by Animaaal Fri Apr 26, 2013 11:25 am
Hmmm. resilience....I somewhat disagree.
Here's why:
Since I've had my little rant about Mario Kart, I've beaten a couple tracks I was having trouble with, and even got my wife a couple new cars last night with her mii....relevance?!?! It was simple repetition. I just had to race a couple times (albeit in a calm,concentrated frame of mind) without getting "blue shelled" 5 times in a row or something similar. It was repetition that won the day, not anything I did differently per say.
I'd like to share a short story about a buddy of mine I talked into playing Dark Souls, please bear with me.
I ran a league in DC Universe Online. Not a bad game, but not one of my all time favorites. I spent a lot of time in the game because a lot of my friends played, and I'd come to appreciate the company very much.
A buddy of mine, we'll call him "tweak" was....well tweaky. If you didn't have a mic in DC it was almost impossible to be a productive member of a league, so in turn you'd catch parts of conversations at any given time when logging in.
I noticed right away that tweak was...different. He got made fun of a lot, and dealt with it quite well. He was obviously just glad he was getting attention, any attention. It bothered me a lot how people would "talk" to him. I had a zero tolerance policy towards bullying and player neglect, so I nipped it in the bud immediately.
Any who, over time I came to understand he had a mild case of Asperger's and, imo, touretts. He was actually a guy that would help you with ANYTHING at any given time. He's actually a very compassionate person and a great friend of mine to this day. He just, well he's horrible at communication.
Over time, as a co-leader of my league, I realized how extensive his understanding about the raids, missions, and overall game play of DC really was. No one gave him the time of day in raids. In DC there were certain missions that took a couple hours to complete, even with seasoned players.
It was my job to step back at times and let my officers and raid leaders do a majority of the talking in order to practice their leadership skills. We took our raid efficiency and productivity very seriously. You needed at least 6-7 out of the 8 people in a raid group functioning together to complete the mission, or you were really just wasting time.
I noticed on a frequent basis that tweak would chime in sometimes with a crucial piece of knowledge about the current groups raid dilemma...but no one would listen to him. I found myself turning my mic back on to say, "Ya know tweak brought this up 20 minutes ago if you guys woulda *** listened to him."
So eventually I bored, I enjoyed the company, but I needed my Dark Souls fix again, and started spending less time playing DC.
Tweak became interested, so I suggested he go buy the game and we could skype, or talk on the phone.
So he calls me one day and says, "Fraggle, (my DC character was Fraggle Roc) I got DkS and am at the catacombs, can you help me?" Of course I jumped on with enthusiasm.
So I get summoned after an onslaught of questions, and I'm thinking, God the catacombs...he'll never get through it and I'm gonna have to constantly be saying, "Stay back, kill the necros, etc." Turns out he runs up from the bonfire guns blazing.
I start to explain a couple things and he says, "Ya I know, just keep the skellies of me, the necros are dead." I...was...shocked. Not only did he understand the board, but he'd already been to the boss fog, but went back to explore (like all good questers lol) and got killed by an invader.
He was marvelous. He was playing like me. He was abusing i-frames, showing advanced techniques, and just playing like a champ. I asked him, (we were at apprx soul level 20) "How did you figure out the catacombs??? What exactly have you done so far?" He said, "Well I got killed by the dragon on the bridge and just came here. This board was tough I I'm NOT looking forward to the boss." I just laughed, so did he after we got TwoP, the Darkmoon Ring, and slaughtered Pinwheel.
Point of the story is...he just got it. He told me over and over that night how unique of an experience this was, how it was so much different than any other game he has played, how he had to actually think before acting, how...this game actually takes skill. One thing he said I could relate to was, "Every game I've played is just, use this tactic, kill enemy, do it again...win. I can't thank you enough for recommending this, its unlike any game I've ever played."
I believe will is important to a souls player, but I do not believe it stops there.
There are certain skills and/or characteristics a gamer needs to successfully beat the game and understand the basics of pvp.
I believe it to be a colaboration of characteristics, just not sure which ones.
Thanks for all your responses.