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What is "fun"? The designers of Civ3 certainly have searched their souls to answer this question, and it looks like our forum is doing something similar, though often heatedly and without much attempt or ability to show respect to the "other" viewpoint.
For me, trying to answer this question has helped me understand why I often seem so pessimistic about Civ3. What I have discovered is that Civ3 is shaping up to offer a great deal of fun--but perhaps not MY kind of fun. What follows is a bit long, for which I apologize, but it might be useful for some to consider:
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote in 'Maypole of Merrymount' about how Cotton Mather (a good old Puritan) locked up and punished a nearby group of people who were dancing around a Maypole. In his eyes, they were disrespecting the Lord (and Mr. Mather himself, of course) by using their lives in such a careless manner. In fact, those revelers were protesters in a sense. Their very act of NOT sitting quietly with a Bible to study God's Word signaled not so much their laziness or lack of intelligence but their very bold (and dangerous) statement that games could provide as much as or even more fulfillment than stern adherence to social convention. For of all the battlegrounds, every battle begins and ends in the human mind...and a mind focussed on wrapping 15 foot ribbons around a tree trunk is a mind the authorities consider AWOL.
Have things really changed so much? Do your parents, teachers, friends and spouse respect the time you spend playing computer games? I wonder how many of you out there don't often feel somehow guilty or regretful after having spent hours playing? I certainly have often said things to myself like: "Gee. If I took all that computer game time and put it toward a Ph.D. or my career or my family, certainly I would have achieved much more MEANINGFUL happiness than what I have now." Is that true?
Face it. Most of us have at some point secretly felt that our countless hours put into discussing and playing these games have been somewhat "wasted." Maybe even some of us wish we had a Cotton Mather to come and kick our asses off the keyboard and shove us into the classroom or office where we can do ourselves some "real" good.
However, I strongly believe that SOME games are not only NOT a waste of time but have actually helped get me through rough spots in life and even helped me develop some advanced problem solving skills. Then, of course, many games HAVE been and could be merely a waste if I don't choose them carefully enough. Sadly, for me, Civ3 looks to make the choosing rather difficult.
To explain that will take a few more paragraphs, I'm afraid...
Countless insults have been thrown between the First-Person Shooter / Real-Time Strategy and Turn-Based Strategy camps as to which one is more "fun." After great thought on the issue, I have come to an amazing conclusion (I'm a bit mentally slow, I guess): They BOTH are. BUT: they do very different things to the brain, and depending on what kind of brain you have, both or neither of those genres are any fun to YOU.
The fact is, I enjoy all kinds of games. I have just finished playing Clive Barker's 'Undying,' for example, which is a SUPERB example of what an FPS should be. I enjoyed the experience immensely because it literally gave me adrenaline rushes at certain points...not to mention bits of shock. Yet, I found myself hardly able to push to the end despite all that because my brain wanted more. After perhaps no more than 20 hours of 'Undying,' I was bored DESPITE how wonderfully done the game is.
By contrast, how many hours have I spent playing and discussing the Civs games? Not 20, but 200? Perhaps 2000? It has taken me a long time to figure out why, but it now seems clear to me that I am finally understanding what kind of fun I like:
** I like a mental challenge more than a visceral one.
** I like to make complex decisions that take into account complex variables more than I like decisions based on reflex and instinct.
** I like to plan and be rewarded for superior strategy more than I like to rush in and be rewarded for superior boldness.
** I like for games to make me WORK more than REACT.
Odd, isn't it, that I play games so I can work? Surely that makes no sense. And yet, it does. While I clearly enjoy a visceral game now and then that takes good reflexes, instinct and boldness (I played on-line Age of Kings way more than I should have and became actually quite good, of all things, at Rushing), I find myself spending the most time and getting the most out of games that make me work through complex decisions to arrive at a superior strategy. True, one of the reasons AoK, despite being an RTS, held my attention for so long is that it did, in fact, involve quite a great deal of work to develop a superior strategy (though slow reflexes always spelled your doom against a good player).
So what's my problem with Civ 3? Or, I should say, 'potential problem' since I clearly haven't played it yet?
"I like a mental challenge..." Nothing about Civ3 so far suggests that anything about the game will be more challenging than what we've had over the past 10 years of Civ. Some new things and some cool twists? Yes. But basically Civ as we know it. That means, to me at least, I've already conquered most of the challenges.
"I like to make complex decisions that take into account complex variables..." Once the few twists in gameplay have been understood, these decisions seem to promise very little in the 'complex' column. Having to work for my resources is interesting, for example, but promises me little when I KNOW I'll already be hogging the map as it is.
