Slashdot Mirror
Online Game Event Sparks Player Riot
Grimwell Online is carrying a story entitled When does an Online Game go too far?. It details a post to a news group about a world event in the newly released A Tale in the Desert 2. The online game, which simulates an ancient Egyptian culture, was full of angry players after a developer-run event used openly discriminatory language against the female gender. Details on the event can be found at the ATITD2 Wiki, and commentary can be found on TerraNova.
When a game goes to far I don't play it anymore.
This is just more of that post-modern victim shit. Some chicks got bent outta shape because a CHARACTER in a GAME set in ANCIENT EGYPT didn't treat their characters like empowered 21st century soccer-moms.
The irony is that all the women playing the game were actually guys pretending to be women.
Seriously, though, this guy could end up with a lawsuit on his hands. I think he would be wise to issue a public apology pretty soon.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Right, because it would have been so much more realistic for them to portray ancient egypt as "gender-neutral", right?
Maybe they were just going for authenticity?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
What do you call a basement full of women?
A whine cellar.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
IT'S A GAME!!
What was the average age of the participants? I suspect that this nonsense was bred entirely from immaturity.
I mean really, who besides a child (mentally) gets so spun up over a game?? I thought they were supposed to be fun!
Have I missed something?
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
As for the "societal implications of this behavior" This territory has been covered before, years ago. The analysis done, the poor quality undergrad papers written (by me), its done.
As an in-game device to create tension and conflict; awesome. Job well done.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I'm pretty sure the developer thought that this would be funny... people seem to get offensive and funny mixed up these days.
You should know better when designing something from a broad base that if you offend people, those are potential customers you won't get. Turn away too many potential customers and yhou won't have enough actual customers to make anything work.
How about not playing if it offends you so much?
If you're just playing the game to have some fun, and don't care about historical "accuracy" or at least realism, this would be annoying and possibly offensive.
If you're playing it to experience a world, I think it's completely in line. Slavery, racism, and sexual discrimination are all part of history (and our world today), and being confronted with them in a online gaming experience could be much more powerful than, for example, reading in your textbook that Denmark abolished the African slave trade in 1803.
The Terranova link has a comment that says the discrimination was widespread and player based. That doesn't seem like it was discrimination from the organizers of the event. So although it's sad, I don't think they're in danger of losing a lawsuit.
There's been a lot of people using racial slurs on gaming servers lately. It's a shame that it's so widespread and that very few people say anything when it occurs during gameplay. I miss the days when you'd hear "nice shot" or "good luck" on a server instead of a bunch of insults.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
While I did not personally attend the event, I have heard quite enough about it. The trader did not come from Egypt, but a foreign land. I've discussed this event way too much as it is though so I do not feel like going into it a length now. BTW, you already killed our wiki
So a game based in a period of human history would like to present a sterotype present in that time period... In one charecter (so far), widely regarded by many NPCs to be a theif and a scoundrel...
I'm tired of whitewashing history (will I be flamed by those who would consider that a racist remark?). Bad things happen, people were enslaved, tortured, killed, etc, based on pretty much anything. It was bad, we know that, lets move on, but lets also not forget that it happened.
Game publishers, programmers and authors should be applauded for being willing to tackle issues present in the period they choose to set their work, it is a difficult and tricky business.
Perhapps users could/(should?) be warned during charecter creation that their chosen avatar will effect game play, heck, list it as a feature. If you play female some NPCs wont trade with you, if you play a white guy you won't be able to jump, if you play someone of X decent you will be better at Y, etc.
paul reinheimer
While a good deal of posters will take the objective viewpoint, I don't think you'll find a ton of sympathy for the female players here in slashdot.... Let's face it, most of these folk happen to be guys that are discriminated against by females every day.
Anyone who has played the game will know that ATITD is about roleplaying and community. It is about building a civilization, and rising as a civilization to meet challenges. I haven't played the game in a year and a half, but I think most of what was true then holds true now.
