I hate sim city

[DrSpike]

No that's ludicrous. (to ADG, cross post with FF)

I need to come clean.......my extreme statement wont stand up to scrutiny; I merely wanted to provoke some debate.

I do think there is some mileage in the way I expressed the point first though. I would say that people that spend a lot of time playing games are players that prefer goals more than the average player, and that Sims players are more likely to be intermittent gamers than the average player is. Clearly there are exceptions that prove the rule, and anyway I wouldn't say it was a strong relationship. However I do think it is true as a statement about averages.

But that isn't as snappy.

[FlameFlash]

I've never been average anything... except my grades...

[Adagio]

Originally posted by FlameFlash
Multiple genres? That's kind of crummy...

As I said: That's how I see it...

All gamers I know, only plays fps games (well...almost 'only'... only seldom they play other games)... And I'd say, those players are serious, since they spend all their time to get better at one game genre. They spend more time to get better, than to actually enjoy the game... (Well...that's how I see it... They don't like loosing. And for me: A person who hates loosing, is serious)

EDIT: Changed "don't like to loose" to "hates loosing"... Since there's a big difference...

[FlameFlash]

I don't like to lose, but I don't "practice" at the games I play...

[Adagio]

Used a wrong word... it should have been "hate loosing" instead... since nobody LIKES to loose, but not everybody hates to loose...

[DrSpike]

Serious gamers are more likely to be into MP as well. Non-serious gamers are likely to stick to SP because they balk at the effort needed not to get stuffed at MP.

They would say that the word effort is important there, and that games should be more fun than effort. But of course it all depends on whether losing is less fun than effort.

For serious gamers it is not. And it is far more fun to challenge a skilled opponent than a glorified teapot

[vovan]

I personally don't agree with the definition of a "serious" gamer as one who plays only one genre of games. Of course, it all depends on what you want to use the classification of being serious or not for, but to me, the definitions would look like this:

A "serious" gamer is one who plays the game to win, and whose goal is to beat it at the highest level of difficulty at any cost. He* constantly keeps track of numbers, and bases the strategy on that. He does not avoid using the programmatic weaknesses of the AI to gain advantage, and wants to squeeze every little exploit out of the game, even sometimes taking a look at the model files, to see just how the AI would behave in every particular situation. In games, which have campaigns, the "serious" gamer often times first plays through the missions on easy difficulty level to see what challenges he might face, and then goes back, and plays through again on very hard, and takes pride in winning.

To me, that approach is not fun at all. I like the surprise in every game, and can't stand knowing that something is going to happen in advance. So, I don't like to play the same campaign twice. I also don't like to take advantage of numbers. In civ, for example, I would take a look at the production of cities, and say, well, this city has many shields, so, I'll be better off to build a wonder in it, rather than in the one that only produces one shield per turn and has tons of corruption. (To contrast, the serious gamer's approach would be: "Let's see. This is the 124th turn of the game, I discovered the technology needed for this wonder two turns ago. Since the production of this city is 32 shields per turn, I will be able to finish this wonder in NN turns. Now, the AI must be MM% faster than I, therefore they would have the tech OO turns earlier than I. They have PP cities, and the largest one has size QQ. It has RR mines around it, and according to this here formula, the corruption level would be SS. Therefore, the city must produce TT shields per turn, which means that it will take them UU turns to finish the wonder, and if they started building it OO turns earlier, I would complete the wonder one turn before them. Yes, I guess I should start building it...") Of course, that means that I probably would not be able to beat the game at the highest level of difficulty, but I don't want to either. I play for fun more than anything, and crunching numbers during a game is not my idea of fun (not yet any way) - I do enough of that at school. So, I would be what I consider a non-serious gamer.

EDIT: Of course, with my definition of a serious gamer, the roles are reversed, from what DrSpike says. The non-serious gamers would be playing MP, and serious gamers would be playing SP. The reason is that since serious gamers exploit the numbers to gain advantage over the AI, they have a hard time beating a real opponent, which requires real strategy, rather than the set of actions fit for beating a particular game.


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* PC note: Of course, as you all inderstand, he in reference to a gamer is only used due to the limitations of the language, and is not meant to imply that serious gamers are all male.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by vovansim
I personally don't agree with the definition of a "serious" gamer as one who plays only one genre of games. Of course, it all depends on what you want to use the classification of being serious or not for, but to me, the definitions would look like this:
(...)

Well... that's also how I feel, though last time I tried explaining it that way, nobody understud it, so I didn't want to go through the explanation ten times, just because I'm not good at explaining...

