These are the "real life skills" used to play MMO's. If you struggle in real life with any of these skills you will struggle with them in an MMO.
1. READING. Playing some adventure games forces you to read and to read carefully. It’s important to read carefully enough to get information which will help you solve problems. You can improve your reading by practice. 2. LOGICAL THINKING. There are many different kinds of thinking, and they can all be improved by trying them and by practicing them. An example of logical thinking: You need to get into a building, but it’s locked. Logically, what methods or steps must be used? When you need to get into a building, here are the steps that need to be taken: Get keys from pocket, select correct key, insert key into lock, turn key, open door handle, pushdoor open -- each step is important. The methods used to open a door are obvious, but most students need to think the steps through before they can use them. Another example of a thinking skill is the ability to think in sequential order. It’s amazing how hard that is for some people. Things need to be done in the correct order – in real life and in computer simulations.
3. OBSERVATION SKILLS. It’s amazing how little people really see – in real life and in simulations. Real observers – scientists, quarterbacks, etc. – notice every detail and use it in planning strategy. The LOOK AT command in simulations allow you to observe.
4. MAP-MAKING AND READING SKILLS. I’m surprised at how many students are poor at reading maps. Many eighth graders don’t remember the relation between North South East and West. Many don’t remember that on maps, North is usually at the top. Practicing working with maps improves these skills. Students also find it helpful to create a map when using most simulation or role-playing games.
5. VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT. Most students who use simulations improve their vocabulary. You’ll encounter words which you don’t know, but which you need to know to be successful at the simulation the game is providing.
6. FAMILIAR KNOWLEDGE. Familiar knowledge is knowledge of common things. In simulation games, experiences are expanded. You get to go places and have experiences which you couldn’t really have in real life.
7. SPELLING. Sometimes it’s important to spell things correctly in order to succeed in many simulation games. Anytime you spell a word correctly, you help yourself to remember the correct spelling.
8. NOTE TAKING. Just taking notes, keeping them orderly, and being able to find them is good study skills practice. And successful role-playing gamers often do just this.
9. PROBLEM SOLVING. Problem solving ability can be learned and practiced. At almost every step in simulation games you’re expected to solve a problem. This skill is an important skill in school, college, and in almost every career.
10. STRATEGY PLANNING. What methods should be used over the long hall to solve a problem? What steps need to be taken? Strategy planning is one method of problem solving.
So in other words you need to practice and develop these real life skills in order to have skill playing an MMO. I think what the OP is really trying to say is that playing an MMO gets you nowhere in life and everything you do and acheive in the game will be lost/forgotten and you have nothing in the physical realm to show for it.
You can learn some of these skills in RL, you can learn some of these playing an MMO. If your a shut in, no-life nerd, you'd learn communication skills via ventrillo would you not? If you sucked in math class, you would learn fundamental problem solving skills via questing/content achieving would you not? You can learn certain skills playing an MMO. Hell, I don't play any MMO currently, and haven't played one for months, but I am intelligent enough to realize that playing any game requires a combination of skills, previously learned or not, or even if you learn how the game mechanics work, that's requiring skill, right?
Playing an MMO will get you no where in life? how about future developers who play to achieve an understanding of how MMO game mechanics work?, while then applying what they learned to there field of study, computer game development? while this won't be the case for everyone, its the same as playing golf in that if your just a casual player, you play for fun, if your a pro you play for fame and cash (same as an MMO but the cash isn't real :P) Every game requires skill, every game requires certain skills there just played on different mediums, some take more skill than others, but to say that MMO's don't take skill because your just sitting infront of a computer typing is ludacris.
The OP clearly stated MMO's require no skill, his debate was poorly worded and shows frustration carried over from another thread, which is too bad considering if he said MMO's require skill, but you can't put MMO's on your resume under the skill column, I'm sure people would have agreed, but this isn't the case, unless he alters his position, which is fine. The combination of these skills form into the skills required to play any MMO better than player x, does it not? check this analogy out;
What then is the difference between sports like golf then and a MMO? you need math skills to calculate your trajectory and distance, you need the physical capability to hit the ball and concentration to do all this effectively, these can be learned both on the green and off, regardless if you had these skills before or not its a completely different ballgame when it comes to player A stepping up to the tee. Yet its widely accepted that playing golf takes skill, its a game, just in a different medium.
If your a hardcore mathematician will you be able to succeed at every MMO? because as the OP stated dps'ing is just calculating spell recasts? hell no, that wont get you anywhere in raiding or pvp, its applying the fundamental skills that you've learned in and out of the game and/or learning and applying them to that MMO, therefore playing an MMO takes skill.
I can see how casuals could think MMO's take no skill, 1,2,3 shotting mobs with the same spells, but anyone who has raided high end, or pvp'd knows that your skill with that MMO is detrimental in your success.
