for some god-awful reason i actually read that whole thing, and it only served to re-enforce my pre-existing belief that sirlin is an idiot.
people can't train by themselves and become champions? without pointing fingers, i can safely and easily think of at least five players in this community alone, who routinely play by themselves and then show up and beat the snot out of pretty much everyone. belittling and ignoring what someone can do alone with determination in a fighting game is just plain retarded.
in an MMORPG, the skill cap is extremely low. it is a matter of character builds and then sitting and click-click-clicking over and over. of course it rewards players who invest more time. it has to. this needs no further explanation.
ties to the real world? oh come on, sirlin. ask any college graduate how smart you have to be to get a degree. no joke, the smartest people i know became drug dealers, decided to follow the higher calling of following Phish around the country in their van, live in their parents' basements playing video games, or all of the above. on the contrary i have some friends who are, for lack of a better term, dumbasses, who have become dentists, pharmacists, doctors and even a geophysicist. the reality of it is that most people on this forum are probably more innately intelligent or "skilled" at, say, referring to diagrams and numbers than your average lawyer. in the real world, innate skill and intelligence do not amount to shit without drive and ambition.
when i graduated college i got accepted into the UNM law school. i dropped out after 3 months and became a chef. you know why i am here, drunk, browsing forums instead of sleeping in preparation for a court sit-in, as i am sure my kind-of-slow old roommate presently is? the answer is time. he was willing to put in the time and discipline and i was not.
sure, i can score quite high on my ACT or LSAT or GRE, but can i wake up at 6 am every morning to go in to the office? fuck no i can't. in 99.99% of real world situations, the kid who struggled through school and paid his own way and had to study hard to grasp things and wakes up to shave and shower every day at 5 am is a better candidate for the job. he who invests the most time is he who tries the hardest, and he who tries the hardest gets the job. relying on some non-existent, preternatural skill to get you by in life is a surefire way to failure. try. try long. then keep trying. that is how to succeed in the real world.
of course group > solo in an MMORPG. if that wasn't the case, then why make it multiplayer at all? people use it as a social outlet. people use it as a leadership outlet. turn any MMORPG into a "one man army" game, and you are right back to diablo, not to mention the huge advertising and financial buffs blizzard gets for the sheer number of players on all the time. that he is really trying to convince me otherwise is just baffling. he's drifted from "teaching the wrong thing" to "doing the wrong thing". can you really look at the most hugely successful MMORG of all time and say that they are doing it wrong?
finally, is he REALLY saying that trying to exploit glitches is not ban worthy? is he REALLY saying that players don't need babysitters? has he ever been on the fucking internet before? has he ever seen a forum? the idea that human beings would act civil and fair behind the protection and anonymity of a computer screen is laughable. someone send this man to 4chan for an education please.
TLDR: once again mr. sirlin uses big words and self promotion to push ideas and points that have no basis in reality, and/or are flat out retarded.
GG
