I have a rather shameful gaming admission:
My name is Geek Girl Diva and I'm a "keyboard turner".
If you don't know what I'm talking about (and from the conversation I had last night, apparently you and I are in the minority.
Everyone knows this stuff ::grin::) let me explain.
I play World of Warcraft. I play in a very good, progression-oriented guild on Moonrunner. We're currently in ICC, have dropped Festergut and we're beating our heads against Rotface, but we got him to 5% and he's gonna get dropped Friday night.
I raid 2 - 3 nights a week and I play every day in one form or another. I have 2 level 80 toons and, if you pay attention to this sort of thing, my main Felynne has a Wow Heroes gear score in the mid to high 2700's.
In other words, by pretty much any WoW player metric, I'm good.
However, unless you count the hours and quarters I dedicated to Phoenix and Tempest as a kid at the local liquor store and my love for pinball (Oh, Pinbot, you beast!), I've spent more time with a keyboard under my fingers than I have with a joystick or controller in them.
So, in the middle of a conversation last night with the guys in my guild, it comes up that I use my left hand for certain spells and my right hand for others during boss fights.
And the question came.
"How do you move?"
Now, if I'd known, I would have lied. Trust me. If I'd had a clue as to the reaction, I'd have blithely said that I use my mouse. Granted, it would have meant that I'd sprung a third hand or that I somehow had massively long fingers, but I would have lied.
But, nooooooooooooooo. No. I told the truth. Because I didn't know. How could I not know? Why didn't someone tell me?
Me: "I use the arrow keys"
If I ever doubted whether the guys in my guild love me, the moments of silence that followed have since washed them away. Because I have a feeling that any other person would have been subject to raucous laughter or mockery (both of which I firmly believe they kept muted, hence, the love).
Once the mics were cracked, I heard the disbelief. I heard the laughter under the words as the questions followed. They were genuinely surprised. I could tell. And it took a while for me to explain, to make them understand that I'd never been mentored. That I learned mostly on my own and that I'd never been taught any differently.
So, here I am -- an outted "keyboard turner" with a world of bad habits and muscle memory I have no clue how to unlearn. Sure, I can be rehabilitated, but imagine the pain I'm going to go through. I've got to forget what I know and learn again.
Now, I know this is tongue in cheek, but I'll tell you something. I did feel silly and I did get defensive. Not because they teased me, but because I know they mean well and that having a better understanding of how to use my hands during the game will actually benefit me.
Still, part of me feels like I didn't know, and should have known -- like I should have had a way to learn, or that the information was out there somewhere and I just missed it.
I really do think some of it has to do with the fact that video games just weren't a part of my upbringing. I never had brothers, or a gaming console as a kid. I didn't have friends I played with. So, it wasn't until I was an adult that I even really came into my own as a gamer.
Is it a female thing? Is it an age thing? Did my parents just not love me enough?
And, how do you learn these things when the normal channels don't present themselves?
Shameful admission #2. I look like this in my dreams ::grin::
