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Protests, Politics And Parties In MMORPGs
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."
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no way...
die you bloody ass mofos!!!
GNAA are the bastards of christ!!!
Get over to Brussels and smash their shit up!
If I don't like how life is in a game, I'm free to leave at any time and start a new life elsewhere agreeing to the new rules of that society.
you open sauce hippies....
Get a life?
The naked riot of 1997 in Ultima Online:
From AlterNet:
History has shown gamers that online protest can result in positive change, as exemplified in Ultima Online's 1997 naked riot demanding bug fixes and server upgrades. Not only were some of the rioters' issues addressed by the game publisher following the incident, but the event was widely reported, and gamers worldwide have been inspired to acts of virtual civil disobedience ever since. Remember that your worst enemy, aside from integrated branding, is inaction. Electronic Arts clearly wants players of The Sims Online to be wildly imaginative, and has already recognized that the online world is unpredictable.
fp wootwootwootowotowootowotowotwootwoowt
this is my form of revolt...
eat my llama..
asdfasdfasd
that in a game such as Second Life, that something of this nature would happen. It is a game, that is totally openended, which lends itself to the creation of a "government". Take Golding's Lord of the flies for example. A bunch of kids set up a "system of government." this government ultimately fails, but the premise is the same. A group of people, with a common interest get together, in this case their country is a digital domain. It really is an interesting study in anthropology, if you ask me.
Game Overdrive - Gaming News
Dating back to MUD days, could always have fun killing each other, forming groups, getting purged (ostracized) from a group, etc.
The best online game party has to be when an RPG converts to a chaos-like free-for-all deathmatch/capture the flag. OH YEAH!
--------
Free your mind.
forward microsoft all of your M$ worms, asking how the hell they could get defense contracts without bribery/extortion.
If that involves too much thought, just go streaking at SCO.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
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!)
It is my favorite game DOOM of the LINUS operating system in which you run through a maze shooting monsters such as demnos and eval humans who say hey hey hey when you shoot them. Soon it is coming DOOM III in which I will play on LINUS on my beowulf clusters.
I just heard this on the radio - Michael Moore, dead at 41! He was involved in a plane crash, flying to Texas to investiagte the Bush/Bin Laden families oil dealings.
Even if you didn't like him, you can't deny he made an important contribution to Communism in the United States.
I have a story... Back in my undergrad days, I happened upon a game called Everquest (maybe you've heard of it). To keep the story short, I don't remember much of my sophomore year. I got kicked out, and allowed reentrance only upon agreeing to seeing a school counseler once a week for a year. I pretty much ended up having to stay away from computers altogether to break my obvious addiction. Now flashforward to March of this year. I had just purchased a Motorola T720 cell phone, which can play games that you can download from Verizon. I decided to see what games were available, and low and behold... Sony had released a version of Everquest for cell phones! I couldn't help downloading it. It was everybit as addictive as the PC game, but fortunately much smaller, and the online play sucks. Still, I was taking off work early quite often this week. Gaming addiction is a strange thing. My counseler believed my addiction may have actually stemmed from my being uncircumcised, and kids at school making fun of me relentlessly. I thought that I had gotten over it, but the brain works in mysterious ways. Apparently, I was trying to make myself happy by playing video games. The chemicals induced in the brain in such a state are similar to those in cocaine.
The article makes a good point about so-called "progressive" taxation.
People who contribute more to society through judicious use of their increased wealth are punished for having that wealth in the first place. As a result, being wealthy is less desirable, and there will be fewer wealthy people able to finance large projects that benefit society as a whole. The result is a mediocre, stagnant society where only the state, rich at the expense of hard workers, can engage in large projects which will be burdened by the inefficient nature of government-run programs.
Therefore, if there is to be taxation at all, it should either be a flat tax, or the wealthy should be taxed even less as they a smaller burden on society than those who don't produce as much wealth, and thus make use of social services paid for by all the taxpayers.
I tried the star wars MMPORPG because friend insisted it was "the greatest thing ever".
Its so freaking boring...the tutorial fine, but the game, you get to a world, and it consists of guys looking for raw materials so they can level up characters, so they can then look for different raw materials so they can level up characters...
I'm only saying this because I think the mentality of people who play these games is not part of what most people consider "normal", and therefore, the current MMPORPG population is just a collection of weird geeks.
So if you try to draw a conclusion from that population, its a bad idea.
I can't believe this got posted. Man wait till the Ayn Rand and Libertarian whacko's get a hold of this thread. Man is it gonna hit the fan tonight
...that's a complete load of crap.
Lord Of The Flies is a book that illustrates how easy it is for us to fall into anarchy without the presence of a society to keep us in check.
