You keep using D+D as an example, and it is an incredibly poor example. D+D is not a game of winning and losing.
True, there's no winning or losing, but there is randomness, and dice rolling can be a lot of fun. That was the point I was making. It's not a game of winning and losing in the sense that there is never an "end" unless the DM imposes one, but you can still have victories and losses. This is one of the things that attracts me to RPG's (even WoW); they're not finite in the same way as other games. There's generally something else that you can do to develop your character, another quest to undertake, etc. If you're going to review a demo disc, you're not going to get an in depth enough experience to evaluate the whole of the game, especially any "end game" material, because of this point.
Many people do argue that the value of WoW is in its role playing potential.
I already said that I didn't know how much role-playing one can squeeze out of the RP servers. I have a friend who was part of a guild one an RP server that incorporated many quests into the guild's ranking system; in other words, if you want to advance here, you must work on our guild goals which include... They also created their own quests in the game, but I understand these were somewhat limited. I haven't participated in the RP world to any large degree, so I'm going to hold off judging it, but I am skeptical.
Blizzard has written all the story for you.
This is true, but so have other authors. I don't know if you'd consider it the same thing, but I've read Dune many times. Granted, Dune is my favorite book, and the writing is better than the text in WoW by leaps and bounds, but WoW lore is quite detailed and much of it is pretty engaging. I don't think that reading the same book over and over again is an invalid pursuit, and so I don't see a problem in seeing some of the same events or doing some of the quests over again as well. (Again, this doesn't apply to ALL of the material in WoW.)
WoW isn't vile or self destructive.
In my posts, I'm trying to take all of the comments in this thread into consideration, hence my mention of WoW being vile or self destructive here.
It's just a waste of time.
This is your opinion; I'm defending mine that it's not. For me, WoW is fun. Golf might be someone else's favorite pastime. Personally, I don't enjoy playing golf much less watching it on television as some people do. I think that watching golf on television is waste of time, but I don't know that my opinion invalidates someone else's enjoyment of the game.
A show on how Game Theory works is long past due.
This sounds good to me, as it's not something that I've really explored. I haven't intellectualized my gaming habits in the same way that y'all have; that's apparent.
Okay, I've been trying to stay out of this debate as much as possible, but I think it's finally time for me to dive in.
It's difficult to know where to start. I guess I can start with this:
WoW is a little better than Candy Land, but not much. Much like Candy Land, the game also does not test any skills. It simply tests how much time you are willing to invest. If you invest more time, you do better at WoW. If you invest less time, you do not do as well. The only other thing that determines how well you do at WoW is your knowledge of the game itself. The more you know about WoW, the more you can get out of the time you invest. On the fundamental level, WoW is nothing more than a bottomless pit which eats time and money, and gives nothing in return that can't be had for less.
First off, this is a ridiculous statement. I am a feral druid, specced and geared for tanking, which means that it is my job to get and maintain aggro (keep the monsters attention) throughout each pull (a pull consists of a certain number of monsters, or the preferred term, mobs, which are linked together, and if you get aggro on one of the monsters in the "group", it "pulls" the entire group). Now in this example I will use a pull consisting of three mobs, two of which do straight damage, and one of which is a healing mob, which does damage until he needs to heal himself or others. I start by casting Faerie Fire, which pulls the monster and his linked group to me. Then I start my first tanking rotation, which consists of Mangle, which increases bleed effects on the target, then I use Tab to go through all of the targets and cast Lacerate on them, which is a bleed effect, and does a large amount of threat (a term for aggro on each mob, used like a number to represent the amount on the targets. The more damage you do to a target, the more threat you generate. Some abilities have reduced threat, and some do extra threat). After I get back to the main target, Mangle has just gone off of cooldown, and I swipe three times, which hits all the enemies and generates more threat, and this is normally more than enough to counteract all of the damage the DPSers (Players in the group that do mainly damage) are doing on the main target throughout this rotation. If the healer gets a critical heal and heals me for too much too soon, there is a strong possibility that he will pull aggro from me on one or more of the mobs. I now have to react and try to get the aggro on this mob/these mobs back, while still maintaining the threat on all of the targets, else others will pull, and the situation becomes much worse. So, I need to use my growl to get the mob off of the healer, and if there is still another one, growl is now on cooldown, so I need to stack lacerates, which do the most threat, until they focus on me, and we can go back to trying to kill them all. At any point, someone could pull, some random thing could happen, the mobs could react differently, they might heal more than usual, whatever, and you need to dynamically react to these situations, and be ready to counteract anything.
Hopefully, you now understand my job on a more advanced level, and maybe you can see that with 5 people doing different jobs, having to change things, and react differently in every situation, this game becomes exponentially more complex.
Also, remember that this is a very simple example, and in many cases, it is much more complex.
I will continue this later, as I have had a long day.
First off, this is a ridiculous statement. I am a feral druid
No, you're not a feral druid. You only play one in the game. Saying that, followed by a giant chunk of WoW-speak, doesn't really help your argument.
That said, I think WoW gets a bad reputation because it presents an easy trap for certain weak or obsessive personalities to get lost in, neglecting their real lives for the imaginary. I'm skeptical about a generalization that "all WoW players are vile" or even that "WoW is evil"... although I've never played it myself, I know people who manage it like any other gaming pastime. I also know of people who have lost themselves to various other virtual things, like the Internet in general. Whether the vocal asshats are a majority or minority, who can say? Despise the "gotta-catch'em-all" mentality, not the particular game that happens to be the fixation.
