Game Development Reference
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play the game, it has become the way to play the game and the means by
which players justify perceived imbalances in the game, the locations where
game design procedures are not functioning 'properly.'
“Does Elitist Jerks make everything suck?” is a massive forum thread
on the North American version of WoW 's oi cial forums. The thread was
started by a warlock named Angkorwat and includes a response from WoW
developer Ghostcrawler. The initial post lays out three reasons why EJ has
a negative impact on the playing environment in WoW : “it fuels a kind
of dismissive attitude in the player community that actually diminishes
the quality of debate,” it “discourages experimentation with unique play-
styles/specs/glyphs,” and “it fuels outrage in places where there would often
be none.” 38 The central point of the critique is that EJ changes the way in
which players engage the game. Instead of simply playing a game, the goal
becomes attempting to optimize one's button pushing. In so doing, play
shifts from something where there are many choices to make to one where
there are clear rights and wrongs.
The second and third issues are connected, as they are both about how
players engage the game and the amount of choice players believe they have
in WoW . Technically, WoW has an incredible number of options available to
players. The game features ten races and ten classes, with three dif erent tal-
ent specializations for each class, on top of an immense number of customi-
zation options available when one considers other aspects of the game, like
gear, glyphs, gems, and enchantments. However, the goal of theorycrafting
is to fi gure out what is best; once the best option is determined, choices are
distilled to that single answer. The moment total understanding is derived,
or the perception of total understanding exists, there is only one decision for
good, properly socialized, players to make. Consequently, a host of problems
are created as players believe anything that is not best is broken. Ef ectively,
theorycraft alters how players engage WoW . The game shifts toward what
one player describes as “largely 'math with pretty scenery' . . . This game is a
Economic/Mathematical simulator with pretty picture [sic] not a Fantasy/RP
game.” 39 Theorycraft changes WoW from a fantasy world to be experienced
into a math problem to be solved. This shifts the mode of play and, when
extended to other games, marks a situation in which the nature of play is
altered. Certainly games are an assemblage of procedures, but when they are
reduced to the algorithms that drive them, a risk is run that the fantasy melts
away, reducing a game to a system of rules. In the case of theorycraft, its
prominence marginalizes all other modes of play, creating a situation where
you either use it or are left behind.
A number of WoW blogs weighed in on the thread, with responses rang-
ing from “ you cannot escape mathematics! 40 to those who agreed with the
original poster. One wrote,
If WoW 's high level game can be said to be worse because of the low choice,
highly modellable [sic] systems, then I would suggest that the evolution of
 
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