I could be writing about a lot of things, but instead I'm writing about random flash games.
This isn't just any flash game, though. It's got unicorns, rainbows, 80s synthpop and only 2 buttons.
It's Robot Unicorn Attack.
There's so much good about this game, that words don't do it justice. But damn it, I'm going to try.
A lot has been written about the flow state, and how to reach it. It's essential for competition of any kind. This game is literally all about the flow state - forget the rainbows and the unicorn and the exploding stars.
Let's start with the music. It's the most obvious thing, because occasionally when a lot of things are going on (typically as the game starts to move faster), the sound effects that are normally mellow and soothing start to break up the flow state a little because they inhibit your processing of the background music.
The music is "Always", by Erasure. It has a relaxing melody and calming lyrics about love. The song is typical of late 80s synthpop, even if it was released in 1994. The melody is practically manufactured to sound soothing, and it does an incredible job as a background song for Robot Unicorn.
It makes one think a little about music design. I'm sure that musicians want to produce a unique sound, and I know some people who insist that screaming death metal is the best thing since sliced bread, but ultimately I think we all know music that follows the rules and sounds more mainstream is what ultimately sells. In this case, I think we can see why - it induces an almost trancelike state!
The brightly colored visuals also help by making everything in the game obvious and appealing. Little things like the 5k dolphins that show up add to the visual immersion, and once the game really gets going, they stop showing up (or at least, they take a break between 35 and 70k). The rainbows following the dolphin or the little sparklies that occur when a star pops on screen, all of it is to get your attention without violating the flow state.
The rest of the game is all very smooth too. Two buttons is an amazing design, allowing people to enter the flow state easily without having to master complex controls. It greatly increases the game's accessibility, which is good.
Lots of little design things go into the game, like the strategic positioning of faeries to warn you of jumps or the sound cue of a star.
The slowly increasing game speed over time also makes sure that the game keeps you in flow state; a player of any skill will quickly reach the parts that are challenging and maintain the trance.
In short: play the game, it's awesome.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Nerd, meet Girlfriend (Part 2)
One of my fans suggested I write more, and that he'd read it when they woke up in the morning. He also said they really liked Nerd, Meet Girlfriend part 1 and it inspired him and his girlfriend to play more games together. Aww!
That being said, sometimes it's hard to get your significant other to play the games you actually like. You play EVE, and you're hardcore. You're a productive member of a 0.0 alliance, and you put around 30 hours a week playing (maybe that's too small an estimate for EVE players). You really wish your girlfriend would play EVE with you.
You're a competitive Street Fighter 4 player. Your boyfriend has an XBox 360 and plays random games. You enjoyed playing Halo 3 together (you suffered through Legendary, but made it somehow), but he can't really bring himself to play SF4 with you because you own him all the time and he doesn't understand why linking two crouching strongs into roundhouse is important. He follows the Ken flowchart and loses horribly, and doesn't have fun.
This post is for us. The hardcores, the players that play games to the fullest, to 100%. How the heck do we get our girlfriends (or boyfriends) to actually sit down in practice mode and learn combos? How do we get our significant other to understand that playing the market is actually fun, and doing endgame raids is awesome when everyone actually does what they are supposed to?
Honestly, I don't know the full answer to this. Some love interests just won't sit in practice mode and learn combos. Some love interests will never get what frame advantage is. Some significant others just don't understand why dealing more damage than the tank is important. No matter what we try, nothing will get these people to do what you want.
However, I can pose some situations from experience about fighting games, and go from there.
I've taught a fair number of total noobs how frame advantage works, in a way that makes sense. I've also taught a large number of unskilled fighting game players about guessing games so that they get that "a-ha!" moment when they do something, guess wrong, and understand that they guessed wrong. Honestly, I still beat these people consistently, but it is about 1000 times more fun to play with them because it goes from being a "spam optimal move" fest to being "I am pretty sure they will do this."
The first and most important thing that you need to have is a student, partner, whatever, who is actually willing to listen to what you are trying to show them. A girlfriend is actually fairly likely to listen to you. A boyfriend... might, although male ego will get in the way. If they don't actually want to try, you are screwed.
The next step is to explain the concepts in as basic a manner as you can. Completely avoid complex topics like parrying or combos. In a fighting game, explaining tempo is very hard, but you're going to have to be the one to do it. I use 'my turn, your turn' gameplay as a way of describing tempo, and use Soul Calibur as my teaching game of choice. Even if my eventual goal is to get people playing BlazBlue (Continuum Shift is out for consoles now, yay!), I need to teach tempo in a game where tempo is easy to understand, and Soul Calibur is easy to understand - it's easy to understand controlling space when we explain what each character's long ranged moves are, and it's easy to explain tempo in a game that often rewards blocking with free damage.
MMOs are in the same vein. Explaining mana efficiency is easy to understand. Explain that a healer should choose when to heal wisely in order to prepare for emergencies, because healing when you don't need to wastes mana for when something bad happens, like extra pulls or aggro on someone else. Explaining why fearing a mob is a bad idea (feel free to demonstrate why, it's one of those obvious things if you see it in action). Explain what DPS is (it's honestly not that hard, it's just the amount of damage you do, no need to complicate it with exact time frames).
If you dumb down the nuance things that you know Barney-style, it helps build a foundation that lets them understand things better. I've had girls (not SOs, but the point remains) who were not normally known for being exceptional gamers ask me why so-and-so did some stupid thing, because what so-and-so was doing didn't make sense, since I taught her to do it the smart way. It warmed my (black, evil) heart!
The closer you get to that 'a-ha!' moment, the better. But you are going to have to hold their hand most of the way. I was teaching a friend (guy) how to play Soul Calibur, and after learning about tempo, he just blocked all the time, even when it was safe for him to attack. I looked at him funny, like "why are you blocking, you should be attacking!" and he just gave me the deer in the headlights look. He eventually got to where he could occasionally fluke a good player, and when he went to play normal SC4 players, he tore them apart (warmed my black heart again). He looked at me like, "wow, these people don't even know when it's safe to attack, it's like beating up little kids."
All the stuff I said in Part 1 applies. You have to be patient, encouraging, and 100% positive throughout the learning process. Since we're probably teaching your boyfriend to do something that involves making him fail a lot (because hardcore players do hard things, and your boyfriend is not going to be able to just do them), you need to be extra encouraging. Sometimes taking him to an anime con so he can thrash all over the anime fans at Soul Calibur might be what he needs. Another good idea might be to have him watch you raid, so he can get an idea for what kind of mistakes other people make.
What about EVE?
Well, honestly I think you're screwed, because EVE really... isn't fun. I know I'm going to get hate mail or something because people insist EVE is fun, but it's not. EVE is an enjoyable experience (I hate to call it a game) for a lot of people. Some parts of EVE can be fun, maybe. But the most important part of EVE is the corporate drama, which really has little to do with the 'game' itself. It's something that you can't just inject yourself into. The game itself is about watching progress bars go up (or really down, in the case of enemy health bars). Sure, there is a fair bit of depth involved in making those progress bars go down, but it's not like most MMOs where every 1-3 seconds is a decision-making point. It's definitely not like a fighting game or shooter where every .1 seconds is a decision-making point. If you can get your girlfriend* to play EVE with you, it's because somehow you got her into your alliance and got her involved with the drama, and she likes it.
Either that, or she's an economics major.
Ultimately, this is a hard question to answer in a general way, but I can sum it up like this:
1: make sure they are actually interested in playing with you; if not, go back to Gears of War
2: start teaching them very basic concepts, starting from the first little things they do wrong
3: never get frustrated, use the word wrong, or be negative, ever - 100% positive all the time
4: be aware of the fact that they most likely will never be amazing
5: be prepared to give up, because honestly this is hard and you most likely failed #3
*kind of sexist, but I realize that the ratio of male to female in EVE is like 20:1 or something
That being said, sometimes it's hard to get your significant other to play the games you actually like. You play EVE, and you're hardcore. You're a productive member of a 0.0 alliance, and you put around 30 hours a week playing (maybe that's too small an estimate for EVE players). You really wish your girlfriend would play EVE with you.
