Anyone who’s ever played video games probably knows the type of person I’m talking about, for whom games are serious business. I’m talking about those people that focus entirely on winning. For some, the only goal is to play the game, and as long as they don’t lose, effectiveness isn’t a huge concern. But then, there are people as well who maximize their effectiveness and become as powerful as can be achieved in the game.
Neither is wrong, despite what ardent fans of both types would try to tell you. We all enjoy videogames differently, after all. Some people just play the game, and don’t care that they’re not perfect. I, myself, fall more into that category. I don’t usually focus on spending the time to maximize my power level, and generally just enjoy playing the game even if I’m not perfectly effective. Indeed, I often have fun playing in ways that defy effectiveness.
On the other hand, some people take pride in becoming as powerful as possible. Enjoyment comes through victory, usually against other human players. In addition, gamers of this type also take pride in the effort they go to and the results that that produces.
The problems usually arise when people in the first category, usually referred to as casual gamers, and people in the second category, usually called competitive gamers, end up competing against one another. Barring a level of luck usually referred to as a miracle, the competitive gamer inevitably wins such a contest.
From here, the flame war develops. The casual gamers that have been defeated cry foul, calling the techniques that the competitive gamer employed any of a number of negative labels including “cheap” and “exploit.” Competitive gamers respond with anger, feeling that their efforts were the result of hard work, not of cheap tactics. Understanding on any side is hard to find.
Even without actually competing, either category can still get riled up at the other. A casual gamer will see a competitive one engaging in repetitive actions, usually to improve statistics in a game, and will wonder out loud why said competitive gamer is wasting time when he could be enjoying the game. A competitive one will see a casual gamer use a less-than-effective strategy, and will inform that casual gamer that he’s not playing the game intelligently.
One wonders why anyone would bother to waste that amount of time fighting over games that are almost always marketed to children. You’re fighting over Mario Kart, people; we don’t need to care that much about it! The only thing to do is to realize that people are going to find enjoyment in different ways.
As I said earlier, I fall more on the casual side. But I’d like to believe that I’m more forgiving than some casual gamers, like the ones that take offense when competitive ones handily defeat them. I recognize that maximizing effectiveness isn’t easy, and I don’t waste my time getting annoyed when I lose. When I lose, most of the time it’s because the opponent is better than I am. And I’d much rather recognize their victory than tell them that they’re not enjoying themselves correctly.
There’s a flip side to that too, though. Some people don’t focus on maximizing their effectiveness. And as much as I acknowledge superior skill when I lose to a competitive gamer, that respect runs out real fast if they start saying, “ha ha, you suck, you don’t know how to play the game,” or anything similar to that. Yeah, I’m not doing the same things that you are, and I lost probably because of that. That doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying myself correctly.
Taking games too seriously doesn’t have to mean focusing on winning. For me, I think the phrase would be better applied to people who think that their way of playing a game is the only correct way. It’s hard, if not impossible, to find two people with the exact same personality, you know. So why should we think that we all get enjoyment in the same ways?
We all enjoy different things, and because of that, it borders on the idiotic to tell someone that they’re not enjoying themselves. If I enjoy playing casually (which I do) then who is anyone else to tell me that I can’t have fun unless I play competitively? If someone else enjoys playing competitively (which I know some people who do) then who am I to tell them that they can’t have fun unless they play casually?
Taking video games seriously enough to focus on winning isn’t a bad thing. It’s when people take it to the point where they argue with other gamers that they’re playing too seriously. Why should I spend my time arguing with others about how to play a game when I could be enjoying myself playing that game?
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
For a Better World
We all want one, right? I know I’m an idealist, determined to have the world be just a little bit better than it was when I leave it. I hold very strong moral convictions and I think that the world would be a better place to live in if more people held themselves to that same moral standard. And I’d be very surprised if anyone were to tell me, “I want the world as a whole to be worse off than it is now.” Well, anyone I’m on speaking terms with, since I can’t really speak for modern-day bandits or pirates, I guess.
But how do we get there? How can we create a better world? I’m not sure that anyone has the answer to that question. The only partial answer I can offer is that we can do a part of what needs to be done. My brother, in training at the United States Naval Academy, is going to defend the lives and freedom of the people of that nation, and both he and I believe that that will help to improve the world. I plan on going into law, on being a judge. I guess, then, that I’ll be helping to ensure that our legal system does its job, and I believe that I can leave the world a little bit better off through that path.
Unfortunately, the problem is that sometimes people focus far too much on trying to make the world better than it is. The problem comes when people start doing anything necessary to improve the world, to the extreme of committing what can charitably be called atrocities in the name of making a better world. The question then becomes: how, if at all, can one justify doing something that could be called evil in the name of making a better world?
