World of Tanks and cheating by the system. Computer games: why people play
Video games are great! But what happens if you play them too much? This can give both positive and negative results. There are examples all over the world of gamers who played for too long, literally didn't make it to the credits. Overkill in video games can be a serious problem. As with all pleasant things in this world, everything should be in moderation. Too much a large number of anything from sleep to water can lead to certain negative consequences. 
But despite some tragic effects, video games aren't all that bad. First, they deliver incredible pleasure. Second, they can improve just about everything about you, from critical thinking to motor coordination. 
Sometimes they can even make you smarter. Therefore, it is necessary to take a closer look at what impact video games can have on a person and what harm they cause to the body.
You can die from thrombosis
Long gaming sessions are not unusual. But what if they threaten your life? Yes, then it's still too much. A condition known as deep vein thrombosis can develop if you sit still for a long period of time. 
One British gamer died due to the fact that he formed blood clots caused by thrombosis, the cause of which was his lifestyle - every day he spent 12 hours in a row playing computer games. And a New Zealand gamer was hospitalized with blood clots in his legs after sitting at his console for four days while on vacation.
Your heart may fail
A 32-year-old man from Hong Kong was found dead in computer club where he stayed for three consecutive days. The man entered the club on January 6, 2015, started playing - and was found already dead January 8. The cause of death is heart failure caused by lack of mobility, low temperature and complete exhaustion due to lack of sleep. 
Club staff reported that the same man often stayed at the club for three or four days, and other gamers did not pay attention. special attention on what is happening, when the body of an unlucky gamer was taken out into the street.
You can develop "nintendoit"
Even if you take breaks between gaming sessions, repeated use of the controller for hours, days, weeks, months, and years can take its toll. Negative influence. The game usually requires the gamer to repetitively repetitively move their thumbs and fingers, and a 2003 study found that many gamers suffered from repetitive arm strains (a syndrome that was dubbed "nintendoitis").
You can hurt your back
A 1999 study looked at back pain in schoolchildren and its relationship to what children enjoy doing, including watching TV and playing on the computer. The report indicated that there was an association between computer games and back pain. These pains were manifested in those children who reported to the researchers that they spend at least two hours a day at the computer.
You can hurt your eyes
It should not surprise you that prolonged staring at a screen, whether it be a TV, computer, smartphone or tablet, does not positive impact to your eyes. There is even such a disease as computer vision syndrome. It manifests itself in people who spend several hours a day behind computer screens.
It can literally affect your brain
If you enjoy playing computer games for too long, it can start to take its toll on your brain. Literally. Research shows that frequent gaming sessions can change your brain. If speak about concrete examples, young children who spent more than nine hours a week playing computer games had an enlarged reward center in their brains, which made them want to play even more.
psychoanalyst's view
This is far from the first, and certainly not latest article about psychology of computer games, which is written for a psychological site. The topic is fertile - computers have become an integral part of life, and computer games - a seductive way to spend free time.
- Why do people play computer games?
- Computer game: is it good or bad?
- How to get rid of gambling addiction?
These and other similar questions are asked by thousands of people every day to Yandex. Considering these questions through the prism of psychoanalytic experience, I will try to give my answers to them.
People who play games
There is a common misconception that mostly teenagers play computer games. This is not entirely true. Rather, teenagers are more open about their games. Adults, on the other hand, often find the fact that they are attracted to certain computer games somewhat embarrassing or even shameful. And they continue to play them without advertising this fact among friends and strangers. In fact, computer games can capture a person of any age, gender, family and professional status.
Why are computer games attractive?
The game can take quite a lot of time (at the same time - not always free). However, many people prefer to spend time in front of the monitor. Why is this happening?
Computer games allow you to travel to another world. They, like nothing else, allow you to immerse yourself in this world very deeply, and even feel its virtual reality at the level of the body. The situation of the game allows you to be as free inside it as "real reality" will ever allow. The most terrible consequence of a mistake or failure in a game is the need to close it and start over.
Games are attractive because they allow feel something what is lacking in everyday life. Or, on the contrary, NOT to feel something that is abundant in life. In addition, some games allow at least for a while to be someone someone else, someone attractive, who a person would like to feel.
Example 1. Being Lara Croft?
A number of games, especially role-playing games, provide an opportunity feel like a different person than in reality. For example, a fearless, courageous, strong savior of an innocent victim terrible monsters, or a beautiful, smart, athletic, exceptionally attractive female archaeologist willing to risk her life to find incredible artifacts.
