If we slowed down music by 1/10, would we still want to listen?

| Friday, May 6, 2011
Thought experiment: If you slowed down the execution part of a game down by a factor of 10, would it still be fun?
-Tobold

That's a rather stupid concept, trying to do 1/10 time fun measurement. Games have a certain speed for a reason: that's the speed that fits them. FPS cannot be slowed down much because the quick aiming reactions are part of the game. In contrast, I think real-time civilization would be terrible unless it was slowed down to be nearly indistinguishable from turn-based.

This will, of course, vary with the player. I'd like Starcraft more if it was slower, since I'm just not quick enough for very serious play. That wouldn't fix the fact that I am just generally awful at it. But other players like the speed, for them the clicks per minute is an important element.

Does WoW raiding have a lot of interesting decisions? Not really. So what? I don't make many interesting decisions in a FPS. Pick a target and duck under cover. Wow, that was crazy brilliant right there! I'm being sarcastic about the brilliance, something which may need pointing out if you're reading this post at the wrong speed. WoW raiding is about speed and the dances.

I don't like that WoW raiding is about the speed and the dances. Unfortunately, many people do. Majority? Maybe not. But perhaps enough people to keep WoW going. I did my wallet voting thing and clearly I've lost that election.

Tobold, I really don't like to make this connection, but you're sounding a bit like Gevlon, essentially saying, "I don't like X so X must be bad." Now I will say that for the majority of things, if I don't like it it's probably because it's bad (I have excellent taste, did you know?). But there can be things that I do not like but are not bad.

So I'll try this: WoW raiding is not fun for me, but that does not make it objectively bad. It sounds like we both want raiding with more interesting decisions and choices: talents, stats, and tactics. The lack of those choices does not make raiding objectively bad, just not much fun for us. Maybe someone will make the game that has those raids (and meet all the other criteria, a list which is endless) and then we can play that and not question whether 1/10 speed raiding would be any fun, because it would be, and then we could sing happy songs about having multiple useful talent choices.

I still maintain that cilantro is something that I do not like and anyone who does like it is a sub-human freak who must be culled to ensure that their despicable genes are not carried on. Alas, that includes both of my brothers. Forgive me, it is for a better tomorrow. Though admittedly I doubt we'll see the benefit of a cilantro-free world that soon. It may take many years.

P.S. Sorry about the late post. I was busy killing people. Thankfully Tobold was kind enough to give me something to disagree with.

5 comments:

JoeNavy said...

I like the use of 1/10th speed on my emulators to beat old games. Keeps my heart rate at an acceptable lvl...

You say raiding isn't your thing ATM, but what do you think of the new heroic 5 mans?

I like the fights so far.

Christian Clark said...

1/10?

Not really, you can still recognize it.

How about slowing it down 800%?

As evidenced here;
http://www.geekosystem.com/slow-songs-800-percent-justin-bieber/

koalabear said...

I agree cilantro must GO!

Klepsacovic said...

@JoeNavy: I liked the idea of more challenging, more interesting heroics. But I don't think they fit well in WoW anymore.

@Dallanna: #bieber

@koalabear: TO ARMS!

Klepsacovic said...

I just realized that my post title is poorly-phrased. Slowing by merely 1/10 would cause a much different effect: everything would seem slightly off. Musicians would be driven insane, or decide that it is actually brilliant.

What I should have said was "slowed to 1/10". Not that that's perfect either, but better.

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