MMO Gaming - Virtually Too Real?

bippy writes "The Rocky Mountain News has an article about the evolving face of massively multiplayer online games. PC MMOGs have fostered debates about free speech, made money for people and been home to virtual and real crime. Or as the Rocky put it: 'In a time of global terrorism, high crime rates and world hunger, the virtual evils of a computer game are really trivial. But in a way, that's the point: Why do even our games have to be subject to crime, no matter how virtual?'" A spokesperson for Ultima Online comments on Electronic Arts' view of virtual crime: "EA owns your gold, your swords, your characters - they are all just digital bits. If your entertainment is to destroy other peoples' entertainment, you're going to be tossed."

Comments

pwn3d

[mattjb0010]

EA owns your gold, your swords, your characters - they are all just digital bits.

Translation:
EA: pwn3d

Some experience

[Fizzl]

I play EverQuest and ocassionally code in a Mud.

The grief of losing an item on which you used many hours of your Very Real time to obtain can be big.

As I have seen the player point of view and the administration point of view of a MMOG, I can say only this:
Nothing is virtual. Players are real persons. They use their real time to play. For the hardcore player their character is as real as the paycheck they receive for doing their more 'boring' job.
Yes, it is easy to toss a player with 'it's just a game, get over it', but anyone who has played any of these games know that it's not that simple.

When you play. Remeber; your virtual comrade/enemy is also a living, breathing person.

Re:Some experience

[Cougem]

The grief of losing an item on which you used many hours of your Very Real time to obtain can be big.

Isn't that the point? If it was not possible to lose items, if we never felt the grief of games, then the pleasure of gaining the item would be far less. I'm not saying we need people to ruin your game by exploits and the like, but PKing, taking items and the like, it's part of the game; without it, posession of the items would feel shallow, living in a static world.

Re:Some experience

[Phekko]

So you'd feel better about your computer if you knew that someday I could just creep into your apartment and take it from you?

I remember (ok, so it starts silly, bear with me) as a kid of 14 getting my 1st summer job. It paid like, oh, $500 a month or something. I was saving for a VCR as my parents were of the opinion that they don't need it, they get enough TV as it is. So I worked for a month and spent all of the money on a VCR. Yes, back in those days they really DID cost that much. I felt really good about that VCR and I don't think a potential threat of someone stealing it might have made it better for me. Ok, in a real world there is always a possibility of getting robbed and thus in a realistic virtual world there should be, too. But in any online game that allows PKing and/or stealing from other players it happens ridiculously often. It should be allowed to some extent but it would also have to be illegal in the gaming world and punishable as well. In the real world you get to pay fines in mild cases and go to jail in the more extreme cases. And you always, ALWAYS lose the benefit from your crime if you get caught and the one you have wronged should be recompensated as well. In the virtual world jail-time would probably translate to losing the gaming time you have paid for and well, fines and suchlike are pretty straightforward. If it needs to be truly virtual as in real-life-like, then make it truly virtual. Implement police force etc. Thief should be a possible occupation but it should also be an occupation that is easily short-lived and/or difficult to play.

This, by the way, from someone who only has experience on Everquest, not UO. All comments are welcome.

Re:Some experience

[Thomas Charron]

But, then again..

It's a game..

If you hold that it's ANY more then that, then whats to stop lawsuits to say, keep Everquest around after Sony decides it's no longer profitable? Where is the line drawn?

Re:Some experience

[Dark Lord Seth]

Oh please.

If I walk around in my town, carrying about a penguin that's been painted yellow and while trying to make everyone call said penguin "Pikachu", I'll be comitted to the local looney bin. How is that any different from romping about an imaginary town called "Darkhaven" and insisting that you're not John Doe, but "Thorpe the Ranger"? Even if it is a game, there is still a fine line between reality ( playing Thorpe the Ranger realistically ) and imagination. ( actually BEING Thorpse the Ranger ) As soon as this line is crossed you've got issues and need help. Once the game reaches this kind of level for someone they should be removed from the game as it's no longer a game to them anymore.

And give me a break. Living, breathing people do not disconnect, get their connections reset by peer or time-out in the middle of a conversation. ( Sadly, sometimes... ) The same line between reality and imagination apply over here as well. Trust me on this one, considering I've been on both extremes considering this as a former MUD player myself. I know of people who were in a true state of bliss over something on the MUD, who were crying about the same thing later being taken away. I have seen people meeting their true love on the internet, I've seen people denouncing their true love as hellspawn bad enough to make the Nine Hells themselves shake in terror... People on the internet are easier to deal with if you just show some respect and keep real, personal feelings out of it. Keep those for real friends who appreciate it much, MUCH more.

Re:Some experience

[Cougem]

In games like UO you play to compete. Life and death is part of the game. Being killed by a PKer is something you might expect, I don't think you can compare it to your computer. We expect to be killed by NPCs in games, you don't expect your computer to be broken by an equally inorganic action such as an earthquake. So, being killed by a PKer in a game just add another level to the uncertainty, it's a level passed NPC combat. In both instances you lose your loot/items. It's just it's a human doing the action rather than a computer.

Re:Some experience

[Kierthos]

Actually, I doubt, at this point, that Sony is going to find EQ unprofitable at any point in the near future. Of course, if (big if) they ever launch EQ2, that may change.

Kierthos

Re:Some experience

[JaredOfEuropa]

The grief of losing an item on which you used many hours of your Very Real time to obtain can be big.

As a fellow MMORPG player said it best: "They may be just pixels, but they are my pixels".

Re:Some experience

[Anonymous Coward]

why is parent modded as troll ?

so, i played neocron. the first person shooter mmporg with lots of pvp because the quake ppl feel right at home with the area damage weapons. the problem with most mmporgs is that when people PK, scam or spread grief they are not held responsible for it. in neocron this meant that someone who just mowed down 20 newbs at some spawn event could stand around in a no PvP zone and shout abuse at the respawning players. GMs just said 'pvp is part of the game'.

so what is the player supposed to do ? try to have a good time with the game or 'take care' of the griefers. in the end i just canceled my account.

there is a specific type of people that play the game in a way where they exploit the game mechanics to grief other players. they dont care about retaliation from other players or temporary bans from GMs, they grief on as long as they can and ruin the game for others in the process. a real world example would be someone who grabs the football from the field at the superbowl and runs away, not minding the horde chasing after him with torches. its just that these people dont care about the virtual world at all, knowing that whatever might happen to their character it doesnt mean anything in reality.
now IMHO.. this is a distance to a mmporg that more EQ players should have, but then no one would be there to grief.

so the mmporg police force will accomplish nothing as to the griefer it means nothing. permanent ban for life is the only option if a company doesnt want to loose players that just want to have fun.

Re:Some experience

[JaredOfEuropa]

If I walk around in my town, carrying about a penguin that's been painted yellow and while trying to make everyone call said penguin "Pikachu", I'll be comitted to the local looney bin. How is that any different from romping about an imaginary town called "Darkhaven" and insisting that you're not John Doe, but "Thorpe the Ranger"?

The difference is that, in a good MMORPG, Darkhaven will be populated with many like-minded players, all trying to exist as make-believe characters in a virtual world. Rather than calling you a looney, they'll try and play along. I am not sure what you are referring to with the "actually being Thorpe" remark... but yes, some people will go very far with imagining themselves being their character. That has nothing to do with split personalities or psychological problems, it's simply the enjoyment of trying to create a believable character by exercising ones imagination

Yes, of course people get upset emotionally if their characters are harmed or their items stolen. Would you not be upset if someone ruined a painting you have been working hard on? Someone keying the classic car you've slaved over many hours to restore it to its former glory? Same deal... you get pissed at the person who is wilfully destroying something that gave you intense enjoyment.

That, by the way, is what so-called 'grievers' do in these games: they go out of their way, not to steal your money or kill your character per se, but to ruin your fun. Game companies are right to boot such players.

Re:Some experience

[JaredOfEuropa]

If you hold that it's ANY more then that, then whats to stop lawsuits to say, keep Everquest around after Sony decides it's no longer profitable? Where is the line drawn?

Since the question of the real world value of in-game items has already come up in a few lawsuits in various countries, you can be very sure that the game companies (if they're smart) are already looking into this very issue... If in-game items are deemed to have an actual real world value, then they need to carefully consider how their liabilities sit. Putting a price tag on virtual goods isn't a very foreign concept, after all: the free call minutes on your cell phone account may be just bits in a server somewhere, but they are yours, and they do have a value.

Re:Some experience

[Ha11owed]

>Thief should be a possible occupation but it should > also be an occupation that is easily short-lived
> and/or difficult to play.

Why should it? This is the case in real life, but why should it be like that in a computer game?

People talk about these things as if its the way the whole genre should be, as if every MMORPG should be as close to real life as possible, wheres the fun in that?

Re:Some experience

[JudgeFurious]

Being killed by another player isn't the same thing as being killed by an NPC if you didn't log in to play against other players but then that's where you need to reexamine what kind of game you're wanting to play.

Personally I look at the PK's as interfering with my playing "the game" (that's just me, you might feel different about it) and so I had to decide whether or not I wanted to play in an online world where others could interfere with what I was doing. My conclusion was that this wasn't the kind of game for me.

I love playing Q3 online where I expect and intend to play a PvP game but in games like UO and say Diablo 2 I am there to play the game, not play against the game AND the other players. I walked away from UO very early and limit my Diablo 2 playing to closed games where the PK's can't get in. That suits me fine.

People make more of this than it's really worth. If an online game allows the PK's to do what they want and doesn't provide the other players any way of going about their business without having to deal with them then just walk away. Granted you might really want to play that game but if it's not your kind of game then it's just not your kind of game. Add it to the list (we all have one) of crappy games you purchased and move on.

If enough people close their accounts and voice their dislike for the situation then maybe they fix it in a future release and you get to try it again. Probably not but it's possible.

Re:Some experience

[cout]

I've timed out in conversation on more than one oc

Re:Some experience

[Phekko]

but by doing that you get nowhere closer to a more realistic virtual world. Ok, granted, in real world people expect to be shut away for a long time (life or close to it) for a premeditated (spelling might suck here) murder. And it should be something like that in online games, too. But for instance them dark elves hate humans in Everquest. Yet human PCs don't get to kill dark elven PCs or vice versa, unless it's a PVP server, in which case everyone gets to kill everyone anyway.

I don't know the right solution to killing, especially if you want to have character classes such as assassin (what would be the point of making a character specializing in killing if it's not possible?) but I do feel very strongly about the so-called neutral alignment classes. I would LOVE to play a thief or a rogue if I was able to actually pick someone's pockets occasionally and perhaps even break into someone's house but in order for it to be fair it'd either have to be NPC houses (booooring) or there should be a limit to what and how much you can steal or something (not quite fair busting your chops off for that Wondrous Armor of Immortality +792 if the very next night someone busts into your home and steals it) One way of dealing with these issues is to declare that "life is not fair" and another is to ban just about everything.

No MMORPG (that I know of) has the balance between these anywhere close to what I think is right so I don't play any of them. Which is probably for the best, all things considered.

Re:Some experience

[Dark Lord Seth]

The difference is that, in a good MMORPG, Darkhaven will be populated with many like-minded players, all trying to exist as make-believe characters in a virtual world. Rather than calling you a looney, they'll try and play along. I am not sure what you are referring to with the "actually being Thorpe" remark... but yes, some people will go very far with imagining themselves being their character. That has nothing to do with split personalities or psychological problems, it's simply the enjoyment of trying to create a believable character by exercising ones imagination

So basically, what you are saying is that if I find 100 other people with yellow penguins and walk around town with them, then it's suddenly okay and acceptable? From the inside of this group, it sure looks okay. I mean, from the inside it appears that everyone is doing it. However, if an outsider takes a look at this sort of behaviour ( 101 people walking around with yellow penguins while said penguins beat eachother up and shock eachother with tazers ) they'd get worried and sooner or later, all 101 of us would end up in the local funny farm. Now apply this to a bunch of people who ARE their respective RP characters. From the inside it looks perfectly normal; Everyone else is doing it so it's probably okay, right? From an outside perspective, it's still scary as hell to see people going that far for something as simple as a game.

But, you've got a point. It's not like all MUD/MMORPG players are mentally instable. The majority of people in said games are ( I hope... ) stable enough to keep a firm distinction between reality and the game. They just play the game, enjoy it, have fun with others and still maintain the ability to be able to let go of their onlines "lives".

