Forked Thread: "The Death of the Imagination" re: World of Warcraft

[Foundry of Decay]

It actually doesn't have anything to do with it. I would say the same thing about Everquest or City of Heroes or Magic: The Gathering or D&D Miniatures or Warmachine or Gears of War or Bioshock or Unreal Tournament, or any other game I don't play.

I've lost a lot of interest in World of Warcraft - I've played about two or three hours total in the last month.

The point is: Mercurius's "arguments" are less convincing than Michael Jackson's marriages.

Actually, that's a matter of perspective.

His arguments actually DO coincide with my experiences. I've read his posts and don't find the language insulting. I do notice that a lot of people are jumping to conclusions.

I'll note something that Ruin Explorer noted himself. It might take a LOT of playing to actually feel the effects of said 'suppression'. If you haven't? Great, it doesn't pertain to you. I doubt Blizzard will close up shop because of perceived hurt feelings.

And I'll note that I do consider myself a generally intelligent human being, and I was still a generally intelligent being when I was a hard-core raider. I just didn't have much of a creative process outside of the game itself. Everything was done for me except the button mashing.

 

[CountPopeula]

I'll weigh in here with my personal experience.

Now, keep in mind, this is just what both myself and a friend had noticed after roughly 2 or more years of playing warcraft. We weren't quite hard-core, but we definitely played the living daylights out of the game compared to any other activity.

In our case, it had a detrimental effect on two things: Our imagination, and to a lesser extent, our ability to focus on the creative process.

/snip

I don't think what you're describing is the game actually having an effect on your imagination and creativity. I think you're describing it being an incredible timesink. The problem there is unlike other video games, online RPGs essentially assign you busywork inbetween bouts of excitement.

"We're going to go kill the dragon, so make sure you're grinding heroics to get your badges to get better armor." It's also re-enforced by end-game content requiring a group of players essentially pressuring you to play more and more.

And unlike in, say Final Fantasy, where you kill the boss and move on, in Warcraft, you kill the boss 25-50 times until all your guild mates got the right drop so you can move on to the next dungeon.

The other option is to be constantly adding new content, at least once a week, because if guilds only need to clear each dungeon once, then they're going to expect to have more dungeons to clear.

I don't think this really suppresses creativity so much as redirects it. You're just using the time and effort you would be using to draw and spending it solo-tanking kara as a prot pally. Less productive, sure, but it's not the fault of the game if you play too much and don't spend your time responsibly.

That said, there are aspects of WoW I think would be excellent to introduce into a D&D game. Of course, the most evocative aspects of the Warcraft story come from the supplementary material and not in-game events, so you could find the same aspects by spending a few hours browsing wowwiki.com.

That said, I think Warcraft is an excellent way to shut down and relax when you need to get your mind off of something. It takes just enough concentration that you can focus on it to get something out fo your mind, but still talk on the phone with your girlfriend.

 

[Celtavian]

re

Let's be honest here, the imagination of most people varies, it always has. And just like some people are physically better at sports or more booksmart, some people are more imaginative. And the ones who can take their imaginings from their mind into the real world can earn alot of money making things like games, movies, books, and the like.

So the death of imagination will never occur. Just like it didn't occur with the invention of what was termed the "idiot" box, it haven't heard that term before then let me just say the television. MMORPGs and video games just expand the number of mediums available for manipulation by imaginative people with the drive to bring their imagination to the masses in some fashion.

So I wouldn't look at MMORPGs as the death of the imagination, but an extension of it. Someone wanted to take roleplaying games and render them into an interactive virtual world. I like what they did.

It doesn't take away from sitting around with a bunch of friends and playing an pen and paper RPG. You can do both and have fun. Our entire group plays WoW and played EQ. We brought a friend that plays WoW and EQ into our roleplaying group. He really likes pen and paper gaming. He gets into. If anything, WoW and EQ helped this guy visualize the fantastic powers and fighting ability that DnD has always had.

