On Monday there will be a very important EVE economy post, not a philosophical one but one with numbers. Don't miss it!
My "favorite" comment is the "people have different priorities" aka "it's fun for someone else". It's a conversation stopper, you can't disprove it, can't argue with it, nor can you use it for anything else than ending the discussion. X thinks that collecting Peacebloom or camping a lowsec gate in a destroyer is fun, so it is OK, strike that a valuable game feature.
Again and again I try to knock down this wall of "it's fun for someone" that blocks any discussion about game features. Here I come again. What is common between the following things?
What is a game? Wikipedia says "Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both.". It also cites several authors trying to define it:
The most useful definition tells what activities are not games:
World of Warcraft leveling fails on the "interactive" part, as the spells on your castbar are equally good. You can "win" it by literally pressing them randomly, they merely function as "press any key to continue" in a movie. Raiding goes up to competitive puzzle-solving, as you must figure out and perfect "the dance" before other raider group does. However you can't really fight them. WoW PvP fails as lack of active hostile agent: you gain points if you lose, so you are motivated to play with and not against the "enemy" faction. Only competitive arena and rated BG qualifies as games.
EVE, despite being self-defined "sandbox game", is much more of a game. You can clearly compete other alliances for land. However it is done on a collective level. You as a player has little (but clearly non-zero) effect on what is going to happen. PvE is clearly a (very dumb) puzzle and most PvP lacks conflict, the word "gank" comes from the fact that one side did not even wanted anything from the other, and the ganker attacked for no reason. For many people EVE PvP is rather "creative" expression than game. The ganker merely wants to express himself as a "badass pirate" and he succeeds doing so even if the in-game action fails (if the target had warpstabs and gets away, the pirate is still a pirate). My own goal of making changes in nullsec is a form of expression too, an extension of this blog, trying to create proofs for my ideas.
If we look around, there is barely any games in the MMO field. We mostly find simple and complicated puzzles, reaction-time challenges, self-expression and at best some "outperform-competitions". Maybe the reason why they can't live longer than one-time content consumption is that there is no game involved. I feel exactly this in Mists of Pandaria: I see great graphics and an alive, interesting world. But I don't see that I'm playing a game, winning or losing. It's rather like watching a movie. Don't get me wrong, I like MoP, much more than I expected. I'm a very satisfied customer. But in a week or two I'll finish all Pandaria content (including the raids in idiot finder mode) and then I'll have no reason to stay subscribed. In EVE I can keep working on supporting TEST alliance in clearing the sov-nullsec from "pets don't talk back" people. But what could I do in WoW? Collect gear I don't need to see content and what will be outperformed by vendortrash in the next patch? Gather reputation, gold or tradeskill points that I equally don't need to see content? Kill people who respawn instantly? Learn a complicated dance to complete the same raid content at "heroic" difficulty which will be nerfed into triviality in a few months? To make people stay, the setting isn't enough, you must provide them a game in this setting.
For EVE trade and industrial discussions join Goblinworks channel.
If you want to get into nullsec but don't know how, go to the official forum recruitment thread and type the name of the alliance you seek into the search and start reading. I'm in TEST by the way.
Wednesday morning report: 161.7B (5.5 spent on main accounts, 4.8 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.7 on Rorqual, 2.4 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 17.4 sent as gift)
My "favorite" comment is the "people have different priorities" aka "it's fun for someone else". It's a conversation stopper, you can't disprove it, can't argue with it, nor can you use it for anything else than ending the discussion. X thinks that collecting Peacebloom or camping a lowsec gate in a destroyer is fun, so it is OK, strike that a valuable game feature.
Again and again I try to knock down this wall of "it's fun for someone" that blocks any discussion about game features. Here I come again. What is common between the following things?
- Eating chocolate
- Watching a movie
- Going to a concert
- Having sex
- Talking with friends
- Dancing
- Visiting an art gallery
- Getting drunk
What is a game? Wikipedia says "Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both.". It also cites several authors trying to define it:
- fun: the activity is chosen for its light-hearted character
- separate: it is circumscribed in time and place
- uncertain: the outcome of the activity is unforeseeable
- non-productive: participation does not accomplish anything useful
- governed by rules: the activity has rules that are different from everyday life
- fictitious: it is accompanied by the awareness of a different reality
The most useful definition tells what activities are not games:
- Creative expression is art if made for its own beauty, and entertainment if made for money. [and not games]
- A piece of entertainment is a plaything if it is interactive. Movies and books are cited as examples of non-interactive entertainment. [passive entertainments are not games]
- If no goals are associated with a plaything, it is a toy. The Sims and SimCity are toys, not games. If it has goals, a plaything is a challenge.
- If a challenge has no "active agent against whom you compete," it is a puzzle; if there is one, it is a conflict. (noticeably algorithmic artificial intelligence can be played as puzzles)
- Finally, if the player can only outperform the opponent, but not attack them to interfere with their performance, the conflict is a competition. (Competitions include racing and figure skating.) However, if attacks are allowed, then the conflict qualifies as a game.
World of Warcraft leveling fails on the "interactive" part, as the spells on your castbar are equally good. You can "win" it by literally pressing them randomly, they merely function as "press any key to continue" in a movie. Raiding goes up to competitive puzzle-solving, as you must figure out and perfect "the dance" before other raider group does. However you can't really fight them. WoW PvP fails as lack of active hostile agent: you gain points if you lose, so you are motivated to play with and not against the "enemy" faction. Only competitive arena and rated BG qualifies as games.
EVE, despite being self-defined "sandbox game", is much more of a game. You can clearly compete other alliances for land. However it is done on a collective level. You as a player has little (but clearly non-zero) effect on what is going to happen. PvE is clearly a (very dumb) puzzle and most PvP lacks conflict, the word "gank" comes from the fact that one side did not even wanted anything from the other, and the ganker attacked for no reason. For many people EVE PvP is rather "creative" expression than game. The ganker merely wants to express himself as a "badass pirate" and he succeeds doing so even if the in-game action fails (if the target had warpstabs and gets away, the pirate is still a pirate). My own goal of making changes in nullsec is a form of expression too, an extension of this blog, trying to create proofs for my ideas.
If we look around, there is barely any games in the MMO field. We mostly find simple and complicated puzzles, reaction-time challenges, self-expression and at best some "outperform-competitions". Maybe the reason why they can't live longer than one-time content consumption is that there is no game involved. I feel exactly this in Mists of Pandaria: I see great graphics and an alive, interesting world. But I don't see that I'm playing a game, winning or losing. It's rather like watching a movie. Don't get me wrong, I like MoP, much more than I expected. I'm a very satisfied customer. But in a week or two I'll finish all Pandaria content (including the raids in idiot finder mode) and then I'll have no reason to stay subscribed. In EVE I can keep working on supporting TEST alliance in clearing the sov-nullsec from "pets don't talk back" people. But what could I do in WoW? Collect gear I don't need to see content and what will be outperformed by vendortrash in the next patch? Gather reputation, gold or tradeskill points that I equally don't need to see content? Kill people who respawn instantly? Learn a complicated dance to complete the same raid content at "heroic" difficulty which will be nerfed into triviality in a few months? To make people stay, the setting isn't enough, you must provide them a game in this setting.
For EVE trade and industrial discussions join Goblinworks channel.
If you want to get into nullsec but don't know how, go to the official forum recruitment thread and type the name of the alliance you seek into the search and start reading. I'm in TEST by the way.
Wednesday morning report: 161.7B (5.5 spent on main accounts, 4.8 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.7 on Rorqual, 2.4 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 17.4 sent as gift)
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