Yes, of course people get upset emotionally if their characters are harmed or their items stolen. Would you not be upset if someone ruined a painting you have been working hard on? Someone keying the classic car you've slaved over many hours to restore it to its former glory? Same deal... you get pissed at the person who is wilfully destroying something that gave you intense enjoyment.

Ah, very true. Very good point, too. Yes, i would be upset if someone destroyed something I've been working hard on. Like I said, I've been on both sides regarding this kind of behaviour. I myself had 1,5 years of hard effort on a MUD thrown away after some minor incidents which ended up being grossly exagerated by people who opposed me back then. All in all, I ended up with a nice ban on my IP adress and everything from the past 1,5 years more or less got deleted. Of course I myself was mad at this... Downright seething. It took me a while but I realized that it just really did not matter a bit and that I should have been GLAD I got banned. After all, it did help me get rid of my addiction to MUDding ( albeit not voluntarily... ) and it made me realize that people should keep a firm grip on reality.

The comparisons to ruining a painting or wrecking a car would be comparable to this, yes. But you never really "own" your character or your equipment in a game. It's all imaginary and thus you never own anything at all except the PRIVILEGE to use it. Unlike the car or the painting, which you do own yourself. Having your character and all your items deleted by an admin is something you can't do much against, considering it's their computer and their data.

Besides, the wilful destruction of property is against the law and thus you can go to court if someone decides to be a "griever" and ruin your fun. Unlike blocked accounts/bans/whatever on online games, there's allot you can do about destruction of property in real life. Sure, it still pisses you off but at least you can get back at the "assho-" ... err... "griever". :)

Re:Some experience

[Dun Malg]

If I walk around in my town, carrying about a penguin that's been painted yellow and while trying to make everyone call said penguin "Pikachu", I'll be comitted to the local looney bin. How is that any different from romping about an imaginary town called "Darkhaven" and insisting that you're not John Doe, but "Thorpe the Ranger"?

The better real-world equivalent of insisting you're "Thorpe the Ranger" isn't walking around town at random with a penguin, it's more like walking around a raised platform claiming to be the King of Denmark while others on the same platform pretend to be Polonius, Ophelia, Hamlet, etc. Nobody watching this spectacle should find any of those actions odd. Role-playing is very, very old. The only difference is the medium.

Re:Some experience

[SuperKendall]

And give me a break. Living, breathing people do not disconnect, get their connections reset by peer or time-out in the middle of a conversation. ( Sadly, sometimes... )

You obviosuly have never talked to someone with a bad case of pagelepsy. When the pager goes off, you can see the attention drain from thier eyes as they consult thier small plastic master.

Technology is bringing all of the features of the virtual world to the real, the virtual world is just a bit ahead of our own in terms of feelings related to technology. Timeouts via pager are one example. Real life PK? Why that would be identity theft in my mind.

Re:Some experience

[JaredOfEuropa]

So basically, what you are saying is that if I find 100 other people with yellow penguins and walk around town with them, then it's suddenly okay and acceptable?

That is what I am saying, with one qualification: you would be walking in a walled-off section of town, set aside for walking around with yellow penguins. Perfectly acceptable... although the rest of the town might well call that area 'the Asylum', and take pains to ensure you lot remain within its walls :-)

But you never really "own" your character or your equipment in a game.

Depends on the law in your country. In some places, the law is ambiguous at best, and while you may not actually own the data or demand that it is handed over to you, a court can decide (and in some cases already has done exactly that) that the game company has an obligation to keep your character's data reasonably safe from hackers and the like.

When MMORPGs become more mainstream, I fully expect lawsuits to be fought over virtual property, and at some point I think the law will be changed to cope explicitly with these issues.

Re:Some experience

[Dun Malg]

So basically, what you are saying is that if I find 100 other people with yellow penguins and walk around town with them, then it's suddenly okay and acceptable?

Yes. Hang out with a bunch of drama majors at your local college and you'll see much weirder things than carrying yellow penguins.

From the inside of this group, it sure looks okay. I mean, from the inside it appears that everyone is doing it. However, if an outsider takes a look at this sort of behaviour ( 101 people walking around with yellow penguins while said penguins beat eachother up and shock eachother with tazers ) they'd get worried and sooner or later, all 101 of us would end up in the local funny farm.

Actually, what you've described is nowhere near as bizarre as the actions of some Society for Creative Anachronism groups. Nobody thinks twice about an SCA meeting and they mostly hit each other with rattan sticks and speak in Olde English.

Now apply this to a bunch of people who ARE their respective RP characters. From the inside it looks perfectly normal; Everyone else is doing it so it's probably okay, right? From an outside perspective, it's still scary as hell to see people going that far for something as simple as a game.

What you're missing is that it's all about context. Walking around in public trying to get non role players to interacts with your role playing is bizarre. Walking around a group of role players (real or virtual) and role playing with them isn't even unusual. You might think that some people overreact when something bad happens to their fictional character, but that's because the fictional character means nothing to you. Example: If one spent months tranferring all one's old Dr. Who episodes from video tape to MPEG captures, but then lost them when the drive crashed, one would likely be quite distressed. To an observer who doesn't care about Dr. Who and thinks also that videotape is an adequate medium, your reaction is totally bizarre. To him, you were wasting your time on a pointless project anyway, so why should you care so much when you lose evrything? Point is, you can't objectively measure the value of someone else's entertainment.

Re:Some experience

[Dark Lord Seth]

Depends on the law in your country. In some places, the law is ambiguous at best, and while you may not actually own the data or demand that it is handed over to you, a court can decide (and in some cases already has done exactly that) that the game company has an obligation to keep your character's data reasonably safe from hackers and the like.

When MMORPGs become more mainstream, I fully expect lawsuits to be fought over virtual property, and at some point I think the law will be changed to cope explicitly with these issues.

Hmmm, that would make sense really. But I don't think companies are required by law to protect their data. After all, the character and item data still belongs to the company ( imho ) and it's their call what to do with it. They can secure it, delete it, have crackers do their things with it... Heck, they can even print it out and wipe their asses with it without any sort fo contract between the company and the client. However, I think most games will have a sort of EULA with them that will probably contain a clause stating the company will protect the data. Heck, even if it doesn't, the company will probably remain a normal level of security around the data considering massive cracks on MMORPG databases does terrible things to the image of the company and the game toward the public.

And as long as the game hosts the data, I don't think anyone other then the person/company repsonsible for the game can be considered the legal owner. The only way that I can see, for now, that someone might actually own the data is if someone were to put the data online him/herself and I highly doubt that allowing players access to raw character and item data would be a smart idea in the MMORPG world.

Re:Some experience

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

I played UO for 2 weeks back in '98 or '99. I expected PVP combat, but for some reason I imagined other players to have some shred of honor. What a rude awakening to walk out of town and repeatedly get slaughtered by players many times stronger, apparently for no other reason than because PK's enjoy one-sided battles.

And when I did manage to explore the countryside, the place was full of houses, often with hoards of items inside (which caused the game to lag terribly). Nice idea, poor execution. Everquest was better, but had it's own problems.

Re:Some experience

[JelloGnome]

The reason UO was so different was BECAUSE it had player killing and thieves. Believe it or not, these actually balanced the economy and prevented a flood of gold. As soon as the "safe-world" was introduced, there was massive and endless inflation that persists today. When there is a common threat, there is more incentive to band together for the common good. I'd rather slay thieves and murderers than a dragon that will just respawn. And the risk of losing items or gold just makes victory sweeter when I mount their head on my wall.

Re:Some experience

[sheetsda]

Personally I look at the PK's as interfering with my playing "the game"

I read an excellent quote on this subject (unfortunately I don't know who said it), it went something like 'There should be a coop button [opposite of the player hostile button]. If the PKs can force me into their game, I should be able to force them into mine.'

Re:Some experience

[Anonymous Coward]

So? There are lots of real-world communities of wackos. Some are considered perfectly fine if a bit weird (say, the Amish), some are considered completely out of it (like the Heaven's gate gang). If the people in the community can take care of themselves and don't offend others, what's the big deal?

Re:Some experience

[Blitzvvolf]

Were PKing and PvP not firmly distinguished from each other then? I played in '01 and again in '03. Never got PKed or anything. I just kept my arse out of Fel, where the whole purpose IS to kill other players. I had experienced PvP in town with my friends, but it was consensual.

I guess my point is, though I've only played two different MMORPGS, is it really that easy to walk up to someone, kill them, and take their stuff? Because I've never had that problem. I think a lot of people are confusing PvP and PKing. There's a big difference.

Re:Some experience

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I had to quit UO. They took out house looting and boat stealing and there where no more fun ways to wreak other people's fun. Now I guess the little roll players can run around marrying each other and talking in bad ol' Shakespearian English in peace. Lucky them.

Let's admit it; MMPOGs are for people with social dysfunctions. It's unlikely any emotionally well adjusted person would ever spend as many hours as I have catching digital fish, only to spend more houses stuffing them into a trapped paladin to raise their reputation.

Re:Some experience

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why Everquest had multiple servers. Dorks like you who just wanted to sit in one spot and kill monsters for 12 hours per day could play on a non-pvp server. Those of us that actually wanted to do something enjoyable and challenging could play on a PvP server.

Re:Some experience

[spirality]

You're right, but the players can easily get together to stop the rotten ones from pursing their ends.

To borrow from Locke, in a State of Nature everyone has equal liberty and there is a great deal of insecurity. You enter into socities to escape the evils of the State of Nature. This is basic political theory, but is equally applicable to a virtual world. Simply start a government. When people get out of hand you call out the posse and destroy them and take everything they have, possibly putting them in jail or enslaving them as well.

Now, of course, game engines may have to get a little more sophisticated to pull this off, but really I think it would make the games much more exciting. I can not imagine doing this in everquest quite yet. The code is not sophisticated enough...

We have virtual worlds. The next step is virtual government I suppose. :)

-Craig.

Re:Some experience

[spirality]

so the mmporg police force will accomplish nothing as to the griefer it means nothing. permanent ban for life is the only option if a company doesnt want to loose players that just want to have fun

That's not true. If the game flags thiefs somehow then the police force could jail them, even if they were offline. Their equipment could be confiscated and yeah they player would still be rotten, but their high level character that was oppressing everyone would be defunct and they would have to start over.... not such a great prospect I suppose for someone who invested a lot of time into a character. Of course sentence times could vary from a day or two to months to life.

-Craig.

Re:Some experience

[LouisZepher]

That's why MMO need Crimson Knights ;).

Re:Some experience

[UserGoogol]

The comparisons to ruining a painting or wrecking a car would be comparable to this, yes. But you never really "own" your character or your equipment in a game. It's all imaginary and thus you never own anything at all except the PRIVILEGE to use it. Unlike the car or the painting, which you do own yourself. Having your character and all your items deleted by an admin is something you can't do much against, considering it's their computer and their data.

What's own? Property is a social construct. Nothing more. MMORPGs are comprised of a bunch of other social constructs, although ones which are far less binding than those of the "Real World."

Re:Some experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Why play Everquest when you can play Chip 'N' Dales MMORPG?

Re:Some experience

[Godeke]

The eternal PK / no PK conflict. Having coded muds for a *long* time, I can safely say you will never resolve this, as this is a personality issue, not a technical issue.

Some people want to play a cooperative game against the "game". Others want to play a battle of wits other players. There is plenty of middle ground, and where you stand on this determines the kind of players you will get.

Since you seem to like the PK aspect, you would probably be *shocked* that people play "talkers" and "MOOs" where combat plays *no part* in the game. (Some MOOs have added combat, but the base code is about creation, not destruction). Yahoo Pirates attracts different players than Dark Age of Camelot.

Personally, have my 12th level character mob-killed repeatedly by 35th level characters that I have no hope against doesn't appeal. But that is my *personality*. Perhaps you will say that I should be mob-killed repeatedly for simply existing.

Re:Some experience

[SphericalCrusher]

Agreed. Although the world may look down upon games like EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot, it's way more than "just a game" to the rest of us hardcore MMORPG fans.

As you previously stated; when you work so hard for an item -- putting countless number of hours into finding and forging it -- it's a real pain to lose. Not only do you lose something that you value in like and in the virtual world, but you just lose that small portion of your life (the many hours it took you to obtain the item).

