What Blizzard Teaches Us About Games

[Zelc]

This kind of player-psychology stuff is of limited application to D&D. First off, the obvious: in D&D, you (usually) don't have two competing factions, but rather a cooperative group and a DM whose job is to both challenge and help them.

On another level, D&D players are usually more directly aware that they're not "really" playing for the loot. The whole reason WoW is often held up as a bogeyman on these boards is that it's COMPLETELY gamist. In some ways, it HAS to be, because everything is adjudicated by a simplistic computer program rather than a human DM with an appreciation of storytelling and roleplaying.

It has nothing to do with PvP or loot. It has everything to do with psychology. Do D&D players somehow not follow the incentives (15 minute adventuring day)?

"Change is bad" also means something different in WoW and in D&D. In WoW, if Blizzard "nerfs" an item, YOUR character's item is affected, because all the data is stored and processed on their servers. In D&D... there's nothing like this. There's not a single change WotC can make that will affect my campaign if my group doesn't want it to.

I see the exact same apprehension about 4E that I see on the Starcraft forums about Starcraft 2 and (when I used to play WoW) the stuff I saw on the WoW forums about new patches. It's not the nerfing of an item that matters, it's the perceived nerfing of a game.

 

[Zelc]

You think? No it's the jocks who have mastered a tiny fraction of geekdom.

This is not a jock.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

It has nothing to do with PvP or loot. It has everything to do with psychology. Do D&D players somehow not follow the incentives (15 minute adventuring day)?

Actually, I never had a group with that 15-minute-adventuring-day problem. We were roleplaying, and the wizard and cleric (me) would never think to suggest stopping at 11am so that they could refresh spells.

This isn't to say that the phenomenon wasn't a design flaw. But in most D&D games I've played, you'd never see anything equivalent to Alterac Valley where the PCs blatantly ignore the (designer/DM)'s intent so that they can rack up loot in the most efficient manner possible. (If nothing else, the DM wouldn't stand for it!)

All this really means in game-design terms is that flaws and loopholes in D&D mechanics are less likely to become huge issues like they do in MMOs, because D&D is human-adjudicated, and a good DM won't let you get away with egregious asshattery.

I see the exact same apprehension about 4E that I see on the Starcraft forums about Starcraft 2 and (when I used to play WoW) the stuff I saw on the WoW forums about new patches. It's not the nerfing of an item that matters, it's the perceived nerfing of a game.

The part I italicized is where I think you're wrong. 99% of patch complaints in WoW are PRECISELY about the nerfing of an item (or ability or strategy). People on the forums don't care if a particular change is good for overall game balance; they care if it screws their character, because unlike D&D (or Starcraft 2 for that matter), when Blizzard makes a change to WoW, there's no option NOT to accept their changes. (If Starcraft 2 or 4e sucks, people will still be able to play the original, after all.)

 

[Hussar]

Actually, I never had a group with that 15-minute-adventuring-day problem. We were roleplaying, and the wizard and cleric (me) would never think to suggest stopping at 11am so that they could refresh spells.

I'm not sure if you actually meant it this way, but, I've seen enough of this point of view that it really flies up my left nostril. The presumption that if people play the game differently than you do means that the other people aren't playing right ("we were roleplaying"="If you had the 15 minute day problem you weren't roleplaying"). Sorry, that doesn't wash.

Even if you never had the issue, can you honestly say that the issue didn't exist? That you worked around the issue does not negate its existence. There were loads of people complaining about the 15 minute adventuring day (or going nova, or a number of other similar concerns) on these forums. Are you honestly trying to say that none of them were roleplaying?

because unlike D&D (or Starcraft 2 for that matter), when Blizzard makes a change to WoW, there's no option NOT to accept their changes. (If Starcraft 2 or 4e sucks, people will still be able to play the original, after all.)

Unless, of course, you change groups. Or play in the RPGA. Or actually want to keep your game as close to RAW as possible to make life easier when running published adventures. Or... or... or.

