Getting good at DotA and at other things

I’ve been playing a LOT of dota recently (around 72 hours in 2 weeeks, including watching a few pro-games) and as usual I’ll try and draw a few generalisations. The thing about Dota (I’ve written previously about what Dota is- a quick google will explain in detail if you require) is that it’s difficult to remain competent if you don’t play continuously. And, the easiest way to increase the MMR (Match Making Ranking- the Elo type rating system implemented in game which indicates how good you are) is to play a lot during short periods than to play a game per 2 days or so. In fact, playing after a week can often give you a rusty feeling and actions that would otherwise come to you naturally in-game have to be thought out and put into action with great effort. It kind of reminds me of how driving a car is. You can be the greatest driver in the world, but if you don’t continuously practise driving, you can quickly become rusty. The wisdom and knowledge about driving will remain but mechanical reactions will not be as quick, and at the end of the day- you won’t be nearly fast enough. My knowledge of Dota mechanics might be far superior to that of certain others who are at a higher MMR than I am, but the fact that I’m not used to playing so much with so many heroes and facing different situations in the recent past means that I am often a few seconds late in making decisions (and at times, making the wrong decisions as well) and this often costs the game.

Your performance seems to be affected by 2 main things- the amount of practice you have and the amount of talent you have. Now what exactly is talent? There are several Dota players who have played thousands of hours more than professionals but are not nearly as good- due to lack of talent. Talent can in turn be divided into several other things- it’s how quickly your brain processes information while playing, helping in split second decisions; it’s how quickly you learn new concepts in the game and can change and adapt to how the game changes (the developers keep making changes to make adjustments for balance) and it’s how you network with the best players in the world, among other things. 

This isn’t the case just in Dota. In most professions, practice is something of a hygiene factor- the same amount of experience may yield different results in differently capable individuals. However, there is no mistaking the fact the practice improves efficiency irrespective of skill level. And in addition to this, practice can be measured (in the corporate world, as experience or as certifications which require preparation) a lot easier than skill (IQ tests, interviews and so on). One could say that intelligence is a measure of how quickly a person learns from practice or experience, and in a lot of cases- imagination of experiences. Now, while intelligence is mostly a gift (it might be partly attributed to experiences in the past- the way one has been brought up etc.) practice is not and thus, practice requires motivation. It is here that even the most skilled do not make it big. Lack of motivation causing lack of practice and thus lacking the basic working knowledge of many things. After all, one can't be a poet without knowing the alphabet.

Dota and Hearthstone

The online game I've played the most is Dota, by a large margin and so I'm quite used to the game's environment- You have a bunch of people (mostly students and young professionals) who play a game for a variety of reasons. Everyone increases in skill by spending more time playing, but there are generally skill caps which players hit- beyond a level they dont increase in skill by just playing more. The caps are different for different players, and obviously professional players cap at very high levels of skill. Hearthstone, which is another game I spent a lot of time on- is rather different. While you naturally increase in skill by playing more of the game, a lot of success depends on the cards you have collected in game (Dota has all heroes/items available to everyone). Cards can be either gained by playing a lot- now I mean a LOT, or you can spend money and just buy them. This is why many players complain about Hearthstone being 'pay to win', since you can definitely pay real life money to have an advantage in the virtual world the game has.

I've always hated pay to win games. 'Mafia Wars' is a game I spent some time on- playing in facebook. I quit the game when I felt the extreme 'pay to win' nature the game had. From an idealistic point of view, Dota requires for more skill than Hearthstone and is far purer a game than Hearthstone just because of the difference in the nature of micro-transactions that can be done. Dota allows you to buy items to use in game, but purely for cosmetic purposes.

Let's look at the competitive scene in both games. Dota has a few teams which are considered as the world's best, and there are small differences as time goes by and the nature of the game itself changes (due to patches to improve the game balace etc.) but good players remain good players more or less. The nature of competitive gaming is so that only the very best are rewarded (unlike real world sports where you can earn a living by being say the 500th best in the world- say at Cricket or Football) and considering this fact, the top players in Dota remain at the top more or less, even if they fall slightly out of the limelight which focuses only on the very best. Hearthstone, in spite of all the luck present in the game- still has a relatively stable pool of world famous players. However this is more due to their personality and ability to network with the world's best, than due to them being decisively better at the game. Someone like a Kolento might actually have been the best at the game- if only the game allowed this. There is too much randomness to the game, and players' success can only be judged by their win percentage over a large number of games against similarly ranked opponents. This is why tournaments often see surprise victors in Hearthstone, but rarely in Dota.

A quick look at twitch however will show that there is almost always a larger number of people watching hearthstone than Dota. There are also atleast as many or close to as many people playing Hearthstone as Dota. But why? - Dota is clearly a far superior game in the sense that it requires more skill than luck or real world money. The answer is that people dont necessarily want to watch a pure game. They dont want to necessarily play a game that measures their skill accurately. They want a little bit of luck- that extra little edge they get by using real world money. This can be compared to the dislike people have for purely capitalistic economies where they get rewarded exactly based on their merits, and not on recommendations by friends and relatives/bribes etc. Add on top of that the marketing budget that Blizzard has for Hearthstone, thanks to all the money made through in-game card sales.

I, however, am a lover of meritocracy- an idealist. And as such, I could not stand Hearthstone for long and got tired of the randomness and luck and the pay-to-win nature of the game. If I was so lazy as to want my real life job to influence my advantage in a game, why play the game at all- it breaks all immersion.

Adult Fantasy - The Witcher

A few weeks after completing The Witcher 2, I'm still deeply affected by the game. I probably did not enjoy playing it as some of the other games I've played, but the game is brilliant when it comes to providing a rewarding experience. To illustrate- playing a GTA game driving a tank around and blowing everything up; or playing Far Cry 3/4 and roaming around the jungle killing thousands of terrorists and wild animals etc. can be fun- but there is no deeper meaning to it. Witcher is slightly less fun to play but ensures that you have an experience you'll remember forever.

I ended up playing it because of the incredible ratings it had and the hype that surrounded it- mostly related to it being a mature, adult kind of game- as compared to relatively childish RPGs. I'd however found most RPGs to be mature enough for my liking and some were more mature than others- Bioshock and Fallout New Vegas quickly come to mind. I had played Witcher 1 when Witcher 2 was receiving a lot of hype and praise (thanks to my old computer which couldnt run Witcher 2 at the time) and hated the first game. The fantasy and RPG elements were decent. So was the storytelling and graphics. But the gameplay was so terrible that playing the game felt like enduring torture to see the cutscenes in between which we would get as a reward for having to go through the boring gameplay.