Consider fishing. Fishing is a popular pastime of the real world. A skeptic could boil the whole sport down to the basic game mechanic of "cast-hook-reel", repeated ad nauseam. Are we to dismiss the inherent value of fishing simply because the mechanic is repetitive, or because the people who do well at fishing have just poured time and money into it? What skill does it test? Isn't it just testing your level of "finesse" with the cast-hook-reel mechanic? Couldn't you just buy fish from the store, and save that time?
Clearly there is more to the fishing experience than just the mechanic. It's the socialization, fishing with your buddies. It's the relaxation, sitting in a quiet spot to reflect. It's the randomness, not knowing whether the fish are biting or whether you'll manage to hook anything despite the weather. It's the sheer experience of it, the sum being greater than the parts, that people find value in.
I imagine that the pro-WoW people view the game similar to how other people might view fishing - the fantasy setting relaxes them, the randomness provides variety, and through the game experience they gain interesting stories to share with their friends. Yes, some people go overboard, skipping work and losing spouses due to obsession over a pastime, but those people suck and we all know it. I just don't know that I can agree to be so dismissive of a particular choice of pastime, or paint all WoW players with the same vile brush.
Vhdblood, your gigantic paragraph is the perfect argument in my favor. You have just demonstrated, as I have said, WoW is a game of knowledge and time. You have just demonstrated that you know the optimal strategy. Of course, to be able to execute that strategy, you have to spend lots of time grinding to gain the abilities needed to execute the plan.
I've never played WoW before. But after reading your paragraph of text, I can go make a feral druid, and I will be every bit as good at it as you are, as soon as I reach your level and equipment. After acquiring the knowledge in a single paragraph of text, I can know how to play WoW perfectly. Actually playing is simply wasting time.
Just because the game seems complex doesn't make it strategic or skill based. Again, the game of Go is incredibly simple, yet is perhaps one of the best games out there. Meanwhile games like BattleLore are much more complex, but actually suck.
Think about that crazy paragraph you posted and ask yourself, what skill is being tested in that complicated mess? The only skill I can see is the ability to repeatedly execute that plan without getting bored.
WoW tests the exact same skills as Brawl: timing. Both are games of pushing buttons with the correct timing. In Brawl, you have a limited set of moves, each with a specific function and some varying functions that can be applied situationally. This is precisely the same as WoW. The skill of the game is in the timing of your moves.
You can make all other sorts of arguments about how WoW is a crap game, but you can't level the "it doesn't test any skills" argument. All video games test the same fundamental skills (problem solving, information processing), and a few test another few skills, but if you're going to boil WoW down, you have to boil down other games too.
WoW tests the exact same skills as Brawl: timing. Both are games of pushing buttons with the correct timing. In Brawl, you have a limited set of moves, each with a specific function and some varying functions that can be applied situationally. This is precisely the same as WoW. The skill of the game is in the timing of your moves.
So WoW is a fighting game now? So if I start a brand new game, and I time my moves perfectly, I can beat the baddest ass guy in the game? If I have a faster reaction times and reflexes, I can kill everyone on the server?
WoW tests the exact same skills as Brawl: timing. Both are games of pushing buttons with the correct timing. In Brawl, you have a limited set of moves, each with a specific function and some varying functions that can be applied situationally. This is precisely the same as WoW. The skill of the game is in the timing of your moves.
So WoW is a fighting game now? So if I start a brand new game, and I time my moves perfectly, I can beat the baddest ass guy in the game? If I have a faster reaction times and reflexes, I can kill everyone on the server?
I didn't say it was a fighting game, I said it tested the same skills that Brawl tested. Different kinds of games can test the same skills, they just do it in somewhat different ways. There's still a leveling and gear component, and you can knock the hell out of that if you'd like. Though, I will point out, the level thing is more important than the gear thing.
If you take 2 characters, at level 70, at the same gear level, it comes down to spec and skill (in this case, reflexes). Skill can also close a pretty sizable gear gap, so that part isn't quite as important. Think of the gear more like a cover charge.
I didn't say it was a fighting game, I said it tested the same skills that Brawl tested. Different kinds of games can test the same skills, they just do it in somewhat different ways. There's still a leveling and gear component, and you can knock the hell out of that if you'd like. Though, I will point out, the level thing is more important than the gear thing.
If you take 2 characters, at level 70, at the same gear level, it comes down to spec and skill (in this case, reflexes). Skill can also close a pretty sizable gear gap, so that part isn't quite as important. Think of the gear more like a cover charge.
For the sake of argument, let's accept that what you are saying is true. How long does it take to get a character to level 70 and such? How much is this cover charge? If after that cover charge, the game tests the same skills as Brawl, why not just play Brawl? Even if you pay the cost of a Wii and the game, and the controllers, that has to be cheaper than the hours of your life you have to spend leveling and gearing up.
If you went to the game store, and there were two identical games. One has a price of $300, the other has a price of $50 now, $15 a month, and you have to give us 100 hours of your life, which game are you going to buy? Unless your a high school kid with nothing better to do, choosing the latter is not so great.
I didn't say it was a fighting game, I said it tested the same skills that Brawl tested. Different kinds of games can test the same skills, they just do it in somewhat different ways. There's still a leveling and gear component, and you can knock the hell out of that if you'd like. Though, I will point out, the level thing is more important than the gear thing.
If you take 2 characters, at level 70, at the same gear level, it comes down to spec and skill (in this case, reflexes). Skill can also close a pretty sizable gear gap, so that part isn't quite as important. Think of the gear more like a cover charge.
For the sake of argument, let's accept that what you are saying is true. How long does it take to get a character to level 70 and such? How much is this cover charge? If after that cover charge, the game tests the same skills as Brawl, why not just play Brawl? Even if you pay the cost of a Wii and the game, and the controllers, that has to be cheaper than the hours of your life you have to spend leveling and gearing up.
