Blizzard Deleted All Threads About My Article?
I think Blizzard locked and later deleted all the threads on the worldofwarcraft.com forums that had to do with my article. I see censorhip is their solution (not censorship of me, but of all the players who wanted to talk about the topics I raised). Is it their right to delete these threads? Of course it is. It seems like a pretty juvenile thing to do though. Either the ideas have merit and should be discussed or they don't and should be attacked by the other players. Either way, censorship is a pretty unenlightened way of solving a problem.
Edit: There does seem to be one thread left here.
For some reason, it took me over and hour to find it. Weird.
--Sirlin
February 23rd, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Would it surprise you? That’s what Blizzard does. They do treat their users like children. On the other hand, their users do act like children for the most part.
As far as the article goes, one thing that is worth following up on is the idea that 40 person raids “deserve” the best stuff. This is interesting for a couple of reasons:
1: The logic usually given is that 40 person raids are hard to organize and take a lot of time. The implicit statement here is that 40 person raids aren’t fun, so they need a larger reward to make up for that fact. To me that’s a sign of broken gameplay.
2: The logic that 40 person raids take longer to run and organize does not hold water. It would be quite possible to adjust the drop rates in 5 man raids to drop the same items just in lower quantities. To begin a 5-man raid should drop 1/8th the items, because they have 1/8th the players. Then maybe they take 1/2 as long to organize and run, so now items drop 1/16th as often. If you want to you can factor in the fun and say that 5 man groups are twice as fun so items should drop 1/32 as often. The point here is that adjusting the drop rates to be “fair” is pure math. You could make it so that people doing 5-man raids and 40-man raids for the same amount of time with the same skill level get the same quality of items.
For some reason people are incredibly resistant to this logic.
February 24th, 2006 at 12:48 am
Blizzard is very infamous for deleting posts about controversial topics. Chinese gold-farming, rampant server instability, all swept under the rug whenever it threatens to create negativity in thier forums. It is a laughable endeavor, of course: they forget that half of us lurk in many, many forums, and that Blizzard can’t shut us all up.
I would like to say that the article is mostly spot on, though I would like to take a moment to address two things, one minor, one greater.
The minor thing is the quip about the free speech issue. The profanity filters are not a limitation of freedom of speech, as WOW is not a public domain. Even if I disagree with such filters or any other limitation of communication (I actually like to role-play, after all), I also have to choke down the fact that it is their house, and their rules. So while I empathize with the limitations on speech, it’s like someone asking you not to swear in thier house for thier kids’ sake.
The other item is in regards to the group not teaching anything. I don’t think the group isn’t about learning cooperation and communication with other human beings, myself. Those are vital skills if one is to learn teamwork in life. Teamwork is a very good, very useful thing. People can accomplish just as much with the help of others as they can on thier own. Even Einstein’s theories would be collecting dust, without others to help get the word out.
But… where I think WOW fails is that is smothering creativity and reinforcing a most horrific idea: absolute, unthinking loyalty and conformity. These “raiders” are being force-fed the notion that the group expects you do perform a specific task, and that deviating from that task is tantamount to treachery.
Case in point: druids. For a long time, they were told they were only there for healing the other group members in a raid. Then, WOW fixed the class to allow them to off-tank in combat, helping take on foes alongside warriors and such.
What was the initial reaction of raid leaders? They basically refused to allow druids to do such a thing, and actually kicked out those who tried to do anything differently from the scheduled, programmed tactics they had been drilling for a year now. Many druids simply quit raiding, or were never taken as they demanded to be allowed to fulfill this new role. Only recently have a few raid leaders out of the hundreds of servers started allowing druids to prove they can do what they say they can now.
This is not the only example, but it is the easiest to use at the moment to illustrate a point: that WOW is encouraging gamers to forget puzzle-solving and deductive reasoning as ways to overcome problems, and is basically making a whole population of gamers adhere to blind strategies created by a few who discover some formula that permits the player to win every time.
This mentality has also tainted PVP. If enough people tell a lie that a class is “gimped”, others begin to repeat it, with conviction no less. Soon, a class is nerfed or buffed purely based on opinion. Warlocks got the worst of this treatment, even when Blizzard representatives fully admitted that they simply didn’t care to play the class much.
Overall, though, the article was on target about the point that WOW is eroding “real” gaming skills. Hopefully, another MMO will rise to the challenge and dethrone WOW, and produce a game where every playstyle can be used with equal ease, and a plethora of strategies and tactics will earn victories based not on the amount of time spent mindlessly fighting an AI, but on the player’s knowledge of the game’s mechanics and how to use them.
February 24th, 2006 at 5:30 am
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=7228827&P=1
I found this one, though I don’t know if it’ll still be there later. :)
-JLC
February 24th, 2006 at 8:47 am
The big problem is not that the thread was posted about your article, it was that, like the GBLT issue people posted 3 million fucking threads on the same thing.
