Groggery - what am i missing

[undercovergeek]

I play CMBN, i design CMBN scenarios, i love the game and its details - i read on the BF forum today about people who have pointed out that 1) on the British officers rank insignia the King Edward crown has been used instead of the tudor crown 2) that the range of XXX gun isnt simulated correctly 3) the cap badge is in the wrong place 4) the wooden stock on the sten is the wrong colour 5) SS company XXX had XXX on their uniforms and not XXX........... and the list goes on and on and on

Are these people enjoying the game more than me or not enjoying the game as much as i am?

I like to think i know how to send a recon squad forward in the game, how to use cover and advance the rest of the squad and move up armour whilst using mortars to supress any errant foes along the way - did i notice that that the rank insignia was wrong, the tube diameter on the mortar wasnt right? No........ but i cant help feeling inferior to these people, the vast amounts of knowledge that they bring to a game, but does it stop them enjoying it?

I walked out of the cinema 1-2 years ago after watching Avatar, i ate my pop corn, i drank my fizzy drink and disappeared into the world of wherever the hell it was for 4 hours and enjoyed the film - the credits roll, i come back to reality and drive home, the films work has been done - i have dropped off the earth and into the film for 240 minutes and left the world of work, daughter starting school, income tax and politics for that time - but then i later read on forums that there is no way XXX could of happened, in a true American indian society this wouldnt have happened, the gun on the XXX couldnt have done that, why did XXX shoot XXX when he could have just XXX and flown off in the XXX - its happened again!!! my enjoyment of the film is being ruined by thinking im not taking enough notice, im not participating enough in the intellect of things, am i stupid, am i surrounded by geniuses - who are these people? should i aspire to groggery? is my lack of groggery actually apathy or am i just 'normal' and theyre a bit, you know.......weird?

[LongBlade]

You know what I think?

*Everyone* is a grog.

At least in some respect.

A few years ago I was doing some research on the Grand Theft Auto games and ran across a forum that could have been run by a bunch of grogs. They were discussing the minutia of hookers, cars, and beer with the same gusto that those Battlefront guys discuss the proper insignia of a military unit.

Somewhere in our lives almost everyone is a specialist in something and can point out inconsistencies in TV shows about procedure or human behavior.

-------

My descent into groggery has been slow and perhaps reluctant, but it has been equally inevitable.

Several years ago I was at E3 with some folks and we were looking at a game that was being worked on for Codemasters (IIRC). One of the guys there quipped, "That's a Panzer IV H." At the time I was aware of the myriad of German tanks produced during WWII, but I was not able to identify them by type on sight.

Today? Still a fan of WWII tanks, I'm much better at identifying those things, though it's likely I'll have trouble with all the early and mid-war tanks like the Pz III and its several production models.

Why?

Well, I do this recreationally rather than professionally. For better or worse, when I read or watch shows on WWII history I do so more for the enjoyment and experience of the historical give and take of both details and big picture events. I always learn something new, even if I'm watching a rerun.

My ability to remember, however, is haphazard as I'm not committing this stuff to memory for a graduate level test later.

But inevitably some of it sticks, and the more I watch it the more of it hangs around.

I still cannot tell you exactly how many rivets are on a T-34, but I have met at least one guy who could. I've got a pretty good chance of being able to tell you (correctly) exactly how thick the frontal armor of a Panther or Sherman tank had. I can also tell you that the Panther's engine was the same as that in the Tiger II, and more importantly, why.

I have also (just as of yesterday) re-learned the difference between the Porsche and Henkel turrets in the Tiger II and why. (Though there is a 35% probability I'll forget it in the near future).

In short, we all do it in our lives. It's just some of us apply that in areas like wargaming, while others don't.

And if you hang around us long enough, you'll probably surprise yourself some day by noticing those things, too.

If not, well, it's just that your ability to suspend disbelief through a movie is still better than ours. ;)

[Nefaro]

Meh.

Hanging out on the BF forum too long will make you crazy.  As evidenced.  I don't recommend it.  :P

[undercovergeek]

lol - thankyou both for your replies - the flip side of groggery and non-groggery but both apt!

LB its not so much the knowing how thick the armour is but if it were wrong in a game would you bring it up or even notice it?

And there in lies the question, im just pointing the little guys around the field and telling them where to shoot because i like WW2, i like WW2 tactical 'simulators'. Are the people that do find out the armour is wrong 'professional whingers' - did they just buy a historically accurate game to tear it down, looking at every detail so they can post theyre superior knowledge banks on the net - or are they simply uber-gamers who take it all in and when watching close up replays go ........hang on i think thats the wrong crown on that captains rank insignia? whilst still managing to do things better than me in the game!?

