QOTD: The Curse of Knowledge

The longer you know about a topic, the harder and harder it is to explain it to newcomers. . . Work to avoid The Curse of Knowledge in all aspects of your life.  You have no idea how important it will be to the people around you.
~Stubborn, "The Curse of Knowledge"

Stubborn is batting a thousand this week. I love when a writer can succinctly illustrate a concept I have struggled to convey well. I believe educators have an edge here, for some of the reasons that Stubborn outlines in his post. Beyond having knowledge in a given subject, educators are (usually) trained on how to share their knowledge effectively.

I will boast of having a certain knack for teaching, not to mention experience. But as a technical trainer, I also become frustrated with rigid insistence from certain quarters that we should cover what I consider basic GUI functionality, partly because I think students in my class should already have that knowledge as a prerequisite, and partly because it prevents me from covering more advanced topics thoroughly in the limited time we have available to train. I sometimes go to the other extreme, as Scooter will confirm, explaining something to someone that they are already perfectly capable of accomplishing without my instructions.

I am sure I fall victim to the Curse of Knowledge on occasion (probably more often than I think), and it is something I wrestle with every time I post. How much should I digress to explain a game-related term, and how much should I rely on you, Dear Reader, to already know about the topic at hand?

Stubborn cautions against falling into the trap of "Priesthood" as Raph Koster put it. As we try to form stronger, inclusive communities in the games we play, we need to be prepared to properly educate newcomers; by which I mean sharing our knowledge in away they can absorb it, without belittling their intelligence.

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Link Rollup: Standing in the Stupid

Lots of good stuff floating around the blogosphere today, I may just make this a true web log post and just briefly comment on links.

Stubborn and Psychochild are both trying to figure out how to increase the social factor in MMOs. Stubborn discusses how a good guild can make a great MMORPG, while a poor guilding experience might just ruin it for an individual player. Psychochild focuses more on the grouping experience, and how a "pip" system might help folks find each other again, even through a random LFG tool. I am a player who has (1) sworn off PUGs after the toxicity of WoW LFG and (2) managed to become part of a meta-guild of game bloggers that fulfills my social gaming needs. I totally agree that social ties will increase player retention rates, and I think fewer, stronger bonds is the way to go. Devs tend to approach MMO players as if they were a homogenous group even as they cater to widely varying playstyles in an effort to appeal to different types of players. I've touched on the idea that MMOs are like cities far more than they are like small towns before. I feel devs should focus on the players' monkeysphere (while avoiding factionalism) instead of trying to make us all be friends.

Meanwhile, Zubon is talking about the danger of thinking that, because a game (or even a specific scenario) caters to your own playstyle, you are in some way a superior player. He even touches on the long tails of the RNG gods, and they can skew the individual player experience severely, even while maintaining the appearance of even-handedness in the aggregate. I have fallen victim to the playstyle aspect in various games, and seen it happen to others. The Secret World seems to have a particular knack for reminding me that I'm not so hot, simply by changing up which mobs are resistant to what ability procs. Luckily (or frustratingly), the ability system is designed to be flexible enough that I can (and must) adapt. So just remember, (like in real life) if you have a buddy seemingly incapable of accomplishing a task you skated through, it may have nothing to with your respective skill, and everything to do with how well (or poorly) the task matches up to the stats (talents) and tools you have been given.

And lastly, my new phrase of the day from my buddy Belghast: "Standing in the Stupid." Of course, we've all stood in the fire or the filth or the poison. The Stupid encompasses them all, and is a perfect generic term. It has the added bonus of integrating well with another old friend's favorite retort. When someone cannot seem to get out of the fire/filth/poison, I can just say, "You, sir, are stuck on Stupid."

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Secret Monday and the Alliance of Awesome

I thought I was going to be the first out of the gate with this. But when you actually have to put on pants to go to work, you sometimes miss the scoop. Both Syp and Tententacles have already posted about the exploits (or lack thereof) of the Knights of Mercy on last night's Secret Monday session. In fact, I'll be damned if Tenten didn't take my intended tack and introduce some new players on the team. Syp is in full-on tourist mode, with some excellent shots of various details in Manhattan.