February 25th, 2006 at 8:56 am
“Blizzard is a great company, and I might even end up there some day, though this article probably rules out that possibility.”
–Sirlin
Unlucky there, Sirlin…
Looks like Blizzard are sending you a clear message concerning you, and a potential position at their company.
February 27th, 2006 at 4:29 am
About the article in question. If you don’t like the game or approve of its mechanics….DON’T FUCKING PLAY IT!
Dumbass.
Now let’s see who results to censorship…
February 27th, 2006 at 5:53 am
In the same vein: If you don’t like the article: DON”T EFFIN’ READ IT :D
I very much doubt Sirlin would stoop to banning free speech, especially since he’s raving against it in the first place (the banning that is, not the speech).
February 27th, 2006 at 7:19 am
To Jim Smith, aka Dumbass: It is better to remain silent and appear a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt. If you feel a need to respond to this post, you’ll remove any remaining uncertainty.
BTW, keep checking to see whether your post is still here. Unfortunately for you, there’s no censorship on this site.
February 27th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
As a one-year veteran of WoW and official quitter since the WoW 1.9 patch I agree with you Sirlin, on most of the issues you raised in your article. However, in Blizzard’s defense, WoW at the end of the day is a way for Blizzard to make money, thus time-sink/OCD behavior and gameplay overrides actual gameplay or casual-esque game design. Sure, the first 59 levels can be accomplished easily (and depending on race/class combonation solo) but at level 60 the game design changes to keep those casuals playing in Blizzard’s little hamster wheel.
The problem with all MMOs (that I have seen thsfar) is that their about time>skill, which by istelf is actual a very fun concept. RPGs are designed by this principle. The kicker, of course, is that the RPG gameplay system is built around building up a character and looking back at all the time and energy you put into you character avatar. Where most (if not all) MMOs fail at this is that they then turn around and pit player avatars against one another in bouts of combat (PvP) which depending on the gameplay denotes skill or time (mostly devoted around the time nvested than skill.)
Also, (in regards to another article you posted concerning God of War and scaleable difficulty) of course GoW was filled with interesting points in the game that were certainly cool, but on the flip coin if WoW (or any MMO) gave you that kind of feeling from group dynamics certain player-types will resonate in that more than solo achievement (which is the hook behind tabletop RPGs like D&D, the feeling of taking down giant dragons with your buddies. Of course D&D tabletop gives you infinite options and outcomes in controlling the game that no analogue game can ever do.)
In the end WoW is far from perfect, and their large capitalistic approach to gamedesign is daunting, but it shows more for Blizzard (or dare I say Vivendi’s) lust for captial gain than actually advancing game design (though they should get marks for the first 59 levels of casual MMORPG gameplay that’s somewhat painless.)
March 1st, 2006 at 8:39 am
I just read your article about WoW teaching the wrong things to us….well…for fucks sake it’s not about teaching you it’s about teaching THE PEOPLE IN WHICH YOUR ARE TAKING THE ROLE OF. You don’t need skill…your character does. and also, about Groups>Solo, its more for the fact that the game comes from a RTS game, it has a story to follow, and the heroes are usually only taken down by mass groups of people, make sense? It should. This is also why raids give better loot, I think 40 people taking down a lich king who is the cause of an entire kingdom to become a legion of undead should be a rather difficult task and if it could be undertaken by one person…it wouldn’t be that difficult, and those 40 people should get a just reward for saving the world, or a few of them for ripping the armor off of the person and then having it rolled for…(…not that you can take down Arthas mind you…just an example). If you think a little in-depth about the stuff it makes more sense then you are giving it credit for.
March 1st, 2006 at 3:19 pm
sirlin’s articles have always generate heat like the playing to win series. needless to say this article is no less different targeting WoW. its about time someone pointed out this facts about WoW.
March 1st, 2006 at 10:50 pm
Remerk : I’m not a Wow player, although i’ve watched some friends of mine play it alot. I’m a D&D rpg “on paper” DM and a programmer(Nope, not Blizzard :-), Linux misc.), if that should have any relevance to anyone.
I think that some of the things Sirlin said, was probably true about WoW, but mostly I think he himself has missed some points. Let’s see what makes it interesting/fun to play WoW :
(1) Building up your character, giving the player a sense of achivement, instead of, as Sirlin claims is “fun”(and it’s sounds like he has been too mindcontrolled by that book, he mentions), to have equality for a starter and a veteran(Skill > Time). So many people like to do this constructive business, because it’s relaxing and gives you a feeling of succes. NOT many people like to go “fair play” online in games, because what happens to 95% of people, is that they lose all the time(playing Street F, C&C or Counterstrike, because those nerds that play this game, is always godlike-ly good at it), giving normal people deperessions and bad moods, because PEOPLE HATE LOSING(fundamental fact, ref: violence statistics, under “causes”) and because even after a month, they have still have zero chance of winning anything useful, because their bodies haven’t got the natural born talent for moving quick on a joypad or a keyboard like you need in SF(Don’t tell me about any thinking going in that game, I’ve played the game for a year, back when it had its time, and it was mainly about moving quickly). This is not rambling, this is observed behavior from eight years of being at gamers parties and even working in an internet cafe once. Several people left the cafe moody and desillusionized, because they play to relax and unwind, not to get a can of whoopass, which they get enough of, in their boring real lives(yes, boring, why else would play games ?).