I'm an EverQuest fanatic and it's way more than "just a game" to me.

Re:Some experience

[linkdead]

That's when they start up another EQ MMORPG that allows for "with gear" character transfers if your between level x and y.

what this does is allow them to control the amount of characters of any level on teh server, and the quantity of them. And the big bonus is that this allows to stop both the newbie rush and the instant economy crush of having extreme amounts of high-end charaters (like the server I play EQ on....most guys are working on their 5th or 6th high level character, newbies are like finding 2 identical snowflakes).

Re:Some experience

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

PvP in Ultima Online was originally a free for all. Anyone could just walk up to another player, whack 'em and take their loot. When I played, they had just implemented the notoriety system but it didn't seem to have any effect on behavior.

It's probably a good thing they finally went to consensual PvP, but kind of sad in a way. That takes some freedom out of the game, but unfortunately there always seems to be an element in online games that exist only to ruin the experience for other players.

Re:Some experience

[magarity]

there was massive and endless inflation that persists today ... I'd rather slay thieves and murderers than a dragon that will just respawn

Then an ideal game would have a fixed amount of gold. If someone slays the dragon and takes his cash then the respawned dragon needs to go hunt down replacement not just get it free. Shopkeepers beware!

Re:Some experience

[delphi125]

Yahoo Pirates

You probably mean Yohoho Puzzle Pirates. Very different to the usual MM game, although it has its own version of grind despite not having levels as such. It is 2D isometric, written in Java (Linux and Mac friendly), and has a free trial (X free sessions, X is 10 or 15 or so, I believe). I'm not an employee or anything; if you do try it out then please do realize that (in general) it caters to a more mature audience. Although sword fighting tournaments are most popular, there are also fashion and poetry contests.

Re:Some experience

[danila]

That's a logical fallacy. The items are valuable not because they can be lost, but because you invest your time in them. Basically the value is equal to the time necessary to recreate it. The actual ability to lose them doesn't even enter the proposition.

As an aside, this fallacy is surprisingly common in the real world as well. Many people, including some famous philosophers, argued that life is valuable only because we will eventually die. This idea led to a widespread (disingenuous) belief that immortality is bad, since we will stop valuing our lives, once we don't have to fear their loss. Needless to say, this is completely false.

Re:Some experience

[JeffTL]

Very much agreed. It is important to note that in this case, as in many, much ado stems from reductionistic thought.

Re:Some experience

[buffer-overflowed]

It's easy to resolve in MUDs. Set up two sides. A good side where players can't attack members of their own alignment and an evil side which is a free for all.

Here are the keys I've found to running a successful(100+ player online) PK MUD.

1st off have a safe point about 1/3rd of the way up (so in EQ this would be level 15), up until that point you can be attacked but you lose nothing and the pker gets nothing.

2nd off give rewards for player killing. Give them points, the more challenging the kill the more points they get. A level 35 killing a level 20 would be worth maybe 1, killing another level 35 would be worth more. You can cash these in for custom items(no more powerful than a normal item), upgrades, or remorts(reset yourself to level 1 but get a few bennies) for better stats. Let there be no other way to gain stats. Limit the number of times you can remort w/o these points to about half the max.

3rdly do not penalize exp for pk deaths, and do not make pk kills worth much if any xp.

4th have safe zones(cities), you can still attack players here, but their entry/exit points are blocked by highly powerful NPCs that require almost an entire side to kill(so in an MMORPG the town guards should only be killable by a hundred or so players working together), and respawn in no more than 15 minutes. Make them aggressive, powerful defenders that take a while to kill, and you can't run by them either. Also put guards at the entry points to each side's area, but make them half as powerful. This forces sides to coop to kill the other side, draws them together.

5th avoid linear progression! Progress in terms of power should be quick to start with and then slower in the end(after the safe point). I mean in terms of power, not exp. The difference between a level 30 and a level 20 should be nowhere near the difference between a level 20 and a level 10.

6th limit the number of players that can attack another player physically at the same time. 4 seems to be a good number for this. This allows someone who is attacked by a much larger force to run. Spells and other high powered things should have delays greater than the average time to successfully flee.

7th avoid the temptation to allow ANY physically oriented characters(warrior types) to do enough damage to kill a level 1 in a single hit consistantly. Exceptions for thief types and backstabbing/stealthy stuff.

Eventually stability comes out of the evil side.

I never had a problem with same-side pking. People generally rallied together to kill the other side, and the evil side tended to self-regulate stupidity. After a while we turned on same-side pk on the good side and still had no problems. They'd kill their own idiots and spam kill the abusive people and that was about it.

No one wanted to kill newbies en masse and loot them, there wasn't any reason to. They had next to no equipment, no money, and weren't worth anything.

Re:Some experience

[Glytch]

Puzzle Pirates is incredibly addictive. I just finished my trial account, and immediately shelled out cash for a subscription. It's exactly the kind of online game I've been waiting for; there's competition, but it's generally friendly competition.

I'm also a big fan of puns, and the shop names always make me smile. People who come up with stores named "Clothier Than Thou", "Frigate About It" and "Apothecary Now" seem like kindred spirits to me.

Re:Some experience

[Thomas Charron]

But what I'm saying is, should we say they are LEGALLY responsible to do so, if indeed, as the post said, the players 'own' their stuff, just like real life..

Re:Some experience

[Slime-dogg]

A good way to counter PK'ing is just to force hardcore rules. If you die, you get shipped back to level 1, no experience, no possessions, no training, nothing. In a way, it gets rid of the attitude of "If I die, I'll just respawn somewhere."

So, PK'ing won't go away, but everyone will be well aware of PK'ers, and there will be mobs of people that will band together to kill a PK'er, or an army to kill a group of PK'ers.

Making it seem even more like real life, with all of the consequences, will help alleviate the PK'ing. It won't get rid of it entirely, as evidenced by the crazies that live in this world, but at least it will stop those ones that PK because they know that there are no real dire consequences.

Re:Some experience

[Lord_Dweomer]

"It paid like, oh, $500 a month or something. "

Just out of curiosity, what was the summer job? 'Drug-dealer'?

Re:Some experience

[JudgeFurious]

You should have posted this without the AC. I'd have some respect for you then. As it is you're just another asshole without the balls to fess up to being one. In this case the way you post reflects the way you like to play online obviously. You insult people behind your AC here, you screw with them trying to play the game there. Same reason for both, no accountability.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:Some experience

[Xuri]

Are you suggesting that thieves and murderers don't "respawn"? Killing a thief gives him a 2-minute break as he awaits the loss of his criminal flag by the healer's hut. Killing a murderer might put him away for a short while but he'll be back before you can say "Kal Ort Por".

Re:Some experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Enjoyable and challenging? Like mowing down people 1/3 your level?

Re:Some experience

[geekoid]

here is a thought. How about letting the player decide if he/she wants to be involved in PvP?

Re:Some experience

[buffer-overflowed]

Doesn't work. What happens is that those who opt out of non-PvP are resented by those that don't.

You either have PvP or you don't, there is no middle ground that I've found that doesn't eventually lead to the death of an online game.

Normally, the PvP players leave, then the non-PvP players leave(killing mobs for gear only works for so long).

When we added an opt-out option our pbase began to die. Slowly at first then more rapidly as more and more non-pkers were thrown into the mix. There's not as much of an incentive to advance if the only thing to be gained by advancement is advancement itself. We experienced an initial upsurge, and then it began to die. We had to add content constantly to keep people on whereas before we didn't. The players provided their own content and all we had to do was babysit.

I abandoned the MUD circa 2002, and someone else took over, they've since axed the opt-out option and the pbase has begun to grow again. It's back up to 20-30 players online whereas with opt-out it was at 5-10 towards the end.

Having pk as an option doesn't work unless everyone is forced into it.

Re:Some experience

[geekoid]

except once the game has been out, the hgher level non pk'ers wont care about the new pk'ers becasue they have better stuff to do, or becuse they don't enjoy pking.

so the new playes would be at the mercy of the old pkers.

Re:Some experience

[linkdead]

I would not go so far as saying legally, but if they don't they will be cutting into their profits since very few will want to go through the timesink of making a new character all over again.

Legally binding anyone over a game is kinda weak, but there have bene times I wished I could smack the companies around a bit for basically giving crap service and not expecting angry customers.

I really do wnat to see the EULAs used for these to get challeneged in court though. Some of the terms on those are outright retarded.

Re:Some experience

[Slime-dogg]

Yeah, but if a gang of newbs all got together and killed the higher level PK, then it would be done.

Then again, it's doubtful if you could have a high level PK'er, unless they start out normal and get twisted towards the end.

Re:Some experience

[Downside]

Yes, of course people get upset emotionally if their characters are harmed or their items stolen. Would you not be upset if someone ruined a painting you have been working hard on?

Not if I had painted it e.g. on a sidewalk!

Re:Some experience

[Godeke]

You have an excellent set of huristics for running a PK enabled mud. My point is more fundamental than that. My wife wouldn't and won't participate in PK environments. She is interested in the social aspects and co-operative missions. She started playing MUDs back with me in a smaug codebase that I was customizing (she wanted to know what all the fuss was). She played Everquest, but on a non-pk server. She was quickly able to join a clan, build vast circle of friends and tackle great challenges *co-operatively*. She won't even start a character on the PK server I play on from time to time.

So while you have great technical solutions to having PK intergrated, my point is there is a large market who has *no interest* in PK. Thus my reference to Talkers and MOOs. What percentage of the market they are is up in the air.

Your solutions appeal to a specific group that I have personally addressed in coding muds via Clan Wars and a vast political system (sadly for a mud that went down 5 years ago amist *administrator* [real life lovers] bickering). The political system created a way for non PK and PK players to interact in the same world, by making political offices available *only* to PK players, and giving votes to *only* non-PK players. The PKs became the "champions" of the non-PK players in Clan wars that could affect the availability of goods and services in towns. We saw no drop off in players when we introduced this: on the contrary, we went from 10-12 average simultanious users to 50 after that was implemented, as the PKs fought vicious battles and the non-PKs became involved indirectly in the outcome. Some additional tweaks had to be added (clan wars happen in areas where non PK players could not enter, to prevent 'interference' in the battle field, but the PKs could come back to the main town and get buffed and healed.) but after a few months our players had a blast.

Re:Some experience

[buffer-overflowed]

I'm not debating that there is such a market, my point was that is incredibly difficult to have a mixed environment.

You can either go PK or you can go non-PK. Trying to mix the two is very, very difficult and requires an incredible amount of thought, planning and administrative intervention. If you screw it up, then you may as well have(and would be better off to have) never included PK at all.

It's also been my experience that PK MUDs are a lot more hands off then non-PK muds from an administration standpoint(well, except for some MOO styles and MUSHs but we won't get into those). You can basically set them up and then you leave them alone except for the occassional update and monitoring for cheating. Very fitting of the current MMORPG management style, but none of them have gotten it right. They may as well have never included it at all.

It's possible to make it work, you apparently did, I just don't think it's worth it to make it work.

Re:Some experience

[Matrix272]

I'm not saying we need people to ruin your game by exploits and the like, but PKing, taking items and the like, it's part of the game; without it, posession of the items would feel shallow, living in a static world.

Then how do you explain Final Fantasy XI's popularity? There isn't PvP in it... yet...

Re:Some experience

[Temporal Outcast]

Giving you choice would not then make it much of an experience now, would it? :-)

I don't feel good...

[toesate]

when someone KO me in a game.. there is pride at stake

Mandatory Zero Wing Reference

[syberanarchy]

All your bits are belong to EA.

Don't buy EA, for great justice.

Re:Mandatory Zero Wing Reference

[Rick and Roll]

All your "Digital Bits" are belong to EA. No, seriously, this is in a quote from an EA spokesperson regarding a professor whose account was taken away. I'm not making this up. What a %$@!#-wit. What the hell else could (s)he be talking about? Butt-bits?

obl pun

[dandelion_wine]

When the world first opened, players immersed themselves in a hedonistic world of sex and crime

later, they started playing the game.

Internet Anonymity

[QuinchUK]

The internet encourages anti-social behaviour some people. Who hasn't occasionally acted in a way over the internet that they wouldn't dream of doing face to face? Play any shooter and all you get is loud mouthed adolescents and pre-pubescents. MMORPGS add another mask to their personality, players can express their more repressed social feelings. Is it a small step from anti-social to criminal?