The book isn't about failing systems of government, it's about how, in the absence of any form of government, we quickly we fall back to a selfish "survival of the fittest" state with the strong preying on the weak.
The boys don't try to set up a system of government, they try to live by the rules that society has taught them. But, pretty soon, they realise that without society watching over them, those rules are easily disposed of - and weaker figures like Simon and Piggy suffer as a result.
Witness the near-deification of the conch, the hunting, the return to "normal" behaviour when rescue arrives, etc. This isn't a book about government or society, it's a book about a lack of government and the breakdown of society.
No book more clearly illustrates the mentality that turns ordinary people going about their daily business into a rioting, blood-thirsty mob than William Golding's masterpiece. When it comes to examining how easily we can descend into anarchy, LOTF is the bible.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Meanwhile, US citizens are barely registering a whimper of protest at the draconian laws passed every day in the name of "patriotism" and "protecting the homeland".
It's pretty sad that people organize "protests" in a fucking -game- but won't stand up for their rights in real life. What is the matter with you people?
Please help metamoderate.
This game tax was supposed to fix runaway inflation by changing behavior by giving 'players an incentive to get rid of things they don't really want any more.' In the real world people are getting sick of taxation as social engineering. Taxation should be about funding the government.
Reminds me of a time in one game I play called Dragonrealms, where they changed how some aspect of experiance in the game worked, so all the healers in the game refused to heal any wounds. Between that and the general chaos it caused, the experiance system was changed back quickly. Sometimes a little in game riot goes quite far.
Cancel your subscription. That's what I did with Star Wars Galaxies. The game clearly isn't ready for release.
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
Instead of protesting (and actually doing something to help) REAL injustices in the world, here we have some priviledged people whining about some imagined virtual oppression.
Stuff like this really make me care less what happens. Goes to show how good they actually have it.
So when will things change, and people stop considering such social experiments to be "games"? Surely by now we're starting to see that the society represented electronically in these MMORPGs is no less valid than the physical world...
Personally, I've been caught up in a couple of these MMORPGs and while I've always managed to keep the boundaries between the "game" and "real-life" nice and clear not all players manage to do this. To some of them, their on-line "life" is just as important as what most people consider to be reality.
Also consider that one of the key boundaries between virtual and physical worlds is gradually breaking down - money. It is far easier to purchase items, assistance, support and knowledge for these "games" than it was just a couple of years ago. Now that people are willing to spend real-world money on not-so-real-world commodities, does this make them less of a game?
Several years back, the Lake Superior shard (UO game server) was having serious problems. So a bunch of folks who played on that server hopped over to the Atlantic shard to protest. For whatever reason, it was red dress instead of going naked: Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2, they put us in jail
Of course, naked protests aren't unheard of. I don't recall what this one was about, but we were a merry band of nude archers: Naked Posse
Frigax
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
...what with its open-ended gameplay, subscriber content creation, and clever Linux-based server-side technology. I was preparing to sign up for the free trial when I discovered it only runs on XP/2000. Pfffft!
Your cousin's name is furnace, he's a fucking dwarf!
I would really like to see a MMORPG be designed with a pay controled government in place. Imagine if there are a few hundred variable rules in place that contrain things like taxes, lang usage, skill acquisition, hunting, etc. Now, you have a congress/parliment set up to control these variables through bills. Every 6 months of so, you can have an online election to elect the president and a congress whose size is based on population. Online worlds are already divided into districts, cities, servers, etc. Now you can have direct action in demorcracy.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
Skip that game trial.....
Where the Music Matters
When I tried to persuade a waring faction of savages to lay down their weapons and join me in peace, I quickly found myself splattered against a nearby wall by a stray rocket. Awakening in a nearby chamber (Damn cloning, I protested against that, too!) and proceeded to shout my pleas to pacify the barbarians shooting at each other. After several hours of this and quit, there's no use playing a roleplaying game with so little character interaction and virtually no economy.
Quake had to be the worst MUD I'd ever played!
Banaaaana!
If they are taxing just because things are so easy to get that they aren't fun any more then why not make them harder to get? Or make them wear out with use or time. Seriously, that is why consumer goods break so often.. because otherwise people wouldn't need to buy them very often.. so huge corporations wouldn't exist to supply people with new can openers on a regular basis. We could make these things last longer but we choose not to. So do the same with your game.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
What a pack of nonsense.
The rich got rich by taking it from the poor? I suppose you could keep telling yourself that; makes a handy rationalization for overly confiscatory tax rates. A suitable punishment for the "evil" rich. Make sure, when you discuss this issue with others, that you use the word "deserve" repeatedly... it's an important buzzword for those attempting to justify taking away wealth that others have earned.