I was far more impressed with the start of Witcher 2. The storytelling was amazing- gameplay was challenging but manageable (during the introduction phase) and graphics and sound were all great. The game however had a limited area to roam around in (compared to open ended games like Far Cry, Fallout, Elder Scrolls); and there were several limitations on the things you could do in the game. Geralt (the protagonist) does not have a button to jump, and this limited him from going to areas that seemed easily accessible, but for the fact that the game designers did not want you to go there. After the introduction, the game puts your skills to test and pits you against incredibly powerful monsters (especially when compared to how you start the game relatively weak and then grow in power). In fact, the fighting is not that complicated and does not require pinpoint precision or timing- since Geralt's actions are a bit arbitrary and he will jump and swing a sword sometimes, and sometimes swing the sword without jumping when u press the same button- it seemed to be completely random behaviour (and a quick google search confirmed that it is). And it wasn't even like I was going around searching for difficult monsters (which I admittedly did in the beginning and then gave up)- the main storyline itself was too difficult to manage on 'normal' diffuculty. I could theoretically beat all the monsters by trying really hard and rolling and evading a hundred times to hit a monster once, come back, heal and repeat. It would take too much time to kill any of the stronger monsters and playing the game seemed like a waste of time. And so, I uninstalled the game and went back to playing DotA instead.

Thankfully, I decided to give the game another try (and actually had to google for combat tips before doing so). This time, the difficulty seemed a bit more manageable although still decidedly difficult. I could actually start enjoying the gameplay and understand the nuances of dodging, blocking etc. as I played the game more. The fighting mechanics were not 100% perfect as I'd mentioned earlier but it was ok. This wasnt a game about fighting - it's all about the story and atmosphere and the fighting is just icing on the cake.

So what's so different about witcher? Firstly, the protagonist is not a babyfaced cleanshaved guy (and for Skyrim fans, not an ugly lizard or elf either). Muscular body, Scars on his face, tainted soul, somewhat aged, and to top it off- with grey hair- and is still more masculine than any other RPG hero I've seen. His 'neutrality' is famous across the world (he is a witcher- and to be more precise the witchers' neutrality is what is famous) and in most cases he will do what he feels is right- in a world filled with evil and where most decisions seems to benefit evil in some way. Neutrality also means that in situations where he has an option which benefits him or his loved ones, he will probably go for what benefits himself and his loved ones, rather than an alternative choice which will harm him- unless of course the first choice is completely immoral. The witcher's world is filled with evil monsters which will not see reason and have to be slain through physical strength- this is a contrast to other games where villains/monsters can be good at heart and can be persuaded to stop fighting you/join you. Bethesda games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls have 'Speech'/'Persuasion' as skills that you can level up so that you can avoid fighting and instead argue yourself out of difficult situations. In the harsh world of witcher, although arguing yourself out of situations is not always impossible- in most cases it is not an option at all. This is something I can relate to as an adult. Adults often believe so strongly in their faiths and beliefs that it is often impossible to try and convince them otherwise- the participants in the holocaust, ISIS etc. being proofs.

The game is also absolutely unashamed of being sexy. The main characters- male of female are physically attractive and completely unashamed in showing it. Sex is anything but taboo- and you can make out with women even after committing yourself with Triss- who is the main female character in the game.

Witcher is a genetically engineered human (a mutant) and has more strength/agility etc. than normal people. But the difference is not much. Defeating a normal soldier at the beginning of the game (just after getting out of prison and with not much skills/equipment) is quite a challenge and the challenge remains till the end of the game- where a handful of normal soldiers can prove to be too much for witcher. Drinking potions before fights is a way to get stronger- these poisons are poisonous according to the game lore and thus Geralt can drink a maximum of 3-4 poitions, depending on how toxic they are. Potions help make Geralt stronger and reduce the pain. Potions could be a reference to alcohol and drugs that people use in real life to fight through the pain.

Games these days have the player going from one location to another- knowing exactly where to go and what to do. The witcher has the balls to mix things up a bit, without making it too difficult for the player. There is a hand-drawn minimap that the player has access to. But fast-travel is not present in the game, meaning that you have to walk to a dungeon or a forest to complete a quest and actually WALK BACK. In Skyrim (and most RPG games), there is a fast travel system which lets you double click on any area in the map and you can 'fast travel' if there are no enemies nearby. This would make several adventures less dangerous since you know while going into an endless dungeon that you can just get out through an opening and fast travel home safe and sound. The Witcher's world is just small enough to not make all the running around too boring- yet it is just large enough to make it seem like a huge adventure when you go around exploring. While each quest in Skyrim would have a quest marker telling exactly where to go (and if this were not enough, there is a spell in-game which guides you toward the 'right' path) the witcher doesn't always do this. While the quest marker system is applied to certain quests to make the game less focused on mundane details (for example, if a character tells you that something can be found near the North gate of the city, and if your character knows about this north gate, there is no reason for the marker to not be there). However, there are certain quests which involve searching for clues for a missing person- or searching for information on how to kill a monster- which are completely open ended and could be optional at the same time. For instance (spoiler alert- major spoilers ahead), in the city of flotsam, you are told that they may be an easy way of killing a Kayran- a monster troubling the city's docks. You have the option of searching/asking around the city and its forests to find the Kayran's weaknesses. If you find a potion that makes you immune against the Kayran's poison, your fight will be much easier than otherwise. There is no option for you but to master navigating through the forests and dungeons that you find yourself in- and actually looking around and familiarising yourself with the locations is much easier than opening the minimap and finding your way back.

There are also several quests that cannot progress unless a certain other quest is completed. Things just seem to happen to Geralt as he goes around the city doing things- rather than how it is in Skyrim or Mass Effect where you explicitly decide to do quests in an order and complete them one by one.