Our little group looks quite impressive in the harsh headlights of an abandoned car. And honestly, we do pretty well against the trash and mini bosses of the NYC raid. Of course, we are no match for Mega-Cthulhu with only eight undergeared characters. But we look good, and as Fernando would tell you, that is of utmost importance.

Speaking of looking good, let's interrupt this regularly scheduled post with another regularly scheduled post: Monde la mode. With the black turtlenecks now dropping from Flappy's bladder sac (wth?), there is finally something that looks good under the ritual coat. (I've heard that the black items used to be available for purchase with 3rd-Age currency, but are now only available from gutting the Flapmeister.) Dortmunder started out the evening in an all-black mixed ensemble, but later switched to match Dex-y's coolness. (Yes, as mentioned before, Scooter and I are THAT couple.) Thanks to the Secret Store selection introduced for Valentine's Day, you'll notice the wedding bands we now sport on our left hands in the left-hand pic.

A couple weeks ago, at the suggestion of Scarybooster, several different intersecting communities formed a more formal relationship that has become known as the Alliance of Awesome. I am technically part of at least three of these guilds, though I am only active in the Knights of Mercy. There are several benefits to this alliance; for instance, increased communication and coordination between these communities. Also, as folks migrate from one game to another, they will find ready groups of friends, even if their own guild is not active in the game. And the guilds that are active get an influx of interested players. KoM has migrated our TS activity to that of Multiplaying, and in the process "acquired" some new blood, in the persons of Zelibeli and Winin. Zeli just started a new character last night, and Winin is in Blue Mountain.

After our tourism raid—and a Flappy run wherein Dortmunder the healer got separated from everyone else—a few veteran KoMies joined Winin in a run through Hell Raised, the dungeon instance anchored in Savage Coast. He picked up quite a few nice pieces, including the awesome "Soul Crusher" hammer. Anyway, welcome to Winin and Zelibeli, and thank you for graciously hosting the Knights on TeamSpeak.

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Landmark Roof

Whereas Saturday was devoted to The Secret World, I spent a chunk of Sunday doing stuff in EverQuest Next Landmark. Structurally, the house is finished, but I am already thinking about expansion as I work on details. I kinda like pics posts. So much is conveyed visually that I feel like I don't need to provide much explanation. On the other hand . . .

The pic below, from last week, shows an issue I had with the Template system. For some reason, the templates would mirror themselves as I placed them, leading to the above pic. After posting about it on the forums, I ended up doing the final work "by hand." That's OK, there is something very relaxing about laying bricks.

The next pic is from just inside the front wall, not far from where I took the pic above, in fact. After looking at various thatched roofs online, I decided to slope the back, while leaving the front gabled. I think I need some chain to hang the chandelier lower.

Here is the current front of the cottage. It looks rather plain from here, now that I think about it. I am also considering moving the staircase further to the left. I've built the house so close to the edge of my claim that I can't have the stairs coming straight out. I think when I first laid the cornerstones, I intended to have the main entrance on the uphill side of the house. I may yet do that and get rid of the stairs on this side.

However, as you can see from the pic below, the stairs do lead to the workshop area, currently open to the elements. Most of my time in Norrath yesterday was gathering materials for a new pick and the Smoothing Tool. This involved an expedition to Serenity Pingo (Tier 3), though I suppose I could have gone to Liberation to visit Belghast's humble abode.

Late in my session, I started smoothing out the roof, which turned out to be quite a bit of work. I wonder, is there a "de-smoothing" tool to restore the original blocky-ness of a built thing? I smoothed the edges of the chimney, too—ever so slightly. That turned out a lot nicer than the smoothing I tried on the stairs. I'll do the same to the house itself later.

I'll have to see where else I want to go with this claim, or if I just want to stick with refining the house I have. In the back of my head, I am constantly thinking that this is all a very temporary alpha, and I'm not sure how to most effectively spend my time with Landmark.

