Recently, I started playing Starcraft II again. It’s one of the best real time strategy (RTS) games available, aside from Homeworld and Homeworld II. I really wish Homeworld III would launch.

I’m on Battlenet as Taranis, and you can say ‘hi’ – but be warned: I’m an old guy playing a video game and I won’t say I’m competitive as much as competent. I don’t like the competitive side of the game that much. In more competitive modes, I prefer Free For Alls, but I really like the cooperative gaming because I’m not playing against other people, instead playing towards a common goal. And in cooperative mode, I almost always play Vorazun (pictured) – cloaked units with high damage, the ability to stop time every 4 minutes, and I just really like the sound of the dark templar slashing through things. I could go on.

It’s fun.

As we were discussing in chat today, there are some jerks in cooperative mode, but you can always block them. I’m not sure if that means you can’t play with them, but it certainly means you don’t have to listen to them.

It’s fun for me playing in cooperative mode. Some people are better than you, some aren’t, and sometimes you make a misstep, sometimes they do, and it’s not about who is the better player as much as filling in each other’s gaps and winning the objective. Sometimes you lose. Losing is a learning experience. Don’t lose your temper, raise your game.

Cooperating. There just aren’t enough games that let you do that. Even what I consider to be one of the best rts ever, Homeworld II, didn’t have that.

When I play a game, I don’t like to be around jerks. Most of the time I’m playing games it’s to escape from a world full of jerks. Why would I set myself up to deal with them while I’m supposed to be having fun?

We need more cooperative games against non-players, and AI has reached a point where we could be doing that. I think we should. We don’t need people practicing hating on each other and getting under each other’s skin – there’s plenty of that in the real world.

Who knows? With more cooperative games, maybe being a jerk won’t be seen as an asset in the real world as much.