This page is dedicated to ramblings on topics I'm interested in, fleshed out while I'm either on the freeway or in the shower. Comments or suggestions are welcome!
Future rambles include:
Why I Eat Less Meat
The Meaning of Life
I have played a game called World of Warcraft ever since I learned about it in 2006 when I was in elementary school. I got most of my family into the game early on, and I was lucky I did because my dad was convinced that it would teach me important life skills like reading comprehension (back then you had to actually read the quests to know how to complete them), math (there were lots of numbers on the screen), and research (this was hard until I learned about Thottbot). None of that mattered to me as an elementary school kid of course; I was just glad I got to play the game while my cousins couldn’t.
I played a retribution paladin which was one of the easiest classes to play and was also notoriously under tuned and known to be a terrible damage dealing (DPS) class. I didn’t know this of course and played it anyway thinking I was a big shot who dealt tons of damage (I didn’t know addons existed at this age let alone know how to install them). The fact was, however, that I couldn’t overcome the limitations of my class and I never dealt a lot of DPS, especially considering I never raided and was in dungeon rare gear the entirety of vanilla World of Warcraft. But none of that mattered, because it was fun for me and because I was able to beat every dungeon and experience just about everything in the game aside from raiding and other mundane grinds (e.g. Wintersaber Frostsaber).
My family and I continued to play into the next expansion called The Burning Crusade, as a middle school kid. I leveled up my retribution paladin to the maximum level again and began to join parties to beat dungeons on normal mode so I could be one of the big boys wearing epic gear. And I did; or at least I was until I encountered a dungeon called The Black Morass. Whereas almost every other dungeon required adventurers to progress through it and defeat bosses at their own pace, The Black Morass required players to defend a location and essentially defeat waves of enemy minions. These waves of minions, however, appeared at set intervals, so if you couldn’t defeat a wave of creatures quickly enough (most likely because of DPS limitations), the next wave would appear and the number of enemies you faced would essentially double. If this continued long enough then your party would become overwhelmed with enemies and fail to defend the fixed location and fail the dungeon.
I wasn’t just a retribution paladin who are infamous for having terrible DPS; I was a bad retribution paladin who actually dealt paltry DPS, and while I couldn’t quantify my DPS (I still didn’t know what addons were at this point), I became increasingly aware that my parties never had the DPS required to beat The Black Morass. I would join party after party, each of which would enter The Black Morass and fail before the first or second boss, because we couldn’t handle the swarm of enemies that descended upon us. I grew increasingly frustrated after dozens of attempts and, within days, I decried the poor quality of teammates I were always stuck with.
My futile attempts would continue until the end of the week, and in retrospect, reminded me of a quote I read online, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.” My desperate attempts continued until one day we simply couldn’t find a healer. And while I had begun to consider it throughout the week, I now realized in a moment of epiphany that the one common variable between all my failed attempts was me.
I was anxious about it, and I warned my party about it, but I decided to try healing. I don’t recall if I changed my talents (if I did, I just put in what looked good without consulting any online sources) and I certainly didn’t have any healing gear. Another failed Black Morass attempt wasn’t anything new to me so I simply decided, almost on a whim, to try healing and see how it would go. My next Black Morass attempt, while there were some close calls, went extremely smoothly in contrast to my proper attempts and we beat it on the first try. I was blown away. Not only was I able to overcome this impregnable wall of content called The Black Morass, I did it as a completely new and ungeared healer.
More importantly, my dad was right: I learned a life lesson that I can’t help but recall whenever I think of The Black Morass (e.g. enter the Caverns of Time or venture into the Swamp of Sorrows). There can be several ways to phrase it depending on the context, but it essentially goes: if the one common variable between all your encounters is you, you’re the reason it happens. Or if you’re the common factor in all your failures, you’re the reason why you’re failing, so you ought to do something about it.
I play, or have played, just about every Blizzard game, and a common mechanic in them, among other games, is a ranked ladder system that determines how skilled you are as a player and/or team player. Ladder systems are relatively simple to understand: winning a match moves you up the ladder whereas losing a match moves you down the ladder. Regardless of whether you want to impress your friends or yourself or whether you want in-game rewards, gamers are generally incentivized to be ranked as highly as possible in any given ladder system.
