Your argument that other games are somehow better and help to train reflex, thinking skills, etc while WoW does not is just an argument from inexperience. Sure WoW might require a different kind of skill, and that skill might even be easier to learn/master, but there is still skill involved. Games like WoW that are level based with a lot of equipment rewards have the natural problem that in general, level/equipment will always win between two players of equal skill level. However, at the same time a better player can overcome a level/equipment gap based on their own skill, though it is difficult. So in the end, playing WoW will challenge reflexes and thinking skills in order to be a good player.
No. WoW is not a game of skill. Rym and I have successfully argued this point in the past. I don't really want to go through the effort of revisiting that discussion. We should have recorded it.
I submit that your examples provide no more useful reward then WoW anyway. Other then interacting with friends, how does D+D give you anything of value in return? Same with FPSes, what good is FPS skill to you other then bragging rights? Tetris skill? Mario Kart? All of these games which you enjoy are very much similar to WoW. In the end you are performing a task, which is usually repetitive, and you get imaginary rewards which only serve as bragging rights to other players. Your "skill" in the game is meaningless to anybody else that doesn't play the game. The only advantage that these other games have is there is no monthly fee. Which it is up to the individual to decide if they are getting an enjoyment value greater then the cost, and to quit if the value is no longer worth it. Your opinion is obvious that you don't think it has value, but that is quite simply your opinion. Nobody is going to force you to play.
Playing D+D is basically writing. One could succesfully argue that playing good D+D puts you in the 1% since you are basically creating a fantasy novel. Burning Wheel is even better. With FPS skills you could make a living, just as valuable as baseball skills. As for Tetris and Mario Kart, they improve hand-eye coordination as well as manual dexterity. Those are useful skills which carry over into other parts of life. Playing Tetris is as good a use of time as lifting weights in a gym.
The other examples, reading a book, starting a wiki, are both good things to do with spare time, but are not a group activity. A wiki might involve a group of friends to maintain, but there is no interaction there. Thus it really serves no purpose in this argument.
My example was specifically writing a book with a wiki. So yes, it would be a group activity since many people would be teaming up to create a book using wiki technology.
I actually just thought of something. If you are a healer in WoW, and you are playing in a group doing a dungeon/instance, you're job is to keep everyone else alive. So you must priotize who gets healed first, and what spells to use to manage your mana so you don't run out too quickly and screw over your group.
So basically, when you start getting into instances, WoW serves as a good tool to build resource management.
Also, I spend a LOT of time soloing in WoW, and still find it fun. But the added interaction and teamwork with other players makes it funner (or is it more fun...). But, a lot of the way I play, I make a minigame to increase my efficiency in each fight; but I think this mostly comes from my engineering mindset.
Also, it's only $15/month. For me, that's one hour of work. That's also about 4-5 gallons of gasoline. And there aren't many hobbies that can entertain for so many hours for only $15/month.
Would you still play World of Warcraft if it were a single player game?
If the game were identical, only all of the other players were just built-in AI NPCs, would you still play the game?
This question is tricky, simply because the game would have to be fundamentally different for this, as a lot of the content requires a large group to experience. In general, I would say the answer is yes I would. If the game was 100% identical, then it would probably have lasted about a month or two and that's it. Though, if this was a stand-alone game I have to assume it would have been like most stand alone RPG's. There would be no monthly fee, so that issue is taken away. (no way would I want to pay a monthly fee for a single player game). The game single player does offer a lot of content and interesting things to explore in the Warcraft universe. When I first started with the game, I basically played one character up to a moderate high level while doing most of the content solo (grouping where required, usually with Lisa's high level character). I had not yet experienced any of it so it was all new. The enjoyment from playing mostly solo wore off after about a month to a month and a half, if the game was only single player that would have been about the end right there. (which even if there was a monthly fee, you get the first month free so it would pretty much have been like any other game).
I'm mostly staying out of this for obvious reasons, but here's a question of import.
Would you still play World of Warcraft if it were a single player game?
If the game were identical, only all of the other players were just built-in AI NPCs, would you still play the game?