(2) Storylines. Good stories have been popular since the Egyptian hieroglyffs, which you SF has none of, and thus (for me and a he** of a lot of others) SF, for instance, becomes boring after a short while. This is not learning, but entertaining, like watching a movie, but better, since your’e in the story and it progresses at your speed.
(3) Grouping. I agree that solo-missions should be more possible/allowable( socially). But then who will ever complement you or say that “your the man” ? No one, probably, because when everyone is alone(”alone together”), every one goes about their own business and, if anything, becomes jealous at each other.
(4) Humor. There’s a lot of funny small-stuff in the game, unlike chess or SF, in which everything about the game is known in about 2 weeks from release, thus these games becomes reduced to game models in notime and fixed strategies ruin the games slowly, unless as in SF, where super-fast reflexes can destroy counter-moves.
The grouping in WoW is just a way of streching the game’s content, as somebody already said, due to cash, cash and cash, but also sutff like BWL produces an unprecedented need for coordination in the game, between 40 individuals, who, many for the first time in their lives, depend upon each other, in order not to wipe and loose gaming time.
A note about “Skill only” games, or state-less games : Counterstrike.
Back in 2001, a friend of mine was in a group/guild doing CS in 3rd division and thus following the news in the biz tightly. He showed my a “Recruitment” poster for a top-group, who requested that the person, they were looking for,…
- had at least 1000+ hours of CS training
- knew all of the 82 “fixed and known and finalized” tactics for the 6 most common maps.
- was between 16-18 and had full vision(not older, since they claimed that the guys reflexes and eyes would otherwise be to slow)
- was willing to practice 40+ hours a week + 10 hours for tournaments/week, if he was good enough
Now, if that is Skill > Time, then you can keep it.
As a last remark, I also knew a guy who played C&C online for a loooong time(a Skill game). This game is realtime, and after just 6 weeks, he knew all possible tactics, that actually worked online, and the rest was a question of simply moving and clicking the mouse fast enough(on specific split-seconds, sometimes) and we even experimented for two weeks about how to make a “click for me” hack, that could help him win more. We didn’t succeed though.
But the point is that ANY online game in the Skill genre, can be hacked in about 8 weeks. Even the new Xbox360 will probably be hardware hacked(mod chip) within 6 months and ready to run Linux, so even $2bil. from MS couldn’t prevent that, which leeds to my final point that online “Skill” games are balony and NOT “doping”(=cheat) free as real sports, even with cheat-checker programs. The only nocheater way of playing SF, f.x., would be to have the players be offline in a room, together, physically, and thus “reducing” the game to a (imho. boring) game of tennis of the like.
March 2nd, 2006 at 3:00 pm
One of the most important lessons fighting games taught me was about winning a losing. Those people in the internet cafe need to learn to lose. If they were so upset about losing at a game, I can’t imaging them in a different situation. If you’re not doing well after a month, then maybe that’s not your game. My sister recently started playing CS and had the top score in a game after less than a month-she plays boys not girls. One of the reasons I like Tekken and SC is because it requires a lot of skill, yet your reflexes don’t need to be great either-but to be honest, I think driving a car is more difficult than street fighter in terms of execution. I didn’t learn to drive until I was 21, but won street fighter tournaments in jr. high. BTW-most, if not every, legit fighting game tournament is offline.
Knew EVERY tactic in C&C in 6 weeks? BS. You played SF for a year?
“…everything about the game is known in about 2 weeks from release…unless as in SF, where super-fast reflexes can destroy counter-moves” Have you EVER played this game?
Anyways, your points…
(1)Sense of achievement. I’d agree, at least a little here. It’s fun to develop characters, but what have you actually achieved? It’s like getting a license or
(2)Storylines-Bam! Your only valid point… however it doesn’t apply here. WoW, I think, barely has a story either.
(3)Jealous at each other?
(4)Humor… WoW didn’t teach me about humor. In fact, everything you listed isn’t taught by Wow. Except maybe not to be jealous at each other.