If you went to the game store, and there were two identical games. One has a price of $300, the other has a price of $50 now, $15 a month, and you have to give us 100 hours of your life, which game are you going to buy? Unless your a high school kid with nothing better to do, choosing the latter is not so great.
I'm not talking about that at all. We can have a separate discussion about the MERITS of a game based in a cost/benefit scenario; I'm all about that. However, you keep making the same "WoW requires no skill" argument; that's what I'm trying to get at here. WoW tests the same basic skills as every other video game, and tests the same skills as other games that you've professed to not be crap.
If your argument for WoW being crap is that it's not worth the resources that have to be invested, then make that argument. Stop trying to make the "WoW takes no skill" argument, because it's a weak one.
As for the argument of "if WoW test the same skills as Brawl, why not play Brawl," then we can get down into the specific arguments based on the merits of each game. Brawl is more limited than WoW, but WoW takes more resources to enjoy. If you're short on time, don't play WoW; it takes more investment to get enjoyment from it.
I'll never quite understand Scott's vitriol regarding WoW.
Sure, I think it's a colossal waste of time, but people are free to play it as they will, and it's no worse than any of the other colossal wastes of time out there. Every moment of my day, especially now when I'm still young enough to fully enjoy them, is precious to me. I'll have no regrets forty years from now as to how I spent my youth.
If you think that WoW is a worthwhile use of your youthful days, then so be it. If you truly, honestly enjoy the game, and don't think that you'll regret those hours someday, then go nuts. I'd rather be climbing/biking/skiing mountains, podcasting, reading, performing, learning, and growing. Don't argue over the semantic minutia of the game, but simply ask yourself if this is what you want to be spending the short time you have alive doing.
I played WoW for about three hours at a friends house, after that I got bored and we played their Dreamcast. Power Stone is so much more fun and rewarding than WoW.
I'll never quite understand Scott's vitriol regarding WoW.
Sure, I think it's a colossal waste of time, but people are free to play it as they will, and it's no worse than any of the other colossal wastes of time out there.
It's not just WoW. The same thing can be said for the vast majority of other MMORPGs, most Final Fantasy games, and many other games in general. WoW just happens to be insanely popular, and people as a whole spend a disproportionate amount of time and money on it. WoW gets the most attention in this debate for the same reasons that Christianity and Islam get the most attention in religious discussions.
I'm not talking about that at all. We can have a separate discussion about the MERITS of a game based in a cost/benefit scenario; I'm all about that. However, you keep making the same "WoW requires no skill" argument; that's what I'm trying to get at here. WoW tests the same basic skills as every other video game, and tests the same skills as other games that you've professed to not be crap.
Alright, if you want to stay on the WoW requires no skill track, I can stay there. In fact, let's get more specific.
I think you agree that Candy Land requires no skill. However, that isn't exactly true. Candy Land requires enough strength and muscle movement to be able to flip cards and move cardboard pieces around the board. It also requires the skill of recognizing colors and characters. To say that it requires no skill is not entirely accurate. A newborn baby can not play Candy Land, but perhaps a parrot or gorilla can.
Think of weightlifting. While lifting some fifty pound weights is some good exercise that requires skill, and builds muscle, lifting five ounce weights isn't really anything to write home about. In cycling, there are many skills being tested, but some are tested much more than others. Some of the skills being tested are so trivial that all participants have mastered them. This is why Lance Armstrong won so much, he has giant lungs. Those lungs mattered a lot more than any of the other factors involved in the Tour de France. Also, remember when we were talking about Team Fortress 2, we complained that the game was not the same. Sure, aiming is a skill the game tests, but it doesn't test it very much. It takes a very low level of skill to be able to have effectively perfect aim in TF2.
The argument that you are making that WoW requires the same skills as any other video game is technically true. However, that is no different than saying that chess requires arm strength because you have to be able to pick up the pieces. As I have already demonstrated the determining factor for "winning" or "losing" in WoW is the amount of time invested into the game. If two people have invested equal time into the game, the next determining factor is knowledge of the game world itself. As we have discussed previously, the mechanics of combat in WoW are just a complicated rock paper scissors. If you want to claim there is a reflex and timing element to the game, alright, how much? How much does it matter, and how hard is it? It looks to me with so many millions of people playing WoW perfect, that it isn't all that difficult. To give a closer example, the Penny Arcade game and also Mario RPGs require some timing of button presses mixed in with their RPGness, but to claim those games are tests of timing would be a joke.
Do you notice how despite our large pile of board games, we do not play most of them? It is because they are solved. A solved game is a game in which you always know the perfect decision to achieve optimal play, and no different decision can result in a better outcome. In addition, you have the skills required to achieve optimal play. Such a game no longer has anything to offer. Smash Bros. is an incredibly difficult game. I don't know anyone with the skill or knowledge to achieve optimal play. As has been demonstrated by Vhdblood, WoW is also a solved game. Optimal play boils down to the knowledge that was summed up in a paragraph or two. There may be timing elements, but optimal timing is so simple that it isn't actually a test unless your skills really are that low.
Then again, maybe your skills are that low. I do recall back in the college days we were all playing Counter-Strike, but you insisted on playing UT and UT mods, which we insisted were too easy. And indeed when we played some UT we completely smoked the entire server.
