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Protests, Politics And Parties In MMORPGs

Posted by timothy on from the william-shatner-said-it-best dept.

The Importance of writes "LawMeme's James Grimmelmann has written an interesting piece on protests, politics and parties in MMORPGs. In particular, he talks about the 'tax revolt' in Second Life."

3 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. Raph Koster by Mr.123 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Still hard to believe that Raph Koster has come so far since LegendMUD. I started with that mud in 95 and played on and off for 5 years wasting thousands of hours. Although the mud peaked at only about 80 players, it was still very enjoyable. The man use to take part in his own MUD, building a tight and interesting community.

    He's definitely a talented designer also knowing the importance of a good mix of playerbase is essential to sustaining a in-game society. I can't vouch for any of the graphical MUDs he's been part of but I will always remember LegendMUD and late late nights doing quests, rescue parties, and infamous clan wars. (Knights and Grendels baby!)

  2. Re:Credit Required for Reg. by smeat · · Score: 4, Informative

    I tried out "A Tale In The Desert" and it has a free 24 hours of playing trial with no credit card required.

    I highly recommend the game.

    smeat
    --
    "Let's not bicker about who killed who." Monty Python
  3. Re:my favourite online protest.... by eggstasy · · Score: 4, Informative

    As a member of the group who created the tax protest, I can tell you very well what it was about.
    In SL, each region is a server with clearly defined limitations - 10 thousand prims, which stands for primitive shapes (cube, sphere, cylinder...)
    Instead of getting a fixed amount of space, like what happens when you purchase some space for a webpage, the developers thought it would be better to create a virtual economy to distribute resources to everyone.
    Just to give you an idea, a prim costs 10 Linden dollars and is taxed at $1 per week, more if its far above the ground, if its very large, or if it is a light.
    Taxes are meant to prevent rapid resource depletion. Without an economy in place, a malicious user could fill up a server in seconds, and a particularly creative user playing normally could very well fill it up on his own.
    As you can see, the limits imposed by the game constraint our imagination a bit, and force us to learn some efficient 3d design techniques, keeping the details in the textures and doing only the basic structure with actual polygons.
    This is what everyone's angry about. They came to SL with the expectation that they could build to their heart's content, and started doing so, but quickly hit a wall where their income could not pay for their taxes anymore. So naturally they felt frustrated because they didnt want to delete anything. The tax system has been tweaked a bit and now everything is going fine.
    If you guys have any questions about SL or the tax protest I'll do my best to answer them.