MMO....definition of a game?

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Hey I just made a rather interesting discovery about game 'mechanics', and game 'objectives'.

An objective is a goal that one strives for. Example: the objective of eating dinner is to enjoy your meal and/or to satiate your hunger.

A mechanic is a technical aspect of how something functions. Example: A bicycle requires spokes and a chain link for the wheels to move.

Take your favorite game you have ever played and analyze it to discover both its mechanics, and its objective and you will find something VERY interesting about MMO's.

let us take chess (or for that matter, checkers or anything else like the two). The GOAL, or objective of chess, is to defeat your opponent. In this case the opponent could be human or a computer..and considering garry kasparov almost lost to IBM's BLUE, computers can be pretty damn good at chess.

The MECHANICS of chess: you get 1 move per turn, all the pieces have specifics on how they move, ie: bishop moves this way, knight moves that way, etc etc..eat your opponents pieces, prevent your pieces from being eaten, strategy and so forth.

once again, the mechanics, and the goal itself, are separate entities.

Move pieces around in a strategic manner ------------defeat your opponent.

2 different entities.

take world of warcraft.

Mechanics: now the mechanics of wow are very complicated. in chess one plays by moving 16 pieces. In wow there are many many many pieces, or elements. Use your characters skills and abilities, trade skills, talents and so forth, to advance in the game world. (advancement is measured in many different ways: level, talents, items, skill levels etc..)

OBJECTIVE of playing wow: Use your characters skills and abilities, trade skills, talents and so forth, to advance in the game world.

..........wait a second...whats going on here? How can the goal of the game and the mechanics be one and the same thing?

what if we changed chess so it functioned this way?: Move your pieces around by their designated limitations so that you can...keep moving them...

If the objective and the mechanics cannot be distinguished, then we are not actually dealing with a game, but rather, something entirely different.

To prove this lets take Hordes of the Underdark whose game mechanics are virtually identical to WOW in terms of categorization (that is to say there are items, levels, skills, talents spells, character classes etc..). Those are the mechanics, the goal? To discover what the drow are up to, to explore the underdark and to defeat the big boss waiting at the end.

But wait a second! You might say that the point of WoW could also be stated as: fight in the unending war between the hoard and the alliance and gain fame and power! And interesting choice of words, is it not?

Before i get into a long explanation, does anyone buy that crap? If you dont, and you understand why people really play these games (which i explained above) then you can skip this explanation, if however you are not convinced, this is for you:

Imagine the beginning of HOTU. You wake up out of your bed and see a drow stealing your crap. Only this time, there are 100 other people in your bed with you, they have all woken up to find the same drow stealing your crap, then the drow notices you are there, and by you i mean you and the 100 other idiots lagging the server by standing in the same stupid room, and the drow runs away.

The daughter of the inkeeper comes in and acts surprised and shocked and is apologetic...101 times over. You talk to her again and she acts like her speech is over, yet you see her going over the speech again with another player. But Wait a second...I thought the storyline was there for me to enjoy? I thought I was supposed to have an impact on this game world? I just killed an entire dungeon full of monsters, I was proud of that..and now you're telling me that all the monsters are there again? Well what was the point of killing them if they just revive again and again?....

You go into the inn and see 10 other PC's have Daelin Red Tiger in their party, and you think, damn! I wanted him in my party too! But WAIT! There he is! Standing right where he always does! And you can hire him again and again! Isn't it great!

Look if MMO's were about story, they would not be MMO's. Let me be clear here, there is no immersion beyond game mechanics, no one plays as an elf because they want to destroy the hoard or vice versa. There is no way you can enjoy a story because there is no story. And fame and power are all relative. If everyone else on your server has characters of equal level and equal power, then your character is neither powerful, nor unique. You are a number, you are not special, you pay your monthly fee, you take your ticket, you wait in line A for 4 hours to get Item X, and try to feel special, but all you had to do was wait in the line, and since no skill at all is required, all these other people have invested equally stupid amounts of time and have the item as well! So then you say, well wait im gonna go wait in line B for 4 hours to get item Y, then ill be ahead of everyone, and everyone already has item Y and Z and A, B, C..... You are a moron, you are an idiot, you have thrown your brain out the window and have sacrificed reality for something that cannot every actually satisfy you.