Ability to feel own strength, attractiveness, fearlessly taking risks, successfully unraveling ingenious riddles - almost a drug. And the stronger it is, the fewer opportunities to feel the same thing in a person in his real life.
Example 2: Kill the monster!
Many games have a pronounced aggressive context: kill as much as possible more enemies! crush the terrible monster! gain strength and become invincible! The player feels excitement, strength, power, and deep satisfaction from mass destruction virtual beings. You may get the impression that the game causes aggression, which a person did not have before - a strong argument against computer games?
Why are these games so attractive to seemingly completely peaceful, sometimes even timid people in everyday life? Because they allow the repressed to manifestand aggression. They help to express what a person does not allow himself to manifest in reality - because the more a feeling is suppressed, the stronger and stronger it becomes somewhere deep inside. The virtual situation is safe, it makes it possible not to experience fear and guilt - those feelings that form the basis of the suppression of aggression.
Passion for aggressive games is attempt get in touch with your aggression and perhaps learn to control it. True, this attempt is not always successful, because virtual reality is still very different from the real one.
Example 3. Collecting solitaire...
A whole range of computer games (for example, logic games) were created in order to pass the time in situations of forced waiting. But sometimes it turns out that time is not superfluous at all, and it is impossible to break away from a simple and rather monotonous game. It would seem, well, what is it that is addictive?
Taking your attention, focusing on solving problems of varying degrees of complexity, watching a series of attractive visual images, going into an unpretentious virtual world colored balls, cards, beautiful schemes, a person for a while move away from anxiety. By shifting cards, grouping balls by color or collecting words from letters, a person temporarily stops the flow of disturbing thoughts and images. But the return to reality brings back anxiety.
Computer games: pros and cons?
Computer games can look like an absolutely meaningless pastime if you look at them only from the position of external reality. For her, a person who spends hours in front of a monitor is practically lost. But since people are doing something, then it has some kind of mental meaning. Which?
From the point of view of internal (mental) reality, computer games represent a kind of way of mental self-regulation. Game process relieves mental stress(to some extent). So they “leave” the game from stress, dissatisfaction with their lives and themselves, from the inability to show any strong emotions in real relationships.
This way of dealing with difficulties is similar to the use of alcohol as a way to regulate one's state: the game (like alcohol) allows you to quickly (but only on a short time) to change the internal state and relieve stress. When games are often resorted to as a means of achieving internal balance, perhaps game developmentdependencies. The mechanism of formation of alcohol and gambling addiction similar: when mental stress is very high, there is a simple and rather pleasant way to quickly remove it. This method does not require a particularly large investment of time, energy, money ... In the case of alcohol, chemical dependence also comes into play. The creators of computer games are fighting for their client, using various psychological tricks, schemes, tricks, they try to create games that touch really deep strings in the human soul.
It is believed that online games cause the strongest addiction. Entering into contact with other players in his virtual image, a person has the illusion of real relationships, real life. Then it's easy to lose track of the hours, and sometimes the days. Physical needs, obligations to others, life circumstances fade into the background, and "the figure turns into the background" - virtual reality becomes more real for the player than "offline reality".
Virtual reality: entry and exit
If computer games have become something more than convenient way pass free time, a person is faced with the fact that the passion for the game begins to disrupt the course of his Everyday life. The desire to leave the game becomes very demanding, even obsessive. And then an understanding may arise: "the games are over", the gambling addiction. What to do?
Some people manage to give up games relatively easily. These are people with very strong willpower and not very far-reaching passion for games. As a rule, such people, having realized their addiction, simply refuse the game, deleting it from the computer, and find other, more comfortable ways for them to deal with stress life.
Sometimes friends who realize their addiction refuse to play together. There is a group effect: together it is easier to abandon the formed habit, it is easier to find yourself already forgotten activities in real life. And, of course, another person taken as an ally in the fight against addiction is also controller(before which it is a shame to break loose), and support(so necessary sometimes in the struggle with oneself). Of course, someone close can act as such a person, who himself does not suffer from gambling addiction. He can "strengthen" the player's "I" captured by passion, offer his willpower and determination to help find a way out of the virtual trap. But this help is truly effective only if the player is aware of his addiction and wants to get rid of it himself.
