fionla

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Playing to win, and other reasons to play

Apr 20th, 2008 by fionla

“Lane over on WoW LJ pointed us to this article about “”Playing to Win”" — the article itself is actually about Street Fighter II, but as Lane points out, the concept could very easily be connected to World of Warcraft. I remember Turpster talking about this on our podcast as well a few weeks ago: playing for fun and playing to win are two completely different things, and the difference between them can put a lot of players at odds. Players who “”play to win”" wonder why some folks in game try to play by “”fictitious rules”" — why not do some arena matching, or why not jump on an opponent on a PvP server when they’re almost dead from fighting a mob. If there’s a mod that will let you “”cheat”" on a boss, or a macro that will let you target opponents in the arena, why not use it. But just as the person writing this article about scrubs sees those as “”fake rules”" (because the game doesn’t actually keep you from doing those things seen as “”cheap”"), many players do see things like honor and discipline in the game. In the end, it’s each to his own — we all play this game for different reasons, and not everyone does play to win: some play for fun, some play to relax, some play just because they want to follow those “”fake rules”" (and any others they come up with — pacifist players, Arena masters, or naked trolls). Players play by their own rules all the time, but that’s no reason at all to call them “”scrubs.”" Being a one-time huge SFII fan, I remember reading that some odd years ago - great game theory there, and he’s absolutely right. First reading that back then, as well as some other things he has written about gaming and winning really taught me a lot about being successful in games.

The best point is that too often we have our own misconceptions about what is “”honorable”" and we apply them to our style of battle in the games we play. These misconceptions usually end up actually hurting us in the end and costing us a victory. The point is that if something is allowable by the rules of the game, then it doesn’t matter if we deem it “”fair”" or not in our own minds. If it is a valid move or use of an ability and you can win by using it to its utmost against your opponent, then NOT using it because of some self-righteous sense of “”honor”" is preventing you from reaching full potential. Once I realized that and applied it to my game style, it helped me immensely. And it does apply to WoW as well, although a “”code of honor”" does have more weight to it since your persona is ongoing. I think there is room for adopting a winning playstyle in WoW as outlined in Sirlin’s various game theory articles.” “What’s the number one thing Blizzard could do better. I think Blizzard does a lot of things great. And for the size of the game, they’re doing a crazy good job. I get kind of tired of some of the anti-Blizzard statements. wow goud They’re the first company to host a virtual game world that has so many different levels of play, culture, and goals. This makes it more like the real world then most of us care to admit. However that said, I think Blizzard needs to challenge itself to do better. They’re already miles ahead of their competition in terms of community involvement and game support. wow oro SOE doesn’t even come close, and LindenLabs just isn’t in the same ballpark. But, that really doesn’t meant they couldn’t communicate and work with the players more.

I look at Blizzard as the best baseball team in the world (the Minnesota Twins, of course!) (okay, kidding…Carl Polad gutted the team this year, they have a lot of work to do. or wow But let’s sat the 2005 or 1991 Twins). Even the best baseball team needs to improve their play, and can win that one extra game. Blizzard is like that. world of warcraft powerleveling Sometimes I wonder if all of them realize this. The best way to make money ingame is… Selling things on the AH. I have way to make 5000g in a week on the AH if I work at it. Know how to do this and become rich in game. eve isk Maybe some day I’ll share how I do it… but I have a few thousand other topics to write on first. Favorite piece of loot. Bulwark of Azzinoth. I will have it soon. Yes, my preciousssss. When I’m not playing WoW, I’m… Seriously, I get paid to play a computer game. This is a dream job for me, so I try to take advantage of it as much as I can.