I guess there are actually two logical conclusions to the argument I just presented. First it could be that as I claim, the amount of skill required to achieve optimal play in WoW is trivial, and it is a solved game, thus playing the game itself is nothing more than an exercise in manual labor and randomness. The other conclusion is that you WoW players just suck so much at video games that WoW is actually testing your meager skills. Much in the same way that lifting a 50 pound weight is exercise for me, but nothing to an olympic weightlifter. So which is it? Does WoW suck, or do you suck?
Then again, maybe your skills are that low. I do recall back in the college days we were all playing Counter-Strike, but you insisted on playing UT and UT mods, which we insisted were too easy. And indeed when we played some UT we completely smoked the entire server.
Then again, maybe your skills are that low. I do recall back in the college days we were all playing Counter-Strike, but you insisted on playing UT and UT mods, which we insisted were too easy. And indeed when we played some UT we completely smoked the entire server.
I'm not delving into this argument, but Scott really does appear to be quite ignorant (and indignant) towards the subject he is speaking of. Honestly, he really does seem to have a shallow and superficial understanding of the game.
Okay, traditionally I stay out of this one, both because I haven't played/studied enough MMOs to have much of an informed opinion on their mechanics, and because I really don't care enough to deal with Scott's vitriolic approach to the argument. And for the most part, it's the latter I'm going to take jabs at here.
Scott, you are showing this tendency to confuse your own tastes with some kind of objective quality. The fact that WoW delivers no recognizable benefit to you is as easily explained as something about you as something about the game. You are now also descending into what amounts to name-calling. I actually agree with the general shape of a lot of your points, but the way you deliver the specifics is ridiculous. It's getting to the point where others dismiss your arguments out of hand because of their presentation, regardless of any logical merit they may or may not possess; you need to calm the fuck down if you expect anyone to actually take you seriously on the subject.
For the record, I do not myself play WoW, primarily for time reasons; in my experience, it takes so long to accomplish anything significant in the game that I'd rather just play something else. The role-playing/social aspects of the game are somewhat interesting, but not enough so to overcome the aforementioned time cost (the monetary fee, while annoying and probably overpriced, is the lesser evil by far). As to why people would rather role-play in WoW than in IRC/forum, I do at least have a theory: a bad system of rules and a somewhat inflexible setting still focuses creativity better than no system at all. It's the equivalent of playing D&D over engaging in totally free-form collective storytelling. If that analogy holds, I'd be very interested in seeing the "Burning Wheel" of the MMO world - a game whose rules actually support and enforce the terms of player interaction
Finally, game theory is a method of studying how and why decisions are made, not what makes a game fun or how to design a good one. I do feel there is a relationship there, but it's hardly the be-all, end-all of the discussion. Off the top of my head I'm not aware of any formalized theory of such a thing, but I'd love to be shown an example. Scott's own "test of a skill model" works for him, but again, I'm not convinced it's relevant outside of his own tastes.
I'll respond to Scott's argument at some point tonight, after I get out of work and test my weightlifting skills.
Alex touched on a major point: that the primary reason to play a video game is for enjoyment. If you enjoy having your skills tested to an extreme degree, fine; I'd ask why you're playing video games and not engaging in a more suitable activity, though.
All video games, even the ones you espouse as "good," break down into simple fundamental mechanics. There isn't really much of a difference between Super Mario Brothers, Counterstrike, or WoW, when you get down to it; all of those games fundamentally test your ability to push buttons with the correct timing. The skill is in the execution of that function; Counterstrike comes down to a physical game just as much as WoW does. Some of these games are actually deceptively distilled, past a point of really being useful; it's analogous to the difference between using muscle-isolating workout machines, and lifting freeweights in multi-jointed compound exercises. The machines are isolated to the point that they're not quite as "useful" overall as the freeweights.
Also, I do suck at CS, I'll admit it. Being that I already know what to do in the game (push buttons with the right timing, click on the other guys' heads, etc.), how do I get better, oh Grand High Wizard Scott, Master of All Videogames?
No, you're not a feral druid. You only play one in the game. Saying that, followed by a giant chunk of WoW-speak, doesn't really help your argument.
What the hell? I thought we were trying to have a civil discussion, and you make some bullshit statement. I thought we were speaking as adults, and you seem to be talking down to me like I have a problem. You know full well what I meant when I said that, and you're trying to make me look ridiculous to help your argument.
This topic scares me on so many levels. VHblood's paragraph of nerd and Apreche's anti WOW propaganda.
Thanks for that Viga, but I really think that most people can describe their geekery in as much detail as I did, be it about their favorite manga, and the characters/underlying meanings/symbolism, or about a TV show like Lost, where many people try and guess the outcome of the show with some crazy theory. I think that the reason I get what I do out of WoW is because I enjoy taking it to a higher level and analyzing what happens, more so than some others.
Let's take my earlier description and simplify it to be not so scary, and more what you want to hear.
I hit Shift-Q. I hit 2. I hit 4, 4, 4. I turn and hit 5, then hit 2, 2, 2. They die. I might hit a few other buttons, but that's what I do. This is fine and dandy, but I also am constantly on my toes (I know Im no literally on my toes Xyzzy, it's in WoW) trying to analyze the situation, and decide what to do in split-second situations. What is it that you do in Counter-Strike? Hold W. Hold W and D. Hit E to strafe. (I haven't played in a while, so bear with me.) Turn and click the mouse button. Click. Click. Hold S and D. Click. I don't see a difference here Scott. Enlighten me.
Let's move on to the time-based argument. How much time have you spent playing Counter-strike in your life, and what has it gotten you? Do you have anything to show now, other than being better at counter-strike? You might react better to quick reflex situations, but guess what? So do I. You may say, 'I had fun the whole time, and didn't have to work to get that fun experience'. So did I. From level one, I enjoy trying different casting styles, taking on more creatures at one time, and manipulating the talent system to see what benefits me best.
