Zira said:
Both slot machines and mmorpg just require you do repeat a single, simple action over and over and over until you obtain a reward. The idea that you're moving towards a reward without stressing your mind or body is what makes slot machines compelling.
See, I was hoping you'd attempt to do this without reverting to reductionism. When you play a slot machine, you pull a lever, and hope for three symbols to match up. When you play an MMO, you are navigating a multitude of different systems. You're exploring, you're engaging in combat, you're analyzing gear setups and ability layouts, you're interacting with other human beings and occasionally managing social dynamics, etc, etc, etc, etc. Even reducing the most common activity...combat...to "I pull the lever" is reductionist, because even the simplest combat in an MMO is significantly more detailed than that, and the more complex ones actually involve no small amount of strategizing...either before or during combat...and more recent ones add in a lot of situational awareness and movement as well.
They're not remotely comparable to slot machines. Where that comparison was once valid was the comparison of EQ's loot/skill-up payoffs to the randomness of the slot machine pull, since they occurred at random intervals and the numbers were all "under the hood", so to speak. This is no longer the case with modern MMOs, or at least not anywhere near to the same extent.
Zira said:
I daresay that yes, there is indeed zero brain activity required
If there was zero brain activity you would be dead. As one of my original criticisms of your position was that it was hyperbolic, you might consider revising this.
Zira said:
Click the enemy to attack. Click the other button to cast a spell. Click button 1 again. Now button 2. You just keep clicking the buttons, without any real risk of losing (getting killed is very unlikely in most mmorpg, and if you do die, you don't really lose any progress).
This is most certainly untrue of a great many MMOs. While some have involved very simple/easy combat wherein success is almost a mathematical certainty in some encounters, the vast majority involve scaling difficulty and there is most definitely a risk of dying/losing progress. And the original "Skinner Box" comparable, Everquest, was blindingly difficult and dying could lose you a week of progress. I often castigate modern MMOs for their relative lack of difficulty compared to older offerings, and I'm an above-average player (though by no means pro), and even I die from time to time. I died 6 times the other day in an hour. Mind you, that game is still in beta and needs tuning.
Zira said:
That's news to me. I've seen many a player have borderline nervous breakdowns over MMO stress. If not achiever stress, then social stress.
Zira said:
Also news to me. The skill cap on these games may not be DOTA/SC high, but it's most certainly higher than most players can achieve.
Zira said:
...because the brain never gets tired since it doesn't need to focus on dodging...
Buh? Even the now antiquated WoW involves copious dodging and situational awareness, and newer games have ACTUAL DODGE MECHANICS.
Zira said:
The reason they can be accomplished by bots is precisely because you just need to keep pressing a few buttons. No other videogame can be accomplished by a bot like that.
Some very basic functions can be replicated by bots. The vast majority of the experience is often never "accomplished" by the players, let alone bots, as they are games that are often functionally without an end state.
Zira said:
Keep in mind, yes, all videogames just require you to keep pressing a few buttons.
Yes, they do. Which is why I keep reminding you that attempting to describe the ENTIRE EXPERIENCE in those terms is reductionist. To an absurd degree, really. MMOs are actually amongst the most mechanically complex games on the market.