So I was in one of the lecture buildings today...

[BabyHeadCrab]

And I see someone furiously typing on the No Mutants Allowed boards, he was a short and slightly chubby fellow with square glasses - an awkward tight fitting black sweatshirt and cargo pants. I sat there, sort of drinking it all in.


Here was this fellow, the quintessential staunch, vehement, bleeding heart role player with an undying passion for the old Fallout games punching away at the keyboard making wordy posts while I simply stood there, backpack dangling at knee level and arms crossed pondering if I should say something or not. It's weird when you see someone as nerdy as you, another person who would browse a gaming forum on a public computer.

In this thread we can discuss awkward encounters you may have had with nerds, such as ourselves, in public.

I also had a funny incident where some fellow students were discussing the Fable 2 one-button control scheme and the imminent Halo 3 launch.. not as exciting - elevator talk is always awkward so again I said nothing.

 

[Ennui]

I was at the hookah bar and some people next to me were talking frantically about Starcraft II

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I was at the hookah bar and some people next to me were talking frantically about Starcraft II

Haha, fantastic

That's a big one too - Just earlier today I was reading my PC Gamer before Sociology and the guy next to me starts ranting about how excited he is. Turns out the guy is a bit of a jerkoff though. He will take any break in conversation to make snide remarks and what he considers witticisms, when in reality it's just hyper self-promoting rubbish. He must have had a bad childhood, one of the most annoying blokes I've yet to meet at the uni.

 

[Dalamari]

Everyone at my old school used to play CS, but I once saw a kid checking thotbot for WoW items in the school library

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Everyone at my old school used to play CS, but I once saw a kid checking thotbot for WoW items in the school library

Not sure what you school situation is, but half my old high-school friends group is attending either Twin Cities or Macalster.

 

[Jintor]

Walked past some kids engaged excitedly in conversation about their Dratini's and Pokemon Breeding today.

 

[Javert]

In my Music Orchestration class, there was a debate on Final Fantasy combat mechanics between XII and others.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

As soon as halflife was mentioned in physics...well, you know...

 

[Ennui]

I was hanging out with a few people in their room the other day, preparing to go smoke, and one of them asked me out of the blue if I played strategy games.

Conversation ensued.

 

[Beerdude26]

Well I do IMS (Information Management and -Systems), so I see a lot of geeks and nerds. Worst I've seen (personally) are Magic: The Gathering guys. Most LOL I've seen is a batch of IMD'ers (Graphical branch of IMS) playing TM Nations against each other on their laptops over the wireless network

 

[Ennui]

Trackmania is so much fun, I really don't blame them.

 

[staticprimer]

In one of my classes, I made the mistake of talking to some guy who was looking at his copy of Bioshock before class for whatever. I think I said something to the effect of, "I just got that game, its a lot of fun." Two weeks later he won't shut up about Halo 3, how its the best game ever made. He even wrote the number of days remaining until its release on his god damn hand. Jesus christ.

 

[CyberPitz]

Well I do IMS (Information Management and -Systems), so I see a lot of geeks and nerds. Worst I've seen (personally) are Magic: The Gathering guys. Most LOL I've seen is a batch of IMD'ers (Graphical branch of IMS) playing TM Nations against each other on their laptops over the wireless network

I used to *and on occasion still do* play MTG. Quite a fun game...

Then again, I remember going down to the local game playing place, and that's where the big Magic games happen, and...I noticed a 40 year old obese man forking out 50-100 dollars on little games/boxes of cards. I knew that I didn't want to become that, so I put my decks away, and didn't touch them for a couple of years.

 

[Krynn72]

Ive played UT2004 and Quake 3 with my teachers

And one of my teachers always talked about EVE before lecture, and on breaks. One time he even played for 40 minutes during our break, and logged out after everyone came back.

 

[Asknoone]

I remember when I was 13-14, and I'd just discovered GTA3, and I was talking to my friend in History about it, and my teacher stops me and says hey, get on with your work. So we do, and then at the end of the class he comes up to me and says,

"Listen, how do you do the drive-bys? I can't complete that mission."

 

[Ennui]

LOL that's epic.

 

[Beerdude26]

I used to *and on occasion still do* play MTG. Quite a fun game...

Then again, I remember going down to the local game playing place, and that's where the big Magic games happen, and...I noticed a 40 year old obese man forking out 50-100 dollars on little games/boxes of cards. I knew that I didn't want to become that, so I put my decks away, and didn't touch them for a couple of years.

It wasn't the game, it was just the players.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

I remember when I was 13-14, and I'd just discovered GTA3, and I was talking to my friend in History about it, and my teacher stops me and says hey, get on with your work. So we do, and then at the end of the class he comes up to me and says,

"Listen, how do you do the drive-bys? I can't complete that mission."

That is ****ing awesome.

 

[Reginald]

The shop I am ordering my new PC through is right opposite the local girls school. So every time I go in there to geek-wank over graphics cards and new games, I make sure that none of the girls I know are going to walk in halfway through complaining about a virus on their laptop or whatever.

Also, some guy who I do get on with but is as close to a chav as you get round here (loves football, ear pierced) shares an unexpected mutual love for Zelda.

 

[Wanted Bob]

As soon as halflife was mentioned in physics...well, you know...

I had the same experience. My teacher was explaining what a half life is, then added in "I mean the radioactive kind, not the kind with crowbars", I was like SHWAAA??? (cause hes like 45, and never talks about video games).

Then he asked the whole class who had played Half Life. It was weird, but kinda cool.

 

[dfc05]

One of the English teachers at my high school called in sick and skipped school to play Halo 2 the day it came out.