You're a competitive Street Fighter 4 player. Your boyfriend has an XBox 360 and plays random games. You enjoyed playing Halo 3 together (you suffered through Legendary, but made it somehow), but he can't really bring himself to play SF4 with you because you own him all the time and he doesn't understand why linking two crouching strongs into roundhouse is important. He follows the Ken flowchart and loses horribly, and doesn't have fun.
This post is for us. The hardcores, the players that play games to the fullest, to 100%. How the heck do we get our girlfriends (or boyfriends) to actually sit down in practice mode and learn combos? How do we get our significant other to understand that playing the market is actually fun, and doing endgame raids is awesome when everyone actually does what they are supposed to?
Honestly, I don't know the full answer to this. Some love interests just won't sit in practice mode and learn combos. Some love interests will never get what frame advantage is. Some significant others just don't understand why dealing more damage than the tank is important. No matter what we try, nothing will get these people to do what you want.
However, I can pose some situations from experience about fighting games, and go from there.
I've taught a fair number of total noobs how frame advantage works, in a way that makes sense. I've also taught a large number of unskilled fighting game players about guessing games so that they get that "a-ha!" moment when they do something, guess wrong, and understand that they guessed wrong. Honestly, I still beat these people consistently, but it is about 1000 times more fun to play with them because it goes from being a "spam optimal move" fest to being "I am pretty sure they will do this."
The first and most important thing that you need to have is a student, partner, whatever, who is actually willing to listen to what you are trying to show them. A girlfriend is actually fairly likely to listen to you. A boyfriend... might, although male ego will get in the way. If they don't actually want to try, you are screwed.
The next step is to explain the concepts in as basic a manner as you can. Completely avoid complex topics like parrying or combos. In a fighting game, explaining tempo is very hard, but you're going to have to be the one to do it. I use 'my turn, your turn' gameplay as a way of describing tempo, and use Soul Calibur as my teaching game of choice. Even if my eventual goal is to get people playing BlazBlue (Continuum Shift is out for consoles now, yay!), I need to teach tempo in a game where tempo is easy to understand, and Soul Calibur is easy to understand - it's easy to understand controlling space when we explain what each character's long ranged moves are, and it's easy to explain tempo in a game that often rewards blocking with free damage.
MMOs are in the same vein. Explaining mana efficiency is easy to understand. Explain that a healer should choose when to heal wisely in order to prepare for emergencies, because healing when you don't need to wastes mana for when something bad happens, like extra pulls or aggro on someone else. Explaining why fearing a mob is a bad idea (feel free to demonstrate why, it's one of those obvious things if you see it in action). Explain what DPS is (it's honestly not that hard, it's just the amount of damage you do, no need to complicate it with exact time frames).
If you dumb down the nuance things that you know Barney-style, it helps build a foundation that lets them understand things better. I've had girls (not SOs, but the point remains) who were not normally known for being exceptional gamers ask me why so-and-so did some stupid thing, because what so-and-so was doing didn't make sense, since I taught her to do it the smart way. It warmed my (black, evil) heart!
The closer you get to that 'a-ha!' moment, the better. But you are going to have to hold their hand most of the way. I was teaching a friend (guy) how to play Soul Calibur, and after learning about tempo, he just blocked all the time, even when it was safe for him to attack. I looked at him funny, like "why are you blocking, you should be attacking!" and he just gave me the deer in the headlights look. He eventually got to where he could occasionally fluke a good player, and when he went to play normal SC4 players, he tore them apart (warmed my black heart again). He looked at me like, "wow, these people don't even know when it's safe to attack, it's like beating up little kids."
All the stuff I said in Part 1 applies. You have to be patient, encouraging, and 100% positive throughout the learning process. Since we're probably teaching your boyfriend to do something that involves making him fail a lot (because hardcore players do hard things, and your boyfriend is not going to be able to just do them), you need to be extra encouraging. Sometimes taking him to an anime con so he can thrash all over the anime fans at Soul Calibur might be what he needs. Another good idea might be to have him watch you raid, so he can get an idea for what kind of mistakes other people make.
What about EVE?
Well, honestly I think you're screwed, because EVE really... isn't fun. I know I'm going to get hate mail or something because people insist EVE is fun, but it's not. EVE is an enjoyable experience (I hate to call it a game) for a lot of people. Some parts of EVE can be fun, maybe. But the most important part of EVE is the corporate drama, which really has little to do with the 'game' itself. It's something that you can't just inject yourself into. The game itself is about watching progress bars go up (or really down, in the case of enemy health bars). Sure, there is a fair bit of depth involved in making those progress bars go down, but it's not like most MMOs where every 1-3 seconds is a decision-making point. It's definitely not like a fighting game or shooter where every .1 seconds is a decision-making point. If you can get your girlfriend* to play EVE with you, it's because somehow you got her into your alliance and got her involved with the drama, and she likes it.
Either that, or she's an economics major.
Ultimately, this is a hard question to answer in a general way, but I can sum it up like this:
1: make sure they are actually interested in playing with you; if not, go back to Gears of War
2: start teaching them very basic concepts, starting from the first little things they do wrong
3: never get frustrated, use the word wrong, or be negative, ever - 100% positive all the time
4: be aware of the fact that they most likely will never be amazing
5: be prepared to give up, because honestly this is hard and you most likely failed #3
*kind of sexist, but I realize that the ratio of male to female in EVE is like 20:1 or something
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Gaming Journalism is Garbage
I read gaming websites a lot, and hype articles are getting to the point where they just aren't good for useful anymore. Yes, there are bad articles on MMORPG.com all the time. I know this. But what pissed me off enough to write about it came from IGN, which considering how long they've been in the business, they really should know better.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this article is taken down, although it's been up for over a week, so my guess is probably not. I got linked to it from somewhere else, as I don't actually read IGN, because I guess I figured everything they wrote was trash.
The article, in case you're too lazy to read it (I probably would be!) is about how JRPGs are fundamentally flawed, and the writers have their own special, magical ideas about how to fix them. Yes, you heard right - writers - that is to say that unlike most trashy gaming journalism articles, this one went through peer review. I can really only imagine what kind of peer review. Was it where they look at the other's brilliantly typed words and fawn over how witty they are? Did they even stop to think for 2 seconds about the PR disaster it might cause?
I think this is the stupidest piece of gaming journalism I've ever read. I'm no industry demographic genius or anything, but it doesn't take a lot of thought to know that bashing on a hardcore gaming genre is going to send the fanboys in droves and they aren't going to be happy.
Also, the next time I read somewhere that Deus Ex is a western RPG, I think I'm going to barf. Deus Ex is western awesome*, not an RPG.
The real worst part of the article is that it's mostly just preferences. It's funny when they claim #9 (grinding) when most modern JRPGs minimize mandatory grinding, and have since the PSX days. Some games (likeLost Odyssey ) penalize grinding by adding diminishing returns to EXP awards. Sure, some games still do it, but the fact is that tons of people like grinding EXP for their characters. That's why asian MMOs are still popular over here.
Other things, like improving presentation and reducing cliches are already prevalent in JRPGs. Should we call out Dragon Age for having cliches, too? NO. What IGN calls a cliche is more accurately called an 'archetype', and there's a lot of room for flavor inside those archetypes. Female magic users, being an example they used, are perfectly fine things with plenty of variations. Loner swordsmen are too. So are drunken dwarven berserkers, or cops who are pissed off at the system and think they should pursue justice outside the law. It's about the quality and robustness of the writing.
For western RPGs, the average quality is usually higher just because there are fewer of them, and Bethseda and BioWare really can't do wrong. In Japan, there are a lot more RPGs released in general, because their market is different (they like grindy, stat-based games more than we do). If we compare the Japanese RPG market to the western shooter or action game market, you'll find that the average quality is probably closer (probably worse, in the case of the US action game market).
Sure, JRPGs are a smaller market share, but seriously - does IGN need to bash them for doing what they do? I don't see any reason why a gaming publication should go and genre bash. You don't see me bashing 3D fighters... yet.
Out of the 500-some odd comments on the topic right now, I think there was a 2chan invasion too. Wow, go JP players for being awesome.
