Aura
Explorer
This is the first time I've read something from John Wick, and I'm rather unimpressed. He's seems to hold some rather strong opinions (basically making claims) with rather weak rationale or evidence to match. Two examples:
(1) In World of Warcraft*, he notes a friend kicked off a roleplaying server for talking in character. This isn't reflected in any of the WoW community guidelines I've seen, and nothing is given to back up this remarkable claim. And yet, he uses it as and example in support of his argument. (He also seems rather ignorant of WoW, in general, when he talks about leveling being the point of the game.)
(2) It's already been noted how narrow his opinion of what a roleplaying game is seems to be. One aspect of his position that stands out to me is a character must be rewarded when he/she does something consistent with the character's motivations as part of the very definition of a RPG. While I can understand a reasonable argument can be made against penalizing such activity (and he seems to speak on that), no clear argument is made for an essential nature of roleplaying rewards.
In short, I feel the quality of his arguments don't rise to the boldness of his claims.
PS: I'm a personal fan of the adage, "Roleplaying is its own reward." As such, I'm usually happy so long as roleplaying is not actively penalized by the game.
*Note: I'm not supporting that WoW is a RPG in this section, but merely that his argument concerning it is ill-conceived.
(1) In World of Warcraft*, he notes a friend kicked off a roleplaying server for talking in character. This isn't reflected in any of the WoW community guidelines I've seen, and nothing is given to back up this remarkable claim. And yet, he uses it as and example in support of his argument. (He also seems rather ignorant of WoW, in general, when he talks about leveling being the point of the game.)
(2) It's already been noted how narrow his opinion of what a roleplaying game is seems to be. One aspect of his position that stands out to me is a character must be rewarded when he/she does something consistent with the character's motivations as part of the very definition of a RPG. While I can understand a reasonable argument can be made against penalizing such activity (and he seems to speak on that), no clear argument is made for an essential nature of roleplaying rewards.
In short, I feel the quality of his arguments don't rise to the boldness of his claims.
PS: I'm a personal fan of the adage, "Roleplaying is its own reward." As such, I'm usually happy so long as roleplaying is not actively penalized by the game.
*Note: I'm not supporting that WoW is a RPG in this section, but merely that his argument concerning it is ill-conceived.