The incident in question (for those who didnt RTFA) involves a game event where a staff-controlled character, a merchant, travelled the world and traded with people. Females were treated as slaves - which, given the place and time that this role playing game portrays, was not necessarily an inaccurate representation. Should a game whose purpose is roleplaying (and to an extent, re-enactment) set thousands of years ago, represent modern day values? That is up for the players to decide. They took for granted modern day values, but never passed any laws to enforce them (which was entirely within their power).
So when an event-character comes along, behaving perfectly appropriately given the location, era, and currently enacted laws - yet inappropriately given modern day values - people are expressing outrage...
If the players wish to truly do something, a riot is the wrong way to go. This is a game that they have control over, and this was a challenge that was presented to them in game and should be met in-game. The players should use the legal system within the game to pass an equal rights act and abolish slavery.
Keep it in-game, where it belongs.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
As a role player, I've played racist character (both for human races and various clans and/or species), sexist characters (try playing a 150 year old vampire from the deep south with*out* being racist and sexist), sadist, psychotic, mentally deficient, masochist, martyr, zealots of various natures, and members of the opposite sex plus a dozen races, species and creature types.
What the *hell* do they think role playing is?
Role playing the concentration camps of WWII results in some very dark moments and the introspection lasts long after the game is over - much the same as reading a powerful novel or history of the era. It makes for powerful literature, which is what role playing can be. The strong themes of discrimination exist historically, and since much of role play (including this work) often pulls from history, to exclude those aspects is to whitewash who we are and have been as human beings.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Historicity aside, the last time I checked, at least within the USA, First Amendment rights still applied to everyone?
I understand that a large number of people seem to think that speech that falls outside of their personally "acceptable" boundaries should be prohibited, and sadly, a number of craven legislators have catered to this intellectually empty point of view.
Sticks and stones, stupid. If you don't like it, maybe you could simply turn off the computer? Vote with your feet. Play another game perhaps?
-Styopa
How exactly do you riot in a multiplayer online game? I mean run around yelling? Can they destory buildings and burn fields? Storm the castle?
What?
Discriminatory language, riots, angry people... This is nothing! I once heard about an online game where one of the characters has commited a murder! Can you imagine?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
In the event, the trader was from a far-away land, not Egypt. He was role played as a trader from a land where women were considered property, and was just expressing his beliefs. And really, I don't see how it can be considered sexist since many males play female characters and vice versa. Another point that can be made is that there has been "sexism" in the game since it was first created, since female avatars have always been able to weave canvas and linen faster, as well as reproduce certain vegetables and vegetable seeds better than males. It's strange that only once the tables are turned do we hear the complaints.
"The next generation of interesting software will be made on a Macintosh, not an IBM PC." -Bill Gates
Should games take realism to the extent that they deny basic "current" human rights?
Human rights are denied to the tune of millions around the globe each day. Can gamers truthfully cry foul when their "virtual human rights" are impinged? Go spend some time in Saudi Arabia as a woman, in China as a Christian, in America as an arab, in Thailand as sex slave, in an Iraqi prison as an Iraqi... then tell me how realistic the denial of human rights are in your game.
Speak truth to power.
Ironically nothing in that song is actually ironic.
Let's not forget this is just a game. It is not some grand social experiment. It is a service that people pay for and when you type something out it is being read by a *person*, not an Avatar. If someone is playing the game and paying for it they have no responsibility to treat is as anything but a game. In college, you were payed to be experimented on. I think they have every right to expect a certain level of protection from this kind of insulting behaviour.
Would calling someone on another team a racial slur in the middle of a baseball game be okay? If it was just to get a reaction and not meant with ill will?
The "social experiment" of slavery and sexism has already been performed and it didn't go well. There is enough racism/sexism on the net without it being officially sanctioned by people who are taking your money...
This what you were talking about? (same event, but from different sources) So far there haven't been any mass player 'porting by administrators to my knowledge. Does anyone know if this is not the case?
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
Yeah, I said it. I'll say it again. "Chick."
:P
As in:
"Who was at the party last night?"
"Oh, just some chicks & dudes you don't know."
Because, like all men, when I say chick, I really mean "subservient ovary."
Again, more of that victim shit. You react as if I've slapped my own mother (or yours, perhaps) across the face by using the word "chick". Ludicrous. The 90's called, they want their Politically Correct hypersensitivity back.
