Category Archives: Geek stuff

I often point out places where I see the need for more skepticism or critical thinking. I’ve been noticing that a game-related forum where I like to hang out is an example of the opposite: a place where skeptical inquiry is the norm. What’s about to ensue is a seriously geeky post. If you’re not a skeptic interested in the minutiae of game mechanic discussion, I will understand if you back away slowly and return to where the normal people are. (And hey, if you ever do have a suggestion for a post on a subject you’d like to read about, feel free to email me: joey {curly A} newly-nerfed {period} net.)

Kingdom of Loathing (KoL) is a browser-based role-playing game known for minimal yet evocative graphics (such as the famous “sword and martini guy” logo above), versatile humor with a range that rivals MST3K, and old-school text adventure puzzles. Free to play, it’s become a cult hit with gameplay that is easy to learn, yet offers a depth of experience and a myriad of playstyles that appeal to both casual and hardcore players alike.

The Gameplay-Discussion (GD) section of the forums is where information is gathered and propagated about every aspect of the game, from how two pieces of equipment work together to the best way to speed up your progression. And it is populated by skeptics. Someone who cites a statistic is quickly met with people asking for the source of that statistic. There are several generally acceptable sources. One is the wiki, which is a rich source of data that has been carefully “spaded” (the term for information-gathering) by players, but is known to be occasionally outdated or incorrect. The makers of the game do a twice-weekly Internet radio show/podcast where they take questions from players, and serious responses are accepted as a source. However: things aren’t always answered clearly or seriously, so then it’s just a matter of speculation. And when people get too confident in their speculation, there is always someone to offer a perfectly good competing theory. There isn’t a lot of tolerance for rumor that masquerades as fact. Finally, there are a few long-time players and active forum members whose knowledge of the game is often called upon.

When a new item is about to be released, there is typically a speculation thread that is marked as such. This distinguishes it from the official thread about the item and makes it easy to tell where the spading is and what’s just rumor. Also, the “correlation equals causation” fallacy gets shot down a lot. For example, someone will wonder if using a particular weapon (minus any evident beneficial stats or effects) will cause a desired item to drop more frequently, because that’s been his experience. Other players will quickly jump in with completely different experiences, and some players who are known to the community to be more experienced or knowledgeable on this subject will assure the original questioner that it’s just “RNG screw” (a reference to the random number generator, something that is personified in a – mostly – joking way among players).

There’s a Casino in KoL, where the Money-Making Game, or MMG, can be found. It works on this principle: you make or take a bet of a certain amount of Meat – that being the currency of the game – and you have a 50% chance of winning. If you win, the house takes a very small percentage. The KoL wiki entry first describes the game in neutral terms, including smaller details of its mechanics, and then there is the heading “Strategy.” The first entry goes, brilliantly, like this:

No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter how loud you scream at Jick and get your account disabled, the ratio of wins/losses is always 50/50, and so is the amount of Meat you make, so effectively you should always break even. Added to that, the small percentage of Meat given to the House makes you actually break less than even, making it impossible to go anywhere but backwards. There are a few strategies used to attempt to circumvent the break-less-than-even principle. Which don’t work.

Woe betide the noob who busts onto the forum with a new idea for how to win at the game. They will be pummeled (sometimes gently, sometimes not) with advice that more or less matches the above. For the record, my lifetime total at the MMG is +104,479 Meat. That’s peanuts in terms of the amount, because my “betting strategy” is this: take mostly lowball bets, and when I lose more than twice in a row, quit. I’ve seen people on the forums casually mention losing millions and millions of Meat on one bet; this is not my game. But I do enjoy reading about it, because someone always thinks he has a solution, and someone else is always ready to debunk it.

As in the skeptical community, questions from newcomers are readily met by people eager to share their knowledge and experience. (Plus or minus the standard deviation of politeness found in any given game-related forum.) And as in the skeptical community, if you’re going to challenge accepted knowledge, you better make damn sure you know whereof you speak. It’s a good idea to read for a while before plunging in to make seemingly novel corrections or suggestions that may actually have been debunked or rejected many times over. When I thought I found an error in the wiki entry for the final quest of the game, for example, I tested my theory several times before bringing it up in GD.

Unlike many game forums, such as WoW where you gamble on a polite or coherent response, let alone correct information, any time you ask a question, I find that KoL’s GD forum is largely populated by literate players who have a welcome allergy to unsubstantiated claims. There’s a fairly scientific process in the way that players experiment with new information and items, report on their experiments, have them replicated, refined and corroborated by other players, and the information is then disseminated. I appreciate and respect the denizens of Loathing who have created a positive skeptical community in their forums.