[mikeck]

Of course, some people just like to show how smart they think they are. By complaining that the uniforms on the soldiers in 1809 were not actually issued to that unit until 1810, they are showing you how much they know- and by default- how much you dont.

[LongBlade]

Of course, some people just like to show how smart they think they are. By complaining that the uniforms on the soldiers in 1809 were not actually issued to that unit until 1810, they are showing you how much they know- and by default- how much you dont.

That's a good point.

I suppose it's a form of bullying that some folks can get away with.

Mind you, some of these guys are probably genuinely motivated to make the game better.

But as Mike points out, some are really just interested in letting the developers know that they aren't as "expert" as some of the folks who play the game.

IMHO, that's just poor manners, but there ya go. There's certainly worse to find on the interwebs.

[Gusington]

Too much groggery can be a total buzzkill.

This sort of thing happens with Total War games all the time. I am an historian but I am a gamer too. Whether or not an early Japanese ironclad gunboat had one or two propellers does not make or break a game for me.

Actually being able to use the gunboat in game...now that whets my whistle. And I hate intellectual bullies.

[LongBlade]

LB its not so much the knowing how thick the armour is but if it were wrong in a game would you bring it up or even notice it?

Literally speaking, probably not.

But via experience, yes.

Let me give you an example.

The Battle Academy series by Slitherine.

These are great games. Lots of fun.

But they aren't wargames. They're games with a war facade, similar in many respects to Call of Duty and Battlefield.

Why do I say that? Because I've chatted with the devs and know how they made the games.

Tanks shoot two or three times. Why? Not because that is the historical rate of fire, but simply because the devs made an arbitrary decision that "it felt right."

Further, Sherman tanks in the game, with the standard (and quite sucky) 75mm gun can stand up to Tiger tanks. Hey, that's good fun there, but hardly close to historically accurate.

Do I need to know the exact penetration probabilities in real life? Or how they're modeled in the game? No. I know from a lifetime of reading and gaming that one-on-one a Sherman had better get the heck out of Dodge if it runs into a Tiger.

The fact that the game doesn't even come close to getting some of this stuff right is where it breaks down for me. I have no interest in gratuitously busting a dev's balls. But when a game has a World War II veneer and fails to deliver a moderately historical experience, I do take umbrage. And I think justifiably so.

That isn't to say that those types of games aren't fun. They are. I am far less interested in whether the First Infantry Division or the Sixth did XYZ than I am in basic historical fact.

So it wouldn't be exactly accurate to say I'm a "grog" so much as someone who just wants a minimal level of historical accuracy in his WWII games. There's always a line between realism and fun. No game will ever be 100% real - that's called "real life." But I do expect certain, minimal standards in my historical games and I am disappointed when they appear to have the promise of realism, but fail to deliver.

[undercovergeek]

LB its not so much the knowing how thick the armour is but if it were wrong in a game would you bring it up or even notice it?

Literally speaking, probably not.

But via experience, yes.

Let me give you an example.

The Battle Academy series by Slitherine.

These are great games. Lots of fun.

But they aren't wargames. They're games with a war facade, similar in many respects to Call of Duty and Battlefield.

Why do I say that? Because I've chatted with the devs and know how they made the games.

Tanks shoot two or three times. Why? Not because that is the historical rate of fire, but simply because the devs made an arbitrary decision that "it felt right."

Further, Sherman tanks in the game, with the standard (and quite sucky) 75mm gun can stand up to Tiger tanks. Hey, that's good fun there, but hardly close to historically accurate.

Do I need to know the exact penetration probabilities in real life? Or how they're modeled in the game? No. I know from a lifetime of reading and gaming that one-on-one a Sherman had better get the heck out of Dodge if it runs into a Tiger.

The fact that the game doesn't even come close to getting some of this stuff right is where it breaks down for me. I have no interest in gratuitously busting a dev's balls. But when a game has a World War II veneer and fails to deliver a moderately historical experience, I do take umbrage. And I think justifiably so.

That isn't to say that those types of games aren't fun. They are. I am far less interested in whether the First Infantry Division or the Sixth did XYZ than I am in basic historical fact.

So it wouldn't be exactly accurate to say I'm a "grog" so much as someone who just wants a minimal level of historical accuracy in his WWII games. There's always a line between realism and fun. No game will ever be 100% real - that's called "real life." But I do expect certain, minimal standards in my historical games and I am disappointed when they appear to have the promise of realism, but fail to deliver.

ahh there may be a little bit of grog in me after all.............. there was a similar killer for me in CoH. The tanks that would drive right up to each other and fire at each other from point blank range - it felt terrible and i only played infantry maps from there on in

[LongBlade]

ahh there may be a little bit of grog in me after all.............. there was a similar killer for me in CoH. The tanks that would drive right up to each other and fire at each other from point blank range - it felt terrible and i only played infantry maps from there on in

Yeah, I think it's in all of us. We just have different lines to be crossed.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I'm a recovering grog.  I think LB pretty much nailed it in his explaination above.