March 2nd, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Sirlin > the doubters
That is all
March 3rd, 2006 at 4:57 am
Well, i think “Kicks” somewhat “troll’ed” his posting, but i just couldn’t resist to defend myself and since i might have made myself unclear at certain points:
(My numbers here, does not relate to other postings, they’re just a listing)
(1) Some people “cannot”/”will never” “learn how to lose”, they just smash up stuff or even other ppl instead(A guy i knew from the local community, once got hit by a wooden chair from behind after having beat the perpetraitor guy in a close match of table tennis). Fact, look at casual golf/tennis/football or whatever…and see how many rackets, clubs and other stuff that “suddenly breaks” during play :-)
(2) “If you’re not doing well after a month, then maybe that’s not your game” –> Exactly, do something else, like quiting that genre of games.
But it just so seems that some people, who are born good at something(like Sirlin and SF) often cannot comprehend, that not all are SO blessed in that concrete skill pool. How often have you not heard top athletes or players of any sport claim that “all you have to do is train and work hard and you’ll get there..” –> BS!, many golfers/tennis players practice from dawn till dusk, eat right and has a solid mental winning attitude, but get nowhere still(which is = “not in the top50 of something important”). I believe, that it’s because you have to be born good at X to be the best/among the best at X, or, if you did win it anyway, there wasn’t enough ppl doing X anyway(thin competition, like f.x. British Open(golf) in the pre-1900), so you’ve won something, that nobody cares about. However, i still do believe that even if your’e “born good enough”, you still need to practice a bucketload to get to top anyway.
(3) The C&C(I hope we are talking about the 2nd Command and Conquer, right?) guy was a real good guy at this, had played a LOT of Red Alert and Starcraft stuff like that, and yes, he couldn’t find ANYONE in the IRC, who could comeup with a strategic/tactical angle for a map setup, that he had not tried and judged already. He played too much, i admit, i thought at the time, as his High School grades dropped a bit during the periods, but it was pretty impressive, eventhough(Not the gaming skills, but how he had systematically “pulled the game apart” and figured it out(mostly, he did lose at rare occations).
(4) Storyline?, WoW had a pretty good storyline, i think, since people seem to connect many pre-WoW-Warcraft-games-story-tidbits with actual stuff in the WoW game.
(5) ” “…everything about the game is known in about 2 weeks from release…unless as in SF, where super-fast reflexes can destroy counter-moves” Have you EVER played this game? “
“where super-fast reflexes can destroy counter-moves”
—-Should have been—>
“where only super-fast reflexes (from your opponent) can destroy your (fixed list of memorized) counter-moves(, given that you know he plays char X and you play char Y)”
(The point was, again, to conclude that born-with-reflexes wins, if both players are perfectly prepared for the match, which is actually, i think, what Sirlin also concludes, and concludes is fine for him(since he’s got the gift’s))
- Yes, i have played SF, back in the SNES days, i think, if it’s that same Street Fighter game, we are talking about. It’s a ok fighting game, although i never remebered it as something really special, just a plain game. It’s damn simple, and the game magazines documented (pretty much) every aspect of the game’s fighting strategies back then, in about 2 _months_(not weeks, THAT was an error, sorry) from release and from there on it was just about reading those(and memorize them till you head spun off), if you wanted to win. Basically, “do X if you’re playing as Y against Z and you’ll mostly win, unless he’s got faster reactions(born-with feat.) than you, in case he’ll beat you, no matter what you do”. I never played any non-local tournaments, because my reactions weren’t near-instant, so i never won much. I guess the reason why i kept playing it, was mainly due to the fact, that it was that game to play or some crappy Mario thing, at the youth club, where i played it, due to the high price tags of the SNES games.
(6) I have never been jealous at others for their gaming skills. Programming skills, like hacking insanely protected material stuff in notime or brain pan skills, like being able to construct a proof of a theorem at master thesis level in less than an hour, are, to me, much more impressive and, yes, THAT i do get jealous about, but never in a destructive way, only the “admire, and wish it was you”-kinda way.
(7) Well, even with the “team uber alles” motto in WoW, there actually still….
- Jealousy(If you don’t have X)
and it’s opposite partner
- Bragging(If you have X)(Even though you don’t say it explicitly, you’re still “bragging” to some ppl, if you equip any thing on your person in WoW, or yourself in real life(think huge Wedding rings or brand name clothing)
This is what drives a lot of these teenage gamers in the MMO genre, like fashion is driving the real world’s equivalence. In WoW, why else would anyone be in a very organized guild of 40+ ppl and sacrificing you whole spare time playing the game, trying to take down that final guy a 22nd time ?….Because the guild next door, has got a thingy that’s marginally better than ours! Blizzard really hit the cash-cow spot, by the way they made their end-game stuff easily accessible(reaching lvl60, using “just time”(Sirlin)) and then making the cool endgame stuff very unlikely to get(=small drop percentages).