Sometimes it is not possible to cope with addiction alone or even with the help of friends and relatives, despite all efforts and desire. Usually this is due to the fact that there is not just a habit, but a serious internal attachment to the game. This happens when the game "serves" some important psychological needs or distracts from serious ones. psychological problems. Then it is impossible to just close the game and turn off the computer - as long as there are problems, our psyche will look for their solution (and the easiest way is a virtual pseudo-solution - it has already found it and will simply repeat it!). Therefore, getting rid of gambling addiction often lies through a decrease in the level of anxiety, liberation from internal conflicts self-acceptance, self-respect and an increase in the ability to actively express oneself in outside world, increasing the ability to build and maintain close relationships with other people, finding meaning in one's own life.
Psychologist-psychoanalyst
ECPP Training Analyst and Supervisor
11.12.2013
The title of this article is deliberately slightly provocative. Although, for many obscure, questionable shadow algorithms in the game, one could apply it much stronger, however, in the absence of direct evidence, one has to beat around the bush, not stating anything for sure, but only hanging some uncomfortable questions in the air, stating some uncomfortable, for the guys from Wargaming "a, facts. So, let's immediately decide that we will not indiscriminately accuse anyone here, but only by the power of a couple of article pages we will give here a few, not so much facts, but conjectures, assumptions and hypotheses. General meaning their will be that the gameplay in the popular MMO game is not at all so explicit and fair. In other words, World of Tanks is an arena for cheating by developers. But let's go in order. Maybe it's not like that at all.
Bang for the question.
Perhaps it is worth remembering that this tank action comes from Belarus, where the deservedly tough morals of the local Old Man, in part, were transferred to some of its citizens. In general, the fact remains: for the slightest hint of a dishonest game or an "uncomfortable" question asked on the official gaming forum, asking for the most short time banyat, moreover, do it, sometimes completely indefinitely. The ban, at the same time, applies not only to the forum, but also to the game. What is hidden meaning such harsh treatment of tank fans? Is it possible that the saying comes into force here: - if you are afraid, then you hear the truth. It is clear that forum provocateurs and rude people should be punished mercilessly, but when a forum member opens a topic where he asks a simple question about a strange non-penetration of an enemy by a projectile, or, conversely, about a strange penetration of a loved one, then such a topic will be immediately deleted, but the player can be forgiven on the first time, but more often you hear stories about unprecedented bans for such questions. A little strange, isn't it?
Red general.
Personally, I happened to hear a legend from a person who heard from another person who heard from a friend who knows one of the Wargaming programmers who participated in the development of World of Tanks, who allegedly talked about what is often and thickly in the form of "red" the teams moving towards you are not real players at all, but the most real and official game bots. Allegedly, several players there may still be real, but the bots led by the Red General will set the tone. According to all this word of mouth, the Red General is easy to identify. It's always heavy tank, always in camouflage, always shoots gold, always pierces everyone and everything, and, in turn, it is almost impossible to pierce. But the most important thing is that such a General in an amazing way illuminates almost half the map. Partial proof of this is that it is impossible to draw such a General into a conversation for the simple reason that this is a robot controlled by a system from under a fake account. The presence of the Red General and bots from the enemy can be proved a little in this way: take and agree with the whole team to arrange a “rush” along the flank of the map. If bots play for the Reds, then on that “unexpected” flank, they will take you and meet you, almost the same as the whole team. Meet and smash to pieces.
The classic version of the participation of the Red General is a drain with a score of about 2:11 in the first 2-3 minutes of the battle. Moreover, such battles can be repeated 5-10 times in a row. A player who has fallen into such a stream has no choice but to simply disconnect from the game and change the game server, in the hope of a better attitude towards him. Actually, all the other claims of not only paranoid, but also quite sane tankers come down to the fact that something very often, especially with the release of the latest patches, extremely strange non-penetrations, ricochets and suspicious "one-shots" from very frail opponents began to happen. But, more on that later.
World of Tanks: scandals, intrigues, investigations.
