Theorycraft and Optimization - Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games - page 137

early theorycrafting indeed helped prompt that . . . All of which is to say,
yes, Theorycrafting probably does help make WoW suck. 41
Although you likely cannot escape mathematics, the focus on math changes
the way in which WoW works. Unlike sports or the live role-playing and
dice rolling that happens in a traditional role-playing game, video games
like WoW are ultimately infl exible and strictly rule governed. The intent of
theorycraft is to divine these rules and present them as solved math equa-
tions. Once the right answers are attained, there is no need for or possibil-
ity of a saving roll; the discourse surrounding WoW shifts from a focus on
fun or choice to one of fi guring out which choice is right.
A practical impact of theorycrafting on WoW is that it checks attempts
to make the game approachable to more players. Despite the general senti-
ment within the WoW community that content and raiding has become
more accessible for players, the benchmarks theorycraft facilitates alters
the discourse of game in practice. As one observer puts it,
All those 'accessible' raids and achievements and gear are suddenly
sounding more and more like 'requirements.' DPS minimums, required
achievements and Armory checks serve as your credentials to get into
groups. Everywhere a new level 80 turns, there's something new to
measure up to. 42
As acceptance of theorycraft seeps into the rhetoric of WoW , expectations
of players change, especially as there are far more ways to compare perfor-
mance to expectation now than in classic WoW . From looking at a player's
gear, to looking at their achievements, to searching for their Armory page
on the WoW website, perceptions of players performance can be shaped
well before one actually plays with them. This is exacerbated because
theorycraft encourages players to see things as right and wrong, which
ef ectively means that a very good, but new player, with lesser gear, fewer
achievements, and an unimpressive armory page may have a more dii cult
time latching on to a group in an era of theorycraft than they did when
WoW fi rst launched.
The fi nal issue with theorycrafting is that the analytical mode it pro-
motes can give a partial, slanted view of what actually occurs within a
dynamic fi ght by fostering an overreliance on quantity of production over
quality. Although aggressive tracking of data may be a good way of assess-
ing the skill of damage dealers, evaluations for other members of groups,
particularly healers, is a more complex process than simply looking at
quantity. Gevlon argues,
When complicated decisions are to be made, “better” or “worse”
depend on the ef ect on [sic] the outcome that cannot be measured dur-
ing one fi ght. It could be measured by comparing 10 fi ghts where the