(8) “but what have you actually achieved” –> You’ve done it and that’s enough!, it’s the process, NOT the result. Why else EVER watch a movie, if all you get is a releaxing seat for five dollars an hour ? :-)
(9) Car vs. SF : In a car, you drive(yes, i have had a license 8 years), you usually have at least a couple of seconds to evaluate/prepare most situations, except for tight city traffic or of cause, accident situations. In “my SF” exp., I remember that you had to execute the(yes, i agree!, “simpler to execute”-) moves, but at a timing rate of something like 0.05-0.1 sec or so in the top games, i’ve played/observed. That’s two diffrent skills, don’t compare apples and pears :-)
If answered, please keep the flaming out, as i( hope, i) have done, and don’t block the list with short rampant comments. tia.
March 3rd, 2006 at 9:57 pm
I agree with the article, although I think the execution could have been better. Whether or not it was Sirlin’s intent to make it inflammatory towards WoW players is debatable, but I do think it ends up coming off that way, at least a little bit.
What I find really interesting about it though, is that, on every discussion forum I’ve seen it discussed, from the WoW boards to /. to SA, there is always a group of people whose immediate response is “If you don’t like it, then don’t play the game.” And I find this response interesting because it seems to imply that these people believe in some way that not playing a game entails not being able to discus the design choices made with the game.
But it’s also fairly obvious that most of these players see criticism of WoW as a personal attack on themselves, which is sad because it makes serious discussion and criticism about the game’s design impossible for them.
March 5th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
I’m sort of conflicted in regards to the article, really. There are some really good points there which I can’t deny, yet there are others which I don’t think really apply. A well-thought write-up for the most part, though.
Here’s my two cents:
1) It’s not neccessarily a bad thing, as the lesson can be interpreted differently by the player. While skill is always a plus in the real world, so is commitment and drive. I know it’s not really the same thing as farming in WoW, but that’s the message it gets across by rewarding the time put in by a player.
2) I plead no contest, heh. I never even bothered climbing the whole pvp ladder in WoW. The only logical way to climb the ranks is really to break the TOS and get into account sharing. While I think PVE content should be achievable by time if not by skill, the same can’t be said for PVP achievements. When it comes to direct competition with other people… playes should be ranked on their effectiveness as well, rather than just the amount of free time they have.
3 & 4) Never really thought about it till you mentioned it. I’m 50-50 on this one, as I think Blizzard is taking the right steps by encouraging players to interact with one another. My only gripe for the lack of solo content is that there’s little to do during the graveyard shift when most people are offline. But for the most part I have to say it’s a good thing that they are promoting an active community on each server.
5) Dead on, but it’s not really fair to tie it down to WoW. The same behaviour can be seen in so many other things. Take sports fans for example, soccer clubs have their own communities of fans… many of whom deem all other clubs inferior. Again it’s a double-edged thing. It may be interpreted as elitist, or simply healthy competition. Taking pride in one’s guild and their achievements pushes players to perform better as they are representing their guild.
6) I have to say I agree with Blizz on this one. The TOS is pretty much their version of laws. Obey them, or face the consequences upon conviction. There’s really no way to prevent exploits and all, so a well-worded TOS is as much as they can do to prior to the discovery of said exploits. To say that it’s Blizzard’s responsibility to take proactive steps and that the players shouldn’t be held accountable would be akin to saying that laws are meaningless. People aren’t responsible for their actions because governments should have prevented any abuse or misdeeds from happening. I’m not calling for a police state, but I do feel that a hardline stance has to be taken in regards to exploiters… lest we end up with another Ragnarok Online (what a disaster of bots and cheats that was :P)
March 10th, 2006 at 12:18 am
“# Jim Smith Says:
February 27th, 2006 at 4:29 am
About the article in question. If you don’t like the game or approve of its mechanics….DON’T FUCKING PLAY IT!
Dumbass.
Now let’s see who results to censorship…”
You know, I was once told something about racism and immigrants, it was something like: “When people say, why did you come here in the first place?” Or “Why don’t you just leave?”, the people say that because they don’t have any constructive argument…
-Cloud Elve
March 10th, 2006 at 12:29 am
I personally think that in order to be good at a game, you shouldn’t listen to some genius that figured out the way to win, you should figure it out yourself. It’s called being an INDIVIDUAL. I don’t know about these players in WoW, but somehow it seems a lot like this:
“The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them.”
[Albert Einstein, letter to Sigmund Freud, 30 July 1932]
Sounds to me like what these leaders are doing…
I think I’d probably be one of the leaders, and use a dam lot more violent tactics to win the battles, but what is the fun in that, then it’s just so much easier to go play something like Savage or Age of Empires.
And the idea of being used as a puppet that takes commands, to sink to the point where you aren’t worth more than a CPU, is a sad existance.
