Deconstructing Packs

Hey, the MotD isn't shamelessly advertising Karl's twitter account any longer! I forget just how long that was up... Anyway, what do you guys think the odds are that the majority of the population of W-H forgets about the entire thing? Like, say, that blog Karl tried to start that got all of one post? (Did you even know he tried to start a blog?) Or the FB page? (How many of you are thinking 'Wait, W-H has a FB page?' right now?) I'm guessing it'll just vanish into obscurity.

I'll still check on it occasionally, though. If there's any important updates or anything, I'll mention them, so don't worry about it too much.

Nothing exceptionally interesting on the pack side of things today. No big changes... Which is probably a good thing, considering that only bad things seem to happen lately. It's worth taking a look at that rainbow pack's profile, though; there's a nice example of how coding can fail utterly if you don't have the exact resolution and screen size it was designed for. Not to mention that on my netbook, the rainbow wolf emote is actually covering a bit of the nav, which is one of those unofficial rules. Don't fuck with the nav, people.

On the player side, more and more people seem to come closer to leaving. Which is definitely understandable. Seriously, look at W-H - there are quite a few notable members who've quit or been banned, and usually all of them left willingly. It's a bad sign when people start leaving. However, I think it's a lot worse that there's no valid reason you can give people to stay. Pick any prominent non-staff member on site. Imagine they decide to quit because they're tired of the game and the drama. Now, imagine one argument you could make to get them to stay that isn't pure emotion or 'we need you'.

Think about it.

And I may as well take the opportunity to recommend another webcomic. You probably haven't heard of Crimson Dark, but it's worth checking out. Unlike most webcomics, it's a bit less on the 'comic' side; closer to a graphic novel (science fiction). It's a good story, but I think it's the art I like best; it was my 'introduction' to 3D webcomics. The artist's attention to detail is amazing; I mean, have you ever seen a spaceship in a webcomic (hell, even in TV) where the interior actually made sense? I hadn't before I read this.

It seems like almost all of my entries concern either packs or the forums - sometimes both. Packs are in the lead, though... So why not take the opportunity to completely deconstruct my main writing material?

I was musing today on all of my observations about packs (most of which you've seen in previous entries) combined. You know, just the bland, general stuff: being a pack leader is hard, recruiting is impossible, loyalty is difficult to obtain, motivating lazy people just doesn't happen... Stuff that, as a pack leader, you'll invariably have considered.

When I've covered some of those topics in the past, I've tried to analyze the question 'Why?' in regards to them. What's the source? How can you fix the problem? Etc. You get the idea. But today I was wondering if I'd actually gone deep enough...

The fact is, you can reduce every single pack-related problem to the existence of packs themselves; if packs did not exist, none of your problems would. Yes, I know that you're inwardly commenting on how brilliant I am to be able to make an observation like that. Just shut up and hear me out, alright?

So, we've basically only got one issue: packs themselves. Alright, let's continue our thought pattern here. Why do packs exist?

You're probably thinking that the answer is obvious and this question isn't worth asking. I did at first as well. However... if the answer really is obvious, why is it that I have such a hard time finding one when I actually try? Think about it - why do packs exist?

Let's look at some reasons that I think people will likely come up with:

-Realism. After all, this is a wolf game, wolves hunt in packs. So it makes logical sense to have packs, right?

Not really. Solely addressing the realism aspect here... we don't give a damn about realism. We're wearing robotic armor. Not to mention the skull of a hawk that would have had to be at least three times as large as they are in real life. And we don't even have giant hawks on the map anywhere! Not to mention that low level ram-skull helmet... Coincidentally, there are no rams anywhere on the map. Or anything even remotely similar.

-DP. Working together gets DP faster, right?

Well, yes, it does. However, as I think everyone on the site knows, DP is completely worthless. I have a tendency to dump 10 million on random pack members just for the heck of it. We don't need the cash, period. In fact, DP has always been worthless. I remember back when I first joined I would run around attacking people deliberately just to lose cash, because I had so much and nothing to do with it (and there were no banks back then). The hawk gear changed nothing - by the time it was added, everyone already had that much.

-Teamwork.

Teamwork at what, exactly? I'll be honest - W-H plays more like a single-player game with a forum than any sort of actual multiplayer game. I mean, other players can't even affect your map screen aside from territory - we each get out own copy of our virtual world, with no competition for kills or anything. Ever read those theories on infinite parallel realities? W-H is actually a good example. The only 'cross-over' points on the map are boss fights.

The fact is, there's nobody who can help you on the map (don't give me crap about the mate feature). What are you supposed to cooperate towards? Packs are basically just groups of people who achieved different percentages of game completion. You could do the same thing with any console game.