But I still also say, that serious gamers, stays (and get perfect) at one genre. Since, as you mention, serious gamers tries to do everything to win, even doing all that math when playing. They also try to do everything that can be done, with a game, before they leave the game.

And to be able to do all that, you'll have to spend a lot of time, playing the game, leaving little time for other games...

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by vovansim
EDIT: Of course, with my definition of a serious gamer, the roles are reversed, from what DrSpike says. The non-serious gamers would be playing MP, and serious gamers would be playing SP. The reason is that since serious gamers exploit the numbers to gain advantage over the AI, they have a hard time beating a real opponent, which requires real strategy, rather than the set of actions fit for beating a particular game.

So serious gamers avoid the challenge of real opponents? That's silly.

[vovan]

Originally posted by DrSpike
So serious gamers avoid the challenge of real opponents? That's silly.

With if you follow the definition that works for me, yes, most of the time.

For example, I used to play another strategy game in multiplayer a lot: Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom. (It is basically a city-building game. Although unlike simcity it actually has goals. Go to the official site, if you want to learn more.) There were a lot of what I call serious gamers playing at first. They had beaten the Single-player campaigns on very hard difficulty, and what not, but they had big troubles playing with reasl people at first. Because they got used to the AI so much, that they lost the flexibility of strategy. So, what they would do is, they would play an MP scenario alone till they can finish it in record time, and then start playing with real people. Now, that's not really playing MP, if you ask me. That's just adapting a fixed set of strategies to a slightly different environment. If one of those serious players encounters a player with an innovative strategy, they will loose, because they have no flexibility.

[DrSpike]

Your definition has no redeeming features at all.

In any game the more serious players play MP. And what is more a game *always* without exception becomes more understood once it is opened up to MP competition. SP doesn't provide the necessary inducements to come up with something really clever.

I don't understand your position at all.

[vovan]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Your definition has no redeeming features at all.

That's probably because I consider myself a non-serious player. Therefore, I wouldn't know anything good about the other type of players.

Originally posted by DrSpike
In any game the more serious players play MP.

Well, that means that we have opposite definitions of being "serious" in a game. Or at least very different. Yours is then "a serious player is one who is good at multiplayer" ? I don't necessarily disagree with that, but once again, it is a matter of what you are using the word serious for. By my definition, "serious" would mean basically good in SP, but essentially horrible at MP. According to your definition, then, the serious player is one who is great at MP, and therefore masters the flexibility of strategies without having to exploit the weaknesses of the AI. By my definition, such a player is certainly a better player than a serious player, and is above him. (An important thing to understand here, I guess would be that serious does not necessarily equal robust. In fact, by my definition it means quite the opposite, he is good at what he does, but cannot be flexible.)

Put in other terms, a good player by my definition would be like a nerd. He is good in his field, but he does not have the broad vision necessary to be really good. By your definition, then the serious player would be more of an enterpreneur. One that has the "vision" to be able to beat a human player, no matter what kind of strategy he chooses to employ.

Heh, I guess there are different flavours of "serious"

[DrSpike]

Players who play MP aren't necessarily serious.....they just are more often than average.....and are more likely to be than people who play SP.

To be good at MP you have to be a serious player, because it is always so much more challenging than playing the AI. Of course 'serious' is a subjective term....someone with no taste for MP can still be a 'serious' gamer. What is ludicrous IMO is the tortured logic by which you deduce that serious gamers generally play SP (edit: over MP).

But never mind, game and be merry, whatever your tastes.

[Thrawn05]

I know someone who I consider a serious gamer in this contex, he always plays at the highest difficulty level, and in a RPG/Adventure game, never ever goes back to a previous area "just to level up". This guy charged end bosses like in Crono Trigger only at level 20. You should see him in Metal Gear Solid.

Oh he wins, but it's a long, hard road to victory.

[MosesPresley]

I consider myself to be a seriously non-serious game player and I love Sim City. [Tangent] Serious gamers make money playing games. But if you make money at it, then you can't be playing, so you must not be a gamer any more.[/Tangent] I built 3 cities in SC2K and 2 cities in SC3K and I can't wait for SimCity 4: Unlimited. I thought the Sims was a good concept, but there weren't enough options for my sims. It would have been nice if they could leave the house and visit somebody else once in a while.

I know they have all of the add ons, but until they combine them into a gold combo pack, I'm not touching them. It would cost $160.00 or more to get them all.