*actually closer to a stealth action game
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this article is taken down, although it's been up for over a week, so my guess is probably not. I got linked to it from somewhere else, as I don't actually read IGN, because I guess I figured everything they wrote was trash.
The article, in case you're too lazy to read it (I probably would be!) is about how JRPGs are fundamentally flawed, and the writers have their own special, magical ideas about how to fix them. Yes, you heard right - writers - that is to say that unlike most trashy gaming journalism articles, this one went through peer review. I can really only imagine what kind of peer review. Was it where they look at the other's brilliantly typed words and fawn over how witty they are? Did they even stop to think for 2 seconds about the PR disaster it might cause?
I think this is the stupidest piece of gaming journalism I've ever read. I'm no industry demographic genius or anything, but it doesn't take a lot of thought to know that bashing on a hardcore gaming genre is going to send the fanboys in droves and they aren't going to be happy.
Also, the next time I read somewhere that Deus Ex is a western RPG, I think I'm going to barf. Deus Ex is western awesome*, not an RPG.
The real worst part of the article is that it's mostly just preferences. It's funny when they claim #9 (grinding) when most modern JRPGs minimize mandatory grinding, and have since the PSX days. Some games (like
Other things, like improving presentation and reducing cliches are already prevalent in JRPGs. Should we call out Dragon Age for having cliches, too? NO. What IGN calls a cliche is more accurately called an 'archetype', and there's a lot of room for flavor inside those archetypes. Female magic users, being an example they used, are perfectly fine things with plenty of variations. Loner swordsmen are too. So are drunken dwarven berserkers, or cops who are pissed off at the system and think they should pursue justice outside the law. It's about the quality and robustness of the writing.
For western RPGs, the average quality is usually higher just because there are fewer of them, and Bethseda and BioWare really can't do wrong. In Japan, there are a lot more RPGs released in general, because their market is different (they like grindy, stat-based games more than we do). If we compare the Japanese RPG market to the western shooter or action game market, you'll find that the average quality is probably closer (probably worse, in the case of the US action game market).
Sure, JRPGs are a smaller market share, but seriously - does IGN need to bash them for doing what they do? I don't see any reason why a gaming publication should go and genre bash. You don't see me bashing 3D fighters... yet.
Out of the 500-some odd comments on the topic right now, I think there was a 2chan invasion too. Wow, go JP players for being awesome.
*actually closer to a stealth action game
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
My Resolution Was To Write More
And so I'm trying. I haven't written since October!
So I started NaNo, failed that. It sucked. Then the holidays came, and I sort of got in a slump. My goal is to make up for that, at least somewhat. Ugh. RN isn't dead though, it's just on life support.
Since this is the blog post least likely to be read by returning readers, I've decided to write about something maybe more personal than normal. It will be also more scattered than normal, and believe me, I know my posts are already pretty scattered.
I love drama.
This isn't a new discovery for me. I like interpersonal relationships, and I like hearing about other people's feelings. It's fairly natural, if a little effeminate, for me to enjoy drama.
So a while back, in November, my RP group was thrust into a crunch scenario. The players were forced to make a bad decision - either turn themselves into international criminals, or start a war between two countries. I may talk about the overall campaign later, but it's this decision that is the most important one. So far they've gone on the path towards starting the war, and there may come a time where it may be impossible to stop that. But for now, they aren't 100% hedged in that path.
The drama regarding this decision was amazing. I got hours of quality, GM-free player interaction where they fought, argued, and talked over one another in order to debate all of their possible options.
In character.
It was epic! Everyone had an awesome time and felt good about what was going on. I mean, they didn't feel good about the circumstances, but everyone felt like they had something to contribute, because they all had opinions on what they should do.
As a GM, I love it when my players are excited about their game. Drama is just one way of doing it, and it isn't even the easiest option.
Drama is especially hard because a lot of roleplayers don't take the game seriously. It's hard to have someone who thinks entirely in meta terms to think about how their character feels about something.
Since I tend to attract the meta types of player, it's a little harder than normal for me to instill this sort of drama. At the same time though, it's hard for me to find 'real' roleplayers that actually want to sit down and play a game rather than use the game as a chatroom.
Still, in the end I enjoy character interaction as much as anyone. Roleplaying is about being a group of characters in a scenario, not a bunch of character sheets plowing through a dungeon. To me, roleplaying is about using that character sheet to form a character that has real strengths, real weaknesses, and who we can establish a deep and intricate personality with.
It's rare to really get that same level of roleplaying spirit in a group, and so I really enjoy it when it happens.
I dunno, this post makes no sense, but it's okay. I'm allowed to ramble in my blog a little, right?
So I started NaNo, failed that. It sucked. Then the holidays came, and I sort of got in a slump. My goal is to make up for that, at least somewhat. Ugh. RN isn't dead though, it's just on life support.
Since this is the blog post least likely to be read by returning readers, I've decided to write about something maybe more personal than normal. It will be also more scattered than normal, and believe me, I know my posts are already pretty scattered.
I love drama.
This isn't a new discovery for me. I like interpersonal relationships, and I like hearing about other people's feelings. It's fairly natural, if a little effeminate, for me to enjoy drama.
So a while back, in November, my RP group was thrust into a crunch scenario. The players were forced to make a bad decision - either turn themselves into international criminals, or start a war between two countries. I may talk about the overall campaign later, but it's this decision that is the most important one. So far they've gone on the path towards starting the war, and there may come a time where it may be impossible to stop that. But for now, they aren't 100% hedged in that path.
The drama regarding this decision was amazing. I got hours of quality, GM-free player interaction where they fought, argued, and talked over one another in order to debate all of their possible options.
In character.
It was epic! Everyone had an awesome time and felt good about what was going on. I mean, they didn't feel good about the circumstances, but everyone felt like they had something to contribute, because they all had opinions on what they should do.
As a GM, I love it when my players are excited about their game. Drama is just one way of doing it, and it isn't even the easiest option.
Drama is especially hard because a lot of roleplayers don't take the game seriously. It's hard to have someone who thinks entirely in meta terms to think about how their character feels about something.
Since I tend to attract the meta types of player, it's a little harder than normal for me to instill this sort of drama. At the same time though, it's hard for me to find 'real' roleplayers that actually want to sit down and play a game rather than use the game as a chatroom.
Still, in the end I enjoy character interaction as much as anyone. Roleplaying is about being a group of characters in a scenario, not a bunch of character sheets plowing through a dungeon. To me, roleplaying is about using that character sheet to form a character that has real strengths, real weaknesses, and who we can establish a deep and intricate personality with.
It's rare to really get that same level of roleplaying spirit in a group, and so I really enjoy it when it happens.
I dunno, this post makes no sense, but it's okay. I'm allowed to ramble in my blog a little, right?
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Nerd, meet Girlfriend (Part 1)
Or boyfriend, as the case may be. There is a fairly large faction of girl gamers out there, and they can potentially benefit from this too.
This is not a guide on how to get a significant other. I have a lot to say on the issue of mate selection, but honestly it is disagreeable to most people. This is instead a guide on how to share gaming with the focus of your affections in a way that is most suited to their needs.
This is divided into two parts. The first part is how to get a SO to enjoy playing games with you. The second is on how to get a SO who is already a gamer to play a particular game of which you enjoy. I couldn't do this any other way. There's a lot to say on the subject and not much of it is similar.
The first thing you have to realize when trying to get your love interest to play games with you is that the goal should be to show them how enjoyable games can be. Anything less noble than that is pretty sure to fail. By that, I mean that you should not try to get your girlfriend to play EVE with you if she is a non-gamer. Most 'hardcore' gaming genres are simply too daunting for a novice gamer. If you are hardcore into BlazBlue but your boyfriend isn't, no amount of explaining the joys you have playing competitively with your friends is going to help.
(I might know some of this from experience, so trust me)
The first thing you need to do is find something relatively easy to play (not too difficult of a control scheme, not too much mental trickery) and that strikes his or her interest. If possible, try for a co-op game.
A good, if unlikely example, is Gears of War 2. It is fairly easy to play and has a lot of easy fun. It is highly violent and gory though, so if your significant other is not into that (a surprising number of girls don't mind it) you may have to pick a different game.