-Cloud Elve
March 10th, 2006 at 12:34 am
“# DeathPony Says:
February 27th, 2006 at 7:19 am
To Jim Smith, aka Dumbass: It is better to remain silent and appear a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt. If you feel a need to respond to this post, you’ll remove any remaining uncertainty.
BTW, keep checking to see whether your post is still here. Unfortunately for you, there’s no censorship on this site.”
If you speak up you at least aren’t a coward. You spoke your mind, it’s part of the process called democracy, everyone has the right of free speech, but the idiocracy of their comments is up for them to decide.
March 10th, 2006 at 1:07 am
Lastly for today (I can’t spend all my time criticizing opposition), I think that in games, the PLAYER that is skilled, should always dominate over the idiots spending all their free time on it. The whole thing is about self improvement, about becoming skilled, not what level your character is. Unfortunately for myself, and those that agree with this view, there aren’t many MMO games around that allow that.
In most games, achieving high levels, means lowering yourself to the status of a machine, that in my opinion is VERY wrong, we are all human beings, with the capibility of indipendent thought, and in our lives, exactly that, is what is going to decide wether we are successful or not. If people learn to just “work like a machine”, where is the innovativeness? where is the intelligence? where is the diversity?
It’s like doing:
2+2
Do you achieve anything? No
Do you gain anything? No
You just used time, to do something you already knew…
Where is the point in that!?! It doesn’t lead you to come up with new ideas, or try knew things, YOU JUST WASTE TIME.
I think you should constantly be learning knew things, AS WELL AS getting levels up.
It’s like being able to beat a mage (you have the level, and the “know-how”):
1.) You can continue fighting things mages (and gain levels easily),
OR
2.) You can try something new, that is harder, and where you have to come up with a new plan to win.
The latter of the two, encourages resourcefulness; the player, benefits from that, as well as getting levels.
But the player that is only killing mages, what is he doing? Just killing them, to get exp, but he isn’t doing anything new.
Ok, I know this example is a bit far fetched, but the point is that in most RPGs only option #1 is available, because there is no “know-how” to doing anything, the only thing that counts is your level, there is no need to use strategy and tactics, because in those games, they are inexistant.
March 10th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
Your rant about World of Warcraft has made me dissapointed enough to post.
I personally like solo play. I nock back most invites to parties because I prefer to do things alone or with a trusted friend. I see your point. I just think your wrong.
1. Investing a lot of time in something is worth more than actual skill.
I heard the comment “Practice makes perfect.” Skill is practice made perfect. Therfore Time = Skill. More time = More skill. More time is worth actual skill. Given. Some people feel that “natural talent” is something they are born with. For example.
I am really good at video games. It’s not because I play them 6-12 hours a day or more, but because I was actually born with the SKILLZ. So someone without natural talent (someone who plays 6-12 hours a week) cannot beat me because I am naturally talented. Thats why I pwnz you noob! Solo.
Go play a solo game your a retard. What did you think a MMO would involve. World of Warcraft doesn’t require you to Group to have fun or Get to level 60. Partying helps 40man Raids are hella fun. You don’t HAVE to it’s a choice. If you want Items so bad, give it up.
4. Guilds.
I couldn’t think of a better way to set yourself apart. Myself and my friends are all in the same guild. It’s a sence of belonging in a massive world. You may not like it, but it’s the only way to be. Real world relevance? OMG I work at a company bigger then myself. Microsoft = Big Guild, Local Store = Small Guild. Smaller guilds are more friendly and have a lower level entry requirment. Big guilds are more organized, stricter rules and have a higher entry requirement. You need to think before you speak dude.
5. The Terms of Service.
It’s there game, deal with it. You don’t have to agree, and your reason for there banning is rediculous. I agree there freedom of speech is BS, but it’s there choice, and they don’t want swearing sessions happening in general chat. So get over it.
6. advertising a gay and lesbian friendly guild that’s a safe haven from the endless use of the words “gay” and “fag” in the general chat.
It’s as offensive to be told that saying Gay and Fag are offensive as it is to be told being gay is wrong. I don’t like gay people, so sue me. The idea of sticking your cock in someones male or female repulses me. That’s my choice, I don’t go around making a nucence of myself. I have gay friends. I tease them about it just like I would any friend about anything. But having a guild called “GaySafeHaven” is stupid. This is a game we are trying to get away from the flaws in the world not bring them into the game. All forms of ISM’s (racism sexism ect.) are annoying and I approve of Blizzards stand to take them out of the game.
I got banned myself for calling a friend a faggot in a guild that didn’t know we were friend and reported me.
I got banned for sarcastically saying that I hate black people, but blizzards point is, that saying it sarcastic or not provokes discussion that isn’t needed or wanted in World of Warcraft.
Grow up, get out side and live a bit. But don’t take out your frustrations on a good game because your noob. Each game teaches people things, but there games and life doesn’t revolve around fun. Unfortunatly life doesn’t require fun to survive.
