Feeling uneasy about playing war?

[Samelborp 0]

I consider myself a pacifist, in the sense that violence should be the last resort to solve conflicts between humans. At the same time, I wouldn’t mind using violence against anyone that would try to harm me, my family or friends but I don’t get into trouble and I haven’t been I a fight since I was in school. I suppose I am a pretty normal guy…

As the rest of the forum’s members, I love playing war, starting when I was a child, making “guns†from pieces of wood, then plastic replicas, and then, when videogames entered my life, I became a lover of the amazing world of militaristic simulations.

Although I disregard violence in real life, I have continued to play simulated war in my computer and other “violent games†(FPP, strategy, etc).

I would like to ask you if you have ever felt even slightly uneasy about having as an entertainment an activity that costs thousand of lives every year. I am not looking for disputes between who is right or not in waging a war. I just want to know what do you feel about being raised in a world were play and war are sometimes so close.

I have felt uneasy lately, but I also know that organised violence is a very human thing, and in the other hand, play is an activity that often serves as a “training†for what sooner or later you’ll face in your real live.

What do you think?

[theavonlady 2]

Wow! I was thinking of starting exactly this poll earlier today.

I voted "just a game". I'm actually playing less but that's because I'm yapping too much on the "Dogs of War" thread.

[WhoCares 0]

In fact, I just started to play the Flashpoint1985 campaign again, after I had deleted my HD last week. Before, I haven't touched OFP for about half a year or more.

However, I stopped playing America'sArmy:Operations. I can't give a reason, but somehow... I'm not sure... Uhmmm, nevermind

Oh, my vote was the second choice...

[CosmicCastaway 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (WhoCares @ Mar. 24 2003,13:34)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">In fact, I just started to play the Flashpoint1985 campaign again, after I had deleted my HD last week. Before, I haven't touched OFP for about half a year or more.

However, I stopped playing America'sArmy:Operations. I can't give a reason, but somehow... I'm not sure... Uhmmm, nevermind  

Oh, my vote was the second choice...<span id='postcolor'>

I stopped playing AA too, I guess the main reason being I was amazed at some of the ridiculously racist and offensive comments being thrown around in game. Although I mark that down to the places I played and the school children that frequented those servers.

[JAP 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (CosmicCastaway @ Mar. 24 2003,13:49)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (WhoCares @ Mar. 24 2003,13:34)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">In fact, I just started to play the Flashpoint1985 campaign again, after I had deleted my HD last week. Before, I haven't touched OFP for about half a year or more.

However, I stopped playing America'sArmy:Operations. I can't give a reason, but somehow... I'm not sure... Uhmmm, nevermind  

Oh, my vote was the second choice...<span id='postcolor'>

I stopped playing AA too, I guess the main reason being I was amazed at some of the ridiculously racist and offensive comments being thrown around in game.  Although I mark that down to the places I played and the school children that frequented those servers.  <span id='postcolor'>

Well,

I ve been hearing "bush sux" alot on AA servers also ... well they kinda have a point there ....

I m playing less ofp but not cause of feeling guilty but more as being interested in it and following alot of it on CNN and BBCWorld.

I must say if i play i often see myself taking up Sigma's Iraqi T72 and hopping in an Apache or Commanche ... so it is influencing my game a bit.

BTW i voted "Just a game"

Cheers

[Winters 1]

it's just a game, as a matter of fact i am probably playing even more now.

[Guest]

I keep watching all the footage on the news and comparing my textures to it. I bet I'm not the only one doing this ATM

ITS JUST A GAME FFS!

[Winters 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Leone @ Mar. 24 2003,16:27)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I keep watching all the footage on the news and comparing my textures to it. I bet I'm not the only one doing this ATM      

ITS JUST A GAME FFS!  <span id='postcolor'>

I keep saying to myself "damn, how can i get THOSE kinds of weather effects"

[shrike 0]

It's just a game.

But I remember one situation while playing the 1985 campaign where I had the the forehead of a poor Soviet soldier in my M21 sight. The poor sod was standing around a campfire with his equally doomed fellows, maybe chatting about their children or girls, enjoying a cigarette - and I actually felt bad about shooting him...talk about immersion!

I even tried to play the campaign as "clean", eg  with as few enemy casualties as possible. It doesn't work very well to say the least...

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Jeez, it's just a game. In fact, we were on our server last night practicing our MOUT and Direct Action tactics. Don't feel uneasy about war, use it to improve your OFP game!

[John C Flett 0]

Just a game and not even bearing on the current situation. If somebody were to produce a good 'Iraqi' campaign I'd probably play it unless it contained jingoistic or racist propaganda. That said I'd object to that in any medium.