Super Mario Galaxy has an interesting co-op mode, but it doesn't really do the job in the long term. It is better for girlfriends (who don't mind doing things if they think they are helping) than it is for boyfriends.
Although it's competitive, Smash can be a good game for this if you are not very good at the game. If you know what a short hop is, do not use Smash's competitive modes. Cooperative modes, like Brawl's Subspace Emissary (yeah, I know SSE is not very fun, but your boyfriend doesn't know that and he will enjoy beating up robots) are okay. Be careful though if you go from cooperative to competitive modes - and in all cases with Smash, make sure to turn items on (disabling some, especially BS stuff is okay) and have some CPU bots to beat up on. Your girlfriend won't know the difference if 1-hit kill items are turned off, but the added randomness really helps make things more fun.
Supposedly, Fable 2 is pretty awesome. It's even neater because both of you can play on your own time, and Fable is really good at letting people enjoy doing absolutely nothing (by that, I mean doing odd jobs, buying property, doing repeatable side quests, and managing your 8 or 9 different families). For maximum effect, make sure that you don't use too many overpowered magic skills (so they can do something) and play the game on their save file. Just don't be surprised if your girlfriend has a spouse in every town along with nicknames the next time you play. Don't get jealous of Pooky. She can't please your girlfriend the way you can. I hope.
Probably the most obvious example is MMORPGs. Couples have been making duo characters since the EQ1 and UO days. If both people get into it and make alts in case they want to solo or play when their SO isn't around, it can be a very workable arrangement. I highly recommend games that are solo or duo friendly. World of Warcraft is a good example, EVE is not. Aion is a good example, FFXI is not. Do some research (you're the gamer, right?) and find a game that will work out for the both of you. Of all of these, I'd have to suggest Dragonica Online for its ease of play, fun mechanics, and obvious benefits to a 2-person party (and even more benefits for a couple!)
I highly do not recommend anything competitive. Soul Calibur and Smash are pretty much the only competitive games you can use, but even then it's a bad idea. You do not want to get into a situation where you are winning all the time and your boyfriend is getting owned. That is not fun, and it will sour their opinion to games pretty rapidly.
Cooperative games work so well because they mirror a relationship. Even playing ODST with your girlfriend can be fun for her, because she can shoot guys and save your bacon (okay, they weren't dangerous to you, but don't let her know that). Doing things as a team helps cement the fact that you work well together and do great things together, greater than what either of you could do on your own.
While you're playing though, you need to provide positive feedback. 100% of the time, you need to let them know how they helped, how they saved your butt from being owned by 3000 of those dudes coming in behind you with that sweet grenade and so on. If you fail, never blame them. Blame yourself, or even the game if you have to. For instance, when playing Gears with a buddy of mine, we got to a part where we had to play much better than normal, because a mistake in positioning would get one of us killed by mortar fire. Occasionally I would screw up, and I'd blame myself for being in the wrong spot. Sometimes he would screw up, and I'd blame the game for putting in those BS mortars. You can mock your buddies for screwing up in a game, but never do it to your boyfriend.
Especially don't do it to a boyfriend. This is where gender matters a little. Men have much more fragile egos than women. Girls naturally like to help people succeed, so if you get upset and blame something on them, they are actually much more likely to try and do better next time than a guy will. Guys will get frustrated because they like to be good at things, and challenging them about it even if it's constructive, will make them feel kind of crappy. Girls get upset at that sort of thing too (again, I know this from experience) but they have a way higher tolerance factor than guys.
Coaching should be done with caution. Girls, again, are much easier to coach than guys. Boyfriends don't like to be told how to do things. While girls will generally lack the motor skills that boys develop just by growing up, a girl is more apt to accept advice and suggestions, such as "move the analog stick more lightly and your aim will move slower." Try to phrase coaching in as positive a light as possible. "Use this skill when they're stunned, because you'll have more time to cast it." For guys, uh... just be careful. Boyfriends hate being told what to do.
In a lot of cases, particularly with guys, you just won't be able to get them to sit down and have fun. The hard part is actually having them sit down and play.
Working strategies include:
*playing the game by yourself, and asking them if they want to join in.
*if you are female, giving vague sexual connotation to games ("I get so excited when...")
*offering trades may help, eg. you do this with me, I do this with you (don't do something you wouldn't actually do though) - just make sure the game is actually fun
*if they are female, a lot of things will work - if you suggest that they can help you have fun, most decent girlfriends will at least entertain the idea of playing with you
Another key component of a game is that it has to be fun for 1 hour. Sometimes you're not going to be able to do a long involved instance run. Whatever game you choose, you need to be able to put in just a little time and have fun doing it. Long time in the game will be the norm more often than not - your boyfriend is going to come over, watch you playing InFamous, and ask to play WoW with your druid, and you'll end up playing for hours. But make sure that if you only have a little time, that it's fun too. Nothing sucks more than having to drop out of an instance team and let the team down because of IRL stuff (protip: sending your boyfriend naughty whispers is a good way to end a gaming session early).
At the end of a play session, make sure that you let them know that you had fun. THIS IS VITAL. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever tell them that playing with them wasn't fun. EVER. If it wasn't, try a different game or turn down the difficulty setting, but for the love of god don't tell them it wasn't fun. This is another reason why you should not play competitive games. If you get together with your girlfriend and play TF2, you will most likely not do very well if your girlfriend is a non-gamer. Most likely you will die a lot and it will not be fun. Cooperative games let you beat the crap out of computer-controlled opponents, avoid griefing by random other people, and generally just have a fun time. As strange as it sounds to competitive gamers, a co-op campaign is more guaranteed fun than a multiplayer deathmatch.
One of the cool things about doing cooperative games is that many of them have competitive elements, and if your SO starts number crunching how much +attack power their next gear set will have, maybe they'll be more likely to learn how to do 32 hit Litchi relaunches.
(No, I am not sure if Litchi has a 32 hit tsubame relaunch, or if she hits for more. I know she hits you a lot of times and it is frustrating. ~.~)
So, in short:
1 - find a fun, easy to play cooperative game
2 - find some way to get them to sit down and play with you
3 - be encouraging in everything you say
4 - follow through - make sure they know you had fun
5 - ???
6 - Profit!
I have part 2 drafted up, more or less. This one is a little short, because I cut some content out of it.
This is not a guide on how to get a significant other. I have a lot to say on the issue of mate selection, but honestly it is disagreeable to most people. This is instead a guide on how to share gaming with the focus of your affections in a way that is most suited to their needs.
This is divided into two parts. The first part is how to get a SO to enjoy playing games with you. The second is on how to get a SO who is already a gamer to play a particular game of which you enjoy. I couldn't do this any other way. There's a lot to say on the subject and not much of it is similar.
The first thing you have to realize when trying to get your love interest to play games with you is that the goal should be to show them how enjoyable games can be. Anything less noble than that is pretty sure to fail. By that, I mean that you should not try to get your girlfriend to play EVE with you if she is a non-gamer. Most 'hardcore' gaming genres are simply too daunting for a novice gamer. If you are hardcore into BlazBlue but your boyfriend isn't, no amount of explaining the joys you have playing competitively with your friends is going to help.
(I might know some of this from experience, so trust me)
The first thing you need to do is find something relatively easy to play (not too difficult of a control scheme, not too much mental trickery) and that strikes his or her interest. If possible, try for a co-op game.
A good, if unlikely example, is Gears of War 2. It is fairly easy to play and has a lot of easy fun. It is highly violent and gory though, so if your significant other is not into that (a surprising number of girls don't mind it) you may have to pick a different game.
Super Mario Galaxy has an interesting co-op mode, but it doesn't really do the job in the long term. It is better for girlfriends (who don't mind doing things if they think they are helping) than it is for boyfriends.
