This isn't solely related to gaming but it's probably easier to discuss gaming just because gaming is probably less prestigious compared to other stuff. No one might really care for the opinion of the 17th best NBA player in the world but at least that guy makes a ton of money and is likely a winner in life so it's pretty hard to argue against such credentials in general. From what I've seen on the Internet when you've an argument you'd almost invariably get into people saying they were once the #28 ranked player in the world for WoW or LoL or whatever. The thing is, does anyone really respect these credentials? I know there's a guy named Daigo in Street Fighter and maybe he's the #1 player in Japan so I sort of follow what he's doing, but I sure don't care what the #4 or even the #2 player in Japan is doing. Now I don't mean not being #1 means you're wrong, but if you want an argument like 'because I was this good at this game' I'd only buy that if you were the #1. Otherwise you will have to put an argument that sounds convincing, and no I'm not particularly concerned that guy can likely easily beat me in whatever game we're talking about because if I cared about that I'd just ask what the #1 guy has to think about the game instead, because he obviously can also beat the #4 guy reliably too or he wouldn't be the #1. I'm not saying that the placement necessarily indicates knowledge, but if I'm supposed to buy the fact that you're right just because you're number something other than 1, I'd go with what the #1 guy thinks instead.
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If you're not #1, does gaming credential even matter?
- Because playing them is not enough, we have to bitch about them daily, too. We had a Gameplay forum, but it got replaced by GameFAQs.
It's always best to know who's gonna overthrow the king....if you're into these kinds of things. If you're just a casual fan, it don't matter
I was there on that fateful day, were you?
I seriously doubt the #10 guy is going to overthrow the king since gaming competition actually looks a lot like professional sports where the top 5 guys/teams are generally much, much stronger than anyone after them. I don't think anyone cares about the #8 seed in pro sports anything unless it's your team or your team happens to be playing them, for example, and even if your team totally sucks, it's not like you'll be impressed by another team's credential as the #8 seed and jump ship to become that team's fan instead.
In fact, I wonder if it's because any ranking outside of top 5 is so meaningless which is why people feel the need to flaunt it because they got no hope of ever moving up. I remember my guild was ranked #9 or so in the world in EQ1 and I know we were usually months if not half an year behind the #1 and don't have a realistic shot at moving up to top 5 unless we somehow were able to trade all our 'stand in fire' guys for legitmate pro raiders.
In fact, I wonder if it's because any ranking outside of top 5 is so meaningless which is why people feel the need to flaunt it because they got no hope of ever moving up. I remember my guild was ranked #9 or so in the world in EQ1 and I know we were usually months if not half an year behind the #1 and don't have a realistic shot at moving up to top 5 unless we somehow were able to trade all our 'stand in fire' guys for legitmate pro raiders.
I'm #12 on the Assault Heroes 360 hard singleplayer leaderboard. :> It mattered to me. It was nice to know I was in the top rank of anything out of several hundred thousand people. It was a validation of competence and skill, and my ability to be in the top 0.04% of people at something I enjoyed and put my mind to as recreation. (I did check and at least 250,000+ people own and play that game.)
I was #10 when I set the score and was a frontpage highscorer for almost two or three years as a result.
It's a nice feeling. That's all any accomplishment is.
I was #10 when I set the score and was a frontpage highscorer for almost two or three years as a result.
It's a nice feeling. That's all any accomplishment is.
“I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong." --Frederick Douglass
I was also #220 or so on the Christie leaderboard for Tekken 6, and that is probably more like the kind of feeling you're talking about. I didn't give myself as many props on that.
I clearly wasn't going to be winning many tournaments, as it was JUST for her, and I wasn't anywhere near that on the toplevel boards as Christie/Eddy are still not toptier characters and may never be. (A good Jin, Lars, Heihachi, etc., will always trash Christie in really toplevel matches, I found - they can hit you once off your feet and get a 10-12 hit combo for 90-115% damage, which the capoeiristas just can't.)
