The necessity of exposure, or "I am poorly educated in how these things actually work"

A video gamer is, first and foremost, a hobbyist. Video games are a hobby among the majority of gamers. There are some with the time, means, and willpower to take the hobby further, to the next level, and become obsessives, which naturally is something dangerous - it becomes a mastabatory outlet, a source of self-gratification if you will. Shut-ins, those with no sense of how to properly conduct themselves in a social environment, and a stunted knowledge of literature, film, current events..

You know... This...

 There are those, however, who'll make something out of this predicament. A lot of gamers will either succumb to the throes of their hobby entirely, or they'll rise up and use their developed skills and knowledge of their particular hobby to do something extraordinary.

I am of course pontificating on the notion of professional gamers.

I mentioned back in my post regarding balance, using Street Fighter's Ryu as an example, that there do exist professional players and professional tournaments. In fact, did you know that the one of the most popular sports in South Korea is Blizzard's sci-fi real-time strategy smash hit Starcraft? Yessir, it's a haven for e-sports alright. These guys are up there with professional athletes.

It may come as a surprise to some that video game tournaments exist. But they do, usually sporting a hefty cash prize to the top competitor. There's player rankings, established commentators, brand advertising... Do you know what also has this?

Too obscure? How about this?

Do you know what the difference between video games and professional sports are, in terms of public exposure? I bet you do, because you're not an idiot. One is always on this...

The other? Well I'd wager the only place you'd be able to find it in the western world is on this:

And this, in my opinion, is something that should change, big-time. There's a very simple way to do it that, at the end of the day, makes everyone happy. It'll take a bit of explaining and convincing to see things from this side of the fence, and unfortunately it'll probably be somewhat picture-light, so please bear with me on this one - we'll get through it together, and there'll be some visual reward at the end for combining whatever two words I get thrown at me when put into google image search. Except porn.


Now, my proposal is simple, but as I stated above, may take some explaining to get behind, so here it is:

LET'S PUT PROFESSIONAL GAMING TOURNAMENTS, AND THEREFORE PROFESSIONAL GAMERS, ON SPORTS CHANNELS.

Still with me there? Alright, good. Let's start from the bottom of the pyramid I like to call "Who shit affects". And that person, ladies and gents, are gamers themselves:

Gaming has become a part of the modern social and cultural landscape. While yes, there's a lot of filler crap in there, there's also a lot of beauty, much like film and literature. For every ICO, there's a Timeshift. Well, duh - for every Shawshank Redemption, there's a The Room. For every Atlas Shrugged there's a... Crappy pulp novel about teenage vampires and wangst that teenage girls just eat up. 

Bringing gaming to an official broadcasting source would be a fantastic way to help the medium attain maturity. There's already venues for it, and a supportive base. All this effort is crippled because of a lack of an outlet outside of the internet. Sure the internet is in a damn-well huge number of households, but you have to give a bit of effort to actually find the damn tournament filmings online, and a lot of the time the camera work is... Less than stellar. No offense to the guys filming it - something is better than nothing, and it's greatly appreciated when these videos hit Youtube, but with professional broadcasting backing the hobby, so much more could be attained.

I know you guys would be apprehensive about such a move. Believe me, I would too. I was a wrestling fan once as well, so I know how it feels to be shafted by the suits for having an interest in an outside source of sports entertainment. But, Sunday night at 1am once a month (including a ridiculous box office fee) was worth it, it really was. It may end up costing you a little something, but in the scenario I've got running in my head, you'd have much higher production values than what we currently have, while being able to keep the tourney atmosphere going strong. Besides, this is what it's all about - bringing our hobby up in the estimation of people who's money and decisions actually matter. We think it's worthwhile, and we have the means to show them it's worthwhile. Everybody wins in this situation.

In short - by giving exposure to a medium that is trying to establish itself at least partially in a professional competetive environment,  you are directly helping the evolution of the social and cultural landscape.

Besides, it makes up for there not being a good video games television show since Games Master.

I miss you, Patrick Moore.

Now let's take a moment to, awkwardly, to the top of the pyramid, and look at it from a business standpoint:

Guys, gaming makes millions. Have you seen how much money these games gross, and therefore how much the company makes? That means there's a lot of interest in these things - and they aren't seperate to your typical sports' fans either. I'm not suggesting you broadcast official FIFA tournaments alongisde the real premiership, but stop and think about this - how much do you think you'd make if you broadcast EVO 2011, the premier fighting games tournament? Better yet, look at the number of people who play World of Warcraft. Now consider broadcasting the official Blizzard Arena tournaments for it. Not enough? Go check out how well Starcraft and its' players are doing in South Korea - it's going pretty well for them.

Looking at it from a purely logical standpoint - it just makes sense. You have an untapped viewer base who would tune in religiously to what they might consider "The only show in town". Think of those viewer ratings! You could put these things on at 4am on a Wednesday night and people would be getting up to watch it, or at least setting their TiVo for it.

