I read a post by Steven Frank, “Arcade Story”, about how he became an expert at the game Dragon’s Lair

One day I was sitting in our apartment reading a video game magazine (nerd!), and in the back was a little section of classified ads. My eye was caught immediately by the words “Beat Space Ace and Dragon’s Lair!” For a few bucks, you could send away for this random guy’s strategy guide, which listed all the moves and when to make them. Please realize there was no residential internet. We had a computer, but no modem. There was no just going to Google for an FAQ or walkthrough. If you didn’t know the moves, you just didn’t know them, unless you knew someone else who knew them, which of course you didn’t. I begged my parents. Weeks later, my strategy guide arrived (a few black and white photocopied sheets of paper stapled together), and I began studying.

(Also his parents bought him an arcade cabinet so he could practice for free.) This reminded my of a somewhat similar incident from my own childhood.

In the summer of 1997, between my junior and senior years in high school, I went to Harvard Summer School. You got the full college experience for the summer, including one college-level course, transferable to most institutes of higher education (not Harvard University, though, they had standards). I took Latin for my course, and it was great, but the classwork was really the least important aspect of the experience.

One great thing was living in the dorms and playing networked video games with all the other kids. Nearly everyone had brought a computer, and the dorms were all wired for Ethernet.

The best network game was Blizzard’s Warcraft II. We’d play match after match long into the night. About 20 minutes each, and you’d leave your door open so you could hear the shouts from across the hall when you won or lost.

WC2 was a solidly fun game, but in PvP matches there was a significant advantage to playing as the orcs. The game plays fairly evenly until the orcs get ogre-magi and the humans get paladins. The paladins can heal, which takes a lot of focus and concentration, while the ogres can cast “bloodlust” which makes them more powerful without needing a lot of attention. Most people in the dorm tended to play the orcs because of this.

Most people also didn’t really use the Internet. I found some strategy guides with build orders and that was enough to let me play humans just to show off.

My favorite build involved sending invisible mages to destroy my opponent’s economy. It was tricky enough to be a challenge for me to win, and it kept the other kids nervous whenever they played against me.