In the Scope: Hood [PS]

Thinking back, what drew you to TAW?

The structure, and the semi-serious attitude that TAW seemed to have, but to be honest, it was one of the first I found that was doing battlefield 3 at the time :p

 

Do you have any special hobbies or activities outside of online gaming/TAW?

I do a fair amount of Tabletop RPGs, but my main interest is just talking philosophy with people who also wanna talk philosophy, chillin out, relaxin all cool.

 

Did you admire a famous person? What made them admirable?

Douglas Adams, author of "hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy", is a brilliant philosophical and comedic thinker. He properly addresses the pointlessness of life, the universe and everything, while finding humor and beautify in humanities obsessions and self appointed righteousness.

 

What are some favorites?  color, food, ice cream, book, movie, song, sport, etc

Green, Tomatoes, Raspberry Ripple, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Other Guys, Songs differ with my mood and time, but at the moment it is REVOCATION - "The Hive" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhDPb8TnaM4), and E-sports (regular sports is for chumps :p (but otherwise swimming and cycling (and other amusing forms of logistics like Pogo Stilts))).

 

What are the goals you are still working toward?

Well, I have always been interested in language and the systems people (and computers) use to communicate. I Hope to keep myself involved in large online communities throughout my life, as I am interested in what will happens when u get an unmanageable number of people into 1 virtual world and try and manage them. I am less interested in what we can do as a group and more interested in what the most efficient ways of communicating the most amount of information to the largest relevant group of people in the shortest time to achieve complicated movements and what not. One of the things that I liked about TAW, is that it uses the tried and tested US military structure as a starting point. This I think is a brilliant Idea, but the intriguing part of the online/virtual world is that the speed which people can get involved in action is much faster than the real world, there is no need to approve tactical strikes and the like as the game will be over in 5 mins away, and we have infinite lives (usually). The online world continues to offer new communicative challenges for us to overcome. I'm sure I could continue writing at length on communication structures of the real and virtual world, but there are other questions, and I have found hardly any people share this interest.

 

Tell me how you first got involved in with TAW . . .

I was looking for an outfit to play battlefield 3 with, and after some googling, signed myself up.

 

What was your first impression of TAW?

These people seem to know what they are doing: Awesome.

 

What's your first memory of something related to TAW?

It is the legendary 'Wardy' giving me bootcamp, I was surprised how focused and organized the group was, and Wardy just helped me settle right in.

 

What has surprised you most about working with TAW?

I am never Surprised. I see all. I am all.

 

What do you find most challenging about TAW?

Trying to get people to employ a little Patience and Discipline in a huge FPS. Its not so hard once you get the ball rolling though. For example, 30 headless chickens running around is going to be impossible to organize. But if u have at least 10 people doing something together, then the other 20 will drip into the action as the coms start being dominated by the group. Rather than having a separate thing going on, people will flock to where the action is being reported, and before long, u have 30 focused players to direct when they run out of targets. But as I said, getting the ball rolling when no one is on your side, is horrifyingly slow and causes many sleepless nights.

 

What's the best/worst thing to happen since you started working with TAW?

TAW definitely has its high and low points, High points being when we win against the all the odds, this can happen quite a lot in PS5, and it is quite possible for a small group to beat a larger one. There have been some fantastic moments.

 

For me the lowest point was when I moved from BF2 to PS5, I felt sad leaving the BF2 guys and there was a lot of friends I rarely see any more, but as I was playing Planetside way more than Battlefield, It made plenty of sense to make the move. Its sad that both battalions have Ops on the same nights, as, although I told myself I would pop back into BF3 and play a few games, it rarely happens.

 

When you last volunteered, made a donation, etc., how did that make you feel?

I never make donations - Student of Philosophy = Jobless :3

 

If you could change one thing about TAW, what would it be?

More... Fire..., yes....... definitely more fire is needed.

But seriously (after much thought), It would be nice to see more inter-battalion stuff. I know that not many games can support 1700 members (Planetside 2 can!! Hint Hint. Lets see us organize that! XD), but seeing more members in different games and battalions would be awesome. There seems to be the mentality that you are tied to your division, but if Battlefield had Ops on different nights, I would certainly try and make both.

 

What do you wish other people knew about TAW?

Just wish more people knew what we do, I'm pretty sure we are filling a relatively large niche: Semi-serious organized gaming, with a military theme. But tbh, when it comes down to what goes on in the ops, they are what I think most people are looking for when they want to join an outfit that is more than just their local friend group. I think people just need to know we exist.

 

Tell me about some of the people you've met while working on TAW?

sTim and M0nsta are both excellent COs, They key to their success is being extremely laid back and not over using their voice. They manage to cut thru the activity of any group, because when they talk, its obvious they have gone out of their way to get people's attention,  and so it must be important.

 

What would you say are some of your strongest beliefs about TAW?

I believe that TAW is one of the best places on the internet to go if u want to be part of a large gaming community and not just to " 'av a laff ", but to do something challenging. However, as I have only been in two divisions, its hard to know what the other 1600 members are doing, so I have more doubts than beliefs.

 

What's your personal philosophy on what should be done about TAW?