Can you put down MMORPG's under skills on your resume? no, Can you put down playing golf under skills on your resume? no, Can you put down flying model planes under skills? no. Can you put down playing Othello on your resume under skills? no. These are hobbies that require skill. Can you put everything posted in red on your resume under skills? yes. Everything fundamentally breaks down into specific skills that are required to play or do anything, thats common knowledge.
Therefore playing MMO's takes skill like every game ever conceived that has a goal, and a set of rules to attain that goal. Something to think about
I double posted this for you because everyone should see it, If you honestly believe top end players have no skill at playing the game, you're an ignorant fool. Math skill (what spells to fire off), skilled co-ordination (fd, firing off spells on long duration, curing at the right time, dps on and off, listening to verbal commands and executing them), critical thinking during AoE's, where to run, when to run, how far to run, using past experience and applying it to new encounters are all skills related and bundled into every MMO differently, its called game mechanics. Therefore you can chose to understand and apply this knowledge set of mechanics, a.k.a SKILL SET to either suck or be elite. If you believe every player does the same thing in a monotonous motion of pressing 1-2-3-4-5-6 *encounter dead, you obviously were never good at MMO's in the first place, or you, yourself fall into the category of a shitty player. Have you participated in learning a new strategy? have you been in server best, world best guild? have you had the dedication to learn your class and the most effective way to utilize it? probably not, but most people have, now I'm talking about raiding, because 1 hit mob encounters obviously take no skill to push 1 or 2 or even 3 buttons, but when you have an encounter that takes 10+ minutes to beat, with multiple aoes, damage shields, spawning adds, etc, you can't tell me that those participating in the kill have no skill. (Thats like saying hockey takes no skill because all you have to do is windup for a slapshot, fire the puck at 100mph and you'll score, or that since dodging a hit in real life is something your naturally going to do, taking a hit the proper way is not a skill, because hey there both games being played just on a different medium, or lets use golf as another one, wind up fire your ball, is judging the wind speed and direction, and lie of the pin a skill? when all your doing is clubbing a ball?) Its obviously something you have never done, so why don't you create a poll on the subject, and you'll find your ideals are severley mistaken. I've seen my fair share of retards with damn great gear and full masters apply to the guild I was in and fail horribley because they sucked, now is sucking due to lack of skill? or sucking due to lack of math skill because they couldn't parse higher than a dirge and obviously weren't hitting the right spells/ca's? which is chalked up to experience, potential, aptitude, and ability, all of which constitutes as a skill. The dicitonary spells it out for you, yet you still believe they take no skill? No wonder you won't amount to anything
Thinking that playing an MMO gives you skill is why you'll never amount to anything. Everything that you define skill to in a MMORPG are skills that were around a long time before video games existed.
Thats all i mean.
I've actually said all i wanted to say, so don't expect any more activity from me on this thread
(P.S.) Congratulations on acquiring what is among one of the most useless "skills." cu in the planar void.
Wow that's ignorant. So because he doesn't agree with you, he's wrong and he'll never amount to anything?
How about reading the last sentence in that guys post. I think it starts with "The Dictionary"
I hope your statement is directed towards Ap0kalysp3 and not the OP.
I found this online and it leans more towards the OP's point of view.
What can be considered the primary reasons why people play MMORPGs? Some will say socialization, although, you could, more or less, achieve the same level of socialization by just trolling a specific forum community for a certain period of time. Then, there is the aspect of uber loot - trying to get that epic sword that very few other people have, and why?
While there are never any general rules here, it often boils down to human vanity. Many play video games because they want to feel special, and rise above the rest of the crop. In many cases, games give you that false sense of accomplishment that people lack more of in real life. This leads to a rather contradictory situation in MMORPGs though - in really popular MMORPGs, it becomes very hard for the casual player to "stand out." Although this is not impossible, being special and having the best gear almost certainly implies that you have to play the game to such an extent that it would be a crime to call yourself a casual gamer. Often, in MMORPGs, the most vocal and vibrant online personalities (for all we know, they could be quiet loners in real life) will garner most of the attention, and hence myths will be created around their supposed skills. There is, of course, the other side of this coin too, where certain people will be labeled skill-less, and often this general impression of them will be based around even more myths.
In fact, while MMORPGs promote socialization, they promote it, to a degree, in a wrong way. They impose new values on this closed online society where people without a life are rewarded the game's highest accolades, and their skills are praised where no true skills are to be found.
I couldn't tell you the exact definition of skill, but the way I see it, possessing skill means that you've taken your natural abilities and perfected them with so much hard work that you've become better at something than a great majority of other people. For instance, a great ball player has skill - he has talent backed up by hard work. So if for instance, you were to play a 1-on-1 game against one such person, there is a *very* good chance you would lose 10 out of 10 times. You simply don't have the skill that he does. Your natural abilities backed up by whatever amount of hard work you put into them do not surmount to the same level of skill that he has.
