Pete by ShadowHM o4/2009

This interview was a long time in the making. Pete had a long hiatus from the forums as he recovered from a series of health challenges. However, I am glad we were able to finish it. Here is the second of “The Making of a Gamer” interviews.

ShadowHM: Please give us some general information about yourself. For starters, where were you born? Where were you raised to adulthood? Where do you live now?

Pete: I was born in Florence, Italy on the twenty-third of November 1945 and originally given the name Pierluigi Grandolfi. My father died within a month of my birth, and shortly after that my mother left me with relatives in the mountains above Florence. Because the prospects for a single woman with a child were not good in post war Italy, she moved to England in search of better opportunities. There she met Leon Majewski, an ex-member of a Polish regiment in the British army. He had fought and been wounded at Monte Casino and had learned some Italian and a love of Italy during his months of convalescence there. Since this is my story and not theirs (which is much more interesting), suffice to say that my mother went back to Italy in the summer of forty-eight to bring me to England.

From forty-eight to fifty-one, we lived in London, close to Regent’s Garden. However, it cannot be said that we mixed into English society at any level. ‘Bloody foreigners’ have never been greatly appreciated in England and even less so in the post war era. When we left England in fifty-one, I knew scarcely more English than when I’d arrived three years earlier – which is to say nearly none at all.

In November of fifty-one, traveling under a British passport in my ‘new’ name of Peter Majewski with my mother and stepfather, I crossed the Atlantic on the Cunard White Star liner Mauretania. My earliest true memories (things I actually remember, rather than think I remember because people have told them so many times) are of this trip. Going as far forward as passengers were allowed and watching the waves crash over the ship’s bows. Eating in an almost deserted dining room (even many of the staff were sea sick ). And my father making all of it into a fascinating adventure (my poor mother never left the cabin and hardly left the bathroom – I guess I inherited my (natural) father’s inner ears).

Speeding things up: we lived on Manhattan Island, lower East Side (a couple of blocks from the ‘headquarters’ of Murder, Inc.) until Spring of ’57. We then moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where I stayed till June of ’60 (my parents left me with some friends the last few months so that I could finish Junior High there). From June of ’60 till January of ’65, I lived just inside the Northern edge of Atlanta, Georgia. I completed high school at St. Pius X Catholic High School, where, under the tutelage of a Jesuit, I became an atheist (not what he had in mind ).

Because of some family and personal problems I joined the Army in January of ’65. After training, I spent a brief time in Germany and then volunteered for Vietnam. I served there from October ’65 to October ’66 when I returned to Fort Eustice, Virginia as an instructor. I got married to my first wife the following Spring (April Fool’s Day appropriately enough ) Got out of the service that December, and went back to Atlanta and Georgia Tech. At Tech I got my first computer account, learned programming, learned hardware interfacing, and have never looked back.

The next few years were spent between Tech and Western Electric – the one to get an education, the other to pay for it Somehow, in the process, I acquired a daughter as well. In Spring of ’73 I finished my undergraduate work with a BS in Physics. Over the next year, I applied and was accepted into Washington State University (-not- UW). When it was almost time to leave, my ex-wife announced that not only was she not coming with me, she was divorcing me. The divorce was bitter, and I did not see her or communicate with her for over twenty years. I did get to see my daughter again when she was seventeen after a separation of thirteen years.

But, in the Summer of ’74, with ‘nothing left to lose’, I packed up my Healy and drove to Pullman, Washington, home of Moo-U. I spent the next eleven years there, first as a student, then as a pre-doc, and finally as a post-doc. I met Sue (Magi) there, and eventually we got married. Along the way, I picked up a PhD in Physics specializing in shock dynamics.

A friend, and former fellow grad student, recruited me to work at Boeing in aerospace and military research. I accepted, and in the fall of ’85 was living in Maple Valley, Washington. In 2000, I retired from Boeing since I was tired of the vagaries of corporate research. Then, earlier this year (2005), Magi and I moved closer to Seattle (to Renton, specifically). That pretty well summarizes my life so far.

Or, at least it did four years ago when that was written. Over the past four years, I’ve played a game against leukemia, including bone marrow transplant and graph versus host disease, which is not quite decided, but which I’m winning on points We’ve moved again, a few miles over to Kent, partially to accommodate my limited mobility and partially in hopes of getting my mom (born in 1916) to move in with us.

ShadowHM: Who influenced you the most in making you interested in games? How?