What the suits are getting out of this is the next frontier - a broad, untapped market outside of the conventional field that has a pretty good chance of already overlapping with their already established interest groups. By showing a little initiative you could stand to gain a lot. Viewers, more money through sponsorships, advertising, and deals with the companies who make these games. Come on guys, why haven't you snapped this up yet?! You must know that Halo is a pretty big thing and there's a whole official tournament setting for it.

Last, but certainly not least, how does this affect other sports fans and those with no interest in video games?

Well... Not much, actually. If you sit down and think, really think about watching a sports' channel, you're only watching it when a game you have interest in watching is on, am I right? Watching a sports channel, especially a sports news channel, is a process of repetition until something new breaks. It's nice to have on hand but at the same time there's other ways to get that information readily, and the really important stuff they'll interrupt whatever's going on anyway. It's essentially dead time, going over the same old dirt again and again until something new comes up, which in turn makes that become old dirt to be repeated until something new comes up... Yeah you see where I'm going with this.

There's plenty of space in the viewing schedule for all parties' involved. Not only that, but you might actually find something you like. Gaming tournaments tend to be... Well, I was going to say "fast-paced" but those sports already exist, but they're a lot shorter to endure than you think, so the action is more pronounced. More than likely, this'll be just another thing you gloss over between horse racing and those other leagues/divisions you have no interest in while waiting for whatever "the big match" is, in your estimation.

There is a way to make this work that benefits everyone - gaming as a medium continues to grow and it won't be kept back behind that veil forever. Sooner or later, professional gaming is going to hit the limelight and become much more readily-accessible than it currently is, and it's going to need a home. While the internet's great, there's a much better home set up for it, just waiting to be used. One that benefits everyone that has anything to do with it. By showing professional video gaming on sports channels, the broadcasters are chaperoning the exposure of the entertainment medium's competetive side. Gamers are happy because they finally have an outlet for this side of the hobby, and a sense of recognition in the eyes of the public, as well as showing that this isn't just a hobby for shut-ins any more - it's a worldwide past-time, and perhaps something to make a career out of. As for those not interested in games? Well, it'll be just one more thing sandwiched in somewhere during a time frame that they really have no interest in, and not really have any affect on them. They'll be able to catch all the same matches they wanted to in the first place with no drastic upset to their schedule.

Until next time, see the blog title.

P.S: As promised, here's a sassy camel.

The complexity of depth, also known as "Why I'm 23 and still play Pokémon."

Pokémon is a franchise that I first too an interest in during my dwindling years of primary school. It wasn't my first real taste of eastern televisual culture, but it was by far the one I savoured the most. I recieved Pokémon gifts at christmas and birthdays, from models that may or may not talked, up to my very own Pokédex. But the biggest gift of all that started a torrid affair was this little gem.

Because Blastoise is better than Charizard.

 Holy hell, the amount of hours I must've poured into this game are something that truly terrifies me. Countless weekends, evening, mornings before school, trips on the bus to school, at school before class, after class, during break, during lunch, on the bus home from school, after school- you get the idea. I was captivated by a world where young boys (and later, girls) would travel the world, catching strange and wonderful creatures in tiny red-and-white balls, pit them against their contemporaries and take down crime organisations, eventually earning world-wide fame as a champion.

As the years went by more and more were added to the roster. While I can safely say I clocked up more time (and restarts) on Blue, it was Silver, and later Crystal, that lead me to believe I'd found the definitive Pokémon experience. This came out in 2001 over here in Europe - I was 14, and played it with just as much vigour as I could muster. Sure it was social suicide at that age to be attached to something with such childish connotations instead of being a football fanatic, devoted to cars and other "lads' lads" activities, but I've never been that sort of person.

No thanks, bro.

During what I like to think of as the "ill-fated" Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald era, the third generation, I drifted away from the games. I'd long since lost interest in the television show, irritated at the inconsistencies in pocket monster typing and attacks being effective against types they shouldn't be all in the name of dramatic neccessity and constantly underdeveloped characters. My love of the game suffered too - even though I had a GBA, its only real use from that point onwards was to play Fire Emblem or classic Gameboy titles like (you guessed it) Silver and Crystal. I had no time, patience, or interest in the new line-up, the new setting, or any of it. It was time for a break, and a break I did have.

This changed when I got to university, and grabbed my first Pokémon game in years - Pearl. I was enthralled, but still skeptical. The new setting was fresh, the monsters had become more interesting, and typing had seemed to even out a lot more. Yet it still felt flawed and lacking from my childhood experience. Had nostalgia really painted such a convincing portrait that my mind had refused to acknowledge gaping issues in the game?

Just then, like a big "shut-the-hell-up" slap, this dropped in my lap:

Hell. Yes.