Hmm thats an interesting thought. For the most part I did a lot of quests solo. The only time I really partied were for dungeons and whatnot. hmm. Maybe if it were like Diablo where you could level your character in single and then also play with other people online if you wanted. Or maybe something more like Guild Wars. *shrug*
I think in the end, MMOs are for some people, and just aren't for others. It's very hard to properly explain why something is fun, and for me WoW is just fun.
I'm mostly staying out of this for obvious reasons, but here's a question of import.
Would you still play World of Warcraft if it were a single player game?
If the game were identical, only all of the other players were just built-in AI NPCs, would you still play the game?
I think Jameskun's take on this question is very accurate, you couldn't sell a single player game that had a monthly fee very convincingly, but people do buy the single player WoW: Oblivion and Morrorwind. I've seen nothing really that marks a huge difference between the idea of a 1-player WoW and these games.
All right. You all really seem to have missed the point of my question.
Consider the game itself and the game alone. Not the money, not the social aspect. Just the act of -playing- the game. If all of the people with whom you interacted in the game, if every aspect of the game, were nothing more than impersonal AI, but the game itself were unchanged in any way, would you still play? How long would you continue to play? Why would you play?
I would play and have played WoW as a single-player game. WoW's core gameplay is basically "get the quest, kill the monsters, get ph4t l3wt, get xp". Interaction-wise, this amounts to clicking on the enemies while managing various abilities, buffs, items, etc. on the keyboard. This (probably not-so-surprisingly) is basically the same mechanic as Diablo 2, which is a single-player game and which I played the crap out of. Same thing with the more recent Titan Quest, which I am playing now. Furthermore, I often soloed a whole bunch in WoW regardless of who I was playing with, partly for more rewards for me, and partly because I didn't feel like socializing; I just wanted to game.
I also refute that WoW is not a game of skill. Yes, if you start a new character you are basically gimped and have to redo a lot of work, but that's not to say the game is skill-less. Knowing where to move around the mobs is absolutely critical to having a successful run or getting wiped over and over and over again. In the early game, this is less important, since if you screw it up the penalties for death are minor. In the end game it is absolutely critical that you know what to do and when to do it (and therefore be skilled). One person screwing up (ie. moving into the wrong spot or doing the wrong action resulting in attracting aggro away from the tanks) can result in the entire raid group being utterly obliterated. I agree that the game is not 100% skill based in the way that some FPSes or puzzle games are, and it's true that a substantial portion of how good your character is directly related to level and items, but saying that there is no skill involved whatsoever is an outright lie. If this were true, you would be completely unable to distinguish people who were new to the game and people who were merely levelling a new character.
Crowe, thank you for proving my point about WoW not being a game of skill. You admitted that WoW is all about knowing. WoW is a game of knowledge, not skill. There is a very important difference. That is the conclusion we arrived at in the discussion I mentioned.
That seems like a rather blurry distinction, and really rests on your definition of skill. If you have the knowing, as you put it, and apply that when playing the game, isn't that skill?
That seems like a rather blurry distinction, and really rests on your definition of skill. If you have the knowing, as you put it, and apply that when playing the game, isn't that skill?
It's not blurry from a game-theory perspective. Let me try to explain the distinction using the simplest example.
Let's say you play the game where there are three shells and a ball is under one of the shells. You select a shell, and if the ball is under that shell you win. Usually, this is a game of luck, not skill or knowledge. Anybody, no matter who they are, will win about one third of the time.
Now, let's change the game. The ball will always be under the same shell, every time. Now, someone who has played the game at least twice before will have knowledge of the answer. From then on, they will win the game every time. Is that person more skilled than anyone else? No. They just know the answer to the game, they have more knowledge than other players, and therefore have an advantage.
Let's make it a little more advanced. The ball isn't placed randomly, but it follows a pattern. So left shell, left shell, middle shell, middle shell, right shell, right shell, then start over from the beginning. This is simply a more advanced knowledge game. You either know the pattern, or you don't. Discovering the pattern, if you don't know it already, does take a small amount of deductive reasoning skill. However, winning and losing is not determined by the skill, it is determined by knowledge of the pattern. If you've memorized the pattern, you will win all the time. Also, someone can easily give you the knowledge, making the skill of discovering the answer absolutely unecessary.