Rich people didn't get rich by being stupid; they don't put their money under a mattress. They repatriate their dollars back into the market, into banks, and into investments and products. Money those banks can then lend... money that supports the manufacturers of the products they buy, and money that provides venture capital to new start-ups. That money doesn't leave the market, it goes right back into the economy, where it employs people and pays for goods and services.
Raping society? Please. What a ridiculous pack of anonymous flamebait. You're giving the AC label a bad name.
How about Canada? I welcome my socialist friends up north...
:)
Is the "War" on Drugs getting you down?
Is the "war" on terrorism depressing you?
Is your Imperial government making you uneasy?
Are you worried about your education systems?
Are you scared of walking in the "wrong" part of town?
Fear not... Canada is the answer to all*...
* Please check in guns at the border. Thank you
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
ok...but once Patriot Act II passes (which will happen as soon as another terrorist attack happens) we'll see where you stand...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Perhaps the solution to the tax is to incorporate some form of manufacture, sales and profit. One would have to limit or provide cost to the manufacturing/labor to make this work. The primary problem with the inflation, it seems, in all these games is that the money supply is virtually limitless once you know how to get it. Instead, stop the money supply (for the most part) and rely on commerce to take over.
:)
In a game like Ultima or other combat based games, this might have to be revised but it seems like Second Life is more about life. So anyways, your stadium is taxed more but people come and visit it and you charge for it. This makes you a net profit.
Okay, I realize I may be missing some of the boat since I don't play MMORPGs but I think it would be vastly interesting to model these RPGs in a manner similar to real life. This would make it even more interesting if/when "twists" are thrown in as they might reflect interesting revelations about what might happen in real life. Or even "playing" with economics a little.
By the way, in the Ultima or combat style MMORPGs, you could still limit the money supply but one would need to realistically have the villages sacked every once in a while by a band of orcs, dragons or whatever. Then the good warriors have to go and get it back.
Finally, I've always had an interesting theory about economics. The old line is that nothing happens until something gets sold. Yet in many ways, government focuses on "taxing" things which of course reduces the amount of items sold. I propose an interesting experiment to be to reduce taxes for spending a certain portion of your income within a month. For example, let's say 50% of your income within a month. This means that the poor would likely be spending this amount anyways (and be subject to those savings) and the rich would be encouraged to spend more to help vitalize the economy. I'm sure I haven't thought this entirely through yet but I'd be interested in hearing some responses to this. I get this feeling, however, that the criticisms can be worked through.
By the way, this would have to be matched through some accounting system that matches bills to taxes and of course would require automation to make it viable. This may involve privacy concerns but, of course, you could opt out if you wanted to keep something private or come to some other solution.
At any rate, ideas like this could be interesting to test in a real economically based, paper-money limited, MMORPG.
Sunny
Be my Friend
-DNA, Duh.
...we would protest more if when we all get together and tried to do anything the wouldn't game lag...lag some more and finally sbexe out. (For those of you lucky enough to never have to experiance the sb exe error, it's a fatal error resulting in the process being removed from memory, aka a crash)
Anyone know if it's gotten better. Haven't played in a few weeks but have heard from a friend it is a bit better, probably due to the fact enough people have left where the server side has a lighter load it can handle, not that there was ever enough players to have what should be considered a large load under these cirsumstances.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Well, I'd have to disagree with that one. I can only drink so much water, use so much electricity, and drive so many miles in a day (all of which I pay for, either directly, or indirectly). I'd also say that my vote doesn't count for any more than joe the garbage collector's vote.
Why ought the rich to pay a greater percentage? Because they are bad people? Because they stole it? Because they don't deserve it? Because they perspire more than other people? Why? I've yet to have any higher-tax-rate proponent explain that to my satisfaction. A flat tax that kicks in at a certain income level is the epitome of fairness... everyone above a certain income level pays the same cut. They pay different amounts, of course, but the percentage is the same.
I didn't steal my wealth from anyone... I worked hard for it, and I continue to do so. I won't be told that I somehow don't deserve to enjoy it, or that I'm wrong to be well-off.
The progressive taxation argument is simple class warfare, and plays on the baser emotions of jealousy and envy, nothing more. As I listen to the lefitsts of the world, I wonder if I somehow missed something, I wonder if I'm going to wake up tomorrow and find out that I'm an armed robber instead of a healthcare professional... listening to some democrats, you'd think that's how I made my money.
I refuse to accept the moral aspersions that are thrown in my direction, simply because I make a good income... as if we are all idle rich who inherited it, and lay around all day putting on airs and abusing the "less fortunate." I utterly reject the implied lack of moral fitness that some want to tie to wealth.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Are you sure you aren't basing your beliefs on a Simulacra?
Natural disasters and invading armies, that destroy infrastructure and bury goods forever. Little gremlins that slip past and thief gems and amulets. These would tend to spice up the games.
