At least I can say… I´ve lived!!! (First Part)

As more or less all the females I know, I use to hate video games (in this concetp I included pc games and similar). My husband, Curro, is a video games fan and yes, I also was for several years part of that group of women that usually complain about “him” playing long time and feeling like the video game is some kind of unbeatable rival. So, usually, to watch him in front of the pc with a game made immediately my stomach to start to segregate gastric acid not in a nice way. But I should clarify a point here. Problem was not exactly just due the quantity of hours that he spent (now he plays just a bit), in front of the pc playing instead of giving me some attention, ok, that was bad enough but actually the worst part was about the kind of games he usually plays… monsters, blood, violence, explosives sounds… I mean action 3D games for being precise.

In my case, the pc games I like are the mind games, those ones that make you to think or, in case, pacific games like digger, mah jong, tetrix… that kind.





One day, in 2001, we had a dinner with a friend of mine, it was Saturday and 2 hours before the date time, Curro was playing at the pc and definitely not even thinking about getting ready for going out to that dinner. So, I started to remind him our date. Half of hour later, same scenario, me in a ruder way, I should say, reminding him again about the date. 1 hour before the date time, I was really mad due he was still playing and we would need at least 30 minutes to be at the date place. So, I got close to him as much as I can, telling him that he should stop playing or we´ll have problems. But in that moment I saw the screen and first thing that was amazing for me was that it had no monsters but soldiers “working together” for doing something that at that moment I didn´t got exactly what. At that time he already had explained me that he can´t stop till the end of the round or his team won´t be able to save the gold… that was some kind of mars language for me at that moment, but I was completely captivated about those cartoons running around, shooting to the enemy side and helping each other, medics giving life, lieutenant giving ammo, engineers placing dynamite… he explained me a bit more about the game and about how to manage the character, so I asked him if I could try to play while he got ready… and I should say that we were late at that date due my fault! :$

I asked him to please install that game, Return to Castle Wolfestein, in my pc. Please take into consideration that I had never ever played that kind of games before, so, simple things as just shoot while running, was difficult for me, but I was willing to learn in my own speed and by my own, so, Curro just gave me general instructions and with that I start my journey in different servers learning the game. First of all, was important for me to choose a nickname that made obvious I was a girl but not a teen, not a masculine one neither, and I found it: Lady. It was some kind of custom to put the name of your country after the nick, I was living in Spain and already with Spanish nationality, so I decided to use it, then my nick was Lady Spain.



So, once I had the nick I really liked, I start to travel around different servers. In first place I went to Latin-American ones and the experience was terrible. Taking into account that I was still learning how to move (not even how to play!) ;P it was really not difficult for them to believe that I was a woman… but the sexist commentaries wondered me a lot. I decided to move to Spanish servers: more sexist comments but with worst words. So I tried with American servers… yeap, wondering, also sexist comments, I really didn´t expected that. French servers: same thing. Finally at Italian servers it started to become better, no sexist comments, but the point that wondered me was that Italians were the only ones that, while playing, people of the same team were shooting their own colleagues in order to be the ones to carry on the gold. Then I started to play at Swedish, Norwegian and German servers…. YYYYYYEEEEEEAAAAPPPPP!!! FINALLY!!! They respected me and treated me very well, even taking a bit of time to give me some clues to improve my game. :D



RTCW started to be my new vicious. Well, if you look at me, you wouldn´t ever think I could like to play a shooting game, but at that time I loved to play at Swedish, Norwegian and German servers and it started to took up most of my free time. Ah! And just to mention it! I didn´t like to play as a medic but as engineer or lieutenant. ;D



By chance one day I started to play in a German Server named “Quake Lords” and some guys there even started to talk a bit with me (not just about the game I mean). It became into my favorite server and some weeks later even one of them, Eagle, became into my msn friend and time to time he took time to take me to an empty server to teach me a bit more how to play well. Was really nice to find people my age playing that game! So, more and more I spent my whole playing time at QL´s server and the rest of QL´s and other fans that also played there became into my game friends, with some of them I also had a msn friendship. I had been the only one female playing with them for so many months. It was really funny! Oh! I really enjoyed that! Point is that you really feel like you would be “doing something”, like the team work you have done at the game was in something real, not just inside a pc… yes! I started to understand Curro! :D (But rarely we played together, he liked, of course, to play at Spanish servers and for me all the times that I tried it the experience was terrible, so no reason why to lose my time in that way).



More or less a year after I started to play with them and just by chance, talking with my good friend Voni (one of the QL´s), I really don´t remember who asked whom, but point is he told me QL´s never invited people to belong to the klan so I told him I would love to be part of QL´s but I knew it was just for males and Germans… so he told me it wasn´t true… then I asked if I could be part of the clan! :D



It took more time than usual for them to decide if I could be part of the klan… yeap! First of all because I was a female!! :/ But also the language was a problem because they talked with each other with Team Speak and my German is so, so basic (enough for not to die if I need to eat in a German speaking country or to ask someone if speaks English!) and for them it wouldn´t be so comfortable to talk in English while talking, specially at klan wars… but… wondering! They accepted me!!! :))))))) So I become into QL – Lady Spain :D
Watch this video! (But you really will understand the funny part of it if you know RTCW)



(To be continued)