Conversely, there are gamers that possess true skill. Naturally, their skills are only apparent in video games that actually promote skill. At this year's E3, I had the privilege of watching the reigning UT 2004 champion, Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel, play a number of promo matches with random people from the crowd. Now you may think you have a chance against this guy, but seeing how fairly good players from the audience fared, and the level at which Johnathan plays the game, it becomes apparent that you'd lose... badly... 10 out of 10 times. (Seriously, I never once saw Fatal1ty get killed. - Smap)
This takes me back to the problem of MMORPGs. It is in the competitive nature of our race to glorify people with skills and humble the people without them. The way this happens in MMORPGs is horribly wrong, however. Again, this has somewhat to do with human vanity and that desire to stand out at all costs. In MMORPGs, this gets to the point where people start justifying the blatantly obvious deficiencies of MMORPGs in terms of skill-based playing just so that they could artificially categorize players by skill (because it's in their human nature to categorize other humans by skill). So myths are created about good players and bad players.
In reality, the very nature of RPGs goes against the idea that the most skillful players are the ones receiving the most accolades. For one, there is no level playing field. One guy may be decked out with epic armor because he plays the game all day long, and the other may have very ordinary equipment, as he has a job, a family, etc. If we suppose that both of these players have the same amount of knowledge about their class and the class they are facing, and sufficient level of motor skills (nothing out of the ordinary mind you), then there is a strong chance that the guy with the better stats will win. His advantage is based on calculations by the game of the inputted stats, rather than his skills. And even if the other guy wins, it just could be that the random factor in these calculations (a number of critical hits, or resists per match), may tip in his favor, giving him an edge. All the while, however, an unordinary level of skill is not a factor in this Player vs. Player conflict. And even if it is *a* factor, it's far from being *the* factor.
In simpler terms, being an ordinary MMORPG player, I could certainly win at least a number of matches against the supposedly best player in all the land, and that is certainly not something I could hope to do against Fatal1ty, being an ordinary player.
MMORPG PvP conflicts are missing the crucial element that helps Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel win 10 out of 10 matches against you - they are missing true skill. Tactics may play a certain part in MMORPG battles, yes, and you could even call that a skill - quick thinking - but skill in its quintessential form won't be the deciding factor. The very thing that helps "Fat" beat you in all ten of the matches.
So what is the problem here? Why write this article at all?
The answer is simple, I consider myself a competitive person, and I like the idea of the sporting spirit. I like to see players with skill (in sports or competitive games) being given the recognition they deserve for being really skilful at what they do. What I don't like to see is myths being created around players that compete in an environment that doesn't promote genuine skill. There is something fundamentally wrong about this. It's like glorifying a crappy painter just because ten people who are supposedly authorities on the matter say he's good.
Companies will promote PvP gameplay in their MMO games to simply ensure that there is enough content for players to keep paying the monthly fee. What this promotes, however, is not true values that define our competitive nature, but myths and vanity, just perpetuating the rather unhealthy attitude that is already abundant in MMO games.
Would the introduction of skill-based gameplay solve this problem? Possibly, yes, but then people who spend the most time on the game, wouldn't be rewarded as the naturally gifted people who might play less, but achieve far better results than them. That would sort of break the system of MMORPGs, which is based around people with no life (or genuine skills) getting a false sense of accomplishment and recognition in an online world.
You must've wondered at least a couple of times why FPS/MMORPG hybrids haven't worked yet, or why "true" MMORPG gamers steer clear from such games. What I have just written could possibly give you an answer to that question - they like make-believe competition instead of the real one.
It was six in the morning when Karen Kosoy discovered her kindergarten-aged son still glued to the Nintendo game - he'd stayed up all night trying to rescue a legendary princess named Zelda.
"My God, he's addicted," she remembers thinking.
Jamie Kosoy has his own memory: His mother pulled the plug and threw the video game player in the garbage.
"The most traumatic moment of my life," he said.
By late primary school, while friends were playing street hockey outside, Kosoy was rushing indoors to chart their stats on his computer. By high school, he'd bought a brand new car from ads he sold on a fantasy wrestling league he administered online.
Now, as Kosoy, 22, finishes his final year in multimedia design at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, his mother says all that screen time may not have been for naught.
"It turns out," she says, "he was teaching himself."
For him and others in his generation it can be said: Everything they know, they learned from video games.
And that might not be so bad.
While much parental sleep has been lost over whether video games are a colossal waste, a growing body of work looks at games as serious, educative, even key to success in an information age.
Researchers are finding players can make sharper soldiers, drivers and surgeons. Their reaction time is better, their peripheral vision more acute. They are taking risks, finding themselves at ease in a demanding environment that requires paying attention on several levels at once.
While there are countless examples of children vegetating in front of the box, real learning is going on as well. Children who go online to play the World War II shooter fantasy Medal of Honour: Allied Assault might last all of 14 seconds if they just hit the Normandy beaches with guns blazing. To succeed, they must come up with a plan - either by typing messages or talking through headphones to teammates whom they may never have met.