How good would Baldur's gate be if every there were 100 bhaalspawn around all trying to raise 20 k to go save imoen, an intelligent person would say: this is so ****in dumb its insane. They would uninstall, take out the CD,s Microwave them, and begin to chew on the packaging out of pure rage.

This is an epidemic, its spreading faster than a virus, mmo players are doubling, (THATS RIGHT DOUBLING) every 2 years. People are not playing games, they are living alternate realities with no intrinsic goal to them whatsoever.

There is something else that resembles this very closely. It is called a slot machine. You press the lever, watch the wheels spin and hope they line up so you can watch the coins drop. What are the mechanics? Insert coin, press lever, wait. What is the goal: keep inserting coin, keep pressing the lever, keep waiting. Just like WoW, the goal and mechanics are the same, and this goal/mechanic dichotomy, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is no intrinsic goal to MMO's at all!

It is the purest and most basic form of escapism there is, and the addiction rate is tremendous.

I beg this SP community to spread the word. If you have idiot friends who play these games and waste their lives away, email them this, they will probably read it and throw it away, but some might sit and think about what they are doing.

AN ACTUAL GAME, which involves skill and has a GOAL must have a GOAL which extends BEYOND the mechanics of the game, otherwise it is simply completing a task, for the very sake of completing it. Imagine you played through to TOB only to Find there was no final battle with you know who..just sit around and chat with 100 other bhaalspawns while the developpers develop another dungeon you can crawl over a million times to farm an item you need to do..nothing....wouldn't a normal healthy person say I have something better to do?

A lonely person who is trying to escape the real world would keep on chatting and keep on convincing himself that he is making progress, that there is a point, he would keep fooling himself into believing that he WAS ACTUALLY PLAYING A GAME.

Save your friends who are suffering from this disease. Spread awareness of the monstrosity that they disguise as a harmless 'Game'.

 

Man, i typed a few pages of counter arguments but then i deleted them.

Just let me say, extremists' view is dangerous. If you ask any pest management scientist, the answer would be always "extermination is impossible". Even if it is possible, it will disrupt the ecology. We can only manage it.

Implacable is also dangerous. You can see from Sophocles' tragedies, Creon, Oedipus, Antigone so and so implacable characters all die or suffered dearly at the end. Other implacable characters like Philoctites, luckily changed his view near the end, and with help of deus ex machina, did not suffer death.

 

I can only make 2 points (that I feel are mistakes) - the goal of chess (and games of that ilk) and slots is to win, either by defeating your opponent (or reaching a stalemate whereby you have more pieces on the board) or taking out more money than you put in.

I play RuneScape, which Americanidle probably doesn't "approve". I play it because it has simplistic interfaces. I play it to "escape reality". I play it because my hand-to-eye coordination is horrible, thus any WASD-controlled games are right out.

Online games (such as WoW) are social centers. People 'pay to play' so they can talk to others with 'similar' interests. Cybering is a much easier way to 'meet and greet' strangers.

Lastly, if you don't like massively multiplay online gaming, then don't play it. But please, is it necessary to rag on those who do play?

 

I've never actually played an MMO yet I find myself coming to their defense whenever this argument comes up. To be fair, I did play MUDs back in the day (google "multi-user dungeon", young 'uns).

Maybe the OP is too young to remember the advent of D&D, but what I found so fascinating about it when it first came out was that here was a game that you didn't "win." No longer did you sit around the table with friends and play against each other with the goal of one of you winning and everyone else losing (that was Monopoly, Chess, Risk, etc.)

With role-playing games, everyone worked together and you could play forever if you really wanted. You never actually won the game or "beat" the game. In that sense, Baldur's Gate and other CRPGs don't really compare to true pen-and-paper RPGs. The goal was simply to have fun and to develop your character and string together a series of adventures and misadventures. Isn't that similar to what players do on MMOs?

