下面是一位SUPCOM玩家的个人体会。
[b]The Zen of SupCom
The Mental Aspect of Playing SupCom - By Gnug215[/b]
Guide version 1.0 – Updated 1. May, 2007
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Contents:
Introduction
T1 – For the Newcomers
T2 – For the Average Players
T3 – For the Good Players
T4 – For the EXPerts
Concluding Remarks
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Introduction
This is a guide to playing SupCom multiplayer online from a different angle, with a focus on the mental and psychological aspects of the game.
The guide is not exclusively aimed at getting better at SupCom, although it deals a lot with that, but I try to look at the larger perspective, and discuss how you can get the most out of the game, how you can reach the Zen of SupCom. Obviously, this “Zen”, which in this context means reaching enlightenment, a state of equilibrium – mental balance, if you will – is a different experience from one individual to the next, but this is my take on it.
Let me get something out of the way immediately: I do not have a PhD in gaming, sports or psychology, but you probably wouldn’t want to read a lengthy academic research paper on this, anyway.
The guide is simply based on experience and observations gathered through many years of competitive gaming, and I am hoping to get input from other top players around the place.
Although I specifically deal with SupCom, the guide can probably be used in connection with other games as well, and who knows, maybe in connection with other aspects in life?
The guide is divided into different sections, indicating different stages of players, starting with the new beginners. Although it could be argued that the division of stages is arbitrary and gimmicky, I feel it had to be made for the sake of making this a more interesting read, and it does seem quite fitting, without generalizing too much.
I do not want to be too shamelessly plugging my own “Beginner’s Guide to SupCom”, so I’ll do it with a minor amount of shame, because it covers a lot of the basic tips and hints on how to get started, and places to go.
(Find it at: http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index…howtopic=198537 )
While that guide covers a lot of the practical stuff, there are some other things I want to mention, dealing with the whole experience of starting out in a game online, playing against others. It can be a positive, but also a very negative experience. The two words that probably describe the negative experience the most are “overwhelming” and “discouraging”.
The chances of you getting absolutely crushed in your first game are quite high. Get used to that idea, because that’s just how it is. You have the choice to try working on getting better, or actively seeking out other newcomers that are around your own level of skill.
If you’re just looking for casual fun, the latter option is what you will want to do. However, this is the easy and pain free way. It is also a way that will leave you clueless on many of the joys and fun aspects of the game.
If you feel this is for you, and you can reach your Zen this way, then more power to ya. Just make sure you get used to the fact that you may run into a severe thrashing now and then, leaving you wondering what on earth just happened.
If you aren’t sure how you feel about competitive gaming, here is a series of articles that I feel deal with the subject very well:
http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlaytoWinPart0.htm
(Part 0, with links to parts 1 through 3.)
Whether or not you subscribe to this view on gaming is up to you. But rest assured, the people that do look at gaming this way are very likely having at least as much fun as you are, if not more.
Now, if you do want to get better at the game, even more power to ya! A lot more! Because then you have decided to enter the exciting world of competitive SupCom! While it may be exciting, it is also very hard work. As with almost everything in life, all beginnings are hard, and online computer gaming is probably the place where things develop the quickest. Someone will immediately get good at the game, and just keep getting better at a faster rate than others, so even if you just joined one month after the game was released, you can be sure that there are some god-like super-skilled players out there already – not accounting for the significant amount of people that got a major head start by participating in the beta testing of the game.
So buckle up and prepare to get smacked around a bit before you can start dishing out smackings of your own.
T1 – For the Newcomers
All Good Things… …have a beginning and all beginning is hard - more so with SupCom than with most other RTS games, due to the complexity and depth of the game. The learning curve in this game is not only more steep, but also longer compared to other games, which means that you will be feeling new to the game for a longer time than you might with other games, and subsequently get dominated by more skilled players even when you feel like you’ve got a good hang of the game. The key here, which I will repeat consistently throughout this guide, is to not get discouraged by this.
Remember Karate Kid? He had to learn all that wax-on, wax-off crap first before he could move on. Well, it’s like that in RTS games, really. First you must learn to pull of the basic moves and that in a relatively quick pace. I’m not talking super-humanely Korean StarCraft player speeds here, but just so you aren’t sitting there stuttering in your every move.
The truly basic moves are something you will have to learn by experience, trial and error. If you are the kind of person that wants to be well-prepared before you face off against others, then maybe you should start with the game tutorial. Then you can churn through the single-player campaigns to get comfortable with all the game controls and functions. Then you might want to get a feel for what’s going on in the game on the multi-player scene by reading forums, guides and watching replays, and just getting an idea of what’s going on.