"It's becoming good at communicating with others in teams and being non-resistant to technology," said James Paul Gee, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of last year's book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. "That is what the army wants. That is what the modern workplace wants. Those are pretty modern skills."
Says Henry Jenkins, director of the comparative media studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "In a hunting society, kids learned bows and arrows. In an information society, playing games with resource management - where you need to process massive amounts of information to determine which is important and which you let slide - might be the right kind of play."
In the 30 years since electronic games have conquered computers and television consoles, they've become a $US28 billion ($A38.16 billion) worldwide business. Advertisers pay small fortunes to place their brands in games such as The Sims and Grand Theft Auto, and a song placed in a video game can mean more exposure than a song in a hit movie.
Americans will spend more time gaming this year - 75 hours on average - than watching rented movies, according to Fortune magazine.
And so, with competition fierce for compelling new software, more than 80 colleges have begun offering programs in game design. The study of ludology, or video game theory - from the Latin word ludus, for game - has been taken up at places such as MIT, the University of Chicago, and Princeton, which in February held the Ivy League's first symposium on gaming, where literary and film criticism techniques were trained on Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Super Mario Brothers.
The players have grown up as well. Nearly two-thirds of console gamers - those who play on a machine that plugs into a television, as opposed to a computer game - are 18 or older, according to the Entertainment Software Association. A Pew Internet & American Life study last year found that every college student polled had, at one point, played computer games.
Surprisingly, slightly more college women than men reported playing computer and online games; equal numbers said they played video games.
So what are they learning?
Not just how to drive, say University of Rochester researchers, who found that action games improved players' visual abilities.
And hand-eye coordination, say researchers at New York's Beth Israel Medical Centre. They have found that doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made fewer mistakes and performed laparoscopic surgery faster than their nonplaying peers.
Justin Hall, a gaming consultant who began blogging while studying at Swarthmore in 1994, credits games for teaching him morality. Hall - who once gave an address to game developers titled "How has inventory management in computer role-playing games affected the way I pack?" - says Richard Garriot's Ultima IV game helped him grasp that good behaviour sometimes means choosing between competing virtues.
"Honesty and compassion often stood at odds, as did humility and honour," he writes on the Game Girl Advance blog. "By playing his game, I learned a little bit about ethics."
In a Garriot-designed universe, a person might lose the game by seemingly making all the right moves, but failing to give money to a pauper met along the way.
"Did I waste my time? No, I don't think so," says Greg Lastowka, 35, a Philadelphia intellectual property lawyer who spent countless hours gaming as a boy, and who lectured on virtual crimes at the Princeton conference. "The gaming I did involved working through complicated puzzles... .
"In more complicated games of interactive fiction, like Will Crowther's Adventure, you had to understand the way Crowther thought of the space and the narrative in order to progress."
Lastowka said he learned urban planning from playing Sim City, which he called "a sandbox for creativity".
Games encourage players to take risks that are not allowed in schools - particularly in test-driven curriculums, says Jenkins of MIT.
"What games do very well is the 'You die - so what? - you start over' aspect," Jenkins says. "So trial and error is possible in games in a way almost no longer possible in schools."
Researchers such as Gee credit games for giving experiences to the deskbound that they may never have or be able to afford in real life. With the explosion of online, multiplayer games, "it is nothing to see a 15-year-old leading a group with a 25-year-old and 30-year-old. Unlike in school, they are treated not just as peers but as leaders," he says.
"Kids are reading and writing more than ever because of these games," Gee says, giving the example of his nine-year-old son's favourite, Age of Mythology. "They are confronted with these huge amounts of text, both in the game and on the web."
Ask Kosoy what he has learned, and he grows quiet. He sits at a cafe in Philadelphia, chasing a chocolate croissant with hot chocolate. He is still lean and intense; with his scraggly beard and Dutch Boy cap, he resembles the Bruce Springsteen of Asbury Park days.
Early on at art school, the class was asked to create a project based on a movie, book or record. That reminded him of role-playing games such as the Legend of Zelda, where you start off with a sword and end up saving a princess. What happens in between is unscripted.
Quickly at ease, he designed a game based on the Stanley Kubrick film The Shining, where players found themselves trapped in a series of foreign environments with no apparent way out.
"It worked so well, people hated it," he said.
He is interested in pushing boundaries while still designing games that can be played on the web with the most rudimentary equipment. One computer game required his classmates to actually get up and scavenge around the school for clues.
With graduation looming, and projects due, he's down to gaming a few hours a week, though he continues to spend most of his day thinking about them. But now he's sending out three resumes a day, hoping to nail a position as a game designer - a job that pays $US50,000 ($A68,000) to start on average. That means that Jamie Kosoy, who has spent his life playing, might not have to grow up after all
Some MMOGs require skill, some do not, WoW for instance does not. Some playstyles require skill, some do not, raiding does not. The OP is just suffering from penis envy, wishing they could be or have what they don't possess.
Some MMOGs require skill, some do not, WoW for instance does not. Some playstyles require skill, some do not, raiding does not. The OP is just suffering from penis envy, wishing they could be or have what they don't possess.