And just like that, loved bloomed again. SoulSilver was my return to the series. Remarkable in almost all ways, this and HeartGold are the definitive games of the 4th generation - remixing classic elements that have me saying "I remember this!" and filled with new surprises too, "HG" and "SS" are terrific games on their own, exceeding expectations thanks to the nostalgia hit that's so strong it feels like a mule kicked my jaw. I felt like I'd just got back in the ring from a terrible start to a fight, ready for round two.

Fundamentally there's nothing different here (except for my age climbing a little faster than I'd like) that I didn't experience all those years ago. Therefore I'm indulging in the same world of cute-critters fighting to the death that I was in when I was a decade or so younger. This is something that to this day means I'm still met with quizzical expressions from cashiers at game stores when a grown man is forking over hard-earned cash for a children's game. Hell I even indulge in conversation with them about it, more to prove a point than anything - this isn't for my kid or my nephew or my kid brother. No no sir/ma'am - this is for me. I intend to play this, and play it proudly.

You see, when I was younger the world and the actions within the game itself were enough to carry me through the title to the conclusion (if you can truly say Pokémon has a conclusion that is). Now that I'm older, a door has been opened to the competetive world of Pokémon. Ushered in by the good folks over at the Penny Arcade Pokémon thread, I've learnt the art of breeding for the proper abilities and natures, breeding for moves, and most importantly, training for effort values. This is "under-the-hood" levels of gameplay here, folks. All in the name of strategic battling.

I wanted a Slowbro weight-training for this but could not find a decent picture of it.

This is the sort of genius that leaves me dumbstruck by a franchise. Sure you felt like a tactical genius as a kid being able to pull a quick bait-and-switch and field a superior type against an inferior one, but now I'm getting into much, much more complex situations that require a significant amount of commitment to pull off. All because I've discovered a wonderful extra level of depth that I never knew existed beforehand. Don't get me wrong - HG and SS are fantastic games without having to go through the looking glass, but as an adult with a greater understanding of the concepts and mechanics I can take away so much more from the experience.


It's why I believe Pokémon to be a truly great series of games - there's enough in there for kids, and adults, to be entertained by it for hours at a time. Simple to learn, borderline impossible to master. As challenging or as easy as you want it to be. it rekindled an interest after a four-year stint of disappointment and disillusionment. If more franchises take this sort of routine we could really see some interesting changes in the world of gaming. Microsoft, Sony? Nintendo has a head-start on you when it comes to this one, but it's not too late to make a game that's easy for kids to play and pick up and has some deep complex stuff for adults to engross themselves in.


The greatness of this complexity is all in the execution. See, each Pokémon is boiled down into "stats" - hit points, attack, defense, special attack, special defense, and speed, which govern a variety of factors played out during a battle. Let's take my Slowbro - he's a little on the slow side, but has great defenses and hit points to make up for it. In order to maximise, say, his defense, I would need to go out and fight a number of other defensively-oriented Pokémon like... I dunno, Geodude. Then when my Slowbro levels up, he'll get a boost to his defense stat because of his experience beating up high-defense monsters. These are called Effort Values. Easy and somewhat logical to execute, isn't it? Well you've just entered a whole new world of training up a great Pokémon to use competetively. Welcome to the next plateau, buddy.


There are some parts of the meta-game I just will not indulge in, however, and that's another thing that makes the experience worthwhile. Individual Values are randomly assigned numbers that affect stat growth for monsters, but it isn't anything I can get my head around, or need to, at this juncture. The inherent complexity of the game runs much deeper, but I can easily delve as deep or as shallow into it as I want.And this is good game design. Depth of complexity can be a bad thing. As I mentioned in my previous article, I enjoy playing Super Street Fighter 4. The depth of fighting proves to be far too daunting for me in most circumstances. I'll never get my head around "frame-traps", or look at frame data. Option select is a term that might as well be relevant to the games' menu for me. I can't even reliably perform a FADC (focus attack dash cancel). I get by at my current level of skill and playing, most of the time, but there's this whole other plateau I cannot reach because of two factors:

1. I am limited by my use of controller - an Xbox 360 controller - and it would take weeks, perhaps months, to relearn how to play using an arcade stick and buttons, as well as costing anywhere between £70 and over £100, just for a controller. I'm inevested, but not that much.
2. SSF4 is a real-time game. There is no turn-based mode and strategies are developed on the fly depending on how your opponent plays. I can chastise myself watching my replays all I want, but I've only become marginally better because I can't test out what I've learnt in a reliable scenario.

Pokémon alleviates both of those two problems by relying only on the console, and being turn-based. Or, to put it more eloquently...

Cherry-picking.

"I am able to pick and choose the level of depth and complexity I want to play at, and this decision is affected by factors only inherent in the game itself."


Now think about this - wouldn't it be great if games, and the people who develop these wonderful things - included more factors that dictated the depth of complexity as a means to bring older and younger gamers together to enjoy something? There's only a handful of games that do this - why can't there be more of them?