Pete: When we first moved to the USA, we didn’t have TV for a few years (which was not uncommon in the early ‘50s). Our family evening entertainment was mostly card games, primarily of the various melding varieties (forms of rummy). My (step)-father also tried to teach me chess, but he is an extremely holistic individual. He has no ability to break things down into easily absorbable chunks and tried to teach me by mixing rules, moves, tactics, and strategy into a totally incomprehensible and indigestible lump. Although he never could teach me chess, he did inspire me to want to learn it (anything that difficult just had to be fun ). We did not have any board games other than chess.

ShadowHM: Were there any other gaming influences?

Pete: To get me out of the influence of New York City, my parents sent me to summer camps almost every year. Not the week and two week variety, but the whole summer type. There I learned additional games, Canasta being one of the most memorable. In addition, sometime when I was about ten, a fellow camper finally taught me chess – turned out to be both easier and harder than I’d expected. With the exception of Monopoly, board games were still out of the picture since most of them were still of the Aggravation style. That is to say, cheap, simple, and totally based on luck.

By the time I’d gotten to high school, chess had become my main game. As soon as I discovered chess books, I devoted myself to the game for about two years before becoming bored. However, I did play it in both club and team through my senior year. Since then, I doubt that I’ve played more then a hundred games of chess total in the last forty years.

I came to Bridge late. My first experience was in the Army when I was given a five minute course so that I could be the fourth in a game on the airplane to Germany. I played little bridge after that until my junior year. As an upperclassman at Georgia Tech, I ‘minored’ in bridge. There was a perpetual game that ran in the Physics Department student’s lounge. That game probably cost me a few tenths on my GPA.

ShadowHM: What games have you played in the past?

Pete: Besides the card games and chess that I mentioned above, I was attracted early on to the Avalon Hill type board games, mostly the various war game simulations, etc. This expanded to the SSI games, who’s ‘realism’ appealed to the grognard in me. The names of many of those games no longer reside in my memory, but a search through a ’75 catalog of either of those two companies would reveal many of the games I played then.

In addition to board games, I started playing computer games in the early ‘70s. At that time, a number of us developed and played WW3 on the Georgia Tech Burrows 6600 computer. Basically, as the name implies, it was a war game. Each day, every player punched out an input deck with his expenditures and moves. All the decks were collected and used, along with the previous day’s state, to run a batch job. The result of the job was a printout with individual status sheets and individual world maps for each player. Over the three years we played this game, it was in constant development. All players would submit ideas for improvements, usually in the form of code additions. If the majority approved, the additions were incorporated. A game typically lasted a quarter, being ‘won’ on points – and disputes over beers at the Yellow Jacket – rather than by conquest.

Later, with the advent of time share systems, some ‘real time’ games entered the picture. Games like Star Trek on DEC systems led the way. Rogue, Adventure, and the like started to crop up on Unix systems, and I stole accounts both at Tech and later at WSU to play these. Finally, in the later ‘70s, platforms like the Commodore PET, the Trash 80, the Apple ][, etc., got me into more interactive games. These were the years of Hannuberabi, the Adam Scott adventure games, Wumpus, Zork, etc. Flight Simulator on the Apple ][ during this time also ate a large chunk of my time.

Meanwhile, board and tabletop games continued (and continue) to pique my interest on the rare occasions when a gaming group can be convened. Again my memory fails me, but some of the names are Carcassonne, Robot Rally, Puerto Rico(?), various railroad building games.

With the advent of the Wintel machines, and as graphics improved, I played a lot of adventure games Tex Murphy Mean Streets series, the Forgotten Realms and Krynn gold box series). I love flight sims, and have played Falcon 3.0, Red Baron, Chuck Yeager’s Flight Sim and a number of others. The Heroes of Might and Magic series filled my time, and, incidentally, where what finally won Sue over to the dark side – she didn’t enjoy computer games before I introduced her to HoMM 1. Now, as we say, she’s ‘dicted

I’ve had fun with some of the golf games, but that’s the only sport that I play on a computer. Things like SimCity held my interest briefly. But it was the introduction of the original Diablo that truly changed my life. Prior to Diablo, (1997), I read over 200 books a year. Since then, I have averaged only twenty or so.

ShadowHM: What games do you play now?