What I do find is that I understand some of whats happening much more easily from games like OFP or Falcon 4.0. Whatever can be said about how war should be conducted I think these games have helped me understand that in the confusion of combat with smoke and noise and bullets flying its easy to make mistakes. For that reason actually, these games have if anything made me less hawkish.

[Samelborp 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Just a game and not even bearing on the current situation. If somebody were to produce a good 'Iraqi' campaign I'd probably play it unless it contained jingoistic or racist propaganda. <span id='postcolor'>

I agree, but with OPF is very easy to set up almost every imaginable modern war situation (thanks to our relentless moding community) I don't produce quality missions with the editor, but I like to make very simple missions in which I love to play the underdog, and I have been tempted to build a mission in which I play a lonely iraki soldier against the mighty US army...

Remember, this is just a game...???

BTW, one of the games that made me feel not uneasy but very scared was Medal of Honor, the Omaha Beach mission makes you feel insignificant amidst such an overwhelming enemy fire!

[-76-Chavez 0]

OpF is about some theoretical war between West and East...so why should I be affected by the war in Iraq?

i am a soldier so I thought about killing when i chose my profession...

I dont like this war but it wont decrease my fun in OpF games.

only thing that brings me to play OpF less now is Raven Shield

[peanuckle_00 0]

I wish there were just a simple No with no opinion attached to it but I just chose one of the No answers and ignored the opinion just so you all know.

Edit: Oh and why don't I feel uneasy about war? Man, I don't have to feel uneasy about war thats why.

[Necromancer- 0]

Well... its just a game.

The time taken for me playing this game is only affecting my time and no one else's time... well except for the other players playing OFP and other games.

Nor does the war bother me of playing the Desertcombat MOD for BF1942.

[Cloney 0]

I'm not a pacifist, but after seeing all this stuff on the news about war, I just can't bring myself to play OFP. Sometimes I watch those firefights on BBC and I realize how realistic the firefights in OFP can be. It just makes you think. I feel, out of respect for our war-dead that it is no time to be "playing" war when guys that aren't that much older than me are dying on the frontlines.

I don't need to play OFP to see war, I just need to turn on my TV...

[Polishdude 0]

I voted its just a game. Why? well, first its just computer graphics. How do you compare a real war to a game about a war.

[mr. Duck 0]

It's just a game for me. Yeah I don't play Ofp as much like before the war but that has something to do with me messing up the config.bin/cpp and me being lazy to fix it.

Instead, I go play real war (that game) but I'll quit soon enough when the (friendly) A.I. really get's to my nails.

[ale2999 0]

influences my gaming yes, as I play more desert warfare, but it is just a game, even my dad makes fun of me saying "go play war"

[Silent N Deadly 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">It's just a game.

But I remember one situation while playing the 1985 campaign where I had the the forehead of a poor Soviet soldier in my M21 sight. The poor sod was standing around a campfire with his equally doomed fellows, maybe chatting about their children or girls, enjoying a cigarette - and I actually felt bad about shooting him...talk about immersion!

I even tried to play the campaign as "clean", eg  with as few enemy casualties as possible. It doesn't work very well to say the least...<span id='postcolor'>

I felt like that tons of time while playing OPF, I don't know, I guess it's just human nature to feel sorry for one another.

BTW, I voted "just a game," for the same reasons as you guys!

--EDIT---

I stoped playing AA Also, I have no Idea why, I just somehow stoped, for no reason. I still play OPF alot!

[PFC Mongoose 0]

I voted 'human nature'.

I actually hadn't played OFP in quite some time...

I always get stuck on the SpecOps missions in the BIS campaigns, and most of the campaigns and missions users make I find much too difficult, because I lack skill.

The openness of the editor amazed me, but the steep learning curved, coupled with NO prior programming knowledge daunted me.

Plus the fact that the Desert Island Night mission I was working on had so many infantry, and so much shooting, that even after most of the combatants had gone down, it still brought my 1.7Ghz to an utter crawl - I hadn't touched it in months.

But all the business in Iraq I guess rekindled my fascination with armed combat. The enigma of tactics, the complexities of combined arms...

Some people see everything going on on CNN and it makes them feel uneasy about the game...

But I found it to be like sports... watching makes me feel restless, and I want to do something about it.

Not do soemthing about it as in go out in the desert and get shot at; nobody WANTS to be shot at (well, you know what I mean) but to get it out of my system through videogames... to explore possibilities through videogames.

I too am a pacifist. I want to join the Reserves, but not in a combat role, but as much of a pacifist as I am in life, I love my violent video games.

They're my release.

Anyway, I think I'll shut up now.