Skills versus Skillz

The online piratey game, Sea of Thieves, intrigues me for several reasons. One, it's piratey (in particular, "fun" piratey, rather than "realistic" piratey). Two, it's by Rare - I daresay the company has changed quite a bit over the years, but it always makes me think back to the original company Ultimate Play The Game back in the early 1980s and the good ol' ZX Spectrum. Three, at time of writing, it hasn't taken the usual route of allowing players to upgrade the abilities of their avatars, weapons and ships, by purchase or progress.

This has upset some players. In the many gripes I've read about the game and "missed opportunities" (of which it sounds like there are several, such as lack of ship types, lack of interesting missions, etc.), the wish is that players can acquire more powerful weapons, faster ships, etc., by progress and experience in the game.

One commenter said (slight paraphrase, as I can't remember the exact wording - it was a YouTube comment I don't care to hunt down again), "There's no difference between someone with 1000 hours on the game and someone with only 3."

I haven't played the game yet. I've watched it played, in person and in videos. If I get to play it, I will undoubtedly be terrible at it, as I've never been a great games player, and mastered/completed very few over the years (I made perfect runs on an old LED Pac-Man clone, called "Puck Monster", and completed Head Over Heels on the ZX Spectrum, but that's about it).

But I do hope I would improve over time. I seriously hope I would be better after 1000 hours than I would after 3. I would understand the mechanics, the limitations, how far I needed to be from someone to hit them with a sword or pistol, how to steer a ship so it wouldn't hit rocks, how to dock at a jetty, and so on.

Which makes me wonder about those wanting their 1000 hours of skills supplemented further with powerful stats - shots they fire do more damage, their characters and/or ships can take more damage before being disabled. It's most likely they just the types of people that like to swagger around a digital world they have spent a long time in as if they own it. "This is my territory. I have a history here, and you are new. Be nice to me or suffer the consequences."  Or they like to kill other players and inconvenience them as easily as possible, and putting in the time on the game rewards them with this ability - they have "earned" that right.

But I also wonder - are there people around now who know longer recognise (or never did) that you acquire a skill by genuinely working at it? (Yes, I know, the skills acquired in games don't really deserve that label, but stick with the point.) Has the point been lost that you master something over time through effort - you don't automatically get rewarded just because you put in the time? It reminds me of the recent comparison between Japanese(?) youngsters making what looked like giant ball bearings out of balls of crunch up foil - they polished them, sanded them, until they were smooth and reflective - while Western youngsters munched on washing machine pods. One took time, effort and skill, to create something interesting to behold (while not especially useful), while the other was hazardous to health and could be accomplished by someone equally well whether they had been on the planet 3 hours or 200,000 hours.

Of Marathons and Terrorists

A week after some in the media hoped it had another Breivik responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing, then decided the culprits' backgrounds were irrelevant (see Steyn), I discovered Eddie Izzard has been running marathons for a terrorist.

Izzard says, "He’s one of the greatest people who’s lived because he’s not a saint."

Ok-ay. A rare admission that Mandela was a terrorist?  Otherwise what's the point of saying it?  Most of us aren't saints.  Does that make us all great?  (With Izzard's "belief in human beings", perhaps that is so.)

"I would say Nelson Mandela isn’t special, but what he’s made himself do is special. He spent all that time in prison - to come out that calm, with that generosity of spirit...this guy needs to be celebrated."

Now I'm confused - he came out of prison and wasn't annoyed.  Should he have been annoyed?  Wasn't he a terrorist after all?  Why does he get to be celebrated again?

Now, let's be clear, Izzard may be being cut short by the editor's knife, and he may have explained himself much better in the original interview. Let's hope so, anyway.

At least, after having to cut his 27 marathons in 27 days for Mandela's 27 years of imprisonment short due to ill health, Izzard still feels he witnessed enough in South Africa to comment on improvements in that troubled country.

"It’s definitely in a better place...There’s still a good deal of separation, but the black community are the people in political power."

Now, that "but" in the clause seems to be Izzard suggesting the black community being the ones in political power is a Good Thing^TM.  Is he really suggesting there's a right and wrong colour for the people in the political class of a country?  I wonder if he popped champagne when the position of leader of the most powerful nation was filled by a black man, or if he's reserving that for a Native American to get the job.

"The fact that there was a black South African doctor giving me good advice in a hospital that was quite far out in the Eastern Cape, very much in the countryside... that just wouldn’t have happened before."

Sounds like South Africa is finally catching up to the NHS.

Of course, if black people have political power in South Africa, they lose their "free from racism" card.  Normally only white people can be racist, you see, because you have to have both prejudice and power.  I guess the whites in SA can no longer be racist.  That's a nice turnaround for that country.  Well done Mandela.  Now I see why Izzard thinks you should be celebrated.

Homophobia - the Latest Benchmark

Conservative blogger Cranmer describes how the Advertising Standards Agency have contacted him regarding complaints that the above advert, appearing on his blog, is homophobic and offensive.

...And Physically Superior too!