And as far as people wasting their lives away a la slot machine addicts: what exactly do the rest of us do with a leisure time that is so damn productive? Sit on the couch and watch "Survivor" and the "Apprentice" ? "Socialize?", i.e. hang out at a bar or coffeehouse talking about the usual BS with our friends? It's not like too many of us are laboring away in our basement laboratories working on a cure for cancer. So what if someone spends their evenings killing ogres in a cave over and over and over again while chatting (virtually) with friends? Watching "Seinfeld" re-runs somehow doesn't count as 'wasting your life away'?

 

I agree with the core criticism, in a way, but diverge slightly.

You see, I don't believe that escapism in a MMO form is necessarily a bad thing. I agree with your thought that they're not a 'game' as such, but they think they are, and that is probably the problem.

Let me try and think this through:

There was once (it's probably still there, but it stopped being free, so I stopped playing) an online community known as Cybertown - and it was MMO, but it was not a game. It was a 3D virtual life where you could chat with people, buy things for your 3D home, get new houses, get a job and make cyber-money. It was MMO, but it lacked the 'G' (and the RP, but that's not important in this case) - it was simply a cool community with extra stuff to do.

Modern MMORPGs try and attach the 'game' element and, as Americanidle points out, fails because the mechanics and the actual goal are the same - it's a hopeless treadmill where you use the mechanics to use the mechanics. Now, if a MMORPG dropped the mechanics (or stopped making the mechanics the main point of the game) right now - it wouldn't work. They're dependant on that formula. But I predict that MMOs could be made in the escapist way without much or any 'G' at all - and that would work.

Without mechanics as the point - something worth having theoretically should become the point (or not, maybe you'd just get something equally worthless). Preferably something that supports the 'escapism' which the MMO format promotes, allowing you to properly escape into the world without silly things like mechanics treadmills, endless respawning monsters, quests, etc.

If you're familiar with GNS theory (wiki or google it, if you care) - what I'm proposing is making MMOs that properly support a simulationist creative agenda, which I feel that MMO format *can* be well suited for (at the moment I suspect it represents something closer to severely retarded gamism).

Hmm, and that sets me wondering whether gamism can work in MMO format ... but I won't ponder that here and now

(Excellent thread, I say. These kinds of things (intelligently pondering the nature of games) are what I was thinking when Tal proposed the CRPG forum)

Sir Fink:

Yes, but in D&D+other RPGs - there is a point. The basic idea of a lot of RPG theory is that each player is trying to satisfy their creative agenda through play. The mechanics should ideally satisfy this (and thus RPG systems are made often trying to suit one particular creative agenda or another). RPGs are not a treadmill to infinite nothingness - even if there are no winners or losers as such.

MMORPGs, as far as I can see, only support a very limited form of gamism (where the point of the game for the player is to gain credibility for their actions). However, it's a stunted pathetic form of gamism...

(and I agree that CRPGs and MMORPGs/PnP can't be compared - totally different things)

 

I used to play DAOC (Dark Age of Camelot)

Tell me, what do you play BG for? To have fun, a way of passing time from when you get back to your house from school/job untill you go to your bed, with the occasinal break for food etc... In MMORPG's this is the same, the "goal" of the game is not just to raise your skills, the goal is to have fun, and to do it with other people instead of sitting in your house playing a game on your own. In DAOC i met a coupl of good friends whom i still keep in touch with 2 years after quiting, i also played the game with a couple of friends from school, whom i couldnt play games with due to being in different towns, DAOC gave me the chance to play a game with them, without having to be beside them. I was a casual gamer, i wasnt one of these people who HAD to have all the BEST stuff, i mean, who cares if i die a couple of times to some 1337 gamer, most of the time me and my friends would just laugh that someone took a GAME so serious.

So before you go ranting that they are pointless, consider my argument about being able to play with people you usually cant play a game with.

 

I have been at the beach for a few days and this is the first access at a computer I get.

Here is the logical conclusion of my argument.

The point of games is to have fun. This is true.

MMO's are not games, they are reality substitutions.

If a person wants to destroy their own life, that is their own business. True.

True: Gambling (mirror of MMO ideologically), smoking, drinking, porn, taking drugs: all bad for you, all to be taken with discretion.

Incidentally, all of these are controlled substances available for the most part to adults, and there is social awareness of the destructiveness of these things.