I'm Duncan Brown. I live in England, I'm 23 years old, and I'm a Pokémon Trainer. Come join me.

The importance of diversity, and our troubled son Ryu

 This is going to be a long one, so perhaps you should grab a drink and a snack, or a smoke if you're partial to that sort of thing, before you sit down to trawl through this.

When I was a much younger boy, probably 10-15 years ago, I went on vacations with my family. They were a blast, regardless of where we went - I had a good time. A big part of having a good time, was the number of arcades I had the opportunity to visit. I'd drop 20p after 20p into those machines, sometimes with my brother in tow, sometimes on my own, to keep playing. And I loved the classics. Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Simpsons' games being top of the list. Occasionally though my brother and I would go seperate ways. Him to throw harpoons at ninja's chests in Mortal Kombat, and me? Well, not being allowed to play Mortal Kombat at that age due to the graphic violence it depicted, I opted for Street Fighter 2. And thus began a fleeting romance with the story of ninjas, sonic booms, a guy with a stupid hat, and men in bathrobes suspiciously missing the sleeves who could throw fireballs (at one time "Hadoken" was a banned word in my father's presence!)

It wasn't until this game...

That I finally got back into the series, and bought my first copy of a Street Fighter game at the behest of my good friend, Liam. If you haven't played it, it's fun as hell, the roster is huge, the controls are easy to pick up but difficult to master, it looks gorgeous, and it's downright fun. A little bit of time spent learning the fundamentals will get you a long way. Most importantly to me, it's pretty well balanced, with the "worst" characters, that is to say characters who have a statistical disadvantage in their win/lose ratio against the rest of the cast based on a ten-round trial, not being all that far behind the "best" characters. That's not something easy to do with a roster of 30+ characters.

But my biggest gripe is with this fucker right here:

I hate you SO MUCH.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Ryu. Series' mainstay, the most iconic character in the entire series, and more than likely the most important (much to my dismay). Heck, in Street Fighter 3 there was some downright terrible backlash that the majority of the cast had been replaced. With the exception of - that's right, folks - Ryu and Ken. Later installments added Chun-Li and Akuma from the SF2 era line-up. Throughout the series he has been a staple. An icon in the era of fighting games, Ryu may very well be the best fighter to grace any fighting game, offering a style that will hold the hands of newcomers, right up to being the number-one character of the best Street Fighter player in the world, Daigo Umehara.

And I fucking hate him.

Ryu paradoxically is both fundamentally good and bad for the game, as a whole. On the one hand, he (or Ken, but I like Ken, he's got the same voice actor as Devil May Cry's Dante and can dress up as a cowboy, so that scores him more brownie points) is the perfect candidate for showing people the ropes of the game, letting them get their heads around the mechanics, the controls, while still being able to have a good time and go toe-to-toe with the rest of the cast. But this isn't necessarily a good thing.


You see, in a game with a cast as diverse as Street Fighter, everyone ends up with certain advantages and disadvantages. Zangief, a Russian wrestler fondly nicknamed "The Red Cyclone" has a ton of health and deals a load of damage per hit. The downside? He's pathetically slow and has no projectile, making it difficult to close the gap against some fighters. How about Cammy? She's fast and strong, but she's about as durable as a greased paper bag. Ryu doesn't have this concern - he's balanced, and supposed to help newcomers, so his faults are harder to exploit and look out for.


Now, before you start calling me a hypocrite when considering how at the end of my first article I was preaching "play who you like, not what's the best", understand that I have nothing against people who enjoy Ryu as a character, and pour a whole lot of time into learning how to play him well. If Ryu is your character of choice because you have put in the effort to play him at a higher level, then more power to you.


What we can't deny, however, is that out of a thirty-strong roster, Ryu is the most popular character to play as. Traditionally when playing a game, players start out with the character that TV Tropes identifies as "The Mario" - a character with stats that weigh in at average and used to understand the fundamentals of the game. Mario, for example, is the most balanced racer in the Mario Kart games, as well as the recommended introductory character to Super Smash Bros. In World of Warcraft, one of the more popular recommendations for new players is the Paladin class due to their strong armour and ability to cast healing spells. It's all in the name of making things more user-friendly.

Speaking in a very general sense, however, players will move on from "The Mario" as they start to shape their own playstyle. Continuing with the Mario Kart theme, maybe they want a racer who isn't as fast off the block, but has a tremendous top speed like Bowser or Wario. Maybe good acceleration is what you're after so you can grab that early lead and keep it with aggressive use of power-ups. How about handling? Are corners a big issue for you? Pick someone who's good at corners. You see where I'm going with this - after practising with the middle-of-the-road character, you choose one that fits your playstyle and learn to exploit those strengths and minimise those weaknesses. The literal horde of Ryu players is counter-intuitive the whole structure of the learning curve.