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Secret Friends

Besides a trip to see The Lego Movie last night with Scooter, I spend a huge chunk of yesterday playing The Secret World with friends from Beyond the Veil. One thing that is actually pretty cool about running the Flappy raid is that I frequently see folks from the Twitterverse RP community running around. My latest sighting was of Raven Corvalis (I think that was actually Wednesday or Friday.)

On Saturday, Galactrix (a.k.a. Exceeder) promptly invited me to a small group along with AsianSpice. (Unfortunately, no pics. But you get the idea.) After the Flappy fight, Galactrix offered to help me with some XP getting / achievement finishing, so we headed off to the Shadowy Forest to complete some missions. The first one we did was "Last Dance of the Pădurii," one of the very few open world missions that seem to require a group. Having done this in the past with a group of five (Knights of Mercy), I can say that it's actually easier with two. Of course, Exceeder's and Samantha's 10+ gear may have helped.

We then decided to do a few others I needed, like "Six Feet Under" and then "Crossroads," where we picked up another friend, Penelope "Sugartruck" Croft.

Sugartruck then suggested we run "Knight of the Drăculești." It was a quick job with the three of us, and we finished just in time for another Flappy run.

By then, several other members of Beyond the Veil had logged in, and we did a quick run of Hell Eternal—partly because I had picked up "Paradise Now" at the same as "Crossroads." We made short work of the Elite dungeon, not running the Nightmare because of lockouts and scheduling conflicts of some members of the group.

As an aside, I want to comment again on the the art of TSW. There were those at launch who bemoaned the "ugly" character models we had to work with. I think that may have been a failing of the lighting, etc., on the character creation screen. But I didn't have a problem creating characters (male and female) that I think are attractive. Isn't Samantha gorgeous?

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Secret Monday: The Big Apple Takes a Bite Out of Us

Despite a little confusion and slow start, Secret Monday was full of activity. Unfortunately, Syp had to bow out early due to ailing offspring, but we hope he can join us next week. The rest of the Knights of Mercy got on about an hour before Flappy was scheduled to start, split into a couple groups and nailed the Mansion Scenario. (I won't say on what difficulty, but it wasn't Novice.) I had Scooter, Ocho, and Piddy in my group and we rocked it, even though I had severe enough lag that I got booted from Team Speak. Then it was time for Flappy(!), which we also rocked, though of course we had plenty of help from a very large group of people. Sorry, no pics of Flappy from tonight, but here's one from my first foray into the instance on LoneStarBelle when I happened to see Klaus Von Richter (a pillar of the Twitter RP community) running past.

Both Dex-y and Dortmunder got black turtlenecks from the writhing bladders that Flappy drops, which is cool, since Scooter and I are that dorky couple that often wear matching T-shirts. Ocho was the big winner though with a pair of Night Vision Goggles. I'd have a Monde la Mode shot, but I forgot again; and now it's late. Ocho then had the bright idea of checking out the NYC Raid. What follows is a series of shots from our trip through downtown to Times Square, which Ocho assured us is very faithful to the real thing, right down to some creeps you might actually find in the Big Apple.

This first shot shows our only two actual female players in the cabal: Laeyn (Mogsy) on the left, taking the heat off the rest of us; and Dex-y (Scooter) on the right, bringin' da forty-five caliber pain! I believe that's Thermic (Mr. Mogsy) there laying down on the job. Maric and Tenten rounded out the group, as seen below.

It didn't take long to get to the final boss (though we did die quite a few times on the way). These pics don't even do the environment here justice. Funcom has done an incredible job with this raid (not to mention the rest of The Secret World.)

We had absolutely no hope of defeating Mr. Grumpypants, given that we were three short and barely geared for nightmares. But it was fun running and spamming F12 to get all the screenshots we could before dying.

We totes look like we're ready for him. No? Not even close?

The halo around Dortmunder's head signals his impending demise, yet again. But that shot alone was totally worth the repair bill.

Haha, dead before I even hit the ground.

