[MUD-Dev] [News] Virtual goods--Oh, the controversy!

[Travis Casey]

On Saturday 10 April 2004 13:34, Brian Hook wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 10:46:20 -0400, Jeff Fuller wrote:

>> You don't get to the top level because you 'ground it ou't. You
>> need to understand your character and how to play it, to get that
>> far.

> That's not skill, that's experience and learning.  Yes, a complete
> newbie given an uberlevel character will suck, but experienced
> players aren't, as a rule, devising new tactics on their own,
> they're copying the tactics devised by a very small minority.

> It took one person to figure out the FD exploit in EQ for power
> leveling, yet is it "skill" when a bunch of other people read
> about it and learn to do it?  Are they more "skilled" than someone
> that didn't read about it and thus never learned it?  I don't
> think so.

I'd say they are.  Is someone not a "skilled programmer" because
they learned all their programming tricks from others?  It's the
results that one knows how to achieve that define "skilled", not how
you got there.

> That's not to say that they couldn't devise tactics that are
> effective, but in my experience everyone learns from everyone else
> how to approach combat.

One could equally argue that the vast majority of programmers learn
from "everyone else" how to approach programming, or that the vast
majority of doctors learn from "everyone else" how to diagnose and
treat diseases.

People creating actual *new* knowledge are the exception in *any*
field, not just game-playing.  The term "skilled" isn't normally
restricted to just those few.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_     Travis S. Casey  <efindel at earthlink.net>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
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