During the Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft I spent most of my time playing some decently hardcore PvP (player versus player content- battlegrounds and arenas) on my holy paladin. I wouldn’t say I was amazing, not by any means, but I certainly achieved a higher than average ranking, and I worked pretty hard to get there.
And when I say worked, I do mean WORKED. I researched outside of the game- which stats were better for PvP, what balance between stats was best, which trinkets I should use, which group compositions I should run with, etc. I had a solid group of people I could play ranked games with, and we set aside times for that purpose specifically. We had rules about our play- never keep playing if you lose more than two games in a row (so you don’t drop your rank all at once), never play right after the reset (because a lot of people will be playing and games can be quite a bit tougher), check the gear and rank of any potential pug meticulously (because in PvP, a lack of gear meant you would get crushed no matter your skill), and so on. I enjoyed it, but it was certainly one of the more stressful ways to play the game. A few bad games could not only ruin that play session, but also hang like a dark cloud over the next- when you lose games your rank gets lowered, which then means that you start your next play session just trying to claw your way back up to where you had been. On the flip side, nights when we were winning, and particularly winning hard-fought battles against good teams, were exhilarating. Pulling out all the stops, using every last trick you have to beat an equally matched opponent is an awesome feeling.
I quit WoW after Cata, came back briefly for MoP, and quit again. I may or may not pick it up for the next expansion, but I’m pretty sure I’ll never really get back into playing the way I did then. That play style just doesn’t match where I am personally right now, or what I want to get out of my gaming.
Now I’m a baddie. And it’s just as awesome.
During the Steam sale I picked up the Age of Empires collection and started dabbling in my first real experiences with an RTS. Sure, I played some Warcraft on my Dad’s computer when I was about 12, but I only played in god-mode, so I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count. Several of my family members got AoE as well, and we’ve been playing together for about a month. We only play against the AI, saying only half-jokingly that we’re way too bad to play against other players. We’re slowly getting better, having moved up to going 3v2 or 5v3 versus the AI players, but we’re still not really any good. I like to say I’m about two thirds as good as the computer players. We’ve renamed one of the post-game player awards “Most Bad” (it’s actually called “Least Resources”), and it always goes to one of us. We’ve even designated a new award “Super Bad”, that we extra-textually give to one another if a single player gets both “Least Resources” and “Most Units Killed”. I’ve gotten our family’s “Super Bad” award on more than one occasion.
Of course, I also don’t really research for AoE. Sure, I’ve looked up a couple suggested build orders, and read a bit about how my civ is generally played, but that’s about it. I don’t watch games, I don’t have a specific strategy that I’ve formulated. I know there are lots of resources out there that I could use to get better, but I really just don’t care. We’re having a blast being terrible at the game. If we win, it’s pretty sweet, but if we lose it’s usually kind of humorous. In fact, my sister and I lost the last game so badly we decided to just pretend we had talked about True Blood the entire time.
I share these two experiences here, because they help me think about the vastly different ways we approach games, the different reasons we play, and the different experiences we can get out of games. Was I a more “valid” gamer when I was a PvPer in WoW? I’m sure in certain circles the answer to that might be “yes”- that being more serious, more rigorous, and more competent made one a “real” gamer (scare quotes highly intentional). It certainly felt nice to have that high ranking. At the same time, I’m having just as much fun as a baddie, and maybe even more fun (since I am way less attached to winning).
2 thoughts on “On Being Bad”
I find I sometimes have to reflect on what’s at stake when I play a game, and that can help me determine how much effort I want to put into it. When I play with friends on an Arena team or a Raid group, what’s at stake isn’t just my enjoyment– doing research to equip myself properly or learn how to down a boss becomes a responsibility I am willing to bear in order to elevate myself and my teammates. Sometimes multiplayer rivalries work the same way, but like in reverse.
If I’m playing solo, what’s at stake could simply be my enjoyment or it could be more personal– I might want to rise to a difficult challenge to prove to myself that I can, or I might feel an intense attachment for a character or narrative and want to spend as many hours as it takes to set things right. I might want to uncover hidden secrets, where what’s at stake is my own ignorance. Or I might not care at all and just want to kill some time.
In all these cases, being good or bad at a game is something you reconcile with what’s at stake. The pressure we feel to succeed in certain games can tell us a lot about what we as players are looking for in an interactive experience.
I think that’s a great point about the role social responsibility plays in this. It might be frustrating for me to keep playing this game (and being relatively terrible at it) if I were either playing alone or playing with people that were much more serious about it. As it is, playing this game with this group has made it a much different experience. The fact that we can look at the post game summary and laugh about who got “Most Bad” or “Super Bad” shows just how relaxed our play in this particular game is.