Been thinking about few things lately and trying to connect the puzzles that world is putting in front of us. Recently, I started looking in completely new direction.
Short intro on Blizzard, will not go into details because it would take me a month to write everything in details. And this is not finance blog. So I will skip a lot of parts and give you only this chart, so if you are into finance it might be interesting to start digging.
SHORT INTRO ON BLIZZARD
Short intro on Blizzard, will not go into details because it would take me a month to write everything in details. And this is not finance blog. So I will skip a lot of parts and give you only this chart, so if you are into finance it might be interesting to start digging.
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| ATVI on NASDAQ |
Blizzard started as a small company, working as a support for other game developers. Then in 1993. shortly after Mosaic web browser went onto World Wide Web, company started developing their own software. In 1994, they start making their own games.
These games made huge success but the biggest success was made when they sold 4.5 million copies of Warcraft 3 in a single month in 2002. when game was released.
Now imagine 4.5 million of users going into the same pool. How do we determine who is good, who is bad? How do we make games fair, how do we hook people on battle.net? How we make them stay there for years? All these questions are pretty hard to figure out and Blizzard have been trying to make a perfect system for years.
In start when such a huge number of players went into servers they created algorithm that would match players based on their levels. This makes sense, since when everyone joins on battle.net ladder everyone is level 1. Everyone has a peon face and getting that icon is the first level of status for every player.
Once players got their icons they wanted levels to go along with them. This is where battle/net starts to meet its first obstacles.
To hook players and give them motivation and satisfaction, they created Automated Matchmaking system called AMM which would match players based on their levels. To be precise, if you were level 1, just joined battle.net you could match an opponents who are in range of level 1 to level 7. This makes sense again because now everyone wants to be high level because being high level means that you are not a newcomer (newb;noob) anymore. Since everyone got their icons eventually, level became status.
Eventually level ceased to be status even tho AMM remained the same. This lead to loss of motivation for less good players who met their level cap. This means that they were unable to level up because they weren't the best and along with that they would meet smurfers (players who realized that level ceased to be status and that skill replaces it).
Realizing this, Blizzard tries out new AMM. Reasons and demands for this were numerous. Good players didn't want to play against noobs, noobs wanted to play against noobs and the best players needed a system in which they would match eachother to determine who is the best. Now you stopped meeting players based on your level. Now, the AMM was created to match players based on their perceived skill a level of performance against the playing field .
And this is the time when Warcraft 3 becomes very popular. Everyone realizes that it takes huge amount of work, intelligence, will power to become good in Warcraft 3. I've never met a below average person who was able to be good in Warcraft 3, something I can't say for Counter Strike players.
New AMM system paired players of same skill and was able to deliver everything. Great games, fair games and fun games. Noobs playing against noobs, pros playing against pros. On the top of that, everyone was able to say whats his level, based on opponents they were meeting. If you were the best, system was fair enough to pair you against second best.
Now you might be asking yourself - how the hell is possible that such great system from which everyone benefits, gets so fucked up?
These games made huge success but the biggest success was made when they sold 4.5 million copies of Warcraft 3 in a single month in 2002. when game was released.
PROBLEMS START WITH MILLIONS
Now imagine 4.5 million of users going into the same pool. How do we determine who is good, who is bad? How do we make games fair, how do we hook people on battle.net? How we make them stay there for years? All these questions are pretty hard to figure out and Blizzard have been trying to make a perfect system for years.
In start when such a huge number of players went into servers they created algorithm that would match players based on their levels. This makes sense, since when everyone joins on battle.net ladder everyone is level 1. Everyone has a peon face and getting that icon is the first level of status for every player.
Once players got their icons they wanted levels to go along with them. This is where battle/net starts to meet its first obstacles.
FIRST STEPS
To hook players and give them motivation and satisfaction, they created Automated Matchmaking system called AMM which would match players based on their levels. To be precise, if you were level 1, just joined battle.net you could match an opponents who are in range of level 1 to level 7. This makes sense again because now everyone wants to be high level because being high level means that you are not a newcomer (newb;noob) anymore. Since everyone got their icons eventually, level became status.
Eventually level ceased to be status even tho AMM remained the same. This lead to loss of motivation for less good players who met their level cap. This means that they were unable to level up because they weren't the best and along with that they would meet smurfers (players who realized that level ceased to be status and that skill replaces it).
