League of Legends - Trumped up Rock, Paper, Scissors
Actually, they do when it comes to the law of the land. Their decision allows international LoL players to now come here on athlete visas.TPRJones wrote:Point of order: "the government" labeling it so is no more or less valid than any other person doing so. Government is just people who get paid with taxpayer dollars, they have no more moral authority on any topic than anyone else. Just because "the government" says something is so does not make it so.Last I checked the governing body said, "athlete" when it came to LoL.
I also don't think this is a "moral authority" discussion. Is it?
I do agree with the point you're trying to make, especially since it's the exact same point I made to Malcolm, but I don't agree that the government's decision has zero impact on this debate.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
If LOL players themselves had been allowed to design the visas that foreign peeps use to enter the country for competitions, it would be called the "Gay Faggot Noobs Who Need To Learn English" Visa.
But it's the government, so they just went with what they had.
But it's the government, so they just went with what they had.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
What? Like if you do a 100-mile ultra marathon for your commute to work every day? Yeah, that's an athlete. Running is a fucking sport. Are you driving with the windows rolled up in the dead of summer to see how long you can last or trying to beat your previous best time? Eh, maybe. But that's really just playing with yourself. The competition part is rather important. If your next door neighbour\coworker starts driving alongside you and you're racing to work in some competitive way, then that's sporty enough for me.So if I wear a sweatsuit on my commute, and I move 100 miles away from my job, I become an "athlete"?
More than clicking a mouse, typing on a keyboard, talking on voice chat, and maintaining verticality and consciousness. Otherwise, typing itself could be a "sport" and that seems absurd. If you stretch things far enough, anything can be competition and anything beyond being dead could be considered physical activity. You burn calories during respiration, but breathing isn't a sport nor is seeing who lives the longest.How much physical activity does it take for you to deem someone an athlete?
Me, especially as far as my personal definitions of "sport" and "athlete" go. And fuck the government. Do I need to go over the various bullshit definitions they've made that contradict reality? The government thinks codeine + NSAID has less potential for abuse than bud. The government thinks you can drive before you vote before you drink.Who made you the person that determines such things? Last I checked the governing body said, "athlete" when it came to LoL.
It does take a level of physical skill to become a pro in LoL.
I do not deny this. It takes a level of physical skill to play baseball or quarters (the drinking games), but I don't call that shit a sport. I might hear an argument for beer pong, though.
There's impressive twitch reflexes and muscle memory on display. Really, really fast eye-hand coordination.
Yeah, so does close up sleight-of-hand magic. Not a sport. Maybe if the magicians were having a contest to see who could pick the most pockets in the audience while making their way to the stage or something, that'd be sport-like.
Tiger Woods is considered an athlete. Why?
Mainly because golf is "traditionally" considered a sport. "Darts" is also in that category. And while this is a weak sentence, when you swing a club, there's a lot more anatomical mechanics going on than just using your typical computer movements. Darts ... eh, less so. That's got to be the bare minimum for me, I believe. Shuffleboard is more physical than darts.
My biggest gripe is the digital nature of the output in LoL and vid games in general. Madden NFL is not a sport. Football is. Madden NFL only knows how to play football according to its code, its physics.
The far more interesting question comes in hybridizing things, like with Kinect or Wii. That's crossing some lines. If you throw a bowling ball with a Wii controller, it's pretty much the same motion as actual bowling, just with the world's lightest gear. That still brings up the earlier point that it's bowling according to Wii physics, which isn't the same as reality.
If I call something a "sport" with no modifiers (like "video game sport" or "electronic sport"), it must have a significant physical component, be competitive, and be subject to the physics of reality. I can't call CoD or CS or any FPS a real "sport" because, for starters, I've not seen an engine anywhere close to allowing arbitrary destructible buildings. I'm tired of having to rush defenders in a fortified area when I have grenades, rockets, missiles, and bombs that could be used to level the place. That's one small example. I'm not an LoL dude, but I bet some champ has a fire/explosion ability that incinerates your opponents but leaves vegetation untouched. "Hey, that jungler is killing us." Smoke him out and burn the mother down.
Is Greg Raymer an athlete? Not by appearance, but have you ever sat and done one thing for 20 hours straight for 3-4 days straight? Isn't there a level of physicality there?
At uni, I'd coding sessions from hell that sound like this, except that's nowhere near as fun as poker. It was not an athletic endeavour, although some degree of stamina and mental acuity came into play.