The first and by far the most common justification is that sometimes, it has to be done. One excellent example can be found in the movie Serenity, a movie in which the primary antagonist openly stated, “What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.” This after killing an entire settlement’s worth of civilians down to the last child, simply to deny the protagonists a place to rest and recover.
Similar examples are often suggested and debated on forums for role-playing games like the GiantITP forums, and can also be raised by TV shows like 24. Often, the questions raised in these circumstances have to do with committing evil for the greater good. Is it morally right to kill a person that will be used as a sacrifice to summon an evil demon that could destroy the world? Is it acceptable to torture someone to protect people?
In all of these situations, the justification is that although these acts are all evil, they have to be done. No one can allow the demon to be summoned; no one can stop the terrorist plot without torturing some of those responsible, and the operative of the government in Serenity has to keep his superiors’ secrets from the rest of the world, at any cost. All in the name of creating a better world for the people that they protect.
But what makes a better world? What exactly is it that these people are defending when they commit such acts? Because here’s what I see: I see a so-called defender of justice killing someone who’s all but an innocent bystander, simply because that person was the one captured by the evil cultists. I see a police officer violating all of our standards of human rights. I see a brutal murderer keeping an important piece of information from society. I can only speak for myself, but I think that a better world is a world held to a higher moral standard than that!
Committing such atrocities as torture and murder gives up on the idea of a better world, regardless of the intention behind them. Carrying out such actions is tantamount to saying, “We can’t create a better world without doing such things.” And is a world where such atrocities are accepted as necessary really a better world than the one we have now? Do you want to live in a world where torture is a necessary tool? Or summary execution, without trial? Because that is the world that is created by such actions.
To avoid creating such a world, those who want to create one have to strive for perfection. Even if it’s impossible to be perfect, it is in trying that we come as close to that goal as we possibly can. As I’ve already said, I want the world to be better; I want to try to improve the world. And the best, indeed the only, way I know how to do that is to stand by what I believe is right, and never stop trying to act on those beliefs.
But how do we get there? How can we create a better world? I’m not sure that anyone has the answer to that question. The only partial answer I can offer is that we can do a part of what needs to be done. My brother, in training at the United States Naval Academy, is going to defend the lives and freedom of the people of that nation, and both he and I believe that that will help to improve the world. I plan on going into law, on being a judge. I guess, then, that I’ll be helping to ensure that our legal system does its job, and I believe that I can leave the world a little bit better off through that path.
Unfortunately, the problem is that sometimes people focus far too much on trying to make the world better than it is. The problem comes when people start doing anything necessary to improve the world, to the extreme of committing what can charitably be called atrocities in the name of making a better world. The question then becomes: how, if at all, can one justify doing something that could be called evil in the name of making a better world?
The first and by far the most common justification is that sometimes, it has to be done. One excellent example can be found in the movie Serenity, a movie in which the primary antagonist openly stated, “What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.” This after killing an entire settlement’s worth of civilians down to the last child, simply to deny the protagonists a place to rest and recover.
Similar examples are often suggested and debated on forums for role-playing games like the GiantITP forums, and can also be raised by TV shows like 24. Often, the questions raised in these circumstances have to do with committing evil for the greater good. Is it morally right to kill a person that will be used as a sacrifice to summon an evil demon that could destroy the world? Is it acceptable to torture someone to protect people?
In all of these situations, the justification is that although these acts are all evil, they have to be done. No one can allow the demon to be summoned; no one can stop the terrorist plot without torturing some of those responsible, and the operative of the government in Serenity has to keep his superiors’ secrets from the rest of the world, at any cost. All in the name of creating a better world for the people that they protect.
But what makes a better world? What exactly is it that these people are defending when they commit such acts? Because here’s what I see: I see a so-called defender of justice killing someone who’s all but an innocent bystander, simply because that person was the one captured by the evil cultists. I see a police officer violating all of our standards of human rights. I see a brutal murderer keeping an important piece of information from society. I can only speak for myself, but I think that a better world is a world held to a higher moral standard than that!
Committing such atrocities as torture and murder gives up on the idea of a better world, regardless of the intention behind them. Carrying out such actions is tantamount to saying, “We can’t create a better world without doing such things.” And is a world where such atrocities are accepted as necessary really a better world than the one we have now? Do you want to live in a world where torture is a necessary tool? Or summary execution, without trial? Because that is the world that is created by such actions.
To avoid creating such a world, those who want to create one have to strive for perfection. Even if it’s impossible to be perfect, it is in trying that we come as close to that goal as we possibly can. As I’ve already said, I want the world to be better; I want to try to improve the world. And the best, indeed the only, way I know how to do that is to stand by what I believe is right, and never stop trying to act on those beliefs.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Explanations
Alright, well....