Re:Internet Anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it a small step from anti-social to criminal?

That's 1 of the stupidest things I've ever read. You ever stop to think that people are anti-social because society is nothing but a bunch of mindless sheep who haven't had an original thought in over a thousand years?? That people are anti-social, precisely because of crime & the other shallowness of society?? I cannot speak for any others, but thats why I'm anti social. Because society disgusts me.

Re:Internet Anonymity

[sirius_bbr]

Not sure you are right there, this states the contrary...

Re:Internet Anonymity

[srichand]

um, i beg to differ. I doubt if any terrorists currently planning any strike anywhere in the world were inspired by any game in general. bin Laden never played Quake. I doubt if Saddam's ever fragged anyone at UT. If a guy has voilent, anti-social tendencies, nothings gonna stop him. on the other hand, a "soft" guy playing hours of such stuff would hardly be affected by it in real life.

Re:Internet Anonymity

[mattjb0010]

I cannot speak for any others, but thats why I'm anti social. Because society disgusts me.

People who are anti-social *are* what's wrong with society. If you're not prepared to go out there and make a difference then that is disgusting.

Re:Internet Anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

People who are anti-social *are* what's wrong with society. If you're not prepared to go out there and make a difference then that is disgusting.

Are you retarded?? Society is the one who doesn't care about making a difference. Look around you. The people society calls geeks, outcasts, & losers are the real people who make a difference. Not all the jocks & preppies & mindless sheeple.

Re:Internet Anonymity

[NDPTAL85]

What quantifiable proof do you have that geeks, outcasts and losers are any better than jocks and preppies?

So being good at sports or wearing a certain type of clean cut clothing makes you somehow less worthy than say a goth? I don't get this.

Simply saying x is better than y doesn't work. You have to prove that it is so. Otherwise you're just talking out of your ass and trying to justifiy why you are a miserable people hating person.

Another thing, how can you possibly know when and if other people have original thoughts? Are you a mind reader on par with Professor X? What if someone has an original thought yet doesn't articulate it. Does that mean it still didn't happen?

Re:Internet Anonymity

[0x0d0a]

Wouldn't you say that that statement is kind of antisocial?

Re:Internet Anonymity

[Scum Puppy]

You know, it's funny you should mention this. As an avid Asheron's Call player (not currently playing, though), I find that the maturity level in that game is actually higher than in normal online games (FPS, RTS, etc.) The demographic is a lot different, though. A lot of older and retired people play AC compared to say Unreal Tournament 2003. Pretty much everyone I have ever known in that game was at least in their 20s, and the younger ones that do play tend to be pretty reasonable; it's mostly the 16-30 or so demographic that's the obnoxious types, and even so most of that demographic isn't so bad usually.

In addition, I rarely see people "add another mask" when they play MMORPGs. They have a character, sure, but when you talk with them, they tend to just be themselves (or as much themself as they are in any Internet chat). In AC at least true role playing really isn't that common, and I don't think it's that big in other big name MMORPGs either. I used to spend a lot of time just standing around talking to people about anything, whether it be about the game or about real life things. Though there are a few things I don't do in AC when I chat (like swear, since that's against the CoC), I don't really act much differently than I would on IRC. I think maybe I even act a little bit more kindly, because the atmosphere is more positive than where I hang out on IRC.

So to suggest that MMORPGs are more anti-social for the reason you state is plausible but incorrect. Now, if you want to start talking about time commitment as a possible reason for anti-social behavior, then I'll start to agree...

Re:Internet Anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

Look around you. The people society calls geeks, outcasts, & losers are the real people who make a difference. Not all the jocks & preppies & mindless sheeple.

No, look harder.

The geeks get engineering jobs. We work, we accomplish little things. We earn our keep. Some of the jocks get construction jobs. They work, they accomplish little things, they earn their keep. None of us makes a real difference.

The jocks and preppies (and geeks) that learn how to talk to and relate to people, they become CEOs, presidents, generals. They fund, organize, and mobilize thousands of geeks and workers to accomplish big things. They make a real difference.

One man cannot make a difference alone (with a few exceptions). As long as we remain antisocial outcasts, we are nothing but tools for the important people. Slashdotters like to believe otherwise, but they're living in a fantasy world.

Re:Internet Anonymity

[khallow]

People who are anti-social *are* what's wrong with society. If you're not prepared to go out there and make a difference then that is disgusting.

What do you mean by "go out there and make a difference"? That is such a morally neutral term. It can cover good and evil things. And I know a number of anti-social people who made the world much better for their presence.

Re:Internet Anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you! It is people like *you* that are the problem with society. Maybe the people that are anti-social have a reason for being that way, you know? Maybe they're sick of people like you laughing at the way they talk, or how they look. Maybe they've just given up on finding people that have common interests... Just because a person likes to socalize doesn't mean that they're a GOOD PERSON, and just because somebody's anti-social doesn't mean that they don't want to make a difference. Some people are really sick of being mocked, made fun of, or ignored at any social event they attend. The fault usually isn't with the person that is being made fun of, either. Usually it is the elitist snobs that refuse to even talk to the lonely-looking person sitting over there in the corner. I for one have given up on socializing, because I'm tired of people not even giving me a CHANCE to be friends with them. In conclusion, not only are you completely wrong, you're an asshole as well, and I hope your life is a living hell.

Re:Internet Anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to think that the natural order of things is that people that are good at sports or at wearing a certain type of clean cut clothing are MORE worthy than say a goth, and I don't get THAT. What good is sports? Yes, as a participant they're probably healtheir than your average geek, but why is scoring a touchdown so much more important than, say... putting a telescope in orbit to study the history of our universe to gain a better understanding of the way it works? How is it more important than writing software that connects thousands of people around the world and lets you chat with them and make friends? How is winning the superbowl more useful to humanity than sending people to Mars or exploring the galaxy, or discovering the nature of the universe? How does wearing clothes that cost way way more than they're worth just so you can say you're wearing something made out of whatever more useful than writing software that helps businesses to operate more efficiently? You have to prove that YOUR point of view is more correct too. Don't ask us to just take your word for it when you refuse to take our word for it.

Re:Internet Anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1 076713810419&call_pageid=968867495754&col=96948319 1630

Kiss of your dreamers, and your society is doomed. The biggest part of "making a difference" is realizing there is a difference to be made. You don't get that from being on the inside.

God forbid you have a tendency for introspection and labled "anti-social". It makes you wonder why the gifted even bother to try.

Re:Internet Anonymity

[moviepig.com]

Never played an MMOG, and never expect to.

But wait a moment... our own (movie-recommending) web site, has rules, ongoing cooperation among anonymous users, and its (only) significant rewards are decidedly real-world. And wait another moment... the same can largely be said of Slashdot.

As far as I can see, the key ingredient supplied by the competitive and "explicit" MMOGs seems to be their two-way escape door between fantasy and the real world. I'd like to put a favorable spin on playing them (as for puppies whose play-fighting intends to prepare them for eventual survival), but its easy to imagine more harm than good coming from long stretches spent in any such abscond-at-will social environments.

Nothing wrong with fantasy as entertainment ...as long as it doesn't displace, well, anything else whatsoever.

Re:Internet Anonymity

[Temporal Outcast]

Bah!

That is so wrong. I'm anti-social because I do not fit in. Because I have trouble adjusting to the society and because I feel awkward about things.

I do not see anything wrong with it, its part of who I'm and its just the way I'm wired.

Re:Internet Anonymity

[Temporal Outcast]

The fact that geeks are often trampled upon, treated like shit and end up having no girlfriends whatsoever?

Is that not bad enough or what?

Virtual Reality Games

[Rick and Roll]

Virtual Reality games, like all games, turned to be more about gameplay than graphics. In the '90's VR headsets were all the rage. In fact, my little mall, in an isolated city of 60,000 people (Flagstaff, AZ), had someone set up a store dedicated to headset-based virtual reality gaming. Didn't last long. And then of course there was Virtual Boy (which I liked alright and some people absolutely love).

Anyway, it turned out to be different. It just turned out that huge, smart databases transformed MUDs and BBS games to have many real-world dynamics, and make the virtual world more exciting to some than the real world. And now they are forming relationships in the virtual world. Healthy for some, unhealthy for others.

But the success of different games over others shows that it's all about the gameplay.

What IS the goal of an mmog?

[rufusdufus]

The point of having a massively multiplayer game is so that large numbers of players interact, otherwise why not just make work like diablo where everyone just plays with people they have agreed to play with.
The point of making large numbers of people interact could be many things; however the G part of MMPOG means game, thus you might expect peole to treat it as a game and try to win. Now most MMPOGS don't actually have a way to win, so players make up their own rules. For some, winning and "beating the system" are the same thing, or at least, the interesting thing since the AIs have always been too simple.

So while stalking and calling names etc is certainly uncalled for, messing with other people seems to be the whole point of most MMPOGS. With guild v guild and kingdom v kingdom and pvp, what do you expect but that people will be competitive. And competition means winners and loser, and in an MMPOG thats one winner and a thousand losers.

So the games bring it upon themselves in a way, the unhappy newbies being picked on by the powergaming kiddies. Thats what they are designed to do, deep down. And since the rules arent written down anywhere, and in fact change randomly, who is to say what is legal and what is not, really, if the game lets you do it, it must be legal unless they tell you otherwise, and even then like in sports, is it only not legal if the umpire notices?

Re:What IS the goal of an mmog?

[shadowcabbit]

All right, let's take one look at a popular MMOG these days, Final Fantasy XI. (And lest I be accused of working for Square-Enix, just because I always trot this one out in every MMO story means only that I really like the game; look at it the same way some yutz posts a pro-Linux sermon to every Windows discussion and save your mod points.) FFXI's competition, at the moment, is strictly limited to the Conquest system. No direct player competition exists, yet; it was never part of the game design. Players must cooperate in order to "compete" in the later levels (beating monsters, the basis of conquest, becomes nigh on impossible alone past level 10 or so). Player Versus Player is only being implemented here well over two years after the game's release.

I will agree with you conditionally-- most MMOS do not make allowances for new players, instead expecting players to learn from the high-level 'masters'. Ultima Online is a key offender; anyone strong enough to teach you is, most likely, not going to because you have nothing to offer them. But in terms strictly of the PVP hierarchy, I do not recall a game at all in recent memory in which PVP was not 'opt-in'; meaning that new players, in general, are not going to be hunted by the big bad bastards.

It is my opinion that part of the monthly fee I pay for an online game is a payment for policing of the online world in which I participate. As long as I play by the rules and pay my money, my $13 a month or whatever not only keeps my character alive, it also guarantees that cheaters and joykilling bastards are quickly and efficiently removed as permanently as is possible (it is of course infeasible to expect that there will be no problems, but the taxes should at least be doing some good). So what is illegal in the game, whether or not you can do it, is illegal. Period. No exceptions, no excuses, no "it was legal yesterday!!" baloney.

Re:What IS the goal of an mmog?

[Scum Puppy]

The goal? To have fun. When you no longer have fun, stop playing. It's a simple concept that veterans often seem to forget. It works for me. As I said in another thread, I've played Asheron's Call a lot. I started in June 2000, but I've taken a lot of time off from the game. But I usually come back, because the game can still be fun when you'd been out of it for awhile and there's a lot of new changes to experience. Not currently playing, but big changes are likely ahead, so I've been thinking of coming back in the near future.

So while stalking and calling names etc is certainly uncalled for, messing with other people seems to be the whole point of most MMPOGS. With guild v guild and kingdom v kingdom and pvp, what do you expect but that people will be competitive. And competition means winners and loser, and in an MMPOG thats one winner and a thousand losers.

Well, I think the main problem here is that game developers are trying to create a perception that's not there. In nearly every MMORPG, only a small minority (maybe around 10% for AC, prolly not that different between games) actually partake in PvP if the game isn't PvP-centric. So it boggled a lot of observers (myself included!) when every new MMORPG that came out was oriented toward PvP, instead of just making it completely optional. Perhaps they're trying to tap into a new market? The problem, though, is that they're essentially restricting their market instead; now they have to find people who satisfy two requirements, e.g. they must like RPG PvP and they must like MMORPGs. I don't think there's all that many people in this intersection, and I think they've already found a game by now :).