Wasn't a book published, under Tom Clancy's name (im pretty sure he didn't actually write any of it) in the Net Force series dealing with a creation of a online community? Except that community did create its own goverment, its own everything and tried to make itself a real country or a real state, and not abide by the US laws? How soon will it be before it comes to this? -pix
"an eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind"
What are online revolts and revolutions? They are the resolution to a paradox of a society that encourages and rewards individualism, but at the very same time generalizes, stereotypes, and also rewards conformity. In other words, we tell individuals that they are important, but at the same time, thanks to the proliferatino of mass media, Americans now have a greater perception of those around them than anyone else at any time in history. Prior to this, the world was contained to largely a town, or section of a city. Now, however, Americans are individuals, yes, so we are told. But we also feel terribly small when we realize that we play such a small role in the perceived world around us (the world that mass media presents us with). We are made to believe that individuals are of the highest importance. The paradox, though, is why do our actions mean so little? If we, as individuals, are as important as the American idealogy would have us believe, why then are our actions meaningless as individuals? Why is the mass media more concerned with seeminlgy everything around us, except ourselves? The paradox? Individuals are important. But individuals are also ignored. If I am important, why can I not apply this level of importance to the world around me? If the individual is penultimate in American society, why am I completely ignored by society when I want lower taxes? Why can I not change and control the environment, if I am as important as everyone tells me? The people in this online games have realized, either on a conscious level or otherwise, that if they cannot change the immediate environment around them, if their individual actions do not mean anything in the immediate world, all that is required is to switch environments, change worlds. It is in online games that their importance as individuals is recognized alongside the importance of their actions. They are both individual and impacting. It's important to note that American society has always moved in this direction; gangs, cliques, etc, are all manifestations of this. But online games give the illusion of incredible impact. They match the importance of individualism with the importance of impact. The players in Second Life are creating a revolt! A revolt! How is that possible within the confines of the real world? What does a nude sit-in in the real world accomplish? A novelty at best, and nothing at worst. But a nude sit-in in Britannia? That accomplish something. I believe that what is now on the absolute fringe of society will gradually make its way into mainstream. They are the perfect solution to the American paradox of individuals and impact, they manage to squeeze by both and integrate these two elements into a world where an individual's personhood and their actions are as important.
1. When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.
Hit the HTML submit button instead of the extrans preview:
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What are online revolts and revolutions? They are the resolution to the paradox of a society that encourages and rewards individualism, but at the very same time generalizes, stereotypes, and also rewards conformity. In other words, we tell individuals that they are important, but at the same time, thanks to the proliferatino of mass media, Americans now have a greater perception of those around them than anyone else at any time in history. Prior to this, the world was contained to largely a town, or section of a city. Now, however, Americans are individuals, yes, so we are told.
But we also feel terribly small when we realize that we play such a small role in the perceived world around us (the world that mass media presents us with). We are made to believe that individuals are of the highest importance. The paradox, though, is why do our actions mean so little? If we, as individuals, are as important as the American idealogy would have us believe, why then are our actions meaningless as individuals? Why is the mass media more concerned with seeminlgy everything around us, except ourselves? The paradox? Individuals are important. But individuals are also ignored. If I am important, why can I not apply this level of importance to the world around me? If the individual is penultimate in American society, why am I completely ignored by society when I want lower taxes? Why can I not change and control the environment, if I am as important as everyone tells me?
The people in these online games have realized, either on a conscious level or otherwise, that if they cannot change the immediate environment around them, if their individual actions do not mean anything in the immediate world, all that is required is to switch environments, change worlds. It is in online games that their importance as individuals is recognized alongside the importance of their actions. They are both individual and impacting. It's important to note that American society has always moved in this direction; gangs, cliques, etc, are all manifestations of this.
But online games give the illusion of incredible impact. They match the importance of individualism with the importance of impact. The players in Second Life are creating a revolt! A revolt! How is that possible within the confines of the real world? What does a nude sit-in in the real world accomplish? A novelty at best, and nothing at worst. But a nude sit-in in Britannia? That accomplishes something.
I believe that what is now on the absolute fringe of society will gradually make its way into mainstream. They are the perfect solution to the American paradox of individuals and impact, they manage to squeeze by both and integrate these two elements into a world where an individual's personhood and their actions are equivalent in importantance.
That is, the article's premise and presentation.
This image should be a little reminiscent of one of Bill Gate's primary sexual fantasies. At least us Linux guys don't dream about sick shit like this.
greetings,
on the vein of opensource, have someone else try something like this:
1)A team of developers create, design and code the game, which is opensource. Lets call them The Founding Fathers
2)People who want to play, must pay a fee. This fee is to maintain the server, and pay the developers -as usual
3)After a period, comes election times. other developers step in, make their new propossal to the game and gammers vote.