Why is Prince Fielder an athlete, and why wouldn't a physically fit professional LoL player also fit your criteria for "athlete"?
Baseball is undeniably more physical than LoL play, especially at the professional level. If you care to debate that, we'll compare injuries among pro players in both those areas. While Prince Fielder isn't the most athletic-looking dude there is, he does possess athletic ability. He runs, fields, throws, hits, and catches in a game that admittedly is the slowest moving of the "big" pro sports, and he's not particularly good at any of them except the hitting part. They are, however, all significant physical activities subject to the laws of physics of this world. Might a physically fit LoL player fare a bit better than one who's out of shape? Let's pretend he's someone capable of doing an Ironman without serious issue. He's a fit dude who plays a video game where his job is to punch in some keypad/mouse combos and shuttle a cursor around the screen, precisely clicking on various targets for various reasons, in as timely a fashion as possible. He's less likely to have a heart attack during a game. His muscle movements are largely a matter of twitch, not force. Additional mass on his biceps or quads really doesn't help him.
That's opposed to a dude who's less fit playing a game where a spheroid comes hurtling feet or inches from your body (or sometimes batters get drilled) up to 100mph plus some change. Your job is to take a narrow piece of formed wood and attempt to hit it as squarely as possible while not putting yourself out in the attempt. Or alternatively, since Prince is actually a first baseman, attempt to glove a hit ball off a bat. Line drives move fucking fast sometimes when you got a pro MLB batter that nails a pitch on his sweet spot.
1) Both dudes are professional competitors in their respective team games. I'll assume Mr. Ironman is, for the sake of argument.
2) Both dudes have some physical chores to handle, but Prince has way, way, way more. Let's assume that the UI for LoL can be made such that some physical feedback mechanisms are in place. Like a retarded "hammer strength ring the bell game" except that the harder you click down on the mouse button, for example, the larger your AoE radius is. It could even be absurd, like your champ's movement speed is controlled by your ass running on a treadmill during the game. Let's take it down to the bare minimum and say LoL is or can be made as physically demanding as darts.
3) Prince Fielder is still subject to all the wacky conditions of the real world. Bats shatter. Rain delays. Doping. Seagulls descending upon the field en masse. Managers or players having mental breakdowns during a game. At the extreme end, you've got this. I argue there is no baseball sim in the world that ever has or will be written that's robust enough to account for that shit unless it explicitly accounts for it. There's an infinite list of random WTF chaos that reality offers from which video game reality insulates you. That is at the root of my argument.
Is there an engine of sufficient complexity such that I'll say, "Yeah, close enough to real physics?" I guess in theory. This world lets me do whatever I can get away with. Video game worlds do not. If they don't like you doing something, it's a "bug" and it's patched.
Edited By Malcolm on 1373921475
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
If your next door neighbour\coworker starts driving alongside you and you're racing to work in some competitive way, then that's sporty enough for me.
I'm a driving athlete too. I drive every day. Competing with other drivers trying to get ahead of them and make it from point A to point B on stretches of road before they do. And since I don't have A/C, on days like today, I'm sweating. I compete every day, in my car. I don't compete with my neighbor every day. But random strangers that enter the field of battle to duel.
I'm guessing nobody really believes they are athletes (except the players themselves). It's a marketing thing. Rather than get them work visas, cause that's really what they are doing, they market the game as a 'sport' to draw a larger crowd. League players are WAY closer to air traffic controllers than hockey players. And NASCAR drivers are closer to truck drivers than marathon runners.
Edited By Cakedaddy on 1373925813
Edited By Cakedaddy on 1373925813
You do that for hours on end at at time and it's the real reason behind why you drive?Cakedaddy wrote:I'm a driving athlete too. I drive every day. Competing with other drivers trying to get ahead of them and make it from point A to point B on stretches of road before they do. And since I don't have A/C, on days like today, I'm sweating. I compete every day, in my car. I don't compete with my neighbor every day. But random strangers that enter the field of battle to duel.If your next door neighbour\coworker starts driving alongside you and you're racing to work in some competitive way, then that's sporty enough for me.
You compare yourself with dudes on the leader board to see who's doing better? Where's this board?