Modern MMORPGs are just like the shell game with the pattern. If you know the fast ways to level, if you know the right attack patterns to beat enemies, you will win. People with skill may or may not be able to discover this information faster than others. But this information is also freely available on the Internet. Anyone can easily be told how to "win" at WoW. It's all about knowledge.
Let's use Street Fighter as an example of a game of skill. Yes, there is knowledge involved. You have to memorize combos and special moves. You have to know the most optimal attack patterns to counter your opponent. However, even if you know all these things you can still suck ass at Street Fighter. There are skills of quick thinking, manual dexterity, hand-eye coordination and more which are required to be good at Street Fighter. Nobody can tell you how to be good at Street Fighter. Nobody can give you information which magically turns you into a Kung-Fu Master. But someone can come up and tell you everything you need to know to play WoW optimally.
To add one more example. The ability to find secret passageways quickly is a skill. Knowing where secret passageways are is knowledge.
I could go on about this some more, but I really don't want to.
Hm. I really don't know anything about knowledge vs. skill from a game theory perspective. Do you know of any good sources?
Second, and having established myself as not really knowing what I'm talking about, does this mean most shooter games are games of knowledge rather than skill? The enemies come at you the same way each time, and they follow recognizable, repeating patterns, so doesn't it follow that anyone could be told how to play a perfect game of Ikaruga? That doesn't sit right with me; I've always firmly put shooters in the 'skill' camp, rather than the 'knowledge' camp (such as adventure games).
I suppose it also doesn't really help the issue that there are essentially two completely different games going on in WoW. Levels 1 through 59 are largely defined by running around doing fetch/kill quests, levelling up and getting items, which I'll completely agree is mostly knowledge based and require less skill. The raids of level 60 on the other hand, are largely defined by fighting the dungeon bosses in raid groups, which I would say are much more like playing the boss fights of a shooter game with 40 people working in tandem. You need to recognize patterns, attack the right spots, etc., and when a new raid dungeon is released, players need to figure out how to beat it, much like someone playing Mars Matrix needs to learn how a newly-encountered boss moves and attacks.
In this way, the process of becoming an effective World of Warcraft guild master amounts to a total-immersion course in leadership. A guild is a collection of players who come together to share knowledge, resources, and manpower. To run a large one, a guild master must be adept at many skills: attracting, evaluating, and recruiting new members; creating apprenticeship programs; orchestrating group strategy; and adjudicating disputes. Guilds routinely splinter over petty squabbles and other basic failures of management; the master must resolve them without losing valuable members, who can easily quit and join a rival guild. Never mind the virtual surroundings; these conditions provide real-world training a manager can apply directly in the workplace.
If you can tell me how to beat Ikaruga, I'll give you a pile of moneys. There are no words in any language that you can tell to anyone that will suddenly make them the god of Ikaruga, or any other space shooter. Even if I had all the patterns memorized, I still probably couldn't beat it with a maximum score. Every game you will ever play has a knowledge component by necessity. It is only when that knowledge component overshadows all skill components that you have a problem.
You are also correct, adventure games like Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion and Resident Evil are perfect examples of knowledge games. Adventure games are only worth playing once, so that you may build your skill in puzzle solving. The story of an adventure game has only one purpose, and that is to encourage you to keep playing. Playing an adventure game a second time is about as worthwhile as watching a movie, only it takes a lot more time.
Yes, you can make an argument that the guild leader game is worthwhile. However, that game isn't really part of WoW, is it? Most of that game is carried out in forums, e-mail and voice chat. How much of that game is actually part of WoW itself? I need some help here, I don't exactly know what kind of in-game options WoW gives you for guilds. Is it just a label to stick on your character or is it more than that? In a way, you could almost view a guild leader as a Blizzard employee. They spend a significant portion of their lives making sure a larger group of people stays interested in the game, and that they continue to pay and play.
Also, what percentage of WoW people are playing the guild leader game? Not many I would presume. The guild leader game is a separate game from the main WoW game, and I think it might not even be relevant to this conversation.
