Sometimes people wonder how deep the nerd goes in me. Think bottomless pit. I started reading very young and always loved Conan, Lord of The Rings, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Dune, Chronicles of Amber and other fantasy and sci-fi. I started out with bookshelf wargames, the ones with square paper counters and hex maps. We played one called Gettysburg where the map was ten feet by thirty feet in size and there was one counter for every 100 troops in the battle. It took around two weeks per turn, moving the counters with a long dowel. Then I went to miniature games. Little lead (then pewter when lead was banned) figurines and a ruler. Then computers started to come out. At first, I railed against the demise of pen and paper, or nights with friends eating Doritos and pizza.
I believe my oldest sister had a degree in computer science in 1976, I got mine in 1984. In high school, I was the class of 1981. I put together my first computer in 1977 and then taught the teachers how to operate them when some were donated. The computer lab was a trailer with 4 early Apples. We used to have to go to an arcade and use quarters to play video games. I had three world championships back then, in Space Invaders, Battlezone and Robotron. The first two I kind of cheated because I read the code and figured out to beat them. There was no code protection back then and I knew assembly and machine languages along with COBOL and FORTRAN. Basic had not been invented until later lol. On Robotron I was actually filmed playing it for nearly 8 hours non-stop by the local TV station reporting on the flash in the pan phenomenon of video games. When I left after 8 hours, I had rolled the machines 385 levels 3 times and had 55 free men left lol. I would have played longer but I was hungry and tired.
I started wargaming at a young age, with counters, then miniatures. I played the original Chainmail game which later became Dungeons and Dragons. I was a Dungeon Master and wrote for Dragon Magazine for about twelve articles. I created the famous half-dragon half-man creatures lol. We played pong, nintendo, intellivision, anything we could.
When I got into the Air Force, they came out with Starflight and Pirates, and I lost tons of sleep. Then I was addicted to Evercrack (Everquest), the best game in history and that is where I started being guild master and doing 60 hour gaming weeks. Played almost every game since then and I have 123 Steam games right now, which is about half the games I have loaded up.
At one point I was the first person to make 100 million credits in Star Wars Galaxies with my character Meridian Trivector, and the second to create my own city, Mos Nuevo on Tattooine. I have a five year character on EVE Online, I have been the leader or officer in over a dozen player organizations in Everquest, WoW, SWG, LoTRo, DAOC, etc. I am ranked number 6 out of several hundred thousand players in DoD:S. I was ranked in the top 5 of Age of Conan when I played it.
But then, when games started counting your playing time, I realized I was up to over 70 hours per week. It seemed like an aweful waste of life at some point. Now I play maybe ten hours a week. I try to avoid the really addictive MMORPGs (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games) that can suck the life out of you. Many player associations require that you play a minimum of 50 hours per week in one game to even qualify to join them.
Now, I a ‘cas’, a derogatory term for a casual player. Also known as someone who has a real life as well. Although in my real life I also dress up like I live in the 1880s for Steampunk events, I go to ComicCons and I write science fiction. So my nerd credentials are quite solid, despite my moving into finance, economics and later executive positions. I have watched or read nearly every sci-fi movie or book out there – most of which are not that good. To me science fiction and fantasy are like sex. When its good its fantastic, and when its bad, it is still worth doing.
There is just one person who keeps me from nerding out too much – my wife. At a recent party, I recognized a MechWarrior miniature and she said, “You are such a nerd!” I mean, who wouldn’t know about MechWarriors and Tribes? Anyway, posted below are some pics with me and my bride of 27 years. I fear I am rubbing off on her though, she just got done playing a Zombie game on Google+, but she quit because she could not figure out how to get more energy…such a NOOB!
Michael Bradley - Time Traveler 