Coming to choice within the game- this is easy the biggest game I've played with regard to options. While choosing different actions in game in normaly RPGs results in a different ending or a different set of cutscenes and dialogues here and there, Witcher 2 takes choice to a whole new level. There are enormous sections of the game which become completely inaccessible to you, depending on your actions in game. More than half of the game isn inaccessible and cannot be experienced by you in one playthrough (since certain options are mutually exclusive)- this is how serious Witcher takes your decisions. And the decisions are never simple- FROM choosing between the asshole Iorveth who kills humans and fights for equal rights for non humans who have been shunned by the rulers of Flotsam; and Roche- the nice guy who spared your life but fights for an idiot king who wages wars and kills non humans without reason AND choosing between the rich and seemingly noble king who is accused by the poor of killing a sorceress in spite of no evidence and the poor people who are completely illiterate and are seemingly accusing the king only because he is rich TO choosing to let a ghost take revenge on the scientists who did experiments on him and his friends to kill him or letting the scientists live in peace. There are plenty of choices to be made- and most of them are choices you might wonder about later on and think about whether you did the right thing. In fact, the main villain in the game who assassinates kings of several kingdoms and causes huge chaos in Geralt's life by making Geralt seem like a kingslayer, is a man who has a reasonable explanation for his actions and Geralt has the option of not fighting him at the end of the game and letting him live. As in real life, choices are not clearly demarcated as right and wrong (this was a problem in Mass Effect, where the right and wrong actions would be even given different colours) and quests just happen to you instead of you deciding to do certain quests. The main storyline is intricately woven around the side quests and unlike Skyrim where you explicitly decide to do the next step in the main quest, or not- in Witcher you are often left wondering which quests are mandatory and which ones are optional. At the end of it all, you feel in power of what happens to you and the decisions you made might've been wrong but it doesnt matter- you made them and you have no choice but to stand by them.

The fact that Witcher is based on a novel helps to make the lore consistent. The enormous number of choices and the lack of a clear cut good and evil make it all realistic. Spectacular graphics and sound acting help as well. The game also accepts you as an adult and censors no violence- and the scene where a sorceress has her eyeballs taken out as punishment for her actions, is an example. Witcher is the only game where I willingly bought books from merchants in order to learn about the monsters in game - just so that the realism remains in tact. (In other games, I might as well google it- if things become that difficult) And with that I'd like to end this piece on witcher. Looking forward to playing Witcher 3 and to more adult fiction- of monsters, blood and sex. While normal games make you feel guilty for your thirst for violence and sex- which tend to be fillers in between,.. Witcher justifies it.

Snowballing and the beginning of a more practical phase

Growing up sucks. I don't think many people would disagree to this. Only the really boring nerds grow up and have more fun out of life- speaking of which I don't complain as much as others do about growing up, since I'm definitely more of a nerd than the average person. And since I'm growing up and all (an adult by pretty much all definitions by now), I'll be talking lesser about abstract things and more about things with certain practical relevance although a good number of topics will still have few applications- they might still just be commentary on the 'adult' things that people do. But less of things like philosophy within games and all that.

Having said that, it's a bit ironic that I'll be talking about snowballing- which is term with distinct gaming roots and its relevance in real life. In certain games like DotA and to an extent even in CS, there is a certain advantage that the winner gets. A successful early game in DotA is generally going to result in a much better middle game and late game. Someone who has an excellent early game will have a good game even with a mediocre middle/late game. Better items, levels and powers which are obtained make the rest of the game much easier to win. But snowballing is when you have an excellent early game, middle game and have done almost everything perfectly till the point of time in question. This instantly reminds me of toppers who top the class through school, college and what not and finally end up in IIM A, B etc. A student who had a bad 10th will not get into an IIM A or B and irrespective of how much he tries after that. Of course, admission criteria are artificially created rules but there are reasons for such rules to be there in the first place and a major reason is that human beings snowball.

The biggest 'achievers' in life - most of them snowballed. From Zuckerberg to Sachin, these are people who are talented Yes, but worked and achieved nearly flawlessly throughout the years that mattered. It's no secret either that continuous hard work results in success- even if you fail you will still be relatively very successful compared to what would've been had you not even tried. This isn't to say that it's not possible to start late- it's definitely possible but the fact remains that snowballers have a much easier time succeeding than others and often reach levels that others find absolutely impossible. While you can quit a game if you're having a bad early game in DotA, it is not quite the same in real life. Do not fear however, for we have brains which automatically adjust ambition to the levels that are realistically possible for us and of course if you're brain cannot do that you will lead a sad, delusional life forever. For the rest of us though, we will be happy most of the time with what we have, while having just enough unhappiness with ourselves to want to live and learn and improve on a daily basis.

"Games like Portal"

There are several automated and manually created lists for games which are like other games. Google "Games like <insert random AAA title here>" and you should get a fair number of hits. Each link generally contains at least 10 games which are 'similar' to the game that you just mentioned. Now, this works well in some cases- for example, googling for games like Bioshock can give you System Shock or Dishonored and googling for games like Mass Effect can give you Knights of the Old Republic etc. but a certain game for which I've barely found similar games is Portal (I know it's similar to Narbancular Drop whose developers were consulted for making Portal, and a few other minor titles but let's be realistic guys). There are games with distant similarities, but absolutely no game comes anywhere near to Portal at doing what it does. But, why?

From the Business point of view, Portal was created by Valve which is known for its brilliant Half Life series as well as other good games like Team Fortress and this helps the cause of course. During development, there was an incredible amount of playtesting done to figure out how players reacted to things in the game and the game was modified in order to make the players feel challenged yet not exhausted by the game. The human touch in the game was also modified to ensure that players did not feel 'alone' while playing the game- a feature that has become very important in the current generation where games are either open world such as Skyrim where you can interact with hundreds of people including kings, mages, farmers and what not.. or MMORPG style or MOBA styled, so that there is interaction with other human players.

Looking at the game itself, there are a few things that stand out: Firstly, the game never tries to 'cheat' on you. All information about the portal gun (which is used throughout the game to traverse obstacles and puzzles' and about the world around you is carefully explained by Glados, the computer in charge of conducting tests on human beings by putting them through puzzles. And in spite of this, the puzzles are actually fairly challenging from the beginning, though learning curve is fairly smooth. Several puzzles which we spent a few minutes on during the first playthrough would be done is seconds during the second playthrough (yes, I've completed both games multiple times). But since we already know the rules of the game and do not have to do a trial and error to figure out how things work (as is the case in a lot of critically and commercially succesful games these days- Dark Souls for example) we never feel cheated.