"I like to plan and be rewarded for superior strategy..." It will seem a bit anti-climactic to be rewarded for things I already know will work or will work with rather easily implemented modifications.
"I like for games to make me WORK..." Which clearly won't happen once a few new tricks are learned and the same old (or basically same old) strategies prove successful as always.
CONCLUSION:
For me, Civ 3 as 'conservative sequel' after 10 years of Civving won't be MY kind of fun. I wish in some ways I had NEVER played Civ so that I could sit down with Civ 3 and actually enjoy the fun of discovery, looking for new strategies, and being rewarded for work well done. No doubt it would hook me for 10 years all over again, as I'm sure it will do for countless players new to the series.
But I do not fault Firaxis in the least. In fact, THEIR definition of fun seems to be the much more accepted (and profitable) one. Take a look at some dictionary entries:
"FUN usually implies laughter or gaiety but may imply merely a lack of serious or ulterior purpose."
"GAME often stresses mischievous or malicious fun."
"PLAY stresses the opposition to earnest without implying malice or mischief."
Looking at this, I realize that I simply take my fun, games and play too seriously. I WANT (most of) my fun to have a simulated 'serious or ulterior purpose.' And I WANT my games to steer away from something mischievous or malicious. And I WANT my play to be earnest. In Civ, I want to believe, if just for a moment, that I AM the leader of a great nation fighting for its survival and that the world waits with baited breath for my next calculated move.
Yet, this conservative installment won't do much to simulate that feeling after 10 years of having mastered the basic formula. New animated leaders won't do it. Units that bob their weapons up and down a million times won't do it. A few new twists will be too little too late. And, hey: I'll be the first to admit that it must immensely easier to make an FPS/RTS game more difficult just by upping the action while to do a similar thing for TBS, ESPECIALLY for a 10 year-old series, must be mind-boggling.
Sid himself has a strong belief that a successful game makes things "easily understood" and "simple." Well, looking at the accepted definitions of fun (and the number of games he has sold), he is right. And looking at what we've seen of Civ 3, we'll soon have something easily understood and simple.
Well, call me a freak...but that ain't gonna be MY kind of fun after all these years. In fact, I hope you'll understand me now when I say something seemingly as rash and pessimistic as: "Civ 3 is looking to be a waste of my time. Definitely NOT fun." If that statement now makes even the least bit of sense to some of my critics, I'll consider this long-winded post at least vaguely successful.
For me, trying to answer this question has helped me understand why I often seem so pessimistic about Civ3. What I have discovered is that Civ3 is shaping up to offer a great deal of fun--but perhaps not MY kind of fun. What follows is a bit long, for which I apologize, but it might be useful for some to consider:
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote in 'Maypole of Merrymount' about how Cotton Mather (a good old Puritan) locked up and punished a nearby group of people who were dancing around a Maypole. In his eyes, they were disrespecting the Lord (and Mr. Mather himself, of course) by using their lives in such a careless manner. In fact, those revelers were protesters in a sense. Their very act of NOT sitting quietly with a Bible to study God's Word signaled not so much their laziness or lack of intelligence but their very bold (and dangerous) statement that games could provide as much as or even more fulfillment than stern adherence to social convention. For of all the battlegrounds, every battle begins and ends in the human mind...and a mind focussed on wrapping 15 foot ribbons around a tree trunk is a mind the authorities consider AWOL.
Have things really changed so much? Do your parents, teachers, friends and spouse respect the time you spend playing computer games? I wonder how many of you out there don't often feel somehow guilty or regretful after having spent hours playing? I certainly have often said things to myself like: "Gee. If I took all that computer game time and put it toward a Ph.D. or my career or my family, certainly I would have achieved much more MEANINGFUL happiness than what I have now." Is that true?
Face it. Most of us have at some point secretly felt that our countless hours put into discussing and playing these games have been somewhat "wasted." Maybe even some of us wish we had a Cotton Mather to come and kick our asses off the keyboard and shove us into the classroom or office where we can do ourselves some "real" good.
However, I strongly believe that SOME games are not only NOT a waste of time but have actually helped get me through rough spots in life and even helped me develop some advanced problem solving skills. Then, of course, many games HAVE been and could be merely a waste if I don't choose them carefully enough. Sadly, for me, Civ3 looks to make the choosing rather difficult.
To explain that will take a few more paragraphs, I'm afraid...
Countless insults have been thrown between the First-Person Shooter / Real-Time Strategy and Turn-Based Strategy camps as to which one is more "fun." After great thought on the issue, I have come to an amazing conclusion (I'm a bit mentally slow, I guess): They BOTH are. BUT: they do very different things to the brain, and depending on what kind of brain you have, both or neither of those genres are any fun to YOU.
