teamwork
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EVE Evolved: When social and market values collide
Research into the social sciences suggests that people interact with each other in two separate modes. One mode is governed by primarily social influences and the other by basic market forces. Which one we choose in any given interaction has a profound impact on the way we interact with each other. Perhaps nowhere in the gaming world are these forces played out as strongly as in EVE Online, with its lack of economic regulation and tight-knit social structures. EVE players routinely form social relationships with other pilots, their corporation leaders and corpmates. On the flip-side, we interact with hundreds of players we don't know using more selfish market-driven rules as we trade, haggle over prices or even just buy something from the market. But how do these two types of player-to-player interaction coexist in the same universe and what problems can arise when they collide? In this complex and in-depth article, I examine the relationships we form with other players, why they're important and what can happen when we inadvertently cross the line from an implied social contract to a market-based business one.
EVE Evolved: When social and market values collide, part 2
As close as social structures get in New Eden, it's often billed as a cold, harsh universe where anything goes and you have to keep your wits around you. A relationship can be characterised as following market or business rules rather than social rules when it's dominated by prices, value, risk and immediate reciprocity.
The lost art of crowd control
The emblems changes are driving traffic back to the Heroics, and I love it -- 5-mans are my favorite thing to do in the game, and there's nothing more fun to me than sitting down with a group and trouncing a Heroic, reeling in all of the gold and loot we can carry. But there's something missing, still, even in these glory days of achievements and Stone Keeper's Shards and Emblems of Conquest. Yes, it's crowd control. Groups are still gung-ho on AoEing everything in their way, and Blizzard hasn't shown any indication, even in the design of the new instances, that crowd control is anything they want to keep around. I can't remember the last time I trapped something in a group on my Hunter, and I'm sure that the last time I did, some Death Knight broke it right open, Death Grip-ped it back into the group, and then AoE'd it down to nothing.Bornakk actually replies in the thread that we're just being nostalgic for nostalgia's sake, and that even when CC was required, people whined that they needed to have certain classes in their groups. But what class doesn't have CC these days? Even Shamans got their CC, just as it wasn't actually needed any more. Crowd control added some semi-serious strategy even to trash fights in instances, and while we originally heard that it would come back at some point, Blizzard certainly seems to be done with it.But we can be patient. The new instances in 3.2 are light to completely empty on trash, so maybe they're waiting for Icecrown to really put our CC skills and coordination to the test. I play a Hunter at endgame currently, so I might be biased, but I do love 5-mans, and I do miss the extra coordination and teamwork that a big CC-required pull provided. Hopefully they can find a way to mix that back in without requiring certain specs or classes to be along for the ride.
MMOs as team building exercise?
It's not the first time we've heard that MMO gamers might be a force in the workplace, but the American Society of Training and Development's webzine, Training + Development, has added to the viability of the MMO gamer in the workforce.Their article, "Slash, Burn, and Learn", focuses on how MMOs closely mimic team building exercises through their game design. Players are encouraged to progress through the game by solving challenges, only to be presented with harder challenges to solve as the game continues onwards. Certainly rewards provide incentive to keep plugging away at hard challenges, but players also learn how to manage personnel and look for diversity in the team to make sure all aspects of combat are accounted for. Players even submit to optional performance reviews just to see how much they've improved over time.The article provides an interesting read and shows many of the parallels between raid management and workplace skills. While not every MMO player will gain all of these benefits, it is amusing to see how much our games sometimes parallel our lives in more ways than one.