Let me finish by saying this, and I think this is the problem Scott.
I like WoW. It brings me fun and enjoyment. I like it better than Counter-strike. You like Counter-Strike. It brings you fun and enjoyment. You Like it better than WoW.
I hit Shift-Q. I hit 2. I hit 4, 4, 4. I turn and hit 5, then hit 2, 2, 2. They die. I might hit a few other buttons, but that's what I do. This is fine and dandy, but I also am constantly on my toes (I know Im no literally on my toes Xyzzy, it's in WoW) trying to analyze the situation, and decide what to do in split-second situations. What is it that you do in Counter-Strike? Hold W. Hold W and D. Hit E to strafe. (I haven't played in a while, so bear with me.) Turn and click the mouse button. Click. Click. Hold S and D. Click. I don't see a difference here Scott. Enlighten me.
You could make the same comparison between Chess and Checkers. You just move one object from A1 to D3. Doesn't mean the games are equal.
I hit Shift-Q. I hit 2. I hit 4, 4, 4. I turn and hit 5, then hit 2, 2, 2. They die. I might hit a few other buttons, but that's what I do. This is fine and dandy, but I also am constantly on my toes (I know Im no literally on my toes Xyzzy, it's in WoW) trying to analyze the situation, and decide what to do in split-second situations. What is it that you do in Counter-Strike? Hold W. Hold W and D. Hit E to strafe. (I haven't played in a while, so bear with me.) Turn and click the mouse button. Click. Click. Hold S and D. Click. I don't see a difference here Scott. Enlighten me.
You could make the same comparison between Chess and Checkers. You just move one object from A1 to D3. Doesn't mean the games are equal.
In the specific instance of WoW and CS, they pretty much are. WoW is fairly reminiscent of an FPS in terms of gameplay.
Also, chess and checkers actually are similar games. Chess has more rules (I believe they Game Theory terminology is that chess has more "strategies"), so the game is more complex and takes longer to break down. WoW is more complex than many games because each character has a large number of options available to them. The game still breaks down like any FPS or other video game, and that's the real point: WoW is no more or less skill-based than other video games. That's the reason the "WoW takes no skill argument" is invalid; it's always posited with the idea that OTHER video games DO require skill, but WoW does not. This isn't really the case, as pretty much all video games test a lot of the same skills, and break down in a lot of similar ways.
There's no real arguing taste. It's an entirely subjective thing. People like what they like for their own reasons. You can't really tell people what they should or should not like. In a way, your taste is not even something you can control 100%. You just do things, and your brain subconsciously releases chemicals that let you know whether it wants to keep doing those things.
However, you can look at taste in the reverse direction. You accept personal taste for what it is, but then you must ask another question. What does your taste say about you as a person? You might feel resentful if I ask this question of you WoW players, but would you have a problem asking the same question of people who watch reality TV? What of people who read trash romance novels? What of people who enjoy NASCAR or professional wrestling? What of people who enjoy really perverted hentai?
You can have any taste you want. Nobody is going to stop you as long as your taste doesn't involve harming others. But what your taste is says something about the kind of person you are. You can't say someone who likes Go is a better person than someone who likes Candy Land, as "better" is too general a term. What I can say is that someone reading the classics has a much higher brow than someone watching a daytime soap opera, and that a higher brow demands more respect from an intellectual perspective. I think it is very clear that the brow of WoW is low.
As for WoW providing more focus for the creativity of role playing than an IRC channel, I will give you that. However, I was not suggesting that IRC alone replace the RPG focus offered by WoW. I was simply suggesting that it replace the mechanism for role playing across long distances. In fact, Skype or Stickam would actually be a better choice. The point is that there are plenty of other creative lenses besides WoW. Just about all of them cost less money, require less time investment, and are better.
There is nothing wrong with having a creativity focus coupled with the communication mechanism. But all MMORPGs do that, and they all do it quite badly, and at great cost. Using WoW as an online role playing mechanism is like paying more for an old video card when newer better video cards are free. Even if WoW has role playing merit, all that merit is lost in the face of solutions that are superior in every single respect.
WoW is more complex than many games because each character has a large number of options available to them.
What does this mean? I was under the impression that the game is pretty much solved. There are only a few ways to run instances for dungeons successfully. Mobs spawn in the same places, bosses use the same attacks, the creatures are always the same; fundamentally there is no real change to the problem. While there may be many options available, the game has only a limited number of successful solutions. At least, this is my impression (and I've played the game a little).
RPS-25 is a lot more complicated than rock paper scissors. However, it is actually a much worse game. What makes a game more strategically deep is not how many possible options there are for a given decision. What makes a game deeper is how many meaningful decisions your are forced to make, and how difficult those decisions are. As Vhdblood demonstrated, he can tell you the "correct" answer to the question of "what to do" for any given in-game situation in WoW. A solved game has no meaningful or difficult decisions, as the correct decision is always a foregone conclusion. When you play a game you have solved, you are simply executing an algorithm. The creation of the algorithm is the strategy, executing it is just manual labor. For a game like T+E or Go, each and every move is incredibly meaningful, and it is often incredibly difficult to know which choice is optimal.
WoW is more complex than many games because each character has a large number of options available to them.
What does this mean? I was under the impression that the game is pretty much solved. There are only a few ways to run instances for dungeons successfully. The game is pretty much solved. Mobs spawn in the same places, bosses use the same attacks, the creatures are always the same; fundamentally there is no real change to the problem. While there may be many options available, the game has only a limited number of successful solutions. At least, this is my impression (and I've played the game a little).
