I'm honestly not sure how to summarize this video. It's a very interesting look at the way that the impulse to "optimize" gameplay affects the culture surrounding games, especially MMOs and other...
I'm honestly not sure how to summarize this video. It's a very interesting look at the way that the impulse to "optimize" gameplay affects the culture surrounding games, especially MMOs and other multiplayer games. It particularly looks at World of Warcraft and the social norms that have developed around and within the game. It's a long watch but I found it really interesting, and I have zero connection to WoW and have never played it.
The point about WoW classic was really fascinating. They wound the game version back to 2005's WoW and declared they had brought back the experience of old WoW, but the game doesn't just consist...
The point about WoW classic was really fascinating. They wound the game version back to 2005's WoW and declared they had brought back the experience of old WoW, but the game doesn't just consist of Blizzard's software; it's also made up of addons, websites, culture, and people. Winding back the software wasn't enough to fully recreate old WoW. In some sense it really is gone forever.
EDIT: It has literally just occurred to me that my hobby project to recreate the experience of "old YouTube" by filtering out for-profit and commercialised videos is going to run into similar problems.
Another great video by Dan. Probably my favorite content creator at this point. I really loved this video because of the unique position I find myself in. My formative years in gaming are the same...
Another great video by Dan. Probably my favorite content creator at this point.
I really loved this video because of the unique position I find myself in. My formative years in gaming are the same era as the rise of addons. And during that time, I was definitely one of the players always looking to “optimize fun” where “optimize fun”==“make the most OP character and win PvP fights”. As time has gone on, I’ve really flipped sides. I still love mods and addons, but now I love them for PvE or just game mods. I now actively hate the “optimize for competitive” mindset built into games and that is the norm in many game communities. I still think modding is one of the best and most important parts of gaming, but what kinds of mods I value and why I value them has almost reversed. It was interesting to watch this video from the perspective of someone who was the instrumental play obsessed gamer during the timeline of events the video describes, while aligning with Dan in the modern-day.
That's a really interesting perspective! I've never been particularly pulled toward extreme optimization. I'm not completely immune to it, but I find that getting too drawn into getting every...
That's a really interesting perspective!
I've never been particularly pulled toward extreme optimization. I'm not completely immune to it, but I find that getting too drawn into getting every possible point of damage or perfecting movement or whatever the optimization is just sucks a lot of the fun of exploration or discovery out of games for me.
I've noticed this tension in my gaming group as well. We tend to play a lot of survival/crafting type games just because those are the types of games that work for a group that can range anywhere from 3 to 8 people on a given night who aren't interested in pure PVP games. There's one person in our group that usually hits the game wikis and guides as soon as we start playing a new game, when a lot of the rest of us are still exploring the mechanics and figuring things out. There have been times when that really sucked the interest out of a game for us, although some times it sped up a boring resource or skill grind that would have killed interest similarly.
I don't really have a conclusion to draw from that. It's not something that we've solved in our own group, we just tend to deal with it as it comes up. I did find this video interesting, just because it's something I've thought about some, but never to this degree.
I'm honestly not sure how to summarize this video. It's a very interesting look at the way that the impulse to "optimize" gameplay affects the culture surrounding games, especially MMOs and other multiplayer games. It particularly looks at World of Warcraft and the social norms that have developed around and within the game. It's a long watch but I found it really interesting, and I have zero connection to WoW and have never played it.
The point about WoW classic was really fascinating. They wound the game version back to 2005's WoW and declared they had brought back the experience of old WoW, but the game doesn't just consist of Blizzard's software; it's also made up of addons, websites, culture, and people. Winding back the software wasn't enough to fully recreate old WoW. In some sense it really is gone forever.
EDIT: It has literally just occurred to me that my hobby project to recreate the experience of "old YouTube" by filtering out for-profit and commercialised videos is going to run into similar problems.
Another great video by Dan. Probably my favorite content creator at this point.
I really loved this video because of the unique position I find myself in. My formative years in gaming are the same era as the rise of addons. And during that time, I was definitely one of the players always looking to “optimize fun” where “optimize fun”==“make the most OP character and win PvP fights”. As time has gone on, I’ve really flipped sides. I still love mods and addons, but now I love them for PvE or just game mods. I now actively hate the “optimize for competitive” mindset built into games and that is the norm in many game communities. I still think modding is one of the best and most important parts of gaming, but what kinds of mods I value and why I value them has almost reversed. It was interesting to watch this video from the perspective of someone who was the instrumental play obsessed gamer during the timeline of events the video describes, while aligning with Dan in the modern-day.
That's a really interesting perspective!
I've never been particularly pulled toward extreme optimization. I'm not completely immune to it, but I find that getting too drawn into getting every possible point of damage or perfecting movement or whatever the optimization is just sucks a lot of the fun of exploration or discovery out of games for me.
I've noticed this tension in my gaming group as well. We tend to play a lot of survival/crafting type games just because those are the types of games that work for a group that can range anywhere from 3 to 8 people on a given night who aren't interested in pure PVP games. There's one person in our group that usually hits the game wikis and guides as soon as we start playing a new game, when a lot of the rest of us are still exploring the mechanics and figuring things out. There have been times when that really sucked the interest out of a game for us, although some times it sped up a boring resource or skill grind that would have killed interest similarly.
I don't really have a conclusion to draw from that. It's not something that we've solved in our own group, we just tend to deal with it as it comes up. I did find this video interesting, just because it's something I've thought about some, but never to this degree.