Secondly, the puzzles naturally fit into the storyline of the game. OK let me explain this- in a game like Skyrim while it is understandable how puzzles would be there for entry into an ancient ruin, there is no explanation to justify how all puzzles can be solved, and on top of that all puzzles can be solved without needing additional equipment/passwords from anywhere else. Also, most puzzles in the game tend to be very similar. The same is the case with several games involving puzzles. In fact, this is not an issue with RPGs/adventure games with puzzles. Take a game such as Mass Effect- the fact that you have to go around collecting the green alien like things in the citadel the first game as a side quest, collecting chocolate frogs in Harry Potter games, collecting random minerals by clicking on planets and scanning them in Mass Effect 2 or even opening locks using the minigames of Fallout 3, Bioshock etc. are all things which are fitted into the game so that we can enjoy the game more eventhough realism is being sacrificed. Portal sacrifices none of these things and there is no minigame to open locks or random items and loots to collect or side missions. The game is pure and feels highly realistic. (It is worth mentioning that the features mentioned in the above games are intended to reward people who explore the game world more- however, people explore these days for the sake of getting bonus items and rewards and not for the sake of exploring. Realistically, very rarely should exploration be rewarded with bonuses, but in the world of video games very rarely does it go unrewarded. The second you find a hard-to-reach location, you realise that there is some epic loot somewhere nearby- which is very unrealistic.)

Thirdly, and most importantly it is a game which considers human emotions. There is handholding through the initial stages of the game when we are explained what to do. The game is genuinely funny with Glados being extremely intelligent with her jokes, comments and practically everything she says. Wheatley manages to be just as funny in the second game. The cute robots which fire laser and insta-kill you are also fun and never appear to be scary. Even they crack dialogues when the protagonist appears in front of them and then disappears (they sense that you're nearby). There's the much talked about companion cube of the first game as well. I could go on with several other things that make the game fun for a human being to play. Now, I say human being because there are certain games which are incredibly fun and realistic but may not connect with us much, as humans. Take a game like Tetris- a classic for its time and it still is. The game mechanics are absolutely robust, but there is no human touch to it to take it to the next level.

I'm right now playing a game called Swapper (2013 game) which is a 2D platformer similar to 'The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom'. Very different from portal but yes, there is say a 10% similarity. The Talos Principle which came out around a week back looks interesting but won't run on my current lap- can't wait to get a new lap and play that.

Hearthstone and real life

As I've mentioned in a couple of posts before this, I've been spending some serious time on hearthstone. I've definitely spent several hundred (and possibly 1000+ ?) hours on the game itself as well as on youtube videos, livestreams on twitch etc. Videos I follow are either those of players just casually playing the game, rantings about the game, ideas about the game or tournaments and such.

For the uninitiated, Hearthstone is  free to play Collectible Card Game (CCG) which has cards borrowed from Warcraft lore. This means that cards are basically creatures from warcraft such as murlocs or ghouls or warleaders or whatever and have different characteristics and strengths. Each player plays a card per turn and waits for the other player to play after that. The game ends when these cards eventually kill the opponent (represented by a hero- there are 9 heroes to choose from). This is a very simplified version of a game with infinite complexity.

In a card game you wouldn't expect players to be consistently better at the game than others. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, unlike and FPS of a real time strategy game there is a lot more luck involved in a card game. There's the fact that you may not draw the right cards at the right time in a game. On top of that, there's a certain degree of randomness in the cards themselves. For example a card called the 'Mad bomber' deals 3 points of damage split between ALL characters and this include your own minions which were played previously and your own hero- and thus can be in certain situations very bad or very good. Several other cards have such random effects. On top of that, there's the fact that your opponent may have the exact counter to your own cards at times and at times they may not have it.

It has its advantages and disadvantages- a game like DotA or LoL requires a great level of skill and experience to eventually learn. This naturally reduces the number of newcomers, since they may not want to dedicate a major part of their lives learning to play a game. Of course, they may not all want to beat professionals, but a game in which the better player wins a high % of the time (like say chess) stops being fun after a certain point. It is absolutely impossible for a newcomer to beat a professional at DotA, Counterstrike, FIFA or any such competitive game. However in the case of hearthstone- while the odds may be remote, it is very much possible because of the randomness. Hearthstone is VERY easy to learn and even more difficult to master. It is worth mentioning however, that Hearthstone does have a very vibrant competitive scene in spite of all this with several dozens of dedicated professional gaming teams forming teams for Hearthstone. Prizes for tourneys range from a few thousand dollars at small tourneys to quarter a million dollars at the annual tourney at Blizzcon.

So why exactly is it more difficult to master? In a game like counterstrike, experience of playing the game even against the AI  bots (computer) is good enough to make you a half decent player. A large part of the skill in the game is the reflexes and knowing the map properly. To become competent at the next level, you would need to play with human beings a lot. This allows you to know what kind of strategies human players generally use, so that you can predict and counter such play. And of course to reach the next level, you will have to play with the best. In hearthstone, you would think that knowing all the cards in the game and knowing all the rules of the game etc. in a detailed way would take you a long way. After all, there are no reflexes involved in a card game, since it's turn based anyway. However, that is not the case at all.

In a game such as hearthstone, knowing the cards(there are a few hundred cards and many of them are specific to classes- knowing a card means knowing the mana cost to play it, the stats of the card/the effects etc.) in the game and the rules of the game is a very basic requirement. A more advanced requirement is to know which cards are good and which cards are bad. Which classes of characters are good and which classes of characters are bad.But then since the game is mostly balanced with respect to classes, how can there be good cards or bad cards or good classes or bad classes? Since this whole piece I've written so far sounds more like a rant than anything else, let me try and bulletise stuff from now. So, the reasons why Hearthstone is easy to learn but difficult to master - much like life is for human beings (it's easy to live a life, but to be really good at it is somewhat difficult and requires similar skills as Hearthstone does- which might be the reason why this game is so popular in spite of being this online card game. And while there is a developer in Hearthstone who balances different card powers and hero skills and so on to ensure that the game is fair, in real life there are markets who do the same)-