It is a good idea to know about some of the basic strategies and overall ideas before you get started.
In SupCom, some the basic strategies you need to learn to a comfortable degree in order to be able to compete are expansion and aggression.
These two are connected, and basically mean that you can’t just sit at home in your little base building defenses. You have to get out there and grab some land, and harass the enemy.
With competitive playing, this basically means you have to rush. Yes, I am sorry, but there is really no way around this.
This isn’t to say that you have to execute a mindless rush and single-unit spam in each game. No, a good rusher is someone who harasses his enemy early in the game, preventing them from gaining a foothold and from taking all the resource spots in his area unhindered.
Since the defenses and the Cmdr are so powerful in SupCom, rushing mindlessly will often lose you the game. It has to be well-thought out and coordinated to really be fruitful. Make sure that your rush, or maybe we should just call it “your early raiding and harassing” slow down the enemy in his resource build up, to such a degree where you can get ahead of him in the resource battle.
If you prefer playing longer games with build times, perhaps, or just in games that aren’t as hectic and intensive, at least early on, then I would still recommend learning a thing or two about rushing, in case you end up against someone who tries to rush you. Know your enemy, and know his moves. Learn to rush and how to defend against it.
This is, of course, not all that easy or simple to do. The complexity and openness of the game makes many of the strategies and tactics extremely difficult to pull off well – or to pull off, period.
Mastering the game fully will simply never ever happen, since the scale of the game means that there is always something that could be done, or done better.
Having said this, some people are well on their way to mastering the game pretty well, relatively speaking. In other words, they are miles and miles ahead of you when you are just starting out.
Again, don’t be discouraged by this. If you stay at it, you will get good in time, and if you have a good idea about the game, and if you are a fast learner, you’ll probably get there a lot faster than some of the top players, because of the knowledge sharing and replays.
A quick comment about factions here: In order to get to top in competitive gaming, you will most likely need to do away with any unfounded faction loyalties you may hold. Sure, it’s ok to stick to just one faction early on, so you get used to the game first, without being confused again by switching back and forth between the three different sides, but holding on to a faction because “Cybran rocks!”, “Aeon ftw!” or “UEF rules!” (give or take a “zomg” or two…) is plain silly, and will only hinder you in your playing.
Start out with a faction with which you feel comfortable and take it from there. Switching comes later.
The final word to beginners should also be about replays. These are one of the best ways of getting better at the game, and it’s something you can do without the help of others – although some guidance in connection with these would still be preferred.
You don’t necessarily need replays from top players, but try to get a hold of replays that have gotten good ratings.
When you watch the replays, try to get a sense of what is going on. Holding down Shift will show you a lot of the orders that the players are giving, so keep that in mind.
You also want to keep a good eye on the timer, to get a sense of what you should expect to have built and be doing at certain times. You will obviously not be just as fast at this when you first start out, but if you copy someone’s build orders, then you might get it right away. On a side note, try to get an idea about what the intention with what the players are building is. Copying without understanding is usually not a good thing.
Additionally, you should know that if you copy someone’s build order, you might have to copy it down to the slightest detail, as deviating only slightly might ruin the entire order.
Once you have the basic idea of what’s going on, you can rush through some more replays, maybe focusing on specific maps, races or aspects of the game. As a rule, it’s always good to get the start of the game down first, so focus on the initial builds and moves. You can rush through some replays at +5 speed or more, and maybe just watch the first 5-10 minutes, unless the rest of the game has relevance.
Mind you, the better you get at the game, the better you’ll be at actually figuring out what it is they’re doing, even though you’re looking at it happening.
It can perhaps be compared to how you can better appreciate being a spectator to some sport, if you actually practice the sport.
A last thing to mention here is attitude towards others, which is obviously going to help you more, the better attitude you have. Friendliness, patience and a bit of humility is not only going to help you get better, but it will also make sure the entire process is a positive one.
T2 – For the Average Players
Once you get a hang of the basics of the game, you might come to a sort of crossroads in your development as a player.
On one hand, you might feel that you have gotten as far as you want, and stop trying to improve – either because you think you’ve gotten as far as you can, or because you can’t be bothered about making more effort on improving yourself.
On the other hand, you might realize some of the complexity of the game, and accept the fact that there is a long way to go in terms of understanding and mastering the game.