Over thousands of years women have been treated as the 'lesser' beings, unable to vote, own land, etc.. etc.. etc. But I dont remember ever hearing about women quoting a disclaimer, a EULA, or the lack-therof. Instead, women have empowered themselves and have won liberation.
If these women want to be treated "equally" during a time (Ancient Egypt) where the game most likely accurately portrays them as "unequal", then they should be playing the game as women have been subject to sufferage for many years.
Keep the whining, the finger-pointing, and the who-said-whats in the game where it is meant to be and work it out in there. After all, its a game, so my advice to these women is: WIN!
Historical accuracy aside, it's important to realize that the discrimination is taking place outside the game, not in it. Inviting women to play the game and then suddenly telling them that they can't play part of the game in the middle of the second season does seem kind of rude, if that's what happened.
A better question would be if this is consistant. Are women universally treated as slaves in the game? Have there been other side quests and story elements that locked women out? Are there any female-only parts of the game? If women are otherwise treated as equals in ability and options, then it doesn't make sense to cry historical accuracy now.
You can't say that this is ridiculous solely on the basis of the Slashdot writeup. Hopefully someone who knows more about the game will post further information, since the article is slashdotted right now.
Visit the
This kind of crap has always been widespread, from the times of the BBS to the times of the MMORPG's.
*Usually* the name calling, throwing a pissy fit, and the general hate comes from young boys. They have a lot of rage, and they can take it out in online games without fear of reprecussions.
I've been playing online games for many years now. Back with KALI + Descent 2, through UT and Tactical Ops, and through OU, EQ, and now EQ2. The crap's the same. It'll always be there. But in some places, it's much worse the others.
I ran some TacOps servers a couple years back, and it was a LOT of fun. We had some great kids and adults alike play on our servers, and we basically just went nuts. Marathons on single maps all night, clan wars, and everything else. But always there would be the little kidding that enter the server, do stupid shit, call people names, and eventually get banned.
There's actually a lot less of that kind of nonsense in games like Everquest. EQ's been out for awhile, and a lot of the players have been playing for years. The average age in many top guilds is in the mid-20's. While age along doesn't come close to stop people from being assholes, it does eliminate a lot of the name calling, racial slurs, and general chaos.
Hop on a UT2004 server, however, and you'll be playing with a bunch of punk 14 year old boys that have no problem calling you a *beep* beep *beep* because you killed them once out of the 25 times they killed you.
I await the games where you need to prove your age, and be at least 18 years old to play.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
ATITD itself doesn't have a whole lot of options for player conflict. It's primarily a non-combative nation-building game.
Essentially what happened was this guy was a trader, and his presence in an area was announced over the global channel. Thus, people came and lined up in the dozens/hundredish to see him.
Eventually one of the women stepped up to her place in line, the guy asked her 'Who is your master, woman?', and from there the righteous indignation began.
Players littered the area by dropping piles of sand and mud, filled the NPC's inventory (thus preventing him from moving) by giving him tons of sand, lit bonfires, spammed the chat channel constantly, etc. Eventually the NPC was forced to withdraw.
The ultimate motivation, as it has been said, was to pose a moral challenge to the players of the game. Do they trade with the nasty sexist NPC, or do they spurn him and his rare and exotic goods?
Personally I found the whole reaction to the event beyond pathetic. People rioted and basically trashed the area around the trader, but after that they went and bitched and moaned for 20ish pages on the message boards about how the developers were at fault, how they were so offended, how they were cancelling their accounts, blah blah blah. Pitiful.
Are there any boundaries in role-playing? Some people seem to say no. Well, what if someone dresses up for an SCA event or Halloween as some offensive type character, and starts going off on someone in way most people would view as inappropriate (say, a person in a KKK costume and using the "n" word towards blacks/african-americans, etc.) Is that ok?
Since we don't live in ancient egypt, should we behave by today's standards in-game -- totally, partially, or not at all? Does role playing imply total immersion in character, or are there limits?
I also acceptable behavior should be very clearly defined so players know what to expect. I'm not well informed about the game, but I'd be curious what their policy states.