People learn from a young age that winning is great and losing sucks. While gamers don't need a ladder system to recognize the value of winning, a ladder system certainly exacerbates it (e.g. publicizing your ladder rank). The ladder system drives gamers to improve in their games through constant practice... as long as they are winning and as long as their rank continues to climb. For most gamers, however, we encounter a plateau where climbing higher becomes significantly more challenging; there comes a point where decreasing in rank is just as likely, and dare I say sometimes more likely, than increasing in rank. We begin to fear climbing the ladder to protect our rank and status as a successful player. This reluctance to climb the ranked ladder, because of the relatively high risk of failure, is what I consider to be ladder anxiety.
Most players I've interacted with react to ladder anxiety in one or more of the following four ways:
Stop playing the game. This reaction isn't likely to occur if gamers enjoy their game or have a social connection to their game. That said, people generally don't want to fail so some of us would rather not play than risk failure.
Play the ranked ladder less. Players may end up playing unranked matches more, so that they can continue playing the game they enjoy and preserve their rank. Gamers who commit to this, however, will not have as accurate an understanding of their current skill and may not have as much access to ranked rewards. It's perfectly fine to play unranked game modes, especially when they aren't planning to play seriously, especially when you're, for example, planning to absentmindedly play while cooking dinner or trying out a new character. I don't recommend playing unranked, however, if the primary incentive to play unranked is a consequence of ladder anxiety, because of the aforementioned incentives to play a ranked mode. Ladder anxiety aside, playing a ranked game mode is objectively better than playing an unranked game mode when players want to improve.
Make smurf accounts to rank with. I do not endorse this reaction, unless playing with friends who are new at the game, because smurf accounts will eventually reach the same rank as your main account; at this point, gamers may as well make their smurf account their main account or create another smurf account which will perpetuate the cycle. Either way, most games played with a smurf account are not as beneficial, because games will be too easy and improvement will therefore be limited.
Continue climbing the ladder. Of these four reactions, the fourth is the one I always advocate for, because you should, in my opinion, want your ladder rank to represent your current skill. In the ideal ladder system, you would have a 50% win rate. A ~50% win rate is most likely to be your zone of proximal growth. Any win rate >>50% (or <<50%) would mean matches are either easy (or difficult) enough that you aren't improving as a player in as meaningful a way. Gamers should want to increase their rank because ranks are measurements of how skilled they are, and gamers should want to improve at the games they are passionate about!
Failure is memorable and distasteful, and dropping ranks in a ladder system is just another avenue of failure. I believe that the distasteful and memorable feelings that accompany failure make it the optimal way of learning. We shouldn't respond to the distastefulness of failure by avoiding our favorite activities or accepting that we will be terrible at them forever; instead we should embrace and learn from our failures so that we can become a better iteration of ourselves than we were previous to the failure and hopefully succeed the next time or the time after that. The ranked ladder is similar to this, but because most game modes last <1 hour and because it can be difficult to determine what mistakes were made, improving in a ranked system requires many games to be played before we see gradual improvement. If you are in your zone of proximal development, then you won't see immediate results in a ladder system, so the best thing we can do is to practice effectively. Constant and effective practice, especially through failure, is the optimal way of improving. One hard part is to consistently practice and delay gratification. Perhaps I will ramble on that later.
If you were to replace gamer terms (e.g. ladder system, rank) with educational terms (school, test scores) or whatever hobby you have (e.g. rock climbing, bouldering grades) then you should have an adequate understanding of my perspective of how to improve as a contributing member of our global society.
Students tend to major into STEM for two primary reasons: (1) they are interested in the discipline or topics and (2) people tend to like things they're good at. So to increase student interest in, and ultimately guide them toward careers in STEM, the main things that I as a teacher can do is (1) show interesting and relevant phenomena in class and (2) help students realize, through effective teaching, that they are good at science and that math isn't as hard as it seems. Furthermore, student interest tends to scale with my interest. So I, as a teacher, should do things with enthusiasm and gusto!