There was this guy in my comp sci class who was always watching counterstrike videos, and this other guy in the corner who was playing the Rome: Total War demo (back when it was still new), and several people would be playing multiplayer Halo. The guy sitting to my left would always be posting on a forum, can't remember which one.

A lot of the times, I'll hear people talking about CS or WOW in the dining hall. Or sometimes people will randomly ask if I play WOW. There's also this guy in my class who will sometimes log into Gunbound, and then I get to make fun of him for it, because I know this other guy who met his girlfriend in Gunbound....

I also once got facebook contacted by someone at my school who played Half-Life 2. Played deathmatch with him once. It was kinda weird.

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Come to my school and you will see and hear everything (see sig for details).

*Edit* Oh, and I'm so jealous of the upper-classman. Bungie is coming in and doing presentations and such and letting a lot of them play it early, and possibly talk to a few of them about getting jobs and such. It's supposed to be secret since not every upper classmen was invited, but I still got wind of it. Lucky SOB's So the big discussion the upperclassmen were on about was "Halo3 Passes".

See? Even our administration is all about gaming We have an annual student vs staff Counter-Strike war which is sweet too.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

I know a few chicks at my school who play DOD 1.3/whatever version or CS:S at times. That freaked me ut a little. I know a few people in my web page design class who play Obsidian Conflict and Insurgency during downtime. I'll catch a few discussions about Half-Life, Halo, or Bioshock and even Shadowrun at times when in the halls.

I still don't know how the bitch those computers even run HL2. They are like, older than Ron Jeremy's cock.

 

[XANA]

LOL that's epic.

... You're still here?

 

[Ennui]

I've been here since 2003

Willie, girls who play DOD? I don't believe it.

I introduced my entire computer science class a couple years ago to Soldat. That was an epic, epic semester.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

I've been here since 2003

Willie, girls who play DOD? I don't believe it.

I introduced my entire computer science class a couple years ago to Soldat. That was an epic, epic semester.

Believe eet Onree. I haven't played Soldat in ages, fun to go with a SPAS-12/LAW rocket launcher combo. ^_^

 

[Dr0ndeh]

i talk about wii games with the middle aged women who work behind the counter in the bank where i work. its awesome.

 

[Jintor]

My legal teacher won't shut up about GRAW 2.

 

[Sloth]

Imagine how fast an entire school network would be when only about 40 laptops are running on it... We had a school production on - the tech team had to bump all the gear in and out each day after school as it was outside.

About 5 times after we had got all the gear set up and tested we'd play CS 1.6 over the school network...

Also one of our IT teachers has a good myth to go with him.

One year a few guys were playing Jedi Knight over the network - somebody logged in, played with them for a while, they had no idea who it was. Ended up winning the round so to speak, then told them to stop playing during school and that they should all expect detentions as their school IPs had been logged playing the game.

He's also in the Army Reserves, walked past guys playing 1.6 in the library - his comment was "Ohh, I've fired that in real life!"

 

[Bad^Hat]

I was watching Aliens with a friend the other week, and his flatmate (who I hadn't met before then) walked in from work and sat down to watch with us. Within 5 minutes we were engaged in comparing every aspect of the film to Aliens vs. Predator (the game). All because my friend dared question the usefulness of the smart gun

 

[Lucid]

At my high school I heard conversations about WoW and card games mostly.
Occasionally people would talk about some of the 360 titles like Dead Rising and the like.

Never talked to any of them, just overheard convos.

I tend to keep my geekiness bottled up.

 

[Shippi]

.

 

[Asknoone]

And on and on?

 

[Jintor]

And on and on, presumably.

I wish the rest of our teachers were that cool. Our IPT teacher is rumoured to be "Pillbot" at CS, but as far as we know he's beefed up security so tight we can't get any games onto the network.

 

[Sulkdodds]

You people all live in bizarrely behind-the-times alternate universes or something? This stuff is...very common.

The GTA and MGS games are practically pop-culture touchstones.
I used to always see people browsing WoW forums at college.
I was checking over hl2.net once on a college computer when a girl came up behind me and said "forums? I'd stop if I were you, they used to suck up all my time." Conversation, and friendship, ensued.
I'm told that half the Classical Civilisation class had played a Total War game.
A Russian guy in St Petersburg wondered aloud if a friend of mine played Counter-Strike.
A fellow in Majorca in August who was staying in our hotel wore an HL2DM T-shirt with a guy getting gravity-gunned on it.
My old IT teacher played Eve Online.
Two seperate conversations began in one month with girls saying "Oh yeah, so I just started playing this weird new game called World of Warcraft..."
There's an HL2DM clan at the Oxford college I'm going to.
I've happened onto three different conversations about either Bioshock or Psychonauts in the last week - and all of them were in pubs.
Everybody gets 'wii' jokes.
Someone I went clubbing with turned out to be a big fan of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.
Another person who everyone in town knows and who frequently invites groups of people who don't know each other to all come to a particular pub and meet also plays D&D.
A friend who is a HUGE music obsessive also builds computers.
Angry Lawyer's plumber had heard of Zombie Master.


It's not even like I have hugely nerdy friends.

 

[Asknoone]

Someone I went clubbing with turned out to be a big fan of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.

Which one is that? Dark Corners?

 

[Ennui]

Angry Lawyer's plumber had heard of Zombie Master.

I forgot about that, that was awesome. It was before it was a big deal too.

I hear a LOT about console games and WOW, but not much about other PC games.

 

[Teta_Bonita]

I'm at WPI, stuff like this happens every day.

For example, I saw this in the middle of campus the other day:

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Haha that's absolutely amazing. Best Graffiti evar.

 

[Jintor]

That. Is. Awesome.