There was an incident years ago in EQ I think where someone playing a Dark Elf, either roleplayed or wrote about raping another in-game character (not a NPC, it was a PC acct). I recall it was quite graphic and, to me anyway, disturbing. I believe the player was banned, some said it was role-playing, others said it crossed the line. Was a huge debate. Thoughts?
Ok, some stuff to mull over -- I think it's an interesting topic as mmorpgs and rpgs continue to get more interesting and immersive.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
An example of a game going to far would be a game that causes a direct, linkable physical effect on players. This is just people getting bent out of shape because they still have the mentality of a 10 year old.
Political Correctness is an example immaturity, and these people railing against something that has no effect on them except through their self-deluded state of being offended is not what anyone should classify as news.
Do these games ever have character's that are at a disadvantage from their beginning/creation based on characteristics other than sex? If so, do people identify with those characters and complain to the developer? I am quite serious, I don't play these games so I don't know.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Writing a song called Ironic, that completely mis-understands the definition of "Ironic", is very Ironic.
Women are to these geeks as alien as Frankenstein or a visitor from another planet. Not understanding these creatures, and having such limit access and exposure to them, (I like exposure better) they lash out. It's a sad day when a young developer, starved for female attention, turns to loathing and ridicule. It's a cry for help, I tell you!
Vivid Video Disembowelment Inc to split three for one. In other news, we have one bankruptcy to report. The company that labored to develop the multi-player computer role-playing game called "Political Corrections" has gone out of business. To date, the open-sourced code for the game has garnered zero downloads. Simon Pure, former CEO of the company, released the source when no buyer could be found for the rights to the game and the producers of "Barney and Friends" dropped their options on the game citing its unreality and lack of relevance to any known target audiance or demographic. A few conservative christian customers had purchased the game but returned it when they found the game's filters and rules made it impossible to create what they considered realistic characters for John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, or anyone from Massachusetts. Reaction from customers was muted. One player said "I liked the cool laser cannons and way the flesh would blister when you zapped the other players but when it wouldn't let my character call Kerry a douchebag, I tossed it.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
You don't understand the game then. There are no powerups, no special items.
They were trading for general everyday (in-game) commodities. The whole point of the merchant event was mostly role-playing as well.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
Even if this comment is modded as funny, it is quite an insightful comment.
This is role-playing. If I play D&D and I can't enter the realm of elves because I am a mere human, will I quit playing because this game is racist? No, because that is "Role-playing", and playing a role in a defined environment is the *point* of the game.
The female players could have decided to play a male character instead, and they would *never* have been treated inequally because they were women.
Thus, it is not the *player* who is victim of sexism, but the *character*. If you can't make the difference, you shouldn't be role-playing.
perception is reality
Is it a social event, or an RPG? Let's be clear, RPG stands for Roll Playing Game.
It's like acting. Kevin Spacey isn't REALLY dead from a gunshot wound to the back of the head. He didn't REALLY cut what-er-name's head off and stick it in a box to freak Brad Pitt out.
Kids today. Never played a real (paper & pencil) RPG. I used to play a character that was always shooting off racial slurs at Dwarves. In fact, once he was at quite a high level, he engaged in a campaign of Dwarficide. THAT'S NOT REAL.
So, if you are in a game, playing a character that should be treated a certain way within the context of the game let's try to do two things. 1. Don't be surprised and 2. Remember it is one FICTIONAL character mistreating another FICTIONAL character. You are not your fucking character.
Hallelujah, holy shit, where's the tylenol?
-Peter
Please look up the definition of the word "irony" in the dictionary.
It's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made or iron.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Exactly! Quit yer whining and do something about it, like refuse to produce food for the males in the game - or withhold sex IRL. Works for me. ;-P
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
The trader was not Egyptian, he was a trader from a far away land. Take a lousy five minutes and read through some other posts before responding as if you know anything...
"The next generation of interesting software will be made on a Macintosh, not an IBM PC." -Bill Gates
I find it facinating that everyone just assumes that women in ancient Egypt were subservient. Where is the evidence for this? Contrary to public opinion, as a simple search on the role of women in ancient Egypt on Google will attest, the historical record suggests that woman in Egypt had legal parity with men.