Additional tips suggested by recent and successful university graduates:
"Graduating high school seniors should go into college knowing that they need to interact with professors despite how intimidating they are." One way to do this is to go to office hours. When I went to university, I went to office hours every chance I got, not only because I could always practice or learn more about the content material, but also because it's a good way to connect with your professor on a level that is impossible in a lecture hall setting. High school students should start practicing for this by coming in to ask me for help outside normal class hours.
"It's on you to figure it out. So while I don't actually remember much that I learned in high school, I do recall how to learn things. It's good for you to figure out how you learn and understand things before you get to college. Getting the answers online from Chegg or something is useful in the short term, but it's again its really on you to learn it."
“Dude, James. Check this out,” I somewhat proudly declared to my cousin sitting on my left, “James! Hey!”
“What?” responded James, indifferently.
“I’m about to level up my tailoring again!” I continued, “…But I need some more linen cloth. Got any?”
“No. Why don’t you kill some bandits outside? I’ll go with you since I want to quest in Westfall anyways.”
Ever since I began playing the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft, moments like this often came up—especially during the first month since my cousin James and I purchased the game—foreshadowing the hours of adventure we were bound to have. Every day we arrived home, every second we could, we would run into my parent’s room and turn on the computer to enter the universe of Warcraft: a mythical land rich with lore and an endless bounty of adventure. We both always played games, but when we did, we finished it; we had never experienced anything on this scale. The world was simply so massive that there was no end in sight! For every dozen in-game yards of grass we walked, a new opportunity presented itself and millions of players enjoyed the experience just as we did. However, James and I had eventually become so engrossed and competitive in empowering our virtual characters that we had begun to log in every day on an almost religious basis.
As we began steering our fledgling warriors outside of the Trade District, through the Valley of Heroes and outside the grand gates of Stormwind City, we suddenly heard a metallic clang. We turned our heads around and noticed the orange afternoon light pouring through the doorway and slightly encroaching past my parent’s hallway into our view. I didn’t realize that it was past midday so soon. We turned our heads back towards our world, completely intent on discovering this unmapped region of the world everyone referred to as Westfall, just as a second boom, louder than the first, followed up and the setting sun’s last rays left our peripheral vision. My dad had arrived home, but I didn’t really care. Not yet.
My dad had come home late to prepare for our family’s annual Fourth of July celebration; everyone would be there. “Hey Travis!” bellowed my father, “Are you ready to go to Almansor Park? Everyone’s going to be there.” I knew that everyone expected me to go to the park too, but this time was different. This time I believed that I simply had something better to do. Yet at the same time, I had been celebrating Independence Day with my family ever since I could remember; it would be a shame to break the tradition over one night of gaming. “Travis, are you going or not,” My father repeated, “We’re going to leave right now.”
I couldn’t make up my mind. I knew I should go, but I didn’t want to so I was about to ask James what he thought, but I only had to look at his face once to know that the feeling was mutual: we wanted to explore Westfall. And if we got there early enough, there would be fireworks in Westfall too. In fact, the skies above every major settlement in the World of Warcraft would be alight with fireworks and the sounds of laughter anyways.
I looked down and reluctantly gave my father a meek “no,” expecting him to force me along to the celebration regardless. Plus, I thought as I anticipated his response, my mother used to always tell me to finish what I was doing before moving on and I was already on the way to Westfall. But, to my surprise, he gave me a lax “okay”. He was fine with me not celebrating the night at the park! I was so relieved that my impromptu rationalization justified my commitment to my online warrior and glad that everything turned out so well.
By then James and I were reading a sign post at the town of Goldshire which was located in the heart of the forest and was the fork in the weathered cobblestone road. James pointed down the western trail and read, “Westbrook Garrison is that-a-way… So I’m pretty sure Westfall’s just past there.” We had barely rounded the first bend in the road when we noticed a river in the distance beckoning us forward; we just had to explore it. There was bound to be something exciting no matter where we went.
It wasn’t long before we had apparently discovered a new region of the forest. In front of us lay a serene lake with a waterfall at its center. The thundering fall’s strangely calming roar coupled with the plain-looking blue cottage along its lakeside and the sounds of foliage swaying in the wind reminded me of a medieval landscape. Looking back on the event now, I would have praised the game designers for creating such a beautiful and natural setting in this online fantasy world. But back then, in the good old days, all James and I could do was stare down the doorway of the cottage with our tunnel vision and straight into the eyes of the uncommonly tall man dressed in the pitch black leather uniform of the Defias Brotherhood. We could almost see the malicious smirk under the red bandana covering his mouth.