Pete: At this time, and for about the past four years, I have not been able to play much. My endurance is about enough for a game or two of Spider Solitaire, and my reflexes barely adequate for Pinball. I’m planning that soon (a matter of months) when I am well again I will be playing WoW. With the new setup in the new house, I also hope to get my joystick-throttle-rudder system back into action and play what few combat flight simulators are out there. As for the rest, we’ll see what new games come along and what old games I can find in the bargain bins

ShadowHM: How did you choose your username of Pete?

Pete: Well, it *is* my name The first UNIX system I had an account on was shared with about ten people. In that simpler world of thirty-eight years ago, we all used a first name or nickname as our user name. The habit just stuck, I guess. And in game fora, I think it helps to distinguish the player from the avatar. As a one-time role player, I’m probably a bit more aware of when I’m in and out of character. Besides, it gives a certain continuity. I’ve been signing posts to newsgroups, posts to www fora, and e-mail with “--Pete” for so long that anything different would be disconcerting.

ShadowHM: How did you come to the Realms Beyond?

Pete: Shortly after discovering Diablo in February of ’97, I was searching online for game patches when I discovered the old Blizzard Diablo strategy forum. I lurked there for a while, then started posting. Sometime after that, Woody started posting about his BNM and eventually set up a site for that variant and others that he collected (including my Immortal Heroes, which I’d been playing for some time, and submitted when Woody requested input for other variants). From that point on, mostly as a lurker, I followed the variant community across a few boards until they settled in Realms Beyond. So, you might say I just kind of ‘grandfathered’ in.

ShadowHM: What are your preferences in play style for games?

Pete: For me to like a game, it has to be either solo or group; either PvP or PvE; real time or turn based; RL or computer; physical or mental; . . .

To paraphrase Will Rogers, “I've never met a game I didn't like.”

ShadowHM: Do you prefer to solo or to play cooperatively?

Pete: If the game is set up for it, I much prefer to play co-op games, but I usually find myself playing solo. There are a number of reasons for this, some of them not too flattering But, basically, I play most games in a relaxed mode. I don't particularly care to go fast. I like to look around, explore, check out the environment. And I tend to get bored in a short time, so that doing ‘acts’ or ‘quests’ or ‘instances’ often forces me to play longer than I would like (then again, I ‘beat’ the original single player Diablo in one twenty-six hour session – I guess *it* didn’t bore me ).

When I do find a group that’s willing to put up with my ‘style’, I greatly enjoy it. However, there always seems to come those times when I’m not in the mood to play at the designated times. Then either I don’t play, potentially ruining the fun for all, or I do play, very likely ruining the fun for all. Having to play at a particular time feels too much like work. Eventually, the group breaks up.

So most of my co-op has either been with Magi (who has to put up with me :P ) or with pugs. One of the things I’ve enjoyed about WoW (in my limited experience) is being able to approach a stranger who’s in the same area I’m in and asking if they’d like to do some particular quest together. I’ve had some nice experiences with that.

ShadowHM: Do you prefer player versus player environments, such as you described for that initial war game structure you worked on?

Pete: I enjoy competition a lot; I enjoy RL games and sports and I like to win. On the computer, I enjoy competition in many ways, especially turn based games. However, by and large I don’t enjoy twitch games. I’ve tried various FPS from DOOM to Quake and mostly they just frustrate me. And I don’t much care for games where one needs to memorize and practice a build order to be successful, so the PvP RTS games turn me off (but I find that I usually enjoy the single player campaign in those games).

My favorite PvP experiences have been with combat flight simulators. The ‘real time’ pace is really real time, and it is a wonderful balance between reflex and reflection. Unfortunately, there are few opportunities to play those games as a solo player anymore, and for the reasons I’ve given above, I do not care to be a member of a squadron.

ShadowHM: Or was it the cooperative aspect of it, wherein you all discussed and reviewed what worked and what did not?

Pete: In both games and life, I like a cooperative-competitive mix. That was very true in the GaTech WW3 game, where the game was competitive, but to some extent so was the development of the game. Coming up with a good idea, a decent algorithm to implement it, and getting it accepted by the group gave one bragging rights. It was a game in itself. Discussing concepts, both for the game and the code, was also a great pass time.

"My tragic tale I won't prolong.

Sing rickety tickety tin

My tragic tale I won't prolong.

And if you did not enjoy my song

You've yourselves to blame if it's too long.

You should never have let me begin.

Begin. Begin.

You should never have let me begin!"

- Tom Lehrer

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