... just as weomen hardly enjoy equal rights today in Pakistan, despite the fact that the country has had a female leader (who even as prime minister was not allowed to look into the eyes of a male).
... it leads me to believe that most of the "women" in game were actually men in drag. Although perhaps not ... it will be interesting to watch how women in the United States react when, as a consiquence of their inaction and apathy, the "unthinkable" happens and they lose their freedom of choice under Roe v. Wade and find their bodies chattal of the state for nine months again -- something most people like to believe will never happen, but the current administration for whom some many women are naively voting has publicly stated as one of their objectives. Will they riot, as so many psuedo-women have in game? Or will they engage in more intelligent civil disobedience and political activity, as they have so many times in the past to achieve parity under the law. My money, based on historical evidence, is on the latter ... which again is why I suspect so many of the "women" in this game were in fact played by men. Rioting has generally been, in most historical contexts anyway, such a "male" response.
That is debated among historians. While Egypt did have female rulers, it does not appear that women were equal among the working masses
What isn't debated among historians is that women in many other parts of the world in that day and age were not treated at all equally, and indeed were treated as property/slaves/etc by many cultures.
Had you RTFAed, you would have noticed that the character being played was not from Egypt, he was from a distant land. Historically, the odds that said culture would be sexist as hell (to put it mildly) were quite high.
As others noted, the players took modern day equal rights for granted. Something they really shouldn't be doing, in reality today with Bush et. al. bent on rolling women's rights back to pre-1960s status, and certainly not in a role playing game set in ancient Egypt.
Riotinig (in game or otherwise) is so asinine
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Both?
I wasn't actually there because I don't bother to go to any of the 'stand in line, get stupid rare crap' events. However, I heard of what happened there and have... witnessed... a 'riot' before.
I would suspect that many of the participants weren't really outraged over the sexist trader, but in the mood to just trash stuff on principle. Since the game lacks a way to deal with pent up aggression, and people were feeling pissy over the slow development of the game as compared to the last version, they took it out on the trader.
Many folks who decided to 'quit' afterward weren't quitting because of the sexist guy himself, but were already disgruntled over how the game was progressing. The trader was simply the spark that lit the brushfire.
Well since you jerks at Slashdot have stampeded all over our Forums and Wiki, depriving me of some late Friday afternoon entertainment before leaving work, I will have to comment on the "trader Malakai" event here.
Background. ATITD is an odd MMORPG of ~2000 players, English French and German speaking, from 6 continents (at least). The player base tends to be literate and older than usual MMO's. Roughly half of the attendees at our recent player meet were women. To Teppy's chagrin, many players do not distinguish between their real person and their avatar. According to an anonymous survey on the Forum, most players have the same gender as their avatar.
Event summary. A system-wide announcement that the trader Malakai from foreign lands is walking to a easily-accessible destination in the world. (Announcement implies that Malakai is being played by a game master.) Malakai has some useful, some unique, and some worthless items. Malakai is dishonest in trades. Further, he won't trade with women (avatars), calls them slaves and inquires about purchasing one. Egyptians become angry, handing Malakai dung and other items to prevent him from further trades. One citizen posts a very upset post to the Forums, stating that said citizen is a black woman and found the trader's behavior personally offensive. A debate ensues.
A noblewoman searching for Malakai arrives, claiming that Malakai has stolen the items he is trading from her family. Some people who have traded with the noblewoman give the stolen goods back. Now hunted by both Egypt's citizens and his countrymen, Malakai disappears.
Effects? A huge debate ensues on the Forum and in-game. Some women are absolutely offended by this event. The GM who ran Malakai gives a lame description of what was supposed to happen at this top-secret, hastily put-together event. Offended by this top-secret event, Egypt's best roll-playing GM quits the game. Perhaps three dozen others quit as well. Pharaoh ("Teppy") interviews one of the quitting players (who won't give her real identity). During the interview, Pharaoh fails to justify this event on any firmer ground than his whim.