“Sweet,” I said without thinking. This was a unique bandit with a guaranteed chance to drop superior equipment—and everyone loved superior equipment. “Think we can do it?” I asked James to which he had only one reply, “Charge!”
With swords and shields raised, we blindly charged headstrong towards the cottage just as an early barrage of fireworks burst in the distance… straight into a trap. Out from the shadows and trees surrounding us, a party of bandits emerged, turning the one sided victory we initially expected into a disaster. Our valorous charge came to a sudden, abrupt halt. We were surrounded from all sides.
“Dude, I don’t think we’re going to make it,” I said hesitantly, but I received no response. James continued to gaze our foes in their eyes as they closed in on us with various weapons raised and the battle ensued.
James and I pressed our backs against each other, deflecting attack after attack, almost in sync with the rockets bursting in air. We utilized our battle shouts to increase morale and our war stomps to intimidate our enemies, but no matter how hard we fought our health bars steadily decreased—just like Warcraft’s setting sun—until our warriors gave one last dying breath and dropped onto the floor, dead.
I did not realize it at the time, but escaping this bandit trap was an impossible fight. We had already used every ability we had at our disposal, but it was nowhere near enough. There were too many of them and our skill levels simply weren’t high enough. However, in spite of this, we would respawn and frantically charge into the fray again and again only to die, die, and die. Looking back in retrospect, I cannot help but think that we were, according to Albert Einstein’s definition, insane.
In his frustration James turned to me and exclaimed, “Dude! What the heck!” He was clearly annoyed and I couldn’t blame him. We had conquered every obstacle we had faced thus far with ease; when we were together, we were supposed to be invincible. “Oh my god. I can’t believe this,” He continued, “We’re getting owned by bandits. And you didn’t even use thunderclap!” I was stunned, not because we were defeated, but because I couldn’t fathom how our series of inevitable deaths were entirely my fault. And because I did use my thunderclap spell! Ignoring my protests, James finally spat, “If we don’t kill them this time, I’m leaving.” To make matters worse, we had died so much that we even had to wait 5 minutes just to respawn.
Not surprisingly, we did die again and James, true to his word, capitulated, stalking away from the riverside westbound for Westfall leaving me only our skeletal remains—the physical manifestation of our night of failure—as company. I didn’t know what to say, our night of glory had resulted in a bloodbath. My wounded pride did not allow me to walk alongside my cousin James who blamed me for our failed quest so I trekked the opposite way he went, eastward back towards Goldshire then even farther past the town to the Forest’s Edge, brooding over what had just happened.
I walked entire in-game miles to distance myself from James while, ironically, silently sitting right next to him the entire time like a bush that you don’t care to notice, yet can’t help but hear rustle every time it moved. It was during this long journey that I realized everything had not gone well… Everything was terrible! I should have gone with my family to enjoy the Fourth of July rather than level up my tailoring profession in the World of Warcraft. I should not have broken family tradition over one night of gaming, and I should have set my priorities straight. But that fact is that I did not, and the worst part was that I liked it.
Unfortunately, in hindsight, I now realize that regretting my decision to not celebrate Independence Day would not teach me my lesson: that I should set my priorities straight and not let a game influence my life so greatly. This momentous decision, instead, would usher in over four years of in-game glory, but deprive me of the many opportunities I would have taken, but did not. It has denied me the social life I would have had if I was never so addicted. However, this realization does not mean that I dislike the game; I have cherished every moment of it. I continually look back upon Warcraft’s close knit community with much nostalgia and remember the (literally) earth-shattering feats of strength that we struggled for months as one cohesive unit to achieve, with a massive grin on my face. The game has taught me a plethora of skills, many of which I continue to use today. However, in spite of all this and more, I still critically question whether the opportunity costs these experiences came with was actually worthwhile. It makes me wonder what type of person I may have turned out to be if the World of Warcraft had never robbed me of my independence.