Why not Scott? It's is a "part" of the game, just not as big as the fighting. Almost anyone can create a guild when they reached the right level and I am a guild master in a forum role-play and yes it is not as hard as a MMORPG's would be but it is a big responsibility having 100+ souls asking for help.
Lol! Yeah, Ikaruga is pretty freaking hard. My point was less that it was possible to teach and more that it's always the same when you play it. The levels have the same timing, the same enemies approaching from the same angles, etc. Super Mario Bros. is the same way; if you knew how, you could have World 1-1 play out the same way every single time you played it. It would be super hard, but it could be done. Is learning how to do so gaining knowledge or skill? I think in most cases in gaming (except adventure games, natch) it's almost always a combination of both.
Regarding guilds, the guild game is definitely a large part of WoW, despite applying to many more multiplayer games than just MMORPGs. I included the link mainly because I remember reading it and it backed up what ciel was saying. It's not as prominent, since you're right, the percentage of guild leaders is much smaller than the rest of the population. (I too am unaware of the capabilities for managing guilds, having never been a guild leader; I think it amounts to being able to control memberships, assign ranks and bestow powers and such, not unlike forum moderation.)
Not only giving but being able to take away in a way that will help the guild, but Rym and Scott should already know about that since they have banned one person already.
Side note: That's another example of the 1% rule, the one percent being the game-lords the 10% being the guild master and the rest being players.
I have an interesting question: how do we define "skill" from a game theory perspective?
I look at a game like T&E;, which we have agreed at various points is a game of skill, but really, the skill in T&E; involves knowing the rules of the game and playing tiles in a way that will give you the most points, in accordance with knowing what the consequences of playing those tiles can or will be. That sounds like a "knowledge" thing to me, unless "knowledge" has a more specific game-theory meaning.
EDIT: I need some clarification from Rym.
Consider the game itself and the game alone. Not the money, not the social aspect. Just the act of -playing- the game. If all of the people with whom you interacted in the game, if every aspect of the game, were nothing more than impersonal AI, but the game itself were unchanged in any way, would you still play? How long would you continue to play? Why would you play?
Now, when you say "not the money," you mean to consider the game from the standpoint of its cost being a non-issue, right?
If the MMO aspect was replaced with an impersonal AI, and the cost were not a factor, then I would play it like I would play absolutely any other single-player RPG. In fact, Morrowind is EXACTLY the game you are talking about, and it's a game that I personally happen to love.
I think if WoW were as Rym described it as a single player game, it'd basically be like Oblivion, but a lot less open ended and less complicated. And not as pretty.
So I'd say I probably would have played it for maybe 2 or 3 weeks maybe. I'd try it 'cause it Warcraft, but I don't think it'd hold my attention.
Rym, what is wrong with the comparison between Oblivion and Warcraft? I made the comparison earlier and you said I was missing the point. They do share many aspects in their game-play, and Oblivion is very much like a single player Wow.
But given that, with your exact question, I wouldn't play a single-player Wow. I do not play Warcraft now, but I have played it and quit. A single player WoW would just be another one of the dozens of moderately good computer games with a plot that come along every year. I've not played a deep and engaging computer game in almost 3 years, so I'm probably a bad example.
You are correct that a single-player WoW would basically be Oblivion. Nobody will argue that. I will now attempt to re-phrase Rym's question so that people other than him and I will understand it.
I believe Rym is asking a hypothetical question. What if we had an absolutely perfect MMORPG simulator? You have a game that is absolutely identical to WoW in every aspect. All the same avatars are there. The chat box is there, and the avatars say the exact same things to you. The other avatars react to you in the exact same way. Leeroy Jenkins is there, doing exactly what the real Leeroy would do. Your best friend and your guild-mates are all there, doing exactly what they do. You hear your friend's voices on Ventrilo speaking to you exactly the way they do now. The WoW forums are there with the exact same content. All the same WoW videos show up on YouTube. However, there are just computers simulating all of that. Your friends aren't really there. Your friends are on the beach.