Although it's competitive, Smash can be a good game for this if you are not very good at the game. If you know what a short hop is, do not use Smash's competitive modes. Cooperative modes, like Brawl's Subspace Emissary (yeah, I know SSE is not very fun, but your boyfriend doesn't know that and he will enjoy beating up robots) are okay. Be careful though if you go from cooperative to competitive modes - and in all cases with Smash, make sure to turn items on (disabling some, especially BS stuff is okay) and have some CPU bots to beat up on. Your girlfriend won't know the difference if 1-hit kill items are turned off, but the added randomness really helps make things more fun.
Supposedly, Fable 2 is pretty awesome. It's even neater because both of you can play on your own time, and Fable is really good at letting people enjoy doing absolutely nothing (by that, I mean doing odd jobs, buying property, doing repeatable side quests, and managing your 8 or 9 different families). For maximum effect, make sure that you don't use too many overpowered magic skills (so they can do something) and play the game on their save file. Just don't be surprised if your girlfriend has a spouse in every town along with nicknames the next time you play. Don't get jealous of Pooky. She can't please your girlfriend the way you can. I hope.
Probably the most obvious example is MMORPGs. Couples have been making duo characters since the EQ1 and UO days. If both people get into it and make alts in case they want to solo or play when their SO isn't around, it can be a very workable arrangement. I highly recommend games that are solo or duo friendly. World of Warcraft is a good example, EVE is not. Aion is a good example, FFXI is not. Do some research (you're the gamer, right?) and find a game that will work out for the both of you. Of all of these, I'd have to suggest Dragonica Online for its ease of play, fun mechanics, and obvious benefits to a 2-person party (and even more benefits for a couple!)
I highly do not recommend anything competitive. Soul Calibur and Smash are pretty much the only competitive games you can use, but even then it's a bad idea. You do not want to get into a situation where you are winning all the time and your boyfriend is getting owned. That is not fun, and it will sour their opinion to games pretty rapidly.
Cooperative games work so well because they mirror a relationship. Even playing ODST with your girlfriend can be fun for her, because she can shoot guys and save your bacon (okay, they weren't dangerous to you, but don't let her know that). Doing things as a team helps cement the fact that you work well together and do great things together, greater than what either of you could do on your own.
While you're playing though, you need to provide positive feedback. 100% of the time, you need to let them know how they helped, how they saved your butt from being owned by 3000 of those dudes coming in behind you with that sweet grenade and so on. If you fail, never blame them. Blame yourself, or even the game if you have to. For instance, when playing Gears with a buddy of mine, we got to a part where we had to play much better than normal, because a mistake in positioning would get one of us killed by mortar fire. Occasionally I would screw up, and I'd blame myself for being in the wrong spot. Sometimes he would screw up, and I'd blame the game for putting in those BS mortars. You can mock your buddies for screwing up in a game, but never do it to your boyfriend.
Especially don't do it to a boyfriend. This is where gender matters a little. Men have much more fragile egos than women. Girls naturally like to help people succeed, so if you get upset and blame something on them, they are actually much more likely to try and do better next time than a guy will. Guys will get frustrated because they like to be good at things, and challenging them about it even if it's constructive, will make them feel kind of crappy. Girls get upset at that sort of thing too (again, I know this from experience) but they have a way higher tolerance factor than guys.
Coaching should be done with caution. Girls, again, are much easier to coach than guys. Boyfriends don't like to be told how to do things. While girls will generally lack the motor skills that boys develop just by growing up, a girl is more apt to accept advice and suggestions, such as "move the analog stick more lightly and your aim will move slower." Try to phrase coaching in as positive a light as possible. "Use this skill when they're stunned, because you'll have more time to cast it." For guys, uh... just be careful. Boyfriends hate being told what to do.
In a lot of cases, particularly with guys, you just won't be able to get them to sit down and have fun. The hard part is actually having them sit down and play.
Working strategies include:
*playing the game by yourself, and asking them if they want to join in.
*if you are female, giving vague sexual connotation to games ("I get so excited when...")
*offering trades may help, eg. you do this with me, I do this with you (don't do something you wouldn't actually do though) - just make sure the game is actually fun
*if they are female, a lot of things will work - if you suggest that they can help you have fun, most decent girlfriends will at least entertain the idea of playing with you
Another key component of a game is that it has to be fun for 1 hour. Sometimes you're not going to be able to do a long involved instance run. Whatever game you choose, you need to be able to put in just a little time and have fun doing it. Long time in the game will be the norm more often than not - your boyfriend is going to come over, watch you playing InFamous, and ask to play WoW with your druid, and you'll end up playing for hours. But make sure that if you only have a little time, that it's fun too. Nothing sucks more than having to drop out of an instance team and let the team down because of IRL stuff (protip: sending your boyfriend naughty whispers is a good way to end a gaming session early).
At the end of a play session, make sure that you let them know that you had fun. THIS IS VITAL. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever tell them that playing with them wasn't fun. EVER. If it wasn't, try a different game or turn down the difficulty setting, but for the love of god don't tell them it wasn't fun. This is another reason why you should not play competitive games. If you get together with your girlfriend and play TF2, you will most likely not do very well if your girlfriend is a non-gamer. Most likely you will die a lot and it will not be fun. Cooperative games let you beat the crap out of computer-controlled opponents, avoid griefing by random other people, and generally just have a fun time. As strange as it sounds to competitive gamers, a co-op campaign is more guaranteed fun than a multiplayer deathmatch.
One of the cool things about doing cooperative games is that many of them have competitive elements, and if your SO starts number crunching how much +attack power their next gear set will have, maybe they'll be more likely to learn how to do 32 hit Litchi relaunches.
(No, I am not sure if Litchi has a 32 hit tsubame relaunch, or if she hits for more. I know she hits you a lot of times and it is frustrating. ~.~)
So, in short:
1 - find a fun, easy to play cooperative game
2 - find some way to get them to sit down and play with you
3 - be encouraging in everything you say
4 - follow through - make sure they know you had fun
5 - ???
6 - Profit!
I have part 2 drafted up, more or less. This one is a little short, because I cut some content out of it.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Alderaan is a peaceful planet
So I never update, which sucks. Blame me, because I have stuff to write about, and have for a while. Sorry, I suck. I'll do better!
Bang bang goes burst damage. It's the 'least imba' of the big four game breaking tactics. The reason for this should be fairly obvious. Most game designers are aware of how much damage things in their game do, and they know how much durability (measured in both damage resistance, avoidance, and actual health) their characters have. It's only in 'combo fighters' like Marvel vs. Capcom or BlazBlue where the amount of damage a character can do isn't clearly known when the game launches. It's pretty easy for a dev team to put character health high enough that burst damage is impractical, or at least less useful.
In fact, overpowered burst damage really only takes place when the harder to balance entities like hard control and mobility aren't super dominant factors. In some games, burst damage is the only balancing factor when these elements are overpowered. For instance, in Guild Wars, hard control is kept heavily in check, and is often a merely circumstantial advantage. Mobility advantages in GW are valuable, but one takes an opportunity cost for selecting skills that add to mobility. Burst damage, especially when your entire team focuses burst skills all on a single target, remain as the primary overpowered strategy.
Burst damage is large amounts of damage dealt all in as short a timeframe as possible. Compared to high sustained damage over time, burst damage deals generally less damage over time but much more over a smaller time interval. The idea behind burst damage is to take the enemy by surprise and bypass their ability to use normally effective healing or protective skills to save their teammate. By comparison, sustained damage seeks to overwhelm healers by dealing enough damage to the enemy that it cannot all be effectively countered.
The secondary advantage of a spike is that it quickly removes a single foe from the battle, skewing the field position in favor of the attackers. Since most games allow a player at any amount of health the same fighting capability as a player at full health, taking an opponent out of the battle quickly leaves less time they can support allies or attack your team.
Burst damage is often coupled by other tactics. For instance, hard or soft control is often used to keep the enemy from trying to escape or protect themselves, or perhaps used against healer foes so that the target can't be protected. Inside the small window of a hard control, burst damage is particularly effective, since it can take even a small moment of advantage and turn it into a kill.
It is also fairly easy to disrupt a spike in the same way. By applying a hard or soft control to one or more attackers, the amount of incoming damage can be spread over a longer period of time or negated altogether, leaving more time or less damage that needs to be healed or prevented. This factor is one of the hidden balancers of burst damage.
