[D&D4E] Some WOTC encounters
contracycle:
Quote from: Callan S. on August 07, 2011, 10:19:25 PM
I don't think I'm arguing 'insufficient'. I'm saying they are not playing to win. I'm not saying people have to play to win. It is, however, difficult when someone demands they are a 'play to win' guy, but avoids perfectly legitimate and intended game elements - ie, as Sirlin example, the guy who says 'Throws are cheap!'. It's about as different as a nar/sim agenda clash.
Well if that is what you are saying, then I'm just going to have to say you are wrong. As I have already pointed out, you don't seemt able to explain why people choose to play one game or sport over another. If the only goal is "winning", why isn't flipping coins the ultimate game? You get to win roughly half the time, and you can repeat the exsperience instantly. The answer is, "its cool/fun to fly planes and dogfight" or "it's cool/fun to fight with swords" or whatever it might be.
You talk about legitimate and intended game elements, and that is apparently the case with the Sirlin example (which I have read) but I would argue that its not true, or not necessarily true, with the City of Heroes or BF2 example. In both cases, many if not most of the players don't get to do what it was they signed up to do. That is a matter at right angles to whether they are playing to win or not. In fact what is happening is that intended game elements are being lost. The CoH players don't get to zap people with their heat rays or whatever, and a whole bunch of dynamics around infantry squads was suppressed in BF2. Just becuase a game is designed in a certain way doesn't mean there can't be unintended consequences which only come to light when it is in the hands of large numbers of players who, yes, are playing to win.
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Gareth, I don't think I've drawn the 'should' gun first? Are your example players, who have had their purpose defeated, about to draw the 'should gun', as in what the other guy 'should' do? To me it sounds like using victim status to determine others actions. They've had their purpose defeated - this implies that someone else must do something other than what they were prior doing, as I read it? A new taboo?
You're interpolating too much. The BF2 server switch I mentioned solved the problem neatly - those who wanted infantry only servers set them up and played on them. The air players were still happy; the infantry players were happy because they got to do their infantry thing, and Dice and EA were happy because it prevented players from leaving. Instead of lecturing people about "not playing to win", they fixed the problem.
I think you go to far in ruling out the possibly of aesthetic, experiential differences, and concentrate too much on assuming or presuming that all such differences are based on attitudes to winning. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a shooter game, sometimes for a flying game, sometimes for lancing from horseback. My attitude to winning doesn't change at the same time.
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Yes, but this is introducing a new problem. What I'm describing is simply introducing material.
Well Universalis has a system by which introducing anything at all is budgetary.
Callan S.:
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As I have already pointed out, you don't seemt able to explain why people choose to play one game or sport over another. If the only goal is "winning", why isn't flipping coins the ultimate game? You get to win roughly half the time, and you can repeat the exsperience instantly. The answer is, "its cool/fun to fly planes and dogfight" or "it's cool/fun to fight with swords" or whatever it might be.
Gareth, you seem to be treating your own answer for how a person chooses as the entire spectrum and there is nothing outside of that? Are you making that claim, that your answer is the entire spectrum? If so, I'll shrug. If not, I'll say the coin toss is already as mastered as one can get it. Some people don't play for pleasure as first and only priority, they play to master an activity. Then seek out another one to master. This hinges on the idea of games as being some sort of training for real life, like the lion cub pouncing on it's sibling is play, yet training for hunting. Games that have a practical use, not just a pure pleasure function. While if you only take games as efforts purely in the spectrum of pressing the users fun/cool brain buttons, I can see how the only method of choice would, in that circumstance, appear to be to choose what is fun or cool to you.
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Just becuase a game is designed in a certain way doesn't mean there can't be unintended consequences which only come to light when it is in the hands of large numbers of players who, yes, are playing to win.
If the game designers take responsibility for their design, there aren't unintended consequences. Everything is their intent, even if in a 'Yeah, that's my mistake' way. Have you read Sirlin's warcraft article, where he points out how apparently it's against terms of service to travel to certain parts of WOW - but why do that, why not have an invisible wall? Basically, when it comes to responsibility, you give authority a waiver, if I'm reading you right - you place the responsibility on the player who is stopping the others players from 'getting to do what it was they signed up to do'. I'm not pitching you a moral imperitive here, not saying what you should do, just describing the structure I'm left thinking you work from.
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Instead of lecturing people about "not playing to win", they fixed the problem.
Well, you describe it as a problem, which was what I refered to. To me, your just describing a previously unforfilled preference. The people who signed up for a certain experience are just missing out on a preference of theirs. There is no problem, unless the designers goal was to forfil that particular preference to begin with.
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Yes, but this is introducing a new problem. What I'm describing is simply introducing material.
Well Universalis has a system by which introducing anything at all is budgetary.
If introducing material without intent were a dial, universalis has it turned up to 11. I think my imagination coupler example has the dial at about one or two.
contracycle:
Quote from: Callan S. on August 08, 2011, 11:39:13 AM
Gareth, you seem to be treating your own answer for how a person chooses as the entire spectrum and there is nothing outside of that?
No, I'm objecting to you doing that.
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Some people don't play for pleasure as first and only priority, they play to master an activity. Then seek out another one to master. This hinges on the idea of games as being some sort of training for real life, like the lion cub pouncing on it's sibling is play, yet training for hunting.
I've argued that very point myself. But Its tangential, because if the activity is obviated, it can't be mastered.
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If the game designers take responsibility for their design, there aren't unintended consequences.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
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Basically, when it comes to responsibility, you give authority a waiver, if I'm reading you right - you place the responsibility on the player who is stopping the others players from 'getting to do what it was they signed up to do'. I'm not pitching you a moral imperitive here, not saying what you should do, just describing the structure I'm left thinking you work from.
Well I don't see how you are being anything other than moralist if you are insisting that it is impossible for there to be accidents in design and therefore that any unhappiness or frustration demonstrates some sort of personal failing. I'm presenting a pretty anodyne alternative - aesthetic and contextual preferences differ.
I'm not interested in "responsibility" - in my experience its just a word which people use to point fingers and lay blame. What I am interested in is practicalities and solutions.
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Well, you describe it as a problem, which was what I refered to. To me, your just describing a previously unforfilled preference. The people who signed up for a certain experience are just missing out on a preference of theirs. There is no problem, unless the designers goal was to forfil that particular preference to begin with.
Which it pretty much was, as they had designed several systems to support it.
We're talking about people who play games, for fun and to a degree personal fulfillment of a sort. It seems obvious to me, given the broad array of game topics in every sort of game medium, that the content matters to people. I don't think it's useful to describe those preferences as some sort of failure to play to win. Which is why, as I initially suggested, I don't find it surprising that there are some people who, while motivated by winning, find themselves attracted to RPG's because of their content, even if they are not the best vehicle for clear cut victories.
Callan S.:
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Gareth, you seem to be treating your own answer for how a person chooses as the entire spectrum and there is nothing outside of that?
No, I'm objecting to you doing that.
I think I recognised atleast one other method of simply playing above, ie choosing simply for pleasure purposes. I'm sure that should be enough for some common ground there, but it isn't and I don't know why at all - until I can figure that break in common ground, I'm just at a standstill? I wont dare on answering the rest, given the gap that seems to have appeared here?
Are you saying I don't recognise 'different ways of playing to win'? In terms of where someone says 'throws are cheap, you can't do them!', your right, I don't recognise that as play to win. I do recognise it as some sort of play method though.
contracycle:
You're not recognising that person A may choose to play game A, and person B may choose to play game B, and that this choice has nothing to do with whether or not they honestly playing to win, but simply for from an interest in the activities of which games A and B are comprised.
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