1.  The skilled do not always prevail (as already explained). This happens a lot in real life where dumb luck can at times make you or break you. But overall, life and Hearthstone are both somewhat fair.
2.  Knowing theories does not make you good. You have to have a lot of practice and experience. In real life, older men tend to be wiser and work experience counts for a lot in the corporate world. This highlights the difference between knowing and doing. This applies to other competitive games as well, equally.
3. Having experience and knowing theories still wont make you the best in the world. You have to interact with the best in the world on a regular basis if you are to have a chance of remaining as among the best. In Hearthstone, the top players- almost all of them have clans which meet everyday and dicuss strategies. They discuss about the latest changes to the game, the most common classes and cards being played (so as to play cards and classses which counter the popular trend) and to ideate new strategies in general. The same can be seen in almost all industries where the top corporates need to interact with each other to remain relevant. This factor isn't as relevant in other competitive games. The point highlights the importance of BEING and not just knowing and doing.
4. Intelligence is extremely important for you to be good at it. The most important thing about intelligence is that it is required for better assimilation of experience. What this means is that a player with 1 year experience but higher intelligence can be better than a player with 2 years experience. But a player with 1 month experience cannot be better than either of them. This is kind of similar to real life and the corporate world. After a certain period of experience, it stops mattering of course. When you start off, it isn't very relevant and just copying others and practicing a lot will do, but if you've to be one of the best, it is impossible unless you are extremely intelligent. Of course there might be a subjectivity when it comes to deciding who really is the best- in Hearthstone, the best players in my opinion do extremely well in tournaments and in addition to this create their own decks and strategies. In real life, this would be a successful entrepreneur who would be an innovator as well and not just a guy who is good at implementing an idea.

Having a game based out of Warcraft lore does help in making a game popular, but the similarities to real life are in my opinion what really make the game of Hearthstone. I've tried to summarise my theories about the game here and I've obviously missed out on a few points as well as proofs for justifying the similarities to life. In any case, apart from the huuge number of hours I played the game, I've seen streams of Trump, Kripparian, NoxiousGLHF, Trolden, Hafu, Amaz etc. with around 100+ videos each and in addition to that tournaments from ESGNTV which kind of pioneered competitive Hearthstone,.. to the Blizzcon European Union Qualifiers which got over recently. So I hope that there's enough credibility to all the stuff above!

To HS or not to HS (and other things)

This post will be relatively more personal than the rest and I don't really have a plan for it but let's see where it goes.

I'm about to move to Mumbai in a few days time and since I had a minor surgery in my leg, I can't wear footwear and thus I'm mostly limited to my house and nearby places. I've been playing a LOT of Hearthstone, the CCG (Collectible Card Game) from Blizzard and it's a pretty interesting game and there'll be a future post on the relationship between financial careers and HS (Hearthstone). I've also been playing quite a bit of guitar, and I finished Season 4 of GoT a couple days after the last episode came out.

So here I am, a guy who can do relatively large number of things for my entertainment (not going to mention all of it)- things which obviously help me socialise, think deeper and mostly just get rid of boredom. This might seem obvious, but all of my skills in doing any of these things (I've become pretty good at HS by the way) will not help me get the basic necessities in life. I don't really have problems feeding myself or getting a place to live, so it's not too much of an issue, but it's more of an issue for me than it is for a richer guy. From childhood, I've always found it easier to connect with kids who are considerably richer than I am, thanks to the slightly high level interests that I've developed- things like gaming and music and movies and football and so on and in an in depth way as well. An average guy with my level of monies would probably focus more on knowing the city more or finding out places where things are cheap etc., watching some local movies and watching IPL- to be honest I don't even know for sure, but I do know that the interests would differ by quite a bit.

Hence the question of morality- is it justified for a poor dude to have high level interests, if he is unable to make money out of these interests? The HS community itself has several interesting people- most of them players of course. A guy called Trump (TrumpSC on all major social media places) is kind of humble and really dedicated to playing HS. He does have other interests like playing Poker, but he's pretty dedicated to HS and he makes quite a bit of money. The average twitch stream of around 2 hours gets him around 700-800$ through jsut donations by viewers (My guess) and add to that the money from youtube views and twitch views and winnings from tournaments and appearances in tourneys etc. and you get a decent amount of money- definitely comparable to a day job(he's a management/finance graduate) and he obviously has a lot of flexibility and the added bonus that he loves his work. The average HS professional is however more like Kripparrian (his id on all major networks is the same) who is a bit of an asshole but in a nice way, rich enough to not need the money out of HS, but makes a decent amount anyway. Krip plays a wide variety of games like WoW and Diablo 3 and his networking skills enable him to be invited to host most important HS tournaments across the world- which don't pay much, but he doesn't really need the money anyway. The question of morality is irrelevant to both of them because Trump makes enough money out of it and Krip doesn't really need it anyway. Thus, is it OK for the average dude to 'waste' hours developing such obscure interests when he can just watch a few bollywood movies and learn some item numbers, watch some IPL etc. in order to be socially relevant.

I guess it's not really about being socially relevant. People do these things mostly out of their interest and if it becomes socially relevant, then- great! DOTA for instance I started playing for fun, but I made at least a couple dozen friends with the only real connection being DOTA. Secondly and more importantly, there should always be a limit to these side interests, especially the obscure ones. It's OK for a guy to skip work if India was playing in the Cricket World Cup final the previous night, since most colleagues might doe the same in India. But it's not OK to skip work because the last episode of a GoT season came out late night the previous night- I hope you get the drift. Also, as long as these interests don't majorly affect your actual job (or studies if you're not working right now), it doesn't really matter too much. Instead of doing A or B you can always do A and B. I myself am too lazy for this of course and I therefore would always do things the 'or' way- especially when I'm in Trivandrum. But, as work starts, hope to do more work and less play! Alright, back to some more Hearthstone.

Kripp's channel- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBMccz-PDZf6OB4aV6a3eA
Trump- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsQnAt5I56M-qx4OgCoVmeA

Higher highs and lower lows

The topic is basically the definition of financial risk, which results in high variation in returns. And since I've been watching a lot of finance videos during the long break when I did not write any posts, I can say with confidence that this risk in public companies according to CAPM, is due to market risk, operating leverage and financial leverage!

