My course: "The Art, History, and Culture of Video Games"

[isiolia]

WoW has always been a relatively easy/casual friendly MMO. That's how it became as popular as it is. It may be easier now to get to the later levels, but that's generally the case with MMOs - they want to make sure people can start the game and catch up to current content additions.

It's a good choice either way because it's a highly compatible game, with a free trial, that the majority of MMOs on the market today copy, at least to a degree.

While, sure, a short-term player won't understand the full scope of a game like that, chances are they'd be able to understand some of the appeal.

[Key-Glyph]

If you're not willing to put any effort into it, then why the fuck would you sign up for a video game class?

As intense and thoughtful as this course is set up to be, I would put my money on at least 80% of the incoming students coming to exactly the opposite conclusion. "A course on video games? YES! So much for having to any work!" This is a freshman seminar class. I truly hope that some students share the passion we have here on Racket and will really commit to the workload, because it would be a shame if the less-motivated types got frustrated and resentful that a class they expected to be akin to 24/7 recess turned out to be the hardest intro they take.

Dave, is there a computer lab in the campus library? Because you might want to hit up the librarians and see if they'll allow you to install some emulator programs and/or games on certain terminals for the students in your class. They could work it so that only the individuals taking your course have access to the goods after signing in at the front desk. I took a film course in college, and this was precisely how my University made obscure films accessible to all of us: we could borrow an assigned film for three hours only, had to watch it in-house, and had to be on the course roster to get our hands on it to begin with.

You may also want to see if the library will actually allow you to have a dedicated television for console hookups to be wheeled out at request for students' use (or allow you to bring in your own setup and store it in a locked closet). Again, students would have to be registered with the course to get access, and they'd need some kind of time limit (and headphones -- it's a library ). But this kind of setup will help deal with a lot of potential discouraging hurdles: the students' money, their time, the individuals who will be frustrated by setting up their own emulations ever week, etcetera.

[dsheinem]

For those who have been following with interest, I just posted an updated and very-near final syllabus. Just a few TBD readings that I have to settle on...

[Ack]

dsheinem, make sure to inform the class that the "WoW model" (which was actually created by EverQuest, which was more hardcore) isn't the only type of MMORPG that exists: Ultima Online had a very different take on the whole genre. EVE Online is a modern example of that "UO model" of MMORPG, it's a lot more sophisticated and multifaceted MMORPG than WoW and all WoW clones.

I disagree here. I know of many WoW players who are casuals and don't raid much at all if any. In fact most players who enjoy the game are hooked on its gameplay long before end game. The ones who don't, usually quit thw game first. For the hardcore player end game is all that matters. But there a few different contingents of players.

Well that might be true nowadays, the game has become increasingly less demanding and casual over the years. Or rather, even if you're casual, you can still enjoy the game nowadays, which wasn't the case when I played. Back when I started playing, I spent majority of my leveling up time wishing I was 60 so I could start raiding and enjoying the game. That light at the end of the tunnel is what kept me playing the game to that point.

Anyway Blizzard has put a lot of effort over the years into making leveling a more fun and rewarding experience. XP requirements are a lot lower, there are a lot more fun quests available for lower level players (and quests in general), there's achievements, you get a mount for practically free at level 20 where as it used to require a lot of money saving and wasn't available to players until level 40 and so on. In vanilla and TBC, the game was all about the most successful and active players. Blizzard realized that it makes more sense to keep the majority of the playerbase happy so they've done a lot over the years to make everything except arena PvP and high end raiding as easy possible.

You know, I played WoW for a good while, and I only went raiding once. The problem is that the player base is a bunch of weaklings who don't understand that the game is really at its best in world PvP. Raids suck, the arenas are lame, and grinding blows goats. But to revel in the screams of another player as you suddenly burst forth from the trees and bury an axe into his neck only to leave his carcass in the middle of a path as a warning to other players...now THAT is where it's at.

A friend and I used to run a small hit squad that would hide on well-used trails to pick off wandering Alliance travelers. It was good fun. Especially when they would realize all was lost and just use that cry emote as we carved them like a fine Thanksgiving turkey. Sometimes we wouldn't kill them, we'd maim and then run off laughing. Or sometimes we would harass them by simply revealing we were there, watching, breathing down the backs of their necks, waiting for them to drop their guard. That paranoia they felt, when they would find the stuck carcass of some human wizard, still fresh from the kill, that was what we wanted. Invariably they would call for friends, and we'd have to run from a guild or three...but the carnage and mayhem we sowed was so completely worth it.

[Menegrothx]

I love world PvP. There's nothing more fun nor epic than a big chain event that starts from small skirmishes between few players, and ends up in a massive war between the factions, lasting hours into the early morning, with people devising all kinds of different tactics and ways to one up and surprise the other side, just for the sheer fun of it (+faction pride). I was always up for fighting just for the fun of it, and if I was bored and couldn't find targets, I'd go the the other factions main cities and kill unsuspecting players.