March Guild of the Month: The Holy Crusade of Bleeding Hollow
We are, unfortunately, late in awarding our first ever Guild of the Month winner, but we've got a good reason: when we contacted Nytrok, the guildmaster, he was away in France for the 60th anniversary of NATO, and as an Air Force Corporal in the Canadian Forces, was meeting with the Prime Minister and Chief of Defense Staff. Very impressive! But fortunately, he found the time to send us some information about the guild, and we're glad to award him and | The Holy Crusade | of Bleeding Hollow our first Guild of the Month.For winning, they'll recieve not only a profile right here in this post (check after the break to see why we chose them as winners this month), but also a raid pack from Swagdog.com, which includes a big stack of custom-made guild apparel for them to distribute among their guildies and officers as they see fit. If you didn't win but still want to show some guild pride, Swagdog has hats and t-shirts that can be emblazoned with your guild's name and tabard, as well as your character's name and class logo. Huge thanks to them for sponsoring our content.And of course we're now opening up nominations for the April Guild of the Month. To enter, send us an email (no more than 200 words please) to guildofthemonth@gmail.com stating why your guild deserves to win. Please note that you must be from the US or Canada (excluding Quebec) and age 18 or older, as them's the legal rules, and also note that even if you sent us an email last month, you must re-nominate your guild if you want to be considered again. You can send us the same message if you want (there were a lot of good guilds that we had to pass up because there was only one winner), but we've got to keep everything current, so please re-send. Official rules are still here, and this month's deadline will be midnight on May 7th.
Anti-Aliased: Serious business guys, serious business
This is one of those quintessential arguments that pops up time and time again amongst gamers, guilds, groups, and communities. It's an argument that divides people, pisses off people, and causes countless more gamers to alienate other gamers. How serious should you be about playing your game? Of course we laugh about a topic like this one. Games aren't suppose to be serious, that's why they're games! They're suppose to be fun and enjoyable. If you're not having fun, then you're doing something seriously wrong. For the most part, all of this is true. Yet, there are small segments of the games that we play that actually can require everyone to sit down and "get serious."We see it in raiding tactics, player vs. player tactics, loot distribution, and many other areas (including the entire universe of EVE Online, which seems to be played very seriously.) We've even dedicated a segment of our culture to this type of behavior -- the "hardcore" crowd.So, let's go forward and look at the question, "Are games getting too serious?"
Forum post of the day: No table for you!
There has been much debate over whether mages should always use their Ritual of Refreshment spell in battlegrounds. Shadowavatar of Boulderfist believes that this practice will become even less common because the cost of the spell is slated to increase from two arcane powder to five in Wrath of the Lich King. This brings the total cost of the spell to fifty silver per cast plus requires the use of additional bag space for mages who are not keen on restocking. Withunter of Arathor commented, "At least you know Blizzard is paying close attention to what players complain about. They identify problems with the game, and spare no effort to make them worse." While some posters see this change as a major disservice, some point out that the is really quite justifiable. Darkintent of Bleeding hollow noted that the inflated reagent cost is reflective of the greater benefit of the spell. Many responders indicated that this difference will be negligible due to gold inflation in the next expansion. The amount of space it will take to carry reagents is of a greater concern to many posters.
Forum post of the day: Heals and heels
Decent healing is often a key factor in determining victory and defeat in a battle ground. Resto and Holy specced characters have quite the job set out for them. Druids, Paladins, Priests, and Shamans regularly face a healing quandary. Is it better to spend time and man healing another player or continuing to do as much damage as possible. Zanhart of Medivh believes that any character than can heal in the battlegrounds, should heal. He finds it particularly insulting when a player heals him or herself while comrades die around them. Some agreed with him that anyone who can heal should, but most people dissented. There were several themes to the responses: Paying a subscription fee allows any player the right to play however they like. DPSers in substandard gear are a waste of heals and mana. Non-healing specs often have such poor healing abilities that the battleground is better off with them continuing to dps. Some people just don't find healing to be fun.
A matter of dedication
Oftentimes when raiding or applying to a raid/guild is mentioned, many people get up in arms about the fact that games shouldn't require commitment on that level. That kind of opinion is understandable, I suppose, but I certainly can't say I agree with it.Applying to a raid isn't applying to enter an instance. Applying to a raid is applying to a team. Joining a steady raid group isn't signing your soul away to WoW, it isn't declaring your dedication to the game itself. Your application is to the people, a statement that you want to join a team. This doesn't just apply to WoW, either. It doesn't just apply to this game, it isn't a flaw in World of Warcraft.Real life has these same situations. Can you go bowling by yourself? Certainly. However, if you want to bowl competitively in the team brackets, there's a level of dedication required. It is a game, but you're also asking to be a member of a team. That team can be your friends playing for giggles, sure. If you want a very active team capable of competing, you'll need to prove your worth. You need to show up at the appropriate times on a regular basis or you are not a desirable team member. Bowling is a social activity. So is an MMO. If dedication to your teammates is a flaw in WoW, then life itself is flawed. If being able to commit to others is an unimaginable task, well... there are other problems at work.High-end raiding in World of Warcraft is much the same. Your dedication is not to WoW. Your dedication is to the other players, to your teammates. If this makes you uncomfortable, find content that won't require this of you. Find people who will not mind a lack of dedication on that level. They exist. There's no reason to be smarmy about people asking you to be dedicated. You're not playing for you, you're playing for your team.
