Online gaming community creates bonds of trust

By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

From left: Evan Kimoto, Jared Sato and Jordan Landford play "Half-Life: Counter Strike" at E-Topia Internet Cafe, a hot spot for online gaming on O'ahu. Photos by Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

"About 450 showed up over the course of the day," said TeraTism member Steve Sullivan. "But we only had five computers."

The popularity of LAN (Local Area Network) parties, where online game afficionados gather to connect faces to on-screen names and engage in their favorite contests, are just one more indication that gaming online is primed for a breakthrough.

Online games — video games that can be played with and against other players via the Internet — have emerged as a major force in the video game marketplace in the past two years, combining state-of-the-art gaming technology with an ethic of interaction, cooperation and community.

So the lack of computers at TeraTism's LAN party was no big concern.

"It was more of a chance to meet all the personalities and to come together as a community," said Sullivan, 27.

Industry observers predict it won't be long before online gamers — with their clans and LANs and unreal tournaments — redefine the video game and, in the process, the image of the video game player.

'Cup of coffee and a firefight'

Fueling the movement, both locally and nationally, is a video game called "Half-Life: Counter Strike," an ultra-realistic combat game in which teams of terrorists and counter-terrorists square off in a variety of highly detailed locales, from Italy to the Middle East.

In the game, teams have missions they're supposed to accomplish or prevent — escorting VIPs, destroying weapons sites, or rescuing hostages. They intuit intricate maps, formulate complex strategies and assume roles within their team, all the while engaging in fierce, sometimes sneaky, combat with the other team.

On-screen characters are given various guns that each require skill and expertise to use correctly. This rewards experienced players and demands an intense commitment of practice time for beginners.

"The engine is so realistic that you almost feel like it's real, like you're really physically doing some of those things," said gamer Randy Faatau, 20. "The game turns into you, in a way."

At his most obsessive, Faatau said he's spent five hours a day, seven days a week, playing online games like "Counter Strike."

"Some people play much more than that even," he said. "It can be like a drug. You can be in school just thinking about playing. But the long-term players, the ones who get to be the best, are the ones who are able to draw the line with reality."

The game was temporarily banned in Greece, where some obsessive gamers played 12 hours a day, every day.

"Here, there aren't a lot of people who have that kind of time," Sullivan said. "I play maybe five hours a week, but a lot of times that five hours is the most fun I'll have all week.

"It's the closest thing you can come to reality," said Sullivan, a former Marine. "If I had known this game was coming out, I wouldn't have enlisted. I can have a cup of coffee and a firefight at the same time."

There are other popular online games — like Unreal Tournament, a futuristic death-match game — but none have approached the popularity, at the moment, of Counter Strike.

In the Clan

In "Half-Life: Counter Strike," teams of terrorists and counter-terrorists square off in fierce, sometimes sneaky, combat.

Since then, several other clans have emerged, including Liquor Shot, the largest clan in Hawai'i with more than 20 active members. Most clans average five to 10 members.

"There's this idea that playing video games will destroy your individual social life, which might be true in a face-to-face sense, but online some people feel a lot more free to be themselves," says LiqShot member Darren Shimabuku, 26. "The nice thing is that everybody respects each other.

"Gaming can actually be very social. Kids don't have to go out drinking; they can stay home, play these games and still communicate with people.

LiqShot clan members range in age from the mid-teens to mid-20s. One member lives on Maui, another in California.

The members have all gathered in person only twice, as far as Shimabuku can remember, but all stay in contact, thanks to verbal and text communication media built into the games.

Like his clan-brother Shimabuku, Faatau said the real attraction of online gaming is the interaction with other people. When the clan's California member visited during the summer, Faatau and other LiqShot members showed him around.

"We knew him even though we never met him because we talked with him every day," Faatau said. "It was just putting a face to the name. I've made a lot of friends through gaming."

Networking and networking

While many gamers still prefer to play from the comfort of their own rooms, there are plenty of others who get their kicks from playing in public.

In one year of existence, E-topia on Beretania has become the hangout of choice for many O'ahu gamers. Teens, college kids and older players all congregate at the cyber cafe to take advantage of its ample supply of computers and its speedy T-1 line.

On any given night, red-eyed gamers can be found playing Counter Strike together, side by side on separate terminals, some communicating on two-way headsets.

The cafe offers the usual coffee shop fare plus some substantial snacks to keep the players going. Like most online gaming sites, there is no alcohol, and rival players keep the atmosphere loose and friendly to prevent the action on-screen from spilling over.

This summer, E-topia sponsored a Counter Strike league that included 16 five-player teams. Last month, a final four tournament held out a $1,500 purse.

CompUSA and other computer businesses have also sponsored online Counter Strike tournaments in the past year.

Last month's E-topia tournament drew more than 200 players and spectators to the cafe. Upstairs patrons watched the action through television hookups.

"These tournaments are getting big in other parts of the world," said E-topia manager Crystal Suh. "In Korea they had a tournament with a $100,000 prize."

The Cyberathlete Professional League, a national online gaming organization, teams with corporate sponsors to stage tournaments worldwide. CPL has garnered so much attention that ESPN, the cable sports network, last year televised CPL's World Championship event. The league's Counter Strike Summer 2003 Championship boasts a $200,000 purse — the largest in online gaming's short history.

Locally groups like TeraTism have also pushed the traditional boundaries of gaming with their LAN parties and social gatherings.

LANs are networks of computers that share a physical space. At LAN parties, some gamers bring their own home-made or customized computers to play games and, for some, to show off.

"I've seen everything under the sun used for a computer case," Sullivan said. "The guys who customize their computers and computer cases are the same guys who have the customized Hondas."

Some LAN parties, like the biannual TeraTism events, are planned well in advance. Others simply appear, like raves, through a secret invitation and word of mouth.

The crowds at many gaming events are still mostly male. Men make up about 98 percent of online gamers, said Keith Nakasato, product development director for NetEnterprise, which provides computer networking and services and Internet connections to businesses.

LiqShot, then, is relatively progressive with two female members — nearly 10 percent of their membership.

"A lot of women love to play, but for some reason they don't join clans or they don't play in tournaments," Shimabuku said.

"But we've been seeing a lot of women playing online. Of course, you can't really be sure that they're women. ..."

More power to you

Many clans pool their money and expertise to maintain servers — network computers to which users can connect — that members and other players can use to access and play online games.

Because online games require both powerful computers and high-speed transmission capabilities for smooth, uninterrupted play, many older game servers are considered inadequate for competitive play.

"A lot of high-speed connections are fast enough downloading, but not for uploading," Nakasato said. "So there may be lags that affect your ability to do things at the speed of the game."

When his brother-in-law, an avid gamer, complained about disruptions caused by slow or inconsistent connections, Nakasato came up with the idea of making NetEnterprise's considerable bandwidth (data transmission capability) available to gamers. The service is a first in Hawai'i.

Within days of joining the network, the clan's server elicited a major buzz in the local gaming community.

"They had set a limit at 24 players at a time on their server, and they reached that very quickly," Nakasato said. "Even the members couldn't get on so we had to set up a password.

"When word got out, everybody wanted one."

At first, Nakasato wasn't even sure who "everybody" was.

"There was this whole underground subculture of gamers that I wasn't even aware of," he said.

Ten clans, including TeraTism and LiqShot use the company's NetGS service, hosting gamers with privately held or rented servers.

Sullivan said nearly 700 gamers a day use the TeraTism Counter Strike server.

"Gaming is still in its infancy in Hawai'i," Nakasato said. "As companies make more and more games available for online play, there could be a lot of growth."