Anyway the topic isn't about finance and is about difficulty in video games. Recently, i.e in roughly the past decade we've seen a lot of relatively difficult video games being succesful and difficult video games have definitely gathered huge audience. And this is not in comparison to the games that came out in the 80s and early 90s especialy on consoles that were really difficult but more with the 95-2005 games which are probably the easiest of the lot. Bioshock was more difficult than the average shooter on hard, even on medium difficulty. Recently we've had both indie games like Super Meat Boy, Braid, Minecraft (in a league of it's own), Limbo and Hotline Miami (not very difficult, but you'll die a few hundred times for sure) as well as a few mainstream ones like Demon Souls and Dark Souls. Dark Souls is one of the few mainstream games to have had difficulty as a USP (although the game is technically impressive, too)- the 2 parts of the game have each sold millions of copies and Dark Souls 1 is one of the most played games on Games For Windows. Now I'm not saying that older games weren't difficult- God of War, Devil May Cry 3 etc. being examples, but they didn't get so much attention from this big an audience.To give you a fair idea of the average difficulty in a game, that would be a game like Mass Effect 2- which requires some effort, but can easily be finished by an experienced gamers putting in effort without dying in game more than say, 10 times.

So why is there so much demand for games that are tedious to master, and kill you over and over again? The title of this post explains it in a way- people who have more time on their hands to waste, can spend more time learning games and this results in more rewarding experiences. Someone who plays Skyrim at a high difficulty setting (the default setting "Adept" is extremely easy, btw) can enjoy a highly immersive experience and really feel the thrill of finding new equipment or defeating new monsters higher highs. The lows of course mean that dying will be common but then I'm pretty sure that the highs are raised higher than the lows are lowered. Morrowind had a ridiculous journal system which only described in words where you had to go to and the things you had to do to complete quests, as compared to the pointer in Skyrim which always led you to the right place. The journal was enormous and easily exceeded hundreds of pages- out of which you could not even know which ones were completed (although mods and patches take care of this partially). Needless to say, Morrowind has enjoyed huge popularity in the last decade and is regarded by many as the best in the series! (and at worst 2nd best, after Skyrim).

People having more time on their hands could be partly because of new gamers coming in and making the community larger- thus resulting in the veteran gamers wanting to seem more 'hardcore'. This has always been a phenomenon and games with ultra hard learning curves like DotA have had highly intelligent communities (which at one point included me :P ). May be the same phenomenon became a bit more intense recently. Also, global unemployment has hit record levels in the past decade especially in some European countries and it has been pretty high in the US as well though it's come down in the last couple of years. People have literally been jobless. Difficult games which are indie provide a low cost alternative to AAA titles and can provide more content for less, and thus might provide an explanation for the huge boom seen in difficult indie games, although that seems to have died down as well in the past 2 years or so. 2009- 2010 was probably the peak and Super Meat Boy arguably came out at exactly the peak.

Focus on content and fair price of games has actually been a major dicussion point, even in gaming reviews. We don't see movie DVDs or song CDs being criticised because of high price, but this is common across all forums and major movie critics like Gamespot or Edge. RPGs have focused on replayability by choosing evil/good paths and also by choosing different character classes. The good/evil choice allowing for replayability is a very recent invention and probably started with Star Wars KotoR and was made even more famous by games like Fallout 3- while the classes have obviously existed for long, right from the tabletop days. But these days there are separate cut-scenes and dialogues for things like different people who are romanced ( not more than 1 can be romanced in a single playthrough and there are several potential romancees- male and female, depending on your sex) in the Mass Effect series, which takes replayability to something more than the experience of playing; rather it kind of  'unlocks' content for you. This replayability and the in-built complexity of RPGs as opposed to shooters, along with the graphical capabilities of newer PCs and consoles have made RPGs and especially action RPGs arguably the most popular gaming genre. Yes, Wii Sports and Sims and Call of Duty still exist but these are more like exceptions.

Coming back to the difficulty aspect, it is interesting how much effort people are willing to put into games, while they may not want to put a similar effort in real life. It certainly applies to me- I can spend several hours, days and weeks figuring out things in games while I lose patience after an hour if I'm trying to learn something. I can die a 100 times in Braid and still have more fun than reading learning material. In real life, there is a certain kind of happiness we get by achieving something that takes a lot of toil and effort. It's like games have found some way to make us put in this 'effort' by almost making the effort fun, and meanwhile it preserves most of the happiness we get when results are achieved. It's as if game developers are hacking our brains!

Bioshock, and the things that make us human

It looks like this blog might end up being predominantly about gaming but I do have some hope that it wont. Right now I'm going through a phase of relaxation more or less and that means quite a bit of gaming and so that's what I feel like writing about.

Bioshock is  a slightly older game that came out around 2007, with very solid FPS (First Person Shooter) game mechanics. I'm not a huge fan of FPSes- simply because the concept of shooting everything at sight is not something i like greatly. This doesn't mean that I hate them though and there can be very clever FPSes as well. Duke Nukem 3D which came out in the mid 90s had some smart puzzles in spite of being a hardcore FPS and I loved it- at least compared to the other games of the time and Doom was the most obvious comparison- which had some very solid gameplay but didnt really require as much brains as practice, and the story wasn't very engrossing, aaand it wasn't funny either.

FPSes have come a long way since then and now have RPG (Role Playing Game) like elements almost universally. Bioshock is probably one of the first games to be an FPS that blended RPG elements effectively. These aren't hardcore RPG elements though- there is no leveling up and skills are gained by looting or with currency rather than with experience. Fallout 3, a more traditional RPG which came out around the same time was a game I thoroughly enjoyed playing and remains one of the favourites of all time while I stopped playing Bioshock pretty early in the game not realising what I missed out on. The casual gamer would not look beyond the FPS elements of Bioshock and I definitely did not, when the game came out. One can easily be fooled by the brilliant FPS mechanics and think that the story is not worth exploring. One would be making a huge mistake then.

Bioshock as I said, has very strong FPS mechanics. The shooting feels realistic and moving around while shooting makes it harder for enemies to target you. Enemies are not particualrly smart but can be challenging enough. Player's health is not obscenely high as it is in some games and it's easy to die in 1 hit in several parts of the game, from full health. The atmosphere is fantastic and the back-story is explained through a set of audio diaries scattered throughout the world. RPG elements include multiple ways to defeat enemies. There are magic-like abilities gained through injections called plasmids which can be combined with each other or with guns for amazing effects. Igniting an enemy for instance makes him run to a nearby pool of water if it's there and then you can shock him for almost instant death. You can use telekinesis to throw an item covered with land mines at an enemy, or freeze and shatter an enemy. There are around 10 superpowers that are active and some 20-30 that are passive. There's a way to do practically anything you can imagine in the world, and this includes hacking security systems, cameras, fooling powerful "Big Daddies" to fight for you and so on.