Because of the inherent competition of the Street Fighter paradigm and whole fighting game genre, winning is important. That sounds stupid, but really it is. More importantly, winning is important because the game is intended to be played not by one person against a computer controlled opponent, but other thinking, breathing players. Thus competition is bred, and Street Fighter is where it's at for video game competition. Winning was important in, say, Resident Evil, because it allowed the narrative to resume - stay alive by killing monsters, collect keys to unlock new areas, continue the game to the conclusion. Street Fighter doesn't have that, thus the emphasis is on competetive gameplay against fellow players. It's not a fault, more that it's the staple of the genre. Fighting games have at best, no narrative, and at worst a very convoluted one. But that's okay, because the aim of the game is two people punching and kicking each other into unconsciousness in a best-of-three-rounds scenario.


Where was I going with that mini-rant? Well, when you want to win, you do whatever you can to maximise the strengths and weaknesses. Ryu's strength is his unwavering balance across the board in all areas, and utilising these to win round after round. It makes my blood boil to see this:

It shouldn't be this hard to find a shot of "X vs. Ryu", google.

A good 70% of the time I'm playing online. It's breeding a lack of diversity and playstyles within the community. In a 30+ character roster, it should not be a surprise when any character except this one shows up. Because of his well-balanced nature, Ryu can play a rush-down game and be all over you, not giving you a moments' peace. Or, more frustratingly, he can hang back, play defensively, and punish any opening you can with any of his "well-rounded" moveset. He can control the pace of the fight via mere threat of his moveset. Does this sound like a well-rounded character to you? I didn't think so either.


But it doesn't end there. Street Fighter has for a long time been the king of professional video gaming, where thousands of players come to test their skills from, and indeed around the world. Remember how I mentioned the number one ranked player in the world near the start of this rant? Daigo Umehara? Remember how I mentioned his "main" character is Ryu? Well this has a knock-on effect. You see, when someone sees someone do something well, they tend to try and emulate it in order to advance their own skills at the subject matter. If you watch a lot of basketball, you might emulate some plays made to enhance your game.


Put that on an international stage and with as wide an audience as the Xbox 360 and PS3 can provide, and now you can see why we have a problem. Once again - breeding a lack of diversity and playstyles, and it downright fucking sucks. Sure you get to play against a billion Ryu and Kens, but at the end of the day, what have you learnt? You've learnt maybe how to counter Ryu or Ken (difficult, since it varies greatly with your opponents' inherent skill and watching very carefully for "The Mario" to miss a beat). But, here it comes again, with a thirty-plus strong roster, how in the world do you learn to play against any of the other cast? You can't necessarily transfer your Ryu-countering skills over to, say, Blanka, because they play radically different.


When I play against Ryu or Ken, there is one outcome with two fundamentally different paths. Whether I gain a hollow victory or suffer a bitter defeat, it's all for nothing because the odds are the next fight is against a different Ryu/Ken, or heaven forbid a rematch. If I lose, then once again I haven't learnt anything I didn't know before. I won't ragequit or pull out my network cable every time I see a Ryu/Ken player, but I do know the match will be disappointing to play and watch.


How can this be remedied? Well, I'm not sure it can folks. Capcom have done an amazing job of making Ryu and Ken phenominally popular, both as icons of the series. The top player in the world maining him isn't doing the situation any favours either. All I can say is this - if you're holding on to Ryu/Ken because it makes matches easier for you to win, or you feel it's the only way you have a standing chance to win, or you want to emulate "The Beast" (yes, that's Daigo Umehara's nickname, I'm 100% serious), then I urge you to put away your Ryu/Ken, and pick someone completely different.

No way, broseph!

I kid you not, it's not that hard a task. Funnily enough, tournaments don't just attract Ryu/Ken players. They attract all sorts. From Blanka, to Vega (called "Claw" because of the crazy name-hopping between him, M. Bison and Balrog) and Chun-Li. I can guarantee you someone will have a video showing you a tournament-level player kicking someone's face in as Cammy or going crazy as El Fuerte, and I can guarantee that will end up on Youtube. Go look at the Shoryuken Forums and read up on combos, and advice from tournament-level players. The movies are usually gathered there as well. Give it an afternoon or two to learn the fundamentals of that character. Then give it more time to learn the more advanced starts. You'll find it much more rewarding than hanging on to Ryu/Ken to gouge wins out of legitimately bored players.

Finally, I want to show you something. Here's a match at EVO 2010 between Daigo (Ryu) and EG Ricky Ortiz (Rufus, the fat guy). Daigo won the set, but Ricky Ortiz gave him a phenomenal fight for it. That's not important though. Ask yourself - which one looks more fun to play as?

Oh and before you ask - No, I never picked up Ryu or Ken to learn the ropes, or even to play as seriously. In the arcades, I preferred Blanka because he looked rad and could eletrocute things. In SSF4? Well, I started as Cody because his nonchalance appealed to me.


Until next time, see the blog title.

