[MUD-Dev2] Specialization

[Michael Hartman]

Sean Howard wrote:
> "cruise" <cruise at casual-tempest.net> wrote:
> 
>> It's not success if everyone has it all.
> 
> I had a teacher who believed the same thing, such that test scores were
> given relative to other students. If five students got a perfect score and
> one student missed one question of hundreds, he would automatically get a
> B by virtue of not being in the top 10% scorers. There were students who
> literally failed his class with work that would've been consider B-quality
> work. How well you did in the class was entirely dependent on who else was
> in your class. Needless to say, he wasn't a particularly favored teacher.
> He caused people to drop out of computer science. He caused people to drop
> out of COLLEGE.
> 
> Competition for something so universally required as success is not just
> detrimental, it's cruel.
> 

You realize your example has absolutely nothing to do what everyone else 
is saying, right? Nobody has said a game should grant success on a bell 
curve. But failure should be a possibility, or else the game is pretty 
empty, meaningless, and pointless.

Please, resist the temptation to make completely ridiculous analogies. 
Successfully obtaining an education is of far greater importance than 
being successful in a game. Games have winners and losers because that 
is part of the whole point of playing. The point of getting an education 
is to learn.


-- 
Michael Hartman, J.D. (http://www.frogdice.com)
President & CEO, Frogdice, Inc.
University of Georgia School of Law, 1995-1998
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 1990-1994