My thoughts. Malakai was a poorly concieved character who would have been a lot more interesting had the whole events team been involved in creating it. The GM who ran Malakai is a great coder but a sadistic, yet dull role-player. I hope that in the future he asks for help in creating these evil characters. Sensitive and difficult issues are worthwhile to address in our little society, but hurting people in order to address these points should not be necessary. IMHO, the main problem with this event was that it hurt some people in order to make a larger point.
Another poster pointed this out, but it is sort of late to complain about sexism. Female avatars had a slight advantage before this event, now they are slightly adversely affected by this one event. I do hope this event brings these issues to the front, because there are some real issues of balance between the genders that should be addressed in the game.
--Erika
I understand your plight, sisters. I can't play Counterstrike without getting called a "fag". They also call me a "pussy". To be equated with female genitalia! How demeaning!
Oh, but it gets worse. It goes way beyond male/female, and into slavery. Your game's character asked who your master is. My game's players insist that they ARE my master, or that they "0wn" me. As someone who knows someone who is of a descendency that was slaved at some point in history, it offends me to my very core.
But it's not all from players. It's company sponsored too. One company advertised a game whose lead guy insisted I would be made "his bitch".
Sister, stand strong. We won't tolerate this kind of treatment!
If a character or monster or another player (I've never played this particular game, excuse my ignorance) were to come at you swinging a sword, presumably you would react in character and fight back, run away, etc. But you wouldn't stand there and whine, "I paid my money to play this game and I don't expect my character to be physically attacked."
So when somebody verbally abuses your fantasy character, why not draw a weapon, say something like, "I'm no slave, take that back or stand and fight," and let the game proceed? Other like-minded players could join the fight on your side, and you might have a really interesting evening of role-playing rather than a group hissy fit.
Why....I remember it like it was yesterday. There we all were...the greatest race in all of Norrath. Trollkin for as far as the eye could see (or at least as far as the swamp gas would allow). We were happy. We danced...we frolicked...we were peaceful and loved our neighbors and the wilderness of the swamp. All those stories of barshin' an squishin' were racist attacks by those anti-trollkin light-skinned races. The man was trying to hold us down but we remained free and happy....
Then the frogs came. In a blatantly racist attack, Sony sent legions of racist frogs in to take our land, rape our livestock, and kill our children. We found ourselves a broken people, forced to wander for years and years.
Even now we find ourselves singled out in towns. Children point at our warty skin and bulbous noses. They complain about the smell of our uncured hide armor.
How can we, as free thinking Americans, Europeans, Asians and the like allow this kind of blatant racism to exist in fantasy worlds!!!! Have you seen how they treat Dark Elves in EverQuest II?!?!?! It is shameful!!!!
In context it may be justafiable, by playing a sexist "evil character." However, people must realize that many people don't roleplay in the game. So to them, it can be considered harrassment/descrimination targeting them. Further more, this is from the GMs/implementors, giving the game producers a very poor image.
While those saying "it's only a game" are making an often heard point, I haven't seem much discussion along the lines of why I think this was an interesting event. (BTW, I'm lead designer of ATITD.)
To a new player, ATITD can seem like a game about building "stuff." You build your camp, your compound, your character. If you play a long time, or play smart, you can excel in all of that. But the real challenge is that it's a game about building a perfect society, and that is *hard*. It's hard in RL, and if I'm doing my job correctly it should be hard in the game.
Along comes a foreign trader, with shiny new goods, and an attitude that's totaly offensive, totally out of line with the culture that has developed in our Ancient Egypt. Would you trade with him? Would you put aside your morals, if it meant you'd get an advantage that many people don't have? In real-life, would you patronize a store that had a "no jews allowed" policy? What if they had *really* good prices? Would you do it and hope nobody saw? Maybe feel guilty?
The best books, movies, television - can provoke a range of emotions. I like books that make me feel happy, enraged, triumphant, guilty, enlightened, sad. I want to have all of those emotions available in an MMO, and emotions occur in players, not characters.
So, to create emotions you have to do things to characters that the people behind them will react to. The only question is how hard is it ok to push? So hard that the person kills themself? Of course not. Did this event push too hard? Certainly for some people it did.