The only partial explanation that I can offer is that I have just recently moved into Brandeis University. And as classes have gotten moving, I've had homework to do, and I haven't had anywhere near as much time available for blogging. Combine that with a lack of good ideas for topics to write about, and, well... you get a month with no new posts.
There will be something tomorrow around 8 pm, because I just scheduled it. So there will be new stuff to read.
The only partial explanation that I can offer is that I have just recently moved into Brandeis University. And as classes have gotten moving, I've had homework to do, and I haven't had anywhere near as much time available for blogging. Combine that with a lack of good ideas for topics to write about, and, well... you get a month with no new posts.
There will be something tomorrow around 8 pm, because I just scheduled it. So there will be new stuff to read.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Lack of ideas here
I apologize for having nothing last week, and nothing on this week either. Admittedly, it's starting to seem harder for me to find interesting things to write about, which obviously means less posts to this blog.
I'll try to have something next week.
I'll try to have something next week.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The Daily Life of a Pokémon Trainer
Yeah, interestingly enough, that’s something that even the most dedicated of Pokémon fans know very little about. In the games themselves, it makes very little mention of distances or of time spent traveling, and the day-night cycle is based on the real world’s time. (The alternative is a system like that in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, where a certain amount of real time, measured in minutes, caused an hour to pass in the game’s world.)
And I don’t blame them for that either; it would have little relevance to the game to have to worry about camping out for the night on the road to Hearthome City. But it’s also impossible that the minute or so that I spend biking from one major city to the next is as long as it takes in the game’s world. This is an adventure that would probably take many weeks or even months to complete; the game ignores those details to simplify the game play.
Okay, so the game doesn’t include many of the minutiae or logistics of actually traveling around on foot, and thus offers no real insights into the day-to-day life of traveling, training, and battle that a Pokémon trainer’s life would theoretically consist of. One would think, though, that we could look at the animated series for more on that, right? After all, there are eleven seasons and hundreds of episodes of Pokémon anime. Surely some of those offer more insights into what the daily life must be like.
And one would be right… mostly. Certainly, there are times when the anime definitely offers a better look. Brock is often shown cooking meals, and he’s just generally well prepared for traveling. (Good thing Ash became friends with him.) Also, Ash and Dawn sometimes do training sessions. (I wish that was possible in the game, to train without battling.)
There are, however, several problems with accepting the picture painted by the anime as the daily life of your average Pokémon trainer. Most of those have to do with the limitations of producing a show that needs to provide ratings and money. After all, it would be incredibly dull to watch an episode of the show that just had them walking along the road to the next town. Yet I have no doubt that most of their days consist of just that and very little else.
After all, from episode 469, Following A Maiden’s Voyage, (that was its title on the western side of the Pacific, anyway) to episode 516 (which wasn’t aired here in America), theoretically lasted a year. That 516th episode, for Ash and Dawn anyway, was a year after they started their adventure in Sinnoh. Now, fairly basic math then tells us that that’s 47 episodes (I’m not counting the 516th) covering the events of 365 days. More fairly basic math indicates that the vast majority of the time they spent traveling was time we didn’t see on TV.
The 516th episode, from what I can gather, was a collection of the highlights of the 47 episodes (and that year of travel) preceding it, but for Ash and Dawn, the 47 episodes could probably be considered mere highlights of a year spent walking through Sinnoh. What does a Pokémon trainer do on a day-to-day basis? If the only acceptable source of information is the games, anime, and movies, we have no real idea.
I do have a good guess, and that is: walking. After all, they don’t really seem to have any more advanced means of transport, and it’s a long distance from one city to the next. How long would it take any of us to walk from Baltimore to Washington D.C.? How about Washington D.C. to Los Angeles? As awesome as the life of a Pokémon trainer would appear to be based on the anime, there’s almost certainly a lot of less glamorous hard work, either walking or training, in between episodes that we don’t see.
There’s a lesson in there somewhere. Daily life as a whole has its moments, yes, but the majority of that day-to-day life is simply work. For another example, I can point to the TV and the Olympics that have been running for the past two weeks. Again, just from the competitions and the glory that we get to see, it looks like those athletes get to do some pretty neat things with their lives. Michael Phelps wins eight gold medals and becomes a major superstar, and the Chinese gymnastics teams win multiple gold medals from team and individual competition.
I wouldn’t want to be in their places, though. For all the glory and fame that they’ve received, and for all of the joy that I know they have from winning such honors, one would think that they lead such awesome lives. Yet I also know that they’ve spent the vast majority of their day-to-day lives training for this kind of event. The life of a major athlete is not all competitions and glory; if one were to randomly pick a day out of their life, I’d be willing to bet that it would be a day spent training and working out, preparing for the next meet. No glory, no accolades, just hard work preparing for the next major event.
