Paidea vs Ludus

    When considering a game that would be catogorised as 'Paidea', I instantly begin thinking about all the RPG and simulator games I've ever played, however I think an interesting choice would be World of Warcraft.
    Thinking about the 'Agon' or competition aspect of the MMORPG, there are plenty of ways in which it influences the competition or conflict. The most obvious way in which it does this is the Player vs. Player aspect, players have the choice to engage eachother throughout the world or in specified PvP areas (or battlegrounds). However it being an MMO, there's always other forms of competition, for example rivalry between guilds to see who can conquer the latest dungeon or gain the newest title, this type of competition also extends between friends playing the game to see who can get the best weapon or coolest looking armour. I think 'Alea' factors within an MMO are always present, players are always running into new players which naturally always changes their experience, one player could quite happily skip about questing and killing in an area, looting and making gold then the next minute they could be tearing the walls down because they've been getting killed by another player who's had a bad day and feels the need to punish the lowly levels, I think the presence of different players within a game always leaves the experience down to chance, a game stays the same it's the players and the people you play with that make the game enjoyable.
    With regards to movement, the world is so vast, players practically have complete freedom to move wherever they want which I think again supports the 'Paidea' aspect of the game, giving users complete liberation of movement and leaving it down to them to explore the game as they please, as opposed to linear, paths which don't leave alot of room for player expression. It being an RPG 'Mimicry' is fairly consistant throughout the game, users choice between male/female, Horde/Alliance, big/small, red/blue all contribute towards the 'make-believe' of the world that players inhabit. Sometimes I think players take the fantasy aspect too far and can get completely immursed within the world they've created for their avatar and can easily waste hours or even days away sat improving their character and exploring this new exciting world. I've heard stories about a few people across the globe that have seriously damaged their health through fatigue and in some cases died, forgetting to eat or sleep due to the fact that they have almost completely abandoned reality and lost themselves in a game. I think a player dieing due to reasons influenced by the content of a game might make a good arguement against Costikyan's arguement about games and endogenous meanings...
    The good thing about World of Warcraft is that it can be considered both 'paidea' and 'ludus', which I think is what Gonzalo Frasca mentions about ludus and paidea not necessarily hafting to be seperate, the goals are there although it's up to the user whether or not they want to achieve them or not.
    Seeing as the last few paragraphs are about a form of RPG I think as a comparison I should use another RPG to refer to 'Ludus'. Dragon Age: Origins, another knights and orcs type of game. In terms of theme, it doesn't differ tremendously from WoW, it has different zones to explore with different monsters and ghouls to overcome as well as different NPC's to interact with which differ depending on which choices you make, however it isn't an MMO. I feel that there is a much stronger 'paidea' presense within a game depending on whether it allows interaction between other real players, I dont' just mean MMORPG's like WoW or Everquest, or even games like Call of Duty 4/5/6, Unreal Tournament (specifically the online modes), even board game experiences can change all depending on the people who you're playing the game with. However with single player games like Dragon Age or Dead Space or Super Mario for the N64, there is alot more of a chance that players play the game with the intention of completing it, I'm yet to meet a game player who plays Super Mario purely becuase they enjoy jumping on the heads of mushrooms or to hear his cheerful 'Uh-hoo!' when he jumps.
    I'm not sure how far I can stretch the definition of 'agon' (competition) here, DAO has various obstacles in the form of quests and enemies that the player has to overcome in order to progress if that can be considered competition, competing for survival in order to explore the next zone or finish a quest, even though this may not be as exciting or intense as competing against real players, which is typically what I think of when considering competition from a games perspective.
    I don't think that there are too many random or chance factors (alea) of DAO, apart from again the players interaction with the game and how this would create a different experience each time depending on the choices they make, something that the game has in abundance; different paths to take to lead them to the final boss fight, however chance isn't as major an aspect of DAO as for example Monopoly. Thinking within the videogame genre of games, I bought a game recently for a fiver, mainly because of the price but also I'm intrigued to find out why they've been reduced that low in the first place. The game was call Circle of Doom, it said it was an RPG however I didn't play it long enough to find out as the first couple of levels bored me half to death as I spent my whole time running forward and hitting the attack button over and over, I later found out that on average it got about 2/10 from various reviews, which had I known I may not have bought it. The game in my opinion was terrible, however one feature that did impress me was it's ability to randomly generate maps (which I think was one of the back cover features that influenced me to buy it), each playthrough of a level would change it's layout. That is the only real 'random' element in a non multiplayer videogame that I've played and it would have worked well had the other elements of the game been better.
    Back to Dragon Age, movement (ilinx) is effected mainly by the current quest the player is on, they can decide which direction they want to head first only being hindered by random battle encounters and other monsters along the way. There are restrictions to how far a player can go, alot more so than WoW, however not so much that I felt like my path was laid out before me.
    The mimicry or 'make-believe' of Dragon Age I feel was well thought out and in-depth, it had a strong narrative which was easily embraceable, which in any RPG is important. The character customisation feature (similarly to WoW) helps the player buy into the fictional setting in which they are thrown into. Another good feature of DAO is that there are different races to choose between as a starting point for the game, which also changed the game later on, for example playing as a human won't give you as many dialogue options as playing as an elf when talking to another elf, which also gives the game a lot of 'replayability'.
    I think that 'Padiea' and 'Ludus' are both aspects of video games that either can or can't be present, although it obviously it helps to have one of the two. There are games that support Padiea like SimCity or World Of Warcraft and games that support Ludus like Dragon Age: Origins or the Metal Gear Solid series (Metal Gear Solid 1 being one of my favourite games to date), both have their benefits although it all boils down to the type of player you are, some play games for the challenge and the thrill of beating the obstacles the designers have placed in front of you and some play for more leisurely reasons, perhaps just to log into a game for the social community. Either way despite whether a game is considered Ludus or Paidea, player self expression and interpretation should be permitted in any game.