It is also true that you can engage in ANY of the activities listed above in moderation. Minors have a much larger tendancy to abuse them (example: when kids have access to liquor, porn, cigs, drugs, they have much less self control than an adult).

MMO's can be played with moderation and control. True.

Also true: it is harder for a minor to exhibit control and moderation than it is for an adult.

You say the point of games are fun, yet I've seen dozens accounts of people playing MMO's for 14 hours a day for 3 months on the brink of mad depression. They claim it ruined their lives, many many people claim this.

I have read an account of someone being murdered over an MMO item.

I have read accounts of people dying playing games for 24 horus plus, by a certain company i previously mentioned.

what this is showing you is that MMO styled entities affect people much more powerfully than actual computer games, or actual games for that matter.

Watching a spider web sway in the wind is relatively harmless, MMO's have proven they can be dangerous in the wrong hands.

The point of slot machines is to gamble. Anyone who says the point of slot machines is to make money is stupid. The 500 dollar jackpot will always have more than a 1 in 2000 chance of dropping (IE: you have to put at least more than 500 dollars of quarters to have a chance to win 500 dollars). If they were not structured this way, casinos would not be filthy rich.

MMO costs 15 to 20 a month, costs an excessive amount of hours per month (time is a human being's most valuable commodity, time is your life passing by).

MMO is not a game.

MMO's can be fun.

MMO's are dangerous.

Like all the things i have mentioned above, they should have an age limit, and there should be a warning on the label (like a pack of cigarettes).

No person under 18 would be allowed in a casino (Im canadian, here the age limit is 18), if the MMO is actually more costly (in amount of hours played by the average player) and more destructive (in terms of isolation and addiction), then they too should only be available to 18 year olds.

Who am I to tell people what is bad for them? I am a human being, part of this planet, last time i heard, there was such a thing as freedom of speech.

PWned.

 

We get it already. You don't like online games.

Care to point to these articles, please?

Which flows in both directions, remember that. I also have 'freedom of speech' to tell people I like and enjoy online games. The real choice to make is whether to make your own decisions or let others influence you.

Americanidle, you sound like, to use an analogy, a former smoker turned militant non-smoker. Are you a former MMO gamer turned anti-gamer?

 

I remember reading about two guys in S. Korea who played over 2 days straight and died. There's a cultural based psychological phenomena going on over in S. Korea (Japan as well I believe) which is similar in nature (mechanism) to Lycanthropism and Anorexia Nervosa, in which predominately young men will not leave their rooms for years. Has more to do with the stress generated for male children in 1st World Asian countries however then actual video game addiction.

 

Then again, so's a novel. So's a soap opera. Shall we ban people from reading or watching 'escapist' fiction?

Take a look at Kingdom of Loathing or Urban Dead:
1) free.
2) Limited by daily actions - no more than maybe a 1/2 hr a day can productively be spent on either.

Depends on one's definition of 'game' - apparently your definition differs from most peoples'.

Here is something we can agree. Oh, and look; this is the first non-absolute statement you've made; what a coincidence. There's hope for common ground yet.

...or not. Here's where I would expect a rational person to use a conditional statement like "MMO's CAN be dangerous." to which I would also agree. But now you're starting to cast yourself (consciously or not) as a crusading zealot who deals only in absolutes. That's not going to win many converts here

Unless the spider's web triggers a psychotic episode in an unstable mind - the person then seeing spiders crawing anywhere there's similar action - flag waving, paper rustling, clothes billowing - and trying to destroy those spiders wherever (s)he sees them.

Before you accuse me of building a straw man to knock down, I merely modelled mine after yours. In the instances of the *lone* Korean man (in his 20's so your "cannot play if <18" idea wouldn't have stopped it) who played Lineage for something like three days straight before collapsing and dying of exhaustion outside an 'internet cafe', or the more recent instance of someone killing someone else over in-game objects in an MMO. I recall that both of these instances were determined to have mental instability at the core of them. "In the wrong hands" is the key part of your argument, which is a conditional clause, yet your conclusion is based on again, an absolute.

To draw a parallel that more people probably remember, one 'hockey dad' beat another 'hockey dad' to death in an argument over their kids' behaviour in the game; is kids' hockey to blame? Or maybe parents' spectating? Should we outlaw parents attending their children's games?

