This post is a continuation of http://www.forumwarz.com/discussions/view_post/439738 before it got derailed and moved to Whiny ****es.

DesdiPhoenix Posted:

Even stating “Human Nature” is a broad term. There are some people that play Forumwarz and spend time in Flamebate and don’t seem to get upset about things that happen. At least they don’t get AS upset as others obviously do. So since I’m to bumume that everyone that plays this is at least mostly human, human nature would apply to everyone that plays. So human nature isn’t enough of an explanation.

Sure it is. IMO, human nature is a pretty good explanation for a lot of things that humans do. In some cases one could say “hey, that’s just a cop-out”, and to some extent it is, but the difficulty in objectively describing human nature makes it an ambiguous term, one that can partially explain a lot of questions about human behavior. So some people like to take their entertainment seriously, and some don’t. That’s just how people are.

My confusion is that whereas a hobby or collection can net actual profit or monetary value, a game has no literal reward. The person with the most epeen doesn’t get to sell their epeen for anything else. It’s not tangible. So it is time that should be regarded as thrown away, and people shouldn’t put so much stock in it.

Does that make sense?

Well, a lot of activities in this world can be considered “wasting time”. Going out to a bar and partying the night away is “wasting time” – it might gain you some social interaction or a new relationship, but it does not give productivity in the traditional sense, and it is a drain on time and money.

The thing a lot of people seem to forget about their chosen game or hobby is that wasting time is all the same. Consider these examples, all real that I have seen myself in my time playing these games:

– A StarCraft player, bored of playing the game normally, decides to mess around with a friend in order to have fun with glitches. He discovers a new one, and shoots an e-mail to the admin of a StarCraft site. When he posts that glitch, people in the comments belittle him for wasting time finding glitches, saying that the glitch is old and imploring him to get a girlfriend.

– A Gears of War 2 player repeats a small portion of the campaign over 20 hours in order to get the Seriously 2.0 (kill 100,000 enemies) achievement. People belittle his achievement on the forums, calling him a nerd for spending that much time doing a repetitive task just for the gamerscore.

– A WoW player multiboxes (uses hardware [more computers and keyboards] and software [keyboard and mouse programs/macros] to control multiple accounts in multiple WoW clients all at once) for the fun of zapping the same guy with 30 lightning bolts all at once. Amidst the comments of “that’s a pretty cool setup, I wish I could do that” a lot of people are calling him a super-nerd for spending that much money and (making an incorrect bumumption) time on WoW.

What these people have all failed to realize is that it’s all the same wasted time.

Spending 2 hours on StarCraft discovering glitches is effectively the same thing as spending 2 hours on StarCraft playing normally, and amazingly, the end goal is the same: having fun. Spending 20 hours over several days to kill the same enemies in Gears 2 over and over again is the same as spending 20 hours playing Gears 2 online the normal way; it might be considered a little nerdy for doing a repetitive task, but in the end it’s still 20 hours spent on Gears 2. Multiboxing in WoW takes no more time than playing one character normally (other than the time setting up the computers); it’s a lot more money spent on the game, but if he earned that money he can do what he wants with it.

That said, everyone takes their games seriously at least occasionally, bemoaning a loss whether it came from the computer or from a human player, and whether or not they feel it was their fault. It’s natural to do that sometimes, but when one cries “noob”, “cheater”, “hacker,” etc. at almost everyone who beats him, then that is indeed a problem. And it’s a problem that is exacerbated by the anonymity and competitive atmosphere of a lot of online games. People should always be aware of the impermanent nature of their progress and accomplishments in their games/hobbies, and they should always remember to put fun first (even if fun and competitive spirit are not mutually exclusive).

Ultimately, people should just be more aware of their own habits when they call someone out for “wasting too much time” or “taking the game too seriously”.