In both situations, the important thing is to realize that you can never know everything, and never get complacent in the arrogant assumption that you do know all there is.
Once again, you should not let this discourage you. These situations basically call for you to make a decision on which course you want to take.
If you want to play casually from here on and just enjoy the game occasionally at a slower pace than in competitive games, then that is fine. It is, after all only a game, and no one said you have to be great at it, or spend time and effort on improving your skills.
If you want to get better, however, you should know that this will take time and effort on your part, but the rewards are, in my opinion, surely worth it. After all, nothing can stop you from taking time out on occasion to enjoy a casual no-rush/build-time/friendly game, just relaxing and playing around.
Mind you, although this sounds like it can be a bit of a chore to get better, it isn’t always the case. It will seem like it for some people, and if that is the case, you’re probably doing something wrong, or it’s just not for you.
Getting better is not supposed to be a chore, but nor is it supposed to be easy. The reward will not only lie in the work and the accomplishment, but also in the expanded options available to you in the game.
The game is quite simply more fun and varied when you get better, and when you don’t get smacked around by everyone, including the kitchen sink. In my mind, better understanding leads to better appreciation, and this is the reward that is waiting for you when you get better at the game – although this does not exclude the possibility to have fun if you’re not very good. You may just have to find your own way to enjoy the game if that is the case.
Another point that can be very discouraging is the extent to which you get beaten, especially at first, but also after some time, where your confidence in your skills may have been built up a bit.
Don’t be discouraged here, because the beating you receive practically grows exponentially with the skill level of the other player. Hypothetically, let’s say someone is 10% better than you (perhaps correlating with his rank compared to yours). He will maybe beat you by 20%. But someone who’s 20% better will beat you with like 60-80%. This phenomenon occurs because the better player will beat you marginally in most of the tasks that you both have to perform during the course of a game. If someone keeps performing some tasks just a tad better than you, given enough time and enough tasks, the end result will be a severe smacking that will seem out of proportion. It is a matter of margins.
Bear with me here, since this is just juggling arbitrary numbers, but I feel it reflects the situation pretty well.
This is something that tends to apply to average players the most, since beginners will usually not know quite how severely they actually got beat, being inexperienced, and also because many average players will, as I mentioned earlier, have built up some confidence, maybe from beating up on newcomers for a while.
The point here is to never get over-confident. Pride only stands to fall, and an ounce of humility never hurt anyone – in fact, it will probably help you a lot, especially when starting out in a game where people have been playing much longer than you have.
It is perhaps particularly important in a game of this character, with so many open ends and choices to make, with so many aspects open for development, so for one player to become unbeatable is a statistical impossibility. Besides, anyone and everyone can have a bad day, or a bad month.
While you may want to sit back and enjoy the game at this point, not bothering about improving your skills, but just focusing on casual fun games, there is plenty more to learn and master in the game, and plenty more competitive fun to be had. Yes, this is going by the assumption that you enjoy a bit of competitiveness. However, if you don’t, again, that is just fine. A lot of us do enjoy it, myself included, but I try to stay grounded and calm, not letting it get the better of me. I tend to channel my competitiveness into analysis and self-improvement, instead of perhaps finding negativity in ‘the competition’. My competition is primarily one against myself, and whatever results I get, good or bad, I attribute to my own failings or skills. For the results to improve, I can only berate and criticize myself, not others.
At this stage, one would assume that you have been around long enough to perhaps found some friends and regular sparring partners. You will want to stick to these for help and practice, but not exclusively, as a closed circle of people may lack new input, leading to stagnation in improvement and development.
This stage also enables you to help others, as you now should know a thing or two about the game and the community. I can recommend using your knowledge to help newcomers, with which one would assume you should be able to sympathize highly, since it was a situation you yourself were in not long ago.
If others helped you when you were new, then return the favor and keep the spirit of good community going.
If you weren’t helped at all, and felt no one was nice to you, then I suggest you try to make sure it doesn’t repeat itself with you, and try to work for making a better community.
Helping others can be an incredibly gratifying experience, and it comes highly recommended.
T3 – For the Good Players
This is where it gets tough. There are fewer people around at this level of skill, but the competition is obviously tougher.
I feel that enjoying the game at this stage is easier, because you now have the skill to pull off all kinds of stuff that the game has to offer. Most of the strategies and options in the game are now available to you, although you may not master them very well. This usually makes for some interesting and varied playing, whether you’re doing ranked games or not.
