PD
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Hey all, I am back.
You guys probably remember this thread I made. Normally I'd post it back up with some clarification, but the Legal Bump rules on this entire forum (meaning the same rule applies to every section of the AEF) say you cannot bump things after 7 days of the last post. So I'll create this one. This time I'll be more clear since... I'll admit my language is quite obscure at times. Anyways, I'll just summarize the main points. Everyone was misinterpreting the Parable anyways.
The Problems that we face today are more the fault of the players than of the Developers themselves. I'll admit that not everyone is responsible for the troubles that we have today... but hear me out. about 90% of the problems we face today have their roots in the mistakes of the players rather than the developers. This includes everything from Stat Inflation to social inequality to paltry releases to Fame. And no, I will not, should not, cannot, and would not blame this on the fault of a single group of players. Understand this post is nothing of the defense of the developers. They've done their own mistakes. However, the problems we tout out of are the problems that we players have created.
Now, the topic of this post is "The Effects of Player Environment". Yes, I'll get to that right now.
You see, for the last week I've been recording answers from Oz World 6 and other places in the world of the in-game community. I asked them a few questions:
"Would you Buy weapons that are stronger than the ones you have already?"
"Do you seek advantage over other players?"
"Would you Buy weapons that will make you weaker?"
"Do you think that there's inequality in ED?"
"Why do you think there is inequality in ED?"
Everyone gave their answers. Just about everyone I questioned these five questions answered Yes, Yes, No, Yes on the first three questions. The fifth one was free response, so I received a wide variety of answers for that one (Many of the reasons were similar, but not the same). Now I don't have a problem with the way people answered it. In fact, I appreciated it. The interesting thing though was that I isolated a single, repeating pattern in the mindsets of these people. Now what does this tell me? Yes, The environment has just about conditioned most of the problems we have today. And the players are the reflection of their environment.
Let me give the classic but easiest of examples: The infamous problem we know today as Stat Inflation.
You see, it all started back in Beta, with the Frostbane. Now, most people believe that Beta was the best of Epicduel times. I respect this view, but it's important to establish a time frame. Ok... As I said, the Frostbane in Beta was the most powerful weapon in the game in terms of stat yield. Now, because of the amount of power between other weapons and Frostbane, there was trouble. To those people who had Frostbane, it was simply not worth it to buy primaries that had weaker amounts of stats or simply unfavorable stat allocation (This is before Enhancements so the stats could not be changed). As a result, to keep people buying, the ED Team only had 2 options - Make The Frostbane the supreme weapon for a while (Thereby ruining revenue) or simply make more powerful weapons. This created the problem of intrinsic obsolescence, or the periodic cycle that systematically makes weapons useless.
But pay attention - How did this problem arise? Simple. It was from the environment - We Saw the Stats, we didn't like the stats, and then we didn't buy the weapon because we didn't like the the stats, and then we tell our friends we didn't buy it because "it sucked". It can't get any more simple than that. Now understand that's just 1 way the environment takes control of the people.
Whether we realize it or not, the players really do influence the balance of the game. We just don't do it in the most obvious ways. Stat inflation wasn't created overnight. Heal Loop Builds weren't created over night. And all the Problems that are rooted in stat inflation were definitely not created overnight. They are the results of our behavior - Better, and improving. They become problems that seem to bypass the mind filters within our heads.
Now let me further explain this. We players of Epicduel came from AE. Well at least enough that the players who didn't come from AE are by now totally discounted by the rest. We on a daily basis in game, behind the backs of the developers, tell and spread that AE and its player base ruined the game that we all so love and play. But wait a minute... aren't WE from AE? Doesn't that contradict the notion that Beta Players and its times were the best when we have become conditioned to believe that AE ruined ED? You gotta wonder how that logic works. But that does not come from the player. Rather, that came from the environment because we were told that if you paid early, you would become a founder, and therefore, get an advantage over the crowd, and get rewards. As a result, most of the players took the bait, and upgraded. This created the result of an un-proportionate amount of Founders and Paying Players.
We learned to grow with AE's system of beliefs. We expected a release once a week, every week, chock full of cool and powerful weapons, features and pets. Awesomeness and Storyline. And the whole package deal of it all. We came from AE, expected what we expected from an AE game. Unfortunately we didn't quite find out so early that the ED staff was so small. Our Expectations, too high, and too romantic. We demanded "our value for what we paid for", and among other things. We wanted to feel that we were really getting something worth our money. Unfortunately it's a clash of two different value systems and setups. It just does not work the same.
Because of our values that we were conditioned to know, we stepped into ED, and became disappointed with what we got. Our expectations literally doubled overnight. If you take a look at ED's most early releases... they were pretty small. But people were happy because they were conditioned by the environment that they had small to medium sized releases. But that is not the case with AE. We demanded AE sized releases. Not ED Alpha Sized Releases. Those were small. Not big like the ones we have now. Yes, they were updated much more often, but that was not on the same magnitude as creating more and more weapons per release. Because we didn't get what we wanted. We got mad.
We in AE were ingrown to the belief that rares should be "blessed" with the "Birthright" of "All Rares Should be equally if not more powerful than the last series of rare weapons". And if we didn't get that then we'd assert our "But I paid for it it's worth $X dollars!". We would then go on to ask for entitlements and benefits just like all the other AE games. We asked for unrealistic benefits and rewards. Because we got this in AE, we wanted this in ED. But that can't always happen. You cannot exceed your environment.
And among other things that came about as of the environment: We do "f4f" in game because we were receiving feedback that doing so was socially acceptable. We all huddled up in the Last world of Central Station because people were compelled by the environment to hang out with these people, because they were popular or for other attractive reasons; Or just because that's where everyone was, and where all the exciting talk was happening. Furthermore, people don't copy other people's builds until they see or hear how good the build is. They don't do it because they can . They do it because they adapt to their environment.
We can't keep blaming a certain group of players for ruining the game's balance. It has nothing to do with the specific groups of people. If anything, it's the collective physiology of people from the environment that is the sole root of the problem. We don't learn to behave a certain way until we see other people do so. The Gamma Players act as they are now because they learned those behaviors from the Beta Players. Delta Players learned from the Gamma Players. It's because we wish to feel that we're doing something right. People believe if they see someone else doing something, they're probably doing it right. What we do is telling others what is and is not acceptable. We've all been conditioned to love the times of beta because we've been persuaded by other people's reasons. Not our own. Yet nobody ever thinks about the whole of the game, including the non varium players.
It feels sad really. People don't understand that the players are the reflection of the environment of which influences the minds of people. If we don't realize soon that the environment itself is the problem, we're all going to fail the test of time. We have to change our value systems and some of our behaviors. It's the only way to make the game better in the long run.
And one last thing, before you try to deny yourself and tell me that I'm wrong, please be careful about it. Two people in the last thread were banned because they called me a communist. Please be civil.
< Message edited by PD -- 9/5/2011 2:14:36 >
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