If we follow the trend that developers are promoting with the release of each new patch in World of Tanks, this is an increase in randomness in the form of strange projectile flight paths, supposedly for the benefit of physics, as well as a gradual decrease in accuracy. Working on new models of vehicles and new maps, the developers specifically increased the dispersion when conducting aimed fire. And the accuracy of the self-propelled guns was generally cut to the point of impossibility. Now even the most accurate guns with a pumped gunner cannot properly hit an enemy tank. More precisely, it’s possible to hit, but the situation with hit / miss is assigned entirely to the shoulders of the hidden game mechanism of “random numbers”. Intra-tank mechanics, which, as it were, takes on the right to determine the accuracy of the projectile flight. The situation is very similar to how UEFA does not want to introduce video replays, due, supposedly, to the fact that the audience, having seen the wrong decision of the referee on the scoreboard, will rage, but in reality, citizens from UEFA, and even FIFA, simply do not want to lose one more control lever of game in the form of the decision of a judicial question. So it is here: so that there are no unnecessary questions like: - “What is it, I aimed exactly, and the projectile flew off into the distant distances?”. Therefore, the players have expanded the scope. If earlier the enemy’s equipment completely fit into the circle of the sight, now, not really long distance, 3-4 such tanks can be placed in the "point" of the sight. Here's another reason for you to think.
Strange non-penetration and light.
Let's start with lighting. Even if we discard the semi-mythical Red General, the problem with incomprehensible light continues to heat up for more than one month. The most typical situation looks something like this: there is, for example, a Shtug with full optics, a crew, an anti-reflection coating, etc. Everyone is dead, he is alone. Here, as if on command (none of the dead suggested), one of the tanks breaks down in the direction of the Shtug. And the Shtug itself, I must say, is in a hole that cannot be shot through in any way. There is no art in the game. In general, at first the tank illuminates the T-34-85, although the Shtug itself does not see it, although it should, and then a deadly blank from the KV-2 arrives with a 152-mm cannon (which has no accuracy at all), which costs through half a card. But this is not enough: the shell hit the "Shtug" with a canopy, because there is no other explanation for HOW the shell could hit the tank, standing at the bottom of a deep pit. Asking questions on the game forum is to your own detriment. And there are many such examples. An entire book could be written.
Now for penetrations. Example: Bat Chat is standing in the bushes, then the IS-8 leaves sideways. Chat puts 6 shots from the side of the drum. 5 of them are penetrations. Rechargeable. Waiting. The same IS-8 leaves (the same cardboard, I must say). Chat starts to beat also in the side. As a result, 0 penetrations out of 6. The chat is being merged. There is only one conclusion: the penetration limit issued by the system is “exhausted”. Naturally, the team flies in at 3:15.
And if we recall a lot of incomprehensible incidents that occur with battered tanks, which, in the observation mode, quite realistically illuminated their remaining allies. You can remember a lot, but the main difficulty is that there is no evidence that the developers of World of Tanks are dishonest, and it is unlikely that there will be if one of the persons involved and offended does not tell a story in the spirit of “I was fired from MTS, so I'll tell you now ... ". In the meantime, it remains only to build hypotheses and wait for the WoT fans to come running and explain to you that you are a deer.
If you do not know what the essence is, then know: the essence is in money.
After making simple conclusions like journalists from RenTV, we can firmly say that all the cases described above may well pursue one single goal - to extort more money from the players. With the release of the latest patches, which clearly demonstrated that this is how much you have earned now, but this is how much you could earn if you played in the "premium", many wrong things began to happen. Many players began to complain that if earlier, according to statistics, on a particular tank, for example, there were about 53% of victories, then over the past few months, victories have fallen to 42% on the same tank. Wild cases of 10-13 terrible plums in a row have become more frequent, etc.
All these aiming difficulties, penetration difficulties, and so on, can be directly related to forcing the player to open a wallet and pay real money for a premium tank, or purchase a premium account more often. After all, games are made in order to make money on them, so why can't developers “stimulate” purchasing power a little. It's no secret that during the game on "prema" the number of drains is drastically reduced, the statistics improve, and the player is more often in the top. And without a premium, the player is thrown for fun to the “premium” tankers, as they used to throw a wild boar under the drunken shots of the master. But, the boar had no choice at all, but the player has.
So think now. On the one hand, there seems to be faith in the pure, eternal and good. It is supported by the lack of material evidence. Catching developers is not so easy. On the other hand, the understanding that almost everything in this world is done because of money. So why not tweak a couple of options to hurry up an embittered and dissatisfied player a little, start injecting money into the project as soon as possible in order to increase comfort. Although the premium, of course, is not a complete panacea for gaming arbitrariness, when the T 34-85 cannot pierce the T-50 in the side with a top-end gun, when you don’t see enemy light with optics, a walkie-talkie and a pumped-over light bulb, and you are killed on it, without any tracers. Moreover, the characteristic black especially zealous lawlessness is that such symptoms appear when the team is clearly going to drain. The system is not profitable for the team to resist for a long time. The servers are overcrowded, you should rather die and give way to another, and not cling to life with the last of your strength. At the same time, when you see similar symptoms with non-penetration, strange light, etc., the realization immediately comes that you are being “leaked”. As a rule, this idea turns out to be 100% correct.
