This post discusses some experiences I had with a real-life friend of mine who I know reads this blog and whom I make some conjecture about that could be patently wrong. You'll know who you are once you start reading, and if what I say is wrong or portrays you in the wrong light, you have my sincerest apologies. But think about it this way; no one else will know it's you I'm writing about.
I have been playing WoW for more than five years now. I don't say that to show off at all, just to provide background information for the story I'm about to tell. I have a friend who has been playing WoW since the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King (about two years now) and has spent most of that time raiding. As such, he has procured some pretty impressive epics, including the Ring of Rapid Ascent, the Amulet of the Silent Eulogy, and the Gunship Captain's Mittens. Now, he and I have the kind of friendship where we occasionally show off to each other, but never in a legitimate attempt to make the other person jealous; just friendly boasting. As such, one day he logged in to show me his gear. Now, as someone who has no motivation to raid and who is rarely impressed by numbers alone, I wasn't as impressed as he expected me to be, so he asked me to show him what I had accomplished. He should have known better, for he knows I have been playing for more than five years.
You see, when you play for that long, you tend to accumulate various rewards here and there that really add up over time. My friend got the first hint that asking me to show off might be a bad idea when he saw my 4605 achievement points, more than double his 2200 (give or take). We were looking at my armory profile, mind you, so he decided to compare achievements, and his dread became a bit more apparent when he saw that he had many times more raid achievements than I (that was where most of his achievement points came from). Then we logged in to look at my character, and he was greeted by my 85 pets (including my Magical Crawdad, my Kirin Tor Familiar, and my Argent Squire with bridle), my 25 exalted reputations (including Netherwing, Ogri'la, and the Kalu'ak) my Onyx Netherwing Drake, my Chef title, my Traveler's Tundra Mammoth, and my Violet Proto-Drake. See, I'm a big solo player, and when you are a solo player who has been playing for five years, you tend to accrue these kinds of things without giving it too much thought, and at this point, most of these things were just trophies of past exploits, things I hardly even thought about now.
My friend, however, was extremely envious of my acquisitions, and vocally so. I made a point of telling him that everything I had acquired was not difficult to get, just time consuming; of course, having played the game for five years, I had a lot of time to put in to getting those things, but I left that part out. See, this friend of mine is a Kingslayer, something he put a considerable amount of time and effort into achieving, and he is also a raid leader, so he spends more time on raiding than the average Kingslayer. My thought was, if he could put forth that much time (to raid management, the multiple attempts, etc.) to getting Kingslayer, why couldn't he put forth the same amount of time it would take to get any of the things I had gotten? His claim was that he just didn't have the patience to go for something as time-consuming as the Violet Proto-Drake or the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth, so I let it rest at that.
But there was a disconnect about the whole thing that piqued my interest. Here he was, with his epics and his raid achievements, quite proud of them, and here I was, with my pets, mounts, and solo-ing achievements, and I had never given most of them a second thought. They were just trophies of parts of the game I enjoyed playing, many of which I probably would have played even if there was no reward (getting exalted with Netherwing certainly falls in that category), so I had no particular pride in most of them, and yet my friend was quite jealous of them. Why this difference between us?
My first guess was that it was just a matter of his inability to obtain what I had that made him jealous, but I realized that I myself had similarly accepted that I would probably never raid and never get epics and achievements like him. If it were that "forbidden fruit" effect that had caused him to be jealous of my acquisitions, then I would be similarly jealous of his epics and achievements. Yet here I was, sitting back as he showed me the things he had achieved, beaming with pride, and I just sat back and nodded, not at all jealous of what he had experienced and obtained that I hadn't. Of course, I thought, maybe I've just had longer to accept that I won't get these things, so I'm more at peace with it than he is about never obtaining the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth or Violet Proto-Drake.
But I found my potential answer in a comment he made as he was showing me his gear and achievements. When he had sufficiently impressed upon me just how much time he has spent raiding, how much time he has put in to get to the point he's at now, he said only half sarcastically, "I hate this game." It was just a joke at the time, but upon reflection, I realize there may be more to read into in his words than I initially thought. My friend may not be the most honest of people (he's not dishonest by any stretch of the imagination, but as someone who legitimately has difficulty with lying, I can say he's more liable to stretch the truth than I am), but perhaps he was being honest when he claimed he disliked that game at this point. I can't help but ask myself, if he really grew to dislike this game, then why did he keep playing? Perhaps he was one of those players who played for the achievements, the loot, the bragging rights; perhaps he had become the type who plays for the objective rewards.
