A Message to Wafaa Bilal: Screw You

I can’t help but feel like I’m doing this douche a favor by talking about this topic. After all, publicity is how these oxygen-thief-excuses-for-artists work. Creating “dialog” and all that nasty jazz. But after seeing another article on this monumental pile of trash, I can’t stop myself from getting hot under the collar. This post will probably be the most political one that I will post. It was also most likely contain expletives and such. I have no other excuse except to say I’m pissed.

So for the uninitiated the article can be found here. In short, Bilal, a member of the faculty at the Art Institute of Chicago has put up a game at the FLATFILE gallery. The game essentially involves the player assisting in the assassination of everyone’s current favorite president, George W. Bush.

While the implications of such a game and the double-standards involved are irritating, that’s not what I find infuriating. What really pisses me off was that this douche chose one of my favorite past-times to take a shit with and display his turd for everyone to see. At most, I can see this as a backhanded compliment to the medium and its ability to convey a “message”. But you know what? You can take your “message” and shove it where the sun does not shine. Games are not about your message. They’re about making people have fun and, if you must, educating them on the side.

Have any doubts that its only about the message?

I talked to him and asked him if he planned to make the game available for play outside of his exhibit he said no. His response was that he didn’t want people playing the game alone, but would prefer that they play it in an area like the one set up in Troy, where there can be a dialogue about the game.

I wouldn’t mind this whole thing so much if the game in question actually had the craftsmanship behind to to call it art. I cannot stand this modern art mentality where the only that matters is the message. Technique, the expression of the soul, these things all fall by the wayside for the point that is trying to be conveyed. Originality, not authenticity has become an obsession. Games like Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, Panzer Dragoon Saga, etc. deserve to be called art. They might not have an implicit “message”. But you cannot deny that the way they unify the excellence in the elements graphics (at the time), art, music, gameplay, voice acting, story into one incredible experience. Those games deserve to be called art because of the level of craftsmanship, evolution of design, and heart placed into them. If there was a message in them (and I’m sure that some of them indeed do), it was placed behind the importance in creating a world for people to enjoy.

I will say that I sympathize with Bilal’s pain. But he’s still an ass for using the medium in this way. Here an idea: use this as an example of how create art with a message. And I’ll even include some commentary from men who have accomplished more then you or I.

Picasso said, “…this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse… If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.”

“The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt—they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt.” – Sergei Rachmaninoff

Levels in RPGs: An Anachronism?

As a design concept in RPGs they’re practically ubiquitous. But why the hell do we need them?

Sure they provide an easy measure of progress for the player, but is it really worth the cost of pigeon holing ourselves into this design concept? Are there really no disadvantages to such a system? Today I’m going to argue that there are good reasons why we should get rid of the entire concept of “levels”. This post will be mainly be referencing MMORPGs rather then single-player RPGs.

1. Levels create “video game adultery” or social ostracization

Let’s say I’m playing with a group of people. If we want to play together so that everyone gets something out of the content that we are doing, we need to stay within the same level of each other. In order to do that, we would have to play at around the same time or gain roughly the same amount of experience so that we can all experience the same content while also enjoying the fruits of doing so.

But once someone falls behind, or someone sneaks ahead of everyone else, the group is placed into a dilemma. Essentially the onus is placed on someone to spend more time or less time in the game so that they can once again play with the others. Should they fail to do so, it is inevitable that a sort of social ostracization takes place where the person who is not in sync with the rest of the group’s levels is forced to find another social circle or put-up with playing less or more. This becomes a real problem for those who cannot play as much as their real life friends and cannot “hang out” as it were with the rest of his or her crew.

2. Levels encourage linear design

Yes, shocking. I am arguing against linear design. Note that this is a condemnation of linear gameplay design, not against a linear narrative.

At first glance, an MMORPG might not appear to have linear design built into it. But that’s only at first glance. If one begins to look at mob levels, quest levels, etc, one quickly realizes that an MMO creates a linear sort of gameplay by using geographic regions to split players up. While games such as WoW provide multiple areas for a given level range, the end result is that one can chart player progression through areas as a straight line.

The problem with this approach is that content becomes obsolete. Once a player has leveled beyond the level range of the content, the area is effectively “useless” from a progression standpoint. There is no reason for him or her to continue to be in that area. They can only travel to a region that provides for their level range. Even if they have never explored that region before, if they are outside that region’s level range, it is still effectively useless. Furthermore, once a player gets to the current max level, there are only several areas where he or she can spend her time.

3. Levels place mechanical\time requirements on content

By this I mean to get through content, at a certain point, things like average group level become an issue before even player skill or group composition can really come into play. If one’s team has a high enough average group level, they can plow through the content in question without having to worry about anything else. Thus in a sense the ultimate requirement in the end is not thought, knowledge, or skill, it’s really time invested in the game. While this provides almost no barrier to content whatsoever (spend enough time at it and you’ll get through anything), I believe that it makes gameplay dull and boring after a certain points. Once the “mechanical” requirements of a character are taken care of, the player does not have to think at all while playing, and can just play like a robot.

Some Final Thoughts

There are obviously counter arguments to everything that I have written. While I could some of them now, I’m on my lunch break right now. So I’ll address the biggest, and most basic issue as to why it’s hard to replace the concept of “levels”.

Currently in RPGs in general, we interpret the concept of growth of having only one direction: straight up. The idea of causing a player’s character to retrograde is not an attractive one to say the least. So in the end the only a character can truly develop is making the numbers increase.

What I’m trying to say is that in a sense, RPG design suffers from a philosophical issue at its core. Progression is “fun”, but we only know how to interpret it in a single way because of the reliance on numbers to define characters and character progression. As it stands in most RPGs, according to the computer a character is merely an excel spreadsheet of attributes, equipment, and skills. We haven’t found a way to measure and dole out progression in any other way.

So is there another philosophy of progression? I have no idea. Honestly this could all just be hot air. I need to think on it some more.

More on these thoughts later, my mind doesn’t work that well on five hours of sleep.