You are playing a game that is 100% identical to WoW. The same video comes out of the monitor. The same audio comes out of the speakers. The same input from your keyboard and mouse have the exact same effect on the video and audio output as they do now. The only difference is that there are no real human beings making it happen. It is all being done by computers which can perfectly simulate all keyboard, mouse and microphone input your friends put into WoW.
Yes, this is technologically impossible at the present time, but this is a hypothetical quesiton intended to spark intellectual discussion.
No, I would not play that game. This has nothing to do with the (lack of) merits of WoW though, but rather because it would be plain old creepy to have computers perfectly impersonate my friends online. If it were just full of lifelike NPCs that impersonated invented people, then I would probably have the same relationship to this game that I did with WoW: play it for a while until it gets boring, then stop.
hmm it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure that people would play it as much as they do WoW, 'cause they know they aren't conversing with a real person, no matter how real you make it.
What Scott just said made me think about a book I recently read. It talked about human consciousness and if a computer could perfectly simulate human consciousness would a person be able to tell if it was alive? Or rather would itself be alive in the process? What defines consciousness and how does one know if other people are conscious like us? I hope that as progress is being made in Artificial Intelligence, mankind will try to define parameters for "being alive".
If there were a game that could perfectly emulate the human mind, would it not be the same as playing against humans. They would NOT be impersonating people. They would be in themselves "people", conscious minds that would adapt and react to stimuli and other minds. Not only that but take those minds and place them in physical bodies that could manipulate the world around them. Would they be people? If you could not tell over the Internet then would they not be people, just in mechanical bodies?
I think that if what Scott proposed became a reality, I would be required to check it out once just to see how good this AI was. But I would not be inclined to continue to play a game like that.
I stand by what I said before. If WoW was a single player game by design (basically changing/removing the content that requires multiple people) then I might have still played, but certainly not for long. I would also be less interested if the game was as WoW is, in that there is no end, just more content coming out forever to explore. If it was a WoW RPG that had a climax and could be completed then it would be more interesting.
The only reason I started to play WoW was because Lisa was already playing and a bunch of other friends all started as well. While the game by itself is enjoyable and I had some fun even playing solo, playing with real life friends and fighting against real people is what makes the game interesting for the longer term.
The only reason I started to play WoW was because Lisa was already playing and a bunch of other friends all started as well. While the game by itself is enjoyable and I had some fun even playing solo, playing with real life friends and fighting against real people is what makes the game interesting for the longer term.
But in this hypothetical situation the game experience would be absolutely identical to the one in which you are indeed playing with your friends. So what you're basically saying is that it doesn't really matter what the game is, you get your jollies just by knowing that there are human beings out there somewhere controlling some portion of the game.
Comments
Would you still play World of Warcraft if it were a single player game?
If the game were identical, only all of the other players were just built-in AI NPCs, would you still play the game?
So basically, when you start getting into instances, WoW serves as a good tool to build resource management.
Also, I spend a LOT of time soloing in WoW, and still find it fun. But the added interaction and teamwork with other players makes it funner (or is it more fun...). But, a lot of the way I play, I make a minigame to increase my efficiency in each fight; but I think this mostly comes from my engineering mindset.
Also, it's only $15/month. For me, that's one hour of work. That's also about 4-5 gallons of gasoline. And there aren't many hobbies that can entertain for so many hours for only $15/month.
Different strokes for different folks.
Consider the game itself and the game alone. Not the money, not the social aspect. Just the act of -playing- the game. If all of the people with whom you interacted in the game, if every aspect of the game, were nothing more than impersonal AI, but the game itself were unchanged in any way, would you still play? How long would you continue to play? Why would you play?
I also refute that WoW is not a game of skill. Yes, if you start a new character you are basically gimped and have to redo a lot of work, but that's not to say the game is skill-less. Knowing where to move around the mobs is absolutely critical to having a successful run or getting wiped over and over and over again. In the early game, this is less important, since if you screw it up the penalties for death are minor. In the end game it is absolutely critical that you know what to do and when to do it (and therefore be skilled). One person screwing up (ie. moving into the wrong spot or doing the wrong action resulting in attracting aggro away from the tanks) can result in the entire raid group being utterly obliterated. I agree that the game is not 100% skill based in the way that some FPSes or puzzle games are, and it's true that a substantial portion of how good your character is directly related to level and items, but saying that there is no skill involved whatsoever is an outright lie. If this were true, you would be completely unable to distinguish people who were new to the game and people who were merely levelling a new character.