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Progress

It's hard to do a progress post with a building game. I started this post this morning, then realized I needed some screenshots I didn't have. While I was getting those, I realized I could refine some stuff, which made obsolete some of the shots I'd already taken. Then I realized I could get the materials to make a better forge, and a better pick; and several hours later, the blog post still wasn't written. So some of these pics are out of date. Taking screenies is awkward right now, requiring pressing both Ctrl and F12, which I apparently forgot to do occasionally. I discovered while writing this that I still missed some shots I thought I had taken, like the Legendary-grade Silversteel pick I managed to make.

Early Friday evening, Keke (Scooter) invited Rowanblaze over to her claim to check the work she'd done on it. By the end of the night, she'd already made a bunch of improvements I didn't get shots of, including closing in the underground shelter and installing a door—not to mention getting a pair of andirons and logs for the fireplace.

Meanwhile, Rowan was busy working on his own living quarters. Thanks in part to a reminder from J3w3l of Healing the Masses, I finally made my selection tool, which in turn greatly accelerated my progress.

The house seemed to fly up after I devised "pre-fab" building elements with the Template and copy-paste functions.

I got the idea for support beams from Belghast, and the fireplace from Scooter. There's a staircase now where that table is in the picture.

In no time, I had not only finished the basement, but laid the first floor and a veranda. I still have plenty to do, including building the roof, but I wanted to get some more tools, like the Smoothing Tool. That requires resources.

My gathering took me to Serenity Pingo, where I toured a few castles. There are some seriously talented folks out there in Landmark—uh—Land.

Then it was back to the ol' Homestead. You know how awesome it is to be running through the woodland and suddenly see something you built appear in the distance?

It's still not done. But then, neither am I. . .

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A Gamer Valentine

I did not want the day to go by without shouting on my proverbial rooftop, reaffirming the love I share with my bride and gaming partner, known here as Scooter. Sometimes, I am a total screw-up (hard to believe, I know. :-P ), but Scooter is always a rock, often saving me from my own folly. And I love her for it.

She puts up with a lot of crap, and all too often it's from me. I could not hope for a better partner—in every way. And I am so glad she came into my life, and invited me into hers. Together, I hope we achieve many levels to come.

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QOTD: A Wretched Hive

The internet is an evil place full of jerks and idiots. You just can't give them uncontrolled freedom of expression.

~Tobold, The Foolishness of the Crowd

Valve has come up with a tagging system on Steam, wherein players can, in theory, help categorize games with the goal of steering new players to games they might like. As you might have already guessed or heard, this has not gone well in practice. But that is not what this post is about. It's about keeping the discussion civil when you disagree with someone.

Thankfully, I am either too small potatoes or my audience is sufficiently mature that I don't think any discussion on this blog has degenerated into trolling. I often resist the urge to explain one more time why I feel my position on a topic is the correct one, because I realize that someone who has a deep-seated paradigm will not listen to me. The urge does get the better of me sometimes, as you, Dear Reader, can probably attest. I don't know if other bloggers I read suffer from trolls that I don't see because they are implementing Scalzi's Mallet of Loving Correction. But I am grateful to folks like Syncaine and Tobold who manage to keep the discussion on their  blogs civil, even when folks passionately disagree.

Because when you come here, you're in my home. And while I love a lively discussion over dinner, I don't feed trolls or bigots.

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For the Right Reasons

We can measure facts, but a cause is not a fact—it’s a fiction that helps us make sense of facts.
~Jonah Lehrer, Wired.com

So, I guess Turbine is laying off some workers. To those whose jobs are on the chopping block: you have my deepest sympathies. I hope you land on your feet in a great new place. Meanwhile, there are those jumping at the chance to gloat at your misfortune, ready to draw conclusions not only about the health of Turbine, but the MMO genre as a whole.

Instead of linking to that old PR release about how great LotRO and DDO are doing thanks to F2P, please use this updated link.