March 13th, 2006 at 11:13 am
I have been reading this article and the responses to it here as well as what is left of them on the blizzard website and have found the debate interesting in that it points out many valid points from both sides, as well as missing some in the general context of the development of role playing games over the last 20 years.
I have been playing role playing games for almost that length of time, and have gone from the book based genre all the way to WOW most recently. I started in original D&D, then AD&D as well as several other book based game systems along the way (anyone remember the RPG made for the Animation Wizards, just to recall the obscure). When video games became developed enough to have an rpg genre i got quite attached to the concept of questing and storylines. I prefer the personal engagement and the feeling of achievement associated with such games. One of my favorite games as a youth was Shining in the Darkness series on Sega Genesis. This cemented my addiction to games that take a long time to beat. (i wiped through Tekken 3 at all levels of difficulty in 2 days on the other hand). Then of course there was the Final Fantasy series and numerous others.
I enjoyed these games but being a skilled player i found the game play on many (such as FF) to be repetitive and longed for true roleplaying that i experience in my youth with my friends in a basement using our imaginations rather then our fingers. I love the uncertainty and the interaction required. That is when i took a look at online play to see if anything was going on. This was in 96 or so long before many of the games discussed existed or were possible. While i did not find any games i did find Irc chat programs and a group of people who played Vampire the Masquerade in a text only enviornment. I played the same character for one and a half years in a mix of 40 players who had a dedication to character and story. I worked my character up through the ranks using both combat achievement ans well as political and social play. The entire experience was mirror of reality, your character being an extension of yourself and a reflection of your personality. Eventually i fell ut of this experience becuase as we all know perminence is an elusive thing.
Much later i got involved in playing strategy games including Warcraft as well as Age of Empires. I enjoyed te story line concepts of these games, and having been a fair chess player, the strategy was intoxicating. Only after defeating the story modes of these games would i move to online or person to person play. Honestly i enjoyed Age of Mythology because of the strong Story, as well as the difficulty. Most recently before WOW, i was playing Neverwinter Nights. Again i enjoyed playing the sotry and did not even multiplayer for 3 months after purchase. I enjoyed the customization aspect and the capablity to create youir own worlds online, as well as the fact that you could eliminated the need for NPC’s with a few good dedicated players.
Now we finally get to World of Warcraft and the relevance of this personal history to the original article. The first thing that must be accounted for is that WOW is an RPG adaptation of a STRATEGY game. Thus cooperation is neccessary for success. In a strategy game, one unit does not win the battle, the well built army does. hus WOW was built with this as its originaly framework, with the RPG concept of personal character development overlayed onto this system. The concept of guilds is an adaptation of earlier quest games (such as Everquest) and is a system that is developed to encourage the cooperation f players. This also creates intrafactional divisions that are actually a fair reflection of human society. Not everyone on one side is on the same side. Ironically i am typically a solo player, or if i do group, it is usually with a few players i have developed a bond with, whether it be playing style or personal. I routinely take on 5 man dungeons with 2 or 3 people and have more success then with a larger group. This is due to the amount of skill at strategy that the other players and I have. So i would find it sufficient to say that the larger groups make things easier for less skilled players, while those players who chose to challenge themselves attempt harder goals with fewer people gain more experience, and in my case, have more fun.
Skill is a relative term and can be applied differently depending on the context. In the WOW context it is how well you learn your class and how well you cooperate with other classes. I can certainly say that players at the same level of the same class and similar stats play the game very differently and with varied results. Though i do not wholly dispute the fact that the game does reward Grinding over skill, i do find that well skilled players spend a whole lot less time grinding away. It takes skill to organize your quest, find the best path to get all of them completed, and to calculate what is the best way to take so you can get a little grinding at your profession done along the way, or just find a good spot to fish along the way.
Usually players of similar skill cull out those they wish not to play with and stick to those that enforce their playing style, forming guilds and losse agreements to perpetuate their inclinations. Of course there are varying levels of maturity and motivation, so you inevitably get players who are Hack N Slashers, Grinders, Questers, etc. Some rely on guilds to achieve thier goals, while some are driven by the motivation of achieving it on your own with the help of a few good friends. I have had it asked of me why i have such a high level character without a guild and how rare it is to see someone not in a guild and my response is simply that i don feel like it. Of course i have had people try to convince me how much better it is and so on, but i simply find that assuming an individual role is more satisfying to me. It is not a better way to play the game, it is simply what i prefer. I have had both positive and negative experiences with both guilds and individuals and i react accordingly to those groups or individuals. one of the merits of the game is that it is vast enough to allow you get away from these circumstances if you so chose to.