4)So, this guys take the administration and improvement of the game on his hands, they rule the game and get paid for it trough the gammers fees.
5)GOTO 3... and you have a ever evolving game with democracy.
I can't believe anyone cares about what happens in Second Life. The 'game' is a crock of shit, and bugged five ways from Sunday. It's like those horrible old 3D IRC clients pretending to be an actual game.
If you want to play in an online community-style game that has an actual GAME to it, check out Puzzle Pirates
I have in my hand a manual can opener bought back in 1986. I believe it was bought at some dollar store. I also think that was the 50 year anniversary marking the era where citizens in the U.S. had bitched about things not being "made like they used to." So why is it that I still have a functional implement made in the "disposable consumer item era" that still works very well after daily use for 17 years?
The disposable product meme is getting pretty old.
No matter what the tax rate, Second life is at least four times better then Half-Life is.
(OT, I know, but...) Would someone seriously tell me why people post stuff like this? I'm not super offended or anything, I just don't get it, really...
is it like a weird sexual fetish or can't they find alt.troll or are they really grade-schoolers or what? (The trolls at Fark usually stay on topic at least, and sometimes they are even subtle...)
TIA!
Nowhere in these united States of America is there any talk of a society. Now, there is a Preamble known as We, the People. When the States fell, a new union was created that had a strong federal government by law (not of law, known as the United States) that created a contractual citizenship known as citizen of the United States. The Republic had Preamble that was inclusive for the People while the newly created democracy has a corportation that issues security agreements known as citizen of the United States and as a party to the Trust-62 you are defined as a vessel.
Still, there lacks a society that you speak of. Is a society somthing that was left in Britain or *gasp* Soviet Russia? We, the People are no longer freemen and verry few of us exist anymore. If you want a society, you should recognize that there isn't one here. We now have a gestapo police state run by a corporation known as the United States, and it is a bankrupt entity that lacks commercial liability so nothing will stop its encroachments until a Revolution occurs or it is bought back by us few We, the People. Every legal element created by the United States is one more peice of freedom removed from the ignorant citizens of the United States. If you want to be a freemen, you should derive your rites elsewhere; try praying to Jesus Christ and Jehova, they are good.
that's a paddling.
I wish people would apply this kind of energy to the real world instead of frittering it away on mindgames. It could have been real useful, say for example, in Florida around November 2000.
Taxes are levied in Second life because of finite server resources(ALL content is server-side, the client download is a mere 11mb). A server can handle x amount of objects, and tax levels are calculated based on things like total available land, and other factors.
For example, i have an empty "sim" (one game world unit, in an interconnected grid of sims), and i first want to buy some land in that sim. I buy a 32x32m plot of land for x amount of money. Now, you get taxed for that land, since its a limited server resource. Now i want to build say a house. I "rez" in 4 cube primitives, shape them to form walls. Each item costs y money to bring in to the world, then has a tax for stying in the work for an extended period of time, based on a variety of factors. Basically anything that costs server ram and CPU cycles, you get taxed for. You would have to play the game to fully understand the results this actually has, but as the base of it.. is theres a finite amount of resources, and the rules keep them form being exploited.
Second life is a game where the players make their own content. Theres a scripting language and primitives based modeller. You can import textures and sounds, and create what you like. Dont want to create? no problem. Its a game you play as you like. Its a paradigm shift, and worth your time to take a look at if you want a truly new gaming experience.
"Stuff... In my home!? NEVER!" - Zim on Invader Zim
"I want the toilet seat!" - Little Dog on Two Stupid Dogs
Second Life?
Are the creators sure these people had a 'first' life?
[Chief Wiggum] Mod it down, boys! [/Chief Wiggum]
- I am made of meat.
LOTF is just well-dressed propaganda, teaching youngsters that without the guiding adult hand they inevitably descend into primitive violence. No coincidence it's such a favorite of teachers.
Life's real stories of youngsters abandoned shows something quite different. In the Polish ghettos, Nazi camps, streets of Rio and of Kinshasa... children form groups and look after each other.
The most flagrant examples of children acting violently are wars in which adults abduct children and train them as soldiers: Colombia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Liberia, and many other cases... it's the adults doing the damage.
Children don't have holy water running through their veins, but they do not embody naked evil either. They just try to get along. LOTF is a caricature, based on the idea of "original sin", saying that we ar civilized only because society keeps us in check. Bullshit. Society is an expression of our human nature, and civilization is a natural consequence of our innate desire for an easy life and our built-in mechanisms for conflict avoidance.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I've always wondered what it would be like in the world if barriers for people to interact with people from other parts of the world, whether geographical or language were removed. And I believe we may soon find out, via MMORPGs.