You can always decide whether you want a challenging round of ranked matches, or just playing for fun with friends. Either will still be a high-level game, unless you just decide to mess around. It’s up to you, but at least now you have a wider range of options open to you, as your skill level practically stretches across the entire spectrum, so to speak. You may still get beat by the absolute top players, but you will go out guns blazing, giving them a run for the money, and perhaps even occasionally beating some of them.
But you’re still not quite there.
You may find yourself in the top 100 or even higher, but the very top still eludes you. Getting to the absolute top is going to require a lot of effort, most likely much more than you have put into it already, so this is something you have to decide for yourself whether you want to spend time on.
I am not saying you need to spend all your free time on the game, but obviously, the more time you spend playing, the better chance you stand at improving. However, you can get faster results from a focused effort. This requires will-power and discipline, which can make up for your lacking time. If you have, or can summon, this will-power, and still feel good about playing, and enjoying the game, then go for it, and make it your goal to get better.
Here you can take the more systematic and theoretical approach, by reading up on the latest strategies, talk to others about the game, timing your game, comparing your times to other top players in replays, analyze every one of your replays and scrutinize your every move to see if it can be subject to improvement; but you can also just take the more practical approach, by just churning one game after another, searching for a new one as soon as you’re done, not even bothering to look back and check your replays, maybe only except if you are totally clueless about what happened in a game.
Either method can work well, but you need to figure out what suits you best, and then go for that. The most important thing, however, is to have an open and critical mind. Complacency and arrogance are your worst enemies here, and reality will sneak up on you and hit you in the face with a sledge hammer if you’re not careful.
If things suddenly seem to be going well for you, and you’re winning some matches, then you may of course relish in the glory of having gotten this far, but first you have to notice who you are beating, because if it isn’t the very top, then you might soon run into a nasty surprise if you’re finally matched up against someone really good. And never for a second think that everyone else is resting. If you beat someone, they may just go away for a bit to analyze their loss, change and improve their game and practice only to come back and slap you silly in a rematch. Things are never standing still, but if you are you’ll be left behind, fast.
While there are some inherent physical limitations to how good you can get at this game, a lot of the problems people have are purely mental. This is where your will-power and introspective skills have to set in.
First of all, you need to realize that while not everything and anything is possible, your own limits are mostly just a mental construct, and that you can go way beyond what you believe. And as always, practice makes, if not perfect, then at least a lot better. The only way is up!
However, the game isn’t only about speed and reflexes, although those help. In SupCom, you can never be so fast that you can control everything 100%. There is always something that could be done better and faster. In essence, this all boils down to the fact that it’s a game of priorities and choices. Recognizing these is also a skill, but not one that is easily measured. And while you can visibly see improvements of your speed through practice, prioritization is a much more difficult to skill to hone. Usually, it will just slowly but surely get better as you get more games under the belt and suck up the accumulative knowledge of other players in the community.
A sense of timing also plays a part here and yet again, that is something you can have a hard time getting a good grasp of.
These skills that could be said to be a lot more abstract than speed and reflexes do, however, require some conscious effort to get better, though. Some are just naturally inclined to this, and quickly shoot to the top, but even the best run into problems now and then.
Whenever you do run into a wall, represented most likely by your continued defeats to a certain type of strategy for instance, your primary task is to recognize it. Don’t let your mind drown in frustration and anger about this, annoying how it must be, but sit back, take a break and start analyzing – or perhaps get help and have someone else analyze your game for you. It usually helps to get a different perspective on things, and you are often too close to the problem yourself to be able to get a full overview of it. As an expression goes; “You can’t see the forest because of all the trees.”
Having pinpointed the problem is only half the work, though. Now you have to figure out what to do in order to get past it. This can be a lot harder than it seems. You may have a serious mental block, preventing you from doing what you need.
For instance, you may have problems expanding. You know what to do, and how, but something in you just seems to be holding you back. In a situation like this, you basically have to get reckless and burst your own bubble of complacency and insecurity. You have to tell yourself repeatedly to do it, and force it into your playing routine. You can also maybe put some Post-it notes on your monitor (not blocking the view, obviously) that remind you to do what you need to. This may seem silly, but it has been used to great effect by people before.
This is also something that can help in a situation that many players find themselves in, namely being ahead in the game, but then just getting left behind because they stopped expanding and building up. You have to remember that this game is almost limitless, and there is always something you can do better and make more of. The unit limit is an obvious limitation, but that doesn’t mean you can’t change your playing from there and keep expanding your resources. One you hit the unit limit, you have to get rid of your low level stuff and start replacing your T1 units and buildings with higher tech stuff. Those 50 T1 Pgens are taking up valuable unit count space that 50 T3 Bots could be holding instead. And if you get far enough up resource wise, you can pump out Experimental units like mad.