I, on the other hand, am not the type to play for objective rewards, at least I'm not anymore; I may have been that type back in the day, but no longer. I'm definitively in the subjectively-driven camp now, in that I play for the experience more than the end result. Don't get me wrong, the end result is important to me in some respects, but it's the earning of the end result that is most important to me. Perhaps the difference between how my friend and I view the spoils of our exploits lies in this difference in motivation; perhaps he was prouder of his gear and achievements and jealous of my pets and mounts because he was focusing of the rewards, not the process of obtaining them. I, on the other hand, am not at all jealous that he got to experience raiding--which is how he got his achievements and loot, after all--since I don't enjoy raiding. When I saw those purples, I saw the frustration, the time commitments, the needing to deal with other people and depend on them for your success; I saw all of the inconveniences associated with earning that loot, not the loot itself. When you look it that way, is it any wonder I wasn't jealous?
Showing posts with label objective rewards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label objective rewards. Show all posts
Friday, November 19, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The limitations of our measurement of success
I have not yet had time to log in to see phase four of the elemental invasion, but something else has captured my attention lately; namely, a comment on MMO-Champion's post about phase four of the elemental invasion starting. 'Tis but a simple comment, but the implications it had for my reflections were many:
any FoS for killing them, tabard, etc? if not what the point?
Larisa of Pink Pigtail Inn wasn't pleased upon reading such a comment, for she saw it as a sign that WoW has become nothing more than a game where we play just for the stimuli, for the objective rewards. I have talked about the differences between playing for objective rewards and playing for subjective rewards before, but in that post, I didn't realize the implications of said differences. This comment, though, has made me realize just what those implications are: which rewards we play for changes how we measure our success, and how we measure our success changes how we play.
Success might not be the best word to describe what I am writing about; productivity might describe it better, for I am talking about the general sensation that our play has been fruitful, that some good came out of it. For someone focused on objective rewards, successful play might be defined by the gear he gets or the rank he achieves in arenas or the pets he collects. For someone focused on the more subjective aspects of play, successful play might be defined by whether he had fun or how deeply he was able to immerse himself in his playing or how much of the story of WoW he was able to experience. For someone like our MMO-Champion commenter above, it appears that fruitful play is defined by some sort of tangible reminder of his actions; it seems he cannot be satisfied with his experiences in-game if there is not some visible indicator of what he has done, and thus those objective rewards are his measure of success.
As tempting as it might be to claim that it is somehow better to play for those subjective rewards than to play for objective rewards, both motivators have their drawbacks. Someone who plays for objective rewards will miss out on content that they might otherwise enjoy if that content doesn't give them some sort of tangible reward, and they might continue to play content they don't enjoy for the sake of those tangible rewards. Still, even in that latter case, at least they find the acquisition of those rewards fun, even if they don't find the process enjoyable, and considering how many parts of this game do give some sort of objective reward, it's rare that someone motivated by objective rewards won't find something in an experience to convince them to play. Phase 4 of the elemental invasion just happens to be one of those rare cases.
But what drawbacks could there be to playing for subjective rewards? Self-limitation. Someone who plays the game to have fun, for example, might avoid parts of the game he doesn't think he'll find fun. He might avoid PvP because he enjoys the relaxed pace of questing, potentially missing out on something that he'd find quite enjoyable if he just gave it a try. Someone who plays for deep immersion might not go back and do old quests because he feels that killing enemies easily kills the immersion for him, when he might enjoy the lore he discovers by doing those quests he skipped while leveling. Someone who plays for the lore might skip out on raiding because he doesn't find it to be very story-heavy compared to other parts of the game, which prevents him from seeing the evolving lore to be found in raids and from experiencing a part of the game he might enjoy if he gave it a shot. In all those cases, it is the player himself that is responsible for his measure of success limiting how much he can enjoy the game, and it is the assumptions he makes that hold him back.