Five things that I wish would change at work (but probably never will)

A simple list of things I wish would change at my work environment, but they probably never will because of various factors. They are in no pre-determined order, just as and when I think of them or get around to them.

1. Ban Customers from standing bottles upright on the conveyor belt.

The converyor belt is a massive contraption designed to slowly feed items to the cashier for scanning and then dispensing into the packing area, wherein the customer may pack them into bags of their choice for easier transportation to their homes via car, bus, taxi, walking, cycling etc. There's only one problem with conveyor belts: They tend to start and stop. A lot. Normally this isn't a problem with the pizza boxes the twenty-something single men purchase in droves. However, this is a problem when it comes to these:

You tall, delicious motherfuckers.

 

 Can I ask, why do you think standing these bad boys upright on a device that frequently moves forward, then abruptly stops, is such a good idea? Nine times out of ten, these fuckers will fall flat on their side. Or worse, over the edge of the conveyor belt. Sometimes, not often but sometimes they well fall over onto a cashier's hand. My hand. Or fall off the belt onto the cashier's foot. My foot.

Pre-loading the conveyor belt of your food goods, take a moment to consider your packing order and spacial requirements. Put the bottles first, last, in the middle, pack stuff around them to keep them steady, I don't really give a shit, but please - lay them flat. It saves me getting pissed off at the inevitable falling over and possibility of short-term harm, and it saves you... Well, scorn and derision after you've left the store. Which you'll never hear. Which means you can't know to correct this. Which means this isn't going to change.

2. Keep the kids under control.

As a single black mother of three trying to raise a family while on the dole- wait, sorry, wrong entry. As an employee of a certain superstore whom shall not be named, I have many duties that involve traversing the shop floor. Sometimes this involves manuevering trollies full of shopping. Sometimes large, four-sized rollcages. Sometimes trays with lots of crates on them. This is dangerous enough, but when you throw kids into the mix, running around and screaming because they're bored and need to find their own means of entertainment, the store floors stops becoming a store floor, and... Well, frankly, I start to see it like this:

Paprika is on the other side, ma'am. Please watch out for the claymores.

 Do you realise what is going through my head when I have a full trolley, coasting around the store trying to find where these things go, and there are children running around? Lawsuit. That is the word that springs to mind. They are tiny, tiny lawsuit landmines just waiting to go off. All it takes is one parent, who wasn't paying the slightest attention to their child's behaviour, to go screaming to my supervisor and BAM! I have a disciplinary on my hands. All because your brat decided to run at top speed around blind corners.

I wasn't aware a supermarket was the ideal day out for the family, yet I see it every week. Parents (not parent, you'll notice. Parents) taking their 2-4 children around the store for a good 2-4 hour shop and browse. Like suddenly the elevator was Oblivion at Alton Towers. Please if you can, leave the kids at home. Or keep them quiet, somehow. Believe me, we have a lot going on in our day-to-day and the last thing we need is to hear a kid screeching from six aisles away because you won't let them have Cheesestrings. Then again, nothing is perfect. Babysitter's can't be arranged, not every family will have two cars, so I will have to put up with this and, yup, wish it would change but never will be. Sigh.

3. Stop contesting prices.

Little fact you knew about my place of work - yes, we will do price checks on things if you think we've overcharged you. But this is an amazingly painful process to sit through. The cashier has to first, put their red light on to signal a section manager there is an issue. The manager then has to find time to come over, hear the problem, trek across the store to confirm the price of the item, and then return, only to tell the customer... They misread the price label.

Barely contained rage.

If you cannot bare to spend an extra 30 seconds checking the product you just picked up costs as much as you think it does, or that it's valid in the offer, then you sir/ma'am, are a fucking slothful, selfish moron. We're not perfect either - sometimes the system hasn't been updated with the new prices and yes, you will in fact be correct. But damn by far this is a minority case compared to a very simple situation of "learn to read". By doing this, you are simply wasting everyone's time. You're at the store longer, you're holding up my queue of customers, and you're making me drag a manager over to do a menial task when they could actually be organising something vaguely important. Like overtime, or sick day covers. If you're not sure whether or not the item is at the price listed, then yes it's better to ask someone than get a nasty surprise at the checkout. But for fucks' sake, ask someone working on the shop floor to do a price check for you. Don't leave it till the last minute at the fucking checkout and slow down the entire system because you're a lazy piece of crap.


Why won't this change? Because it's people. Plain and simple, it's people. It's a culture of laziness and "can't someone else do it" permeating and trying to change it is like trying to change the tide. We as creatures are now used to leaving things to the last minute.


4. Put it back where you found it.

Remember when you were a kid and you'd play with your toys? Remember putting the toys back in the toybox, or where they belong, when you were done with them? Me too! Then why does it seem like such a great idea to just dump your shit around the store, whatever aisle you're in, when it clearly has no place there?

One of these does not belong...

