flickering colours » On Achievements: External Motivations

Videogames are a unique kind of game in that they can justify their own rule systems with fiction. Juul calls this coherence. An obvious task for this kind of fiction is motivating the player, which usually occurs by assuming an identification with the primary avatar, and motivating that character with fictional circumstances. Essentially, since the player is play-acting as the avatar, they take on that avatar’s motivations as their own. More traditional or classic games don’t bother. They take it as a given that they player wants to play, and say “If you want to play, then you’ll accept that this is winning and this is losing,” among other things. This is fine, this is how sports work: there is no objective reason for putting a ball through a hoop, we just do it because there are people over there trying to stop us doing it, and we want to show we’re better at this than they are!! The problem comes when we mix and match these kinds of motivating systems.
via flickeringcolours.net

Fascinating stuff - never quite looked at the 'story' part of videogames from this angle before. That and lots more!

"Angband, or His 55 Desires" by Mike Meginnis (from THE COLLAGIST, Issue 19)

His avatar in Angband was the @ symbol. This referred to the fact that the avatar was where he was at. The goal of
              ____ __    __  _______   _______       ____ __    __ _______
             /       \  |  |/  ___  \ |       \     /       \  |  |       \
            /         \ |     /   \__)|        |   /         \ |           \
           /  /|       \|     |   ___ |        |  /  /|       \|     |\     |
          /  /_|     |\       |  |_  \|       <  /  /_|     |\       |/     |
         /  ___      | \      \__ '  ||        |/  ___      | \             |
        /  /   |     |  \            ||           /   |     |  \           /
       /__/    |__ __|   \_|\_______/ |_______ __/    |__ __|   \_|_______/

is to explore a 100-level dungeon. Morgoth waits at the bottom of the dungeon. Morgoth is the ultimate evil. Morgoth can be killed if the player comes prepared. Morgoth is the object of Angband's desire. He is the reason for the dungeon. He is the reason for the player.

Most Angband players will never see Morgoth.

Having visited the town, having fought a certain dog (represented by a C), having purchased food and extra torches and a leather shield at a bad price, having purchased one scroll of Word of Recall, he descended the staircase that led into the dungeon. It smelled of pencil lead. The air tasted sour and cruel. This is what he saw:

#+#######
#.......#
#....<..#
#....@..#
#.......+
#########

.--''~!A LEGEND!~''--.

# is a WALL

. is THE FLOOR, or in other words EMPTY

< is the STAIRS that LEAD UP. It can be CLIMBED

+ is a CLOSED DOOR. It can be OPENED, BROKEN, or TUNNELED THROUGH

@ is the SIGN of the AVATAR, is the BODY of the HERO

via dzancbooks.org

A brilliant (if depressing) look at, and explanation of what roguelike games are.

Guild Leadership 101: Screaming WE ARE A FAMILY AND YOU BETTER PLAY TOGETHER does not make it so, and does not make it happen

Something silly-sad happened last night in one of the Forsaken World guilds I'm in that made me *gasp* *drumroll* miss raiding. Or at least, the discipline inherent in a good raiding group.

In Forsaken World, higher level guilds get major perks - including access to BoP ingredients needed to craft non-BOP high level food and potions. And subsidised potions, cool mounts, the whole works. What I find very important though, is the BoP food and potion ingredients, since in FW, you DO NOT REGEN (or well, you regen like a dying snail) if you do not eat/drink.

There's a daily instance called Gods' Trial, which runs for 1.5 hours in the time period when I play, and is an 'xp instance'. It's exactly what it sounds like - a super easy instance where you get oodles of xp. It's designed specifically to do that, and it's so simple that even PUGs find it hard to fail at it. Each run lasts about 20-30 minutes, depending on how fast people kill, and even as DPS pugging this, queue times are under 5 minutes, usually under 3. For a healer or tank, it tends to be under 1 minute.

So last night, feeling like a Dyootiful Nugget, I decide that I shall Be Social and Go With the Guild Instead of a PUG that Cannot and Will Not Fail.

And just like the previous time when I did this instance with said guild...

...I had to wait 20 minutes for people to FUCKING ARRIVE after being invited and the group showing as full.

20 minutes for something that, were you to queue in LFG, you'd get a group and be teleported in in under 5 minutes.

So, back to the fact that in the guild group I was in last night, there were two extremely inconsiderate people who made us wait 20 minutes at the instance transfer mob.

And so I whispered to our illustrious GM, who was in the group, '...not to be bitchy or anything, this is just feedback - but... our guild runs are always so slow to start. And people might be pugging because of that. In a PUG I get a near instant queue regardless of what class I am. If I go with a guild group I have to wait at least 15-20 minutes.'

...and she essploded. O.o

Nugget *cheeps*: But but... yeah I get the support the guild thing, but this instance is so easy, and ANY class gets a super fast queue. Naturally for harder instances I will prioritise the guild (being a healer), but for this one... anyone can get a slot - FAST.

Illustrious GM: Well you better hope you are active in the community, it's not about PUGs I will NEVER go with PUGs unless it is a LAST RESORT we are a FAMILY it doesn't MATTER if the PUGs are OKAY. (Yes, she started to remind me of a crazed Christian fundamentalist.)

Nugget: O.o Okay, fine. Sorry I said anything.

Nugget *thinks*: Ur stoopid.

Nugget *thinks moar*: ...so we have to stick together and 'be a family' but people being totally fucking inconsiderate is fine? Making people stand around for 20 minutes so they're deprived of one extra round of something they could have gotten into in a MINUTE that only runs twice a day (once, effectively, unless you stay home and play all day) is fine?

*shakes nuggetteh fist*

Stoopidity.

And so...much as I'm glad I'm no longer raiding, much as I NEVER want to raid again, I miss some aspects of being in a disciplined raid.

Worst thing was, the solution is so obviously (to a nugget anyway) to make it known that hey, people, be considerate to your guildies. Don't make them wait, or else you will be whapped. But no, making the group wait 20 minutes for a 1 minute queue is fine. Stating that this attitude is a problem is not fine.

Stoopid.