I actually get the feeling that the OP has many skills outside of video games and has seen the reality of hardcore gaming and what it actually produces for you in life.
What do I know. Im not him/her
I can actually quote the OP stating at the end of his original post that "Real life skil is the only skill he needs." This tells me that hes finally reached the point in his life where he wants real life success and loot and not coded success and loot.
Some MMOGs require skill, some do not, WoW for instance does not. Some playstyles require skill, some do not, raiding does not. The OP is just suffering from penis envy, wishing they could be or have what they don't possess.
What do I know. Im not him/her
I bet you are him since you just registered today and have instantly been backing him up.
How about reading the last sentence in that guys post. I think it starts with "The Dictionary" I hope your statement is directed towards Ap0kalysp3 and not the OP.
If this is directed at me. If I was trying to speak to the person Ap0kalysp3 was talking to I would have quoted just him, not Ap0kalysp3's post. I was quoting Ap0kalysp3's post because I was talking to him.
Ok, heres the deal people, MMO's take a very SMALL amount of timing which is a skill, THAT IS ALL. The rest is all knowledge. I can see how some of you are getting knowledge mixed up with skills though, MATH is learned IT is KNOWLEDGE not skill. Any 4 year old can add once they are taught how to. Timing how ever you are born with or you arent born with. So in a way you are both right, ANYONE TO ARGUE MY POST IS A RETARD.
Ok, heres the deal people, MMO's take a very SMALL amount of timing which is a skill, THAT IS ALL. The rest is all knowledge. I can see how some of you are getting knowledge mixed up with skills though, MATH is learned IT is KNOWLEDGE not skill. Any 4 year old can add once they are taught how to. Timing how ever you are born with or you arent born with. So in a way you are both right, ANYONE TO ARGUE MY POST IS A RETARD.
You obviously haven't seen fights over which sorting and searching method(including collections) people should use and in what situations. Granted programming isn't nearly as nerdy as it used to be.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
I dunno what all the fuss is about, I play games for fun/entertainment that's the whole point of them...never understood all the min/max worring about everything crap. -shrugs-
Me and my guild we take whomever with us, we don't care how they play, some people understand things some don't. We don't make people spec certain ways, we let people enjoy the game how they like it.
Sometimes it may take longer doing a dungeon or something because of the odd ball group we take but its all about fun and we have tons of it.
what happened to the day were people enjoyed playing games, seems people are too worried about other crap.
(yeah i understand people like different things, just kinda sad people don't play games anymore to...well play a game for fun)
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand." - Lewis Thomas
Comments
You can learn some of these skills in RL, you can learn some of these playing an MMO. If your a shut in, no-life nerd, you'd learn communication skills via ventrillo would you not? If you sucked in math class, you would learn fundamental problem solving skills via questing/content achieving would you not? You can learn certain skills playing an MMO. Hell, I don't play any MMO currently, and haven't played one for months, but I am intelligent enough to realize that playing any game requires a combination of skills, previously learned or not, or even if you learn how the game mechanics work, that's requiring skill, right?
Playing an MMO will get you no where in life? how about future developers who play to achieve an understanding of how MMO game mechanics work?, while then applying what they learned to there field of study, computer game development? while this won't be the case for everyone, its the same as playing golf in that if your just a casual player, you play for fun, if your a pro you play for fame and cash (same as an MMO but the cash isn't real :P) Every game requires skill, every game requires certain skills there just played on different mediums, some take more skill than others, but to say that MMO's don't take skill because your just sitting infront of a computer typing is ludacris.
The OP clearly stated MMO's require no skill, his debate was poorly worded and shows frustration carried over from another thread, which is too bad considering if he said MMO's require skill, but you can't put MMO's on your resume under the skill column, I'm sure people would have agreed, but this isn't the case, unless he alters his position, which is fine. The combination of these skills form into the skills required to play any MMO better than player x, does it not? check this analogy out;
What then is the difference between sports like golf then and a MMO? you need math skills to calculate your trajectory and distance, you need the physical capability to hit the ball and concentration to do all this effectively, these can be learned both on the green and off, regardless if you had these skills before or not its a completely different ballgame when it comes to player A stepping up to the tee. Yet its widely accepted that playing golf takes skill, its a game, just in a different medium.
If your a hardcore mathematician will you be able to succeed at every MMO? because as the OP stated dps'ing is just calculating spell recasts? hell no, that wont get you anywhere in raiding or pvp, its applying the fundamental skills that you've learned in and out of the game and/or learning and applying them to that MMO, therefore playing an MMO takes skill.
I can see how casuals could think MMO's take no skill, 1,2,3 shotting mobs with the same spells, but anyone who has raided high end, or pvp'd knows that your skill with that MMO is detrimental in your success.