 It's simple, folks. If you're suddenly struck with the desire to be rid of one of your items, go put it back where you found it. Worst case scenario? Give it to someone who works there, or give it to the cashier so it can be collected and re-distributed later in the day. In my eyes, there's no excuse for being so apathetic towards the people who work at a store (who need I remind you are actually human beings. Just thought I'd point that one out quickly in case you forgot) that you decide to dump a Ben 10 DVD off on the shelves in the yoghurt aisle. Yes, this has happened to me before, and many other bizarre examples, such as leaving shampoo in the spices, or a shirt stashed among boxes of corn flakes. All you're doing by pretending to be a suave motherfucker and stealthily deposit now-unwanted items is pissing me off when one of my coworkers has to clean the store, collect these items up, and deposit them back where they found them. Why won't this change? See above. Human laziness. I wish people would make an effort sometimes...

5. I'm there to serve and help, but I'm not your friend.

Okay, I know I'm not the only one in this situation, but I'm not a very sociable person face-to-face. The fact is, it's a job, and I need money. It's that simple. When you get to the checkout to pay, all I'm looking for is cooperation. I give you the bags and scan the food, you pack them up and pay for them. You leave, I go on to next customer. Easy, right? No, you're not making it easy, because you feel the impulse to talk to me about my day, the workload, the weather, or worse... Sports.

Not listening... Not listening!

 This is a transaction, people. It's not a soiree. It's not a social club. It's not the pub. It's work. The last person I want to talk with is a complete stranger about whatever they're interested in. What about what I'm interested in, fuckers? But no, I guess you didn't think about that. It's just us, us, us the whole time. I just want to scan stuff, collect the money, put it in the till, and wait for the next customer. I have enough trouble finding conversation among my fellow employees - all either middle-aged women, teenage girls, or "lads' lads" working in the stock section - without Granny Weatherwax trying to fire up a conversation. Basic human kindness I'm absolutely on board with. Starting a conversation I do not want to be doing.

I admit it, this one is half on me. I could make an extra effort but then again... Why should I? You will be out of my life after anywhere between 5-10 minutes, and I don't intend on making a commitment to our blossoming friendship afterwards. And neither do you. But you feel compelled to fill the silence with inane babble because... I don't know, does it make you uncomfortable? Why is it that the people who don't shut up are the ones with their families, while the people on their own are perfectly capable of packing and paying in silence? Are you that starved for attention?

Until next time, see the blog title.

On balance, and entitlement syndrome.

 Today I'm going to talk about the difficulty of balancing a game and something of an affliction that all of us, at some point in time, have and will suffer from - entitlement syndrome.

Let's get an example rolling to help explain the situation. It's no secret to my nearest and dearest that yes, I do play World of Warcraft. I play it, my friends play it, my girlfriend plays it, and wouldn't you know it - so do millions of other people.

This is my current "main" - for those who don't know what that is, it can be boiled down to saying that this is my primary character, the character who I focus most of my gaming attention on. Her name is Buxtwit, and she's a Goblin Warlock. She is small, green, and sets things on fire. She also makes robes.

As a game that has millions of subscribers, ten different classes from the warrior, to the mage, to the rogue, and each class containing three "talent trees" as a means of customisation and specialisation, balancing the game can be pretty hectic. From watching the changes over the past few years of the games' lifetime, the focus of the developers can be best determined as "You cannot please everyone, all the time."

Some people, however, take this as if it was some sort of personal attack against their rights as a player, and as a customer, and guys, it's our own fault.

You see, in order to keep the game balanced, the developers frequently (although not as frequently as the vocal minority of the fanbase would like, if you believe the official forums) have to make adjustments to the abilities of the classes. If X ability is too powerful, you can guarantee that it will recieve what is called a "nerf" - a downgrade, weakening it in some way or form. Usually the reason behind this is that the ability in question trivialises the current content, or provides too much of an advantage in given situations. Sometimes an ability is just the opposite - it's too weak, or too expensive to use, or has little to no utility value and the developers would like to see more said ability get more mileage. We call this a "buff". 

Here's where things get sticky.

With the integral function of talent trees comes the issue of trying to balance 30 different playstyles to keep them all interesting, and able to comply with their roles. The intent is quite simple - to keep each of these playstyles engaging to play, but wouldn't necessarily lead to a direct advantage over one or the other in an attempt to discourage a "rock-paper-scissors" mentality.

Not so fun to play, is it? Trust me, it was once like this, but much, much, much more complicated.

 

So where am I going with this? The latest patch notes have made it off of the player test realm, and boy is the time ripe for complaining! My main's class in particular, the Warlock, is recieving an at-best controversial mix of buffs and nerfs to several abilities. Instead of finding celebration in the fixing of broken mechanics and glaring issues with scaling attributes that would only end up biting us in the arse several months down the line, I find nothing but consistent, petty whinging and an extreme focus on the watered-down abilities. Including, but not limited to, players insisting that they will stop playing their Warlocks in favour of another class that can perform the role better - in this case, dealing damage in order to defeat enemies before the healer is too exhausted to cast spells and the tank, the guy at the front with the enemies' attention protecting the rest of the group, falls down dead.

