Sometimes others just say it better

Posted on April 15, 2010 by

This.

edit: Fixed for grammar. IBB (In before Bonedead)

About SynCaine

Former hardcore raider turned casual gamer.
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27 Responses to Sometimes others just say it better

  1. Billy Hicks says:
    April 15, 2010 at 12:22 pm

    The guy makes a good point. Its all a mindset thing.

    Tobold (and many gamers) need to be told they are doing well and they are making progress. Without the feeling of success they can’t enjoy the game. XP, Reputation, gear, achievements all tell them they are doing well and to keep playing. Its quantifiable and easy to compare to others.

    Things are very different in DF/Eve, where goals are something you set for yourself and in many cases aren’t quantifiable in the same way as wow.

    I think in many cases its a case of you either get it or you don’t, Tobold doesn’t.

    • sid67 says:
      April 15, 2010 at 1:52 pm

      I wrote this on Beowulf’s blog, but that’s not it at all.

      The difference is that EVE rewards WAITING more than it rewards EFFORT.

      I’m willing to work my ass off to achieve something. But no amount of EFFORT is going to make me learn a skill any faster.

      I think it’s a more than fair criticism to say that time-based skill ups suck. And that criticism has NOTHING to do with the non-linear progression offered by a sandbox.

      • SynCaine says:
        April 15, 2010 at 1:58 pm

        “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
        – Winston Churchill

        I think Churchill was talking about EVE’s skill system rather than democracy IMO.

        And no, I’m not that smart. I just played a lot of Civ4.

        • sid67 says:
          April 15, 2010 at 2:07 pm

          My issue here the standard response of “oh they said something bad about EVE, they just don’t understand sandboxes”.

          That’s bullshit.

          This particular criticism has nothing to do with the sandbox. People can (gasp!) have bad things to say about something that have nothing to do with “getting” the rest of the game.

          It’s like complaining about the UI and then being told that I don’t “get” EVE because of it’s non-linear progression.

          Excuse me? WTF does that have to do with having a “Local” channel that fills up half my screen?

        • sid67 says:
          April 15, 2010 at 2:11 pm

          Or put another way.. Billy is lumping EVE/DF into the same group using that age old “oh, EVE/DF play so different argument”.

          Which is just stupid.

          My criticism (nor Tobold’s) doesn’t hold for Darkfall because it’s not time-based. That’s the issue. Not the quasi-horizontal progression path.

        • bonedead says:
          April 15, 2010 at 2:50 pm

          Lol, you seem drunk too. Knowing history is now officially being smart. SynCaine said so. It is written!

      • Malakili says:
        April 15, 2010 at 2:29 pm

        This assumes that skills are the only “rewards” in EVE. In reality, they are not. Personally, I like being able to concentrate on MY OWN goals, instead of having to grind up skills. If you goal is “Fly a battleship” you’re doing it wrong.

      • Beowolf Schaefer says:
        April 15, 2010 at 2:39 pm

        @Sid67
        “The difference is that EVE rewards WAITING more than it rewards EFFORT.

        I’m willing to work my ass off to achieve something. But no amount of EFFORT is going to make me learn a skill any faster.”

        See that was exactly my point. The things that I play EvE for, the experiences I have had, are all the result of EFFORT. It’s just the skills which are not and that is what bothers you and Tobold. Personally that doesn’t bother me because I measure my progress by other means which I tried to illustrate. If you let that stick in your craw I’m sure it will sour your experience.

        It’s just a different perspective.

        • sid67 says:
          April 15, 2010 at 5:51 pm

          @Beowolf:
          Consider the experience from a brand new player’s perspective.

          Doing ANYTHING in EVE requires skills. So when you start out with no skills, that means you can’t do ANYTHING until you learn some skills.

          Learning skills involves waiting. So right from the very start, the player is taught that if they want to do something, then they need to train it. But training takes time, so in the meantime, there is very little for you to do.

          Now consider that just about every bit of helpful advice you get is to learn the learning skills first. Which, by themselves, do nothing except help you learn skills faster.

          So now you are training skills to help reduce how much time to train other skills. More waiting.

          To make matters worse, the other things you “work” for like earning ISK can be bought for real cash.

          The point of what you do while playing in 0.0 space might be dramatically different, but even here — your effectiveness is based on your skills. Which means waiting.

          Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. No amount of playing changes it.

        • Beowolf Schaefer says:
          April 15, 2010 at 7:22 pm

          @sid67 You are right that in the very beginning you are highly skill dependent. This has changed a bit over time including the fact that you now train twice as fast for the first one million skill points but in any case all the skills at the beginning are super fast. Sure I may need to wait 10 minutes to fit that webifier but I think I can stand that. and I can stand waiting a couple days to use the super l33t Tech 2 version. I have made a couple alts that were PVP ready inside of one week. I don’t think you can do that in WoW(just as an example) no matter how hard you grind.

          As for your claim that there is nothing you can do to speed things up, that is entirely false. There are implants, attribute remapping, refining your skill plan to be as efficient as possible and there are even whole applications designed around this premise and making it easy.

          As for the learning skills I actually agree with you. I think CCP should just give everyone +5 to each attribute and remove them from the game. They just seem like pointless grind to me.

          Is there a minimum amount of time it will take you to complete a specific skill? Sure, but in an XP based game that is no different. No matter how much I grind in WoW there is still a minimum amount of time it will take me to reach a given level. All in all I prefer to make my own goals which are separate from my skill needs to accomplish them.

        • Beowolf Schaefer says:
          April 15, 2010 at 7:50 pm

          @sid67 #2 and to address your last points:

          Perhaps your average first time EvE’er might be aware of the option of buying GTCs/PLEXs and selling them for Isk but I doubt it, and if they do thats their choice. It’s still about how much Isk you can make per hour not sudden infusions. If they do not, I fail to see how this effects them.