Mass effect, Fallout and Elder Scrolls series are famous for giving the player moral choices and they do so very well and often with very distinct in-game consequences. The moral choices are designed in such a way that there is no clear benefit to being good, and being bad just gives a different set of evil friends that you can interact with & a diferent set of actions and conversations become unlocked depending on your choices. Fallout 3 even rewards the player with perks, for being ethically neutral- in order to compensate for the loss of the extra friends and actions gained by extreme moral actions. Morally good behaviour is not strongly encouraged in the games which give the player a choice to be bad, and most players can casually choose to be either very good or very bad, and even try out 1 after the other- simply to get a different experience playing the game. In Bioshock, there is a huge compulsion to do what your heart wants. I for instance, cannot imagine taking the 'bad route' and I'm sure that a few people wouldn't be able of imagining the 'good route'. But the more important distinction is that the game makes you think of morality and government laws and their inter-relationships in real life, and not just in the game. It lets you go out into a world ( an underwater city called Rapture, which is very advanced technologically even in the 1950s-60s) where people are not bound by morality or by rules and regulations and are free to live life as they want to. Survival of the fittest. It also makes you wonder what is it that makes humans really human. For in this world of immorality, people seem to have lost things such as love and sharing-which are actually among the most important the things that define humanity; and resort to insane amounts of cheating, killing and even things like modifying kids' DNA to speed up their growing process and make them more efficient. These are the mildest atrocities that you come across in Rapture.

(Spoilers ahead) 

The creator of the city Andrew Ryan is an obvious reference to Ayn Rand and the guy who guides you through most parts of the game called Atlas- a possible reference to her work Atlas Shrugged. I'm sure that there are plenty of other references to her works as well as other similar ones.It's fascinating how the whole world is unforgiving and treats you just like any other guy. You are no hero, no one special until the end when you realise that nothing had been a  coincidence. You had been actually sent to the city by Frank Fontaine, a ruthless businessman who bought your embryo or something from Andrew Ryan (your real father) and accelerated the growth process to generate an adult within 4 years, genetically altered to make you more powerful, and programmed you to respond to the phrase "Would you kindly" without questioning it. All of it is not even explained directly in the game and the story is partly told through audio diaries scattered across the city. An epic sequence towards the end of the game has you facing Andrew Ryan who let's you know that nothing had been a co-incidence and let's you know about your programmed response. He dies in agony with the pain of knowing that all his hardwork was undone by the people he called "weak". Although Rapture was a ruthless city created by a ruthless mind, you do feel a bit sorry for Andrew Ryan because he had an amazing vision to help humanity, although it was a bit flawed. In any case, you start to wonder why Atlas had been giving you directions with "Would you kindly" added to everything, when he tells you that he is actually Frank Fontaine. This is just an icing on the cake- the game tells dozens of stories, from the doctor who got obsessed with plastic surgeries and started killing, and experimenting with harmful chemicals which led to permanently disfigured people who were again subjected to experiments, to Tenembaum who discovered "ADAM" which alters the human DNA and allows humans to have magic-like abilities called plasmids. Tenembaum also discovered that little girls, if implanted with ADAM could produce 20-30 times the original ADAM and so sets up a fake orphanage to get girls for this purpose. These girls, called Little Sisters (same as the orphanage's name) roam throughout the city and are protected by a Big Daddy each- a huge powerful robot thingy which can 1-hit you to death at the beginning of the game when you're relatively weak. Tenembaum discovers a cure for these girls and lets the player know about it, but using the cure would result in the player getting less ADAM and thus makes it difficult to survive at times since it implies lesser of these active or passive supoerpowers. The player has the choice of killing or rescuing these girls, if he chooses to fight the Big Daddies that he sees around and manages to defeat them.

And this is what I probably wanted to talk about that hasn't been talked about by the hundreds of reviewers of the game. The fact that it is these little girls who actually let you know something about humanity- they're  extremely adorable and in fact help you throughout the game with plenty of gifts to show gratitude, and this is upto the final boss fight with Frank Fontaine who became inhumanly powerful with doses of ADAM. Tenembaum is a big contrast to Andrew Ryan or Frank Fontaine, and protects these girls by storing them in a basement, and takes huge risks by trying to save and protect them. The human side of the game is almost completely feminine and this is no co-incidence. The motherly love that Tenembaum has (although she was a bit ruthless initially and only later regrets her actions) and the innocence of the kids touch you more than anything else in the game and the trailers of the game also advertise the Little Sisters more than anything. Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine are brilliant people. Ryan is frequently quoted by several audio logs of scientists as the best electrical engineer in the world, and Frank Fontaine is easily the best businessman in terms of making profits. But human beings are not complete just by being highly efficient. We have robots for that. It's the love for kids and family that really makes a human being and Tenembaun and the Little Sisters send the message really well. This message like several other messages, is implied and not explicitly thrust into the player and that is probably what makes the game so unique. The story is there and the environment is there, and it is upto the player to explore, find the audio logs and connect the dots. The atmosphere, the soundtrack and the random dialogues of the enemies that the player encounters in the game, all add up to an experience that is beyond words. A true Gesamtkuntzberg.

This video, along with the next parts explain Bioshock's story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrlgwU2PY-s
Bioshock's gameplay videos are available throughout youtube. But here's something more interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ke4WBDTUA

Gesamkuntzberg

 I've always wondered why video games are a lot more entertaining than movies or music or other forms of art. When I was younger, I used to watch very few movies and listen to not much music, while playing copious amounts of video games- which started with a handheld device which had only Tetris and a crappy racing game and then a Nintendo which obviously had Mario and other games, and then a PC when I was 10, which gave me games like Lionking, Aladdin and Skyroads. It's been a long journey since then and I've learnt a lot of things on the way and I've several favourites including Alpha Centauri, Portal, Civilisation II, Fallout 3, DOTA etc.- all from different genres.