Of course, there will be a few who will argue for 'helping' people along with DP and points. People can get their own DP. With the bank, it's easy. For the points... first, there are more than enough on the map. Second, that's basically socialism, because you're taking the resources gained by the better players and redistributing it to the weaker players. Although that's somewhat a flawed analogy, because the higher levels don't actually have anything to do with it. Still, the point remains that the weaker players haven't really done anything to earn it.

-Boss fights.

This would be an example of someone who Did Not Do The Research. Boss fights exist because of packs - packs do not exist because of boss fights. In fact, boss fights did not exist for a substantial amount of time until after packs did, and there wasn't even mention of them being planned during the early days of packs.

Boss fights were added to give packs something to do. Because, honestly, we were getting rather bored. After all, back then pack wars didn't count gear, so they were basically completely random (Oh, wait! They still are completely random!), and there was absolutely nothing for us to do (didn't even have a toplist).

So... players are bored, packs need something to do. Hm... Oh, I know - let's add a giant bear as a boss, and give him a name that immediately screams 'vampire!' (alright, Vladimir doesn't technically have much to do with vampires, aside from some Vlad the Impaler guy. It's still the first impression I get when hearing it). Not to mention that we should make sure we give absolutely no reason at all why said bear exists, or why it's necessary to kill him!

Let's see... we've made sure the feature is pointless, has no continuity, and basically violates every law of common sense. However, since the Players Are Morons, we don't have to worry about that. Now, let's just throw in a quick batch of coding to the whole feature and call it good! And just in case anyone wants to complain, let's make it give out free points so that no logical person will complain about it!

To sum up the sarcasm, boss fights were just part of the bread and circuses given out to keep us happy. There's no reasonable explanation for the points, either, and quite honestly, it undervalues donating. Plus, you know, there's nothing to do with points aside from buy upgrade points or art, since we've already got every gear piece from questing.

I've been more in-depth on boss fights previously, and the fact remains that nobody needs them - either the average player or packs. They're basically free money machines. We have enough of that.

-Pack Wars

Again, this is something that was added afterwards, and isn't that important. It's also one of the earlier pieces of coding, and it honestly didn't live up to all the expectations at the time. I mean, you click the attack button, you get some randomly-generated numbers, and eventually someone wins. The end.

Really, this is more bread and circuses to keep us happy. Yes, it spreads DP around... but DP is worthless. The only justifiable reason for it to exist is to keep packs from being untouchable banks with infinite fund amounts.

Here's the thing: people will argue that removing pack wars will make DP harder to obtain. The truth is the exact opposite.

Hypothetical situation: pack wars don't exist, and packs can't store money (or just don't exist, period). Money must go somewhere - thus, people are forced to carry large amounts of money on themselves, because there's more money than people can store in their banks (I mean, 400k is kinda low for a legend). When you beat someone in PvP, you get 5% of their cash. That's a lot more than what you get off pack wars. Plus, it'd be obtainable by individual players.

Money would actually be more available, even to weaker players, than it is currently. Since this isn't generating new money, and just spreading it around, it's not a bad thing. Heck, some of the concentrations of cash are fairly absurd, anyway. I mean, BM used to have over $200 million DP before the hack. Heck, at one point I had billions! (Alright, alright, that was one of those DP glitches. It still sounds cool.)

So... pack wars exist to redistribute cash. Except cash would be better redistributed if they didn't exist. Counter-productive much?

-Territory.


TERRITORY IS FUCKING WORTHLESS. KTHXBYE.

Besides, Guestview owns the world, anyway.

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Those are all the main gameplay points I can think of for packs to exist. If you have others, feel free to mention them in the comments. But, from my analysis... there's no point in packs in the first place. It's like, say, going on the forums for a console RPG and forming a 'clan' or whatever. All you really do is talk. It doesn't affect the game at all.

When you realize that packs are pointless, things make a lot more sense. Why is it so hard to get active members? Because they get nothing from being active. Why is it so hard to recruit people these days? Because there's no reason to join a pack, period. Why don't people line up for boss fights all the time? Because they get nothing out of it.

Of course, that brings up the question of 'Why are people still bothering?' I think the answer is fairly obvious - because we have nothing better to do. Nobody wants to level anymore, and there's no other point in the game. Honestly, W-H is more of a forum than anything these days. There's no 'game' in it anymore.

Still, my point remains - packs are actually inherently pointless. Really, they're no better off than, say, the challenge feature - it had no real reason to exist. After all, basic gameplay is two features - the map and the gear. That's it. Nothing else. Analyze W-H like any mainstream console/PC game - the pack feature feels like something tacked on at the last minute just to meet deadline or something, doesn't it?

Wow, that was my longest entry in a long time (and I probably could have gone on a bit more). Opinions?