Another strong balancing factor for burst damage is the need for a condensed team. Oftentimes a team must put several strong attackers together in order to deal enough damage to defeat a single foe quickly. In an objective-based game, it may be problematic to concentrate your team enough to deal an effective spike. If objectives are spaced far apart, a burst team might be able to take down one foe at a single objective quickly and likely take that single objective. However, if they give up the opportunity to capture other objectives on the map, a split team will control more of the map than a concentrated burst team. And unlike a pressure team that relies on sustained damage over time, the burst team is all or nothing - a spike tends to use up a lot of resources for the attacking characters, and if the damage is insufficient, it tends to put the attackers in an unfavorable situation.
How do you exploit burst damage? Well, that answer is pretty simple. Group as many high single target damage characters as you can together and have them all target the same foe. Sometimes spike teams need a catalyst too - Guild Wars is particularly fond of spikes that require one or more status effects to be in place on the enemy.
Preventing spikes is dependent on the game. Some games, like Guild Wars, have protective skills that limit the amount of damage a foe can take in a single hit. Most other games have a much harder time. You must predict the ally most likely to get hit by a spike (often the healer) and apply preventative measures, such as protective buffs, regeneration/heal over time buffs, and similar effects that will soften the blow a little. Each player will have to be ready to act if they see a spike go into effect. For instance, if the enemy all begins to hit one target with movement debuffs or hard controls, it's a clue that a spike is coming. If possible, that character should attempt to escape or otherwise hamper the spike. If it isn't possible, allies should be ready to move and interrupt the spike enough that the target survives.
Another less obvious prediction for a spike is buff removal. If one of your allies starts getting hit by skills that remove their buffs, it is highly likely that the enemy is trying to remove protections in order to open up a big truckload of pain. In general, if the enemy uses weakening effects and doesn't spread them all over your team in order to slow you down, they are probably trying to prep a spike on someone.
Defending against a spike is extremely difficult, and much harder than pulling one off. If you expect the enemy team to employ them, everyone has to be fully awake and ready to stop it.
If you can't survive a spike and you know it, the next best thing you can do is to counter by dealing heavy damage to the enemy. If your team is a sustained damage team, you may still be able to get a lot of damage in and put one or more foes in a bad state or perhaps even kill them. This is particularly useful in games like Perfect World where the healers are also powerful damage dealers - their healers may be focusing on spiking, leaving your team the possibility of unloading powerful attacks on their team as well.
In both the offensive spiking and defensive spiking scenario, one thing remains a big help. Voice communication allows a burst damage team to all coordinate attacks at the same time. Likewise, it also allows a target to notify teammates quickly that they are being targeted. Most spikes have some sort of lead-in, such as debuffs, hard controls, etc. If the victim can announce that they are hit by a debuff ahead of time, they may be able to get it removed or just have preventative buffs applied in advance.
Of course, if you're playing MvC2 and one of your characters is getting rocked by an infinite, there's not much you can do. The biggest thing you can do in a fighter if the enemy is performing an infinite is to make them do the infinite 100% perfectly and break out if they do not. If you are aware of any point in their combo where they can attempt a reset, be doubly aware when it comes around and attempt to block it. When you are getting hit by a huge combo, you just have to get hit, but your enemy has to focus and do it perfectly. If you can drain his mental energy by forcing him to concentrate more on the infinite, you will have some measure of advantage when the match goes to round 2 (or whatever). And if he slips up, you get a shot at turning things around. Most infinite combos deal really low damage, so the best thing you can do is to not panic or throw away the controller.
But really, this article is about burst damage in a MMO or even in a 'unrealistic shooter' like Halo where characters can take lots of bullets. In a fighter, if you know your opponent can do huge damage if they hit you, your best solution is to deny them opportunities to go on offense, either by controlling space (zoning them out) or controlling tempo (keeping pressure on them).
To be fair though, offensive pressure on a burst damage team in a MMO can really disrupt their ability to attack you. If you harass them with soft controls, hard controls, and other annoyances, it can be really hard for them to set up a 1-2-3 kill even if you are not focused on defending it.
Bang bang goes burst damage. It's the 'least imba' of the big four game breaking tactics. The reason for this should be fairly obvious. Most game designers are aware of how much damage things in their game do, and they know how much durability (measured in both damage resistance, avoidance, and actual health) their characters have. It's only in 'combo fighters' like Marvel vs. Capcom or BlazBlue where the amount of damage a character can do isn't clearly known when the game launches. It's pretty easy for a dev team to put character health high enough that burst damage is impractical, or at least less useful.
In fact, overpowered burst damage really only takes place when the harder to balance entities like hard control and mobility aren't super dominant factors. In some games, burst damage is the only balancing factor when these elements are overpowered. For instance, in Guild Wars, hard control is kept heavily in check, and is often a merely circumstantial advantage. Mobility advantages in GW are valuable, but one takes an opportunity cost for selecting skills that add to mobility. Burst damage, especially when your entire team focuses burst skills all on a single target, remain as the primary overpowered strategy.
Burst damage is large amounts of damage dealt all in as short a timeframe as possible. Compared to high sustained damage over time, burst damage deals generally less damage over time but much more over a smaller time interval. The idea behind burst damage is to take the enemy by surprise and bypass their ability to use normally effective healing or protective skills to save their teammate. By comparison, sustained damage seeks to overwhelm healers by dealing enough damage to the enemy that it cannot all be effectively countered.
The secondary advantage of a spike is that it quickly removes a single foe from the battle, skewing the field position in favor of the attackers. Since most games allow a player at any amount of health the same fighting capability as a player at full health, taking an opponent out of the battle quickly leaves less time they can support allies or attack your team.
Burst damage is often coupled by other tactics. For instance, hard or soft control is often used to keep the enemy from trying to escape or protect themselves, or perhaps used against healer foes so that the target can't be protected. Inside the small window of a hard control, burst damage is particularly effective, since it can take even a small moment of advantage and turn it into a kill.
It is also fairly easy to disrupt a spike in the same way. By applying a hard or soft control to one or more attackers, the amount of incoming damage can be spread over a longer period of time or negated altogether, leaving more time or less damage that needs to be healed or prevented. This factor is one of the hidden balancers of burst damage.
Another strong balancing factor for burst damage is the need for a condensed team. Oftentimes a team must put several strong attackers together in order to deal enough damage to defeat a single foe quickly. In an objective-based game, it may be problematic to concentrate your team enough to deal an effective spike. If objectives are spaced far apart, a burst team might be able to take down one foe at a single objective quickly and likely take that single objective. However, if they give up the opportunity to capture other objectives on the map, a split team will control more of the map than a concentrated burst team. And unlike a pressure team that relies on sustained damage over time, the burst team is all or nothing - a spike tends to use up a lot of resources for the attacking characters, and if the damage is insufficient, it tends to put the attackers in an unfavorable situation.
How do you exploit burst damage? Well, that answer is pretty simple. Group as many high single target damage characters as you can together and have them all target the same foe. Sometimes spike teams need a catalyst too - Guild Wars is particularly fond of spikes that require one or more status effects to be in place on the enemy.
Preventing spikes is dependent on the game. Some games, like Guild Wars, have protective skills that limit the amount of damage a foe can take in a single hit. Most other games have a much harder time. You must predict the ally most likely to get hit by a spike (often the healer) and apply preventative measures, such as protective buffs, regeneration/heal over time buffs, and similar effects that will soften the blow a little. Each player will have to be ready to act if they see a spike go into effect. For instance, if the enemy all begins to hit one target with movement debuffs or hard controls, it's a clue that a spike is coming. If possible, that character should attempt to escape or otherwise hamper the spike. If it isn't possible, allies should be ready to move and interrupt the spike enough that the target survives.
Another less obvious prediction for a spike is buff removal. If one of your allies starts getting hit by skills that remove their buffs, it is highly likely that the enemy is trying to remove protections in order to open up a big truckload of pain. In general, if the enemy uses weakening effects and doesn't spread them all over your team in order to slow you down, they are probably trying to prep a spike on someone.