          “The point of what you do while playing in 0.0 space might be dramatically different, but even here — your effectiveness is based on your skills. Which means waiting.”

          I was clear I moved into 0.0 in my very early days. Am I more profitable and effective there now since I have trained more skills? Sure, but I did make a living out there very early on and I think; greatly benefited from it.

          “Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. No amount of playing changes it.”

          I addressed this already but I have one addition. I was pretty specific to mostly mention in my blog post only experiences I had which had no skill dependency. A couple do but the fact remains; I haven’t been waiting around for anything.

        • Malakili says:
          April 16, 2010 at 10:25 am

          You haven’t played much EVE have you? Join the right corp and you can be helping them in 0.0 in under a week. The skills you need to start are extremely easy and fast to get, like, day 1 fast.

        • sid67 says:
          April 16, 2010 at 10:56 am

          Oh I’m well aware of what you can do as a ‘new player’ in EVE in 0.0 space.

          As I wrote somewhere in one of these threads, I didn’t quit EVE because of the skill system (as annoying as I found it).

          I quit EVE because it was about as exciting as pissing on a flat rock. The pacing just drove me nuts.

          In fairness, I don’t blame EVE so much for that as I do the space genre.

          Space is big, black and empty. An enemy ship that appears to be an invisible speck in the 40K away might be realistic, but it’s not terrible interesting.

          My point here is that there are plenty of reasons to not like EVE besides the whole sandbox thing.

          So when someone DOES criticize it for those things, stop falsely attributing that criticism to them simply not “getting” EVE and it’s sandbox nature.

      • Anti-Stupidity League says:
        April 15, 2010 at 6:58 pm

        Time-based skill-ups suck, but they’re still much better than the alternative “grind grind grind grind grind for you skills, then grind grind grind some more” (as seen in UO for example – you spent the first hour each day power-leveling your skills and then you could start doing some fun stuff instead), or “follow this walkthough from this website to stay on the beaten path to level level level up the fastest” (as seen in wow for example – you’re not really playing the game while leveling, you’re just crossing over items from a checklist and waiting for the real game to start in the max level).

        I’d like to see someone suggest some alternative and a better skill increase/leveling system, or to actually implement one in some triple-A MMO title some day.

  2. Beowolf Schaefer says:
    April 15, 2010 at 12:34 pm

    Thanks much for the link. I’m glad you liked it.

  3. Anon says:
    April 15, 2010 at 12:41 pm

    “only boring people get bored”

    Bingo.

  4. sid67 says:
    April 15, 2010 at 1:31 pm

    Sometimes others just say it a lot better

    That’s not saying much. :D

  5. Bhagpuss says:
    April 15, 2010 at 1:50 pm

    “Only boring people get bored” used to be one of my mottoes, along with “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds”. Of late I’ve begun to think it’s a little harsh, but I still feel it’s largely true.

    It doesn’t mean, however, that nothing is boring. Lots of things are. It means that, at least in the context of a free society, we all have the option to choose what we do and if we find something boring the onus is upon us to re-direct our attention so that we are no longer bored.

    In the case of EVE, that could mean looking at the game in a different way or taking a different approach. It could, however, just as easily mean recognising that specifically for you EVE is boring and you shouldn’t be playing it. When, like Tobold, you aren’t actuially playing the game in order to be entertained or amuse, but to analyse, then perhaps it becomes a bit more complex.

    I’d guess that while Tobold may find the gameplay of EVE “boring”, he isn’t bored by playing it. He’s gathering data for his blog, which I presume doesn’t bore him. This is in the nature of academic criticism, which Tobold’s style pretends to. Anything is grist to the analytic mill.

    Personally, I find even reading about EVE gameplay tends to sap my interest. I’d much rather read people discussing people discussing EVE gameplay.

  6. bonedead says:
    April 15, 2010 at 2:46 pm

    Lol, grammar edits on four word posts! Awesome!

    Today is the last day of tax season and I am drinking champagne at work! Huzzah! Did I mention the exclamation points!!!!!!!!!1111 CUS THEYRE IMPORTANT!@!!!!! YEAH!

    • SynCaine says:
      April 15, 2010 at 2:49 pm

      In my defense the title originally was 8 words, which is like, a lot and stuff. The actual entry was error-free though, so A+ for me on that.

      So not only are you a grammar nazi (which I love you for), but you also do work related to taxes? Damn homie.

  7. Mig says:
    April 15, 2010 at 2:51 pm

    *puts on tinfoil hat*

    Maybe Tobold is playing Eve so he can complain about people spending hundreds of irl dollars on spaceships and how WoW’s new shiny $25 horse is such a bargain!

  8. Wonderwyrm says:
    April 15, 2010 at 2:58 pm

    This is totally off topic, but tell me you have something to say about the $25 mount blizz is selling in there store.

    Apparently only syp and darren have some sense in the matter:P

    • SynCaine says:
      April 15, 2010 at 3:04 pm

      Already got it on all 3 of my accounts.

      I mean shit, have you seen how shiny it is? Plus I will be all set for my upcoming goblin alt, riding around in style through the totally revamped newbie areas while everyone around me is like “whoo, move out of this guys way, kind-of-a-big-deal coming through on his shiny mount of “I have a huge dick IRL”. I can’t believe they are selling so much e-rep for just $25 to be honest, total steal.

      How many did you buy?

      • Mig says:
        April 15, 2010 at 3:09 pm

        “Let every player know, whether it thinks us uber or newbs, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure that we feel more special than the are.”-Anyone that buys this mount

  9. Wonderwyrm says:
    April 15, 2010 at 3:35 pm

    Hahaha, i lawled for real on that one:P

    Finally someone with some god damn sense!!

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