one turn

one turn, by Plethon A tumblr for analysis of games and gaming, World of Warcraft, paleontology, Byzantine miscellany, and whatever else strikes its author's fancy.

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Not about gaming, but a great piece on why OS dominance in the smart phone environment would be a bad thing.

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still alive

It's just the holidays.

That said, the inclusion of ‘fossils’ as a type of artifact in the new Archaeology profession in WoW has brought up a deep source of rage for me, as a paleontologist who has been peppered many times with ‘Oh, fossils! So you're an archaeologist!’

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kung fu in the galaxy

The quote in the prior post reminded me of my current struggles to master Race for the Galaxy (with the aid of this very excellent AI); Race is a game with a lot of deceptively alluring long–term strategies, though most good play comes down to balancing two elements every turn: 1) victory points earned and 2) cards drawn.

There is an initial level of play most players go through where they begin to master the long–term elements in the game. Potential large points earners (notably, the "alien" strategy) will often be weighted far beyond their actual use. However, there often comes a further step where the player becomes more sophisticated, and this is where the game really seems to open up.

I remember, as a middle schooler, reading an article in "The Duelist" (which was Wizards of the Coast's now–defunct official magazine for Magic: the Gathering) which was (loosely) based on ideas culled from Sunzi's The Art of War. I had already begun to be drawn to "control" archetypes in the game, but I had little serious ideas about the strategies to any games except for Chess (books on which I devoured as a younger kid) and RISK (where the optimal strategy, given the normal rules, is obvious). The author of that article opened me up to the idea that there were resources in the game other than the obvious ones of cards, life and library. There were also elements of time and psychological resources, as well. All of these were available to the player.

Similarly in Race, I think most new players see the obvious resource—victory points—and ignore the others: probable turns remaining, average cards drawn per turn and optimal cards remaining for both yourself and your opponent. There is a tendency in any game with an element of randomness to over–plan, that is, to try and discern some sort of mystical flow to the game, rather than optimal moves, which are probabilistic. This can also lead to overvaluing cards which have—on average across many games—high point values. You have to play with your tableau, and better yet, with immediately available options. An early Alien Toy Shop may be a game–winner, but only if you're finding some other source of easy points or a way to fill the hand despite consecutive turns of Consume–Double/Produce.

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The well-known question posed by Zhuangzi in the 4th century B.C. — was he Zhuangzi who had dreamt of being a butterfly or was he a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi? — which pre-dated virtual reality and “The Matrix” by a couple of thousand years, was as much a kung fu inspiration as it was an epistemological query. Instead of leading to a search for certainty, as Descartes’s dream did, Zhuangzi came to the realization that he had perceived “the transformation of things,” indicating that one should go along with this transformation rather than trying in vain to search for what is real.

—Peimin Ni, "Kung Fu for Philosophers"

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You read an article like this one over at Eurogamer - "What can Topple World of Warcraft?" - and nothing that even looks like an MMO comes readily to mind. That is partially because of the head start, but it's also that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is in a very literal sense not the game that launched as World of Warcraft in 2004. If you have a good idea in your game they will just take it, adding your uniqueness to their own. I think it would be easier to topple capitalism itself; competitors may want to start there first.

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With Cataclysm dropping early tomorrow morning, I'm fully set to roll up a goblin hunter. While I will certainly be taking my 80s (a shadow priest and a death knight) through the new content, what I am really interested in is how Blizzard is altering the leveling experience.

And, of course, rocket belts and go–carts are cool, too.

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Intellectually, I understand the need for a game to be intelligible in its own right. On some level, it is a flaw if a game's rules can only really be understood if taught by another human being. At the same time, that was part of the magic of gaming for us in those days. It was a hobby so arcane and esoteric that mere written words were seemingly inadequate to convey it. Only by finding a "master" willing to share his wisdom with you could you enter into the most hidden of human entertainments.

—GROGNARDIA: The Clubhouse

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one turn

The fundamental unit of all gameplay is one turn.

This is true both for the obvious case—the turn–based game, where actions are clearly separated and described—and for the murkier one, such as for sports or "real–time" computer/video games such as first–person shooters, real–time strategy games or MMOs. Any game is really made up of moments of decision, not empty choices, but actual moments of decision: Move this piece. Look to my left, not my right. Play now. Take this feat. Identifying resources is at the core of any smart gameplay, but the ur–resource is your decision making.

The planned meat of this tumblr is an analytical approach to looking at the games we play. Analytical, but there is no clear economic or mathematical approach underlying the analysis, and most readers will probably be driven to call it philosophical—though I would prefer humanist. Games are, at their finest, true leisure activities: They are experiences, social or private, which find the mind both at rest and at fine activity, a process by which life can be enriched.

Not all the posts here will be at that level, and it remains unclear if some of what is analyzed can even hold up to much seriousness. I am, for example, a skeptical player of World of Warcraft—I am unsure of the game's possibility for true leisure, but am drawn to its mathematical problems and social aspects. Further, I will likely use this tumblr as a dump for all sorts of other imagery and link material that engages my other interests.

It's your turn.