Science and Runescape
Entry posted by Tyggna
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I want to talk about the difference between science and experience for a bit, and how it applies to something like Runescape.
Experience is universally applied--no matter what situation you're in. Experience comes simply from doing something. For example, I am experienced with using a computer in a variety of different ways. Consequently, I tend to navigate through file systems and the web much faster than people who aren't as comfortable with it. Experience is easy to get--at stays with you through you lifetime.
Science isn't the same thing--but the two are related. Science is factual. The main difference between science and experience is that science is transferable. Science is communal in nature. Science has a few different stages to it: Hypothesis, Experiment, Data, and Theory. Theory is the best way to communicate, because it is easy to remember and yields a lot of information. When you can put it into an equation format, and your equation yields results effectively identical to what is observed, the theory is sound and can be used. In "doing" science, you gain experience, and experience improves the quality of the science.
In Runescape, there is a lot of experience. You're even given a score for it (XP). The problem with experience is that it is non-transferable, and anything you gained with it will stay with your character, and will be lost when you stop playing. Consequently, there is almost no complete science in Runescape. Tip.it has some of it in their beastary. Beastary is a gem of knowledge in Runescape--and really only lacks estimates for drop probabilities (which would require an immense amount of science and investment). Players with experience can make better hypothesis than those without--and usually can provide invaluable input into experimental design.
What we lack in Runescape is experiment, data and theory. No body seems interested in simply writing down how much they hit for, on average--or how much they gain per hour. This is strange to me, since every other MMO I've played has not been lacking in experiment, data, or theory. Every other MMO has begun providing a Damage-per-second statistic in your character sheet--something that evolved entirely out of game theory. Anyone who plays knows that there are many more important things involved in combat than Damage Per Second--but it's become the holy grail of combat metrics and capability because it is useful. Nobody could tell me what the average DPS of a combat level 100 with an abyssal whip is, because no one has bothered to record their data.
What we lose in not doing science on an MMO is a clear path for improvement. Experience knows only what is, but usually has very little insight into what could be. Data and theory can give us some hint of that. Knowing that the highest DPS available in Runescape is 15 damage per second would give us a clear understanding what going from 8.3 DPS to 8.7 DPS means. This would make our knowledge of the game transferable, and would make Runescape more fun to play for everyone.
Lastly, it'd give the developers a good idea of what values could be tweaked to make the game more exciting. If we knew what effects disease had on our DPS, or the average difference between earth and fire spells when fighting metal dragons, then we could give a clear indicator for an "upgraded" form of a monster for Jagex to develop. Making our observations known would enable Jagex to clearly know what kinds of spells we want, and what kinds of enemies and items would make the game more interesting.
So, like I said, Science is communal, and everyone benefits from it.
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