 

[Foundry of Decay]

I don't think what you're describing is the game actually having an effect on your imagination and creativity. I think you're describing it being an incredible timesink. The problem there is unlike other video games, online RPGs essentially assign you busywork inbetween bouts of excitement.

"We're going to go kill the dragon, so make sure you're grinding heroics to get your badges to get better armor." It's also re-enforced by end-game content requiring a group of players essentially pressuring you to play more and more.

And unlike in, say Final Fantasy, where you kill the boss and move on, in Warcraft, you kill the boss 25-50 times until all your guild mates got the right drop so you can move on to the next dungeon.

The other option is to be constantly adding new content, at least once a week, because if guilds only need to clear each dungeon once, then they're going to expect to have more dungeons to clear.

I don't think this really suppresses creativity so much as redirects it. You're just using the time and effort you would be using to draw and spending it solo-tanking kara as a prot pally. Less productive, sure, but it's not the fault of the game if you play too much and don't spend your time responsibly.

That said, there are aspects of WoW I think would be excellent to introduce into a D&D game. Of course, the most evocative aspects of the Warcraft story come from the supplementary material and not in-game events, so you could find the same aspects by spending a few hours browsing wowwiki.com.

That said, I think Warcraft is an excellent way to shut down and relax when you need to get your mind off of something. It takes just enough concentration that you can focus on it to get something out fo your mind, but still talk on the phone with your girlfriend.

Timesink or not, please note that I have posted the effects on my own creativity before, during, and after. They were *real* effects on my imagination no matter what the driving force in the game may have been, time waster or not. This is something that cannot be argued with me I'm afraid. It was a first hand account, it happened in my case, end of story.

I also explicitly noted that I didn't blame the game itself. In moderation games such as this are just fine, and don't have any effect on me personally, at least. I can log onto Team Fortress, for instance, and play for an hour or two, and come away just fine and dandy.

However as I have stated: In MY case, it DID suppress my imagination to a degree where it became a problem. Hours of sitting there clicking on buttons does not lead to any creation, or activity in my case. It actively started to wipe out any need for me to imagine because it was all just laid out before me. Even at its most 'creative' Warcraft boils down to a button masher at most and a time-waster at least. Those times when you are down to your last bits of mana and Moroes is at 6% health lead to little creative thinking outside "Which spell button should I push to drop this corpsley annoyance".

The only excitement I ever truly had in WoW was killing a boss for the first time, or successfully getting my Rhok'Delar bow (any hunter pre-BC will know just what a pain in the rear quest that is, and how awesome you feel when you complete it).

And I do completely agree with you on one point. Its an excellent way to just shut down your mind and relax. I used to work loading docks for a retail outlet and the only thing I wanted after a day of dealing with retail idiocy of all makes and sizes was to just sit and shut my mind off. Its cathartic when played in moderation. It was fantastic until I burned out on it by overdoing it.

Again, its just my toss of the copper. I'm not decrying Warcraft (Believe me, I could), and I'm certainly not decrying people who play sane levels of the game. Sometimes we all just need to run around killin' stuff in its most colourful or epic fashion.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

His arguments actually DO coincide with my experiences.

That's not actually relevant.

First, the plural of "anecdote" isn't "data".

Second, the fact that you noticed you felt less imaginative after you played World of Warcraft doesn't mean the game makes you less imaginative. I feel a lot less imaginative whenever we become really busy at work! If you invest your energy into anything time- and attention-consuming, it's going to leave you less energy and "headspace" for other pursuits.

Third, the point I'm trying to make is not "World of Warcraft is good" - I don't give a damn what other people think of the game - but "Mercurius's arguments are full of crap", because he's making absolute quasi-scientific pronouncements on no evidence beyond his own personal (incoherent, unscientific) observations.

Fourth, I'm attacking his argument because it proceeds from an unjustified premise ("WoW destroys the imagination!") to assuming its own conclusion ("WoW is bad for you, and D&D is good!"). That's just a really stupid way to lay out your opinions.