Let's say you play the game where there are three shells and a ball is under one of the shells. You select a shell, and if the ball is under that shell you win. Usually, this is a game of luck, not skill or knowledge. Anybody, no matter who they are, will win about one third of the time.
Now, let's change the game. The ball will always be under the same shell, every time. Now, someone who has played the game at least twice before will have knowledge of the answer. From then on, they will win the game every time. Is that person more skilled than anyone else? No. They just know the answer to the game, they have more knowledge than other players, and therefore have an advantage.
Let's make it a little more advanced. The ball isn't placed randomly, but it follows a pattern. So left shell, left shell, middle shell, middle shell, right shell, right shell, then start over from the beginning. This is simply a more advanced knowledge game. You either know the pattern, or you don't. Discovering the pattern, if you don't know it already, does take a small amount of deductive reasoning skill. However, winning and losing is not determined by the skill, it is determined by knowledge of the pattern. If you've memorized the pattern, you will win all the time. Also, someone can easily give you the knowledge, making the skill of discovering the answer absolutely unecessary.
Modern MMORPGs are just like the shell game with the pattern. If you know the fast ways to level, if you know the right attack patterns to beat enemies, you will win. People with skill may or may not be able to discover this information faster than others. But this information is also freely available on the Internet. Anyone can easily be told how to "win" at WoW. It's all about knowledge.
Let's use Street Fighter as an example of a game of skill. Yes, there is knowledge involved. You have to memorize combos and special moves. You have to know the most optimal attack patterns to counter your opponent. However, even if you know all these things you can still suck ass at Street Fighter. There are skills of quick thinking, manual dexterity, hand-eye coordination and more which are required to be good at Street Fighter. Nobody can tell you how to be good at Street Fighter. Nobody can give you information which magically turns you into a Kung-Fu Master. But someone can come up and tell you everything you need to know to play WoW optimally.
To add one more example. The ability to find secret passageways quickly is a skill. Knowing where secret passageways are is knowledge.
I could go on about this some more, but I really don't want to.
Leadership skills,
Managing skills,
and Teamwork among others.
Second, and having established myself as not really knowing what I'm talking about, does this mean most shooter games are games of knowledge rather than skill? The enemies come at you the same way each time, and they follow recognizable, repeating patterns, so doesn't it follow that anyone could be told how to play a perfect game of Ikaruga? That doesn't sit right with me; I've always firmly put shooters in the 'skill' camp, rather than the 'knowledge' camp (such as adventure games).
I suppose it also doesn't really help the issue that there are essentially two completely different games going on in WoW. Levels 1 through 59 are largely defined by running around doing fetch/kill quests, levelling up and getting items, which I'll completely agree is mostly knowledge based and require less skill. The raids of level 60 on the other hand, are largely defined by fighting the dungeon bosses in raid groups, which I would say are much more like playing the boss fights of a shooter game with 40 people working in tandem. You need to recognize patterns, attack the right spots, etc., and when a new raid dungeon is released, players need to figure out how to beat it, much like someone playing Mars Matrix needs to learn how a newly-encountered boss moves and attacks.
Regarding the leadership/management abilties ciel mort mentioned, see the following from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/learn.html
You are also correct, adventure games like Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion and Resident Evil are perfect examples of knowledge games. Adventure games are only worth playing once, so that you may build your skill in puzzle solving. The story of an adventure game has only one purpose, and that is to encourage you to keep playing. Playing an adventure game a second time is about as worthwhile as watching a movie, only it takes a lot more time.
Yes, you can make an argument that the guild leader game is worthwhile. However, that game isn't really part of WoW, is it? Most of that game is carried out in forums, e-mail and voice chat. How much of that game is actually part of WoW itself? I need some help here, I don't exactly know what kind of in-game options WoW gives you for guilds. Is it just a label to stick on your character or is it more than that? In a way, you could almost view a guild leader as a Blizzard employee. They spend a significant portion of their lives making sure a larger group of people stays interested in the game, and that they continue to pay and play.
