Yeah that would be the number one factor in playing games, if you don't enjoy it, don't play it, anything else would be madness!.
The Open v Solo v Groups thread
- Thread starter Ozric
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Yeah that would be the number one factor in playing games, if you don't enjoy it, don't play it, anything else would be madness!.
So enjoyment is or is not what distinguishes game from job?
Well no not really I would suggest, some people can hate their job but are still required to do it due to financial requirement, and some people actually do enjoy their job, so for work it can be either. If you hate playing a particular game and still play it there's a lot more at work there than simple hate, addiction maybe?
A game that is not enjoyable but work - not fun
A game that is enjoyable but work - fun
Work that is not enjoyable but a game - not fun
Work that is enjoyable and a game - fun
So, in a way, i see your point with this. But again, this has nothing to do with stakes, which is the point i was disagreeing with. Adding stakes does not make an unfun activity enjoyable, and less like a game, more like a job (that you don't enjoy) - hope that little qualifier at the end there is satisfactory for you.
I took this at face value as an example of an effective blockade. Turns out it was not a good example, as the ship was an NPC. Something that we could recognise as an occasional bug and take remedial action to get into the station.
Vermin's analogy was a poor one, but so is this fight example.
The problem with blocking, aside from the obvious impossibility of it having any in-setting context (due to it being a manipulation of matchmaking/networking), is that the reasons for, and effects of, using it overstep all kinds of rational bounds for a multiplayer game. It should have been clear that no shared space can remain so if everyone is given the ability to arbitrarily exclude others from it.
Under exactly no circumstances does one third-party blocking any other do anything to improve my experience and, far more often than not, it will detract from my game. Unless someone is outright breaking the rules of the game (in which case it's on Frontier to remove them), I want my CMDR to be able to encounter as many of them as is technically feasible. If my CMDR doesn't want to encounter someone, he can evade them, contextually. If I don't want to encounter someone, I can use another mode.
Even if I'm having my CMDR do AX work, or non-combat activities in an unarmed vessel, I am infinitely more receptive to my CMDR being attacked by other CMDRs than I am some random arsehole presuming they are doing me a favor by blocking these individuals and imposing their personal blacklist on the instance I happen to be in.
Actually, that's about the only proposal for an additional mode I would actively support. Forget "Open PvE", I want a truly open and inclusive "Open (chat-only block)".
My question didn't have a point, beyond soliciting an answer/clarification, because it was not rhetorical.
I originally responded to your statement where you said x activity sounded more like work (which I took to mean work in the sense of a trade or employment, rather than simply expending effort toward a goal, as the latter is implicit in pretty much any game) than a game. We've established that it's possible to enjoy both work and games, so let's assume that whatever is being done is fun for whoever is involved. Where is the line between a game and work? If it's not the stakes, it can't be because one's work is more necessary than one's games, which still leaves me unsure as to how you're distinguishing the two in this context. What makes attempting to run a blockade more like work than any other in-game activity?
Even if it was what you thought it was, a ship (NPC or otherwise) can't stay wedged in the slot for long. Trespass timer will expire, reverberating cascade burst laser turrets will knock out the shield gen, then the hull will be steadily chipped away. Toughest ships that can be built will last a handful of minutes. And even before they added cascade to the station lasers, it took less effort to destroy the shield generators of ships obstructing the slot than it did to coordinate a pair of shield boats with regen beams in the first place.
Physically obstructing the slot can still certainly be a tactic to increase the time one has to destroy a target trying to land or launch, or simply delay their passage, but doesn't constitute a blockade in and of itself.
The remedial actions available are the same, CMDR or NPC.
Contextually, you can destroy them or wait for them to be destroyed. The more metagamy solution is to force a new instance.
I'm still curious as to the particular criteria you use to distinguish a game from work.
Nearly all analogies are poor, because they are analogies and not the actual events being used as examples, I really hate car analogies for instance
Fun vs not fun.
Note, with the caveat, that work can be fun, but a game activity that is not fun feels like unfun work.
So comparing playing this game to a job doesn't seem relevant at all then, it just boils down to 'grind' that lots of people complain about.
Not wanting to do activities that one doesn't feel to be fun is fair comment, although mining trit to fuel a carrier immediately comes to mind as an activity I don't enjoy but do for 'the greater good' of being self-supporting out in the black wandering around. I'm sure plenty enjoy mining, and I'm sure plenty don't stay out for long periods as I currently am.
I think this is only tenuously related to the possibility of PvP in the sense that some prefer the extra element of challenge of trying to achieve their long term 'grindy' goal in open & some prefer the sheer grind to be enough of a challenge without that. Is that your point?
I have plenty of PvPers on my friend list, they switch modes & do their 'grind' in solo. You can switch any time (don't combat log).I don't, but I know I could & having the choice for when I'm not in the mood is kinda nice.
Well, its more some people can't handle a basic statement like "that doesn't sound like fun, it sounds like work" which is a pretty normal phrase, and a pretty standard phrase in English, that isn't hard to misunderstand, but apparently people want to dissect it and twist it to make the point invalid or something.