So the games bring it upon themselves in a way, the unhappy newbies being picked on by the powergaming kiddies. Thats what they are designed to do, deep down. And since the rules arent written down anywhere, and in fact change randomly, who is to say what is legal and what is not, really, if the game lets you do it, it must be legal unless they tell you otherwise, and even then like in sports, is it only not legal if the umpire notices?

Yeah, and that's why PvP is not very popular in most MMORPGs. The people with too much time on their hands get powerful and kill all the new people. Hence my wondering why every new game is a PvP game.

Re:What IS the goal of an mmog?

[Psmylie]

Actually, pk'ing already exists in FFXI... you just need to be tricky about it. Run a huge train of hostile monsters into a group and let it kill you or zone out. This happenes a lot, although its usually it's some poor fool trying to outrun death... but sometimes its on purpose. When its intentional, usually its someone who's farming monsters and wants to get rid of the competition (ie: the people who are low enough of a level to actually get some xp off of these monsters). These people are a real pain... and its very difficult to prove that they did it on purpose.

Re:What IS the goal of an mmog?

[shadowcabbit]

These people are a real pain... and its very difficult to prove that they did it on purpose.

Not necessarily. It may be difficult or impossible for the player to prove that the bastard who sent a train to kill low-level characters did that act on purpose, but the GM (who should have access to the server logs) would know almost immediately. If the accused has, within the last few minutes, defeated many of that type of monster almost exclusively, then the odds are good that the accused purposefully caused the victim's death. Otherwise, the accused did not (or, naturally, check the relative levels of the accused versus the monster trained).

Besides, this isn't really what we were talking about. This is a dirty form of PK, true, but the issue at hand is PVP combat-- specifically, direct combat between player characters.

Note: anyone who does the train thing on purpose deserves swift, instant death.

Hard Core Addict

[Wexton]

my favourite part ... A 12-year-old boy in South Korea stole $16,000 in real money from his father to finance his gaming addiction at a local cyber cafe. My opinion, but that is just crazy.

Re:Hard Core Addict

[yubgipenguin]

Well, and most interesting part is that some S.Korean Lineage players earn real life money from the game play!!!!! They get some valuable items by slash and hack(the real Player!! or boring NPC..), and sell the things to the rich game players. I heard that some of the people get the money more than 2,000,000 Won (about 1800$) per month from the game. And there is some kind of Playing Lineage Office (it's usually happens at the so called Game Baang, the Game Club.)with employees, more than 10 people, to get the money massively. Usually, the average S.Korean people earn 1,000,000 Won per month from Real Work. it's hard to get the jobs in the S.Korea nowadays. It's ridiculous. And, it IS why MANY of S.Korean people playing that game. I mean, it's connected to the Real Life so tightly. Not only money but the real people relationship and so on. Of course, the 2,000,000 Won per month story is a little bit older ... I think the story is of the 2 or 3 years ago story..but I think it's still going on and on... (PS.Sorry for my poor english, as I knows about Korean story, I'm Korean.)

;e

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do even our games have to be subject to crime, no matter how virtual?

Why wouldn't they? Virtual or not, the games, our lives are run and designed by humans. People are people in all their glory and faults. If your looking for utpoia online your looking in the wrong place.

Re:;e

[kmweber]

http://games.swirve.com/utopia

I've found utopia online :)

Re:;e

[gnu-generation-one]

"Why do even our games have to be subject to crime, no matter how virtual?"

Because the first Matrix wasn't believable enough.

Re:Internet Anonymity - an experiment

[atomico]

The internet encourages anti-social behaviour some people

Quick and easy confirmation: read Slashdot comments with your threshold at -1. Obviously, those morons wouldn't say the same face-to-face: too big risk for a tiny, stupid, reward.

It gets spookier

[Saltation]

I read in the papers last year one of the South Korean MMOGs had an actual war, with thousands on either side fighting coordinated battles, complete with military hierarchies, to achieve solely in-game-decided game-relevant game-objectives.

--
Sal

Writings: saltation.blogspot.com
Wravings: go-blog-go.blogspot.com

Re:It gets spookier

[Kierthos]

I'm assuming that the game was Lineage, as it's the (IIRC) most popular one over there. It isn't the only game that you see things like that in, but given the relatively high percentage (4%) of South Koreans who play it, it's probably the best example. (And before someone says that 4% isn't that high, if 4% of U.S. citizens played EQ, that would be a player base of 11.6 million, as opposed to the roughly 500,000 they actually have.)

On a smaller scale, you see things like that in Dark Age of Camelot pretty much every weekend. May only be a 100 or so on each of the three sides (there are three competing Realms in DAOC), but there are some tactics involved.

Kierthos

Re:It gets spookier

[AndroidCat]

Why don't they take up heathier real world activities .. like Flash Mobs? (On second thought, if they game like that, their Flash Mobs are unlikely to be happy fun events.)

Re: It gets spookier

[Rick and Roll]

Yeah, on a side note, as the parent of your post failed to mention, Lineage was the game that the kid played that stole all that money from his dad. That game seems to attract a lot of nutty bastards.

Re: It gets spookier

[Kierthos]

Any game, given a sufficient player base, will attract people who probably should not be playing it. Like any other activity, it can become addicting, with all the attendent negative social interactions that any addiction brings.

That being said, there are also positive social interactions that arise from these games. Hardly a month goes by without some gaming community organizing a get-together (usually at a sci-fi/fantasy/gaming/comic-book convention), and it wouldn't take long to Google for a number of stories of players who are memorialized in some form after their real-life deaths. (In fact, I recall one of the MUDs I played years ago had an entire area dedicated to a player who was killed in a car accident.)

When it comes down to it, it is like any other social activity. Major sports have their fans that take it a step too far, and others who donate time and money to charities under the auspice of their favorite team.

Computer games, especially MMORPGs just seem to get more negative press then soccer hooligans.

Kierthos

Player-defined societies

[obyrne]

The MMORPG 'A Tale in the Desert' is (in addition to a great city-building/RPG game) largley a social experiment where the players have opportunities to decide how the game-society should go about achieving most goals.

The developers have created tests in each of seven 'disciplines' that are flexible enough to be solved a number of different ways. Though blind, malevolent ambition is one way to get things done, the populace seems to have gravitated toward mature, cooperative solutions. This might be partially because of the 'legal system', which allows any citizen to create a legal petition to punish certain behaviour or change certain game mechanics. If 2/3 of the population agrees with the petition (and it's feasible for the developers), that punishment or change is performed or coded into the game.

Respecting the players by giving them this sort of control over the fate of their own society is a risky thing to do for the company, but I think it's paid off. ATITD is by far the most interesting and challenging game I've ever enjoyed.

--Owen--

While On The Subject......

[mattdev121]

Anybody see the movie Thirteenth Floor?
Watch it and then slaughter people in GTA:VC. kinda wierd if you think about it.

This is bound to happen

[adept256]

Clay Shirky has an excellent article on his site about how online groups are their own worst enemy. Basically, he states that in any online community there will eventually come hordes of people who miss the point and spoil the fun for everybody. It's a great read for anybody who's ever been player-killed, trolled or flamed on the 'net.

I might add one exception I've found; puzzle pirates. When I tried this game during the beta testing, I thought I'd accidentally connected to the wrong internet or something. In general the users are helpful and benign, and there's hardly a mention of 'I w1ll 0wnz0r j00 f4gg0t!!'.

Re:This is bound to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

I might add one exception I've found; puzzle pirates. When I tried this game during the beta testing, I thought I'd accidentally connected to the wrong internet or something. In general the users are helpful and benign, and there's hardly a mention of 'I w1ll 0wnz0r j00 f4gg0t!!'.

And now that you've posted the link on Slashdot, what do you think will happen?

Re:This is bound to happen

[glesga_kiss]

I've seen that on many boards, especially successful tech community ones for devices. First it's just the enthusiasts who help each other out and become known to each other. Then the public hits and everything is cool, new ideas come in and it's a big happy family. Then the new-to-the-net hits and starts asking the same questions, every day, then bitch and swear when they don't get spoon-fed to the same standard as thir own mother would. I've lost count how many times I have to explain to folk that we aren't getting paid to help. Kills the community.

Re:This is bound to happen

[BlanketLord]

Puzzle pirates, which is the only MMO game I've really got into thus far, has quite a bit of developer backing to foster the community. As I say in the game, "a crew is only as good as its captain" thus a game's attitude can be easily influenced by how developers act.

From what it seems also, the growth into puzzle pirates is not as high compared to some MMOGs, and I'm sure that has definatly slowed the process of those coming into ruin the game for others. In the game, players are quick to report when someone is 'griefing' them, and the developers or game masters will usually take action against them immediately.

You all should try it out! Yar!

Re:This is bound to happen

[stwrtpj]

Clay Shirky has an excellent article on his site about how online groups are their own worst enemy. Basically, he states that in any online community there will eventually come hordes of people who miss the point and spoil the fun for everybody. It's a great read for anybody who's ever been player-killed, trolled or flamed on the 'net.

This is an excellent article. One of the most important points, I feel, that can be applied to this discussion is the fact that no online group is a democracy. All online groups eventually become such that you have a small group of people with more privileges (either real or perceived) that trump the "rights" of the masses.

Take, for example, Linux kernel development. Technically, when I get a Linux kernel, I can fully exercise my rights under the GPL and modify the code anyway I see fit and then redistribute it. But who's going to accept it? The most likely response from people doing any serious work in Linux will be "but it isn't official is it?"

What makes a Linux kernel "official"? Only those versions that have been blessed by dictator-for-life Linus Torvalds and his penguinistas. I don't say that to be disparaging. It's a good idea to have some sort of organized development of such a key piece of software, and I happen to like the current setup with the Linux kernel. But it does how how these things come about. Linus invented Linux, and the people around him have been hacking at it the longest, thus they have become the de-facto "government" of the Linux community. While I can certainly distribute my own fork of Linux, few people will take it, because of the hierarchy that has come into place in the community.

The best online games, IMHO, are not the ones that attempt to force democracy on everyone, but the ones that allow for the development of a more influential cadre that help keep the game running. Yes, it does mean you can get into ugly politics and bias sometimes, but overall it still makes for a more stable environment.

Re:This is bound to happen

[wheresdrew]

Ummm. t3h f4gg0t$ w1ll b3 0wnz0r3d?

Re:This is bound to happen

[khallow]

4Y3 |V|473Y!! D4r3z P1U|\|D3r 2 B H4D!!!

Re:This is bound to happen

[Kaboom13]

I play Puzzle Pirates, and it's success is due solely to the efforts of the admins. The actual programmers all play the game, and anyone can stop and have a chat with them. They play a hands on role tweaking the economy and punishing players who cause grief. There are no levels, only your skill at the puzzles, so even first day players can be useful. Taking on new players is often rewarded because you get an excellent new crew member after a few weeks of training. Puzzle Pirates pretty much proves the atmosphere and quality of a MMORPG is depndent on the attentiveness of the developers.

EA is wrong

[linuxislandsucks]

EA is wrong..

according to game theory and socialogy and physcology crime is just another way to play the game..the difference being is thqat for soem reason these grousp fo people do not normally have the correct tools to play the game in the correct way..

some choose criem to feed their family and etc..

by subtracting crime form the vr EA has set about to make the vr game unstudiable as far as human behaior..

It might be avaluable to have it thge other way

Re:EA is wrong

[C10H14N2]

Odd, that was modded as "funny," when it's all true. Now that's funny.

Re:EA is wrong

[PhxBlue]

EA did not create their MMORPG so that people could study it. EA created their MMORPG so that they could make money.

Re:EA is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it was modded funny because of the awful amount of spelling mistakes in the post...

Hello...

[ScottGant]

I'm Troy McClure...you may remember me from such MMORPG's as "The Passion of the Christ Online" and "Latoya Jackson's Fiasco-World"...

dwarf tossing?

[Anonymous Coward]

can even the mighty EA dare to toss a dwarf???

Ummm... Alcohol??

[_Pinky_]

Why do even our games have to be subject to crime, no matter how virtual?

Ummm, my friend, whom you don't know, told me he normally plays games while relaxing, late at night, sometimes real late... And during this relaxation period he may consume a few beverages which could hamper judgement...

So during this period of late night, beveraged game playing, he may do things that he may otherwise not do... or so he says...

This could also explain my, errr, his Karma...

(Whats really sad is I had to use google to make sure I spelt alcohol right, you'd think they would have that on the can somewhere)

Re:Ummm... Alcohol??