F2P ALL THE WAY!
~Syncaine, Turbine finally updates us on the continued success of their F2P conversions

Yeah, because no proprietor of a subscription-only game ever laid off any employee. Syncaine makes a fallacious correlation between a business model he personally dislikes and the health of a company that operates it. (And yes, it's fallacious, because we don't know the circumstances or reasons behind the layoffs.) Syncaine espouses all sorts of valid reasons to dislike F2P. This instance, sadly, is just his schadenfreude showing through.

No game succeeds or fails purely due to its business model. The success factors of both WoW (which has hemorrhaged more players than pretty much all other MMOs ever had) and EVE have little to do with their business model (btw, doesn’t PLEX make EVE a hybrid?) and everything to do with game design. Turbine’s “rightsizing” is business, not game design. We need to look at the design decisions behind LOTRO and other games, as well as external market pressures, to understand why they succeed or fail. Syncaine insists on oversimplifying it to a question of how the companies extract money from players’ wallets.

I'm not saying business model doesn’t influence design. But a crappy, unpopular game will be crappy and unpopular regardless of the business model. And a good game will be good regardless of how the player is asked to pay for it.

Pretty much every game that is not WoW (including EVE) has proven that WoW is a glaring exception to the rule that MMOs are basically a niche in western markets. Every game has its fanbois and haters, regardless of its relative success. And every fanboi thinks his favorite is the result of superior game design.

But Syncaine has declared himself arbiter of both quality and success. He has "yet to see a great F2P MMO," but he's also the one determining "great." He knows "what a great sub MMO looks like," but again that is his personal opinion. This reminds me a little of the SCOTUS definition of obscenity.

I assume Syncaine is playing EVE. He certainly holds it up as an example of great game design. I don't dispute its success, but I would never play EVE, given the tales of what I consider dickish, unethical, and downright criminal behavior of the players. All explicitly allowed by the premise of the game. That's not a great game, in my opinion; and it's by far a distant second in success to the behemoth that is WoW, a game that Syncaine deplores, if I am not mistaken. And when we take into account that the average EVE player allegedly has upwards of 2.5 accounts, Syncaine's 500,000 accounts translate into maybe 220,000 really enthusiastic players. So about the same number of subscribers as LOTRO from what I could gather; though they pay far more per player.

I love TSW, but I don't subscribe. I throw money at it every once in a while for either "fluff" costuming, or the DLC-style content updates. And I am happy with that. Does it struggle? Yes, but it is in a niche genre. However, I haven't encountered a better progression system (imho) or better content (imho) in any other game. Syncaine, naturally, probably thinks it sucks. But I defy you to find any way that TSW drives players into the cash shop from within the game. The shop certainly is available through an in-game interface, but I don't really think that's what we're talking about when we say a game is "purposely designed to make me use their cash shops," as Xyloxan put it. Maybe LOTRO does, I don't know.

I am past the point in my life that I want to be tied to any particular MMO because I am subscribed to it. You can argue about my level of commitment, I suppose. But there are more important things in my life I have committed myself to than a game. Therefore, F2P is perfect for me, right now. If I don't like a particular F2P system—*cough*SWTOR*cough*—I don't play. I don't play LOTRO either. But the reasons have nothing to do with the business model.

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Dragging

I haven't been keeping up with the post-a-day schedule. I have reasons; but they're mostly excuses, I suppose. For one thing, I haven't really been playing any since Sunday. And my current assignment at work just has me exhausted at the end of the day. I bounced out of bed and got some things accomplished yesterday, but today I am really dragging.

I have been reading blogs, and some even inspire ideas. But I don't feel like I have time to develop them. I am wondering how to do both a daily post and still find time to do an in-depth post once or twice a week. When I first announced my intention to post everyday, at least one friend said he would prefer quality over quantity. But as I pointed out to him, part of the reason I gave myself this goal was to develop the habit of writing something every day, even if it's not fine literature, so I can power through NaNoWriMo this November. However, I begin to see his point. It seems I don't have time (or energy) for the deep posts when I am trying (and failing) to come up with daily topics.

I guess I'll renew my efforts to get something down in the morning, and see if there is time and energy for more meaty stuff after work.

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