I'll continue to make it hard to build this perfect society. If that means we trade subscriber counts for a more memorable, challenging experience, I'm confortable with that. After all, if I were optimizing for subscriber counts, I'd have done a combat based game. Hell, if I were optimizing for money, I'd have been a lawyer!
Look people this is a fictional world. Many fictional worlds include customs which would be utterly inappropriate in the real world. Every MMORPG includes random horrible violence. Usually you kill things like goblins just because of their race. Why is this suddenly differnt.
The ultimate point being that you can explore, and enjoy an online fantasy world without endorsing what occurs in that world. If we can't have discriminatory or asshole NPCs how do you acheive game conflict. Nothing I have seen suggests the game is *advocating* this position. I think this sort of thing can give important flavor and something for the players to campaign against.
In a broader sense I think these outrages are not only misplaced but cause us to miss broader issues. There is no danger in the modern world that people will backslide and start treating women as property again. However, there are plenty of subtle ways in which women are kept down and oppressed. This sort of 'outrage' detracts from the real issue.
For instance 90% of males I know, even 'liberated' males prefer to date women who are less assertive and intelligent than them. Girls who act like their male friends in assertivity and arguing about CS (or math or whatever) simply aren't found desierable. Guys who think logically are awarded with praise while often girls who do the same thing are chided for being too 'masculine'.
Every time we waste our time and focus on one of these 'outrages' we make things worse. Men get to think of themselves as 'liberated' and supporting equality for women when in fact they are the heart of the modern problem. It is only by focusing attention of these subtle inter-personal interactions can any true progress be made.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Consider the name MALakai -- base being mal ('bad' in french, and latin/greek -- think MALadjusted).and it turned out that many of the people who traded with him ended up losing what they traded for to begin with (so the women refused service were proabably better off for it).
I've played in a live RPG where I came this close to being randomly attacked by a friggin GM, had an arm turned into a tentacle and told that I'd fallen in love with another character who my most recent interaction with resulted in both of us being dead. -- and that's just game creatures (introduced by the company who ran the game).
Nasty occurences are meant to be part of any good RPG. How people respond to such distrubances is IMHO more important (malakai was (rightly) hounded out of the country).
That the ATITD community ejected the cad the way they did says more (IMHO) about the game than that he was inserted into the plot.
I can't get any hard data on just how bad the 'riots' were, but I get a feeling that a reaction like that was intended.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Is it technically still plagiarism if you are publishing something, by any means, completely and irrevoccably anonymously??
The issue at hand with plagiarism is IP rights, and as a completely anymous poster the grandparent obviously absolves all claims to any, potentially or otherwise. Can this be considered plagiarism?
No, I didn't write the grandparent, and don't care to be accused of that. I am simply posing a question.
Obviously it would be preferrable to attribute credit to sources, if for nbothing else than to lend the article a trackable stream of academic thought behind it, therefore facilitating further debate on the topics at hand. However, I still question whether any IP rights have been violated by someone who effectively anonymously quotes someone, and then anonymously posts or publishes the resulting composition.
Just food for thought.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
It's a game set in ancient Egypt. As such, it should have social interactions appropriate for the time and the place. A trader who refuses to deal with women is certainly not out of character, so it has every right to be there. You don't like that? Then you don't like to play a character in ancient Egypt, nobody said you must. You want to play a character in an Egypt-like land which treats women fairly? Well, may be some other game will accomodate you, or you can start your own, but even if not, there is no God-given right to have your perfect game.
Allow me for a moment to speak as someone who has actually played the game, rather than someone bitching about something they thought they heard about on some news post someplace.
The ATITD games are basically games where the players make *all* the meaningful rules. It's pretty damn crude (and more than just a little bit boring) by some standards, but at the core of it is the players making laws for themselves. Whatever laws (and particularly the stupid ones) the players draft up, vote on, and pass into approval, the head developer implements.
