Wiki Addiction

I love game wikis. One of the first things I do when I start a new game is to find the official game wiki and bookmark it. I will sometimes have the wiki open on the second screen while I play, so if I need to know something it’s right there. However game wikis can totally ruin your gaming experience, shattering your immersion, sense of achievement and sense of discovery. For this reason, I am very selective in how I use the wiki.

Good uses for a Game Wiki

For me, the game wiki is there to help me make choices that could otherwise destroy my game past what reloading can fix. I only tend to keep two saves, one I use regularly before dangerous situations, the other I update in key points during the game just in case the normal save becomes corrupted (old school gamers are used to file corruption in game saves). I use this save system so that I am stuck with the role play choices I make. I won’t save scum for role play choices, this includes things like morality ratings in games like Mass Effect.

The choices I will ‘cheat’ for are choices that are based on game mechanics. Character building is a key one for me because not all games are well balanced and sometimes skills are left in game which have next to no real use. In these cases I don’t want to gimp my character for the entire game because I thought Frog Collecting or Needlepoint sounded like cool skills to have. Nor do I want to discover that I should have taken a skill like Detect Hidden or I’d miss 50% of the content. I also like to make coherent and sensible role play character builds, so I need to know what options I have. For these reasons I often start with the wiki to look up character creation.

When I finish a game I also like to explore how the game might have been different if I had played it differently. There are tons of games on my play list so I really don’t replay games. Therefore, when I finished Dragon Age, I looked up how the game might have ended differently and I read through alternate endings. Most of the time I find I did very well, so it’s confirmation I played a good game. It helps me move on and focus on the next game.

For MMOs I use the wiki far more. I look up clothing styles, how to craft certain things, where good places to grind are, and so on. As I don’t do guilds, I use the wiki as a replacement for asking around in chat. I tend to avoid specific information on new content unless the content isn’t very interesting to me. If something doesn’t interest me I’ll use the wiki just to check that I’m not missing out on something I will regret not getting, so I’ll check event rewards and such so I can determine if I need to force myself to do the content for the shinies at the end. So for MMOs, I use the wiki for most everything other than the bad uses.

Bad uses for the Wiki

Games are about discovery. You can never recapture that magical feeling you get when you first discover something, once discovered it’s gone. I don’t really play games to collect achievements or as a way to wave an ePeen. I play games for fun and that one time sense of discovery. I actually read all the dialogue and I’ll meticulously explore the entire map in case I missed some little gem. Game developers put things like Easter Eggs into games just for people like me, who’ll spend half an hour prodding at a wall because I think there’s something hidden on the other side.

I will almost never use a Wiki to look up how to discover something in the game. The only exception is when frustration begins to outweigh the enjoyment of the game. I know that for many people, the frustration seems to set in within 5 minutes and I sort of feel sorry for those people, as they will never know how it feels to push through and work things out for yourself. Reading the game forums for Aarklash Legacy I see a heap of posts about how the puzzles are too hard, but I haven’t spent more than maybe 15 minutes maximum on any one puzzle yet. I’m a clever person, but seriously, they are not that hard. I think people are just giving up to fast, they are simply so familiar with being lead through content that they have forgotten how to think for themselves.

When you pay for a game, you are buying a period of entertainment. I think it’s fair to say that the average entertainment time you can expect from most games is around 15-20 hours. Because I try to devour everything a game has to offer on the first play through, I tend to get twice the recommended game time from a game, taking 30-40 hours to complete a title. Buying games on a Steam special means I pay about 25 cents an hour to be entertained, what can I say, I’m a cheap date :-P. This is why I consider the cinema a waste of money!

If you play a game by being lead through by a wiki then you can complete the game in almost half this time, taking only 10-15 hours. In that time you won’t have discovered anything for yourself, you basically just pressed buttons like a trained monkey. One dollar an hour is still cheap entertainment, but how much did you really get form it?

Knowing how much to take

Ultimately, you have to decide for yourself how much you want to take from a wiki. You should be playing a game for fun, it shouldn’t be a chore. If looking up a walkthrough for every quest is fun for you then go right ahead. My advice would be to treat a wiki like any other vice. A little alcohol can be nice, but getting blind rotten drunk just turns you into a joke. So it is with wikis, use it enough to leave you wanting a little more, but always stop before you’ve had too much.

A good wiki will provide information incrementally, so not everything is revealed in the opening paragraph. I found the Mass Effect wiki I was recently using really well designed for this reason. I found myself using just the first couple sentences for the walkthroughs for key missions. In those sentences it just offered a suggestion on good team members to use. As I’m very bad at shooters I valued having a good team with me for the key fights. This isn’t to say I looked up the wiki for every mission and I would ignore the suggestions for role play reasons at times. So the wiki eased my stress (and reloads) but still allowed me to push myself to learn new skills. By the end of Mass Effect 2 I had learnt to play enough that I was carrying the team, no matter who I had on it.

Be careful not to venture too far down the wiki rabbit hole. It’s way too easy to just keep reading and before you know it, you’ve spoilt something. Read just enough to answer your immediate query and no more. Use the wiki more for system information, like discovering handy key bindings or ‘must have’ skills, but stop short of having the wiki build your character for you. Game completion using the wiki recommended Uber-build will not be as satisfying as completion using the character you lovingly hand crafted from level 1.

In closing

So while I love wikis, I do not believe they should be used to invalidate the days spent on game development, creating puzzles and hidden content for people to explore. You owe it to yourself, to your mind, to explore all that the games have to offer. People who call themselves Gamers because of how much they’ve completed are in my honest opinion, idiots. I have more respect for a Gamer who excels in just a couple games. Any monkey can finish games, especially armed with a wiki, but only a real Gamer takes the time to really explore what the game devs were creating.

I think this is why I see a lot of disparity on game reviews. Some truly awesome games get negative reviews because wiki armed reviewers are on a schedule and rush the content, they don’t take the time to immerse themselves. Look at Dragon Age 2 which was slammed for the simple reason it isn’t Dragon Age Origins. If you take the time to actually explore the story and immerse yourself in the game then Dragon Age 2 is a great game.

In the end, you have to decide for yourself what you really value in a game. If you actually think a fast finish with all the achievements means you ‘won’ the game and have the right to wave your ePeen at people then who am I to say you are wrong. I personally believe the best value you get form a game comes from that magical feeling of discovery you can only get from working through a game and finding things for yourself. I don’t care less if I failed to reach some arbitrary achievement, if I had fun failing then it’s still fun. I love games with real depth and consequence of action because you really can fail, but you can also win by your own merit. So use a wiki, I certainly do, but know when to stop reading and start playing.