days off.

I never understood why games are bad yet movies are ok. Both involve sitting in front of a screen. (In fact games take more brain power.)

(When I was a kid we constantly had wars battles and adventures and all our wounds were real ones too.)

(I still have the scars....)

And a few of them were by my hand... Good times eh Joe? Before we got old enough for lawsuits to be a problem.

I still have scars in my side where you stabbed me when we fought with quarterstaffs at your house every friday.

I like my Wii. I am the undefeated boxing champion (doesn't that just kill my brothers and cousin Joe). And I’ve only been beaten once in a light saber duel on there. Once Travis beat me, there went my undefeated status

Try a lightsaber Duel with at least four others outside with those virtually indestructable plastic lightsabers.

Great memories abound.

Oh I did that too But I have reverted to Wii duals now. It means my brothers get to really swing at me virtually. They wouldn't be allowed to put that kind of force behind a real swing anymore.

Indestructable is right... a friend and I used one to hit a baseball around a few years ago.

"Sword" fights with broken flags from the swingset are fun too. The flag part is missing from at least two of them, so we use the remaining plastic poles to hit each other =P

Y'all might think that with all the games I play I have never left the comfort of my desk... Well I am here to inform you that back in the day... (3 years ago)

I had a very nice set of boom handles, that I fought vili with every other day. (And I may have lost more then one round, BUT!!! That is only because I didn't want to crack open her skull.)

Also on a side note: Never give Vili a sword when she is mad at you.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned 'The Legend of Zelda' series. Though I have considered myself a minor gamer the only games that have helped me in broadening my imagination in the fantasy direction are the Legend of Zelda series.

I however now play almost no video games (just every once and awhile)- mostly because of my starting writing and Holyworlds.