Can you put down MMORPG's under skills on your resume? no, Can you put down playing golf under skills on your resume? no, Can you put down flying model planes under skills? no. Can you put down playing Othello on your resume under skills? no. These are hobbies that require skill. Can you put everything posted in red on your resume under skills? yes. Everything fundamentally breaks down into specific skills that are required to play or do anything, thats common knowledge.
Therefore playing MMO's takes skill like every game ever conceived that has a goal, and a set of rules to attain that goal. Something to think about
That's the easy bit, getting your cleaning lady to come over and bring you fresh beers and cigarettes is the hard part.
napolean dynamite has mad skillz.
liger -rawr
chips, dips chains & whips.
Thinking that playing an MMO gives you skill is why you'll never amount to anything. Everything that you define skill to in a MMORPG are skills that were around a long time before video games existed.
Thats all i mean.
I've actually said all i wanted to say, so don't expect any more activity from me on this thread
(P.S.) Congratulations on acquiring what is among one of the most useless "skills." cu in the planar void.
Wow that's ignorant. So because he doesn't agree with you, he's wrong and he'll never amount to anything?
double post edited
How about reading the last sentence in that guys post. I think it starts with "The Dictionary"
I hope your statement is directed towards Ap0kalysp3 and not the OP.
I found this online and it leans more towards the OP's point of view.
What can be considered the primary reasons why people play MMORPGs? Some will say socialization, although, you could, more or less, achieve the same level of socialization by just trolling a specific forum community for a certain period of time. Then, there is the aspect of uber loot - trying to get that epic sword that very few other people have, and why?
While there are never any general rules here, it often boils down to human vanity. Many play video games because they want to feel special, and rise above the rest of the crop. In many cases, games give you that false sense of accomplishment that people lack more of in real life. This leads to a rather contradictory situation in MMORPGs though - in really popular MMORPGs, it becomes very hard for the casual player to "stand out." Although this is not impossible, being special and having the best gear almost certainly implies that you have to play the game to such an extent that it would be a crime to call yourself a casual gamer. Often, in MMORPGs, the most vocal and vibrant online personalities (for all we know, they could be quiet loners in real life) will garner most of the attention, and hence myths will be created around their supposed skills. There is, of course, the other side of this coin too, where certain people will be labeled skill-less, and often this general impression of them will be based around even more myths.
In fact, while MMORPGs promote socialization, they promote it, to a degree, in a wrong way. They impose new values on this closed online society where people without a life are rewarded the game's highest accolades, and their skills are praised where no true skills are to be found.
I couldn't tell you the exact definition of skill, but the way I see it, possessing skill means that you've taken your natural abilities and perfected them with so much hard work that you've become better at something than a great majority of other people. For instance, a great ball player has skill - he has talent backed up by hard work. So if for instance, you were to play a 1-on-1 game against one such person, there is a *very* good chance you would lose 10 out of 10 times. You simply don't have the skill that he does. Your natural abilities backed up by whatever amount of hard work you put into them do not surmount to the same level of skill that he has.
Conversely, there are gamers that possess true skill. Naturally, their skills are only apparent in video games that actually promote skill. At this year's E3, I had the privilege of watching the reigning UT 2004 champion, Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel, play a number of promo matches with random people from the crowd. Now you may think you have a chance against this guy, but seeing how fairly good players from the audience fared, and the level at which Johnathan plays the game, it becomes apparent that you'd lose... badly... 10 out of 10 times. (Seriously, I never once saw Fatal1ty get killed. - Smap)
This takes me back to the problem of MMORPGs. It is in the competitive nature of our race to glorify people with skills and humble the people without them. The way this happens in MMORPGs is horribly wrong, however. Again, this has somewhat to do with human vanity and that desire to stand out at all costs. In MMORPGs, this gets to the point where people start justifying the blatantly obvious deficiencies of MMORPGs in terms of skill-based playing just so that they could artificially categorize players by skill (because it's in their human nature to categorize other humans by skill). So myths are created about good players and bad players.
In reality, the very nature of RPGs goes against the idea that the most skillful players are the ones receiving the most accolades. For one, there is no level playing field. One guy may be decked out with epic armor because he plays the game all day long, and the other may have very ordinary equipment, as he has a job, a family, etc. If we suppose that both of these players have the same amount of knowledge about their class and the class they are facing, and sufficient level of motor skills (nothing out of the ordinary mind you), then there is a strong chance that the guy with the better stats will win. His advantage is based on calculations by the game of the inputted stats, rather than his skills. And even if the other guy wins, it just could be that the random factor in these calculations (a number of critical hits, or resists per match), may tip in his favor, giving him an edge. All the while, however, an unordinary level of skill is not a factor in this Player vs. Player conflict. And even if it is *a* factor, it's far from being *the* factor.
In simpler terms, being an ordinary MMORPG player, I could certainly win at least a number of matches against the supposedly best player in all the land, and that is certainly not something I could hope to do against Fatal1ty, being an ordinary player.