Defending against a spike is extremely difficult, and much harder than pulling one off. If you expect the enemy team to employ them, everyone has to be fully awake and ready to stop it.
If you can't survive a spike and you know it, the next best thing you can do is to counter by dealing heavy damage to the enemy. If your team is a sustained damage team, you may still be able to get a lot of damage in and put one or more foes in a bad state or perhaps even kill them. This is particularly useful in games like Perfect World where the healers are also powerful damage dealers - their healers may be focusing on spiking, leaving your team the possibility of unloading powerful attacks on their team as well.
In both the offensive spiking and defensive spiking scenario, one thing remains a big help. Voice communication allows a burst damage team to all coordinate attacks at the same time. Likewise, it also allows a target to notify teammates quickly that they are being targeted. Most spikes have some sort of lead-in, such as debuffs, hard controls, etc. If the victim can announce that they are hit by a debuff ahead of time, they may be able to get it removed or just have preventative buffs applied in advance.
Of course, if you're playing MvC2 and one of your characters is getting rocked by an infinite, there's not much you can do. The biggest thing you can do in a fighter if the enemy is performing an infinite is to make them do the infinite 100% perfectly and break out if they do not. If you are aware of any point in their combo where they can attempt a reset, be doubly aware when it comes around and attempt to block it. When you are getting hit by a huge combo, you just have to get hit, but your enemy has to focus and do it perfectly. If you can drain his mental energy by forcing him to concentrate more on the infinite, you will have some measure of advantage when the match goes to round 2 (or whatever). And if he slips up, you get a shot at turning things around. Most infinite combos deal really low damage, so the best thing you can do is to not panic or throw away the controller.
But really, this article is about burst damage in a MMO or even in a 'unrealistic shooter' like Halo where characters can take lots of bullets. In a fighter, if you know your opponent can do huge damage if they hit you, your best solution is to deny them opportunities to go on offense, either by controlling space (zoning them out) or controlling tempo (keeping pressure on them).
To be fair though, offensive pressure on a burst damage team in a MMO can really disrupt their ability to attack you. If you harass them with soft controls, hard controls, and other annoyances, it can be really hard for them to set up a 1-2-3 kill even if you are not focused on defending it.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Survivor: Samoa prelim evaluation
I like Survivor. It's a competition rooted mostly in social maneuvering, with twists and turns that make things interesting without necessarily creating unfair advantages for the players. Because the game is simultaneously cooperative and competitive, it creates a very difficult to analyze game where no 'false' drama has to be introduced - the game itself is deep enough that they don't need to incorporate BS drama and judges into the game.
This season is going to be on Samoa, which is all sorts of awesome. Samoa has a rich culture and heritage, full of tribal dances, tattoos, and all sorts of other cool stuff. The Samoan people are really open and communal, and I've had the luck to talk with people of Samoan descent about their history and culture. This makes this particular season pretty immersive to me. Also, Samoa is a really gorgeous place. This tends to be the case for most seasons of Survivor, but the "tropical island" appearance of Samoa really feels 'right' for the series.
If I wanted to look at videos of Samoan topology though, I'd be watching the Discovery Channel or something (okay, I watch that too). Instead, I'm here to watch a really good Survivor season, and this one has a few really big competitors I'm looking forward to seeing.
This season, most of the women are fairly uninteresting as strategic competition. The big female power I see comes from the Elizabeth. She's Korean-American, has graduated from three Ivy League universities and is a practicing lawyer. She radiates success, and that's very telling for how she will do in Survivor. Her legal experience, as well as her self-proclaimed "social butterfly" nature, will make her a dangerous competitor in the game. She is also fairly self-realized, understanding that she can be opinionated and that she needs to "be assertive without being blunt." I think she'll be a power player.
The next woman I find interesting is an older lady named Shannon, who calls herself "Shambo." She's a former US Marine (automatic cool points) and is a highly successful sales rep. I'm not sure how effective she will be in the game, but her tomboyish exterior will cause a lot of interesting interactions between the other players. If she sticks around to actually start playing the game, she could be interesting to watch.
Unfortunately, there's no other really cool female players. Generally the female players in Survivor tend to be uninteresting (at least strategically) because the producers tend to pick boring hot chicks instead of quick-thinking strategically minded women. Fortunately, we have a lot of character in a few of the other ladies, particularly Yasmin and Monica.
One girl I'm not looking forward to seeing is Kelly. In her pregame interviews, she expressed interest in flirting with cute guys as one of her major motivations. I do not approve, Kelly. Please do us all a favor and get some annoying guy voted off along with you.
This season has some of the coolest guys in a season thus far. I mean this in different ways than most people, but it has two of the biggest, dangerous Survivor villains ever to grace a show. The other guys (Ben and Erik in particular) I could care less about.
The first guy I'll talk about is a pretty cool guy. He's smart, successful in life, and most importantly, he understands Survivor really well. His name is Jaison, a pretty big, good looking black guy. He's the guy I'm rooting for to win. Jaison understands Survivor extremely well, including understanding the intricacies of human interaction and how to decieve and trick people. The best part is that he has a certain demeanor - he has this sort of honest, nice guy persona that will get him far in the game. His strategy will win him the game. His interview is really awesome. His main trouble will be being so much of a nice guy that people will see him as a threat.
Part of the reason I like Jaison so much is that his attitudes and strategy are a lot like mine, so it's like seeing how I would do if I was transplanted there.
Next up is John, who is a rocket scientist (really!) and supposedly one of the smartest people ever to appear on Survivor. Smarter than Ken or Stephen? I have no idea. Anyway, smart guys (and girls) are always cool to see on the show, so it's nice to see geniuses like John (and Liz and Jaison) this season. I don't think John will do exceptionally well. I think he will drop pre-merge without much in the way of allies. Probably. I still like smart guys.
Next on the list is Dave, who I think is also a really smart guy. He falls into the same sort of self-realized boat as Liz. In many ways, he's a white guy version of her (with less credentials). He realizes he's opinionated and that he can say things that will offend people, but it seems less likely that he will control himself like Jaison or Liz will. I think his success will depend mostly on the specific people he befriends. If he can get in relatively close to a nice guy or girl and can lay low, he's got some potential.
I had to watch a number of videos to get a good feel for Mick. He's a poser. Jeff thinks John is a poser, but Mick is a far bigger one. He thinks he's a player and a nice guy all at the same time, and in my initial opinion of him I felt that that he had a good 'player' attitude while keeping an invisible, likable guy opinion at camp. However, a closer look makes me think that he really isn't able to play on the same level as the smart people. He's a pretty snake-like guy and I think he'll be disliked.
The main guy I'm looking forward to seeing is Russell H. This guy is a MONSTER. A BEAST. He will change the way Survivor will be played forever. He's the owner of an oil company, and he comes off as a total pompous jerk in his interviews. He is a total pompous jerk, and I can't say I'm rooting for him to win (although this will probably change depending on how things turn out). Russel stated one thing that I've been talking about since I first started theorizing about merge strategy - that he wanted to sandbag his team so that he went to the merge with a smaller number of people on his team.
THIS GUY IS SO PRO
No, seriously. In Survivor, it is highly disadvantageous to go into a tribal merge with a 7/3 "advantage." It is still a big disadvantage to go in with a 6/4 numbers advantage. I'm sure that Survivor fans will disagree with me. I'm sure that even after Russell ends up taking second place that Survivor fans will disagree with me and say that he got there totally on luck.
For the uninformed, the early parts of Survivor consists of two (or sometimes more) tribes that compete against each other in various challenges. The losers of an immunity challenge must select one of their team members to remove from the game. After a certain period, typically when there are roughly 10 people remaining, the two tribes merge to become a single tribe. After this point, immunity is granted to the person who wins the challenge and all ten people determine which person to vote out from among the people who did not win.
Common logic determines that a larger tribe post-merge will dominate the smaller tribe by superior numbers. However, this is never the case in practice, because the larger tribe always splinters. This is not due to some random lucky chance. It's because people are trying to win.
A tribe with smaller numbers has had to attend Tribal Council (the vote-off process) more times, and thus has more experience with that part of the game. This means that they know how to manipulate people better (generally) and predict how others might vote.