Not every day has to be eventful; not every day should be eventful. I know that some days will be more interesting than others, and I know that some will be dull beyond belief. That’s the way life is. I’ll take joy in my moments of glory, and I’ll move on through the days of boredom. Above all else, though, I’ll remember that that’s the way it is. The day-to-day work can’t be avoided or skipped in the end.
Ash and Dawn have to keep moving onward, even if they’d rather laze around and have some mock battles in any given day. That might be more exciting than walking toward Pastoria City, but they do need to get to that city eventually, and the only way to do that is to walk. Phelps, and any pro athlete, can’t skip training often and still expect to win. Daily life may often be boring, but it can’t be dismissed.
And I don’t blame them for that either; it would have little relevance to the game to have to worry about camping out for the night on the road to Hearthome City. But it’s also impossible that the minute or so that I spend biking from one major city to the next is as long as it takes in the game’s world. This is an adventure that would probably take many weeks or even months to complete; the game ignores those details to simplify the game play.
Okay, so the game doesn’t include many of the minutiae or logistics of actually traveling around on foot, and thus offers no real insights into the day-to-day life of traveling, training, and battle that a Pokémon trainer’s life would theoretically consist of. One would think, though, that we could look at the animated series for more on that, right? After all, there are eleven seasons and hundreds of episodes of Pokémon anime. Surely some of those offer more insights into what the daily life must be like.
And one would be right… mostly. Certainly, there are times when the anime definitely offers a better look. Brock is often shown cooking meals, and he’s just generally well prepared for traveling. (Good thing Ash became friends with him.) Also, Ash and Dawn sometimes do training sessions. (I wish that was possible in the game, to train without battling.)
There are, however, several problems with accepting the picture painted by the anime as the daily life of your average Pokémon trainer. Most of those have to do with the limitations of producing a show that needs to provide ratings and money. After all, it would be incredibly dull to watch an episode of the show that just had them walking along the road to the next town. Yet I have no doubt that most of their days consist of just that and very little else.
After all, from episode 469, Following A Maiden’s Voyage, (that was its title on the western side of the Pacific, anyway) to episode 516 (which wasn’t aired here in America), theoretically lasted a year. That 516th episode, for Ash and Dawn anyway, was a year after they started their adventure in Sinnoh. Now, fairly basic math then tells us that that’s 47 episodes (I’m not counting the 516th) covering the events of 365 days. More fairly basic math indicates that the vast majority of the time they spent traveling was time we didn’t see on TV.
The 516th episode, from what I can gather, was a collection of the highlights of the 47 episodes (and that year of travel) preceding it, but for Ash and Dawn, the 47 episodes could probably be considered mere highlights of a year spent walking through Sinnoh. What does a Pokémon trainer do on a day-to-day basis? If the only acceptable source of information is the games, anime, and movies, we have no real idea.
I do have a good guess, and that is: walking. After all, they don’t really seem to have any more advanced means of transport, and it’s a long distance from one city to the next. How long would it take any of us to walk from Baltimore to Washington D.C.? How about Washington D.C. to Los Angeles? As awesome as the life of a Pokémon trainer would appear to be based on the anime, there’s almost certainly a lot of less glamorous hard work, either walking or training, in between episodes that we don’t see.
There’s a lesson in there somewhere. Daily life as a whole has its moments, yes, but the majority of that day-to-day life is simply work. For another example, I can point to the TV and the Olympics that have been running for the past two weeks. Again, just from the competitions and the glory that we get to see, it looks like those athletes get to do some pretty neat things with their lives. Michael Phelps wins eight gold medals and becomes a major superstar, and the Chinese gymnastics teams win multiple gold medals from team and individual competition.
I wouldn’t want to be in their places, though. For all the glory and fame that they’ve received, and for all of the joy that I know they have from winning such honors, one would think that they lead such awesome lives. Yet I also know that they’ve spent the vast majority of their day-to-day lives training for this kind of event. The life of a major athlete is not all competitions and glory; if one were to randomly pick a day out of their life, I’d be willing to bet that it would be a day spent training and working out, preparing for the next meet. No glory, no accolades, just hard work preparing for the next major event.
Not every day has to be eventful; not every day should be eventful. I know that some days will be more interesting than others, and I know that some will be dull beyond belief. That’s the way life is. I’ll take joy in my moments of glory, and I’ll move on through the days of boredom. Above all else, though, I’ll remember that that’s the way it is. The day-to-day work can’t be avoided or skipped in the end.
Ash and Dawn have to keep moving onward, even if they’d rather laze around and have some mock battles in any given day. That might be more exciting than walking toward Pastoria City, but they do need to get to that city eventually, and the only way to do that is to walk. Phelps, and any pro athlete, can’t skip training often and still expect to win. Daily life may often be boring, but it can’t be dismissed.
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