MMORPG PvP conflicts are missing the crucial element that helps Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel win 10 out of 10 matches against you - they are missing true skill. Tactics may play a certain part in MMORPG battles, yes, and you could even call that a skill - quick thinking - but skill in its quintessential form won't be the deciding factor. The very thing that helps "Fat" beat you in all ten of the matches.
So what is the problem here? Why write this article at all?
The answer is simple, I consider myself a competitive person, and I like the idea of the sporting spirit. I like to see players with skill (in sports or competitive games) being given the recognition they deserve for being really skilful at what they do. What I don't like to see is myths being created around players that compete in an environment that doesn't promote genuine skill. There is something fundamentally wrong about this. It's like glorifying a crappy painter just because ten people who are supposedly authorities on the matter say he's good.
Companies will promote PvP gameplay in their MMO games to simply ensure that there is enough content for players to keep paying the monthly fee. What this promotes, however, is not true values that define our competitive nature, but myths and vanity, just perpetuating the rather unhealthy attitude that is already abundant in MMO games.
Would the introduction of skill-based gameplay solve this problem? Possibly, yes, but then people who spend the most time on the game, wouldn't be rewarded as the naturally gifted people who might play less, but achieve far better results than them. That would sort of break the system of MMORPGs, which is based around people with no life (or genuine skills) getting a false sense of accomplishment and recognition in an online world.
You must've wondered at least a couple of times why FPS/MMORPG hybrids haven't worked yet, or why "true" MMORPG gamers steer clear from such games. What I have just written could possibly give you an answer to that question - they like make-believe competition instead of the real one.
Here is an article i found that doesnt favor the OP and brings up valid points.
Video game skills may give edge in life
Philadelphia
May 7, 2004
It was six in the morning when Karen Kosoy discovered her kindergarten-aged son still glued to the Nintendo game - he'd stayed up all night trying to rescue a legendary princess named Zelda.
"My God, he's addicted," she remembers thinking.
Jamie Kosoy has his own memory: His mother pulled the plug and threw the video game player in the garbage.
"The most traumatic moment of my life," he said.
By late primary school, while friends were playing street hockey outside, Kosoy was rushing indoors to chart their stats on his computer. By high school, he'd bought a brand new car from ads he sold on a fantasy wrestling league he administered online.
Now, as Kosoy, 22, finishes his final year in multimedia design at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, his mother says all that screen time may not have been for naught.
"It turns out," she says, "he was teaching himself."
For him and others in his generation it can be said: Everything they know, they learned from video games.
And that might not be so bad.
While much parental sleep has been lost over whether video games are a colossal waste, a growing body of work looks at games as serious, educative, even key to success in an information age.
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Researchers are finding players can make sharper soldiers, drivers and surgeons. Their reaction time is better, their peripheral vision more acute. They are taking risks, finding themselves at ease in a demanding environment that requires paying attention on several levels at once.
While there are countless examples of children vegetating in front of the box, real learning is going on as well. Children who go online to play the World War II shooter fantasy Medal of Honour: Allied Assault might last all of 14 seconds if they just hit the Normandy beaches with guns blazing. To succeed, they must come up with a plan - either by typing messages or talking through headphones to teammates whom they may never have met.
"It's becoming good at communicating with others in teams and being non-resistant to technology," said James Paul Gee, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of last year's book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. "That is what the army wants. That is what the modern workplace wants. Those are pretty modern skills."
Says Henry Jenkins, director of the comparative media studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "In a hunting society, kids learned bows and arrows. In an information society, playing games with resource management - where you need to process massive amounts of information to determine which is important and which you let slide - might be the right kind of play."
In the 30 years since electronic games have conquered computers and television consoles, they've become a $US28 billion ($A38.16 billion) worldwide business. Advertisers pay small fortunes to place their brands in games such as The Sims and Grand Theft Auto, and a song placed in a video game can mean more exposure than a song in a hit movie.
Americans will spend more time gaming this year - 75 hours on average - than watching rented movies, according to Fortune magazine.
And so, with competition fierce for compelling new software, more than 80 colleges have begun offering programs in game design. The study of ludology, or video game theory - from the Latin word ludus, for game - has been taken up at places such as MIT, the University of Chicago, and Princeton, which in February held the Ivy League's first symposium on gaming, where literary and film criticism techniques were trained on Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Super Mario Brothers.
The players have grown up as well. Nearly two-thirds of console gamers - those who play on a machine that plugs into a television, as opposed to a computer game - are 18 or older, according to the Entertainment Software Association. A Pew Internet & American Life study last year found that every college student polled had, at one point, played computer games.
Surprisingly, slightly more college women than men reported playing computer and online games; equal numbers said they played video games.
So what are they learning?
Not just how to drive, say University of Rochester researchers, who found that action games improved players' visual abilities.
And hand-eye coordination, say researchers at New York's Beth Israel Medical Centre. They have found that doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made fewer mistakes and performed laparoscopic surgery faster than their nonplaying peers.