[_Pinky_]

And one quick follow up, slightly offtopic...

Alcohol could also be the reason Rocky III was overlooked by the Academy... I mean, it's got Rocky... What could be better? Oh wait, Apollo is there too... That not enough? Throw in Hulk Hogan (as Thunder Lips no less)! What more do you need?

Ok yer stubborn, hows bout Mr. T in his best cinematic role ever? Screw the academy...

(Found 'alcoholic' on the can, but I don't like that word...)

Re:Ummm... Alcohol??

[Anonymous Coward]

(Whats really sad is I had to use google to make sure I spelt alcohol right, you'd think they would have that on the can somewhere)

It does. You've been drinking Drano.

Re:Ummm... Alcohol??

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats really sad is I had to use google to make sure I spelt alcohol right, you'd think they would have that on the can somewhere

That's funny. Mine says 45% alcohol by volumnnnnurrrr. *hic* x_x

Sublimation

[quintessencesluglord]

As S. King pointed out, you have to feed the alligators of the sub-conscious. A polite society doesn't allow for poetic justice; it doesn't give you a space to let your id to roam free. The entire horror genre is dedicated to this idea.

Look at any moralistically repressive system, and you see the worst crimes imaginable being perpetrated. There is no escape valve. What do you expect?

The classics of horror were written during the most repressed times, and hardly ever do you see horror expanding during times of war. Why bother when people are already acting out in real life?

And as it is for games. The mere fact people are acting in an anti-social fashion suggests a need. You _could_ play nice, but people choose not to. Isn't playing PARANOIA still a social event?

Casual evidence suggests this is a step away from criminal. Kick in the doors to people's minds, and they tend to kick back. And it isn't pretty.

Re:Sublimation

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have a citation for the S. King quote? I'd like to read more about that. Thanks.

Re:Sublimation

[Anonymous Coward]

http://infocult.typepad.com/infocult/2003/11/canni bal_uses_n.html

Re:Sublimation

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks

New area for psychology

[dnoyeb]

This is a good opportunity to study different rule sets and see what can encourage people to play fair and not turn to crime.

And not just rules, but what cultural elements make for a stable society. Crime in MMOG may turn out to produce some quality information.

Perhaps games can alter society faster than wars.

Good, bad and non-PVP games

[Vreejack]

One perceived problem with many MMORPGS is that they do not allow or were poorly designed for player-vs-player contests. Ultima Online allowed this right from the very beginning, but was was completely unbalanced due to its open and realistic character design (no classes or levels, just a bunch of interesting skills), essentially rewarding people who wanted to find ways to exploit the awkardness in the design to take on other players. These people were essentially using loopholes in the rules to create their own game at the expense of others who did not know the unintentional (and unintuitive) rules. These loopholes are known as "exploits" and use of them is usually punishable by cancellation of your account, but they are often hard to spot.

Everquest avoided this altogether by simply disallowing players to take each other on. For many though, this leads to boredom. And boredom leads to trying to find ways around the restriction. Using exploits to affect other players indirectly (a form of hacking) is a game in itself.

Games like Dark Age of Camelot and Shadowbane were specificly designed for Player-vs-player combat from initial concept. While classes and levels are a disappointment to those seeking realism, they do allow excellent control of balance by placing some artificial limits on what abilities players can combine. Players attempt to tweak the characteristics of their characters for the best possible combination of features, but the games are becoming so complex now that if they are well-designed there will never be a single "best template" for any character. The best games of such type maximize both complexity and balance, allow players to beat up on each other, and preoccupy them with exploring the intended rules and not the unintended rules.

In the early days of UO, I recall that there were only two or three ways to develop a character for player-vs-player contests. Exploits were much more interesting, and use of them was considered "1337". In Shadowbane there are already so many interesting tactical and strategic avenues to pursue to get an edge over your opponents that using exploits seems positively childish. To label someone an exploiter is insulting.

vreeJack

Re:Good, bad and non-PVP games

[Anonymous Coward]

Having played UO, around 99' and 00'. I can tell you at first as a noob I hated those damn PKs. But as I became more experienced and powerful, going from PK fodder to Master PK escape artist and finally PK basher. I came to realize at least as far as UO was concerned, pvp, added an element that was desperatly missing from the game....a challenging threat to safty. None of the mobs that existed in the game could pose any real threat to ones security. Even if, say, a Lich happened upon your poor miner, chances are you could easily outrun him. If not, well, you werne't very good or had a very poor conection.
I think the devs at Origin knew this and felt that PKs added an element of tension to a rather suspense-free experience otherwise. They were correct.

Everquest, never needed a PK challenge, ask just about any player of EQ about their experiences moving through West Commonlands to name just one example, and getting ganked by Kizdeen Gix will likely be part of their early playing experience. You did not need PKs, to keep you on you toes, and danger aware.

Bottomline, Verant did a good job programming player challenges and evironmental dangers into their product. Origin did not, relying rather on the PK hazard.

I take a dim view of people whining about PKs on UO and calling it anti-social behavior. Come on, games need environmental hazards. And UO was a far less experience when they seperated those hazards out.

What is anti social? Item farmers, kill stealers, verbal harrassers, 'mob trainers', and hacker/cheats are a few example.

Re:Good, bad and non-PVP games

[Keybounce]

> essentially rewarding people who wanted to find ways to exploit the awkardness in the design to take on other players.

Hmm... The "Buddy" spell, no attacks allowed? Ahh, but destroy wall isn't attacking you. :-).

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist. How many of you know this reference?)

trivial

[feidaykin]

In a time of global terrorism, high crime rates and world hunger, the virtual evils of a computer game are really trivial.

In the span of a few hundred million years, the Earth will become less and less habitable due to the expected changes to our giant stellar friend 1 AU away, and that's assuming an asteroid doesn't get us first. On this time scale, the evils of global terrorism, high crime rates, and world hunger are really trivial.

What good does it do if we stop terrorism, crime, and eliminate hunger, if we're still doomed to be completely annihilated in ~500 million years?

Okay, I know I'm going to take a hit on my karma for posting this, but the main reason for my post is to simply prove that it does no good to insult a pass-time that many gamers take seriously by calling aspects of its nature trivial in comparison to something else. Everything is trivial compared to the scenario I just described, just as indeed, I suppose video games are trivial compared to the concerns you described.

Now, would you go around telling people not to live their lives the way they do because we've only got ~500 million years left here on Earth? No, you wouldn't?

Then shut the hell up and let people enjoy a video game in whatever manner that wish, including taking its problems as serious as they wish to imagine them. It may not seem right, natural, or even healthy to you, but there are far worse things people can do with their time.

MMORPGs are an excellent way for the socially inept to form rather serious bonds of friendship, and end up living better lives because of it.

But I guess everyone should stop complaining about the faults of virtual worlds, or maybe stop playing in virtual worlds entirely, since it's so trivial in comparison to your examples. In fact, I think I'll turn in my Dark Age of Camelot account and join the police force right now! Thanks for your insight, buddy!

Re:trivial

[The_Steel_General]

In the span of a few hundred million years, the Earth will become less and less habitable due to the expected changes to our giant stellar friend 1 AU away,

Shouldn't that be a few thousand million years? The dinosaurs were around a few hundred million years ago, and that's practically recent on your astronomically intuited timescale.

TSG

Re:trivial

[khallow]

Actually, he's correct. A lot of recent projections show that the Sun has been warming up and growing larger every since it formed. We are getting more heating from the Sun now than in the time of the dinosaurs. I think the real difference has been carbon dioxide content. Even with CO2 content pumped up by human activity, it's probably much lower than it was 65+ million years ago.

The stabilizing factor in the past was that if CO2 content got too low, then plants would start to die and release CO2. If it got too high, then plants would absorb the CO2 and global warming would increase the amount of livable land area for plantlife. I believe this factor still works. However, the CO2 content is so low now that the Earth can't support the vast plant and animal life that it could 65 million years ago.

That indicates to me that we're facing a substantial decline in plant and animal life over the next few hundred million years.

But this isn't a big issue with large scale space engineering over the time scale of a million years or so. We can easily alter the Earth (and other planets' orbits) in order to move Earth to a more desirable distance from the Sun. That would increase the usable lifespan of Earth (and perhaps Venus and Mars) to perhaps a few billion years.

Re:trivial

[feidaykin]

I was using the somewhat recent theory that in ~500 million years the oceans will have vaporized as an estimate to when climate change would become a serious problem for Earthlings.

While indeed much of what humans know about the past and future on this blue dot in space is speculation, simple observation shows that all stars have a finite amount of fuel, and when that fuel runs low, things will change in ways that would not be good for humans, should they not be prepared for those changes.

And while I tend to believe that humans will be prepared, it's not too soon to start thinking about it. Was it not Arthur C. Clarke who said the dinosaurs died because they didn't have a space program? And then my sig fits in nicely here...

Re:trivial

[Anonymous Coward]

"What good does it do if we stop terrorism, crime, and eliminate hunger, if we're still doomed to be completely annihilated in ~500 million years?"

Because terrorism, crime and starvation are impacting the world around you. Now, if you're going to be around for ~500M years, perhaps you should be investing in the long term so you can afford a solution to that when you get there. In the meantime, maybe you should pay attention to the world around you.

Thing about perspective -- big things are small when they're far away, small things are big when they're really close.

Re:trivial

[khallow]

I was using the somewhat recent theory that in ~500 million years the oceans will have vaporized as an estimate to when climate change would become a serious problem for Earthlings.

Well, I think it'll cause a host of problems. That's definitely a problem when you get that far.

And while I tend to believe that humans will be prepared, it's not too soon to start thinking about it. Was it not Arthur C. Clarke who said the dinosaurs died because they didn't have a space program?

That's the thing that I don't get. The world over the next few decades will probably be in as good shape as we can expect (maybe it'll be a lot better maybe not). So this is a good time. Also, there's putting the eggs in one basket. Given the quantity of nuclear weapons here, we shouldn't be taking these risks for granted.

He mentioned nothing about SecondLife

[objwiz]

The makers of Second Life have taken a very unique approach to player rights with in the game.

In Second life, the content player create, is owned by the player and not the company .
This is totally against the grain of most online games where the company owns it all.

Additionally, they have started tying in real currency to the in game currency. I know this not unique, as Project Entropia does the same thing.

I personally hope this is the way games will go--giving ownership of virtual property to the players and allowing them to use it, sell it, convert for real $$$. I find these environments more enjoyable and rewarding that environments like Everquest, where Sony pretty much owns you.

Spoiling the game

[Jezza]

OK here I'm with EA - you ruin the game for other players you can't play. It's their ball after all. If you spoiled a "real game" (something non-cyber) you'd expect to be ejected, right?

How is this different? Why do people think it's okay to ruin the game for other players? What about their rights? They have paid good money to play (real money) and enjoy the game. This is like someone who talks through the movie.

And this is happening in LOTS of games too, even Rainbow Six 3. I encountered some moron who though it was funny to stand in front of a door half way through the mission so we (the other players) couldn't complete it. Where did this guy get off? I just don't get it, spend all the money om an online game, just to ruin it for everyone one else playing. Okay the damage done was small, we moved off that server and contiuned, not so easy with other games, but still annoying.

Why can't we all just play the game and get along?

Re:Spoiling the game

[Vreejack]

You will always meet maladjusted people. IRL you can always dial 911. In games what can you do? Your answer was to go to another server. That may have been the only answer. Other games have more complex answers, but until you can dial 911 and have an intelligent person show up with the power and authority to enforce real justice, your only options are to either suffer or form your own police force. Fortunately I play a game which effectively captures the latter concept. In fact, that is probably a good starting point for a Massive Player-vs-player design.

vreeJack

Re:Spoiling the game

[bmedwar]

keep in mind, he was probably 12 years old.

Human nature

[cout]

In order to sell their games, creators of MMO games must convince their audience that there is a reason to play the game, that there is something at stake. There is an illusion of power achieved once you reach the top. In order to achieve that power (or a perverted form of that power -- in the case of someone who simply ruins others' experience), there are people who are willing to do whatever is necessary, no matter the cost.

The problem isn't that the game is too close to reality, but in order to keep interest, it must maintain an illusion of certain aspects of reality, otherwise participants will either play only from time to time (as in a hobby) or realize that there is more to life than online gaming and find something better to do. Obviously game manufacturers make more money if more people play more often.

