"Playing to Win"

Kalazor · July 30, 2004, 05:34 AM

An interesting article on "cheap" video game tactics - like say, a mage spamming nukes for example. Well worth the read. Centred mainly on Street Fighter and beat-'em-up games but in my mind applies to every multiplayer game ever made.

Can be found here:

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/featu...ToWinPart1.htm

Enjoy!

farslayer77 · August 01, 2004, 07:23 AM

Mushasi would no doubt be pleased that his methods to win were still applicable centuries later P. For more insight I suggest the book of five rings and Sun Tzu's the Art of War. Perhaps its just me but the play to win mentality produced such "fun" concepts as.
1. Required raiding you must be on for 5 hours a night 6 nights a week in EQ.

2. Required classes if you were not one of the 6 classes that were needed you got /thanks drive thru. Leaving 10 classes who could reroll or say /screw this game no matter how much time they had to play every night.

3. radar hacks/ map hacks / packet sniffing. All well and good if you were the one with the hack. Sucked if you were one of 200+ people being blocked from completing a quest by one person.

4. Content blocking by killing one triggering mob on spawn for months on end. Again this sucked when it was something beyond your control. Time zones , patching times, all screwed not just the players out of content but the company out of account money.

Maybe just me but I think an RPG is like being part of an interactive story. If you have ever read a book and said "hmm if I was there I would have done this" . An RPG lets you do that. If you are playing to "win" in an mmporg in a way you are cheating yourself out of the best parts of the game imo. Don't get me wrong I enjoy a good competitive game in its own right. Doom, mortal kombat etc I was a ruthless efficent player when I had the twitch skills P. Just my thoughts but if you play to "win" you will be apart from rather than a part of the world you play in.
There is no right or wrong way to play an RPG online with the exception of a few boorish behaviors.

July 30, 2004, 05:34 AM	#1 (permalink)
Kalazor Member	"Playing to Win" An interesting article on "cheap" video game tactics - like say, a mage spamming nukes for example. Well worth the read. Centred mainly on Street Fighter and beat-'em-up games but in my mind applies to every multiplayer game ever made. Can be found here: http://www.sirlin.net/Features/featu...ToWinPart1.htm Enjoy!

August 01, 2004, 07:23 AM	#2 (permalink)
farslayer77 Member	/yawn Mushasi would no doubt be pleased that his methods to win were still applicable centuries later P. For more insight I suggest the book of five rings and Sun Tzu's the Art of War. Perhaps its just me but the play to win mentality produced such "fun" concepts as. 1. Required raiding you must be on for 5 hours a night 6 nights a week in EQ. 2. Required classes if you were not one of the 6 classes that were needed you got /thanks drive thru. Leaving 10 classes who could reroll or say /screw this game no matter how much time they had to play every night. 3. radar hacks/ map hacks / packet sniffing. All well and good if you were the one with the hack. Sucked if you were one of 200+ people being blocked from completing a quest by one person. 4. Content blocking by killing one triggering mob on spawn for months on end. Again this sucked when it was something beyond your control. Time zones , patching times, all screwed not just the players out of content but the company out of account money. Maybe just me but I think an RPG is like being part of an interactive story. If you have ever read a book and said "hmm if I was there I would have done this" . An RPG lets you do that. If you are playing to "win" in an mmporg in a way you are cheating yourself out of the best parts of the game imo. Don't get me wrong I enjoy a good competitive game in its own right. Doom, mortal kombat etc I was a ruthless efficent player when I had the twitch skills P. Just my thoughts but if you play to "win" you will be apart from rather than a part of the world you play in. There is no right or wrong way to play an RPG online with the exception of a few boorish behaviors.