I believe the main thing that should be done on a macro level is creating a rapport with your fellow team mates, and that simply comes with practice, using coms, learning voices, telling bad jokes. The usual.. This is the best way to improve on the tactical flow of a group: less hesitation, more understanding where the enemies heads are. As a large group, in the Macro,  we should try and work together and try interesting tactics and strategies. If we wanted to go around Lone Wolfing, you can do that on your own. I joined a community to be part of big events, precisely and well thought out tactical strikes, to be a scout and find that armor column and call in an air strike. Ultimately, I want to be part of a group that knows what works, what doesn't, how to pull off the things that make us win, and does win, repeatedly. There is so much more we can achieve, but after a certain number of people start working together, managing the communications becomes more hassle than the game. And that is my favorite game of all. Yup, I enjoy just passing information around a battlefield, the game of logistics, micro managing, and small optimization changes.

 

When your friends/family find out that you volunteer, donate, etc., what do they say or ask?

Well, some join, and some mock. Same as everything in life.

 

Tell me about someone who has influenced your decision to work with TAW?

Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet. That was pretty influential. But yeah, I just wanted to play BF3 with some tactics. Fed up of n00bs running the tank strait at the enemy and i'm like "NOOOO!! THE TANK IS TO HOLD DOWN THIS LANE! WE NEED IT HERE WHILE THE INFANTRY MOVE UP!!! RAGEEEEEEEE!" So, I dunno, probably a mix of Tim Berners-Lee for allowing the public to work together, and the public for failing to work together.

 

What might someone be surprised to know about you?

I am a philosophy student, that sometimes surprises people.
Erm... I play, make and run Tabletop RPG's I like the idea of a Formal System that is dictated by chance and is used as an representation for life, or something far more meaningful than fractions and numbers. Its interesting to see the different mechanics people use to represent different aspects of life/fantasy, And can be a great medium for a story.
I also have a very attractive girlfriend, I mean, At Least an 8. People in real life are always mortified when they see how hot she is in comparison to how nerdy I am. But yall get no proof of this. You will just have to take my word for it.

Also, It will have been edited out, but I expect this page was originally riddled with spelling mistakes as I am dyslexic!

 

The interest in TAW seems to be growing/waning. Why do you think that is?

As we grow in size, we get more press, and so grow some more. Unless there are some drastic changes that shake our foundations, I'm pretty sure we will see a steady rise until we reach some critical mass that we cannot handle and have more members than we know what to do with. I hope I am there when this happens, just see what happens at the very least.

 

What would you tell someone who is thinking about donating, volunteering, etc.?

DOO IT

 

What do you think will change about TAW over the next five years?

I just typed several paragraphs I kept deleting. Rather than BSing, I'm simply going to say I have no idea. But as the optimist I am, I will say: It's going to get better!

 

What's it like to be a volunteer, client, donor or the TAW?

Its awesome, I feel like its an extra responsibility, but one of those that u actually want to do, and so you end up putting a lot of time and effort into making it as excellent as possible. Overall, its just damn fun.

 

If you weren't volunteering, using their services, etc., what would you be doing instead, or what would your life be like?

If? No. I was born to do this.

 

As a client, volunteer, donor, what sorts of trends do you see?

It differs from game to game, but generally I'm interested in the problems that arise out of voice only communication, and this is across all games. 
- People talking at the same time is solved with the "break" protocol, but is kind of surprising to see that most people will adhere to turn taking (turn taking has several rules and is a formalized part of our understanding of communication, without face to face interaction, some of the rules are lost, and chaos should issue). With the lack of body language one cannot sit there with your hand up, or twitching a little, sitting further forward with ur mouth open as if u really want to say something. You just have to start talking, and hope that whoever is leading the convo notices and can come back to you later, or bringing it up again when there is a moment.
- A great one is you cannot Nod to signal that you understand, so after a explaining something, I am expecting a verbal acknowledgement, but people knew to TS tend to prefer silence, and that can be a little frustrating
- Being in the middle of a convo with someone, and you are really getting into an explanation or description and then go "Oh, I'm back btw" to which I have just wasted 5 minutes talking to no one apparently. Lucky once again, TAW has the Checking in and out system which on the hole, solves this.

- There is the , 'I did not realize my mic was muted. I thought u guys were just ignoring me' syndrome as well.

- Quite recently, I Think I completely overloaded my brain. I could hear 7 different channels at one point, and keeping track of that many convos horrific. we had: 

Planetside 2 In-game Leaders Coms: Where any old person can saying anything, but I had to keep it open to know what other outfits where doing so we can either overwhelmed the enemy forces in choke points, or avoid overkilling emptier bases (which is quite boring for us), when we needed to spread out.
5 Squad channels: As always, a pleasure to lead, the squad and fire team leaders know to request coms so I don't get 8 voices in my head and here no one. At Least, Most of the time.

Scout Channel: Mainly just m0nsta the same channel as me, but he occasionally tells me information that just flies right over me. Its amazing how easy it is to disregard the info coming from your own channel compared to other channels, I think it is because there is less protocol to keep it quick, but it only makes the info seem less important. Even though he knows when to talk because he can hear everything I here, I won't listen to it unless he adds a "Monsta requesting Coms".

 

I suppose I just need more practice keeping track of multiple sources, and filtering the crap out of public sources. But it has been interesting to note how one can train themselves to listen or not to listen based on how someone presents the information. How to fish for key words in conversations, and then play back what was said etc

 

How would someone describe you?

Girlfriend describes me as: "weird but nice, someone who doesn't get jealous, upset or angry, at all, no matter how much you try! And too nice! But has funny knees XD"

 

What do you do when you aren't working, volunteering?

Doss around, intoxicate myself, ponder the mysteries of the universe, watch cartoons, feed, mate, sleep, repeat.

 

What else can you tell me about the TAW?

It has a smashing New Article. Not sure if u have  

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