It wasn't even about grind. It was about sitting in a system just waiting on the off-chance that a hostile player might come along.
Well okay, I mean nobody wants to be a guard, right? In ED it's a job you give to Cmdrs where you don't yet trust their skills to do something more complicated in a faction/power supporting group, or something you do while just hanging out while you're there waiting for something else to happen.
I've been a security guard IRL, it's boring as hell 99% of the time & way, way too exciting for that 1%. It's an important job but it requires a low boredom threshold & some bravery to face the unknown but in-game it does help willing players feel like they are part of a team effort because win or lose they can still provide intel on traffic. any individual player probably won't do it for long but there will probably always be people doing it.
If you're having a side-dig at 'deciat griefers' they chat with their friends & fight each other (they'll fight anyone) and IMO it's better they do that in a game than IRL. They enjoy themselves. Plenty of places I wouldn't go alone at night IRL, can't switch to solo or block IRL & I'm not some masked avenger looking for a fight I'm just trying to do a job, like I would if I were a delivery driver IRL (which I've also done).
I think maybe your 'sounds like work' comment is more of a you thing than a universal thing. Find a job you enjoy & you'll never have to work again. I've been out exploring for years now & I'm safe, unstressed, earning bucket loads of Credits & getting a lot done but I have far fewer entertaining tales of woe to tell about it than when I was BGSing.
Do you know many CMDRs that willingly take orders from other people and do as they are told, even if they don't want to do it?
Nah, i understand more or less their motivations. Now, if someone like that wanted to do the same in a PP context, then yeah, they would probably enjoy it.
Its definitely a me thing, but i struggle to imagine most people would be happy doing it either. Would you?
Already have such a job.
That caveat negates the distinction. If a game is fun, but work can also be fun, what's the difference between fun work and a game?
That wasn't quite your original statement, but even this statement is only easy to understand as long as there are shared definitions, with a clear distinction between work and fun.
You're attributing an agenda that doesn't exist. I'm not trying to twist your point or make it invalid. I honestly and literally do not know what you mean, as of this post, when you say work vs. game, because you've repeatedly proffered definitions with enormous overlap. The distinction is still unclear.
I've been a security/patrol guard, blockader, etc in more than one game and enjoyed my time doing it. The activity was not always exciting, but contributing to a goal I felt was contextually worthwhile in systems that had workable gameplay for it certainly offered a lot in the way of gratification. I was entertained. I was having fun.
What separated this from work and made this a game, from my perspective were the negligible stakes to me, the player, no matter how high the stakes for my character.
A game is an optional activity for the purpose of entertainment; abstaining or failing to complete it would not have any serious negative consequences. My professional reputation, my next meal, the roof over my head, my freedom, my life, etc, those are never really at risk in a game. I've had fun, probably too much fun, in real-world make-or-break, scenarios before, but I don't consider those games. They weren't the sort of things I could just opt out of without consequence and while they could be fun, the stress they produced wasn't the good kind. In a game, I can experience much of that excitement and entertainment, even some sense of vicarious responsibility and accomplishment, while at no real risk myself, because a game is a low-stakes proxy, pretty much by definition. Ultimately, the clearest way I can communicate my position on the difference between work, or a job, and superficially similar game activities, is to point out the difference in stakes.
I get that you're using different criteria to distinguish these things, and that's entirely fine. I just don't know what they are. My curiosity is unsated.
Once again, let me clarify, we were talking about the idea of someone sitting and waiting in the hope that a target would turn up.
I said that sounds like a job.
Now, i've added many clarifications to this over our back and forth to clearly indicate that, as per normal use of the phrase, i was talking about a boring/unfun job.
I can't make it clearer than that.
I've often been relieved that no targets have shown up when engaging in this kind of gameplay (a good, immersive experience, should inspire some concern over my character's well-being...and I find vicarious fear, and the relief when the feared event does not come to pass, quite fun), but I assume the sitting and waiting part is the crux of this statement. That can be fun too. The uncertainty, the build up, the anticipation...not uncommon sources of entertainment across all kinds of experiences, real or fantasy.
You may not play games you don't find fun, but surely you acknowledge that they exist and that they are distinct from work, in some way? So what distinguishes a boring unfun game from a boring unfun job? Or do you view literally every boring unfun activity as work or a job? Is being paralyzed with botulism, one of the most boring unfun things I can concieve of, a job?
I'm confused as to the game vs. job distinction, not the fun vs. unfun distinction. The conflation of the two appears contradictory.
So what I said about security jobs then:
I've met plenty of players guarding a station instance or waiting at the main star. It doesn't seem to me to be a particularly productive way to spend time unless I have nothing more effective I could be doing but then I'm not BGSing as part of a large group.
Or if you can put yourself into the mindset of a player doing that, perhaps they think of it like an ambush predator waiting for their prey.
The 'job' part is meaningless in your statement, that something isn't your idea of fun is a complete description. It isn't my idea of fun either.
I give up. You guys can discuss the whole "sounds more like a job" topic with each other if you want until the cows come home.
I've got more important things to attend to, like my ongoing eugenics campaign in Crusader Kings 3.