“So he’s the tank and..”
“Wait, I thought he was the Warrior?”
“Yes, he’s the Warrior but in a group he has to tank. Okay?”
“Okay… where is it then?”
“Where is what?”
“His tank…”
“N… no, he is the tank. It’s the name of his role.”
“Ah okay. Because he has lots of armour…”
“Yes!”
“And he does huge amounts of damage with a massive gun…”
“Ye… no. Not… look, don’t worry about the tank part for the moment.”
“O… kay.”
“Look. This one here is the healer. She’s a Priest, but her role is the healer because she can heal the life of others, see?”
“Ah, I get it. Like the Shaman?”
“Ye… well, no, I mean, well… he can heal but in this instance he’s the damage dealer.”
“If you say so.”
“Right, now, look the Priest is buffing the Warrior.”
“Appearance is important.”
“What?”
“Warriors always have pristine shiny armour in these games.”
“No, not that sort of buffing. The other sort of buffing.”
“Eww, that’s disgusting. Is it just because the Priest is female? Seems a bit sexist…”
“No, not that sort of buffing. A buff is a beneficial spell that does… good stuff.”
“If you say so.”
“It is!”
“…”
“Now, see, the Warrior is charging the mob.”
“No.”
“No?”
“There’s only one of them.”
“Only one of what?”
“The Warrior is only charging one ogre, that hardly constitutes a mob.”
“No, you see, mob… it means the ogre.”
“Well why not just say ‘the ogre’.”
“Because ‘mob’ means many things, any red-con NPC AI that you can…”
“AAMTTUWT.”
“What?”
“Precisely.
“Eh?”
“Acronyms are meaningless to those unfamiliar with them.”
“Oh very clever.”
“IAWTC.”
“Anyway that’s the basics of it, it’s really not that complicated once you know all the terms and how to play. It won’t take much time to explain all the other terms. What do you think?”
“I think that in Peggle I can get into an enjoyable game instantly; I also only use three keys and some mouse clicks, but I don’t having to write a bunch of macros to make it that way; it requires tactics and luck in almost equivalent measure to your game; it seems to involve just as much time staring at nothing more than flashing lights and big glowing numbers; I can play it online with my friends while only needing to dedicate a few minutes to each session of play; and I don’t have to pay £14.99 a month while I’m learning the ropes.”
“So you’re not going to play an MMO with me?”
“Not even if you aggrod me, kited me to your computer, and CCd me there until I agreed to.”
“Fair enough.”
The actual actions of most games are simplistic and repetitive. It’s all about the context. The other day I was playing Allied Assault (old, I know) and ultimately I was just pointing my mouse and clicking with a bit of movement thrown in. But in the context, I was a lone Soviet sniper, hunting German snipers, not knowing where they could be, and always with a submachine gun ready at my side, just in case I ran into a group at closer range.
You can play Peggle in online versus mode? Awesome.
Ok, I’m in love with your captcha system. It’s good for a laugh every time. “Retardataire”? lol
… This sounds like a discussion I had with my lady, early on in my WoW days. Looking back, I can’t really blame her :)
Re: Peggle – The last month before I quit WoW, I spent nearly all my time online playing Peggle (in WoW) with my guildmates. I then realised I was paying $15 a month to play Peggle.
@Klepsacovic: It just seems that some contexts are worth £14.99 a month, and seemingly for making it harder to get to the point where you can perform those simplistic and repetitive actions.
@DeepSleeper: With the numerous editions of Peggle that exist there’s probably one that will do your washing and iron your shirts too.
@Derrick: Last time I laughed at our Captcha AI it turned all of our words into Egyptian hieroglyphs for a week.
I tried the subtle approach by installing the WoW demo on Mrs Melmoth’s laptop. When I got home that evening I found Marilu Henner’s Dancerobics Fitness Planner installed on my laptop…
A better strategy two of our guildies utilised on a friend of theirs: have him sit there and watch and listen in on a Lich King kill of ours three weeks ago. Of course, there was some interest and a previous introduction (you always need a soil). But, matter of fact, he’s level 41 now.
As Klep says, every single game in the history of games basically consists of pushing some buttons and wiggling the mouse a bit. The question is whether it’s fun – for the person playing.
You have to excite, not explain. In the above case, it was out second-ever LK kill as a guild, so there was still quite an amount of emotion spilling over. “These people are really having fun with this” is a much better thing to show than “this critical hit did 200% damage”.
Too often do we, when we try to “show” an MMO, ride out of town to the first helpless boar, slaughter it uninspiredly and say “yeah, and that’s what combat is like”. Too often do we forget that this is not why we are playing.
Excellent script. It’s only slightly different from when I tried to teach my wife Guild Wars.
…yeah, she doesn’t play these days.