The problem with world pvp is that it isn't mechanically rewarding (it does not award you better gear). PvP didn't reward players before the ranking system came, and then most people who grinded to rank 14 did so by farming battlegrounds with a group. Sure you'd get honor from all those kills, but a lot less than you would get by just playing battlegrounds. Then came Burning Crusade and they introduced flying mounts, neutral cities and started casualizing the game even more and as time went on the playerbase was increasingly made up of people who had a different mindset than those who originally played the game.

Arena is a great skill test. It's from design and mechanics POV just as fine form of eSports as Starcraft 2. There's tremendous amounts of depth in the system and the skill cap is very high, although in the really high end level the RPG mechanics naturally affect the "purity" of the experience (as most competitive games don't have RNG elements in them).

If there was a MMO with no levels and no grinding that focused on World PvP, I'd sign up for it in a heartbeat. Though I think that the kind of emotional investment, character progression, sense of world and lore etc that you have in a game like WoW (or Ultima Online, Eve, Dark Age of Camelot etc) is important, so that the game doesn't feel too much like a pointless free for all deathmatch

[DocHauser]

I grant you this much: playing video games is more fun than reading dusty literature. True. Playing the dullest video game is still more fun than reading Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground.

I've played Braid. I've read Notes From Underground. Old Fyodor would get my vote every time.

[Ack]

I grant you this much: playing video games is more fun than reading dusty literature. True. Playing the dullest video game is still more fun than reading Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground.

I've played Braid. I've read Notes From Underground. Old Fyodor would get my vote every time.

I also would argue against playing terrible games versus reading good literature. I greatly dislike The Scarlett Letter, but I would happily read it again versus being forced to play Ultraman: Towards the Future and the SNES Pit-Fighter port.

[MrPopo]

I grant you this much: playing video games is more fun than reading dusty literature. True. Playing the dullest video game is still more fun than reading Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground.

I've played Braid. I've read Notes From Underground. Old Fyodor would get my vote every time.

I also would argue against playing terrible games versus reading good literature. I greatly dislike The Scarlett Letter, but I would happily read it again versus being forced to play Ultraman: Towards the Future and the SNES Pit-Fighter port.

You lying liar. I know that you agree with me that Ultrman: Towards the Future is the best fighting game OF ALL TIME.

[Ack]

You lying liar. I know that you agree with me that Ultrman: Towards the Future is the best fighting game OF ALL TIME.

And I quote:

With Ultraman, I think the dev team at Bandai had heard of the basic idea of a fighting game, but had never played one. At least, that's what I hope happened. Because if they have, I ask they humbly commit seppuku for the travesty they presented forth to the genre. Ultraman features enemies with regenerating health which damage the player by touching them, have limitless energy when it comes to their projectile attacks, and out range the player in every way. Ultraman, meanwhile, has to charge up energy for his special moves, gets stunned at the drop of a hat, is on a timer, hasn't yet figured out how to do things like crouch and kick at the same time, doesn't understand such a foreign concept as blocking, and can only defeat enemies by beating them until they are out of health and then using his most powerful special move on them (which uses the same slow building energy that all of his special moves use, so using any sort of projectile or defense ability will cause you to wait even longer to defeat an enemy with regenerating health while the timer ticks away).

If any of this sounds good to you, I want you to fill your mouth with nails and broken glass and then slam your jaw into a cement block.

There are only two things I like about this game: the stages, which appear in layers in front of and behind the action, giving a sense of depth and also helping to establish the enormous size of the monsters involved (though I feel the stages don't compare to the few outside stages of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Fighting Edition). And then there are the transition scenes, which feature explosions, Ultraman flying, and then Ultraman getting an extreme closeup, which for some reason cracks me up every time.

Beyond that...I have nothing good to say about the game. Oh, and if you do decide one day to subject yourself to this crap, beat the game on Normal. It has a much better ending than both Easy and Expert modes (which just offer Ultraman flying at different angles during the credits). Oh, and you need to know the secret code to even access the Options menu because...I don't know. Someone at Bandai was a fucking idiot.

I hate this game. I genuinely dislike criticizing games and try to find the positive side, but there have been a few cases where a game has roused my ire. Ultraman is one of those cases.

[pierrot]

WoW has always been a relatively easy/casual friendly MMO. That's how it became as popular as it is.

Just to touch on this, I remember a lot of people jumping ship from FFXI to WoW because the latter was more friendly to players/beginners back in the early days. The draw always seemed to be that soloing to 60 was actually a practical feat, and the existence of mounts cut down travel time tremendously. To people who continued playing FFXI, WoW was for casuals. I've never actually played it, but I still have the perception of WoW as a casual MMO.

Also, Ack's earlier post pretty clearly illustrates why I prefer voluntary PvP. >_> Nothing further, your honer.