As to the the faults of the Honor system i am inclined to agree, they do reward time invested and are geared to reward people with a strong competitive urge. I simply ignore the Honor system and base my sense of acomplishment on my character development. Alot of the personal achievement and satisfaction of the game is in intangibles not measured by stats or rank. I am sure some of us remember the look on a friends face when we just finished an exhausting round of Goldeneye more then we remember how many more kills we had on him that day. In WOW i think i remember who i beat the dungeon with, more so then how i did it. This is the value i find in roleplaying games.
As for the concept of storyline, WOW is attempting a vast task. You are trying to manage an incredible population of individual players while maintaing a static and coherant storyline. While the idea of different server ratings (i find it disappointing that RPG servers are the least populated) is an attempt to cater to individual tastes, the in game storyline seem a bit static. I think this is the game’s major weakness. The divisions used to maintain the horde and alliance sides, such as no communication between factions, as well as the focus simply on raids and attacks that have no lasting affects on your character save for reputation conflicts leave little room or relevance for true role assumption in the game. It seems the concept of role playing is secondary to the concept of strategy and structured goal achievement. If you complete a quest to rid a region of a certain invasion, t is still there the next day and so on. There is no real concequence to your action, in the grand scheme of things, save that which the developers script into the NPC threads.
On the argument of the terms of service and the restrictions applied to the game by the company you have to remeber how many poeple are involved in playing the game and some measure of restriction is neccessary. There was nothing more aggravating then having someone camp out your corpse in Everguest and you lossing all your gear. While some rules seem absurd and restrictive to some players, then are advantagous for lesser players, especially whenyou have to consider that just because you have an honor system it does not mean that players play with honor. Unfortunately this is just a case of mob rules (no pun intended) and having to at times take care of the lowest common denominator. Of course no laws are perfect and will always alienate some segment of the population. For me simply being a player and not a developer, i cannot intergect on the argument of how Blizzard manages its investment except in the quib you get what you pay for.
In conclusion i would like to address the one thing that no one has seems to discuss or consider even though it the final subject of the original article and that is “whats next?”
While WOW has made many vast steps in the development of MORPGs it could definitely stand for some improvement, especially in the personal, intangable, character development aspect of the game. Blizzard has achieved a vast and seamless world for its players full of many wonders and despite its problems is a great achievement. It is inevitable that the system of play will develop and there should be a definite move to develop a more involved combat system that focus more on minerskill, i.e. instead of blocking and attacking being instance scripted actions the strikes should be chosen and the dogde made through controlled action, not simple the cast of a die. Jade empire is a good exapmple of a game that attempts to marry the concept of a roleplaying game and a fighting game, focussing both on skill and personal development.
The area it most needs to open up in is the character development and the inclusion of a fluid storyline that is directly influenced by the players and thier actions. This would require that major NPC’s be replaced by role actors and a staff of storytellers whose role it is to influence the general course of history, while leaving the details to the players. Thus experience based development would have to be coupled with significant social and interpersonal development that is the discretion of the players. Alliances should be made and broken. World should be found and forgotten. Friends and enemies should be made and forgiven. ..
The greatest achievement of a player should not be to reach a certain level, but to have his character past into the memories of other players because of his personal choices and actions. I would introduce this as the concept of Personal Myth Development which so central to the old style book based roleplaying games. This would also introduce the often misunderstood concept of Final Character Death. There would have to be a final achievement, after all the levels and experience and quests, which would let you retire your character with the honor which he or she deserves. Whether is it the final sacrifice for the common good or to save a loved one, a final descent into madness or if circumstances dicate the unfortunate or foolish death, or even the final ascent from man to hero to myth to god, the story must continue beyond the scope one single individual to create a true role playing experience based both on skill and strategy, as well as personal and group development. Such a system would allow the development of myriad storylines under the watch of a dedicated staff of professionals that is probably hard to even conceive at this point, but it is not unattainable. To go into the fine points of such a system is not appropriate in this setting but i am sure we have all had ideas and dreams of such a thing. If Blizzard is not the company to do this then it is simply the perogative of someone else to do it…
March 13th, 2006 at 11:22 am
I apoligize for the spelling and grammatical errors in the last post, but after ttyping all that i did not really have the will to proofread.
Imperfection is the divine fault of man…
March 16th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
As a pleasant aside:
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70348-0.html?tw=wn_index_3
May 11th, 2006 at 3:44 am
http://infernix.net/wowban/
Any talk of this, constructive or not in any way in the forums about that was deleted.
May 26th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Ixis Says:
The problem with all MMOs (that I have seen thsfar) is that their about time>skill
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Guild Wars! everyone have the same lvl char’s (in pvp) same armor amd items same skills, i will take you alittle time to unlock the skills u want, not not at all anything u can call time>skill.
funny to see GvG’s in GW. 1 guild can run a team build and be rank 2000, same build can another guild use and be rank 20, thats skill.
December 9th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
very interesting point of view, has never been conceived of this
<a href=http://oleksondro.blogsome.com/>congo eel</a>