Not a bad afterword.
In general, comrades, this article does not claim to be the ultimate truth. Moreover, the author in no way pursued the goal of slandering or slandering anyone there. It can even be said that this article contains some of the most striking examples of the ambiguity of interpretation game processes in World of Tanks, game physics and other similar things.
Play and win, and if you suddenly start to lose, then deposit a little money into your account and you will immediately see that life will become better, life will become more fun. By cabins!
"Unfinished" world left by the gods.
To bookmarks
Game Informer journalists took several exclusive Anthem developer interview. We have chosen the most interesting information about what's going on in BioWare's new co-op game.
Anthem takes place in an "unfinished" world. According to the story with the gods who created this world, “something happened”, and they did not have time to finish what they started. As a result, the world turned out to be unstable, dangerous and uninhabitable.
The people who inhabit the world of Anthem are aware that they live in an "unfinished" universe: from time to time they find some gigantic devices that can both bring destruction and create the world around. locals believe that these are tools for creating the world, abandoned by the missing gods. Mark Darra, the game's producer, clarifies that we can't say for sure that something happened to the gods, and that the world was not originally conceived as such - this is just a logical conclusion that the inhabitants of the Anthem universe come to.
"Gods" in this world are called "shapers" ("shaper"). The player knows almost nothing about them - where they came from, what they wanted to achieve. The entire plot of Anthem is built around the mystery of their origin.
Local technologies are in many ways superior to ours, but in many ways they are very far behind. For the most part humanity owes its technical progress to the technologies left behind by the "gods". Therefore, high-tech combat suits here they coexist with the lack of television and assembly line production. Weapons are produced here not in factories, but in workshops.
The player character belongs to the "Freelancers" order. Freelancers are like local Rangers or Jedi, they keep order and "make this world less dangerous". By the time the game starts, the order is in a state of decline and no longer enjoys its former respect among the population, so from the very beginning you will have to "prove something".
Some of the game's main antagonists are members of a "militarist and fascist" faction called the Dominion. The Dominion, of course, wants to subjugate all of humanity, and the player will have to stop him.
The word "humanity", which is used in the game, does not mean that we are talking about people from Earth. The world of Anthem is inhabited by people just like you and me, but you should not expect a plot with a wrecked ship of the colonists or something like that.
When asked if Anthem takes place in an alternate universe, the game's general producer declined to answer. The mystery of the world of Anthem should remain one of its main features, so the developers are in no hurry to divulge the details of its nature. The only thing - it's definitely not the Earth.
The base for the player will serve as a location called "Fort Tarsis". Her main feature is that it is impossible to meet other players there, as in Destiny or some MMORPG. Fort Tarsis will forever remain your "personal space". Thanks to this, developers will be able to make sure that your decisions really affect the world - or at least the fort itself.
In Fort Tarsis, the player will be able to meet NPCs who will give him quests. The number and content of these tasks will depend on the "different context" and on how the player good relationship with this particular NPC. These quests will be the very cooperative missions, for which you will have to team up with other players.
Some missions can be completed alone, but the vast majority will require the participation of partners. At the same time, the developers emphasize the fact that in Anthem you won’t have to tell random partners “I don’t want to play with you anymore” - after twenty minutes of shooting, the game itself will separate you and send everyone to his personal fort Tarsis. This, of course, does not apply to those who play with friends.
There will be four classes in the game - a basic "ranger", a powerful "colossus", a "storm" ("storm"), capable of using the power of the elements, as well as an "interceptor" ("interceptor"), about which little is known so far. The character can be equipped with two types of weapons and two items of equipment. There will not be a large field for experiments here - each class is rigidly tied to its own subjects. For example, cryo-grenades can only be used by a ranger, and machine guns can only be used by a colossus.
The difference in level between players will not be based on numbers, but on the amount of equipment available. Therefore, the player himself low level will be able to join even the final missions - if he confirms that he is not afraid of spoilers.
You can buy cosmetic items in Anthem, but there will definitely not be any loot boxes or a pay-to-win system in it. This is the promise in once more given by the general producer of the game.
BioWare believes that the transition to multiplayer and game-services is just part of the studio's twenty-year evolution, during which it once moved from 2D to 3D.