The fact is, I enjoy all kinds of games. I have just finished playing Clive Barker's 'Undying,' for example, which is a SUPERB example of what an FPS should be. I enjoyed the experience immensely because it literally gave me adrenaline rushes at certain points...not to mention bits of shock. Yet, I found myself hardly able to push to the end despite all that because my brain wanted more. After perhaps no more than 20 hours of 'Undying,' I was bored DESPITE how wonderfully done the game is.
By contrast, how many hours have I spent playing and discussing the Civs games? Not 20, but 200? Perhaps 2000? It has taken me a long time to figure out why, but it now seems clear to me that I am finally understanding what kind of fun I like:
** I like a mental challenge more than a visceral one.
** I like to make complex decisions that take into account complex variables more than I like decisions based on reflex and instinct.
** I like to plan and be rewarded for superior strategy more than I like to rush in and be rewarded for superior boldness.
** I like for games to make me WORK more than REACT.
Odd, isn't it, that I play games so I can work? Surely that makes no sense. And yet, it does. While I clearly enjoy a visceral game now and then that takes good reflexes, instinct and boldness (I played on-line Age of Kings way more than I should have and became actually quite good, of all things, at Rushing), I find myself spending the most time and getting the most out of games that make me work through complex decisions to arrive at a superior strategy. True, one of the reasons AoK, despite being an RTS, held my attention for so long is that it did, in fact, involve quite a great deal of work to develop a superior strategy (though slow reflexes always spelled your doom against a good player).
So what's my problem with Civ 3? Or, I should say, 'potential problem' since I clearly haven't played it yet?
"I like a mental challenge..." Nothing about Civ3 so far suggests that anything about the game will be more challenging than what we've had over the past 10 years of Civ. Some new things and some cool twists? Yes. But basically Civ as we know it. That means, to me at least, I've already conquered most of the challenges.
"I like to make complex decisions that take into account complex variables..." Once the few twists in gameplay have been understood, these decisions seem to promise very little in the 'complex' column. Having to work for my resources is interesting, for example, but promises me little when I KNOW I'll already be hogging the map as it is.
"I like to plan and be rewarded for superior strategy..." It will seem a bit anti-climactic to be rewarded for things I already know will work or will work with rather easily implemented modifications.
"I like for games to make me WORK..." Which clearly won't happen once a few new tricks are learned and the same old (or basically same old) strategies prove successful as always.
CONCLUSION:
For me, Civ 3 as 'conservative sequel' after 10 years of Civving won't be MY kind of fun. I wish in some ways I had NEVER played Civ so that I could sit down with Civ 3 and actually enjoy the fun of discovery, looking for new strategies, and being rewarded for work well done. No doubt it would hook me for 10 years all over again, as I'm sure it will do for countless players new to the series.
But I do not fault Firaxis in the least. In fact, THEIR definition of fun seems to be the much more accepted (and profitable) one. Take a look at some dictionary entries:
"FUN usually implies laughter or gaiety but may imply merely a lack of serious or ulterior purpose."
"GAME often stresses mischievous or malicious fun."
"PLAY stresses the opposition to earnest without implying malice or mischief."
Looking at this, I realize that I simply take my fun, games and play too seriously. I WANT (most of) my fun to have a simulated 'serious or ulterior purpose.' And I WANT my games to steer away from something mischievous or malicious. And I WANT my play to be earnest. In Civ, I want to believe, if just for a moment, that I AM the leader of a great nation fighting for its survival and that the world waits with baited breath for my next calculated move.
Yet, this conservative installment won't do much to simulate that feeling after 10 years of having mastered the basic formula. New animated leaders won't do it. Units that bob their weapons up and down a million times won't do it. A few new twists will be too little too late. And, hey: I'll be the first to admit that it must immensely easier to make an FPS/RTS game more difficult just by upping the action while to do a similar thing for TBS, ESPECIALLY for a 10 year-old series, must be mind-boggling.
Sid himself has a strong belief that a successful game makes things "easily understood" and "simple." Well, looking at the accepted definitions of fun (and the number of games he has sold), he is right. And looking at what we've seen of Civ 3, we'll soon have something easily understood and simple.
Well, call me a freak...but that ain't gonna be MY kind of fun after all these years. In fact, I hope you'll understand me now when I say something seemingly as rash and pessimistic as: "Civ 3 is looking to be a waste of my time. Definitely NOT fun." If that statement now makes even the least bit of sense to some of my critics, I'll consider this long-winded post at least vaguely successful.
. i wont say to much because someone will start staying im going off topic again.
That must be his idea of fun.
)
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