Justin Hall, a gaming consultant who began blogging while studying at Swarthmore in 1994, credits games for teaching him morality. Hall - who once gave an address to game developers titled "How has inventory management in computer role-playing games affected the way I pack?" - says Richard Garriot's Ultima IV game helped him grasp that good behaviour sometimes means choosing between competing virtues.
"Honesty and compassion often stood at odds, as did humility and honour," he writes on the Game Girl Advance blog. "By playing his game, I learned a little bit about ethics."
In a Garriot-designed universe, a person might lose the game by seemingly making all the right moves, but failing to give money to a pauper met along the way.
"Did I waste my time? No, I don't think so," says Greg Lastowka, 35, a Philadelphia intellectual property lawyer who spent countless hours gaming as a boy, and who lectured on virtual crimes at the Princeton conference. "The gaming I did involved working through complicated puzzles... .
"In more complicated games of interactive fiction, like Will Crowther's Adventure, you had to understand the way Crowther thought of the space and the narrative in order to progress."
Lastowka said he learned urban planning from playing Sim City, which he called "a sandbox for creativity".
Games encourage players to take risks that are not allowed in schools - particularly in test-driven curriculums, says Jenkins of MIT.
"What games do very well is the 'You die - so what? - you start over' aspect," Jenkins says. "So trial and error is possible in games in a way almost no longer possible in schools."
Researchers such as Gee credit games for giving experiences to the deskbound that they may never have or be able to afford in real life. With the explosion of online, multiplayer games, "it is nothing to see a 15-year-old leading a group with a 25-year-old and 30-year-old. Unlike in school, they are treated not just as peers but as leaders," he says.
"Kids are reading and writing more than ever because of these games," Gee says, giving the example of his nine-year-old son's favourite, Age of Mythology. "They are confronted with these huge amounts of text, both in the game and on the web."
Ask Kosoy what he has learned, and he grows quiet. He sits at a cafe in Philadelphia, chasing a chocolate croissant with hot chocolate. He is still lean and intense; with his scraggly beard and Dutch Boy cap, he resembles the Bruce Springsteen of Asbury Park days.
Early on at art school, the class was asked to create a project based on a movie, book or record. That reminded him of role-playing games such as the Legend of Zelda, where you start off with a sword and end up saving a princess. What happens in between is unscripted.
Quickly at ease, he designed a game based on the Stanley Kubrick film The Shining, where players found themselves trapped in a series of foreign environments with no apparent way out.
"It worked so well, people hated it," he said.
He is interested in pushing boundaries while still designing games that can be played on the web with the most rudimentary equipment. One computer game required his classmates to actually get up and scavenge around the school for clues.
With graduation looming, and projects due, he's down to gaming a few hours a week, though he continues to spend most of his day thinking about them. But now he's sending out three resumes a day, hoping to nail a position as a game designer - a job that pays $US50,000 ($A68,000) to start on average. That means that Jamie Kosoy, who has spent his life playing, might not have to grow up after all
Some MMOGs require skill, some do not, WoW for instance does not. Some playstyles require skill, some do not, raiding does not. The OP is just suffering from penis envy, wishing they could be or have what they don't possess.
I actually get the feeling that the OP has many skills outside of video games and has seen the reality of hardcore gaming and what it actually produces for you in life.
What do I know. Im not him/her
I can actually quote the OP stating at the end of his original post that "Real life skil is the only skill he needs." This tells me that hes finally reached the point in his life where he wants real life success and loot and not coded success and loot.
What do I know. Im not him/her
I bet you are him since you just registered today and have instantly been backing him up.
You need an alias to back yourself up? Sad
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If this is directed at me. If I was trying to speak to the person Ap0kalysp3 was talking to I would have quoted just him, not Ap0kalysp3's post. I was quoting Ap0kalysp3's post because I was talking to him.
/me nominates for the biggest nerd fight of 2008?
Ok, heres the deal people, MMO's take a very SMALL amount of timing which is a skill, THAT IS ALL. The rest is all knowledge. I can see how some of you are getting knowledge mixed up with skills though, MATH is learned IT is KNOWLEDGE not skill. Any 4 year old can add once they are taught how to. Timing how ever you are born with or you arent born with. So in a way you are both right, ANYONE TO ARGUE MY POST IS A RETARD.
J. B.
You obviously haven't seen fights over which sorting and searching method(including collections) people should use and in what situations. Granted programming isn't nearly as nerdy as it used to be.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
I dunno what all the fuss is about, I play games for fun/entertainment that's the whole point of them...never understood all the min/max worring about everything crap. -shrugs-
Me and my guild we take whomever with us, we don't care how they play, some people understand things some don't. We don't make people spec certain ways, we let people enjoy the game how they like it.
Sometimes it may take longer doing a dungeon or something because of the odd ball group we take but its all about fun and we have tons of it.
what happened to the day were people enjoyed playing games, seems people are too worried about other crap.
(yeah i understand people like different things, just kinda sad people don't play games anymore to...well play a game for fun)
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas