This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Seven Seals: This article is completely written from the point of view that games must be played "as they were intended", rather than "as the way you win". It's a perfectly valid POV, but it's still just one POV. I forget the term the opposing camp uses for players who refuse to play to win because they "don't like the game that way", but it's less offensive than "whoring".
CAD: I tried to make this article as objective as possible. "Whoring" is the act of building up a specific trait or repeatedly doing a specific action that works well. It's a derogatory term, but it's the one that's most widely used. As for the POV, I didn't say anywhere that "games must be played as they are intended", I simply said that "people who argue that games must be played as they were intended will argue that whoring is unfair, and it thus causes controversy." That's a perfectly objective (and true) statement, is it not?
Seven Seals: This article is objective by virtue of adding vague qualifiers to every statement. Many think, often considered, almost always considered by many. It's a particularly irksome way of being objective, because, while you can't possibly fault it, it doesn't read any less objective, and it gives you no angle for challenging it. I'd go so far as to prefer an article that said "whoring is a bad thing done by dirty rotten balance-spoiling cheaters — but see Scrub for the other side's opinion" than outwardly non-judgmental statements. But maybe that's just me. I'm unpleasantly reminded of the worst aspects of Wikipedia's style when reading this article.
CAD: I can see your point. The thing was, I didn't want the article to be an argument for a certain side, but more of a generally informative thing that you shouldn't have a need to argue with. For example, many people despise the act of Level Grinding, but nowhere in that article does it say something like "Level Grinding sucks and it ruins the game for everyone (See Anti Poop-Socking for the reverse argument)". I know I still have to work on my writing style for this place. In the mean time, you're free to edit the article if you think it could be worded better.
Seven Seals: "Let's See YOU Do Better!!" :-) You covered the ground well, but I think it can stand with a little slimming. I'll give it a whirl.
Seven Seals: There you go. The article is now tons less precise and neutral. :-)
Ununnilium: Re: the name:
No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no.
The issues we bring up for the sake of employing a misused video game term (I've never heard "whoring" used by itself, though I've heard (and occasionally used) "some-stat-whoring") just plain aren't worth it.
Now, I'll actually read the entry. ``v
...okay, after reading the entry: The most common gaming term for this that I've seen is Min-Maxing. "Some-stat-whoring" tends to be closer to Grinding or Power Leveling.
...okay, after reading more, no, this isn't Min-Maxing. (And we already have an entry for that. Huh.) We still need another name for it, though. Cheesing?
Seven Seals: "Issues"? The only issue I can think of is "prostitution is bad", which the entry pretty much avoids to evoke...
I'll agree, though, that "whoring" is a specific form of... whatever we're discussing (it's a more general form of spamming, where you (ab)use one thing over and over again). "Cheesing", to the best of my knowledge, is saying "cheese" to a camera. I've never heard it used to cover "cheesy tactics". As far as obscure goes, it doesn't win from "whoring". Maybe a descriptive phrase instead of a neologism? I'd go with Power Gaming, but that's closely associated with RPGs and Munchkins.
Ununnilium: Issues like... um... Action Comics #1. It goes for quite a bit on the secondary market, you know.
Actually, this relates to Player Archetypes. In Timmy/Johnny/Spike, Spike was the one for whom fun came most from winning. ...on the other hand, many of these tactics are just plain jerk things to do, and Spike isn't a jerk any more than the others. Hmmmm.
Seven Seals: What is and isn't a "plain jerk thing to do" depends on the game. Many Spikes would certainly be jerkasses to the Scrubs if it wins them games, but don't forget that "Spike" was coined for Magic, which is very good at maintaining a shifting balance due to the sheer number of strategies possible and a constant influx of new cards. That said, I've seen Spikes play Timmies and demolish them utterly (game-wise and morally) and being neither smug nor happy about it. A good Spike likes overcoming challenge, not simply "winning", which is trivial to do against a weak player.
When Scrubs cry "you're just doing the same lame thing over and over!" the ultra-Spike response would be "so why don't you do something about it?" Most supposedly "unstoppable" strategies can be stopped, it just takes an inordinately long time to figure out how, and it may involve very arcane actions that you wouldn't take if you were playing the game using common sense alone. This is what ultra-Spikes like: cracking the codes of the other ultra-Spikes, taking the game to ever more obscure patterns of gameplay. They don't mind spamming a single unit to win a game, because to them it's about competing strategies, not about winning or losing single games.
This is in stark contrast to players who primarily play for the quick thrill or the social experience. They wouldn't have any fun at all if they didn't get to use all the cool things in the game and watching their opponent do the same. Ultra-Spike firing his Annihilation Cannon twenty-seven times in a row just pisses them off, because they don't want to play a game where the sole objective is to prevent Ultra-Spike from doing that. To them, US is being a Jerkass. To US, the opposition is just not playing.
I've got sympathy for both player types, which is why I'm wasting so much words on this; it's important to see that many players who go for "cheap" tactics are not in fact in it to humiliate the opposition and rack up the win counter (some are, but they don't develop strategies themselves, they just copy "unbeatable" strategies from others). The real jerkasses do things like disconnecting just before defeat to prevent scoring a loss, hacking the game and running aimbots, none of which have anything to do with playing.
Ununnilium: Hmmmm, yeah, I see what you mean. I agree on the "sympathy for both types". Hmmmm. Playing To Win?
Fast Eddie: Moved the quotes down. Needed to dig out the beginning of the article.
Lolkatten: What if I enjoy using the rocket launcher/AWP/rushing/snaking etc? The games' rules allow all of them so there should be nothing wrong in using these tactics. Moreover, labeling anything one can't deal with as "whoring" or "cheating" is the basis of the scrub mentality, well described in the Scrub article. Nothing wrong in playing how you like, but telling other people to adjust to your code of honor whatsoever plain sucks.
Also, "It is impossible for most casual gamers who do not know this trick [wavedash] to beat those who use it." is wrong. Casuals who can wavedash don't nearly always win casuals who cannot, and tournament players will win casuals, no matter if they can wavedash or not.
T Matt: I think this entry and the "Stop Having Fun" Guys are describing several separate tropes each, some of which they share. As far as I can tell, the tropes are:
1. Doing the same thing constantly, or obsessive focus on one part of the game.
2. The guy who constantly tells other people that their way of playing is "wrong." This seems related to the God Modders.
3. Competitive players, who derive fun from playing the game as hard as they can and pushing the limits of the strategic envelope.
4.The actual Stop Having Fun Guy
who seems to think that Real Life (or perhaps rock music) is Serious Business, possibly the Fan Haters?
I think we need to separate these tropes. Or am I misreading?
Mark Z: This article sucks. It's someone's collection of "gaming behavior that I find annoying", with no particular unifying theme. Consider this: In a MMORPG, Level Grinding to inhuman levels or earning inhuman amounts of money or another item. So it's possible to be a "level whore"? Aren't gaining levels and collecting money and stuff the standard paths of advancement in most of these games? At what point does it become "whoring"?
My guess is "when you're a higher level/have more stuff than me". This is looking like one of those irregular verbs: I have a strategy. You are using a trick. He/she/it is whoring.
"Doing the same thing over and over" is adequately covered by Spam Attack and Boring, but Practical, with far less whining. Abuse of bugs is covered by Game-Breaker, also with less whining. Let's nuke this article from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
The Left 4 Dead note is no longer true (a patch added a one-second timer after five melee swings that increases by an additional second every consecutive melee swing up to a maximum of three seconds) and the Guild Wars one ignores organized Pv P, where it is completely possible to whore your way to victory (see Teaseway).
