Reading through this forum I can´t get this old Aesop´s Fable from my head. I wonder why?
A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?”
So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.”
So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along.”
Well, the Man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of yours and your hulking son?”
The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.
“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them:
It’s coincidental that you’re named Coffee because in my own headcanon I already thought of this as “the Coffee Problem.”
Focusing on what you play against is focusing on a meta game universal. There is no way to design it which will satisfy the majority of the player base. It’s a fool’s errand to even try.
Focusing on what you play as gives players the power of choice in determining their happiness. Every salty forum poster who is complaining about what they play against simply has not yet found the deck they love playing as.
That story is unrelated to a video game. It’s about choice in your personal life and letting the opinions of other change who you are as a person.
You can’t yell “FIRE” in a croweded mall without consequences, you need to wear a shirt and shoes to go in the store, etc. There are huge sets of societal rules that apply to people even when they don’t like them, and that’s the better analogy for game meta.
Blizzard has already clearly shown us that certain things should not happen, that when unhealthy play styles are too common they will be executed, and that it does, in fact, matter what the community as a whole thinks about the game. They have made nerfs to popular (and fun) things specifically because they were oppressive.
It truly boggles my mind how “the dress code must be strictly enforced” has gone from stuffy conservatism to some kind of prudish progressivism during my 40ish years on this planet. I’m a small business owner myself and if you want to pickup without shoes I’m okay with that. (Shirt is still required lol)
Truly functional societies are not just pure order. They’re not pure chaos either. Functional societies, and functional human being in general, lives on the border between order and chaos. Rules should exist AND rules should be challenged. It’s okay to be unorthodox because in truth many an orthodoxy is an echo chamber illusion. It’s not “the majority believe this,” it’s “the majority that I choose to surround myself with believe this.”
The majority of the users of this forum believe the lie that what they play against is the barrier between them and their enjoyment of the game. They come here because they want to complain, and then once here they latch onto the idea that it’s other players’ fault because it’s convenient.
No it isn’t. You own self image is not about community acceptance and mass marketing. Games are about both those things.
The reason you’re not a game designer, among others, is you don’t understand that mass appeal is more important than remaining true to your values when selling things.
This is not what has happened, though.
As equality has spread, conservative control has lessened. This loosening has directly correlated with their attacks on government because they no longer have absolute control to manipulate the levers in their favor.
The more persons of color, immigrants, non-Christians have a voice, the more vehement the “conservative” resistance to change has become. The modern conservative movement isn’t even conservative or democratic anymore.
Um, no, no they don’t.
They have an expectation that player agency is a thing, and when it isn’t, when the casino levers or some broken powered interaction that has no counter wins the game, that isn’t fun.
But all of this aside, the actions of the developers of this game clearly don’t side with your arguments… at all.
And I think you’re ignoring some really, really valid criticism all over the place when you just dismiss it with your Malcolm Gladwell hooey… because that dude is an idiot. He makes up good anecdotes and then acts like it’s proof of something.
But he proves my point… mass marketing is more important than your values.
By the way, speaking to the general readership of this thread, I’m not saying that game developers are faultless here. Indeed, the video above is mostly about how the spaghetti sauce industry failed for DECADES to identify a sauce archetype that about 30% of pasta enjoyers would consider their favorite, and how its eventual discovery and release was a huge success. I could totally understand the possibility that the deck archetype that would make you happiest to play AS might not have ever been released, and if so that’s on Blizzard, especially if there are lots of other players in that category. It’s not your job to design the product, it’s the producer’s job. I’m not saying that you should be happy and that there is no barrier to your enjoyment of Hearthstone. What I’m saying is that the barrier is not what your opponent enjoys playing as.
That’s not my position nor is it the position of the video I linked.
My position is that players don’t know how to design games, and therefore if you ask a bunch of players what they want in a game, and you simply follow their feedback without filtering it through a lens of expertise, then the resulting product will, in fact, satisfy very few. Mass appeal IS more important than remaining true to my values… or your values, or Bob’s values, or Reddit’s values. The way to get a quality result is not to take a poll on which method to use — which is essentially the morale of the OP fable.
In short, just because mass appeal is important doesn’t mean that achieving it is as simple as doing what the masses say. Indeed, the skill in it is doing what they don’t say, because they lack the vocabulary and/or theoretical basis to say it.
It hasn’t, at least according to the conventional definition. I don’t think any reasonable analysis of economic data over the past 40 years could reach the conclusion that economic inequality has lessened. So the fact that you said this implies some kind of warped ideological definition of “equality.”
I would like to respect the wishes of the forumers here who do not enjoy political discussion on the forum. What I will say is that a functional society has both a functional political left AND a functional political right. Not all change is good, and not all change is bad, and we need strong advocates both for and against. Anyone who thinks it’s as simple as “right wing bad” or “left wing bad” is wrong and has a childishly naive view of politics overall.
Edit: this also applies to subgroups. People of color need both a functional left and a functional right. So do immigrants and non-immigrants and non-Christians and Christians. This idea that certain groups of people are owned by the left or owned by the right isn’t healthy.
Perhaps slightly exaggerated, but I mostly agree. Blizzard is far closer to acting like the trio in the OP fable than they are to understanding the moral of the story. They pretty much do whatever VS says they should do.
No. No he’s not. And nothing about the coffee studies is anecdote. He’s basically citing papers there.
My mother grew up in a sunset town in the rural south. That town has a black mayor and a black sheriff. Don’t tell me equality hasn’t spread.
I think you’re the one who is warped.
The facts are the economic intent of the GoP for the last 40+ years has been to specifically exacerbate said economic inequality as a tool to solidify their own interests.
Not the rank and file, mind you, they are just fodder.
And anyone who thinks I said that is also childishly naive. I’m actually a Christian conservative, I just don’t see the current GoP as either of those things despite how they like to “virtue signal.”
You act as though they don’t actually have any data to work with, which is humorous.
I know he makes you feel good, but he’s about as helpful as Tucker Carlson regurgitating White Replacement theory unchecked on national television.
He’s just not right or good, but he makes people feel that way.
Your example of equality is literally two out of two government officials being the same ethnicity. I imagine that, if the town you’re referring to is majority black, then that would be representative. I’m not against representative government. But you’re simply not demonstrating equality here. Like I said, it has acquired some alternative meaning to you.
They have the best data to work with. But that doesn’t mean that their opinions are always based upon that data.
VS said, no nerfs on release week. They did it anyway.
VS said, no nerfs to Anub’Rekhan. They did it anyway.
This is yet another community myth.
Do they often align? Sure. Why wouldn’t we find Blizzard aligning with the top meta analysis group?
And let’s keep it real. If they didn’t align, we would all be hearing from the angry community members about how an independent creator knows what’s wrong with the game better than Blizzard.
I dunno… ::Obi-wan voice:: from a certain point of view, the GoP is quite Christian and conservative. Like in the point of view of Christians and conservatives from 2000 years ago
No its more like the opposite. VS is blizzards excuse.
VS will suggest anything that blizzards wants to change. So that blizzard can say,well this is what the community did want. Incase anyone questions the decission.