This is partially correct, but everyone's inputs change when even one member of the group differs, and even with the same group, you can change the path you take, or which bosses you hit.
I'll give you a quick example. Zul'aman is a 10-man instance where you must kill 4 bosses. There are many trash monsters in the way to each boss. Once you walk in and talk to a guy, a timer starts, and you have a certain amount of time to down all 4 bosses to get the most loot possible. You can take different paths, and certain bosses add more time to the timer than others. The gorup make-up and strategic decisions dictate where you go, and how you get there. You can do it differently every time, and you can get them all down every time, it just depends on your group.
WoW is more complex than many games because each character has a large number of options available to them.
What does this mean? I was under the impression that the game is pretty much solved. There are only a few ways to run instances for dungeons successfully. Mobs spawn in the same places, bosses use the same attacks, the creatures are always the same; fundamentally there is no real change to the problem. While there may be many options available, the game has only a limited number of successful solutions. At least, this is my impression (and I've played the game a little).
Well, I didn't want to get into the very specifics of WoW, but it's almost essentially two different games: WoW PvE (player vs. environment) and WoW PvP (player vs. player). The two aspects are incredibly different, and in many cases test totally different skillsets.
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It's difficult to know where to start. I guess I can start with this:First off, this is a ridiculous statement. I am a feral druid, specced and geared for tanking, which means that it is my job to get and maintain aggro (keep the monsters attention) throughout each pull (a pull consists of a certain number of monsters, or the preferred term, mobs, which are linked together, and if you get aggro on one of the monsters in the "group", it "pulls" the entire group). Now in this example I will use a pull consisting of three mobs, two of which do straight damage, and one of which is a healing mob, which does damage until he needs to heal himself or others. I start by casting Faerie Fire, which pulls the monster and his linked group to me. Then I start my first tanking rotation, which consists of Mangle, which increases bleed effects on the target, then I use Tab to go through all of the targets and cast Lacerate on them, which is a bleed effect, and does a large amount of threat (a term for aggro on each mob, used like a number to represent the amount on the targets. The more damage you do to a target, the more threat you generate. Some abilities have reduced threat, and some do extra threat). After I get back to the main target, Mangle has just gone off of cooldown, and I swipe three times, which hits all the enemies and generates more threat, and this is normally more than enough to counteract all of the damage the DPSers (Players in the group that do mainly damage) are doing on the main target throughout this rotation. If the healer gets a critical heal and heals me for too much too soon, there is a strong possibility that he will pull aggro from me on one or more of the mobs. I now have to react and try to get the aggro on this mob/these mobs back, while still maintaining the threat on all of the targets, else others will pull, and the situation becomes much worse. So, I need to use my growl to get the mob off of the healer, and if there is still another one, growl is now on cooldown, so I need to stack lacerates, which do the most threat, until they focus on me, and we can go back to trying to kill them all. At any point, someone could pull, some random thing could happen, the mobs could react differently, they might heal more than usual, whatever, and you need to dynamically react to these situations, and be ready to counteract anything.
Hopefully, you now understand my job on a more advanced level, and maybe you can see that with 5 people doing different jobs, having to change things, and react differently in every situation, this game becomes exponentially more complex.
Also, remember that this is a very simple example, and in many cases, it is much more complex.
I will continue this later, as I have had a long day.
Old but relevant.
That said, I think WoW gets a bad reputation because it presents an easy trap for certain weak or obsessive personalities to get lost in, neglecting their real lives for the imaginary. I'm skeptical about a generalization that "all WoW players are vile" or even that "WoW is evil"... although I've never played it myself, I know people who manage it like any other gaming pastime. I also know of people who have lost themselves to various other virtual things, like the Internet in general. Whether the vocal asshats are a majority or minority, who can say? Despise the "gotta-catch'em-all" mentality, not the particular game that happens to be the fixation.
Consider fishing. Fishing is a popular pastime of the real world. A skeptic could boil the whole sport down to the basic game mechanic of "cast-hook-reel", repeated ad nauseam. Are we to dismiss the inherent value of fishing simply because the mechanic is repetitive, or because the people who do well at fishing have just poured time and money into it? What skill does it test? Isn't it just testing your level of "finesse" with the cast-hook-reel mechanic? Couldn't you just buy fish from the store, and save that time?
Clearly there is more to the fishing experience than just the mechanic. It's the socialization, fishing with your buddies. It's the relaxation, sitting in a quiet spot to reflect. It's the randomness, not knowing whether the fish are biting or whether you'll manage to hook anything despite the weather. It's the sheer experience of it, the sum being greater than the parts, that people find value in.
I imagine that the pro-WoW people view the game similar to how other people might view fishing - the fantasy setting relaxes them, the randomness provides variety, and through the game experience they gain interesting stories to share with their friends. Yes, some people go overboard, skipping work and losing spouses due to obsession over a pastime, but those people suck and we all know it. I just don't know that I can agree to be so dismissive of a particular choice of pastime, or paint all WoW players with the same vile brush.
I've never played WoW before. But after reading your paragraph of text, I can go make a feral druid, and I will be every bit as good at it as you are, as soon as I reach your level and equipment. After acquiring the knowledge in a single paragraph of text, I can know how to play WoW perfectly. Actually playing is simply wasting time.
Just because the game seems complex doesn't make it strategic or skill based. Again, the game of Go is incredibly simple, yet is perhaps one of the best games out there. Meanwhile games like BattleLore are much more complex, but actually suck.
Think about that crazy paragraph you posted and ask yourself, what skill is being tested in that complicated mess? The only skill I can see is the ability to repeatedly execute that plan without getting bored.