I clearly wasn't going to be winning many tournaments, as it was JUST for her, and I wasn't anywhere near that on the toplevel boards as Christie/Eddy are still not toptier characters and may never be. (A good Jin, Lars, Heihachi, etc., will always trash Christie in really toplevel matches, I found - they can hit you once off your feet and get a 10-12 hit combo for 90-115% damage, which the capoeiristas just can't.)
“I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong." --Frederick DouglassI've no problem with people feel good about individual accomplishment but here's what invariably happens, like say in some hypothetical game I am ranked #175 and you are #23 so we got into an argument and usually the guy ranked higher will be "see I'm ranked #23 so you're wrong!", except then the guy ranked #15 might jump in and say he agrees with me, and then the guy who is #1 probably is wondering why are these noobs arguing about these stupid things when he can beat all of us with both hands tied behind his back. Of course invariably the guy with the higher rank is probably going to say like 'well these guys are ranked higher don't agree but they don't really know the game', except of course I can say exactly the same thing to my lack of ranking and it's still never getting anywhere. If one subscribes to a 'the winner is always right', in a very large amont of competitive games the top guy is generally unfathomably stronger than the rest so we literally have no reason to argue about anything because we only have to ask what does the #1 guy think about this topic. Of course nobody really does that, but if you're not going to respect the credential of the #1 who is unbelievably stronger than anyone else, why should anyone respect any credentials to begin with?
You think about things too much in terms of power. Both of the games I ranked on had no chat functionality to speak of...so there was never any hate.
I can see it happening with games like Call of Duty and League of Legends...but I'm staying away more often from games where the playerbase is full of hateful, nasty, immature people anyway.
It IS possible to respect the people you're competing against, you know. I never hated on anyone who still outranked me at AR or Tekken. I considered them people to learn from.
I can see it happening with games like Call of Duty and League of Legends...but I'm staying away more often from games where the playerbase is full of hateful, nasty, immature people anyway.
It IS possible to respect the people you're competing against, you know. I never hated on anyone who still outranked me at AR or Tekken. I considered them people to learn from.
“I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong." --Frederick DouglassI think it's probably easier to have respect in action oriented games because that can be thought of as a physical skill that you do not have so you can learn/refine/whatever. And if someone is a jerk but is just that much better than you, well, there's not much you can say. Michael Jordan, after all, was a jerk in real life too.
Pure strategy based game seems to have more of this breakdown. A lot of the time you know the guy who accomplished more just loaded a lot more times than you ever did on a given map but if you called their bluff you just made an enemy for life. It's pretty clear a lot of pure strategy games people make videos that are equivalent of TAS, only instead of using a tool they probably just stand in front of webcam and say the exact same things 100 times until you happen to get the 1% of the time where you can win, and it seems like a lot of people actually think that was their skill that got them there. I remember playing Candy Crush Saga and I'm pretty sure that game's intended so that skill barely matters and you just got to keep on replay the game until you get lucky enough to win, and I wonder if most people just aren't even good enough to see that they were only lucky as opposed to good, and that's not necessarily saying they're bad because a lot of P2W games are designed that only luck (or money) matters so if you're consistently lucky that's good enough.
Pure strategy based game seems to have more of this breakdown. A lot of the time you know the guy who accomplished more just loaded a lot more times than you ever did on a given map but if you called their bluff you just made an enemy for life. It's pretty clear a lot of pure strategy games people make videos that are equivalent of TAS, only instead of using a tool they probably just stand in front of webcam and say the exact same things 100 times until you happen to get the 1% of the time where you can win, and it seems like a lot of people actually think that was their skill that got them there. I remember playing Candy Crush Saga and I'm pretty sure that game's intended so that skill barely matters and you just got to keep on replay the game until you get lucky enough to win, and I wonder if most people just aren't even good enough to see that they were only lucky as opposed to good, and that's not necessarily saying they're bad because a lot of P2W games are designed that only luck (or money) matters so if you're consistently lucky that's good enough.