The video by MrBtongue which talks about Dark Souls gives a satisfactory explanation for this. Videogames are a Gesamtkunstwerk, or a 'total art form' which makes use of several forms of art to combine them into a single experience. Movies are also a Gesamtkunstwek and they combine things like background score, acting, the story etc. to create a form of art that is superior to the score, acting or story taken separately. Movies have evolved so much over time that things like editing and direction can also be considered to require artistic inputs. Anyway the final result is more than a sum of its parts. Listening to the score of Star Wars, looking at the special effects, looking at the acting, reading the story etc separately does not give you the same experience as watching a movie. Videogames however take it to the next level. There are several additional elements that a game provides. Firstly, it puts the story from a protagonists point of view really effectively compared to a movie since you play the protagonist (I'm talking about action shooters and RPGs in games and movies which have a clear protagonist). Secondly, they let you create your own story and characters. Several games allow player interactions to affect the story. For instance in Mass Effect 2, which can actually be started with a savegame file from Mass Effect 1 to make sure that your character choices are taken into account during the 2nd game- allows you to die in the end if the player does not provide things like providing enough protection to the protagonist's spaceship. This actually kills off the character at the end of the game and thus makes it impossible to export the savegame to Mass Effect 3, which would've be possible if he had survived. Games like Mass Effect give several choices in game to make sure that the story is personalised and that the protagonist behaves in a way that you want him to (and ideally how you would if you were him/her). This mechanic also allows for higher replayability of the game since you can play the entire game with totally different choices and get a new experience- but let's talk about replayability later. Thirdly and most importantly, there is a completely new experience that games provide as compared to movies- the gameplay mechanic. Gameplay mechanic is so crucial to games that all games are classified according to the mechanic and not the type of story that it tells. This is unlike the case in movies and storybooks which are classified according to the story. Games can be First-person-shooters or platformers or Role Playing Games even if they tell a science fiction story. Portal and Mario are both platformers which have absolutely nothing in common in terms of the theme and story. There are very rare cases where the method of storytelling is used to classify books - the choose your adventure type of book falls into this category. Classifying movies as silent, colour/black and white etc. also are parallels to the classification given to games.

So how good are games anyway? I would go to the extent of saying that unless something else comes up, they are the next generation medium for entertainment. One problem with games is that they are not as easily accessible as movies, and while someone who's never seen a movie before would be able to enjoy it, several games are difficult to appreciate or even play, if the person has had no prior experience playing games of that type. GTA 5 racked in 1 billion $ revenues in its 1st four days of release- much faster than any movie ever. This is in spite of the fact that the game hasn't yet been released on the PC and also the issue of accessibility, which I expect would reduce in the future. Companies like Microsoft and Sony realise that gaming is the next big thing and at least till the consoles a couple of generations back (Xbox and PS2) used to sell them at a loss to just get the market share and ensure that they aren't left out of the race.

As of now however, games can't be called superior to movies. This is because movies have been with us for about a century and there have been so many innovations on the way and they have received a lot of attention. Television is also a competitor and provides more personalisation than movies and you get more choice as to what to watch. Youtube gives even more personalisation and I expect youtube and Netflix (or a similar video-streaming service) to directly replace TV as a superior option if it hasn't already-  at least in developed countries. Internet is again, not 100% available or accessible, partly because of speed and connectivity issues. Internet is a relatively young technology and I'm sure that TV would be eventually phased out. Coming to the areas where games aren't as good as movies- one particular point is how games often require a clear protagonist and you are forced to do things on his behalf (or act as a god and control many thing like in Age of Empires- either way you have an effect on the world). This means that you cannot be told a story that the storywriter wants to tell. You always have an effect of your own on the world and the story is not pure in the sense that it's not exactly the single story the storyteller wanted to tell. But then this is like a side-effect to the advantage that you get a personalised experience playing the game and that you have an impact on the world. There are however some games which encourage exploring the story and not really having a huge (and at times any) impact on the game itself. A significant example is the game called "Gone Home" where you (as a girl) explore your house after coming back after some time to find out where your family has gone. Clues and notes give you an idea in the end and your whole lifestory is told through several objects and books in the house. There are several audio clips as well, and the whole experience I have to say, is very unique and very touching. Another game that isn't exactly a story told to you- you do get a few choices and you explore the story through these choices is "The Stanley Parable" which is much more casual and I'm sure that games like The Stanley Parable have a great future. These games which illustrate the different ways in which videogames can be an art-form, are not exactly my favourite games, but they do take care of the criticism of having to write the story ourselves while playing a game. These games have a pre-decided story that you explore using the game environment. Which is interesting because many people do not actually consider them as games. I do, however and it is because of the highly interactive nature as compared to just choosing a clip to watch. Gone Home has you walk around the house and pick up objects and turn on and off the lights, read stuff etc. and it's not quite the same as reading a book or watching a movie. Yes, it doesn't have a clear gameplay mechanic but the interactive nature of the experience makes it a game. Interactivity I guess, can be called as the 4th unique thing about games and it's a lot more than choosing your own adventure in a book that allows you to do so. Replayability is another one at 5th, and there are several game which provide fresh experiences during replays. Strong examples are- playing different races or countries in games like Starcraft or Age of Empires, choosing the 'good' or 'bad' or 'neutral' karma options in games like Star Wars KotoR or Fallout or Elder Scrolls or indeed Mass Effect. I'm sure that there's a 6th and 7th but I'll stop here.

From economists' point of view there's a separate reason why games would be more popular and this is because it's easier to monetise games. People can easily pirate movies and enjoy them to a similar effect as in theatres (or heck, they can create a home theatre themselves) but there are several games which cannot be enjoyed without paying for them. This is especially true for consoles and this explains why developers are more interested in making games for consoles. A game like World of Warcraft is played online and the best thing about the game is that you can play it with your friends. Pirating the game is kind of pointless since playing it alone is just boring. Games would have to connect to Blizzard servers which would check if your game is authentic and thus make it really difficult to pirate such games. Elder Scrolls online is an upcoming game which is expected to sell majorly and has a similar mechanic. Some games which have a single player experience like Diablo 3 need internet connection to work (even for single player) and crackers have found it difficult to disable this requirement. In any case, even without the monetisation reason, games would be incredibly superior as a form of entertainment, to movies in a few decades time (though they are already very superior in my opinion).

Video on Gesamtkuntzberg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIx7Ot5Mq2Q‎