The point is that you need to keep looking forward. Never “settle” for anything, but keep scrutinizing your play style, to find out what can be done better. And if someone is beating you, there is definitely something that can be improved on your part.
If you can’t be bothered with all this, the game still offers plenty of fun and entertainment for the casual gamer at this level. However, ranked games, both 1v1 and team games, will often stand a better chance at matching you up with players of equal skill, rather than the random custom game. People will not always be fully aware of their own skill level, so you often see average players joining a game that says “Good players”, and vice versa.
The matching system in ranked games also has some drawbacks on this area, though, as the point range for finding a match starts out as high as 250, meaning that a two-star player with a rating over 1800 can get matched up against a newcomer, playing his first ever ranked game (or game, period), with the default start rating of 1600.
Your best bet is to have plenty of friends and people whose skill level you know well with or perhaps if you’re a member of a clan that likes sparring internally, do so.
As before in the other sections, I must emphasize the importance of being friendly and helpful. Making enemies will serve you no purpose at all, while the help of others may prove invaluable.
At this level, you are in a great position to help others. They might look up to your skills or rank, but again, this can quickly fade if you are acting like an arrogant idiot.
You can easily become someone’s hero if you just spend a few minutes talking to them, helping them out, or maybe play a practice game or two with them, giving them pointers afterwards. Whether you want be a helpful hero or not is up to you, but like I said before: it can be a very gratifying experience.
It would be so easy for you to dispense some of the knowledge you have amassed to someone who is just starting out, and maybe it’s just this kind of positive experience they needed to tip their favor over to liking the community, and maybe also the game. You could make or break someone’s “career” in SupCom, really, so why not try to be positive, and potentially what makes someone a permanent member of the community?
The more, the merrier, as they say – and the merrier, the more, as it is likely that more people would be compelled to join, and stay, if the community is a good one.
T4 – For the EXPerts
First of all, without wanting to sound arrogant or full of myself, I consider myself a competent player. I know my rank and my place; I have a pretty fair idea where I am skill-wise compared to many of the best players, but in essence, I do not consider myself a top player.
Since I may not be one of them, it is perhaps strange, then, that I would even endeavor writing this. However – again, without wanting to seem arrogant – I still feel I have some insight to offer the people at this level, or at least the ones striving to reach this level.
With this in mind, I can use my own observed deficiencies to point out one of the major factors needed to get this far, namely, ambition.
You basically have to want to be in the top to get there, and you have to want it enough.
So what is enough? I am not entirely sure, but it has to be enough to enable you to pick up the game on those days where you really don’t feel like it and just go at it again.
It could be compared to, say, practicing football on a stormy day, with a limp – oh, and your dog died that same day, too.
I for one don’t have the will-power to really get beyond that point of restlessness that can set it. As soon as the pleasure of something disappears, so does my will to keep going. It is one of my weaknesses, and I’m trying to work at it, but it isn’t always going too well.
I can sometimes move past it by hanging my will-power up on a crutch of accomplishment and determination, making the goal, or some set partial goal to be the thing that is going to give me the will-power to keep going. Such a goal could be rank, or maybe beating some particular player, or maybe just overcoming some difficult stage or moment in the game that you keep running into.
In a situation like this, you could say that it isn’t from the game itself that you are deriving the reward or pleasure, but from accomplishment.
At the top, it’s all about getting that extra something. Actually getting there is a bit of a mystery. If there were a clear recipe for it, then we would obviously see more people in the top, as it were.
As before, you will need to get as much as possible out of each game. If you are losing, identify the problem and fix it!
Doing this may require analyzing many of your own replays, or asking someone to do it for you.
In my opinion, the main attributes of the top players are: Experience, Intelligence and Speed.
Those three attributes aren’t something that you attain easily.
Experience comes with practice, and yet is intangible in size or amount, so you never quite know how much you have.
Intelligence is either there, or it is not. It can be somewhat compensated for with experience and routine, but intelligence is still something that is different from experience, as it enables you to make better decisions on the fly, instead of only being able to make good decisions based on previous experiences.
Speed is something that in the end might be the most important factor in many games, without room for compensation with other attributes. SupCom allows for compensation a lot of the way, however, due to the ‘system of prioritization’, if you will, meaning that intelligent choices can outweigh the fast clicking of your opponent, for instance.