David Blair again, putting the boot in to confessed killer Breivik:

The voice gave little away, but the killer’s eyes, posture and physique spoke volumes. As the days wore on and he became unsettled by the prosecution’s questioning, white specks of dandruff flecked Breivik’s dark jacket, beads of sweat glistened on a face pockmarked by acne, and a motionless comb-over grew more slicked and gleaming.

So, not only is Breivik a killer, but he's spotty, greasy and got dandruff.  I bet he's a doody-head as well.

When they were telling us he was blonde and blue-eyed, the media never completed the picture of what an ugly git he was too.

Morally and Intellectually Superior

So Breivik's trial is receiving far more scrutiny than many other trials I'd like day-to-day live updates on (like the child sex-ring case in Rochdale). I find it particularly interesting how we're frequently reminded how right-wing Breivik is, and how he does these right-wing salutes, sits in a right-wing way taking sips of right-wing water with right-wing lips.

When not reminding us he's very right-wing, the reporters quoted in the Telegraph seem to be trying to outdo themselves in moral superiority.

To be honest, unless you've slaughtered large numbers of people, you really don't have to try so hard to make out you're "better" than Breivik. But, since no one seems able to legally kill him, I guess they'll have to make do with mocking him. Hell, he played World of Warcraft for a year, the sad Billy No-Mates. (I did rather like the report that the judge asked if it was a violent game - rather reminded me of an old Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch.)

Now, hearing he got his facts from Wikipedia and wished to commemorate the Gates of Vienna battle, the Telegraph's chief foreign correspondent David Blair soon put him in his place:

As someone who is old enough to have learned his history from lessons and books, as opposed to Wikipedia, I would suggest that the Battle of Lepanto of 1571 was a far more significant event. This clash at sea destroyed Turkish naval supremacy in the Mediterranean and began the long retreat of the Ottoman Empire.

Battle of Lepanto: 1,070,000 hits on Google. Gates of Vienna: 2,590,000 hits on Google. Significance? Not a lot - using Google to assess importance is about on a par with using Wikipedia for serious study. Then again, feeling you need to show you're intellectually superior to a mass-murdering World of Warcraft expert strikes me as equally vacuous.

Blair also reported how the prosection had cleverly got Breivik to say he should be executed:

And, as the piece de resistance, Breivik recommended his own execution. So it was that the defendant was drawn into hanging himself.

But Breivik said he wants to either be executed (by a court he does not recognise the authority of, and therefore perhaps would feel he is being put to death for his cause) or set free (by a court he would then perhaps feel had come round to his way of thinking). He doesn't want to be locked away (like a common criminal, even if he only gets 21 years). I've read little in the Telegraph to suggest he's tripping himself up in some way, the real meaning of a defendant "hanging" themselves. But what do I know? I've played Xenoblade Chronicles for 80 hours.

Projecting Further

So, presumably we must add, to those hate-mongers Robert Spencer, et al. who are held partly responsible for the monster Breivik:

• World of Warcraft - because Breivik played it a lot. I mean, a lot! And it's violent. In that you can kills things. Like almost every other computer game.
  
• Clint Mansell - because Breivik liked one of his tracks - it gave him courage, or something.
  

Don't hold your breath. Well, WoW might get a bit of heat, like computer games do every now and then. And Clint might be feeling a little hot under the collar, having his name written in the same sentence as the Norwegian mass murderer.

But as others are already pointing out, the focus will ultimately fall on those who agree with much of Breivik's view of the decline of the West and the danger of Islam, no matter how much they reject his belief that murder is the answer.

UPDATE: Two more sources of influence in the life of Breivik:

• Al Qaeda
• Wikipedia

I'm not sure which scares me more.

Could they be fooling themselves?

I came across this article in the Buenos Aires Herald today, detailing coverage of the Falklands War anniversary in British media. Apart from the fact they seem to focus on predominantly left wing media, and papers with low circulation figures (The Guardian, kept afloat by the BBC and school staff rooms, but not much else), I was struck by this sentence:

With special productions in their online and print editions, British media is giving its own account of the military conflict that confronted Argentina and the UK in 1982. (My emphasis)

Maybe that's a turn of phrase I'm just not used to, but is it really honest to say that Argentina and the UK were "confronted" by "military conflict", as if such an event was drawn randomly from the Bag of Fate? Has the Buenos Aries Herald forgotten that Argentina started the whole thing by invading the islands? (I understand there was never a formal declaration of war from either side.)

Another odd news story occurred yesterday, making me wonder if it was an April Fool's story. I'm still not entirely convinced. Apparently, following his suspicious landslide victory in the Bradford West election, George Galloway tweeted, "Shattered but happy after the Blackburn triumph."

This does appear to be expose Galloway as caring little for which location he was voted in, as long as he won and now has some power. But he tweeted shortly after, "Nice try. Password now changed," and suggested his account had been hacked.

Really? Wouldn't a hacker have tweeted something a little more...interesting? A little more controversial? It might well be true, and we either have the most uninspired hacker in the world, or the most shrewd. But Occam's Razor suggests to me Galloway is trying to cover up his idiocy. Or does he really believe what he wrote?