From this perspective, whether playing for one kind of reward is better than playing for the other kind depends on whether you think it is better to be limited by the game's design or by your own inhibitions. Now, if players didn't have hesitation about getting into a part of the game they haven't tried yet, then playing for subjective rewards would be the best way to go, without a doubt. But players are human, and one of the many flaws some people have is an unwillingness to go outside of their comfort zone, to try new things that they don't know for a fact will give them satisfaction. For someone like this, it could be better to be motivated by the objective rewards of the game. Sure, it means they can't overcome the limitations on what they play by willpower alone, as someone limited by their own assumptions might be able to, but there are enough objective rewards within the game to motivate someone to try something they might not try otherwise. So, though our intrepid commenter up there might not have wanted to partake in phase four of the elemental invasion because it didn't give him any objective rewards like feats of strength or a tabard, perhaps those rewards have motivated him to try other parts of the game he might not have tried otherwise. Is that so bad?
Now, again, in an ideal world, players would be willing to try all parts of the game, regardless of the objective rewards they receive for doing so and regardless of their own reservations about trying something that they don't think will be fun for them. But again, we don't live in an ideal world, and humans are flawed, and though the two situations I have presented here (avoiding parts of the game without objective rewards and avoid parts of the game that won't reward you with the subjective reward you seek) represent only two possibilities in a sea of ways to WoW, all I mean to say is that given the choice between the two of them, playing for objective rewards doesn't seem as bad as people make it out to be, for it might motivate you to try more parts of the game that playing for subjective rewards might. Whether playing for subjective rewards will allow you to have more fun, though... well, the jury is out on that one.
any FoS for killing them, tabard, etc? if not what the point?
Larisa of Pink Pigtail Inn wasn't pleased upon reading such a comment, for she saw it as a sign that WoW has become nothing more than a game where we play just for the stimuli, for the objective rewards. I have talked about the differences between playing for objective rewards and playing for subjective rewards before, but in that post, I didn't realize the implications of said differences. This comment, though, has made me realize just what those implications are: which rewards we play for changes how we measure our success, and how we measure our success changes how we play.
Success might not be the best word to describe what I am writing about; productivity might describe it better, for I am talking about the general sensation that our play has been fruitful, that some good came out of it. For someone focused on objective rewards, successful play might be defined by the gear he gets or the rank he achieves in arenas or the pets he collects. For someone focused on the more subjective aspects of play, successful play might be defined by whether he had fun or how deeply he was able to immerse himself in his playing or how much of the story of WoW he was able to experience. For someone like our MMO-Champion commenter above, it appears that fruitful play is defined by some sort of tangible reminder of his actions; it seems he cannot be satisfied with his experiences in-game if there is not some visible indicator of what he has done, and thus those objective rewards are his measure of success.
As tempting as it might be to claim that it is somehow better to play for those subjective rewards than to play for objective rewards, both motivators have their drawbacks. Someone who plays for objective rewards will miss out on content that they might otherwise enjoy if that content doesn't give them some sort of tangible reward, and they might continue to play content they don't enjoy for the sake of those tangible rewards. Still, even in that latter case, at least they find the acquisition of those rewards fun, even if they don't find the process enjoyable, and considering how many parts of this game do give some sort of objective reward, it's rare that someone motivated by objective rewards won't find something in an experience to convince them to play. Phase 4 of the elemental invasion just happens to be one of those rare cases.
But what drawbacks could there be to playing for subjective rewards? Self-limitation. Someone who plays the game to have fun, for example, might avoid parts of the game he doesn't think he'll find fun. He might avoid PvP because he enjoys the relaxed pace of questing, potentially missing out on something that he'd find quite enjoyable if he just gave it a try. Someone who plays for deep immersion might not go back and do old quests because he feels that killing enemies easily kills the immersion for him, when he might enjoy the lore he discovers by doing those quests he skipped while leveling. Someone who plays for the lore might skip out on raiding because he doesn't find it to be very story-heavy compared to other parts of the game, which prevents him from seeing the evolving lore to be found in raids and from experiencing a part of the game he might enjoy if he gave it a shot. In all those cases, it is the player himself that is responsible for his measure of success limiting how much he can enjoy the game, and it is the assumptions he makes that hold him back.