ATITD (the first one) had *several* hundreds of laws. Laws pertaining to right of way. Laws pertaining to where people can build. Laws pertaining to what happens when someone steals something. Laws for *everything*, well, everything except slavery and equal rights. ATITD2 is starting fresh, there's only a handful of laws in play at the moment, and so this time the devs apparently decided to prod the players a bit to see if they'd draft up the necessary laws outlawing slavery and so on, by having an NPC roll into town from a reasonably historically accurate neighboring land.
Now you would think that if the previous run of the game had many hundreds of laws that after this there would be a flurry of Leadership petitions being assembled to formally outlaw slavery, racism, hatred, and cornish hens besides (I told you not all the laws made sense). Well, actually, there are. There is also a flurry of inflammatory reporting being done by websites without the first clue as to what actually went on in the game, being fed by a small number of dim-witted people who can't see the difference between their character and their actual selves.
The "riot" wasn't so much that players were pissed off about the event as it was that the players were looking for that slaver to express their desire he get the hell out of Egypt.
The black girl who was so put out by this event needs to *get a grip*. The game is set in ancient Egypt. Her character is a citizen there and her character saw another character acting like an ass. There's no need for her to be personally offended by it, and unlike other MMORPGS, she herself can login to the game anddraft a law, convince other players to sign it, and have that slaver removed from the environment permanently by exile. No messing about with GMs and policies needed.
The valid question does arise, though, how far can you go bringing in real world storylines without crossing the line between entertaining and rubbing salt into wounds? Now as a game developer it is impossible to not upset anyone at all and still have compelling content... A character that commits suicide can be completely gripping to one person and too painful to bear for another. But on the other hand there are certain morays that should not be crossed. The Sims 2 will allow you to have homosexual relationships, as that has become basically accepted in society, but it won't let you sleep with your kids. If Malakai The Molester of Children came through ATITD, players would be rightfully outraged. Child molestation is a Moray in this country, and games should only in the most ginger of terms or ways cross any of those lines. Likewise, sexism and racism is a moray to a lot of people, and should be treated as such.
Negative, dangerous, or damaging experiences are a part of a good RPG, but there are fundamental differences between having your virtual town stomped by a dragon, and having your character raped by another character. Encountering sexism wherever you find it is still sexism, be it in a game or in real life, and it has very real negative emotional consequences. To have this not only condoned, but acted by the GM is greatly stepping over the line, and is likely to bring in the undesired emotion of basic outrage.
I can understand how someone crafting the game from a high level could make such a stupid mistake, but that doesn't change the fact that it was a terribly stupid mistake. Put your players in uncomfortable situations, yes, make them face choices that they rather would not want to make. But don't bring people out of the game by doing the kinds of bad emotional things they are attempting to escape and call it entertainment. You could cause discomfort amongst the players by deleting all of their characters, but it would be a stupid thing to do.
That the ATITD community ejected the cad the way they did says more (IMHO) about the game than that he was inserted into the plot.
Now the community is (rightfully) trying to eject the cad that inserted that into the plot... an effort I would totally agree with, if I wasn't so forgiving.
The ______ Agenda
Normally I hate the idea of replying to my own post... but it just occured to me that things are getting rather pathetic in the gaming world... instead of going out and meeting people irl, we buy a game where the purpose is to hook people up... art imitating life or vv? ...or just a pathetic time/phase for online gaming, and PC gaming in general? Never thought I'd say this, but have we by any chance taken PC gaming a little too far in general? The other day the makers of GTA were complaining about their next version of GTA being stolen.... this coming from the makers of a game where stealing/killing/anti-social behavior is something to aspire to... a little ironic don't you think? I guess I can understand folks who want to pretend to be wizards and knights, even marines or hero's, but virtual worlds which you have to work in... I mean really... what is that about?? What's next? The add-on pack, where you have to graduate a virtual high school? and then in later versions of the game do you have to attend virtual college so you can get a virtual job after going through a virtual interview, and then do virtual work in a virtual cubicle?? ... virtual stupidity... imho.
I just don't understand the big controversy here. It other games it is common for certain races not to train or help those of other races. In SWG, races other than human have to pay more faction points for Imperial items. All that's being done here is with sex instead of race. It's a game people, and the comments by the npc are within the context of the game. Saying the developers are being sexist is akin to saying the developers of id are satanists.