Guys, I'm sorry, but... What the hell?

It takes a certain mindset to come to the conclusion that the reason for consistent nerfs is that "the developers hate the class" or "none of the developers play the class". This is absurd. It doesn't matter whether or not the developers play the class outside of testing their changes (or better yet, allowing their massive potential tester pool - the playerbase - to do it for them), because they're already intimate with the classes on a much larger scale than the players are, simply by virtue of designing their abilities and attributes. This goes for any computer game. Is "Gun A is more powerful than Gun B because the developer likes Gun A more and never uses Gun B" a sound, logical reasoning behind changes, or is this just paranoid guesswork at the motives of allegedly sinister jailors of our leisure time?

The fact is, any developer with the amount of money and success as Blizzard Entertainment, the creators of World of Warcraft, has a much better idea of what's going on than we do. Sure they do - because they have knowledge of what will be implemented in the future, and how these little tweaks now will help things fit together into the bigger picture. This isn't rocket surgery folks. They've been doing this for years, and have a much better idea of where things are going than Johnny Q. Complainer over there. Where is all this whinging coming from? Entitlement syndrome.


What really pisses me off is a subsect of any and every gaming group that believes that no matter what, for some arbitrary reasoning, they deserve to be the best of the best. This is nowhere more evident than on the World of Warcraft official forums. Well here's the thing, guys - you didn't earn it. In fact, it's all smoke and mirrors. What it comes down to is a pretty neat 50/50 divide. The first half is individual skill. If you can play well, you will do well. This is true for pretty much any game, or sport, or hell even work. If you carry out a task well, the result will be that much better or more satisfying. If your execution is clumsy or you're not willing to put the effort into the task, then the result will be lacklustre.

This half is on YOU. This is you "pulling your weight" as the phrase goes. That is until Entitlement syndrome kicks in and you start to side with the reasoning "I want the best results at the lowest possible expenditure". See the term cutting corners.

The other half is related to factors only marginally under the player control. Static changes and tiny tweaks to the mechanics of the game that may, if fortune smiles on you, give you a little nudge. It's a performance boost, giving you a slight edge you may need in order to be better at what you do. Sometimes the developers overestimate these things and have to rein them in a little. Hence the nerfs. But let's talk serious for a moment here:

This is Thane. He is always serious.

Whether you choose to play a Warrior in World of Warcraft, or Ken is your favourite character in Street Fighter, or you like using the Klobb in GoldenEye, just because you bought the game does not mean you are entitled to be the best. You, just like everyone else, are part of an ever-changing playerbase that is consistently trying to be balanced along one interpretation of fairness set up by the developer in the question. You are not this:

You are something more like this:

And if you decide that you want to sacrifice the personal enjoyment you get for playing as one character or using one weapon in the name or "being the very best", then I can only feel sorry for you, and hope that maturity comes around and kicks you right in the arse. I love playing my Warlock. It's fun, it's as challenging or as simple as I want to make it, and I play well enough as the role for what I'm aiming to get out the game. I would never, ever ditch her just so I can get a lead with what players affectionately call "Flavour of the Month" classes, and neither should you. Have some integrity, and stick with it. Prove them wrong. Be better at what you're doing even if lady luck isn't smiling on you and you've been downsized.


There's nothing wrong with enjoying more of what a game has to offer, but wouldn't you rather focus on having a small number of things you know you enjoy and playing them really well, compared to... Well... This?

The guy in green is your recently-nerfed Hunter. The guy in red is the Death Knight. It's just an example, people. Remember - context.

So, what have we learnt today?

• Balance is not easy. The larger a game is and the more customisation it has for players to tinker with, the more difficult it becomes to keep it fair and equal for everyone, but that's still their overall goal - to keep the game fair and fun for everyone involved.
• It makes you look ridiculous to jump to paraonoid conclusions that the developers are somehow "out to get you" when your favourite whatever is nerfed for the sake of balance.
• You look even more ridiculous when you act outraged on their official forums.
• You are not entitled to being at the top of the damage meters, or most kills, for whatever arbitrary reason your deluded little mind can come up with. Sometimes you will win, sometimes you will lose, that's just the way it is. It doesn't matter whether you think this is because you bought the game, bought the previous game, bought the novels in the expanded universe, saw the film, have the soundtrack, have the collector's edition... You have the same footing as everybody else.

• Play as what you enjoy playing. There is no yard stick for how totally awesome you are on the internet, brah. These are games. They are there for amusement, and downtime. They are not there to coddle you and make up for years of social neglect and stroke your king complex. So, play as what you find fun, not what will make you the best, because that is a hollow victory.

  Until next time, see the blog title.