You can make all other sorts of arguments about how WoW is a crap game, but you can't level the "it doesn't test any skills" argument. All video games test the same fundamental skills (problem solving, information processing), and a few test another few skills, but if you're going to boil WoW down, you have to boil down other games too.
If you take 2 characters, at level 70, at the same gear level, it comes down to spec and skill (in this case, reflexes). Skill can also close a pretty sizable gear gap, so that part isn't quite as important. Think of the gear more like a cover charge.
If you went to the game store, and there were two identical games. One has a price of $300, the other has a price of $50 now, $15 a month, and you have to give us 100 hours of your life, which game are you going to buy? Unless your a high school kid with nothing better to do, choosing the latter is not so great.
If your argument for WoW being crap is that it's not worth the resources that have to be invested, then make that argument. Stop trying to make the "WoW takes no skill" argument, because it's a weak one.
As for the argument of "if WoW test the same skills as Brawl, why not play Brawl," then we can get down into the specific arguments based on the merits of each game. Brawl is more limited than WoW, but WoW takes more resources to enjoy. If you're short on time, don't play WoW; it takes more investment to get enjoyment from it.
Sure, I think it's a colossal waste of time, but people are free to play it as they will, and it's no worse than any of the other colossal wastes of time out there. Every moment of my day, especially now when I'm still young enough to fully enjoy them, is precious to me. I'll have no regrets forty years from now as to how I spent my youth.
If you think that WoW is a worthwhile use of your youthful days, then so be it. If you truly, honestly enjoy the game, and don't think that you'll regret those hours someday, then go nuts. I'd rather be climbing/biking/skiing mountains, podcasting, reading, performing, learning, and growing. Don't argue over the semantic minutia of the game, but simply ask yourself if this is what you want to be spending the short time you have alive doing.
I think you agree that Candy Land requires no skill. However, that isn't exactly true. Candy Land requires enough strength and muscle movement to be able to flip cards and move cardboard pieces around the board. It also requires the skill of recognizing colors and characters. To say that it requires no skill is not entirely accurate. A newborn baby can not play Candy Land, but perhaps a parrot or gorilla can.
Think of weightlifting. While lifting some fifty pound weights is some good exercise that requires skill, and builds muscle, lifting five ounce weights isn't really anything to write home about. In cycling, there are many skills being tested, but some are tested much more than others. Some of the skills being tested are so trivial that all participants have mastered them. This is why Lance Armstrong won so much, he has giant lungs. Those lungs mattered a lot more than any of the other factors involved in the Tour de France. Also, remember when we were talking about Team Fortress 2, we complained that the game was not the same. Sure, aiming is a skill the game tests, but it doesn't test it very much. It takes a very low level of skill to be able to have effectively perfect aim in TF2.
The argument that you are making that WoW requires the same skills as any other video game is technically true. However, that is no different than saying that chess requires arm strength because you have to be able to pick up the pieces. As I have already demonstrated the determining factor for "winning" or "losing" in WoW is the amount of time invested into the game. If two people have invested equal time into the game, the next determining factor is knowledge of the game world itself. As we have discussed previously, the mechanics of combat in WoW are just a complicated rock paper scissors. If you want to claim there is a reflex and timing element to the game, alright, how much? How much does it matter, and how hard is it? It looks to me with so many millions of people playing WoW perfect, that it isn't all that difficult. To give a closer example, the Penny Arcade game and also Mario RPGs require some timing of button presses mixed in with their RPGness, but to claim those games are tests of timing would be a joke.
Do you notice how despite our large pile of board games, we do not play most of them? It is because they are solved. A solved game is a game in which you always know the perfect decision to achieve optimal play, and no different decision can result in a better outcome. In addition, you have the skills required to achieve optimal play. Such a game no longer has anything to offer. Smash Bros. is an incredibly difficult game. I don't know anyone with the skill or knowledge to achieve optimal play. As has been demonstrated by Vhdblood, WoW is also a solved game. Optimal play boils down to the knowledge that was summed up in a paragraph or two. There may be timing elements, but optimal timing is so simple that it isn't actually a test unless your skills really are that low.
Then again, maybe your skills are that low. I do recall back in the college days we were all playing Counter-Strike, but you insisted on playing UT and UT mods, which we insisted were too easy. And indeed when we played some UT we completely smoked the entire server.
I guess there are actually two logical conclusions to the argument I just presented. First it could be that as I claim, the amount of skill required to achieve optimal play in WoW is trivial, and it is a solved game, thus playing the game itself is nothing more than an exercise in manual labor and randomness. The other conclusion is that you WoW players just suck so much at video games that WoW is actually testing your meager skills. Much in the same way that lifting a 50 pound weight is exercise for me, but nothing to an olympic weightlifter. So which is it? Does WoW suck, or do you suck?
But to each his own, I guess.
Scott, you are showing this tendency to confuse your own tastes with some kind of objective quality. The fact that WoW delivers no recognizable benefit to you is as easily explained as something about you as something about the game. You are now also descending into what amounts to name-calling. I actually agree with the general shape of a lot of your points, but the way you deliver the specifics is ridiculous. It's getting to the point where others dismiss your arguments out of hand because of their presentation, regardless of any logical merit they may or may not possess; you need to calm the fuck down if you expect anyone to actually take you seriously on the subject.