So we find scenarios in games where people form friendships and close relationships. We find cases where the "love" between two individuals is just as strong as in real life, and the consequences of breaking trust just as severe. We find cases where people have real envy, because the game creators create the illusion that there really is something worth envying. We find cases where people become attached to the things they "own" -- when they really own nothing.

Unless human nature is suspended during the course of the game, it's no surprise that crimes and other perversions will happen. And if that happens the game becomes no more interesting than tic-tac-toe or a first-person shooter.

Re:Human nature

[Anonymous Coward]

We find cases where people become attached to the things they "own" -- when they really own nothing.

"Nothing can we call our own but death and that small measure of the barren earth earth that serves as paste and cover to our bones."

We own nothing. We don't even own our ideas. Not in the virtual world and not in the real world. Our souls, even, are forfeit because we bartered them for some bread and some bits of metal. So why play this game? Man, it's because we are compelled to fight, the measure of our humanity is how much pain we endure, how willing we are to struggle against despair and insurmountable odds. *This* makes us human...

Oh wait, it's a role-playing game. Forget what I just said since it doesn't apply.

And now, Some History...

[Anonymous Coward]

"When you play. Remeber; your virtual comrade/enemy is also a living, breathing person."

One of a state's first efforts in war is to deny that aspect to the "enemy." In the physiological sense for one enemy, of course, but in the intellectual sense as well, for then it becomes easy to kill millions of them.

Whether they're armed or not.

That's probably why some people won't be in heaven

[TheLink]

Coz their idea of heaven would be making it hell for everyone else.

And people ask why God sends people to hell. I bet there's a limit to trying to change people against their will (given free will, and people being made in the image of God).

Perhaps hell is you, playing alone, for eternity.

I don't feel civilized...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, for the days when they would only tap you on the head.

Wait, they were savages, weren't they.

Wait a minute

[The Tyro]

Who said anything about Jocks, Preppies, Goths, or geeks? I don't recall anyone saying anything about being good at sports...

He's talking about antisocial behavior... sociopaths who prey on their fellow man and society in general. I happen to agree that those people are what's wrong with society, and that they should be appropriately sanctioned.

Now, those people can come from any social strata (you are making the mistake of equating social strata with social worth). Lots of working class joes volunteer at soup kitchens and work in their local churches... they probably do a lot more good (and proportionally give much more) than some upper-crust aristrocrat who throws a few thousand bucks at the problem and forgets about it. Social position doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being a sociopath... and I think sociopaths in online games deserve the same banishment they get in society.

For instance, in addition to revoking accounts, I'd support some kind of game "jail" arrangement, or even something more appropriate to the period (in a fantasy-themed game, throw them in the stocks in the center of town and let the people abuse them... that might teach 'em).

Re:Wait a minute

[Temporal Outcast]

Anti-social behaviour is just something thats associated as being a disorder - I should know, I suffer from one.

There is nothing wrong in being so, especially if you cannot help it.

Re:Wait a minute

[Temporal Outcast]

And oh, not to mention the fact that the so-called social skills are made to be so important.

Disconnect

[SuperKendall]

It is my opinion that part of the monthly fee I pay for an online game is a payment for policing of the online world in which I participate. As long as I play by the rules and pay my money, my $13 a month or whatever not only keeps my character alive, it also guarantees that cheaters and joykilling bastards are quickly and efficiently removed as permanently as is possible (it is of course infeasible to expect that there will be no problems, but the taxes should at least be doing some good).

There's where the disconnect lies - most MMOG producers think that $13 a month is a payment to keep your world, and your character, in existance. In thier view everything else is secondary.

I think you are correct that that should be the right way to approach one of these games, to have as a primary goal that things in the world are kept "fair" - loss is part of life and gaming, but you shouldn't have the equivilent of superman robbing villagers. Or perhaps you can but have some fate for such supervillans that satisfies those hurt by them.

At any rate, an MMOG that cared more about fairness in play would probably attract a larger following.

Re:Disconnect

[Minna Kirai]

There's where the disconnect lies

Grammar nazi: "Disconnect" is a verb, but you used it as a noun. The noun form is "disconnection".

Re:Disconnect

[Another MacHack]

The Nazis systematically murdered millions of people in death camps.

You just tried to correct someone about grammar.

Furthermore, you got it wrong:

disconnect: n. A lack of connection; a disparity: "There is a cosmic disconnect between what the voters want and what the party of the corporate interests can give them" (Bob Herbert).

Re:Disconnect

[Minna Kirai]

Furthermore, you got it wrong:

Funny, of the 3 dictionaries on the page you cite, only one of them has the neologim noun "disconnect", and it's the 2000 edition of the flippant "American Heritage". They wanted to seem hip, so they latched onto a quote repeated 800 times in 2000 and decided to mint a new word from it.

One reporter who happens to score some popularity does't rewrite our language.

Re:Disconnect

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, yeah, if it's not in the OED it's just the uneducated ramblings of the proles.

No need to get your panties in a wad about "disconnect", though. It's not in the same class as asserting the synonomy of insure, assure, and ensure. (Heritage does this, and it pisses me off) It adds to the language rather than subtracting from it. It's certainly not equivalant to "disconnection", and I don't think its meaning is as simply reducible to "miscommunication" as the cranky prescriptivists brigade likes to think.

I made $12,000 in 3 months off EQ

[RaigeDaFurry]

Most people when they see that cringe but let me defend myself. First off if you don't know this game read the whole post before you pass judgement.

Fact of life/fake reality: The masses will never have access to the elite items in the game because they either don't have the ability to kill the mobs to get the items. They must either obtain it through "hand me downs" or buy it.

I made this possible for ANYONE in the game to get elite level loot. To give you an idea most people in everquest never see more than 20,000pp at one time in their bank account. Through luck and the situation I was in and the character class I was I could obtain almost anything people wanted in Planes of Power.

First, off all loot I obtained and sold was MINE and obtained solo without any assistance. I'm not one of the infamous earthbow sellers (if you don't know you don't need to know.

EQ has never been known to make the best decisions when changing how characters work and when releasing new expansions. Luclin... was a pathetic excuse... I'm not goign there. The first good decision was Planes of Power. The elite guilds needed a challenge and the rest of the game was nothing now.

99% of the Everquest world was alienated by their decision to please the elite guilds. There were around 20 zones or areas if you will. You could access 3 right off but had to beat certain mobs and get "flagged" to continue on. http://everquest.station.sony.com/power/ for more details.

Like I was saying, this basically alienated 99% of the people who play from continuing on. Unless you were highly organized and ... elite you were not beating these mobs. So most of the EQ community watched the news of the other guilds who could and awed at the most incredible items ever put out by Sony.
A few items to mention are quest clothing/armor which would make your old armor look like a tin foil suit. Also bloodmetal earrings. This one was one of the most incredible items that ANYONE could wear. However, 99% of EQ had no access to it. Being an enchanter I can charm mobs and as it turns out I could charm a certain mob that could obliterate the rest of it's kin by simply giving it another weapon, hasting it by 70% and slowing the one it's attacking down. 1/5 dropped the gem needed for this earring. The rest of the pieces were trivial to obtain and so I started making these earrings.

Low and behold I was pumping them out like crazy to my guild. Then one of the people I knew in game offered me 70,000pp for one of these earrings. Since I'd been using my own materials and time to obtain and make these I was like sure. So bam, 70,000pp. Then i thought... geez... I always wanted a horse so I sold another and had 140,000pp. Mind you this is like making $100,000 in 2 days in the EQ world. I bought my horse and continued to collect the gems. I started to give half to my guild and sell the other half and sometimes I'd watch the auction channel and I'd see an old friend or someone I've heard of who was having a really bad time trying to make money to get something they want and I'd just give them an earring. I lost count of how many I gave away. Think of it. I was the only one the the EQ world who really knew about it and I was giving them away.

I mean, they weren't giving me anything to give the guild items. I didn't have to do it at all so I kept a few and soon amased over 1million plat in less than a week. About this time the need for "dummy" accounts came into play. That is, mage accounts that we can place all over the EQ world and use them to Summon us past a lot of wasted time. The problem was noone wanted to pay for these. I happened to know someone who bought platinum and sent my guild leader to him and thus it began. It's how we paid for 14 mage accounts that basically let us fly by any other guild that was trying to get mobs that dropped elite loot. It was fun, though bullish, but that's part of the EQ world. You MUST be like that or be walked over. Even the GM's wouldn't so anything. But typically if

Re:I made $12,000 in 3 months off EQ

[stwrtpj]

So now that you know what a typical seller is like... now do you hate us?

I don't play the online games anymore so I don't have as much of a stake in it these days, but my initial reaction from your description is no, I don't think I would hate you.

Unless you cheated, hacked into the system, used security exploits -- which it sounds like you didn't -- then you were simply "playing the system". The game rules allow you to do all this so you did it. Many people play real life systems this way. I know I do come April when I try to squeeze the biggest refund legally possible from the IRS.

To anyone here playing EQ: If the methods that this person used are considered "unfair" to anyone else here playing EQ, just remember to direct your bile towards the people that designed the game and allowed things like this to happen, not at the people that use the system according to the rules.

Re:I made $12,000 in 3 months off EQ

[Animats]

This guy will be a venture capitalist when he grows up.

Re:I made $12,000 in 3 months off EQ

[Lehk228]

I used to play an enchanter (now working on a warrior) only low lvl (~15) but everything (s)he described is plausable and i would consider it fair, at low levels obtaining plat is usually tough, but i found a spot where i can slaughter goblins for randomly 0~4~8 plat worth of loot and giants for 0~4 plat worth of loot and that is what the game is about, finding your niche, some are fighters, some traders, some create things

I don't like how it sound...

[S3D]

"EA owns your gold, your swords, your characters" Replace "EA" with any of your favorite scarecrow, like government, employer, corporations, ISP, phone company... Customer handling in MMORPG may create a dangerous template of thoughts, too tempting for others... Better to be paranoid now then to regret later...

Tinfoil Hat Alert!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, get a grip. Look around you. You're sitting in reality. Life is not 'The Matrix".

Re:That's probably why some people won't be in hea

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps hell is you, playing alone, for eternity.

No... hell is browsing Slashdot at -1 for eternity.

Re:Internet Anonymity - an experiment

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say the same things face to face. People need to hear them but don't want to, instead modding me down to -1 on nearly every post. Telling my experiences as a former Apple employee on apple.slashdot.org got me a permatroll rating. That's how popular reality is with zealots who think Apple is a religion, not a multinational. There's no point in me logging in anymore, I get a better starting score (and therefore chance to be read) as an AC.

Not all -1 Trolls are cowards, they're just saying something extremely unpopular. But the fecal trolls are definitely contributing nothing and are simply wasting your time, true.

I'm making a game called utopia (yes, it's a rant)

[Anonymous Coward]

In the future, I'm going to invent a MMORPG where the world is a completely pale white background and all you do is sit in chairs and talk. You can't own anything, buy anything, hurt anybody, or offend anyone. The game box won't depict any blood, violence, sex, or other unacceptable behavior. It will also be a pale white color.

This game will ship on time, be under budget, work flawlessly the first time, and be programmed by american programmers. No one will hack it, because it will be such a small and boring program. Joe Lieberman and Phil Mushnik will applaud it for being a wholesome game the entire family can play. Parent advocacy groups will applaud the constructive nature of the game. Academics will appreciate the fact of the game will finally promote an open dialog among participants. Game magazines will praise it for being playable on older hardware.

I think we can learn a simple lesson from our MMORPGs. Any society which bans all forms of hate speech, offensive material, prevents all thought-crime, and sterilizes everything is a world most of us wouldn't want to participate in.

The real world is nothing more than a long line of evolutionary computation, in an attempt to find the most optimum way of life. Did you think a couple game programmers were going to improve on it?

Re:Internet Anonymity - an experiment

[Anonymous Coward]

Who needs to?

Just read the nonsense posted at Anti-Slash ...

Some people find the craziest reasons to act stupid, troll and generally work to make people enjoy things less.

All your base are belong to us

[Anonymous Coward]

"EA owns your gold, your swords, your characters - they are all just digital bits. If your entertainment is to destroy other peoples' entertainment, you're going to be tossed."

The only record of my money in the bank is digital. If I take some of that money and play the stock market, I can do so by just transferring it. If I make money, it goes back into my digital account.