From this perspective, whether playing for one kind of reward is better than playing for the other kind depends on whether you think it is better to be limited by the game's design or by your own inhibitions. Now, if players didn't have hesitation about getting into a part of the game they haven't tried yet, then playing for subjective rewards would be the best way to go, without a doubt. But players are human, and one of the many flaws some people have is an unwillingness to go outside of their comfort zone, to try new things that they don't know for a fact will give them satisfaction. For someone like this, it could be better to be motivated by the objective rewards of the game. Sure, it means they can't overcome the limitations on what they play by willpower alone, as someone limited by their own assumptions might be able to, but there are enough objective rewards within the game to motivate someone to try something they might not try otherwise. So, though our intrepid commenter up there might not have wanted to partake in phase four of the elemental invasion because it didn't give him any objective rewards like feats of strength or a tabard, perhaps those rewards have motivated him to try other parts of the game he might not have tried otherwise. Is that so bad?
Now, again, in an ideal world, players would be willing to try all parts of the game, regardless of the objective rewards they receive for doing so and regardless of their own reservations about trying something that they don't think will be fun for them. But again, we don't live in an ideal world, and humans are flawed, and though the two situations I have presented here (avoiding parts of the game without objective rewards and avoid parts of the game that won't reward you with the subjective reward you seek) represent only two possibilities in a sea of ways to WoW, all I mean to say is that given the choice between the two of them, playing for objective rewards doesn't seem as bad as people make it out to be, for it might motivate you to try more parts of the game that playing for subjective rewards might. Whether playing for subjective rewards will allow you to have more fun, though... well, the jury is out on that one.
Friday, October 29, 2010
The questionable legitimacy of objective rewards
So I'm back with more tales from the warrior front. As I mentioned in my last post before my laptop went down, patch 4.0.1 revitalized my interest in the game by turning my warrior alt from a joke to a force to be reckoned with, one who can take down red-colored-level monsters and complete red-colored quests with ease. What was once something of a burden has become fun; so fun, in fact, that I didn't want to stop playing my warrior. Killing things became so fun that I started to resent any break in the process, including needing to go to a capital city to learn my new moves. It was when I realized that this was the case that I was a bit shocked; after all, isn't leveling up the whole point of the leveling process? Why was I suddenly not looking forward to hitting those levels?
I remember that back before patch 4.0.1 made leveling a warrior fun, I looked forward to each time I leveled up. I would count the little bars in my experience bar and watch them fill, waiting anxiously for that time when I would see that golden light. Though all levels gave me a bit of a rush, the even ones especially were the ones I looked forward to, for that was when I would get my new abilities. But more than that, each of those levels represented something I had accomplished, something I had worked for. Leveling at the lower levels was usually not that fun, and each time I leveled up, it was like the game was telling me, "You should feel satisfied with what you have accomplished." And I did, and thus, though the leveling process was a pain, it was worth it for the sense of satisfaction I felt upon ascending to each new level.
Now, however, things are different (for me, at least). As I play my warrior, I don't watch the experience bar at all; I've been taken by surprise by that golden light quite a few times, in fact. And while the odd levels are met with joy (I do get to spend a talent point, after all), the even levels are met with less enthusiasm, since I have to go out of my way to learn whatever new ability I get at those levels. In other words, as I play my warrior now, leveling up is merely incidental to the leveling process; it's just another event that happens along the way. And it has become that way because the leveling process is now exciting in its own right, because this class is finally fun to play.
But now I'm a bit jaded, because I have experienced the contrast between playing for the objective statistical rewards and playing in spite of them. I have experienced the contrast between playing the game for the end result and playing the game for the sake of playing the game, and I'm not sure I could go back to the former. To put this in terms that might be more familiar to people who don't level alts frequently, the difference I have experienced is like the different between running a raid because you want to say you killed that boss or because you want the loot upgrades they drop, and running a raid because you enjoy raiding. One mode of play is motivated by the end-result, the other is motivated by the playing itself, and that's what I'm experiencing on my warrior now.
After experiencing this shift in mode of play, I realized that much of the time I have spent playing WoW has been spent in results-oriented mode. Most of the heroics I ran were motivated by the emblems that dropped and the gear that could be obtained with them. Most of the alts I leveled were leveled so that I could experience playing them once they got their better abilities and became fun, but I ended up leveling even the few that I managed to get that far for the sake of that flash of golden light. Maybe that's why I was never able to get into raiding; I was there for the experience, not the loot, the achievements, or the bragging rights, so I had nothing to motivate me to gloss over the things I found tedious or frustrating about the whole process.