A tribe with larger numbers also builds cliques, better known as "alliances." In any tribe of 5 or more people, alliances of 2-4 people will emerge. The weaker of these alliances will tend to flock to the other smaller tribe (likely one alliance), in order to increase their chances of winning. In many cases, these 'swing vote' players end up winning (such as Bob in Gabon, or Amanda in Fans vs. Favorites) or coming in 2nd or 3rd, so this strategy is well-founded. It makes no sense to keep people around if they are banded together in a tight group. If you are an alliance of 2 people and there is another alliance in your tribe of 4 people, you are extremely likely to go with the group that will put you in 3rd or 4th position rather than 5th or 6th.
Russell H understands this, so even if he doesn't play the social game as well, he will be awesome to watch. He had better make an understanding alliance (of 3) early on, though - or else he'll be in some deep water. After that, all he has to do is find the 'swing voters' and he will likely ride the current all the way to the final 4 people. I do not want Russell H to win because of his character (he's a jerk!) but I do want him to do well as a proof of concept that his strategy is sound. The problem is that he's a jerk, and it may get him screwed before he ever gets a chance to implement it.
There's another guy named Russell S, he's a cool guy but is not as strategically interesting.
Anyway, those are the people that I think are going to make the big waves this season.
This season is going to be on Samoa, which is all sorts of awesome. Samoa has a rich culture and heritage, full of tribal dances, tattoos, and all sorts of other cool stuff. The Samoan people are really open and communal, and I've had the luck to talk with people of Samoan descent about their history and culture. This makes this particular season pretty immersive to me. Also, Samoa is a really gorgeous place. This tends to be the case for most seasons of Survivor, but the "tropical island" appearance of Samoa really feels 'right' for the series.
If I wanted to look at videos of Samoan topology though, I'd be watching the Discovery Channel or something (okay, I watch that too). Instead, I'm here to watch a really good Survivor season, and this one has a few really big competitors I'm looking forward to seeing.
This season, most of the women are fairly uninteresting as strategic competition. The big female power I see comes from the Elizabeth. She's Korean-American, has graduated from three Ivy League universities and is a practicing lawyer. She radiates success, and that's very telling for how she will do in Survivor. Her legal experience, as well as her self-proclaimed "social butterfly" nature, will make her a dangerous competitor in the game. She is also fairly self-realized, understanding that she can be opinionated and that she needs to "be assertive without being blunt." I think she'll be a power player.
The next woman I find interesting is an older lady named Shannon, who calls herself "Shambo." She's a former US Marine (automatic cool points) and is a highly successful sales rep. I'm not sure how effective she will be in the game, but her tomboyish exterior will cause a lot of interesting interactions between the other players. If she sticks around to actually start playing the game, she could be interesting to watch.
Unfortunately, there's no other really cool female players. Generally the female players in Survivor tend to be uninteresting (at least strategically) because the producers tend to pick boring hot chicks instead of quick-thinking strategically minded women. Fortunately, we have a lot of character in a few of the other ladies, particularly Yasmin and Monica.
One girl I'm not looking forward to seeing is Kelly. In her pregame interviews, she expressed interest in flirting with cute guys as one of her major motivations. I do not approve, Kelly. Please do us all a favor and get some annoying guy voted off along with you.
This season has some of the coolest guys in a season thus far. I mean this in different ways than most people, but it has two of the biggest, dangerous Survivor villains ever to grace a show. The other guys (Ben and Erik in particular) I could care less about.
The first guy I'll talk about is a pretty cool guy. He's smart, successful in life, and most importantly, he understands Survivor really well. His name is Jaison, a pretty big, good looking black guy. He's the guy I'm rooting for to win. Jaison understands Survivor extremely well, including understanding the intricacies of human interaction and how to decieve and trick people. The best part is that he has a certain demeanor - he has this sort of honest, nice guy persona that will get him far in the game. His strategy will win him the game. His interview is really awesome. His main trouble will be being so much of a nice guy that people will see him as a threat.
Part of the reason I like Jaison so much is that his attitudes and strategy are a lot like mine, so it's like seeing how I would do if I was transplanted there.
Next up is John, who is a rocket scientist (really!) and supposedly one of the smartest people ever to appear on Survivor. Smarter than Ken or Stephen? I have no idea. Anyway, smart guys (and girls) are always cool to see on the show, so it's nice to see geniuses like John (and Liz and Jaison) this season. I don't think John will do exceptionally well. I think he will drop pre-merge without much in the way of allies. Probably. I still like smart guys.
Next on the list is Dave, who I think is also a really smart guy. He falls into the same sort of self-realized boat as Liz. In many ways, he's a white guy version of her (with less credentials). He realizes he's opinionated and that he can say things that will offend people, but it seems less likely that he will control himself like Jaison or Liz will. I think his success will depend mostly on the specific people he befriends. If he can get in relatively close to a nice guy or girl and can lay low, he's got some potential.
I had to watch a number of videos to get a good feel for Mick. He's a poser. Jeff thinks John is a poser, but Mick is a far bigger one. He thinks he's a player and a nice guy all at the same time, and in my initial opinion of him I felt that that he had a good 'player' attitude while keeping an invisible, likable guy opinion at camp. However, a closer look makes me think that he really isn't able to play on the same level as the smart people. He's a pretty snake-like guy and I think he'll be disliked.
The main guy I'm looking forward to seeing is Russell H. This guy is a MONSTER. A BEAST. He will change the way Survivor will be played forever. He's the owner of an oil company, and he comes off as a total pompous jerk in his interviews. He is a total pompous jerk, and I can't say I'm rooting for him to win (although this will probably change depending on how things turn out). Russel stated one thing that I've been talking about since I first started theorizing about merge strategy - that he wanted to sandbag his team so that he went to the merge with a smaller number of people on his team.
THIS GUY IS SO PRO
No, seriously. In Survivor, it is highly disadvantageous to go into a tribal merge with a 7/3 "advantage." It is still a big disadvantage to go in with a 6/4 numbers advantage. I'm sure that Survivor fans will disagree with me. I'm sure that even after Russell ends up taking second place that Survivor fans will disagree with me and say that he got there totally on luck.
For the uninformed, the early parts of Survivor consists of two (or sometimes more) tribes that compete against each other in various challenges. The losers of an immunity challenge must select one of their team members to remove from the game. After a certain period, typically when there are roughly 10 people remaining, the two tribes merge to become a single tribe. After this point, immunity is granted to the person who wins the challenge and all ten people determine which person to vote out from among the people who did not win.
Common logic determines that a larger tribe post-merge will dominate the smaller tribe by superior numbers. However, this is never the case in practice, because the larger tribe always splinters. This is not due to some random lucky chance. It's because people are trying to win.
A tribe with smaller numbers has had to attend Tribal Council (the vote-off process) more times, and thus has more experience with that part of the game. This means that they know how to manipulate people better (generally) and predict how others might vote.
A tribe with larger numbers also builds cliques, better known as "alliances." In any tribe of 5 or more people, alliances of 2-4 people will emerge. The weaker of these alliances will tend to flock to the other smaller tribe (likely one alliance), in order to increase their chances of winning. In many cases, these 'swing vote' players end up winning (such as Bob in Gabon, or Amanda in Fans vs. Favorites) or coming in 2nd or 3rd, so this strategy is well-founded. It makes no sense to keep people around if they are banded together in a tight group. If you are an alliance of 2 people and there is another alliance in your tribe of 4 people, you are extremely likely to go with the group that will put you in 3rd or 4th position rather than 5th or 6th.
Russell H understands this, so even if he doesn't play the social game as well, he will be awesome to watch. He had better make an understanding alliance (of 3) early on, though - or else he'll be in some deep water. After that, all he has to do is find the 'swing voters' and he will likely ride the current all the way to the final 4 people. I do not want Russell H to win because of his character (he's a jerk!) but I do want him to do well as a proof of concept that his strategy is sound. The problem is that he's a jerk, and it may get him screwed before he ever gets a chance to implement it.
There's another guy named Russell S, he's a cool guy but is not as strategically interesting.
Anyway, those are the people that I think are going to make the big waves this season.
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