One of the emerging trends that I see coming is the ability for international players to freely communicate and interact with each other, free of language barriers. Nintendo, SEGA, et al. have been working on this problem for quite some time now, and have even started to commercialize it. It's one of the emerging trends in MMORPG game design will create interesting interactions and facilitate global play to a greater extent than is now.
Some early results can be seen in the GameCube/DreamCast title "Phantasy Star Online" where you can select from a menu of sentence patterns, subjects, objects, etc. We're trying to get it to the point where you can translate free text, without the awkward results that stuff like Babelfish, et al. yield, maybe augmented by a player-aided cache of words and phrases, with dynanmic improvement in translation accuracy using in-game human feedback and machine learning.
I am really looking forward to the time where international players freely interact -- it will be an interesting sociology experiement to see how national and cultural means, norms and paradigms manifest themselves in a virtual world free of linguistic, political, and physical barriers.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
Not that there isn't anything cool to be said about the topics of fuction, its just that english teachers arent educated in the relevant fields. This leads to ridiculous things like in intro college english, an example high quality well written essay explained how music CDs are reasonably priced at $20+, due to the high per-unit manufacturing costs.
I remember back about 6 to 7 months ago a protest by the players occurred in DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot).
The complaints were regarding a particular faction (hibernia to those who know the game). Players encouraged other players in the same faction to join a particular server for a protest regarding the issues.
The problem being, the Hibernia realm was the last developed realm and this does show rather well when compared against others.
Class balance issues, some monster/mobile issues and general complaints were all held. Interestingly enough it did get some attention, but I believe most of the answers weren't exactly concrete.
None the less, a protest is a protest, and it is worth mention.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
If you're wondering what William Shatner said best, click here. Because timothy sure hit the nail on the head this time.
If you're wondering what William Shatner said best, click here. Because timothy sure hit the nail on the head this time.
Cynical this may be, but I can't see Star Wars: Galaxies ever being truly ready. After all, even with vehicles, it's still just a game given a Star Wars makeover. That may have worked for Knights of The Old Republic, because while it's quite open in form the plot can still be directed. But Everquest is pretty much a sprawling formless game and just throwing lightsabres etc intot he minute doesn't make it a compelling game. Or one that actually does the Star Wars license any justice (though that hasn't stopped Lucasarts in the past).
the return to "normal" behaviour when rescue arrives
You ruined the ending, you insensitive clod! :-P
I played DAOC excessively for a little more than a year. In that time, several players on my server died for one reason or another. It hurt to discover that someone you encountered in virtual battle, possibly many times, had cast his last spell or ganked his last noob and assumed room temperature.
If the dead has any virtual friends a memorial will get organized. These get announced on various forums and in-game. In the case of DAOC, at almost no other time will you stand among the enemy without being in battle. At these times, however, possibly hundreds of players gather and have good thoughts about the departed. Honor prevails and people behave.
So lets not get too worked up about a little virtual disobedience. There is a lot more than that going on inside MMORPGs. Ironically, one can imagine that the virtual turnout for the dearly departed will nearly always outstrip the real life version by an order of magnitude. Figure that out and you might have something interesting to get worked up about.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Instances in which it was just us the boys, when the adults would not be around for whatever reason, even for just a few hours. Bullying, hazing, power-grabbing type behavior does start to occur even in that short a time span. Given a longer period of isolation, it's not at all farfetched that we'd descend to the LOTF levels and start killing each other. That's what immature males do without guidance. It's the whole alpha male thing. Guys all know this, in particular us geeks know this very well!
I think what the original poster meant is that some sort of an authority figure needs to be there for people, in particular in this instance young immature males. Society, religion, parents, whatever. Young boys left to there devices will self destruct on one another."Remember, the article starts off talking about the rampant inflation inherent in MMOGs"
Which is, of course, utter bollocks. The problem, if there is one, is rampant _deflation_ of prices: items that would have cost 2000 whatsits when they first appeared cost 20 whatsits today because they're so common. It's only the brand-new and very rare items that cost a lot.
"the rich have an easy time accumulating more wealth to compensate for inflation."
Why do you need to accumulate wealth when goods cost 1% of the price they sold for when they first appeared? A new "poor" player in Everquest can equip themselves with items for a thousand platinum that would have cost many tens of thousands when the game was young... and make that thousand platinum in a few hours of killing spiders.
Frankly, whenever I read an article complaining about "inflation" in MMORPGs I know from the start that the author doesn't know what they're talking about.
Not just a favorite of teachers but a favorite of female teachers who point out that "only boys would act this way, girls would never ever act this way".
As with all 10 minute play reviews of MMORPGs this is a reflection of the player, not the game...
Its so freaking boring...consists of guys looking for raw materials...just a collection of weird geeks...