So what does that mean in the larger scheme of things? Well, for me, it means I have become skeptical of many of the rewards we get for playing and their purpose in the game. By a metaphorical show of hands, how many of you would play WoW if there were no gear, no leveling up, no achievements, etc.; just the gameplay? Some of you would, I'm sure, so the other question is, how long would you play a game like this? Would you have raided ICC for ten months (going on eleven) if the gear weren't there to motivate you or to pace your progress? Maybe you would have; I won't make any assumptions, I'm just presenting these questions as food for thought.
But where am I going with this? Truth be told, I'm not sure myself; this mode of playing WoW is so new to me that I'm still getting a feel for it, for its nuances and consequences. I suppose the only thing I can say for now is that, though levels, gear currency, achievements, and gear itself might serve larger purposes within the game, they should be incidental to the gameplay itself. They should be there as conveniences and game mechanics, not as motivators to play. When they do become players' reasons to play, that's a sign that the gameplay itself isn't enough to keep people playing, and that says to me that the game just isn't fun.
I remember that back before patch 4.0.1 made leveling a warrior fun, I looked forward to each time I leveled up. I would count the little bars in my experience bar and watch them fill, waiting anxiously for that time when I would see that golden light. Though all levels gave me a bit of a rush, the even ones especially were the ones I looked forward to, for that was when I would get my new abilities. But more than that, each of those levels represented something I had accomplished, something I had worked for. Leveling at the lower levels was usually not that fun, and each time I leveled up, it was like the game was telling me, "You should feel satisfied with what you have accomplished." And I did, and thus, though the leveling process was a pain, it was worth it for the sense of satisfaction I felt upon ascending to each new level.
Now, however, things are different (for me, at least). As I play my warrior, I don't watch the experience bar at all; I've been taken by surprise by that golden light quite a few times, in fact. And while the odd levels are met with joy (I do get to spend a talent point, after all), the even levels are met with less enthusiasm, since I have to go out of my way to learn whatever new ability I get at those levels. In other words, as I play my warrior now, leveling up is merely incidental to the leveling process; it's just another event that happens along the way. And it has become that way because the leveling process is now exciting in its own right, because this class is finally fun to play.
But now I'm a bit jaded, because I have experienced the contrast between playing for the objective statistical rewards and playing in spite of them. I have experienced the contrast between playing the game for the end result and playing the game for the sake of playing the game, and I'm not sure I could go back to the former. To put this in terms that might be more familiar to people who don't level alts frequently, the difference I have experienced is like the different between running a raid because you want to say you killed that boss or because you want the loot upgrades they drop, and running a raid because you enjoy raiding. One mode of play is motivated by the end-result, the other is motivated by the playing itself, and that's what I'm experiencing on my warrior now.
After experiencing this shift in mode of play, I realized that much of the time I have spent playing WoW has been spent in results-oriented mode. Most of the heroics I ran were motivated by the emblems that dropped and the gear that could be obtained with them. Most of the alts I leveled were leveled so that I could experience playing them once they got their better abilities and became fun, but I ended up leveling even the few that I managed to get that far for the sake of that flash of golden light. Maybe that's why I was never able to get into raiding; I was there for the experience, not the loot, the achievements, or the bragging rights, so I had nothing to motivate me to gloss over the things I found tedious or frustrating about the whole process.
So what does that mean in the larger scheme of things? Well, for me, it means I have become skeptical of many of the rewards we get for playing and their purpose in the game. By a metaphorical show of hands, how many of you would play WoW if there were no gear, no leveling up, no achievements, etc.; just the gameplay? Some of you would, I'm sure, so the other question is, how long would you play a game like this? Would you have raided ICC for ten months (going on eleven) if the gear weren't there to motivate you or to pace your progress? Maybe you would have; I won't make any assumptions, I'm just presenting these questions as food for thought.
But where am I going with this? Truth be told, I'm not sure myself; this mode of playing WoW is so new to me that I'm still getting a feel for it, for its nuances and consequences. I suppose the only thing I can say for now is that, though levels, gear currency, achievements, and gear itself might serve larger purposes within the game, they should be incidental to the gameplay itself. They should be there as conveniences and game mechanics, not as motivators to play. When they do become players' reasons to play, that's a sign that the gameplay itself isn't enough to keep people playing, and that says to me that the game just isn't fun.
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