Or should we allow them to spectate, but pay attention to their behaviour and do more than just ignore something we're uncomfortable with; try to help them with their underlying problem before it manifests itself in something MUCH more uncomfortable and harder to ignore.

Okay, firstly quit attributing to the federal government that which is regulated by the provinces; Nova Scotia sets the age limit at 19 (see http://www.gov.ns.ca/just/regulations/regs/gccasino.htm "Casino Regulations" Section 20, clause (2). )

I was going to say that "we Newfoundlanders don't HAVE any casinos" but some research dug up the province's sole horse racing track (if that counts) and there's a 'reservation casino' in the Conne River Micmac First Nation.

But per a Report on Gambling in November 2005 which can be found at www.health.gov.nl.ca:

So again, please stop casting so broad a net; absolute statements don't convince the intelligent, thoughtful person (like your average SP'er) as easily as persuasive conditional statements.

IF this is the case.

IF they isolate people, instead of putting them in communication with thousands of others.

IF they absolutely cause problems with people close to the affected are completely incapable of identifying and helping the affected with.

"I'm smellin' a lotta if comin' off this plan..."

Instead of Big Brother coming in with a blanket ban (seeing as how well Prohibition worked in the '20s), why not spend more effort in educating people of the risks, not of MMOs, but of obessive-compulsive behaviour?

I'm sure there's a few people out there who'd be happy if we could get people to notice and HELP others with this problem - ask celebrities about stalkers, for instance...apart from John Lennon or Rebecca Shaffer, maybe.

But anyway, I've wasted enough effort here; gotta get myself over to the Alleys before I'm all debated out.

EDIT: Oh, and as far as your freedom of speech goes, as some thoughtless publishers are discovering, it stops when what you want to say infringes upon other people's freedoms...

[ February 20, 2006, 14:49: Message edited by: apathetic empath ]

 

I've played Asheron's Call, Everquest and Everquest II. I've recently stopped playing but I will start again, maybe. I enjoyed the games, especially when co-operation and communication was the foundation of the party I was in, good times, most fun game I've ever played.

That's the thing, they're addictive BECAUSE they're fun. I've recently looked at the grounds behind the new D&D MMORPG, and it looks to have a a certain twist that should help to get it out of the 'grinding' hole that many MMOs have dug themselves - no XP for killing monsters. That means people aren't going to camp monster spawn points.

The games people play in these 1st World Asian countries are ALL about grinding. There are next to no quests in the games, it's all about 'hit this monster so many times till it falls over and get it's stuff' reapeat a million times. You can see how you'd lose track of time but I can also see how it would get boring quickly.

An MMO is not a 'life destroying device'. It CAN be but only when wielded by a very depressed and pathetic person. A pint glass isn't exactly a dangerous device but it CAN be when a mad drunk is throwing it at your head. MMOs can be bad when consumed in copious amounts by people with addictive personalities and little self restraint, much like food (it's not bad for us but too much can kill you).

 

Riiiight *distances self from Americanidle*

Okay. yes, I have heard the same stories/read articles about people getting killed over MMORPG items, etc. But what you propose is silly. My problem with MMORPGs is that they suck, not that everyone who plays them is going to be drawn into the abyss and destroy the rest of their lives...

 

But Aik, don't you see that you're just revealing the depths of your inhumanity? How can you be so cruel, so callous, as to not want to ban MMOs?

*cough*

 

Hmm, damn, guess I've been exposed ... Ah, well, no need to pretend anymore I guess.

MWAHAHAHAHA! You *will* play my perfect MMORPG for which I have designed with total escapism in mind - and thus your life will be RUINED! BWAHAHAHAHA!

*cough*

 

@Ilmater's Suffering- I guess you mean something that's called "hikikomori" in Japan? If I have understood correctly, it's reaction caused by stress because of society. Some (dunno about numbers) don't want to endure all the pressure of outside world, and lock themselves into teir rooms, being hermits.
But that's offtopic.

As for me, i play and enjoy playing MMORPG:s. And still i can take care of my social life without much problems. I guess it's just matter of person.