The Anatomy of A Gaming Frustration

Here's how I an attempting to solve a mildly frustrating problem.

I have a copy of Napoleon Total War, downloaded from piratebay.se, a torrent site. It was a 14.8 GB torrent, and a slow download.

I installed the game in my brand new, extremely powerful gaming rig with the 6950. The graphics was awesome, and the strategy was more than good enough! More importantly, the time period fascinated me. One significant benefit has already occurred, I
have devoured Napoleonic era history like a sponge (and the internet makes all these so damn available too!).

Anyway, I checked out the game, started a campaign and played two of the set-piece battles over a period of 10 days. One day, I had this big, very crucial Italian campaign battle coming up; capture Turin or bust. Napoleon had inferior forces too, but we were forced to attack, and came out victorious as well, a heroic victory! I could even save the game replay.

And then the battle screen went back to the campaign map, showed the summary, sounded Victoire!... and...

CTD! Crash to Desktop! 'Napoleon must be shut down and this or that; check in the internet for problems or close now!'

:(

You cannot save in the middle of the game, and I invested hundred minutes of my good life-time in that battle. I am not saying that went completely futile, in fact I thoroughly enjoyed winning an underdog battle, especially with so little practise and so much reading. But the lack of continuity certainly didn't allow for the full expression of complete joy. Daniel Kahneman's experiencing self (the pleasure derived from the game itself at that point, regardless of any cohesive narration or story later) versus remembering self (taking photos during vacation for example, constructing a life story) are relevant concepts. I had experienced, just fine, but the story element was hampered!

Firstly, I accept the CTDs to a great extent as my copy of the game is not legal and I am not entitled to patches. Granted.

Secondly, I am not willing to frustrate myself further by immediately replaying the battle (the marginal utility was quite thoroughly exhausted after that great win!).

Thirdly, I am only willing to invest a limited amount of my time in diagnosing and making a guinea pig of me. I would rather take this 'misfortune' to open up new campaign frontiers and start exploring those (which I have already started). I would like to continue to derive the same level of enjoyment I have been. In the meantime, the marginal utility for repeating the Italian battle to continue the campaign (or discover that my game is broken) will come back with time.

I am not saying my coping mechanisms are entirely frustration-free; in fact this post is a sign that I do have a gnawing, slightly knotted, elusive-to-tie-down set of low-level frustration about the matter. But I have succeeded in blowing it out of proportion and flail about in a situation where I can do nothing and wallow about in my own misery. I believe I tried to take some constructive steps, for my own selfish purposes, sure, and I have to say here that I am given to fits of destructive frustration which I am safely far from in this case, yet.

Technological Frustrations and Maturity

Technology can be incredibly frustrating. Two recent examples from my end are a recent iPhone jailbreak/exchange (two incidents, actually) and game crashes after long battles in Napoleon Total War (actually, only one crash so far, but I suspect it might be a larger problem.)

As a general rule, I am against investing too much time to solve technical issues. It seems to me to defeat the purpose. Of course, sometimes I have few options.

I use certain mental coping rules. Bangladesh is prone to piracy (unlocked iPhones with jailbroken OSs are the norm here; legals are rare exception; same with games like Empire; I have probably bought only one or two legal games in my life; from India and Malaysia/Thailand!). Companies are getting better at defending against rampant piracy, mostly by causing pain for the pirates. I do not mind too much. So, this is a major coping mechanism. As a downloader of pirated software, I do not have access to patches etc, agreed.

My gaming habits have also evolved likewise. Certain games are just not available, some games won't work, some games would. So I install a large number of games and play the ones that work. Of course, this is an oversimplification and I am shifting towards focusing on one or two games at a time. This is not also fully based on game failures; the primary factors might also be my inclination.

Other major coping mechanisms used are being minimal and mental avoidance strategies. Being minimal means, for peace of mind, using only a few apps and use a 'blank phone' and slowly feeling it in rather than expecting a full and nice restore of all data *now*. Mental avoidance strategies include avoiding the software pain points and focusing on what value can be extracted from the rest of the product.

I cannot say that people in countries with stronger technical and legal infrastructure (such as the US, Sweden and Korea) do not apply the same coping mechanisms. In many cases they have better options (iPhone piracy is the exception, and the internet infrastructure makes getting a legal, Steamed copy of NTW very simple and convenient to get), but that still lives a 20-40% scope open for other general technical issues, plus problems of a separate dimension we 'lower ladder' gamers do not even face (is that online drop-in player going to be a jerk? Why isn't CA doing something to stop jerk flood? Or say, getting disconnected or partner losing interest at the middle of an intriguing campaign or battle).

So, you do need a certain amount of maturity and 'character', almost as
Alvin Toffler says, to handle these manifestations of rapidly evolving technology by error-prone human beings operating on societies at different stages of technological evolution. With that experience, each day gets better and under any circumstance, you are poised to value the current experience and deal with the shortcomings/ failures of societies/ you/ technologies. :)

Napoleonics

I have recently gone big into Napoleon Total War. The graphics drew me in, followed by the 'lore', or in this case, history. Creative Alliance does a tremendous job in this regard; thanks!

I have played two battles: Lodi, and Arcole, and am also playing the first Italian campaign. I might have made some big blunders in the campaign which would probably make the rest of it a very tough nut to crack. But there's a lot of fun in losing depending on perspective! :)

On the history front, I am fascinated by revolutionary and Napoleonic history! The glory is surface detail though, beyond it is human blood and stupidity - or should I use that kind of prejudice? My point rather is that these battles and wars should be 'enjoyed' keeping in mind the human price paid.