Does this mean I don't own my money? Hmmm...

Fully offtopic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

In a time of global terrorism, high crime rates and world hunger...

What the fuck ever! I'm so sick of every moron who wants to make a point starting off their sanctimonious rant with this nonsence. When was there ever absolutly nothing wrong with the world? Surely before we were around to bitch and moan I would guess.

I got a call the other day from my local cops and the dude on the other end started off his spheal with, "In these troubling times..." I had to stop him right there and say, "No, I'm sorry, I don't view these times as troubleing at all." He had to wait a beat as I had thrown him off his script but recovered with, "Well certinaly you can agree that since blah blah blah," and I had to say, "No, I think it's a great time to be alive." That finally got a laugh out of him as he realized that his pitch was futal and I said good day.

Who cares if it's virtual?

[localman]

If I'm having fun (in the real world or elsewhere) and someone makes a point of messing with me, it's harassment. Don't get hung up on how I have fun or whether you think it's fun or useful or not. I am free to pursue hapiness in whatever form I choose so long as I'm not interfering with others hapiness.

Of course, just as in the real world someone elses hapiness may depend on my being unhappy. But traditionally the line has been drawn there: the one overtly trying to mess with others loses.

So, to reiterate: virtual shmitual. You mess with people, you pay the price.

Cheers.

Check EBay for UO Goods

[Greyfox]

It's quite possible for a group of people to control access to rare and unique resources that can only be found in the PvP zones, and then turn those resources into very real income on EBay. I wonder if virtual murders in a game can make you a racketeer in the eyes if the law? It would be odd to hear about the FBI raiding someone's house because of their actions in a game, but they've done stranger stuff in the past.

Re:The problem is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up. Not by a lot, neccesarily, just enough to get him out of the -1 ghetto.

"passion"ate

[No Such Agency]

Hey, at least "The Passion of the Christ Online" would take some heat off of the *less* violent games, like Vice City, Counterstrike, Halo, and "Housepet Hunter" (ok, I made that one up)...

Gods aren't subject to democracy

[TheCyko1]

"The fact you own a common space doesn't mean you can be automatically autocratic," Ludlow said.

I don't think of game makers as just people who own a virtual world. Since they created this "common space", that would kind of make them god. As god, they can conntrol, change and do to that world as they see fit. And if you piss god off, he will smite you.

It's a teaching tool

[aztektum]

So that when I get attacked by Orgres I have memorized the spells I need to vanquish him

Sorta like self defense classes

Sociolotron

[bippy]

The writer has a blog up where the Sociolotron and UO folks are posting about the differences between the game. I think it's pretty cool that Sociolotron has introduced that level of realism to the game and that even though people can have hardcore sex in the game, that's not really what their players are into. Check out the blog.

Re:I'm making a game called utopia (yes, it's a ra

[JeffTL]

Great idea, but I think it's called "the Wikipedia."

That doesn't really change the fundimental system

[Sycraft-fu]

All it means is that players are now allowed to do what they do anyways: trade online goods for physical goods. The fact of the matter is that the universe is still solely the property of the company that created it. They are literally gods in it and can at any time make any change they like. They could, if they wanted, simply unmake the universe by shutting down the servers. Then all the digital bits you "own" do you no good since there's no universe in which to use them.

That's what people seem to misunderstand about MMORPGs. They are services. You agree to pay the company a monthly fee an abide by some rules, they agree to let you use their servers to play a game. However, the servers and the game that runs on it belongs to them. They can allow you to do what they wish, such as sell your virtual goods, but they can make changes to how that works at any time. A less severe example than discontiniing the service would simple be altering the game balance.

So let's say you work really hard to get a really rare item. You hang on to it, as it is appreciating in real value. However the game company meanwhile is evaluating the balance, and decided these items are simply too powerful, and so they change the stats on all of these items in the world, including yours. All of a sudden, your item isn't worth much. Or maybe, they just remove it from the game entirely.

So no matter how nice they are about letting you auction your stuff in game, ultimately, they own it all. If they decide to discontinue service or make changes, sorry, that's just how it goes.

Correct

[Sycraft-fu]

Also, people need to stop trying to apply real world physics, values, social structures, and so on to a game. There are two major differences between real life and MMORPGs that make attempts to apply real world structures stupid:

1) Different laws of the universe. Things just don't work the same. In real life you kill someone, that's it, they are gone and, near as anyone can tell, not comming back. In most games they just pop back up in a different spot and maybe come back to kill you. Because of this, the whole concept or murder goes out the window, as does what it means. With different laws of the universe you'll have different constraints on what is right and wrong.

2) The presence of gods. There may or may not be a god or gods in the real world and that god may or may not interfere with what goes on. One thing is certain, if there is a god and they do interfere, it is in subtile ways. This is NOT the case in an MMORPG. There are gods, the developers and CS staff of the company, and they DO interfere in the game. They are all powerful too, they created the virtual universe, they can change it as they wish, they can even unmake it if they wish. Thus, they can lay out laws that a society wouldn't normally enforce upon itself.

I really wish that people would stop trying to insist that MMORPGs need to mimic reality. You want to make one that does? Great, be my guest. Go and set it up, and see how you do. But don't think that it's the only way or what all people want. Understand that games are more often than not made to be different, and that's a good thing.

Also realise that, as tha parent poster said, MMORPGs are released to make money. If 100 people go around doing something that is "realistic" or "how it would be in the real world" that makes 10,000 other paying subscribers angry, the game company is doing the right thing by putting a stop to it.

High crime rates??

[thomastheo1]

It might be offtopic, but I am so sick of people saying we live in a time of high crime rates. Crime is down. They are lower than ever before. Stop saying the opposite, because it is bullshit. Now my grandma is too scared to go out after dark, even though it is safer than 30 years ago. Sheesh.

Shadowbane pvp is not opt-in...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shadowbane is more or less free PvP and you leave the newbie starting area.

Where's EFF?

[Anonymous Coward]

> PC MMOGs have fostered debates about free
> speech,

Anything in one of these games that could even
remotely be considered "racial" is banned. Hmmm,
yes, where has the EFF been on this and why aren't
they crying censorship?

Re:Where's EFF?

[Rorgg]

Well, there's a lot of gnome punting discussed in EQ, and I haven't seen anyone banned for it yet.

Re:Where's EFF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try starting a clan named white-knights. Pretty
innoccous but most likely it will get banned in
fairly short order.

This isn't new

[deinol]

Wasn't there a slashdot article the other day that said the opposite? That the problem with MMO games is that they have become single player games where you can chat with other players, and that there is less and less meaningful interaction between players?

I guess it just depends on what sort of game you are looking for. Some people want to play cooperatively against the computer. Some people want to have a virtual world, where competition between players is a strong part of that. Different games will appeal to different crowds.

The mud I used to play and really liked, had a very realistic feel to it. If you wandered into the wilderness, and fought something too hard for you to handle, you died. When you died, you started over with a new character. That's it, game over. Very harsh, but more realistic.

If you got stolen from by another character, you lost things. That's the way it goes. But, if they got caught, the soldiers would throw them in jail, and a templar would likely take all of their things. If they got caught murdering people, they were killed on sight by the guards. And the guards were pretty tough. You could get tough enough to take one, or maybe two if you were really good, but 4 or more would team you to death.

So there was crime, but if you stuck to the safe areas, that were heavily patrolled, you could successfully play a very non-competative character, where social interaction was all there was to the game. But for those that liked the seedy life, they could venture into the slums or the lawless wilderness.

There is a lot of potential to MMO Games. You just have to know what you want from one, and wht the designers have created to accomadate that.

Re: [Idea] Some experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not create a situation where the "stolen" item was in fact copied into the theif's possesion? (note: and only a theif) Also the stolen "hot" item should its self be stealable, and not copied. They stole it so they should be able to lose it too. Maybe the original owner should have a special advantage toward this end?

If it's a "rare" item where they only want one instance in the game then it should flatly be stealable right? This creates a value stiuation where the question is asked: Is it worth more to keep it or to sell a "rare" item that could be stolen from you?

Re: Free Call Minutes

[Behrooz]

the free call minutes on your cell phone account may be just bits in a server somewhere, but they are yours, and they do have a value

No, the bits aren't yours, and furthermore, the value of the bits representing free call minutes sitting on a server somewhere does not originate from their status as bits per se. The important part is that those bits are a record of a contract that you have entered into with the phone company, whereupon they provide you with phone minutes in exchange for money.

The bits don't matter, it's the legally binding contract that's important. The same principle holds for items in MMO games, which is why the Terms of Service of just about all the major MMO games has legalese that can be translated to the effect of:

"Not yours. Ours. All imaginary. Really. Not responsible if your n00b ass gets owned because in-game conditions are subject to change without notice. Oh, and you have to pay money to us for the right to play with these bits that are actually ours."

At this point, you're probably not going to get anywhere in forcing a game company to compensate you for in-game loss without first establishing that elements of the TOS itself are not legally valid or binding... usually a tough proposition.

MMO admins can and do compensate gamers for many problems, but that is entirely voluntary and has more to do with good customer service than any legal obligation.

Re: Free Call Minutes

[JaredOfEuropa]

Not responsible if your n00b ass gets owned because in-game conditions are subject to change without notice. Oh, and you have to pay money to us for the right to play with these bits that are actually ours."

At this point, you're probably not going to get anywhere in forcing a game company to compensate you for in-game loss without first establishing that elements of the TOS itself are not legally valid or binding... usually a tough proposition.

Not compensation for in-game loss... after all, that is the game! But I was talking about compensation for out-of-game losses, such as servers being hacked or being scammed out of virtual goods. A Chinese judge already awarded the plaintiff in such a case recompense for lost virtual goods.

Shorter form

[SuperKendall]

You need to understand how language is evolving. This is a nouned verb now.

Et in Arcadia ego

[TonyTheTiger]

Et in Arcadia ego

EULA - ever sign it?

[Anonymous Coward]

How really stupid are Ultima Online users for thinking that they actually have any rights in the virtual Ulitima Online world?

Once you sign the EULA you agree to it. A virtual game is owned by the company. Not by you.

feel good BS again

[Anonymous Coward]

Buying a commercial product does not grant you freedom of speech and the other 9 admendments in the bill of rights.

I suppose if someone got on Ultima Online a spouted a 'save the trees' or some other eco-mantra-bs you would be all for it....well what if someone got on and spewed a stream of 'communism kills - socialized medicine kills - social justice==poverty for all'?

Freedom off speech does not mean that people/companies must pay/subsidize your speech and secondly does not mean that any has to listen.

Lineage II does PK policy well!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posted anon to save my ass. ;)

I recently played in the Taiwan Beta of Lineage II. ( It ends this week. ) They encourage you to PvP, since clan matches and what not are the game. Clans can fight for control of certian land and castles for example in large wars.

However, it's interesting how random PKers are handled... They have town guards, and certian monsters that protect you from non clan war PKs. These monsters often crush PKs with one hit, but you can rest in safety under them fine. Also a color code system is used to denote PKs from neutrals. Once someone gets a Red color most players will gang up and kill them quickly. It's very funny b/c even at level 10 a handful of players often killed players at level 45. Random PKing also means when you die you drop a ton of your items.

Even after I leveled up I'd enjoy chasing down and killing PKs just for the sport of it. Random PKs don't live very long, since it's a favored sport. I've seen entire towns come out and kill a group of PKs at once. It's so fun to police yourself! ;)

EA's Attitude and PK vs non-PK

[JavaLord]

1. EA's Attitude lately with statements like:

EA owns your gold, your swords, your characters - they are all just digital bits. If your entertainment is to destroy other peoples' entertainment, you're going to be tossed."

is just trash. I really can't stand them or anything I've bought from them recently. I'm not buying anything made by them this year. Not that they will care...

One thing I never understood about PvP vs Non-PvPers, why don't the non-PvP or social type people ever team up? It's like, most grief players are so anti-social they only have a few friends online, and most of the social type people run around in these huge cliques. Instead of securing a town or two and just PKing anyone that causes trouble they just whine to the GM's.

I don't understand the point of most MMO's nowadays anyway, the reason I would play a MMO is to get away from the real world. Who wants to play a MMO with a bunch of rules on how you have to act, and what you can and can't say. Shouldn't a game be about freedom?

Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

My dreams have finally come true! I've reached Carebear land! Where's the cute one with the cupcake?