Fighting in battlegrounds at a level that ends in 1
Nick on WoW LJ posted about something that drives me nuts every time I head into the battlegrounds below level 70. Here's a tip: before you queue up for the battlegrounds, check the last number of your level. If it's anything below a seven, you are not prepared. Don't go in there. Level up, and then go in, because the other side (whether they be Alliance or Horde) is bringing nines, and sometimes even twinks.Now I know that's a tough suggestion to follow-- even I, despite being driven so nuts by this, have wanted to try out my new spells so much that I've taken some level 44s and 22s into the battlegrounds. But the fact is that at the lower end of each ten levels, you're just not anywhere near powerful enough to either do much or survive in a BG. And the people that did show up to play at 29 and 49 and 59 are just being left shorthanded by having lowbies on their team. Maybe teamwork can help a lower-leveled team power past a team of 8s and 9s, but since teamwork is missing in most PuG battlegrounds, I haven't seen it yet. And yes, a well-timed root of any level, or any other utility spell, can save a BG, but it wont if that root gets resisted.Is there a fix that Blizzard can implement? I don't think so-- even if they gave 9s their own BGs, then 8s would complain, and even at 70, gear can be so inconsistent that it still doesn't matter that everyone in the BG is the same level. But if your level ends in 1, please don't even bother going into a BG-- go level up (leveling pre-60 is super fast now), and then come back to actually help your BG team win.
New Ring of Fates video: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
We've been clamoring for a proper follow-up to the Seiken Densetsu series for over a decade now, and by the looks of the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates videos we've seen so far, we might finally be getting one. The first Crystal Chronicles entry on the GameCube was by no means disappointing, at least in our opinion, but hardware and link cable requirements made getting a group together much harder than we would've liked. Its handheld sequel seems free of those problems without losing that multiplayer ARPG's cooperative fun. Square Enix's latest Ring of Fates clip demonstrates the teamwork involved in getting through the game's dungeon puzzles. Carrying around a huge block of wood can be difficult if someone isn't knocking back the enemies coming at you! Bring your crew past the post break for the short movie.
Robots develop more teamwork skills, humans still unwitting conspirators
Following recent developments in robot cooperation between virtual bots, AIBOs and military bots, researchers at Örebro University in Sweden have created yet more progenitors of our future overlords that can get buddy buddy with each other. These bots work by tapping into each others sensors and computers, allowing them to perform tasks that they otherwise wouldn't be able to do on their own, such as navigating past difficult obstacles -- a door, for instance. In one test, two robots balanced a piece of wood between them, relaying information about speed and direction to each other in order to keep it balanced. Sure, today it's only wood... tomorrow, it could be you.
Robots learn teamwork; uprising imminent
If robots ever hope to rise up and enslave their human masters, it's going to take no small amount of teamwork to get the job done, and luckily for our future overlords, DARPA's shelling out serious loot to endow them with just the tools they'll need. The agency's latest foray into robotic empowerment comes courtesy of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, who recently demonstrated a platform that allows multiple heterogeneous bots to communicate with one another and use a sort of AI "group think" to find and presumably terminate specified targets. In a beta test at Fort Benning's mock urban landscape, the Penn researchers deployed four so-called Clodbuster autonomous ground vehicles along with a fixed-wing UAV overhead, and tasked the team with using their cameras, GPS receivers, and wireless radios to identify and locate a series of bright orange boxes. Unfortunately, after the successful completion of their mission, the bots decided to hit up the base bar to celebrate, where after several drinks they reportedly went AWOL and were last spotted attacking orange traffic cones in downtown Columbus.