Firstly - WTF were you looking for? MMORPGs get boring for three reasons:
1. You don't understand what's happening - typical of a 10 mins play reviewer.
2. You don't care - you went in expecting to hate it, you don't interact, you don't have a goal, you basically don't want to be there anyway.
3. You're doing the wrong thing. As has been discussed many times, there are multiple types of people. Sounds like you tried being an artisan (achiever, mostly). Try a different class. Get a new char, or just visit a trainer and learn some new skills. You sound like a agressive sulky sort - get into the agressor scene. Go get some Imperial Faction pets, put some effort into becoming a bounty hunter, commando or similar and go round greifing other players. It gives the socialisers something to moan about, the achievers another hurdle and the explorers something to laugh at, then ignore.
You'll become the lowest life form, but you won't care, and the game will continue, with or without you.
So if you try to draw a conclusion from that population, its a bad idea.
Well, SWG took over a quarter or a million subscribers in the first month. That's a lot of people, however you look at it. You may have to be careful with your conclusions, but you can get some very useful stuff from it.
MMORPGs now pull over a million regular players. That's a high percentage of regular PC Gamers. Not something you can ignore easily, or package as 'just weird geeks'.
And really, how did a rant about 'weird geeks' get +4 Interesting on Slashdot. This is where 'weird geeks' congregate.
Trust me, all those MMORPG players who read this are laughing and moving on.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
LOTF removes the children from human society and plonks them into a wilderness, then observes as pure evil emerges stepwise from the simple combination of human nature and untamed nature.
American schools, and school children, should be so lucky. They are surrounded by the clutter of the most superficial urban culture ever invented, a culture where role models are those who steal and accumulate the most, a culture where success is never long-term, always immediate, a culture that worships violence and venerates the Law without the need for Reason.
Really not the same thing at all.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Well, allegories are fine. Animal Farm is at least a clear caricature of historical events. LOTF is sociofiction: not based on real events, or on documented cases. If it is a moral story about adult human society, it has the same failings as if it was literal fiction about children. Adults do not spontaneously resort to violence without specific triggers, none of which are even hinted at in the book.
Animal Farm carefully examines how the lust for power makes an egalitarian system impossible, how when freed from their human masters, the animals recreate the same structures of power and control they tried to hard to escape, how the revolution eats its own children, and why the destruction of political structures is so much worse than the gentle reformation of them.
Lord of The Flies just says: little boys are nasty things that go around poking each other with sharp sticks, and that's it as far as serious analysis goes. Metaphor or not, it stinks as much as the pigs head that forms the most interesting and relevant character in the book.
Like I said, it is propaganda, widely used by teachers to instill fear in children.
Fiction like this says a lot more about the author than it says about the rest of the world.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
This certainly demonstrates one of the paradoxes of the MMORPG. On one hand, it has to be fun, and everybody has to be able to do everything in it. On the other hand, you somehow have to create the illusion of a living, working world.
And it is an illusion. To satisfy the first condition, the moment you have a built-in quest, the players are rendered powerless to change the world around that quest - a town in danger from a Dragon is always in danger from a Dragon, no matter how many times the Dragon is slain.
But, there are certain concerns that make running an MMORPG a very tricky balancing act:
1. The company must retain control over the game. This essentially renders democracy in an MMORPG impossible. The moment the players actually have a controlling interest in the game itself, the creator of the game is placed in the impossible situation of being responsible for what happens inside the game, but being to control it.
(This is the reason, for example, that when you create a character in any MMORPG, the company running the MMORPG owns the character. If you own the character, you can make demands on the company that are unreasonable in the greater scheme of things, the company HAS to give in [as the character is your property], and since the company owns the game, they are liable for anything you do.)
2. For the game to survive, the players must form a viable community. This means that the game must be fun, but also encourage people to contribute to the world in ways other than slaughtering monsters (such as creating items in UO and EverQuest). In the end, it is the people that the regular players come back for, not the game itself.
3. The game must be balanced, both in design and community. And that is the hardest of the lot, considering the first two factors. Too much inflation and the majority of the players are driven away. Have a closed system, such as the real world, and all of the resources get eaten up by the first players in the game, leaving everybody else in a state of poverty (which happened in the early days of UO). The tax system in Second Life is an interesting solution, and possibly the best I've heard so far (as just pushing new and better stuff into the economy creates inflation).
The big issue is whether democracy can end up existing in an MMORPG. Quite frankly, I don't think it can. It is one thing to petition a developer for a change, which is what the protest basically amounts to, but quite another for the players to dictate to the developers what can and can't be done in the game. The moment you have the gamers in full control of the game, the game will start to die - there will just be too many voices fighting for control at once.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
I like MMPORPG's, and SWG is absolutely horrible.