Fifth, I'm not arguing the opposite of what Mercurius said. I'm not trying to say that World of Warcraft makes you more creative, or that it does so better than D&D, or even that it doesn't affect your creativity. I don't see the need to even take a position.

All I am saying is that Mercurius's argument is wholly unsupported - which it is.

 

[Cadfan]

I know a guy who basically dropped out of college because he failed almost all of his classes. At the time, he was playing D&D in, if I recall correctly, five games a week. Obviously he failed his classes because playing D&D makes you bad at math and american history.

The fact that he rarely attended class and rarely did homework because he was busy doing an unrelated recreational activity is no doubt coincidental.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think that dream vestige we fought in RttToH was epic and 50 HD or something. We didn't kill it though. I figure an imagination should be about that many HD.

Sounds plausible. But do you remember the Dragon "Zeitgeist" article? You can't kill or attack the Zeitgeist itself, you can just hope to affect it and give it a direction you prefer. Maybe Imagination works like that, too?

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Where did this idea of "young people have imagination" come from in the first place?

Man, when I was young, D&D was all about my ranger (YEAH YEAH LAUGH IT UP) and his three buddies going through haunted woods, finding an evil sorcerer, killing him, and rescuing a princess. I can't really say it was that imaginative. I think the first time I played I even named him Link.

Then again, there's a good chance when we refer to "the youth," we refer to a group a weeee bit older then I was on first getting into tabletop. But hey, say what you will, to a group of kids, nothing is more awesome then a party made of Link, Gandalf, Elf (Did I mention we were unimaginative?) and Buttscratcher (Did I mention we were young?).

On second though, yes, there's lots of things more awesome then that.

 

[Orius]

So, how many hit dice does imagination have? And how much XP do I get when I kill it?

More importantly, what kind of stuff does it have (I specifically shall refrain from using the term "drops" here)?

 

[Foundry of Decay]

That's not actually relevant.

First, the plural of "anecdote" isn't "data".

Second, the fact that you noticed you felt less imaginative after you played World of Warcraft doesn't mean the game makes you less imaginative. I feel a lot less imaginative whenever we become really busy at work! If you invest your energy into anything time- and attention-consuming, it's going to leave you less energy and "headspace" for other pursuits.

Third, the point I'm trying to make is not "World of Warcraft is good" - I don't give a damn what other people think of the game - but "Mercurius's arguments are full of crap", because he's making absolute quasi-scientific pronouncements on no evidence beyond his own personal (incoherent, unscientific) observations.

Fourth, I'm attacking his argument because it proceeds from an unjustified premise ("WoW destroys the imagination!") to assuming its own conclusion ("WoW is bad for you, and D&D is good!"). That's just a really stupid way to lay out your opinions.

Looking for scientific or psychological evidence here is far, far beyond the scope of these boards. The thread would close if anyone required data or a degree in psychology or any of the major sciences.

Seeing as I'm being handwaved to the 'irrelevant' category is rather insulting I find. But I've learned not to bother trying to argue about what people do and don't find relevant online (Since I have yet to see many actually relevant arguments online at all, INCLUDING this one).

But your entitled to how you perceive his post, as am I.

I'm not going to type out again what I have before. Other than to say that I agree with some points made by the OP. I outright refuse to justify my experiences to anyone. As in, don't bother replying with an argument related specifically to the experiences that I had posted in regards to Warcraft's effects on my imagination. First hand experiences trumps any conjecture on anyone else's part. Even if they were to dangle a degree in psychology in front of me.

Now, do I think Warcraft is creating a nation of zombies? Do I think TV is rotting the minds of people? Not really. Creation goes on despite these two phenomena and as pointed out by others, it always will.

So is D&D the angelic song that will suddenly make every gamer out there more imaginative? Short answer, no. However I feel more creatively stimulated playing D&D than I ever did playing Warcraft or ANY other computer/online game. Take that for what you may, but its what my experiences have been these past 20 years of computer/D&D gaming.

And yes, they are relevant.