Food Woes

I just wasted some food. I am not particularly fond of the food that is served at my workplace. But I went early, saw beef cooked with 'buter daal', and chose to have that on an impulse. The beef pieces need to be solid for me to eat. Fair to say that they were the opposite of that. Slippy pieces of fatty meat I can barely eat; high-masala broth. I asked the guy who was delivering the broth to me to give me the more solid pieces. And it sucked. :(

I did go back and passed on some feedback to the line supervisor. By that time the 'culprit' had left.

My lack of appetite is also a reason for such a sucky lunch, that I'd give. Waiting for an arrival of appetite is a solution. I can significantly improve how I choose my food to eat!

But what now? I feel wasteful for trashing 65% of my food. My belly is full, but psychologically I am not content and a little pissed. In the future, I may choose to bring my lunch. For now, would be great if I can get over it. Comparing it to yesterday, I was hungry and could gobble up most of the small amount of food I took!

I can have a cup of tea. Some chocolate? Go to Genius. Chocolate biscuits. Chapa kola.

What kind of tiffin? Fruits - banana. Choco bars/biscuits. Start cooking - daal dim?

These kind of food dilemmas cannot be avoided 100%, but the percentage I am facing is too high. For my health, I need steps! :)

Take Aways:
1. More careful in choosing my food. No instant impulse gratification.
2. Be hungry, if not ravenous.
3. Consider bringing lunch from home.
4. Allow psychological weakpoints to pass and take constructive steps.

The Sheer Privilege of Being a 1982-er

The amount, the sheer variety of entertainment options available to most of us today is overwhelming! I just played a graphically stunning game like The Witcher 2. The forest ambience is awesomely created! Sitting at the comfort of my home, enjoying such brilliance, such honed ambience, is nothing less than a privilege! The game before was The Sims 3, and my extremely powerful graphics card renders it like cake! Seeing that is so gratifying! :)

আপডেট

১। মনের ভাব প্রকাশে ইতস্তত করি এখন তুলনামুলকভাবে বেশি। কেন?

২। আমরা কি অভাব-পরবর্তী সমাজে চলে এসেছি?! পরাবাস্তব জগতে নিজের কাজ-কারবার দেখে নিজেকে প্রথমত প্রোফিলগেট আর দ্বিতীয়ত চরম ভাগ্যবান মনে হয়।

৩। ব্যাংকক ঘুরে এলাম - অফিসের কাজ বনাম ব্যক্তিগত। থাইরা কবে এত আগালো? 'আমরা' কেন পারিনা? আপাতদৃষ্টিতে অর্থহীন প্রশ্ন, কিন্তু মনে হয় কিঞ্চিৎ অর্থও আছে। :)

৪। নতুন একটা শক্তিশালী গেমিং ডেস্কটপ কিনলাম। খুবই সুখে আছি। :)

৫. গুগলের ফোনেটিক ট্রান্স-লিটারএসন টুল ব্যবহার এর চেস্টা করচি. LOL!

বিয়ে

বিয়ে একটি সামাজিক প্রতিষ্ঠান তো বটেই। কিন্তু গত দেড়শো বছরে মানবসমাজ ক্রমবর্ধমান হারে পরিবর্তনের ভিতর দিয়ে গেছে। স্বাভাবিকভাবেই বিয়ের প্রকৃতিও পাল্টেছে।

বিয়েতে একসময় ভালবাসার তেমন স্থান ছিল না। মধ্যযুগীয় ইউরোপে বিয়ের বাইরেই ট্রোবাডোররা শিভালরাস ভালবাসা খুঁজে নেয়ার কথা বলে গেছেন। আর এখনকার অন্তত বাংলাদেশি মধ্যবিত্ত বিয়েতে একটা বড় বিবেচ্য বিষয় 'ভালবাসা'; তা না হলেও, অন্তত পারস্পরিক বোঝাবুঝি।

পারস্পরিক বোঝাবুঝি যদি বিবেচ্যই হয়, এমন একটি গ্রুপ থাকতেই পারে যারা বিয়ে বা এধরনের ব্যবস্থায় অনাগ্রহী নয়, কিন্তু যাদের পারস্পরিক সমঝোতাভিত্তিক সঙ্গী খুঁজে পাওয়া বেশ কষ্টকর?

ব্যক্তিগতভাবে আমি এমন কাউকেই খুঁজে পাইনি যার সাথে বাকি জীবন অতিবাহিত করার আগ্রহ আমার আছে। বাকি জীবন বাদ দেই, একদিন সারাদিন কাটানোর কথাই ধরি - তেমনটি হয়নি। না, নারীসঙ্গে আমি অনাগ্রহী এমন নয়। আমার কাছে কয়েকজন নারীকে অবশ্যই আকর্ষণীয় লেগেছে। কিন্তু যা বললাম, সেটাকে টেনে এনে বিয়ের মডেলে ফেলাটা কষ্টকর বটে। খুব আগ্রহ পাই না সে কাজ করার আমি; বস্তুত, আগ্রহই পাই না - সামাজিক চাপ এড়ানো ছাড়া। জীবনের এমন একটা পর্যায়ে এসেছি যেখানে সামাজিক চাপ যথেষ্ট নয় আমার কোন কিছু করার জন্য, নিজের আকর্ষণ থাকতে হবে, ভাল লাগতে হবে। সেই ভাল ফিলটা এখনো পাই না।

না, আমি বিয়ে করবো না এমন কোন শপথ নেইনি। কিন্তু একে ওকে সমাজকে খুশি করার জন্য করবো নিজের সায় ছাড়াই, সেটাও ভাবাটা ঠিক মনে হয় না। গ্র্যান্টেড, লোকে জীবনে একটা সময়ে এসে এরকম সঙ্গী স্বভাবতই পেয়ে যায়। আমি এখনো পাইনি। পেলে তখন আগানোর কথা ভাববো। না পেলে, বিয়ে করবো না। :)