I'm going to buy a new prebuilt PC next week. I'm almost certain I'll buy a Windows PC and making a PC is not my thing. I haven't been a gamer since the late 1970s so I'm a bit behind the curve.
What peripherals should I buy?
I know that's vague but I sincerely don't know what kind of games I'll end up liking.
How much should I budget for it?
~$300? I have no idea. For the short term - I want the basic core stuff I need and maybe a bell and whistle or two.
I want to avoid going crazy and buying specialized stuff like a wheel and pedals set. If I decide that driving games are my thing - I can always buy that later.
Should I buy a headset right off the bat?
Do you use a headset? My mental image is that I don't want to talk to anybody or listen to anybody because there are a lot of trolls out there. But am I wrong? Are there games where a headset is worth it? I'll let you define "worth it".
Also - how much does a good headset cost?
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Edit
I thought I needed to budget more for peripherals. It seems I don't. And - I don't need to buy everything next week anyway. There's no rush and my gaming needs might turn out to be (very) modest anyway. Current plan
- Keyboard. My current keyboard is beyond crap anyway.
- Gaming mouse?
- Microphone headset?
- Speakers? Maybe not. For reasons I don't want to explain - no speakers might be better.
Re: trolls; it really depends on what games you end up playing and some social stuff: if you've got a deep masc voice it's much less lilely anyone will give you shit, for instance.
Niche games and low stakes coop games tend to have more chill players whereas competitive ranked multiplayer is full of horrid shitgibbons.
Really big games, Call of Duty for instance, have started using automated voice recognition systems that listen for slurs and auto-ban people that use gamer words, which is nice.
Some modern games have a one-button mute option. Press the mute button and it'll mute the person who is currently talking.
And many people like to join a friendly discord community and chat with folks even if they're not playing the same game together.