There are some secondary attributes that I would like to mention. These are: Overview, control and recklessness.
Overview isn’t something that is easily attained, at least not through a tangible method. Again, experience will help, but beyond that it may just be a matter of personality if you are good at this or not.
As before, you will want to identify the problem, if you have one, and take it from there. A conscious effort to change something will usually do the trick, given some time. The trick is to not give up.
Control means everything in most games, and you will see a direct consequence in the game if you lose control.
SupCom is slightly different in this respect, as you can automate a lot in the game, and things will take care of themselves. Because of this, there is a certain amount of buffer time, allowing you to let go of the game for a bit, without everything falling apart like a house of cards.
So what does this mean? Basically, you can still get crushed if you lose control, but it also gives you some time to take a step back, assess the situation quickly, and then get back into it.
Obviously, some situations don’t leave much time, but the point of this is that you shouldn’t panic. I’m talking about the kind of panic that has you actually lose grip of your mouse, or where your hand is on your keyboard.
Recklessness is probably not something you’d expect to see in this connection, but in a game like SupCom, this can be essential.
Like some of the other aspects of playing, this is entirely a mental construct again. Recklessness is what will help you get over some of the mental blocks you may face in your game. Strangely enough, some of my reckless games have been my most successful ones.
My theory is that this quite simply is effective because recklessness will act as an opposing force to some of your more inhibiting mental barriers, like being too careful, defensive or meticulous.
Sometimes, the game just demands that you drop everything you have in your hands and take immediate action, or that you ignore stuff like being attacked in a weak spot, or units running around in your base, in order to focus on something more important, like taking out important enemy targets.
Essentially, this is a highly individual experience, and you need to discover this one on your own, and find out if will do you any good.
Something should be said about the nature of choices in games. Here I want to use another article by David Sirlin. Although the choices in SupCom are less linear, and more varied, I still feel it’s an interesting article that you may learn something from: http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_Yomi.htm
And here is another article about “The Expert Mind”, how some people just master some things faster than others. It is definitely an interesting read:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa…r=1&catID=2
I particularly like the part where it says that it is not experience as such that matters, but “effortful study”, which is exactly what I have been talking about. And as they say in the article, it’s about setting goals and dealing with issues that are just a little above your current level. In other words, it’s about having the ambition to constantly challenge yourself to go above and beyond what you previously have. In order to do this, you have to constantly scrutinize and criticise your own playing, so that your deficiencies and weaknesses can be effectively dealt with. This is why arrogance and complacency can be your worst enemies; they will lead to a self-satisfactory attitude and smugness, and you will eventually be surpassed by players will better mental discipline.
This still leaves the problem of comparing the process of getting better at SupCom, to getting better at Chess, which the article primarily deals with.
For SupCom; a lot if it is about daring or forcing yourself to focus. I speak from personal experience here. I have lost plenty games because I didn’t focus, but instead tried to make everything at once. The only redeeming factor about my “style” of play is that if I get away with what I’m doing long enough, I’ll often roll over people eventually. However, I usually get beaten by top players who make a more focused effort.
What enables the top player to do this is experience, feel and reconnaissance. Know what your enemy is doing, and you can act accordingly. You will find the proper response to any situation with the help of experience and intelligence, but first you have to know what to respond to.
Once you are an expert, you can be considered to be a leader in the community, and as such, I feel you should treat this position with respect and responsibility. To make a somewhat amusing comparison: Do you want to be a benign king, or an evil ruler? Sure, I know some of you will think the latter is more fun, but in that case, you are only asking to be replaced, by violent usurpers.
You have the opportunity to lead the way for many, and it doesn’t even take much effort. Your mere position commands respect, and people will listen – and they might also feel incredibly lucky if you want to help them, or even just talk to them.
So lead by example, and lead in a way that you would want to be led.
Concluding Remarks
In one of my own “Zen moments”, I realized that I wasn’t just here for the love of a game, but also for the love of the community. This is why I have decided to put some emphasis on community, and on helping others in the game.
This may not directly improve your own game, and it may in fact detract from your own process of improving, but you really have to look at the game as a whole. No man is an island (except for this one guy I know…), and because of that, you can’t expect to make it all on your own.
And in the end, SupCom is still just a game, and the entire experience around it should still be an enjoyable one.
So do what do you best, and have fun doing it! Don’t put others down for doing their thing, and don’t let others put you down!
Have fun on the battlefield
Gnug215
http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index.php?showtopic=232247