On Building And Policing MMO Societies

Thanks to GameSpy for their feature on the history and continued shaping of MMO communities. The article discusses lessons learned from Ultima Online's "growing pains" over conflict resolution ("There was a group known as the Dread Lords who went around attacking other players, decimating the population of entire towns and forcing the developers to change the rules for PvP, which ultimately minimized its role in the game"), and points out that "...subverting developer intentions is a significant part of an MMO, whether for good or ill", referencing The Sims Online Mafia as an example. When should 'authorities' step in, if ever, in massively multiplayer games?

Comments

Re:A potential solution.

[eggstasy]

Then try Second Life where there are no experience points and the whole point of the game is to be creative and come up with your own stuff :)
You can build anything in there using basic 3D shapes, textures, sounds and there's also a powerful scripting language that lets you make your objects do just about anything.
The tools are so powerful that there is already an entirely player-built amusement park featuring ridable rollercoasters with realistic physics, a giant pinball game where you are the "ball", a spook house, an everquestish dungeon, a casino, various sports... the only limit is yourself :)
I'm Eggy Lippmann in there, look me up during your free trial week if you need some help getting started - people in there are generally very helpful and kind to newbies and we have several player-run classes where you can learn all about the game, as well as all sorts of parties, contests and events in general.

Re:Good Fictional Example

[MMaestro]

The only problem with comparing MMO games with .hack is how the anime fails to explain so much or fails to bring to the audience. For example:

1. ALL the players are logged with a user name, IP address, and e-mail address. The anime fails to note the fact people can't just "erase" their identity and start over if they find out they pissed off too many people.
2. The anime presents the Crimson Knights as a force that is more powerful than most players in the game (the anime does show that some players are more powerful). Not only that, the Crimson Knights have and maintain a relationship with the system operators allowing them to do things such as check logs, close servers, set up barriers, etc.
3. The anime assumes a large majority of players do not PK, and on top of that they assume the few PKers are not numerous or powerful enough to make their presence felt. This is not the case in real world MMO games where PKers are sometimes extremely powerful (read: buy stuff on eBay) and are quite numerous. (In Asheron's Call 2, some people like to camp the exiting portal where newbies come out of the training area. Not a pretty sight if you're a newbie.)