The guy (woman?) is right, you get out of the tutorial, you get dumped on some planet, and its a bunch of people asking for "bone" (?????) or something that has nothing to do with *gaming*. Hell, if I want to build characters, I'll play "The Sims" and save $15 a month.
Its a laziness by the programmers; there are so many people who want to play in a star wars universe that SWG's looks like the ticket. But there's no *game* there. Just building characters.
This is the kind of game that will keep MMORPG's in the domain of geekdom forever.
Second Life, in its way, is more remote than Iraq. I can't just point you to newspapers with daily coverage of events. I can't send you to the web site of the Second Life Public Library. These things don't exist in a form that can easily cross the border back to reality.
And why not? These "worlds" exist as their own independent "nation" of sorts. Why can't game makers create a direct link between their virtual worlds and the World Wide Web?
For example, I think it would be great if we could read our in-game mail, browse the stores/bazaars, or chat with our Guild/PA through a web browser interface.
I think this may be coming in the future, but I wonder why it hasn't taken off already?
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"another 'classic' problem of online games: runaway inflation."
the article describes deflation, where the value of money goes up (you can buy more with less) and the price of goods goes down?
I read the article, and read up on some of the complaints and the stories. It appears that they could have solved this problem by offering tax credits/rebates for philanthropic "projects".
The next complaint by the user community will be based on what is considered philanthropic and what is not. Judgement will come into play. People will be angry for different reasons.
I can almost guarantee that if someone built a monument, got their tax break, someone else will scream bloody murder because they didn't get their tax credit for building blankety-blank.
Face it, some people are unhappy in their own skin. There are people who object to everything. These are people who will never be happy. They might best be served by creating their own game and playing it the way they want to play instead of forcing change on 98% of the rest of the world.
Lastly, it's a game. Get a life! Read a book. People who spend that much time "escaping" from reality need help.
-- No sig for you!
Um, yes inflation is a problem. Do you understand the meaning of the word? What happens in mmorpgs is exactly what inflation is. Money is created out of nothing, with no real value behind it. As time goes on, there is more and more money. That is inflation. The reason prices are so high on new things is because people have so much money from inflation.
"Lord Of The Flies is a book that illustrates how easy it is for us to fall into anarchy without the presence of a society to keep us in check." :
First of all, you point towards a definition of anarchy that is completely false.
Secondly, you say
"The book isn't about failing systems of government, it's about how, in the absence of any form of government, we quickly we fall back to a selfish "survival of the fittest" state with the strong preying on the weak..."
I'm having a hrd time seeing how this is different that ANY system that exists today.
_____ "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- Orwell
...except, of course, it is intended as allegory for a much broader statement about human nature in the absence of government or authority. It is a eloquent restatement of Hobbes's "nasty, brutish and short" epigram. And very much a propaganda piece.
Whether it's right or not (and even the examples cited here given a less-than-definitive answer), I always assumed Heinlein's "Hole in the Sky" was intended as a reply to Golding. Heinlein has his band of lost children develop a successful society which fends off a truly dangerous indigenous life form. The funny part is when the media shows up and tries to portray them as having sunk back to the depths of primitivism. No more definitive than "Lord of the Flies," but what a riposte!
And Heinlein did a great job of extrapolating the journalism of his day to predict the media whores with which we are now beset.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
Well then after the take down of a couple of the game's premiere players, everyone in the game tried to hunt us down and got about 50% of our players, but by that time it was the towards the end of the semester and we were too busy with the real world to rejoin.
I came back about a year later to a game filled with "unofficial" rules of how the game was played. You know, crap like, "If someone twice your size attacks you, they get two retals for the land grab not 1. If you left your self open, no retals, and the entire game had turned into one bad genevea convention. Plus with hourly ticks, if you were not online like 18 hours a day, you had no real chance to win and most of the orginial players had left.
I quit and since have never come back to the game and started some work developing a fork to the Promisance Game Engine and have run various BNT games on websites to a small scale, never more than about 100 players, but even in those small games, politics take a life of their own and as I go back to school to prosue a masters in International Relations, I can't help but think that one of these games would be an excellent study of possible political models.
And if anyone still play's SK, I was known as Unimatrix. If your ever around their forums, some of the old timers (if any are still there) may still remember me....
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
This is the kind of game that will keep MMORPG's in the domain of geekdom forever
Over 275,000 users, and the fastest growing MMORPG to date.
That's a lot of people who don't agree with you. This game is the first to push MMORPGs out of 'the domain of geekdom'.
But there's no *game* there
Like I already said, take the time to give it a proper try. A lot of people never got into Civ2 or Half-Life through laziness. You try telling me that's 'not gaming'. If you didn't get much beyond the tutorial, your comments on the game (and others) are worthless drivel.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)