For the record, I do not myself play WoW, primarily for time reasons; in my experience, it takes so long to accomplish anything significant in the game that I'd rather just play something else. The role-playing/social aspects of the game are somewhat interesting, but not enough so to overcome the aforementioned time cost (the monetary fee, while annoying and probably overpriced, is the lesser evil by far). As to why people would rather role-play in WoW than in IRC/forum, I do at least have a theory: a bad system of rules and a somewhat inflexible setting still focuses creativity better than no system at all. It's the equivalent of playing D&D over engaging in totally free-form collective storytelling. If that analogy holds, I'd be very interested in seeing the "Burning Wheel" of the MMO world - a game whose rules actually support and enforce the terms of player interaction
Finally, game theory is a method of studying how and why decisions are made, not what makes a game fun or how to design a good one. I do feel there is a relationship there, but it's hardly the be-all, end-all of the discussion. Off the top of my head I'm not aware of any formalized theory of such a thing, but I'd love to be shown an example. Scott's own "test of a skill model" works for him, but again, I'm not convinced it's relevant outside of his own tastes.
Alex touched on a major point: that the primary reason to play a video game is for enjoyment. If you enjoy having your skills tested to an extreme degree, fine; I'd ask why you're playing video games and not engaging in a more suitable activity, though.
All video games, even the ones you espouse as "good," break down into simple fundamental mechanics. There isn't really much of a difference between Super Mario Brothers, Counterstrike, or WoW, when you get down to it; all of those games fundamentally test your ability to push buttons with the correct timing. The skill is in the execution of that function; Counterstrike comes down to a physical game just as much as WoW does. Some of these games are actually deceptively distilled, past a point of really being useful; it's analogous to the difference between using muscle-isolating workout machines, and lifting freeweights in multi-jointed compound exercises. The machines are isolated to the point that they're not quite as "useful" overall as the freeweights.
Also, I do suck at CS, I'll admit it. Being that I already know what to do in the game (push buttons with the right timing, click on the other guys' heads, etc.), how do I get better, oh Grand High Wizard Scott, Master of All Videogames?
Let's take my earlier description and simplify it to be not so scary, and more what you want to hear.
I hit Shift-Q. I hit 2. I hit 4, 4, 4. I turn and hit 5, then hit 2, 2, 2. They die. I might hit a few other buttons, but that's what I do. This is fine and dandy, but I also am constantly on my toes (I know Im no literally on my toes Xyzzy, it's in WoW) trying to analyze the situation, and decide what to do in split-second situations. What is it that you do in Counter-Strike? Hold W. Hold W and D. Hit E to strafe. (I haven't played in a while, so bear with me.) Turn and click the mouse button. Click. Click. Hold S and D. Click. I don't see a difference here Scott. Enlighten me.
Let's move on to the time-based argument. How much time have you spent playing Counter-strike in your life, and what has it gotten you? Do you have anything to show now, other than being better at counter-strike? You might react better to quick reflex situations, but guess what? So do I. You may say, 'I had fun the whole time, and didn't have to work to get that fun experience'. So did I. From level one, I enjoy trying different casting styles, taking on more creatures at one time, and manipulating the talent system to see what benefits me best.
Let me finish by saying this, and I think this is the problem Scott.
I like WoW. It brings me fun and enjoyment. I like it better than Counter-strike.
You like Counter-Strike. It brings you fun and enjoyment. You Like it better than WoW.
Also, chess and checkers actually are similar games. Chess has more rules (I believe they Game Theory terminology is that chess has more "strategies"), so the game is more complex and takes longer to break down. WoW is more complex than many games because each character has a large number of options available to them. The game still breaks down like any FPS or other video game, and that's the real point: WoW is no more or less skill-based than other video games. That's the reason the "WoW takes no skill argument" is invalid; it's always posited with the idea that OTHER video games DO require skill, but WoW does not. This isn't really the case, as pretty much all video games test a lot of the same skills, and break down in a lot of similar ways.
However, you can look at taste in the reverse direction. You accept personal taste for what it is, but then you must ask another question. What does your taste say about you as a person? You might feel resentful if I ask this question of you WoW players, but would you have a problem asking the same question of people who watch reality TV? What of people who read trash romance novels? What of people who enjoy NASCAR or professional wrestling? What of people who enjoy really perverted hentai?
You can have any taste you want. Nobody is going to stop you as long as your taste doesn't involve harming others. But what your taste is says something about the kind of person you are. You can't say someone who likes Go is a better person than someone who likes Candy Land, as "better" is too general a term. What I can say is that someone reading the classics has a much higher brow than someone watching a daytime soap opera, and that a higher brow demands more respect from an intellectual perspective. I think it is very clear that the brow of WoW is low.
As for WoW providing more focus for the creativity of role playing than an IRC channel, I will give you that. However, I was not suggesting that IRC alone replace the RPG focus offered by WoW. I was simply suggesting that it replace the mechanism for role playing across long distances. In fact, Skype or Stickam would actually be a better choice. The point is that there are plenty of other creative lenses besides WoW. Just about all of them cost less money, require less time investment, and are better.
There is nothing wrong with having a creativity focus coupled with the communication mechanism. But all MMORPGs do that, and they all do it quite badly, and at great cost. Using WoW as an online role playing mechanism is like paying more for an old video card when newer better video cards are free. Even if WoW has role playing merit, all that merit is lost in the face of solutions that are superior in every single respect.
I'll give you a quick example. Zul'aman is a 10-man instance where you must kill 4 bosses. There are many trash monsters in the way to each boss. Once you walk in and talk to a guy, a timer starts, and you have a certain amount of time to down all 4 bosses to get the most loot possible. You can take different paths, and certain bosses add more time to the timer than others. The gorup make-up and strategic decisions dictate where you go, and how you get there. You can do it differently every time, and you can get them all down every time, it just depends on your group.