Seeing as we are all putting "things" into "perspective", odds are I would not even be online AT ALL, if not for a particular special person I chat with regularly
Steel Panthers = tactical wargame.
HTTR = battle in real time tactical to operational scale wargame.
TOAW = operational wargame (which likely covers every board game I own too).
Strategic Command = grand strategy wargame.
Frankly, I could walk away from the internet and declare I owned a wargame for every sector of wargaming, and I no longer needed to be online.
It's been a very long time since I bought a new board game, simply because I already basically own the best in every category already
But as with everything, we like to have MORE. And really, that is about all Matrix Games or Battlefront, or anyone else can hope to sell to, my need to own yet "more".
I would of course need a cd and a few minutes of a buddy's time to occasionally score a needed patch, assuming there was any need at all.
I could always just visit a buddy, and go online to read a forum or two and find out if anything "important" had been accomplished in wargaming (by important, I mean something beyond the usual prattle of forums hehe).
In effect, the internet delivers only what we seek from it, and it can really only give us what we went looking for in the first place.
Some of us measure our time in such increments, that dial up is just to "expensive on our time". I have seen my buddies buy new burners for much the same reasoning. "4 speed is just to slow man, I need to spend 200 bucks so I can burn at 8 speed".
Which is funny when you consider he might not really need that time, and where 200 bucks might have been spent otherwise.
I bought a dvd burner drive myself. About 200 bucks when I got it. I figure though, I have definitely achieved the dollar value out of having dvd capacity.
For one thing, I find it amusing to have a burned copy of Steel Panthers on dvd in the form it would look like on my computer installed. Very handy for examining files in their unmodified state from install (before I go messing around with the install).
By the time I am done processing my massive vhs collection into SVCD mode on my computer, it will have been well worth buying the hardware I employ, even if I never used it for anything else.
Technology is always moving forward though, occasionally it is even a good thing. Usually it just makes life more complicated.
But there is always someone out there that will claim it was a bonus to them.
Technology is not always even available to all. DSL service entered my neighbourhood a good long span of time ahead of cable based service.Eventually those two will realise they need to merge. Because sure enough, someone will do more or less that, and put both out of business if they are not ready.
I am waiting to see technology go completely connection free ie no phone line or cable line at all. Once we can just carry our note pad looking computer around, and gain access to the internet where we are regardless of where that is, then we will have something truely freeing.
And as we speak, that is already starting. You CAN in some places (at least around here) get wireless access within geographical limits without any need of physical linkage.
No phone line no cable line at all.
Bit expensive currently and only really useful to a businessman working out of the office.
I want to play my wargames some day in my MORE comfortable chair without need of this bulky set up.
I have time to wait. I might feel old, but I am only halfway through the average lifespan all the same.
