clive-thompson
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A(nother) return to Azeroth, and all that grinding
Clive Thompson is probably my favorite technology writer -- I really enjoy everything he writes (lots of his stuff appears regularly in Wired), and he's got a real talent for not only tracking technological trends, but then explaining them in a way that's interesting and easy to understand. So I was pretty excited to see that he's back playing WoW, and just like a few of us here at WI, he enjoys the regular grind of it all.I don't know whether it's a result of all the Wrath beta news coming out lately, but it seems to me that we're already experiencing a resurgence of players around the expansion. Burning Crusade brought a lot of players back to the game, and it seems like things have started early for the next expansion -- people are returning to level their alts, get their epic mount dailies done, level up their professions, and just generally get back into the mix of things.And Thompson's piece is really about grinding -- like "obedient workers in a Soviet collective," he says, we return to mindlessly killing boars, or ravagers, or Ethereals, or whatever else it is we need to hit that next level of experience or reputation or profession. Why? Because we're rewarded for it. Increasingly, we live in a world where time invested doesn't always equal reward returned. But while grinding in a game like WoW, it always, always does, and that's why we love it so much.
Going kamikaze in Halo 3
Despite the many improvements to its predecessor's multiplayer mode, Bungie's Halo 3 is still not friendly to the newcomers. Wired's Clive Thompson is one of those players who don't have enough time or willpower to end up anywhere but last place in online matches. He's found a way to cope, however: suicide bombing. Specifically, Thompson (in-game) runs straight at his assailant so that with his last breath he can lob a sticky grenade with deadly precision, so that his opponent dies with him. This leads to an interesting, however shallow (a point Thompson himself makes), observation on the psychology behind playing a game with the intent of throwing yourself into suicidal positions. "The best players have dozens of free hours a week to hone their talents, and I don't have that luxury," he said. "This changes the relative meaning of death for the two of us. For me, dying will not penalize me in the way it penalizes them, because I have almost no chance of improving my state. I might as well take people down with me." Those at Joystiq who can't own at Halo 3 have found a very different approach to feeling better about our gaming skills: we play as the medic in Team Fortress 2 and let everyone else rack up the kills while we rack up the assist points. [Image via 1UP]
Hearing voices in the World of Warcraft
Clive Thompson (who I've enjoyed reading for a while now) posted a piece on Wired the other day about how voice changed the way he saw fellow players in World of Warcraft. It's a really interesting read, not least of all because of the two academic studies mentioned: one study found that women were "treated differently" when using voice chat, and another found that gamers made more solid and trusting relationships with friends they knew by voice rather than those that knew by text.I don't know if Thompson has heard yet that voice is going to be builtin to WoW very soon now, but it's true: voice is about to play a much bigger part in our game. And it's also true that voice changes things a lot-- in my regular guild, I will often jump on our Teamspeak server just to chat with my fellow guildies and friends, even if I'm not in a group. In It came from the Blog (the official WoW Insider guild in which I occasionally can be seen saying crazy things), we haven't set up a Vent server (although it's coming, guys), and so I had the strange experience the other day of running an instance with only text chat to keep me company. Don't get me wrong, I like all the guys in IcftB, but I don't know if the reason I don't know them better is just because I haven't been with the guild as long, or if I just haven't actually heard their voices.In the end, Thompson marks it down to a generational thing-- some people are willing to share their voices and hear others, he says, and some just aren't. I'm not sure if that's true necessarily (I am pretty conservative on, say, my Myspace page, and pretty free with my Ventrilo joining), but either way, the use of voice chat in videogames has only just started to make itself known.
Practice extreme Christmas shopping online
"Only in America can shopping be considered a contact sport. And Christmas is the Super Bowl for competitive consumers." With these words, Persuasive Games took this year's hottest toys and made them objects for Shockwave arcade game.Xtreme Xmas Shopping has you trying to collect all of this season's hottest toys before the other parents can snatch them all up. Scuffling with parents is alright, so long as its out of the line of sight of wandering children. Of the five gifts quested, two of them are -- surprise, surprise -- the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3. You can try the game out for yourself here. [Via collision detection]
Why it's OK to suck at games
Clive Thompson over at Wired wants us to know that thrills can be experienced in defeat when it comes to certain video games. A study conducted by psychologists over in Helsinki (the same place where they produce that hair restoration formula) shows that gamers experience a measure of joy even when failing to complete an objective in a particular game. While playing Super Monkey Ball 2's bowling mini game, test subjects hooked up to biosensors elicited "positively valenced high-arousal" after rolling gutter balls. In other words, watching a trapped monkey plummet to his death is cool. Thompson validated these results by playing the game himself and experiencing the same loser high.Is it a sign of good game design when positive feedback mechanisms accompany all possible outcomes, or do these studies simply underscore our ability to laugh at ourselves in the midst of failure? The article also mentions Burnout Revenge and GTA as examples of games that provide pleasure even when you're failing to accomplish your goal. What other games succeed in this way?
Clive Thompson on episodic gaming (he's in love with Alyx too)
Wired's Clive Thompson does the "episodic games are cool" thing and rounds all the usual bases: 24 and Lost are the television paradigms; episodic games are great for busy adults; Alyx is worthy of your adoration of geek lust. He writes, "There's an intimacy to episodic stories, and it's all the more intensified in a game because you literally go through hell with these folks. After Half-Life 2 and Episode One, I was pretty much in love with Alyx, one of the spunkiest and best-acted virtual characters I've ever seen."Hear hear! While Alyx played a pivotal role in HL2, she's playing alongside you in Episode One. Valve calls it "single-player co-op" and, like the paradigm of co-op multiplayer, Alyx feels like a buddy you're running through the game with. Like the lives of your favorite soap stars (or Jack Bauer, whatever) Alyx will be as important as the serialized story or the additional gameplay in convincing gamers to return for each consecutive HL2 episode. Now if they could only start getting these things out the door monthly ... weekly ... daily ...[Via collision detection]
The Jar Jar effect: "games do sci-fi best"
Clive Thompson has an essay up at Wired called, "Forget Film, Games Do Sci-Fi Best." Thompson's argument is that LucasArts' Star Wars games are better realized works of science fiction than Lucas' Star Wars prequels, a not altogether controversial claim. Thompson writes, "In the last 20 years, Lucas' vision has arguably been far better expressed in video games than in movies."Citing games like Rogue Squadron, Knights of the Old Republic, and Battlefront, he identifies the similarities that allow gaming to do sci-fi best: "Part of the fun of watching a sci-fi movie is mentally inhabiting a new world and imagining what it feels like to be inside. But now there's a medium that actually puts you in."Thompson is quick to temper his claims, saying, "Even the best 'narrative' games can't replicate the emotional undertow of a good film," though his basic point remains valid: that Lucas, specifically, is being outdone by his games. Fellow sci-fi movie maker James Cameron plans on creating an MMO that introduces players to the universe before the film comes out, so you can mentally visit somewhere you've already been.