All this really means in game-design terms is that flaws and loopholes in D&D mechanics are less likely to become huge issues like they do in MMOs, because D&D is human-adjudicated, and a good DM won't let you get away with egregious asshattery.

And there's the rub isn't it? A "good DM" won't let you get away with it. So, even though the rules are bad, it can be fixed with a "good DM", so, we should never change the rules?

 

[Zelc]

Actually, I never had a group with that 15-minute-adventuring-day problem. We were roleplaying, and the wizard and cleric (me) would never think to suggest stopping at 11am so that they could refresh spells.

This isn't to say that the phenomenon wasn't a design flaw. But in most D&D games I've played, you'd never see anything equivalent to Alterac Valley where the PCs blatantly ignore the (designer/DM)'s intent so that they can rack up loot in the most efficient manner possible. (If nothing else, the DM wouldn't stand for it!)

All this really means in game-design terms is that flaws and loopholes in D&D mechanics are less likely to become huge issues like they do in MMOs, because D&D is human-adjudicated, and a good DM won't let you get away with egregious asshattery.

True, D&D is more flexible with regard to fixing flaws. But they're still there. There are the problems with save-or-die effects being too effective, multiclassing being bad-broken in many ways, Fighters not being very strong due to non-scaling feats, etc. etc. etc. These all influence the characters people play and the way they play. A sneaky skillful mage might be a fun character archetype to play, but until PHBII introduced the Beguiler, trying to play one was an exercise in frustration and few people did. Trying to fix all this via houserules is almost impossible, and definitely the flaws should be addressed in a more comprehensive way (i.e. 4E, or perhaps one of the homebrew 3.75E floating around).

ETA: Stuff like "People hate losing" also apply. D&D usually isn't a PvP game, and players often succeed against the challenges. However, it's entirely possible for a player to feel useless to the party. For instance, a high-level Fighter might be outshined by the casters in the party. Whacking the BBEG for 50 damage isn't very satisfying if the caster just killed him with a Finger of Death right afterwards. Obviously, there isn't any party competition for the caster to win. But the Fighter might have lost...

The part I italicized is where I think you're wrong. 99% of patch complaints in WoW are PRECISELY about the nerfing of an item (or ability or strategy). People on the forums don't care if a particular change is good for overall game balance; they care if it screws their character, because unlike D&D (or Starcraft 2 for that matter), when Blizzard makes a change to WoW, there's no option NOT to accept their changes. (If Starcraft 2 or 4e sucks, people will still be able to play the original, after all.)

They don't care about the game as a whole; they care about the game THEY play, and those items and classes that were nerfed might indeed be crucial for their game experience (perhaps because they have no other characters, for instance). Obviously the stakes are higher in WoW since they can't just stick to the old version, but there's still a great deal of worrying going on for both the D&D and Starcraft crowd. Just take a look around these forums .

 

[fuindordm]

off-topic remark

I hope (after StarCraftII) that they will one day release Diablo 3. There are a lot of people out there waiting for Blizzard to move their ass a 'lil bit and get to work! Diablo 2 was (aside HoMM 3 and 5) my favorite computer game of all time.

Try Angband,

http://rephial.org/

ADOM,

http://www.adom.de/index.html

or NetHack

http://www.nethack.org/

They're *much* harder to win than Diablo, believe me.

 

[MaelStorm]

I don't think we R on the same wavelength.

R U a salesman or what?

 

[hong]

Try Angband,

http://rephial.org/

ADOM,

http://www.adom.de/index.html

or NetHack

http://www.nethack.org/

They're *much* harder to win than Diablo, believe me.

Is this a good thing?

 

[FadedC]

Try Angband,

http://rephial.org/

ADOM,

http://www.adom.de/index.html

or NetHack

http://www.nethack.org/

They're *much* harder to win than Diablo, believe me.

I kind of miss the days when those types of games were still being developed. ADOM was probably the best, although it did lose a little too much of the randomness that made many of these games great in the first place.

 

[MaelStorm]

Is this a good thing?

No, IMO it's utterly bad. I wouldn't waste a second of my life with these.

Or, should I say uberbad?... (No, it almost make it sound cool!)