Just in from the Melting Pot, does your age affect your ability to play the game?
My opinion, no.
I’m guessing a little expansion on my response might be called for, firstly a datapoint or three. I know within the social guild I am not the oldest, I’m pretty sure I know who is but there’s no way I’m saying. Both of us are definitely on the right hand side of the WoW age demographic, while I can claim my age is 21 that’s only been possible through some cheating by using a different base. Within the raiding guild I’m pretty sure I’m the oldest, probably by 3-4 years.
My position? Main tank, ie someone who’s job it is not to stand in the bad, react to things going wrong, grab the nasties going to munch on the clothies and so on.
Peashooter picks up on a very specific case where he things age is the issue, dodging the bad.
I disagree, the largest problem I see with players not getting out of the bad is because they are hyper-focused on something else, be it grid (there was a term within a previous guild for a problem some healers suffered from “gridlock”), keeping an eye on coolddowns / GCD or trying to get that last cast off before moving. All of which are either issues with playstyle, everyone the meters aren’t everything
The other is situational awareness.
Many players do not seem to have the ability to track multiple things at the same time, or keep an eye out for something new to enter the event. I’m permanently looking for the “something bad is coming after me” and being ready to pick it up / get out of it / kill it / run away.
Of course this might have something to do with how I am in real life, one of the most regular comments is that I can’t be crept up on. No secret to it. Position your chair to ensure that the only route to the desk is within my perphiral vision and don’t hyper focus on the screen.
Age can have an affect, as the human body ages reaction times can slow down, but it doesn’t have to affect game play, there are many other factors which have at least as large, if not a larger effect on playing computer games.
