Jumpp
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Posted - 2004.04.16 19:12:00 -
[1]
I've played many online games, and in each one there's been a debate in which arguments of the following form were deployed:
"<do something the way I think it should be done, though I personally don't do it>, like we're all supposed to do. There was never meant to be a <innovative technique that wasn't forseen by the developers but has since become a fundamental part of the game> available, and there still isn't supposed to be one."
Such arguments, of course, never have any effect apart from bringing richly-deserved disapprobation to the speaker, yet they're common in all games.
Responding to such an argument is difficult. It's easy to simply return the ignorance and bitterness that the original writer conveys, and that's what I usually do.
It's a lot of work to unpack the various misconceptions that underlie arguments of that form, and before undertaking such a task one has to be clear that it's a simple intellectual exercise done for one's own enjoyment, without any hope of actually reaching the writer in question--A person who was prepared to see reason couldn't have written the offending passage in the first place.
Nevertheless, here I go:
Error #1: The original intentions of the game designers are of primary importance.
Wrong, and they'll be the first to tell you that. Game designers aren't omniscient. The game one meant to make is never quite like the game one finally produces, and there will be lots of surprises along the way. (To take an example from EverQuest, the monk "feign death" ability was never intended as a tool to separate monsters from their fellows for easier harvest, yet this technique became the foundation of the monk experience.)
Sometimes the unintended consequences of design decisions are bad and need to be changed. Some are bad but better left alone, and some are happy accidents that make the game better. In any event, the "original intent" of the game designers isn't an argument-ender. There's lots more at work here.
Error #2: Inconvenient facts on the ground don't exist.
Eve has a well-tuned economy. That economy is, in large part, built on mining. Not the mining that may have existed on a whiteboard in some developer's office three years ago, but the mining as it exists and is practiced right this moment. A casual "that's not what was intended--change that" while remaining either ignorant of or indifferent to the consequences is the sort of intellectually negligent dilettantism of which bad low-level managers are made. Congratulations. You've got a big future ahead of you: here's a cheap suit and a clip-on tie.
Error #3: Asserting that things are "meant to be" while leaving out the noun by way of obscuring the fact that the noun is, in fact, the speaker whose intentions are largely irrelevant.
This one, once identified, requires no further comment.
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