THE PERFECT SYSTEM
Realizing this, Blizzard tries out new AMM. Reasons and demands for this were numerous. Good players didn't want to play against noobs, noobs wanted to play against noobs and the best players needed a system in which they would match eachother to determine who is the best. Now you stopped meeting players based on your level. Now, the AMM was created to match players based on their perceived skill a level of performance against the playing field .
And this is the time when Warcraft 3 becomes very popular. Everyone realizes that it takes huge amount of work, intelligence, will power to become good in Warcraft 3. I've never met a below average person who was able to be good in Warcraft 3, something I can't say for Counter Strike players.
New AMM system paired players of same skill and was able to deliver everything. Great games, fair games and fun games. Noobs playing against noobs, pros playing against pros. On the top of that, everyone was able to say whats his level, based on opponents they were meeting. If you were the best, system was fair enough to pair you against second best.
EGO
Now you might be asking yourself - how the hell is possible that such great system from which everyone benefits, gets so fucked up?
People. Words. Three words. Fear, envy and hate. I will try to explain.
Imagine yourself being second best player. You log on battle.net you search for the game and you get paired against the best player. You lose. Tomorrow you lose again. Day after that, you lose again.
Now you have three options :
1. Admit
2. Quit
3. Admit by quit but stay in the business.
THE ERA OF ABUSERS AND HACKERS
Will focus on abusing here because everyone knows that hacking is like playing chess then stealing your opponents pieces once he goes to toilet. Hacking is the worst way to express feelings against the system. Hackers are the worst, the worst kind of humankind. And the weakest. While reading the upcoming lines try to imagine the combo of a hacker and abuser.
Most of the people who lack qualities that are needed to become the best, and here I am not talking good enough, I am talking about THE BEST, will not admit will not quit but will try to stay in the business. Instead of playing on their main accounts they will try to find ways to revive their statuses or to create new ones. Instead of playing against the best they will pray on weaker ones. And here starts the era of abusing and hacking.
Heard about bullies in schools? Bullies in workplaces? Child molesters? Wacraft 3 abusers? Well they all have one thing in common. They feel this combo feeling of fear, envy and hate. Fear towards those who are stronger than them, envy at those who accept their position in system and are gradually gaining levels and hate against the system which they blame for the position they were "given". They will whine and bitch over it for some time but eventually they will start abusing the areas in which they can feel what they think they are supposed to feel.
CONSEQUENCES
In Warcraft 3 battle.net, the perfect AMM system that Blizzard introduced in 2004-2005 eventually created a wave of players who couldn't find ways to become better, so they started praying on those who were weaker than them. They started creating new accounts often intentionally losing first 5-10 games so the system thats pairing them gets false impression of their skill. Basically, they would start to play once their accounts reached bottom of ELO, relative matchmaking rank. They would be paired against opponents who they weren't supposed to be paired with. Once they were paired with the elite they would be hidden behind new account name, on another smurf where losing is okay.
It remained like this for years. If you were the best you were playing against the worst kind which was often equipped with a cheat, anonymity, free of pressure, free of showing their face and dealing with defeat. Truth is, these scum cannot deal with failure, the biggest legacy that their baby boomer parents gave them.
The best can suffer. We see this through history. The best will suffer and accept his suffer so he can ascend to higher levels. The best leads. The best is Aries and he also sacrifices himself but only because he is the best. Majority, however, is not.
Once second best started making those 0/10 accounts, hacking an so on the vast majority of players who were in ranges of middle skill level suffered the most. Fairness and everything that Blizzards AMM from 2004-2005 was giving to battle.net was gone and suddenly noone wanted to play because deep inside everyone felt cheated.
BOTTOM LINE
You have to understand this. In a game where single player plays against another single player the better player will be the winner. In team games it is different. More people win and more people share the loss. Dota, Counter Strike and such team based games that are advocating teamwork are more people friendly. In a one player games the best cannot relate to vast majority nor vast majority can relate to him. The best is like an alien. Once ordinaries are sick of praising the best, they will turn against him. This concept was applied on Warcraft 3 and this is the reason why Warcraft 3 never became number 1 esports game.
NEW AMM
I truly like new AMM that Blizzard introduced recently. I like it in this time context. It is not the best possible but it is what game needs so everyone can start playing again. It also kills the motivation to smurf and to hack for the scum we mentioned earlier.
Nuff for today. But I'm not done with this subject.
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