For me, military history has been a passion since junior high school and, being a slightly OCD type (I think it's a requirement for wargamers), I got right into the minutae and technical details.  I started with WWII tanks and aircraft and kind of expanded my knowledge base from there.  The grogginess kicked in when I'd play a wargame and run into something that was demonstrably incorrect.  It would bug me because I'd infer laziness or slipshod workmanship on the part of the game designer.  Damn it, I took the time to educate myself on thesubject matter, so why hadn't they shown the same devotion to the subject matter!? 

Playability be damned, we're on a mission to mirror reality as closely as possible!  As the group I played games with were mostly of the same mindset, we'd often derive more pleasure from bitching about the errors than I would from playing the game and it sort of became a competition to find the inconsistencies in any given game or scenario.

Couple of things started to slowly change my way of thinking.  When I left high school and went to university, I hooked up with a gaming group there who were much more into RPgs and casual board games like Advanced Civilization, Talisman, and Cosmic Encounters, than Advanced Squad Leader and they were a lot less receptive to the "bitch about inaccuracies" than my previous group.  To them, I was pretty much a Sheldon-type from Big Bang Theory and they started to avoid me.  Naturally, I was oblivious to how irritating I was being and chalked it up to their lesser understanding of the subject matter and redoubled my efforts to make them see why the game in question was unplayable due to some minor error in and OOB or TO&E.  Surprisingly, I never could win them around to my way of thinking...

I was dating a girl who was a music major and played classical piano.  She'd get pissed off at me whenever I would start bitching about errors in equipment or uniforms that would appear in whatever movie or TV show we were watching and couldn't understand why it bugged me so much.  Then, I went out with a group of her friends from the music department to see a movie about a pianist (can't remember the title).  I thought it was pretty good, but they all started pissing and moaning about what a horrible, ham-fisted job the actor had done at actually playing the piano.  They went on for a good hour, ripping the guy a new one and laughing themselves silly over it and that was the "A-ha!" moment for me.  Like LB said, everyone's an expert in something, they take their passions seriously, and they get upset if people get the details wrong.

(I also learned that girlfriends do NOT like it when you point out their double standards.  The pianist turned into a psychotic bitch over that one.... then again... all my exes seem to have turned into psychotic bitches at some point in the relationship...could it be that I'm attracted to psychotic bitches?  I mean, the only traits my exes all shared is that they turned into psychotic bitches at some point in the relationship....that and they all had vaginas......hmmmmmm).

The other thing that kind of got me to reassess my grogginess was when PC wargaming made the leap from turn-based, hexagon type wargames into real time.  I recall the old timers from my old high school wargaming group bemoaning the death of the wargame and how these click-fests would destroy the industry.  Any real wargamer knew that the only way to wargame was with hexes and chits or with miniatures.  Anything else was an unsult and aimed straight at the short-attention-span kiddies.   I confess to baing partially in this camp at first as I hated the mainstream RTS games like Warcraft and Command and Conquer, but I loved Harpoon, Myth, and Close Combat.  When I pointed out that the whole concept of hex based movement on a 2d map was merely a concession made by the original wargame developers to make it easier on the gamers to quantify movement in a way that made the game playable and had no real basis in reality, my journey to recovery from overt groginess was complete.

I still like my wargames to try and mimic history, but I'm not going to get all out of joint if they generalize or make certain concessions towards playability and/or play balance.

[LongBlade]

Nice.

Confessions of an SDR.

That has a good ring to it :)

[Bison]

They are games.  Even the most "grog" games have abstract aspects to them.  War in the East.  The logistics is as abstract as it comes, but it's still the eastern front "grog" game.  Sure in Battle Academy you get a set number of shots per turn.  Who cares?  Sure in CMBN, the damned Germans have an uncanny ablity to shoot through two rows of bocage and kill my pixel warriors at 300 meters.  I don't care.  Sure The Magical Pussy can cast a electric shock spell standing in water and not get electricuted, because in Skyrim the electrical conductivity of water is ignored.  But TMP also gets to hit on all the Nordic babes too.  It's all about give an take for me.  I'll willingly sacrifice "reality" for "playability" any day of the week...what the hell was the topic again?

[Gusington]

Someone say Magical Pussy?

[undercovergeek]

lmao - thanks sdr, thanks bison and everyone else - man, what a cool place to come and just... you know.... hang