Category: General

I’m thinking of writing a series on rules and ethics (in games and elsewhere), but first it seems necessary to establish a simple point: some tactics work really well even if you do not like them. Many of us know what “should win” in our idealized concept of the game, and we think it is a design flaw that other things are better, but tactically, in direct PvP or comparative performance, some things just work better. There is no moral character to it.

This is frequently hate against things that win despite being simple or boring because things that are difficult or awesome should win instead of being inefficient or impractical. You’re right, games would be more fun with more “awesome but practical” over “boring but practical,” as “boring” is not an desirable trait for most forms of entertainment, but that does not make choosing the simple, efficient, effective option bad strategy or morality. It is also an aesthetic argument rather than a balance issue; at the mechanical level, the tactics and strategy can be interesting and complex even if you personally think it’s BS that paper beats rock.

To take a friend’s favorite article, you need to play to win to enjoy the depth of the game. Continue reading Playing to Win

Hello, player character, and welcome to the Mazes of Menace! Your goal is to get to the center and defeat the Big Bad. You know this is your goal because you received a message from a very authoritative source that said so. Alas, the maze is filled with guards and traps that make every step dangerous. You have reached an intersection, and there are two doors before you. Door A leads towards the center; it probably takes you to your destination. Door B leads away from the center; it could loop back, but it’s probably a dead end. Which door do you choose?

The correct answer, and the answer which every habitual video game player will instinctively choose, is door B: the probable dead end. Because your goal is not to reach the end quickly, but to search as much of the maze’s area as you can, and by RPG genre convention, dead ends come with treasure. Similarly, if you’re on a quest to save the world, you do side-quests to put it off as long as possible, because you’re optimizing for fraction-of-content-seen, rather than probability-world-is-saved, which is 1.0 from the very beginning.
…
Permanent choices can be chosen arbitrarily on a whim, or based solely on what you think best matches your style, and you don’t need to research which is better. …
You shouldn’t save gold pieces, because they lose their value quickly to inflation as you level. …
— jimrandomh, Memetic Hazards in Videogames

You may also be interested in the paragraph contrasting cheat books with real life skill manuals.

: Zubon

Steam sales are brilliant experiments in applied economics.

During these holiday sales, Steam runs sales of several durations at once. There are daily sales, flash sales, and community-selected discounts. If you watch, these are all the same games. There may be a bit of plus or minus to it, but the same game will appear in all three spots. Voting for a game in the sidebar just gives you another few hours in which the sale is available (and makes you feel more invested, a more likely buyer). Time is (always) running out, this is (always) your last chance, buy now!

Steam seems to have stumbled on the model used by that one store down the street that seems to be having a clearance or holiday sale 48+ weeks of the year. They also seem to be experimenting less and settling on that model of having continuous sales that are always just about to end.

My favorite ad is still “last chance to pre-order!” That usually comes with a discount or bonus, or at least a chance to pre-load, but not always. Sometimes it is just your last chance to pay full price earlier than necessary. Yesterday, a few colleges and charities e-mailed me with a “courtesy reminder” that I had just four days left to give them money this year. Which is technically true and may have some tax benefits associated, but…

: Zubon

You too, dear Kill Ten Rats reader, have just three days left this year to send your favorite Kill Ten Rats writers games, money, and in-game money.

Once you no longer trust the developers, quit the game.

This realization took me a long while, and I see people struggling with it in comments and forums. If you do not trust the development team’s competence or good will, stop giving them time and money. (That used to be just “money,” but with the emergence of F2P, you see a lot of people playing things they would not pay to play. If you do not think the game is/will be worth your money, it is probably not worth your time.) Game companies are not the government. They cannot come to your house with guns and demand your money. You are free to go, and yes you may lose access to a game, but you are already on the downward spiral to where you quit the game angrily.

I can see sticking around a little longer for the community. This is where you start packing up your community or developing links to it outside the game. They are not serfs either. It is good to make friends with people overcoming the adversary within the game; if the game itself is an adversary, take your friends and find somewhere better to play. Happiness loves company more than misery does.

: Zubon

City of Steam keeps chugging along nicely. Now in closed beta, I had the chance to play around in it for a while (many thanks to Gabriel from Mechanist for the opportunity and being a great guide).

The game felt much improved from my last go around; much more solid, feature complete and visually packed with goodies. After the break, some brief comments and screenies about the new stuff that impressed me the most.

Continue reading Steaming along

Anything that has a 50% chance of happening for you will happen 2 in 10 times.
Anything that has a 50% chance of happening to you will happen 7 in 10 times.

: Zubon

If anyone asks, I did not tell you it was ok to do math like this.