Also, what percentage of WoW people are playing the guild leader game? Not many I would presume. The guild leader game is a separate game from the main WoW game, and I think it might not even be relevant to this conversation.
I agree with your statement about FPS games.
Regarding guilds, the guild game is definitely a large part of WoW, despite applying to many more multiplayer games than just MMORPGs. I included the link mainly because I remember reading it and it backed up what ciel was saying. It's not as prominent, since you're right, the percentage of guild leaders is much smaller than the rest of the population. (I too am unaware of the capabilities for managing guilds, having never been a guild leader; I think it amounts to being able to control memberships, assign ranks and bestow powers and such, not unlike forum moderation.)
Side note: That's another example of the 1% rule, the one percent being the game-lords the 10% being the guild master and the rest being players.
I look at a game like T&E;, which we have agreed at various points is a game of skill, but really, the skill in T&E; involves knowing the rules of the game and playing tiles in a way that will give you the most points, in accordance with knowing what the consequences of playing those tiles can or will be. That sounds like a "knowledge" thing to me, unless "knowledge" has a more specific game-theory meaning.
EDIT: I need some clarification from Rym. Now, when you say "not the money," you mean to consider the game from the standpoint of its cost being a non-issue, right?
If the MMO aspect was replaced with an impersonal AI, and the cost were not a factor, then I would play it like I would play absolutely any other single-player RPG. In fact, Morrowind is EXACTLY the game you are talking about, and it's a game that I personally happen to love.
So I'd say I probably would have played it for maybe 2 or 3 weeks maybe. I'd try it 'cause it Warcraft, but I don't think it'd hold my attention.
But given that, with your exact question, I wouldn't play a single-player Wow. I do not play Warcraft now, but I have played it and quit. A single player WoW would just be another one of the dozens of moderately good computer games with a plot that come along every year. I've not played a deep and engaging computer game in almost 3 years, so I'm probably a bad example.
I believe Rym is asking a hypothetical question. What if we had an absolutely perfect MMORPG simulator? You have a game that is absolutely identical to WoW in every aspect. All the same avatars are there. The chat box is there, and the avatars say the exact same things to you. The other avatars react to you in the exact same way. Leeroy Jenkins is there, doing exactly what the real Leeroy would do. Your best friend and your guild-mates are all there, doing exactly what they do. You hear your friend's voices on Ventrilo speaking to you exactly the way they do now. The WoW forums are there with the exact same content. All the same WoW videos show up on YouTube. However, there are just computers simulating all of that. Your friends aren't really there. Your friends are on the beach.
You are playing a game that is 100% identical to WoW. The same video comes out of the monitor. The same audio comes out of the speakers. The same input from your keyboard and mouse have the exact same effect on the video and audio output as they do now. The only difference is that there are no real human beings making it happen. It is all being done by computers which can perfectly simulate all keyboard, mouse and microphone input your friends put into WoW.
Yes, this is technologically impossible at the present time, but this is a hypothetical quesiton intended to spark intellectual discussion.
If there were a game that could perfectly emulate the human mind, would it not be the same as playing against humans. They would NOT be impersonating people. They would be in themselves "people", conscious minds that would adapt and react to stimuli and other minds. Not only that but take those minds and place them in physical bodies that could manipulate the world around them. Would they be people? If you could not tell over the Internet then would they not be people, just in mechanical bodies?
I stand by what I said before. If WoW was a single player game by design (basically changing/removing the content that requires multiple people) then I might have still played, but certainly not for long. I would also be less interested if the game was as WoW is, in that there is no end, just more content coming out forever to explore. If it was a WoW RPG that had a climax and could be completed then it would be more interesting.
The only reason I started to play WoW was because Lisa was already playing and a bunch of other friends all started as well. While the game by itself is enjoyable and I had some fun even playing solo, playing with real life friends and fighting against real people is what makes the game interesting for the longer term.