If all of the above checks out and if the name of your sport is "who can get to the intersection the quickest," then so be it. Just don't expect to see it on ESPN any time soon.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
I get the legal/bureaucratic aspects. I'd simply prefer if they'd differentiate between the current "sports" and the electronic/digital/vid gaming/whatever ones that pop up.Cakedaddy wrote:I'm guessing nobody really believes they are athletes (except the players themselves). It's a marketing thing. Rather than get them work visas, cause that's really what they are doing, they market the game as a 'sport' to draw a larger crowd. League players are WAY closer to air traffic controllers than hockey players. And NASCAR drivers are closer to truck drivers than marathon runners.
As for that NASCAR thing, ain't no truck can make left turns like that. Mythbusters did a thing where they ran a NASCAR race. The dude who got picked to wear the real suit and drive the real car was stoked at first. By the end, he was like, "Man, fuck this shit, I'm dead tired."
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
All your reasons why it's not a sport are just as dumb as my reasons it is.Malcolm wrote:You do that for hours on end at at time and it's the real reason behind why you drive?Cakedaddy wrote:I'm a driving athlete too. I drive every day. Competing with other drivers trying to get ahead of them and make it from point A to point B on stretches of road before they do. And since I don't have A/C, on days like today, I'm sweating. I compete every day, in my car. I don't compete with my neighbor every day. But random strangers that enter the field of battle to duel.If your next door neighbour\coworker starts driving alongside you and you're racing to work in some competitive way, then that's sporty enough for me.
You compare yourself with dudes on the leader board to see who's doing better? Where's this board?
If all of the above checks out and if the name of your sport is "who can get to the intersection the quickest," then so be it. Just don't expect to see it on ESPN any time soon.
So, if I play basketball with friends 3 days a week. Play flag football 2 days a week and play lacrosse on the weekend. But we never keep score. Never have a tournament. Just play our hardest to win that game, then meet up again next time, make teams based on who's there, repeat. We aren't athletes because there's no leader board?
K really though, back on topic. This is a League thread.
Played ADC in mid earlier today, thought it worked out really well. My team didn't really agree, obviously, they never do. Anyway, I think it's a good way to throw off the enemy team making them counter themselves esentially. I picked Caitlyn for her range, but I'm sure most ranged adc's would do. Just a thought.
Yes that means we'd have a mage down bot with the support, but I've seen that done many times and it works fine. Your thoughts?
Played ADC in mid earlier today, thought it worked out really well. My team didn't really agree, obviously, they never do. Anyway, I think it's a good way to throw off the enemy team making them counter themselves esentially. I picked Caitlyn for her range, but I'm sure most ranged adc's would do. Just a thought.
Yes that means we'd have a mage down bot with the support, but I've seen that done many times and it works fine. Your thoughts?
Even if you aren't keeping score, the spirit of competition is there in that the opposing team is trying to stop your progress on the field and you both give enough of shit to put forth that effort. That's why when peewee football teams let the loser kid walk a TD in, it officially makes that particular game not really a game, it's a gimme. The outcome is predetermined. There is no way to change it.
You can be athletic and not engage in sport. Maybe in your case there, you can chuck score out the window and still be an athlete. Hadn't considered that case.
Come to think of it, even if you completely disregard the final, you are still acknowledging the fact someone scored during certain points in the game, so that's competition of a sort. You probably have a general sense of when one side's trouncing another but if it's closer, well, that's why pro leagues keep scores. But if there's no standings, yeah, I guess you can still be called an athlete in that case.
Back to the driving thing ...
Are you the only one playing or are all the other drivers acknowledging the same rule set as you? Or aren't they playing at all?
Edited By Malcolm on 1373928033
You can be athletic and not engage in sport. Maybe in your case there, you can chuck score out the window and still be an athlete. Hadn't considered that case.
Come to think of it, even if you completely disregard the final, you are still acknowledging the fact someone scored during certain points in the game, so that's competition of a sort. You probably have a general sense of when one side's trouncing another but if it's closer, well, that's why pro leagues keep scores. But if there's no standings, yeah, I guess you can still be called an athlete in that case.
Back to the driving thing ...
Are you the only one playing or are all the other drivers acknowledging the same rule set as you? Or aren't they playing at all?
Edited By Malcolm on 1373928033
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Cracked me up this morning, NPR mentioned Riot AND League this morning related to this very arguement. . Lets just say the folks at the station agreed with the idea of calling pro gamers athletes. I just thought it was really cool that NPR did a story on not only gaming, but Riot and League, and spoke highly of both.
I'm going to address Malcolm's wall of text elsewhere when I have time.
So let's get the LoL thread back on track...
So let's get the LoL thread back on track...
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell