Slashdot Mirror
A World of Warcraft World
An anonymous reader writes "On ebay people are paying real money to buy WoW gold... while some guy in Korea murdered another guy over a rare sword that existed only in an MMORPG. This essay looks at the way more and more people are failing to draw a distinction between their real and online lives and takes it to its logical, yet utterly insane, conclusion." Amusing, and with more than a few ounces of truth.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The people are ripe for it. You've heard stories about how ticket sales are plummeting at movie theaters, in favor of home DVD viewing. Why? Why do so many people want to work from home now? Because we're sick of having to sit with other people. We want that extra layer of control that meat interaction will never give us. We want a world without the unpredictability of real, unrestrained humanity. Either that...Or DVD+/-R & DVDwriters prices are coming down.
do.what.promptcmds
ever consider the benefits of mmorpgs and computer games? ever compared the real violence rate and drug rates between nerds and jocks? jocks are the generally the ones beating peers, raping women and snorting coke. sh~t happens with anything. what doesn't influence people?
How dare you sully the great name of Blizzard? I and my 80 strong army of MC loot equipped legionaires will lead a crusade against you until there is not but one of you left to mock us!
But we need a one hour break from 6-7, Mom will murder me if I'm not there to eat dinner with the familly. Don't worry, this "real world" instance seems to be pretty persistant, our progress wont be lost, just aa few minutes to clear the repop...
Beep beep.
In addition to this, who is to say someone cannot get emotionally attached to something that isn't physical?
do.what.promptcmds
Absolutely right. If the time and effort required to obtain something is real, and the satisfaction derived from it is real, then why does it matter if the object itself is virtual?
The fact that people care so much about a silly game is, however, pathetic in my opinion.
until I ran into this:
/. and not something of actual merit.
"Just think of how porn changes when the user also gets to go in with the toned body of an underwear model. It'll make our current online porn look like just the tip of the assberg."
Was that really needed?
Anyway the article smells of someone trying to get posted on
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
I have seen this evolution of people in MMO worlds and I'm not liking it so much. It used to be a fairly docile and pleasant place to go and talk to people, but now I can't login to anywhere without someone offering to pay gold to watch a Ranger do a /dance. It's getting really full of jerks and creepy people. Maybe we need to retreat back to MUDs to get away from these folk.
I'd like to see a study on the percentage of people that drop out of college due to WOW and how many actually recover.
Of course these people dont think they live ina fantasy world... but here's the reality of it.
These people have a very real connection to the entertainment, social, and self image (among many other things) aspects of playing this game. The ways you can gain prominence, excell, get friends, make a splash, whatever it is they are talking about (swords and money are prime examples).
When someone takes that from you or offers to sell it to you, it has real world implications to their lives that are no less real than anything else. It does not matter what social construct it is.
Going down to my local club where every girl is dressed up and dancing is also complete surreal to the normal world around me. And if I drive up in a nice car (+5 pimp/has money) and wearing a rolex (+3 nice job) it has effect on that world too. And it's the bsuiness owners job to make it as surreal as possible just like a game... with flashy lights to make the girls look better, and drinks to.... make the girls look better (and the guys too).
It's all about power and these people are just living it with a game as the medium. But it's no less real. Odd maybe, not so accepted, yes, but it's very real... as that guys rage in killing someone demonstrates quite well.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Uhh.... emotional attachment is innately non-physical.
try { Signature mysig = new CleverAttempt(); } catch(NonCleverSignatureException e) { postanyway(); }
Personal responsibility surrenders. Its not the game. Its not the weapon. Its not the sex. Its the person!
Bonebiter is a quest reward for completing SM.
/stole my cloudsong!
Can't be Ninjaed. PTFG, author!
When there is internet cafe's in WoW Inns and Taverns on which I can read the news, read slashdot and even play online games such as WoW.
... mmmm!!!
And what sort of conspiracy that my verify word was 'sorcery'
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
I used to play EQ a lot, I was pretty hooked on it for about a year. I don't regret it, since I had a lot of fun times, but looking back, I certainly burnt a lot of hours in Norrath. My brother got really hooked on it too, and he's not even the complete nerd that I am. There were certain people there who were pretty terrifying though. For example, I often heard people talking about how they were skipping school in order to spend the day playing the game, and my brother once even got paid (EQ money, but still) to guard someone's character while he took a nap at the keyboard. This guy was so thoroughly obsessed with the game that he wouldn't leave the computer - not even to sleep.
Take these stories as warnings. You might not think yourself capable of such things, and okay, I doubt you'll end up killing anyone, but even a stupid little game can become a major feature in your life if you're not careful. Especially when you have to pay per month, since it's so easily justifiable - you're only getting your money's worth, after all!
K, why would someone kill someone else over something as intangible as the way they honor their preferred deity? There are always people on the fringe of any group whose very fringiness make them outcasts. Online wealth is still wealth. People go to war for essentially the same thing; albeit on a larger scale.
I say, Let Natural selection decide who is the victor, People with intangible swords vs. people with tangible swords and questionable mental stability.0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
Everquest Syndrome strikes back.
Let's face it, fantasies can be far better than the reality of most people's lives.
Being a level 10 warlock or clan leader beats being a oft-lonely corporate slave.
Why though, are some online pursuits (such as the above) looked down on? History if full of celebrated poets and prophets that dealt with the fantasies of what life might be.
I don't understand why people ridicule online life and view it as some trivial sideshow to "real" life. The history of human existence shows that people have a penchant for taking many things seriously. Many of these activities reside far outside the realm of pragmatic, utilitarian life. Whether it's being a sports fan, a serious gardener, a breeder of dogs, an avid golfer, a sailboat owner, or any of a thousand other activities, people can become quite immersed. If online gaming "doesn't count," then so many other activities that people invest time in do not count either.
Without these "hobbies," people would be little more than animals -- eating, sleeping, reproducing in the endless cycle of life that we share with even the lowliest bacteria. What distinguishes humans from animals (perhaps only quantitatively) is the extent that we can move beyond the mundane activities of "real" life and explore such a wide range of alternatives.
For the record, I, personally am not into online gaming or sports -- this post is not a personal rant -- but I can see how these activities can become a major part of a person's identity and daily life. As such, it is important to understand and respect (in a love-of-freedom sense, not a politically correct sense) the fact that different people value different things. Its not that some people go overboard on online life vs. real life, its that some people become immersed in a life that is different from the utilitarian vision of a standard life.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
... while some guy in Korea murdered another guy over a rare sword that existed only in an MMORPG.
CHINA, not Korea. It happened in SHANGHAI. Geez, do a little research, tens of thousands of people are going to read your submission...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8143073/
Link is already slashdotted...can someone post the article text or provide mirror please?
For instance, none of the illustrations used in the article below were done with human hands. Each was rendered automatically by a remarkable piece of software called Nedroid, which can scan any piece of text, "read" it for comprehension and, incredibly, render artwork to match the context.
Huh? Nedroid is completely fake.
George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
Uhh.... emotional attachment is innately non-physical. the "attachment" part implies the emotion connects to other things, which may be physical.
Dupe
Here's a link to a phsychologist who's making his living on studying people who play MMORPG's.
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/
I've filled out his surveys for 4 or 5 years.
At the site you may find many tools for characterizing your personality type and how it relates to the alternate reality of the games. As well as analysis of how MMORPG's have affected people en masse.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
The sword was worth a good 5000 yuan on the open market. Adjusting that for GDP, that's around $3000 in the US.
Now how many americans have gotten murdered over $3000 or less? A lot.
i'd confirm that. (yes, as an obsessive gamer) there's something about the investment of time and effort that i can see causing someone to retaliate to that, or a similar situation, with violence. it's not to say that the majority of gamers are so unbalanced that they would resort to murder, but these items that "aren't real" can have definite value that a lot of people don't appreciate beyond the cost of the game.
~it's the ultimate dinner show~
Anyone who has the capacity to murder a gamer over an in-game item could be expected to show similar strange behavior in real life situations.
I cheat online, I can get any sword I want.
Honestly, perhaps that is the only way to guard yourself against this kind of crap: non-online games having any real value. Those games have value with me, but as soon as I feel I'm getting too busy playing them, I dig up some cheatcode and check the ending. It's not worth getting your life screwed for some game, or someone elses. Not that there is something seriously wrong with these people that I'm afraid cheatcodes can't help, apart from the fact that some people cheat online games which I firmly oppose.
You dont need to be an obsessive gamer. Anything you put time and effort into has value. Someone stealing it has commited a true crime.
Yet in playing the game you must understand that everything within the game mechanics is fair play. Exploits are another story. And its even worse when you get exploited and the parent company does not admit the exploit exists and wont make you right. Or even worse when they deny it exists, then you see a fix in for it a month later, but no reimbursement.
I play eve-online.com and its a blast. But you can't forget its a game. But those unreimbursed exploits!
Oh no! Some idiots are spending real money on fake gold! Some stupid kid killed some other kid! Why is it that whenever a couple of crazy people do something crazy, it gets portrayed in the media as an epidemic? Is this taught in Journalism school, or is it something you learn how to do on the job?
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
oh it's the price we gotta pay,
and all the games we gotta play,
makes me wonder if it's worth it to carry on
'cause it's a game we gotta lose,
though it's a life we gotta choose,
and the price is our own life until it's done
...That this is a satire website, a satire article...(A joke) And also, that this is a dupe from 2 weeks ago?
No YOU'RE the idiot. Spending money on "fake" gold is the same thing as spending money on a "material item" in the way that this item can be lost or destroyed as quickly as it was bought/created just as "fake" gold can be deleted or dropped from the character in an online game.
Perhaps if you weren't such an ignorant fuckwit (which I know you are) I'd explain more, but not today.
The comment that was made in the blurb/article about not being able to differentiate between a game and real life is ridiculous. It's inflammatory and biased and baseless. Nobody is making a mental disconnect between the two "places". It's just people with anger issues. Some people get seriously pissed off when someone cuts them off in traffic. They tail them until they can beat the crap out of them. Other people might let their anger get out of hand over a discussion on abortion or religion or the invasion of Iraq or a sports team or getting fouled in a basketball game. Otherwise might do so because they felt screwed over in a game that they'd invested a lot of time in.
This is nothing more than more of the same crap that surrounded Dungeons & Dragons in the late 70s and the 80s.
r iticism_and_controversies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons#C
These people behave irrationally not because of the game, but because they are irrational, sick, or sociopathic people.
If these same individuals were in a knitting club, they'd be stabbing each other's eyes out with knitting needles and paying stupid amounts of money for fancy-assed wool to turn into butt-ugly sweaters and scarves. But we don't hear people telling us that knitting is evil -- probably because other people outside the knitting community understand what it's all about.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
In case you haven't heard how serious (read: messed up or funny, depending on your disposition) MMORPGs can get, have a listen to this:
http://wowseriousbusiness.ytmnd.com/
This was recorded from a voice chat on WoW. All I can say is...WOW...
About 48-50 hours later, his friends came looking for him and he told them he would be going home soon. Shortly there after, he died. IIRC it was from heart failure from lack of sleep.
"Does your computer have IP on it?"
Son of Sam. Watches movie and goes around shooting people.
Street racer kids who watch "Too fast Too furious" and go racing around streets killing people.
People that take Oprah/Arnold/whomever as role models.
If you have a boring RealLife(tm) then you are quite likely at risk of taking your more exciting FantasyLife quite seriously and attaching significant value to your FantasyLife.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
All I would say is that this level of feeling is not some unique nerd-loser quality. See "World Series", "Super Bowl", "Championship Belt", "Formula One", etc.
(I can't believe nobody has posted this before)
:D
1. Play WoW
2. ???
3. Profit!
Now this will prove mom that I was just training for business these days!
...who met a woman, and dated her, as much in the World of Warcraft as in the real one.
She ended up leaving her husband and moving to an apartment near him just to be with him -- a college kid. Talk about insane!
Poor guy didn't know what'd hit him.
She was po'-white-trash with no job and no education beyond high school. Finally he got enough sense knocked into him to get away from her.
The kid is still addicted to WoW, much to the detriment of his grades and his social life. For all I knock the crap that passes for a "social life," sitting by yourself in a dark room playing MMORPGs sure isn't healthy!
I've been in some bad situations, but man: What happened to him sure makes me feel normal.
I do not believe that you can possibly identify a single country, except for perhaps Monaco and Vatican City, where someone has not been murdered for a sum of money less than 3000 USD. So I am not sure why gripe you have against the US that you feel the need to try and turn everything into a failing of the US "social experiment."
I play SWG, and have for the last 9 months. I went thru the crazy insane grinding that was needed to get a Jedi character, and then to get full template.
:)
Nuts.
But now I am having tons of fun
Corporatism != Free Market
"Reality" has always been defined by what we agree on. Ask any anthropologist, politician, or phone-sex operator...
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
If you read the related article, you would find that it wasn't a Korean man or even a man in Korea, but rather a Chinese man in China.
No matter how strong the will is, it will always succumb to the lower brain functions. If these functions become addicted to something... there is very little you can do, other than seek help from someone. MMORPG Anonymous? Maybe one day certain virtual fantasies will be considered illegal drugs and outlawed.
http://wowseriousbusiness.ytmnd.com/
Obligatory YOU STOLE MY FUCKING CLOUDSONG!
participating in a fantasy world. Usually, it's been their own, in their own heads; but now they manifest these behaviors in a public, communal fantasy world, in a way that is widely observable.
Of course, there now are regularly elements that are beyond the control of one person, namely other people; this is where the combination of fantasy and immaturity lead to "bad things".
It's the end of evolution, and I welcome it. Some of what this guy is saying is interesting, at the very least, to think about. But, I don't think that last sentence is very true or convincing. Regardless of billions of people "escaping" to the metaverse as he talks about, reality will always catch up. Eventually, some real crisis WILL happen and threaten people's lives but only those who react, those who haven't delved completely into the whole MMORPG, will be the ones who survive. No matter how much a person immerses himself or herself, there are fundamentals of reality that are inescapable and will catch up the more a person runs. But, there is some truth in that we all want to be kings without the responsibility. Just as children are often happy because they enjoy life without many of its responsibilities. I think that, however, we all have to just grow up one day and be proud of the work we do. Otherwise, one day will come when mass death occurs from people's bone structures collapsing from their own weight, heart failure http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4137782.stm , or some random bacteria. In the end, natural selection chooses the strongest to survive. And the strongest do not have addictions.
This has been a bad week for slashdot. :(
It seems to me that it's just as much of a problem of having a "chronic need to escape reality" if you're blowing all your money at the strip clubs or nightclubs, going out to the movies every single night, taking recreational drugs to escape, or spending most of your waking hours inside an MMORPG.
... But again, all of it is ultimately "false", because those "friends" are only connecting because of the common addiction they share.
The way "reality" works in our world, entertainment = escape. The entertainment industry probably prefers you not equate the two so starkly, but I think it's just the facts. All of us have a need to disconnect from our daily lives (the "daily grind" as we so often call it), so we crave some "entertainment" to whisk us away from all those worries and stress for a while. But some people live for the escape itself, not for their lives as a whole. And that spells trouble.
Just because while playing an MMORPG, one might have a real connection to the "social aspects" of the game and so on doesn't mean it's any more "real" than other forms of "escape". Most people hooked on cocaine, heroin, or other drugs tell you that all their friends are doing it, and it's "cool" and so on and so forth, too. It does let them become a part of a particular "social circle" and attain a level of "popularity" they might not otherwise have had
I played WoW for a long time. I lost enough Deathstrikers to mages and priests to know that it doesn't make too big of a difference.
I can still PvP quite well. Very well, infact, with my half-decent equipment.
But even that doesn't matter. Unless you spend horus a day playing, you can never really be well-rewarded for your PvP efforts.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Wow I can't believe this went so long without someone point out that this is a dupe: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/08/ 1959214&tid=209 . It was a joke article then, and its still now...yet still tons of serious commentary. Let me know when we start reporting theonion.com articles again.
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/08/ 1959214&from=rss
6 day dupespan, not too bad, for Slashdot.
rooooar
I think the point the poster is making is that here in the US, violent crime is so common as to be generally un-news worthy, and that the US have a very high violent crime rate. Of course I am not going to quote you numbers, but I'm suggesting that this idea is not arguable.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
In That Hideous Strength , Merlin asks Ransom, "Who is called Sulva? What road does she walk? Why is the womb barren on one side? Where are the cold marriages?"
In part, Ransom replies, "... the womb is barren and the marriages cold. There dwell an accursed people, full of pride and lust. There when a young man takes a maiden in marriage, they do not lie together, but each lies with a cunningly fashioned image of the other, made to move and to be warm by devilish arts, for real flesh will not please them, they are so dainty in their dreams of lust. Their real children they fabricate by vile arts in a secret place."
Lewis had modernism pegged way back in the '40s.
Back in 2001 when I played UO, I remember hearing of a dude who committed suicide over being scammed out of some valuable possessions worth (back then) about a thousand bucks on eBay. I was scammed a few times in UO myself, and it sucked and I got pissed off over it for awhile - like you would if you were a victim of minor theft. Its pheasable to imagine - if your loss was much greater (equates to bankruptcy/major theft) - that some may kill/assault/commit suicide over it.
:P
I read somewhere that that dudes sword was worth about $600-700 via Ebay, and was very, very rare within the game. My point being is that a lot of people have been killed over non-virtual possessions worth a heck of a lot less, and a lot easier to come by too.
Oh and also, the linked article is just a bunch of incoherant rambling with some bad jokes and satire to boot. Hence, pointlesswasteoftime.com .
Umm...people have been doing this since everquest...and probably even before that...
That's like posting:
"A new study finds that Counter-Strike is addictive and many people play it!"
I'm considering changing my start page...
And the trolling and flamebait never ends.
GGP makes a statement. Thin skinned GP take offense at what he obviously believe to be an attack on the U.S. and P spouts inane trolling crap.
And here I am answering for some reason to that crap.
I'm not the GGP but I'll take the liberty to re-phrase what he said:
"A lot of people have been murdered for less than $3000 in almost every country in the world."
There. I believe it's still faithful to the spirit of GGP's post which was something like:
"The man wasn't killed just for an imaginary object in an imaginary world. That object had a value of about $3000 and that is why he died."
Disclaimer: I'm not american nor I live in the U.S. I don't hate America, tho I probably hate a few americans. I also hate people in several countries in all continents. I'm probably a very spiteful person. A country is an abstraction. I can't hate a country any more that I can hate the color blue. But that's just me.
No sig
this is pretty close to the bone, in real life we spend our time going to work to earn money so we can pay the bills and buy stuff we want to have. Its the same within a virtual world, going to work can be considered picking up your sword and slaying a few creatures so you can buy some items that you want. You could say "its just 1's and 0's" well we pay real money for 1's and 0's already in the form of sofware and even the movies and music that entertains us.
People already are making money from playing MMORPG's it's just a short matter of time before it becomes a commonplace job. Game commerce already has the foundations of exchange rates, through ebay and sites that specifically buy and sell items and gold.
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Or at least, it's just as real as a piece of music, or a movie, or a book.
They all have it in common that they do not have an intrinsic physical embodiment and they could conceivably be copied endlessly without losing use value for the owner of a copy.
Stealing a virtual sword is if anything a lot worse than making a copy of a record. It's more akin to stealing the actual CD from someone, or making a copy and deleting the original, since you deprive the owner from use of the item.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Read the book.
Personally, I vow never to buy into a MMORPG until they are like in Snowcrash.
By then, the argument about the difference between real and virtual property will be redundant. And the USA will be broken up into franchises. And skateboards will have glass-powdering sonic blasters on them.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I seem to recall Meridian 59 being around long before that.
And before even that I remember wasting a lot of time playing Legend of the Red Dragon, Usurper, the Pit, and many many more game titles I have since forgotten.
"Real" money is just a fantasy substance that people barter for. Money is not a fancy piece of paper, it's a delusion, that we all politely buy into to make trading easier.
Like some third-world currency that suffers boutes of inflation and counterfeiting, MMRPG money is ephemeral and unstable, but from a mathematical standpoint, economics does not care if there the resources are real or imagined.
Markets have judged the supply and demand and the perception of inflation/permanence have assigned it a conversion rate. And because there are a great many unknowns in how a game will develop or be managed, the markets may from time to time exhibit irrational exhuberance, have pyramids and bubbles, just like the "real" world.
It's not entirely impossible that some day a court might rule that income tax will have to be charged on game money for the simple reason that there is a market for it - just as if it was money earned in another country.
Right on. To paraphrase Socrates, there are two basic kinds of pleasure, the first being the kind one derives from bowing to one's immediate desires for sensory gratification, and the second being derived from acting according to one's conscience, thereby "ennobling" oneself.
Those of us living in the wealthiest societies habitually choose the former kind of pleasure.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
The comment that was made in the blurb/article about not being able to differentiate between a game and real life is ridiculous. It's inflammatory and biased and baseless. Nobody is making a mental disconnect between the two "places".
Is it baseless? After all, it would seem that a lot of people don't know the difference between a satire web site article and a completely serious one.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
That's obvious, you ban the guy, even though you promised you weren't going to use your powers to interfere in the game anymore and then watch the society you built crumble into dust.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Do you mean abhor, or adore?
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
People are playing World of Warcraft, EverQuest 2, Star Wars Galaxies, etc. as a hobby or form of entertainment when they are away from work or school. And like every other hobby or form of entertainment, there will be some who do it way too much or way too seriously for their own well-being.
I work a regular, decent job like any other normal person. When I come home, my wife and I play World of Warcraft together. This is opposed to sitting ourselves down in front of the TV for 6 hours like many people do.
We have formed a guild with other working adults who treat WoW as a game, and not a replacement for life. We have a great deal of fun when we play without needing to be pressured by others to be involved in raiding or other activites every waking hour.
Yes, there are some people we know who are in the game at least 18 hours a day and treat raiding Molten Core as if it were more important than life itself. Yes, it is pretty sad. But if it weren't WoW, they'd most likely be squandering all their time obsessing over some other activity.
Years ago (think back during the days when Meridian 59 was first coming out) I would spend all the time (that I wasn't in school or doing the minimum amount of homework) playing a MUD. Just before college I cared a lot more about what happened in that game then I did about what happened IRL. Luckyly a problem with another player got me to noticed it and was able to force myself to quit cold turkey...but I wonder if I would have ever made friends in college if that other player wasn't around. I probably would still spend 8+ hours a day mudding.
forget swords! These people are obvious terrorists and should be dealt with. Track back the IPs and carpet bomb 'em! On Ebay? well, WE don't negotitate with terrorists, therefore whoever does... well, lets just say, more carpet bombs!
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
No.
Some of us just don't RTFA.
If you look at this Thottbot entry it appears to be from some other game.
They do say that one sign of MMORPG addiction is if you get far too emotionally involved in the ups and downs of the game.
For one thing, I hate MMORPG style games. I think they are for control freaks who have failed to get the control they want in real life. Most of them probably of a libertarian bent. There was this guy I knew through a friend of my wife. He loved playing Civilization back in the 90s. He loved it so much that it's pretty much all he would do when he got home from work. Now, this guy was a Republican Nazi. I'm not exaggerating. He actually said once that Hitler really had a lot of good ideas and that the Republican party will go far utilizing them. Anyway, he love playing this boring ass of a game so much that on Valentine's day when his girlfriend asked him what he wanted to do for the special day he actually resorted to physical violence (nothing extreme, but certainly not warranted in the least) just to indicate that he wanted to keep playing Civ. Freak. Let's put it this way, choose:
1. Play Civ all night and imagine yourself to be the master of all that you survey on your CRT.
Or...
2. Go out to dinner in the real world with a cool woman and get laid.
Simple choice really. Sex always wins. But not for him. Fortunately, she ditched his ass.
I also knew this other guy who was also addicted to Civ at the same time. Also a Republican with Libertarian leanings. In general a pretty nice guy. But he took Civ so seriously it was just weird. Since I saw all this fuss being made over the game, I thought I'd look at it myself. And you know what? I thought it was the most boring thing I'd ever played in my life. I've had more thrills playing tic-tac-toe against myself and winning every time.
However, it became clear to me why some people just love the game. It makes them feel like they are part of something. Makes them feel important even. They can throw off the humdrum of their real lives and mayors, presidents, service men, etc... Even moreso, it encourages the false notion that everyone has a chance at being successful if they work hard and do everything right. That's pretty much the focus of these kinds of games, except that "chance" is thrown in which may throw off success. They might think it's their mighty skill at politics or military strategy or magic spells or what have you, but in actuality, it's pure luck. Kind of like real life. The only difference is that you can be a wimpass and save your best states to retrun to after a dismal failure. Can't do that in real life.
So, what do these games do for society? THey are DAMAGING. They help people hide from dealing with harsh realities. They also give these people unjustifiable egos. A lot of these people take their online feelings and begin attempting to transfer them to their real lives. Most of the time they come off looking like pricks or weirdos. But sometimes, they convince just enough people that they know what they're doing and wind up ruining things for other people by furthering the lie that everyone can be a success. Yes, you should work hard. Yes, you should try to succeed. But you should always keep in mind that failure is the likely outcome in every case and if you do miraculously succeed, then you should be quiet about it and accept it with dignity instead of being a total ass and saying "I RULE".
Yeah. I hate MMORPGs. I think they are a total waste of time and brain cycle. The time those people are spending living these ridiculous fantasies would be better spent helping those around them. That is the only true way to success. Help those in need. Because if this is done at every level, then all of those who need help will be helped and all of those who can help will have a REAL purpose (ie. NOT buying yachts and Cadillac Escalades). Besides, every real gamer knows that FPS games are the bomb! Let's hear it for my next 18 hour Quake III Arena session! Yeah!!! I RULE!!!!
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
blue sometimes pisses me off.
Hey, aren't you the guy who wrote the Necronomicon??? jk
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Hey, guess what, you need to ease off the crack and learn to relax. The GP was trying to make a point in that the media is making something out of nothing. He never questioned why the guy killed somebody . But lets face it, if you kill someone for money or even digital money your probably deserve to be called an idiot because its an idiotic thing to do. If you don't believe me you should go ask some guys who have killed for money and are now spending their life in jail.
" I can't hate a country any more that I can hate the color blue."
Don't get me started on the color blue! Just thinking of the color blue makes me see red! I'm not a violent man, but if the color blue were ever hit by a bus and tasted its own blood, I would want to be there to see it.
In short, down with the color blue!
(except for the periwinkle shade, which is kind of nice.)
I take it you have never forgotten where you are while reading a book?
I find it a bit unlikely with the current technology, but given a few more years I think that's highly likely. Especially if people are more and more NOT doing thing outside their houses.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Very well Stated. If you have put enough time into it, aside from not getting payed, how is it all that different then some sort of sports career?
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
On ebay people are paying real money to buy WoW gold... while some guy in Korea murdered another guy over a rare sword that existed only in an MMORPG.
I tried to sell some gold on ebay and had my auction pulled with ebay claiming it violated copyright and trademark law. That's total BS; it violates Blizzards ToS (and I was willing to risk my account being pulled) but it is not illegal and ebay had no right to pull the auction.
I replied with a protest of their decision and listed 20 "farmers" auctions for gold. They never replied to me and left the farmers auctions alone.
My guess is blizzard likes the farmers because it's thousands of additional accounts and big income for them. They attack people competing with the farmers who might cause the farmers to close up shop and yank their $15/month.
It's a popular meme that crime in America is "so high that it's not newsworthy." Crime happens all over the world and no higher in America than anywhere else. Crimes are more often prosecuted here than anywhere else, and many crime rates are proportionally lower here than in Europe. There are several places to look these stats up, but here's a site from Google that summarizes them:
Stats
Of course I am not going to quote you numbers, but I'm suggesting that this idea is not arguable.
In other words, you won't cite anything but will declare your argument inarguable. It's sad that this is what passes for insightful commentary on Slashdot these days!
Thank you, no.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
reminds me of all the hollering they did about Dungeons and Dragons a few years ago - they were saying how a schitzophrenic shouldn't play it, how it was dangerous to kids (not to mention religious nuts saying how was devil worshipping)
ANYTHING can be used as escapism and blur lines between reality and fantasy - so it's MMORPG's right now - big deal - tomorrow it'll be holodecks -
it happens....
RB
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Mod parent down, 5000 yuan is about $700 USD. Also currency exchange rates aren't the same thing as GDP, although the two are related.
Parent cites actual numbers to disprove "America's high violent crime" myth and is at -1, while grandparent just repeats something they heard and is at +4?
I'm a bit of a computer nerd, and a while back I decided to get into Everquest, because I worked with some dudes who played it, and I was trying to stop spending 300 bucks a weekend drinking. I Dropped 50 bucks for the game, and started playing, Turns out it's not any fucking fun in the begining, because you don't have shit. I dropped 100 bucks on Everquest cash, and played it for a week, before I realized it was really really lame, and got bored of it. Point of the story, I understand why people drop a dime on fake crap, but ultimately, really not worth it.
Violent crime is not common in the US. Additionally many countries accept violence as not being a crime at all.
People have ebayed MMO gold since UO and EQ.
... complaining that real life sucks compared to MMORPGs? I notice that both of you (assuming you're not the same guy) pretend that real life consists of shallow bar life, in an attempt to make your choice to withdraw from "meatspace" an acceptable one.
Real life isn't just another game. Stop trying to pretend it is. If it was, gamers wouldn't suck at it so much.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Err... that's some really impressive recall. That, or you were just reading the book.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I played Everquest from about a 3 months after it came out (late 98 I believe) til around 2002, I 'quit' several times in between. In this small town at one point there were around 20 or so of us that played. You'd never believe the amount of absolute insanity that followd that game. I had friends that got married to someone (in game) then later that person would come to meet all of us.
One incident comes to mind, ok.. Let me see if I can explain properly. In the high end game there is a system called DKP that guilds choose to use or not, basically it is if you are on alot and at their events you get DKP that you can cash in to get an item that a monster yeilds, if everyone wants the item, it comes down to who has the most DKP.
Well... This real life friend of mine, who is a girl (we got her hooked on eq, bad idea, anyway), she got married in game to this dude that came down to meet her, so he shows up, they get together what ever, and he leaves. Come to find out his guild had set up this 'underground' DKP system that consisted of this - if you could have sex (in real life) with a girl from the game, you would get insane 'underground' DKP from the guild that you could cash in for anything (like getting someone kicked out for no reason, etc).
Ended up he didn't get his DKP though, because some other guy from his guild had already came to visit and had sex with her and claimed the DKP off her. Sooo, yeah, that game was all kinds of snafu.
But I'll tell you this, even though I had logged in over 300+ actual real time played / logged in on my account, I would have at any time left the game at the drop of a dime to do something with my friends in real life, the game never had me that hooked, but it was sure something to do those countless nights when I couldn't find any IT work. I'm happily retired now, for the last few years, and would never ever go back to it. I could have been a CCIE with all the time I wasted on that shit. Anyway...
same claptrap that was made in the 80s during the satanic panic: "D&D Players commit suicide and worship the devil!!!!!" There's more killings over damn football games on tv than there ever will be from RPGs. It's the whole "oh that's weird" mentality. For some reason its supposed to be "normal" to veg out in front of the idiot box (tv) but its not normal to use ones brain via two way communication on a computer. So whenever something happens in the "un normal" culture the "normal" talking heads point fingers and shout "see see..." Reminds me of a few days ago when a co-worker of my wife came to visit and saw my throwing knife targets in the back yard and made a comment in jest saying "oh because everyone has to have one of those". Now it's just a joke yea, but I've heard mock jokes like that crap all my life from the "normal" crowd so to speak. But a month ago when a neighbor down the street went wacky at 2 in the morning and started mowing his lawn and slamming things around who's house did 2 other neighbor gals come too because he was freaking them out? - That's right boys and girls the one who had something more than a TV to use on the weirdo if push came to shove. (cops handled it after I called them. The guy despite his snockered state had enough sense at least left to keep his distance one glance was all it took). Point is, claptrap comments like this article gets made to all counter-culture activities whether its video games, collectible card games, pen paper & dice games, whatever the idiot box doesn't give you basically or the damn nightly news doesn't "approve" of.
yuan is an 8 to 1 for every us $
Um, is there anything that this isn't true for?
How much a person values something has always been simply a matter of:
- How much did it cost? (time/money)
- How much do I want it? Sane people measure this relative to what else they could buy with the cost, but there's always something that someone considers priceless -- they wouldn't trade it for anything.
Saying "It's not real" is bullshit. You read my comment on Slashdot, which isn't real either. It was mostly "free", but it cost you time, which you could have spent doing something else. So, thanks for reading, since you obviously decided my comment was worth something -- or at least looked like it was before you read it.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
This article is lame for so many reasons, but I'll just pick at the first sentence of the post:
"On ebay people are paying real money to buy WoW gold."
No they aren't.
They're connecting to a virtual auction house (ebay) to exchange virtual money (credit card/paypal/whatever) for virtual goods (MMO junk).
I'm half inclined to go an about the value of various pieces of paper (greenbacks) vs. blank pieces of paper and the implication of the phrase "real money" - which is a lot like saying "real promises of value", or even "virtual wealth". But I'm not going to, because I've already put more thought into this comment than I think the author of the article or the post did.
A very small handful of people are disconnected from reality, probably the same percentage as you'd find in any group.
5000 yuan is in fact $617, however, when you factor in per capita GDP, which is a very good indication of cost of living, you'll understand that $617 in China "feels" more like $4300 in the US. GDP is not only valid for comparison but its a much more meaningful comparison too. I'm not sure how the parent arrived at their number of $3000.
PowerLevel.com - A next generation marketplace for virtual items and services
Second Life already has Mozilla embedded inside of it.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
For how long? I've been playing MMORPGs for atleast 3-4 years and I've seen game money and items being sold for real life money. Infact I've seen accounts sold for hundreds of real life dollars. Yet this article gets posted now. Seems like a waste of a article. I'm sure most of /. already knows this goes on...
Online gaming became my life for awhile...
I started playing RTCW and about the same time got a new DSL connection. Well that was it, I started playing more than I was going to friends houses. And after awhile I decided it was easier to set at home and play RTCW than it was to go somewhere and deal with being with people.
I went from being a bit of an introvert with a few dumb friends. To a clan leader who had 5-10 intelligent people online everynight to game with.
And I loved it, but then one One evening I was 'planting dynamite at the Sea Wall Breach'(Just sounds dumb dosnt it?) and I realized that I had given up my entire real life to play a kids cartoon 30+ hours a week, with people who I didnt know AND people who really didnt know ME.
These people would probably be totally different IRL as well and I bet we wouldnt get along at all.
It trailed off from there, and I dont play anything anymore. I also stopped opening GAIM and talking to my online buddie, And you know what?.., none of them ever showed up to see if i were OK, or had any other way to contact me like a real human would have.
So I lived online for 2 years, IRC&RTCW. And hardly remember any of it. Unless im watching a demo, then it comes back.
I just wanted to post my story as online gaming has had a huge impact on my life. Im 22 btw, My solution was to move move right in the middle of a college neighborhood and stop playing video games. Im not doing GREAT, but Its nice knowing 2-3 people that actually exist IRL.
I paid for this computer I am on with the thousands of dollars I made from Diablo II... and for the record, I would enjoy the body of an underwear model.
Very nice comment.
You can extend your point in so many ways too. For example, the green pieces of paper are in theory representing gold bars in a vault somewhere. They're used because they're more convenient to carry around. But what would you do if you had a gold bar? I doubt many people would find it useful for anything except to trade for something else. So you trade and you trade until you get what you want, and everything you gave away is, in some sense, money -- no matter if it's paper, a gold bar, or a chicken.
I don't know about murder, but people do suicide over it (a recent event in the stock exchange where I work confirmed this to me).
Come to think of it, there's an awful lot of commonality between an MMORPG and the stock exchange. Hmm... you listening, Sony? I can imagine my level 63 Vah Shir warrior wandering into the main bank at PoK, right-clicking the banker and investing in the international equities market. All on the credit card. Corporate takeovers could be PvP raids. Thwack!
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
between me and the internet me.
And we take offense to these remarks.
*DrugCheese rants*
that's Abdul Alhazred, where's the similarity?
How are you coming up with your "feels like" numbers? If you are just multiplying by normalized gdp per capita then that's pretty flawed. Suppose I create my own country AnonymousCowardLand, population of one. I make $1 per year so GDP per capita is exactly $1. Therefore my $1 in AnonymousCowardLand "feels like" whatever the per capita income of the USA is? Of course not.
You may be able to "feel like" you have $4300USD with 500 yuan if you stick to certain cheap goods, especially services and resturants in China because food and labor is cheap. Quality consumer goods cost about the same though, $4300 will buy a whole lot more laptop than 500 yuan for example.
Back when I actually gamed online, I recall that there was a character class... called THIEF!! They STOLE things... gold, items, equipment, you name it, if it wasn't bolted down, they stole it. From NPC's (non player bots) and PCS (player characters) alike.
Nowadays we have panzies who cry a river because their sword was stolen. I'm a hard core gamer (or was) but I've discovered that there is so much more I'd rather do than just play all day. This is the problem with most gamers. They do not know when to draw the line.
I personally prefer to build my body healthy than to let an interface make me think I'm healthy, because in the long run, being a fatass will kill you VERY unpleasantly. Most fat guys and girls aren't in the best of health. (Try bending over at 5'10" and 300+ lbs to pick up whatever you've spilled and you'll see what I mean.)
Most people are inherently lazy, so perhaps forcing them into a virtual world is a benefit. It will leave the REAL world open for those of us who like being outside in nature. (And yes I'd probably have a laptop with me, but I unplug a lot more than I used to nowadays.)
I love gaming, but I also like being able to know that I'm not just living for the benefit of having an alter ego, which once deleted, would leave me as a poor slob without any alternatives but to start over without a hope. (Hard core MMORPG beta testers will tell you how aggravating it is to build a character and have a server-wide character wipe at the next set of upgrades that invalidate half the items and skills youv'e "earned").
Oh, and when "thieves" loot items. Best choice is to kill them or get them killed. The reason "real life" is boring is because those with connections can usurp the law and use it to crush those without resources. In games, you can still appeal to the godlike Game Masters to change things for you if you're cheated. Removing thieves from a Dungeons and Dragons like world is like pulling someone's gums out, because you already got all their teeth in your pocket.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Some of us just don't RTFA.
True. Otherwise, people would have seen the below very quickly and known it was a complete satire:
Gamers rejoiced back in April when it was announced that Blizzard, Square/Enix and Sony were merging their virtual worlds so that online characters from one game could stride seamlessly into another. It made perfect business sense and I was the first to say I wasn't at all surprised by the news. I had been predicting it for months. The fact that it turned out to be an April Fool's joke and entirely false only proves my point. Ahem.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
There is no spoon...
You may be able to "feel like" you have $4300USD with 500 yuan if you stick to certain cheap goods, especially services and resturants in China because food and labor is cheap.
And this is exactly what 95% of Chinese do with their income. China is still a poor country. The average person doesn't buy "quality consumer goods." They can't even afford to eat at McDonald's which is about one day's salary.
PowerLevel.com - A next generation marketplace for virtual items and services
I think people should just stop blaming games and get back to reality. If a person killed someone for a game sword that same person would of most likly killed somone becoes someone looked at them on the street. The guy was already stuffed in the head, I really doub the game did that to him. We should stop blaming games for everything.
I checked out the DNA scarf link; I would have been impressed if the colors of the scarf encoded a real DNA sequence (red = adenosine, blue = cytosine, and so on). But no, I've been working with biotech marketing idiots for so long that you could tattoo a double helix along your wang, and I wouldn't bat an eye.
OK.. all that said.. my points I want to mention are:
1. Most MMORPG players are average people. :p ) But mostly, NO.
2. A few news stories about someone commiting murder or having a heart attack in association to games makes it the games fault?
3. There is a REAL economy that directly impacts the in-game economy. Right now, companies like Sony are coming up with in-game auction systems using REAL money. (they want to bring it in game for 2 main reasons a) they can protect their customers from fraud b)they can charge a service fee to make a little extra $$$) Anything involving REAL money tends to increase the focus that a human being will put into that task.
4. Using online games can actualy be stimulating to the mind. Each game is a new peice of software . Each game provides puzzles and quests that the player must acomplish to succeed. And in the case of MMO's specificaly, it requires a certain amount of social skills to succeed. Unhealthy? only when used in excess, like anything else. (even forum trolling
I could (probably should) write a book devending gamers, but that's a whole different story.
(Oh yea, I also sold an online toon for aprox. $750US :p so while y'all bicker.. i've gotta get back to my game!)
-Quixxilver- "Where am I going?
There's a good article on kuro5hin.org on the front page on a similar topic: MMOGS: Abandon hope all ye who enter. The k5 article is about the addictiveness of MMOGS. My favorite link from the article: You stole my cloudsong! Kind of illustrates how folks can take these 'games' all too seriously.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
If just thinking of blue makes you see red, wouldn't you be a violet person instead?
Of course, the bottom kinda dropped out of the sports card business, so maybe that's not a good example. :)
But what's so good about having a currency backed by gold? Why are so many people so fixated about that?
A currency controlled by a central bank that can actually be trusted is better than one backed by gold.
You can have a gold backed currency but a screwed up economy. Lots of countries in the old days had currencies based on gold - and there still was inflation (esp when they got lots of gold from the Americas).
Gold can be "created" (mined) by 3rd parties beyond a country's control. You can't eat gold either. Which brings us to the next point.
The value of gold is not fixed either. If I'm the only one who has food and you are very hungry and have no food but lots of gold, my food can be worth a lot of gold to you.
Just because its gold doesn't mean it automatically has some high (or even "magical") value. It has as much right to value as any other commodity or currency, and no more - it's valuable as long as enough people think it is valuable.
Sure because of that, you could say that gold can have a high value because lots of people have a near-irrational belief in the high value of gold. However to buy lots of gold based on that is like buying lots of tech shares before the bubble burst.
Before you buy/sell lots of gold check carefully to see whether gold is over or under valued.
Having $20,000 doesn't make you 0.02 of a millionairre.
Similarly, The first M in MMORPG, suggests that a 1000 player game was probably just an MORPG.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
Man I hate blue!
Blue suxs. Molson rocks.
"It is the time, that you've wasted for your rose, that makes your rose so important" (Saint-Exupery)
May Peace Prevail On Earth
I'm just being silly.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
The comment that was made in the blurb/article about not being able to differentiate between a game and real life is ridiculous.
Exactly. The distinction in this case is unecessary and arbitrary - someone steals something from me, whether in real life or MMORPG, I won't be able to enjoy it. I may have worked very hard to get it. Who is the essay writer to say things I work hard for online are somehow not worth anything? Clearly they're worth something to me, as I worked hard to get them.
I want that audio... I can think of some really crazy shit to do with it...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Virtual? Far from it. They must use a number of bytes on the disk of some server to store it. Still, probably not worth killing for.
If you really think Rolex and cars will get you the girls you want, just check www.DatingTechniques.net. Note: I have fun on that list and would recommend it to all the timid guys that try to please woman, and then that doesn't work, the try even harder.
Alcohol does not really make people more beautifull, it's main porpuse it to let your fears or worries go for a while.
unfinished: (adj.)
World of Warcraft only has about 5000 (probable even less) players online simultaneously on a server. So that should also be an MORPG then.
I just had to comment on the use of real-world objects in terms of fantasy elements. The +5 car of pimpin' and the +3 rolex of higher occupation is a pretty interest wrapper around the concept of how we objectify personal worth around the ownership of material possessions.
The world is changing now to include more 'virtual' phenomenoa, ranging from video games, to 'virtual classrooms' to people being married from meeting in chatrooms... so why should a "+10 sword of dragonsbane" have any less interpreted value than your "golden-chained-emblem-of-blingbling." Certainly neither are any real indication of personality, ability to provide, or anything else.
For a personal example... I have a new car because of an insurance settlement... certainly I don't have a bad job but even if I were jobless I could have had the car from which people might interpret I was "well-off."
My first impression of WOW was that this technology would evolve into virtual malls useful for real world business operations. Browse and purchase business supplies, that sort of thing. Or visit an Amazon book store. Interact immediately with sales staff etc.
4
If our consciousness could ever be uploaded into a machine perhaps these virtual worlds are the beginnings of the vessel for this.
The article brought up an idea that never occurred to me before. WOW characters could join in marriage or civil unions. Opposite sex partners could have children.
I advanced a WOW character to level 60 just to see how the game worked, then cancelled the game subscription. There is no way I can put that much more time into a game.
There was another story on WOW I saw recently that made some good points about the culture:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/8/7/162558/754
She would play this game eightteen hours a day sometimes -- EIGHTEEN HOURS! I had to buy my own computer to get work done. It led to long-standing family arguments, one time landing my brother in jail overnight.
Worst of all, her health started going into decline. The last time I saw her alive, about two weeks before she died from cardiac arrest, it was obvious something was different about her. She lacked the motivation she once had. She would make up excuses to avoid doing things she needed to do.
You fuckers can laugh all you want about these games and people who can't separate their lives from them, but I'm telling you now that they're as addictive as crack and even worse, because they're legal. I'm sure someone might reply to this thread scolding my mom for a lack of self-control, but often addictions are brought on by difficult personal situations, and this is no different.
The wound still hurts, and I still get angry about these games. I go out of my way to not play them myself.
The post is arguing that both the money in the game and the money exchanged via paypal (or using some other online transaction) are just electronic bits of information, so calling one of them "real money" but not the other is, in that sense, a contradiction.
You could maintain that both were not real money. It may not be a very reasonable position to take, but it would at least be logically consistent based on them both being bits you cannot touch.
You're defining the "real money" as the bits that can be converted to cash at an ATM. If you can sell the game money (or game items) to someone to increase your electronic bank account balance, which you then withdraw as cash at an ATM, what is the difference between that scenario and selling (exchanging) a certain amount of French or German currency for US dollars? None. So, as I think you agree, both can be considered real money.
The parent is just pointing out that it's not really a sane position to call one real and the other not real.
I think a NetHack-style MMORPG is more reasonable. You start a random whole new character every login session. That's life.
This type of thing, life imitating art, happened first with Television. Idiots would watch violence on TV and then go repeat it in their real lives. Those who didn't commit actual violence nonetheless became desensitized to it; so when it happens in their own neighborhood, the sense of moral outrage is already long gone.
5 769,00.html
Some people pointed out how violence on TV is poisoning our society; while others disputed it. In the end, people simply believed what they wanted to believe, and the televised and real violence both continued to increase.
This was all repeated a few years ago inside the social microcosm of Bhutan, when this virginal nation got its first widespread exposure to television.
The results were swift and catastrophic...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,97
Yet incredibly, there are those who would still dispute the cause & effect nature of the introduction of TV and the nearly immediate erosion of national morals which followed.
What we're seeing now with computer games is really the next phase; where the violence becomes interactive. The user is not just an observer, but an active participant in the violence, which has also become more gratuitous and graphic.
Of COURSE this will have social consequences. How could anyone be so blind as to presume otherwise?
But don't get me wrong; I know there are plenty of people, indeed the vast majority, who can successfully make the mental seperation between the violent online fantasies and the real world. I'm not saying we should ban violent video games. I don't know what the cure for this problem is.
All I know is that it might help if we can just be aware of what is going on. Notice how we use the media and what we want from it. What we'll find is that the media become like mirrors of our collective selves. A little self-awareness can be contagious, and it could even change the media, or even our selves over time. This would be a good thing.
why would he spent the time and effort to get it in the first place, if it wasn't valueable to him? Personally, I value the items because with them, I can hurt things better (online) ;)
I think most people just wrongly assume that you can't/shouldn't take something seriously because either a) its a game or b) its somehow less real than other real things. The murder thing, well it WAS fraud and the guy totally flipped out (not justified). Says more about the guy than about MMORPGs or virtual property.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
Yes, you abhor violence and rape, until you get hit by a bad hit and do something you would never physicall do otherwise. By the time it has been done, it would all seem like it was a dream, unreal, maybe you won't ever remember it again or your mind might deny its very existence for the rest of your life.
;-)
I was just in a Youth Empowermemt camp with a french teenager who had sexually thing done to her at 6 years due to pot. She knows the guy on friendly terms today. He doesn't remember anything of it. She knows that he did it because of the dope that one time.
It ruined her life, she said.
You can live on the edge without knowing it. Putting poison and generally trippy stuff into your body, WILL affect you, even if you think you're invulnerable and strong. It only takes one time, to ruin somebody's life. Perhaps one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen, feeling bad about herself since 6 years old.
You can play dice far into the game, but the chance is there you will trip and fall, fall out of grace. Ego says this happens to other people, in my experience, you gain much more by stop playing such games and finding games that enrich life fully.
Good post about stereoptypes otherwise. It's clear we should treat each others like unique human beings. Not just for the other person, but because it makes the world far more interesting for ourselves too.
Read the link in my sig for more information about the universe, life and everything
She came with this story as soon as somebody in the group mentioned the harmlessness of something as "household as pot". (Yes, I KNOW this will come..)
"It ruined my life". I will be reminded of this last sentence, since this was one of the moments in life, where you could actually touch the words in the air.
Nothing else matters. I'm doing yoga, breathing exercises and service that makes life high, healthier and interesting in so many more ways than stuffing your body with poison to experience the effects.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I spent a few years playing EQ in the afternoons, between the fights you spend the time chatting with the people around your. After a while, it becomes many hours of chatting, and you get to know some people even more then you might in reallife. So it endedup with me having one of my best friends ever on the other side of earth. Many of you might think that this is virtual and not real, and that EQ is just a game. But the people you meet there are just as real, and becomes your friends just a much. Only diffrence is that its a 16hour travel to take a coffe with them.
Why escape at all?
You don't have to watch television.
You don't have to be spoon-fed "entertainment", you can BE entertaining! Yes! Be a clown, laughter is healthy!
There's so many interesting, enlightening and productive ways to live your lives. Why do people go on want to live to the lowest common denominator, and then need to escape this "life" that they have chosen?
It's strange. I used to do these things, but that was just because the others were doing it and I didn't know anything better. Now I do and am a much richer and happier person. The people I meet much more interesting, the kind that are seeking answers in life, and dare to explore the avenues no matter what other people say about things they've never tried themselves.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Well, there was a point where blues were the reason people were killing one another.
:
For ages, the Christian groups (not just the fundaMENTALists) wanted to make you believe that Rock and Roll filled people with the devil and therefore would turn everyone into murder machines that were selling their souls to satan.
I think there was an era where TV was the passage to hell and damnation. If you watched the idiot box, then you must be a murderous mad man. Don't forget kids jumping out of windows to be just like superman and the morons trying to impersonate the Terminator in all his actions because he was cool. And then you have the snapped military fruitcakes that try to be Rambo after eating a few too many outdate MRE's.
I heard that in more cases than not, smoking leads to marijuana usage. Once you smoke the doobie, you're no longer thinking straight and have a 95% chance of moving onto speed, cocain, heroine, elvis music and even worse, christianity. As you can see, the incredible downhill slope is obviously inescapible.
Now it's video games. They are obviously the key to the soul from what I read in the news these days.
See, it's obvious. If you play video games, you will be forced by an uncontrollable nature of human beings to impersonate the character roles in the game.
If you play Final Fantasy, you'll run around with a sword 4 times your body length slicing at everything.
If you play Smurfs, you'll have to spend eternity singing la la lalalalaaa.
If you play GTA, then it becomes entirely obvious that you'll run around shooting everyone, stiffing hookers, running over nuns and shooting cops since they tend to intefere with the fun things.
Wait... let's get a grip here. Let's take a moment to figure this out.
I am personally willing to believe that if we went through excessive steps to cleanse society from all evils including but not limited to
- Guns
- Cigarettes
- Heroine
- Cocain
- Elvis CD's
- Swords
- Television
- Radio
- Religion
- Rock and Roll
- Video games
We would have new evils. Stupid people are well stupid. If you take a bunch of teenaged morons from Columbine and try and explain to them that shooting your classmates is bad, well then they'll chuckle like Bevis and Butthead and say "Yeh baby, I'm bad too" or something stupid like "But we have to kill the sinners".
If you take the idiot in California that claims he murdered because of playing too much GTA, he'd have probably still killed but blamed it on another bad habit of his. Maybe rock and roll or maybe too much choir music on Sundays.
If you take the moron in Korea that killed over an in-game weapon. I would pay a million dollars to the first person that could possibly convince me that a guy with that large of a testosterone problem wouldn't have killed or mamed someone else over something equally ridiculos elsewhere.
People are stupid. There are people that can't be taught because they live in the wrong place. Or because they feel persecuted, or because they went to Sunday school, or because mom and dad are just plain stupid and don't put the slightest effort into trying to teach their kids. There are tons of reasons why people are stupid. But the fact is, that in any large group of people, you have at least one person born with no-form of brain damage that struggles at the age of 20 to tie his shoe laces.
Statistically speaking (and I love speaking statistics since they're as accurate as the bible) there are substantially more stupid people that intelligent ones. More importantly, when you form a group of more than 5 intelligent people, you've no degraded their class to disfunctional idiots. The US senate shows what happens when you take 100 people that are of varying degrees of stupidity though still smart enough to graduate from the ivy leagues and put them together into a group.
And even more importantly, there's
Regards, Martin
I believe that parent posters point was that the poor bastard that got murdered didn't get murdered for a virtual sword that's worth nothing; he got murdered for a virtual sword that's worth $3000, with emotional attachments likely upping the value for the other party.
In other words, whether the sword was made of 1's and 0's or solid gold is completely irrelevant. It was valuable to the people in question. It is no more or less insane to kill over a virtual object than a real one. Not that that's going to matter to the politicians and busybodies who will no doubt be using this incident to try to prove that games are the root of all evil in the world...
Anyway, quite a few people, americans or otherwise, have been murdered over whatever pocket change they happen to be carrying - which, I assume, usually amounts to a lot less than $3000.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I think it has around 50,000 per server, several million playing the game .... so that's pretty massive in anyones eyes.
The fact that 90% of the population are sleeping in inns at any time is probably not relevant.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
If i remember correctly, the incident happened in China and not Korea. Did a google search and here's the original story... http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/3 0/content_429246.htm
now... can i find a dragon saber in guild wars?...
Weed makes you lazy, not a pederass. ...
...
...
...
...
Do you smoke crack?
Tell Your friend to SEEK THERAPY. She should have ceased contact with this 'friend' of hers. It had nothing to do with 'dope'; he is a sexual predator! If he was also 6. It's not because of the dope. He was also molested. But the fact that she thinks it was dope, makes me believe it was an older sexual predator.
Read a book. Your conclusions are based on dilusions and rationalizations of a 6 year old; not reality.
Drugs, accept alcohol, do not make people do things they weren't already going to do. It makes them have more fun doing it.
PS: NO ONE WANTS TO JOIN YOUR CULT.
PPS: Maybe you should get some therapy too.
.. if this logic is reversed and applicable, I am a mass-murderer.
Kewl.
Very true. When I used to play online games a lot (particularly large-scale MUDs), getting killed and losing all of the items I spent a lot of time to acquire really pissed me off. So much that if I encountered the person who killed me in the game in real life, I'd punch them. It's hard to shrug off *anything* (in a game or in real life) that took something away from you that required so much effort to acquire in the first place. However, had I acquired all of those items within the span of 5 minutes and with very little effort, I'd probably be slightly miffed at most (probably about as miffed as I would had I stubbed my toe).
So yeah, like you said, it's all about the time and effort invested, not the thing itself.
What a shame the sword would have been soulbound.
If you say, "but the Bonebiter doesn't even exist," I'll say it exists in exactly the same way that the songs and software I download off Bittorrent exist. And yet stealing them is a crime. The only difference is that when I steal a song, nobody else is deprived of the song. When that guy stole John's Bonebiter, he was left unarmed and forced to go find a replacement. That theft actually hurts more, not less.
"Stealing" digital music is illegal because you break the copyright-law, which is quite different from stealing a physical object in the real world. I would therefore say that this comparison is pretty bad.
But concerning theft of virtual objects in a virtual world, it would be perfectly OK if it was punishable in the virtual world. If not, why would it even be possible to steal objects in the virtual world? Or to kill someone? In a similar sense, if you think that someone did you injustice in a computer-game, wasn't it actually because he played by the rules of the game, and you do not think that those rules are fair. Then perhaps you should find another game.
To sum it up: Killing a virtual character in a game to get revenge is nothing new, but trying to revenge injustice in a game by acting in the real world makes no sense to me.
You are absolutely right! Take for example one of those imaginary gods (or god, if you are monoteist). This is just the case. Fortunately there wasn't any war due to WoW yet.
Weed makes you lazy, not a pederass. ...
...
...
...
...
;-)
Weed rots your brain, especially on those who are using it alot, yes. The absolute worst cases you see on the street is in fact due to HEAVY use of harshis, not the harder stuff. But it also has diverse effects on people, not everyone reacts to it the same.
Do you smoke crack?
I tried harshis a handful of times, but on me it had worse and worse effect. Sometimes I got vibration in my chest from it that really scared me since it felt like it was the heart. Now I know better what it is, and it - along with nervous heart - is gone since I started doing yoga and breathing exercises. I was poisoning my body, now it is cleaning.
Tell Your friend to SEEK THERAPY. She should have ceased contact with this 'friend' of hers. It had nothing to do with 'dope'; he is a sexual predator! If he was also 6. It's not because of the dope. He was also molested. But the fact that she thinks it was dope, makes me believe it was an older sexual predator.
This you can state without having talked to the girl or anything.. Way to go making generalizations. She knows the guy, he was also young. You may be right he was also molested, but isn't that beyond the point? He did this one time in a trance from drugs.
Read a book. Your conclusions are based on dilusions and rationalizations of a 6 year old; not reality.
I prefer to deal with reality, not books and generalizations. I also don't claim to own the truth, I just share my experience. My experience was that her pain in the time from she was 6 years old was REAL, and she said this would not have happened if he hadn't taken that smoke. He wasn't himself.
Maybe she should have figured out how to deal with this at 6 years old without tornmenting herself, but things turned up this way no matter how much you try to excuse drugs.
Drugs, accept alcohol, do not make people do things they weren't already going to do. It makes them have more fun doing it.
Taken from somebody promoting drugs.. Do we really need advertisement for it?
People take drugs because they need a excuse for doing fun things in their lives. The drugs lowers the artificial high bars we have in our so-called "modern society" to let go, relax and just do what we feel like, not what others expect us to do. We live our entire lives on the expectations of others, even sometimes when we do the opposite! But when we drink, we have an excuse to drop all that. The sad thing is that is another social acceptable thing to do, so we're not really free even we do this!
There's no need to drink yourself up to talking with that girl. When you do, you're not really doing it anyways, the booze is doing it for you, you're not quite yourself. In fact people become quite stupid in the effect of booze.
Why use drugs to artificially lower personal inhibitions, when you can do the same in a drug-free state and really meet yourself and reality? You then also have more control, thought-processes intact and don't risk dropping those inhibitions that SHOULD NOT be dropped.
You can have as much fun as you like. Just do it, but you also have to go beyond your own fears, and be able to take ridicule and fear from others.
PS: NO ONE WANTS TO JOIN YOUR CULT.
That's okay, I don't want to join your cult either
What I'm arguing is that you can have a drug-free living with a much better and long-lasting high from doing yoga, meditation and service to the world. It is totally natural, have been practiced in the East for thousands of years and this is what everybody is seeking in drugs and other escapes from reality.
PPS: Maybe you should get some therapy too.
Way to go Mr. ad hominem attack.
What can I say after this?
I can only direct you to an article about being a fool I once read and now Google'd up for
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
if the person spend a lot of time to get the sword then yes, its hard-work. What if the person lose something that friend gave to him like in the case of a previous topic? Is that due to hours spent in game or its value?
I think its how a person value an item rather than time spent on it. Spending more time on it would definitely increase its value to that person but if its an superb item by its own self, it would be of great value to him in the first place.
Just my 2 cent
I am harvesting funny/good quotes. Please help by putting them in your sigs
That's precisely what I'm always trying to point out to people. That this "new wave" of crime is the same old garbage, brought to a new medium by the same psychos who'd kill you for saying their baseball team sucks. Although I have no hard facts to backup this second idea, I speculate that the violent outbreaks over video games isn't even perpetuated by the geeks and nerds, it's a result of video games/PC Games becoming easier and popular enough that the same sick people who kill people over a football game are now playing video games. People weren't killing each other when games were BBS style and you had to be a true nerd to even figure out how to connect, play them, and appreciate the ASCII art. Most maniacs who are prone to kill people just don't have the patience, desire, and intelligence to do all that, but now that the technical knowledge required to play games is so little, your average joe-psycho can hop in and get pissed off in record time.
For example someone could steal your cloud song
"But most people would agree that if you've got a great "online" life and a terrible real life, it's time to stop the escapism for long enough to give your real life a go."
The problem with that point of view is still assuming there is a sharp distinction between "online life" and "real life".
Whereas I'd argue that there is _no_ such thing as a separate "online life". Whatever you do, whatever you fill your time with, _is_ a part of your "real life". Whether you spent two hours getting plastered at the (RL) pub, or watching soccer, or mowing the lawn, or walking the dog, or whatever, it _is_ an hour of your "real life" and it _is_ something you did in "real life".
The whole "it's not real life" distinction is, to put it very undiplomatically, just anti-gaming propaganda. (Which makes it even more weird to see some gamers propagating it too.) It's just a case of "my hobby is better than yours", or rather of a dubious premise that that case is built upon. "Your hobby isn't 'real life', therefore mine is better than yours".
And in that "A => B" proposition, I'd contest the very premise A. It _is_ real life, I just chose to spend that time playing a game. That's all.
So I'd say there is no such thing as having a great "online life" and a terrible "real life", other than as a very thin metaphor. In the end it _is_ real life, and you get to choose how you wish to live it. Playing games is one of the many things you can do in it.
Yes, in any passtime, there are some trade-offs that might be involved. You spend too much money on a hobby (e.g., modding your car), you have less left for other stuff. You spend too much time on that hobby, it leaves you with less time for something else, e.g., for talking to other people, so they leave. You start skipping work for that hobby, you might get fired. Etc.
But as with any trade-off, it's in the end something _you_ decide for yourself, rather than the clear cut case of "category A is wrong, category B is right" that the anti-gaming propaganda tries to paint it as. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, there is _no_ right and wrong in a matter of personal choices and preferences.
E.g., if you think you need a wing on your car more than you need the money, there is no "right" or "wrong" in that personal preference. It's just something you chose for yourself.
The same applies about most other trade-offs waved around as some kind of "proof" that gaming is bad. They're just trade-offs someone made for themselves. If someone chose to spend the evening playing a game, instead of, say, doing overtime to impress the boss, that's their choice and preference. No more. They decided that they need the fun more than they need to compete with the local brown-noser for a promotion. That's all.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The best phrase I've heard to describe this sort of gratification is "Perpetually scratching a perpetual itch". That nails the MMORPG levelling treadmill pretty well.
Out of the box, Night Elf females in WoW dance like strippers on a pole and bounce repeatedly when in idle mode. Tell me a well toned buxxom elf isn't going to keep you staring at your screen.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
what about France?
How we know is more important than what we know.
How much less virtual is the money in your bank account?
I just listened to that second link. It has a strange feeling to it listening to somebody flip out in such a way. ....
:-) .
Curiously enough, the guy yelling/screeching has a solid point. The guy with the calm voice acting (and being) superiour is a prime class super-asshole. He's out of reach and anynomous and thus let all standard moral fare. He probably even faked being a nice party member over days.
I play WOW but don't know what a cloudsong is (and couldn't care less) but it is likely the yeller spent weeks or months getting one.
Imagine a guy asking you for a shot at your laptop you worked for for weeks and then walking away with it and then convincing bystanders that it's his not yours, so being able to keep it leaving you bare handed. MMORPGs - having no legal system - work just that way. In real life you would at least try break the guys nose.
I'd probably use all my computing,'bot programming and WoW Community skills to make the stealers life online as difficult as possible. Until I've vented all my frustration and satisfied my revenge that is. Would probably happend fast enough.
WoW is a faceted MMORPG for intelligent people. Most I've met are super cool, helping me out with Items and Gold. I've increased my fortune 30-fold only by getting presents and loans from higher levels that barely knew me for 5 minutes - I have a level 17 Dwarf Priest and more than 3 Gold. Go figure.
The above type of asshole can really spoil the fun. Luckily they are wide and far between.
Yet it goes without saying that screeching about it doesn't change things. The yeller had been better of commentlessly logging out, going outside and chopping the next two years worth of firewood
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
" Additionally many countries accept violence as not being a crime at all."
Like the States?
Considering nearly everyone in the country is forced or threatened by assault and kidnapping to pay taxes to the federal government every year that fund things like "$26,000,000 for Alaska villages through the Rural Community Advancement Program" (link). Something like agriculture subsidies. Farmers can get their own money, not mine. If they can't, they shouldn't farm.
Or when the banks perform fractional reserve banking with your money and deflate it? Apparently that's called good economic sense. Still sounds like violent crime to me, because if you try to protect your property from them you'll be assaulted or murdered by the police or whomever. That happens to everyone with money.
In fact you "own" only a limited amount of time in your life.
Time that you spent for other people is often regarded with money, normally we call this our work.
Time you don't get money for ist your leisure time, you can freely decide what to do with it.
Many people spend some of their leisure time to play games, may it virtually or may it boardgames.
Most games do cost money, be it the money for the box with the boardgame in it, or the CD-ROM for a computer game. For many boardgames there exist extensions, that can be bought to increase the fun while playing the game. Virtual gold or a virtual sword in an online-game is such an extension.
People like spending money for such "worthless" things, it makes them happy. There is nothing bad about spending money to increase the fun you have in your leisure time even if it is a virual sword, you are spending your money for.
Only yesterday I sat in front of my PC waiting for Kdevelop to be successfully compiled, and spent a whole day searching for a compiled kernel RPM which would suit my needs. When you do this for more than 10 hours, you get crazy. Like opening a filemanager and forgetting why you did that for. Horrible.
However, most normal people aren't affected by games in such a serious way as described in the article because games get boring when you play them a lot.
And I don't understand why people are so fond of WoW. Come on, Warcraft III had unnatural graphics because of the low-polygon models, and the game gets plain boring at times. Not to mention the really crappy Orc campaign included in WC3 Frozen Throne. I've seen WoW and that Orc campaign is exactly what WoW reminds me of.
Well i used to see it as "escaping", but nowadays i think of it in a different way.
People just have a need to experience more and more of everything. They want to expand their senses with technology. McLuhan type-a-thing, yeah.
And before D&D, it was comics that are evil and turn people into murderers. No, seriously. And at some point it was Rock & Roll music that is evil. Etc.
But the general pattern is more like "new = evil".
In a lot of cases it's not that hard to find something that's a very close equivalent of the stuff they damn, but is socially acceptable.
E.g., take chess. It was supposed all along to be basically a strategy game, modelled closely after the armies of the time. What we call a "bishop" today, was an elephant, pawns were footmen, etc.
(Pointless trivia: originally a 4 player game, each starting with half the pieces on the 4 edges of the board. But then it was too hard to find 4 players, so two armies were joined in one, and one King became Grand Vizier. It's the piece we now call "Queen". That's, in a nutshell, why you have two of all other pieces.)
What I'm getting at is that it's not that different from, say, Warhammer or Battletech.
However one is socially acceptable, one supposedly makes you a nerd and a loser. And by "socially acceptable", I mean that if the CEO of a corporation said they've spent an evening playing chess at the club, it would be ok. Now picture a CEO of a bank saying they've spent an evening at the game shop playing Warhammer and Battletech, and you'll have some shocked and outraged shareholders and clients.
And from there to computers the step isn't even as big as some people would paint it. A lot of games are a verbatim implementation of some existing board game. (E.g., see Megamek for an excellent Battletech implementation. And allegedly Europa Universalis was also mostly a board game to PC game conversion.) Others are more complex and making better use of what a computer can do, but still not _that_ far from those boardgame roots.
Except this time I'm expected to believe that the mere addition of a computer into the mix, makes the game not just "nerdy" but outright evil and/or a mental health hazard.
Why? What's that different? What makes the exact same Battletech boards and rules and pieces so dangerous because they're on a computer?
Seems to me like the difference is whether it's already filed under "socially acceptable" or new and deviating from the comfortable norm. Basically that the newer something is, the more people will feel a need to attack it and shout you back into the conformist herd.
Basically what I'm saying is that the real underlying problem isn't that 3-4 people stabbed each other with knitting needles. The problem is just whether something is new. If knitting had just been invented in the 80's and growing in popularity ever since, then yes, you'd most likely have people feeling a need to fight against this new threat to "normality".
Then they'd drag out every single case where someone stabbed someone with a knitting needle, or even merely pricked their own finger, and put those on display as definitive proof that knitting is evil. And every case where someone lost their job and, unrelated, had knitting as a hobby, would be dragged out as "proof" that knitting makes people lose contact with reality. And so on.
And then 30 years pass, and people find another new thing to treat as a threat.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
As a veteran gamer and leader of a large organization in WoW and formerly EQ, AC and UO...
I've got members of my guild that purchase items with RL cash - it is a matter of what your time is worth.
For example, I've purchased gold from http://www.mysupersales.com/ and http://www.playerauctions.com/ myself. The reasoning behind this is that I spend some of my free time doing side work for $50 an hour, that said the time it takes me to earn $50 is far less than it takes me to earn 500 Gold in WoW. Time vs Investment.
A friend of mine spent RL Money on a very nice mace, the mace it's self would have gone for the better part of 2500 gold, the seller was originally asking for gold, but readily gave up his PayPal account information when my friend offered another form of compensation for the virtual item.
Zanthor
You picked trivial thinsg that most people wouldn't classify as productive. But what about that which puts us apart from Bacteria, but is considered worthwhile, the construction of things of practical value. Whether it be constructing a new theory of physics or building a better mouse trap, people admire the constructors if they put in long hours of dedication. And get something useful out at the end... otherwise they are cranks. It is this, not the ephemera of online games and sports that puts us apart from animals. So your implicit formula of Humans = animals + hobbies I would disagree with.
The screenshot in the background of that page is from WoW, the recording is not; the recording is from Dark Age of Camelot, and is probably fake, like the Leeroy Jenkins recording.
rooooar
If there is a market for it why is blizzard letting sweat shop s take the profit. Sell to players directly and break the market.
It would certainly piss me off to have this happen to me but I'd just fume for a few days and then put it out of my mind. It wouldn't even occur to me to actually seek the person out and then kill him. With this type of person, it was going to happen sooner or later. If it weren't virtual swords, it would have been sneakers or iPods or money or women. Well, probably not women.
It's like somebody getting murdered over a $3000 baseball card. The card, in reality, isn't worth much more than the paper it is printed on. But to the people buying and selling cards, it is worth that much.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
"but I'd just fume for a few days and then put it out of my mind"
Alright, I'll go over to your house right now and steal the $600 you were probably going to pay your rent with. In a few days you'd just forget it anyways so why bother being upset?
*sighs* Now i really understand the proverb about the "give a man a fish"-thingy...
life becomes so much easier when you do not have to face people. thats the reason why people chat, why they send messages on cellphones (aka texting), talk on the phone etc. why they flirt or break up without seeing others faces.
its also the reason why killing with a gun is easier than with a sword - it requires less work and less personal involvement, you`ll no longer see the effects face to face. mentally weak people will always opt for easier over easy. personally i consider this a very sad example of mental weaknesses and lacking control. I have been living for two years without a TV already, still do not miss it. i doubt the same would be possible for me without email, though, as it is one of the few ways of communication with people, since i`m more than often working 12-14h a day recently. take that, add 3 hours commute, and you`ll realize that IT people are hermits by profession, not by choice (yeah, right, i could also not take the money and go find some bones to gnaw behind the chinese fastfood shop).
moral of the story - the more time we spend with earning our upkeep, the more agressive and the more detached we become.
OMG news flash you can buy in game money online for real money! Ah....yeah this has been availabe for other MMORPG long before WoW. EQ, Eve Online, etc... I have included some examples http://www.mysupersale.com/ http://www.ige.com/
I can't believe you just seriously suggested that Jack Chick is a source for non-biased information. That's like going to the neighborhood pedophile and asking whether kids should be having sex.:-P
people here seem to be talking about killing like if they had enough money from the murder then it's okay, that seems crazy to me
Some people believe 1-1=3 and for the sake of being politically correct, we should respect their differences
I am always amazed when an american thinks the crime rates in the states are comparable to other places in the world. Where are we talking about? Iraq? Come up to Canada. We have murders. They make the news because they happen once in a while... Here is an OFFICIAL data site to support my beliefs. http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/faits/facts08-02_e.s html/
Enjoy
This has been going on since the game started. Catch up!
Back in high school I skipped a week to play UO, I rember i alomst got held back, I rember how angry my parents were, I rember that being the worst possible time in my life.
At the time I was very introvert and anti-social, So playing UO counter-acted that completly.
It seems that there is a link between self-image and the length of time u spend on an MMO. Just think about it
I can some what relate to the article, Im not a WoW player, but have spent my share of time playing SWG. After about 2 years of gameplay, i sometimes I do sit back and ponder to myself, WTF am i doing?? But my in my case, i dont have my real life/game life mixed up, the line is clear, but for some reason, i keep coming back. As for spending Real money for Credits/Gold etc, I find it silly, but yet, my initial game play did start with a purchase of Credits on Ebay "To get the ball rolling"
-- I Dont Deserve A Sig I Have Bad Karma
Any student or worker can tell you of a time when they became upset after losing a coursework, report or spreadsheet or even the contents of an entire disk drive.
The items didn't exist physically except as the spin orientation of some electrons in an ferromagnetic material.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Actually people have been murdered for a pair of shoes... Instead of blaming the obsession, look at the person... It takes someone with some real issues to kill someone... Almost sounds like people are trying to drudge up the old Dungeon And Dragons causes people to kill people again... When the demented will always be demented... And it doesn't matter what medium you put them in...
I love the quality of journalism on slashdot. The guy who killed his friend over the mmorpg sword was chinese not korean. Post your source before attempting to tarnish the koreans' image (lol...)
For the same reason that when you want money you can't just go print off some more at the printing presses. It would flood the market. Blizzard ~= the government, ige, mysupersales ~= banks, stocks, etc ?
That sword is no less real than the money in your bank account. Both exist only as bits on a disk drive at some server farm.
Computers are real, as are the people using them. I don't know why they should be considered less 'real' than any other human activity.
people here seem to be talking about killing like if they had enough money from the murder then it's okay, that seems crazy to me
Nah, of course it isn't okay. What we're saying is, is that it is conceptually understandable.
If you say "some guy killed another guy for stealing his imaginary sword", the immediate response is "wtf?"
If you say "some guy killed another guy for stealing 3 grand from him", the response is more, "oh. one more murderer in this wonderful world of ours."
You don't condone it, but you can sort of see why he might want to do it.
Here, here. Perhaps one day the virtual world will eclipse the real world, drawing the masses into it. Then maybe sports would be enjoyed for sport, music and movies would be good once again, and life would be left to those who choose to live it.
He looks like bruce lee, but while growing up HE was the fatass.
:) Just that we figured out it takes moderation and a bit of thinking.
I agree that overworking is bad too, but exactly the point, most people DONT work out at all, don't jog, swim, etc. Then they eat fast food like it was handed to them by whatever god they worship as their only salvation.
Then, a year and 30 lbs later, they wonder "what happened?"
I know, I did that. I'm 10 lbs down this year alone and 20 to go. (I started at just around 215/220 last year when I left IT.)
Aiming for 160 lbs as a settling weight (for my 5'9" height) should be okay. The problem is that I was in good shape, and then I went into IT, worked my ass off, ate tons of junk food due to "no time" (I was lazy and stopped cooking my own meals at night, and you'd be amazed how quickly mc'donalds and burger king add up).
Then I quit IT and got into a different line of work (involves some labor, some driving and less stress, and somewhat more time off). Now I find the time to do everything, from gaming to dating and all that (okay very little dating, but I do get lucky occasionally).
The point is, staying fit isn't "a talent" or "genetics".
If one listens to those lazy bitches quoting "I'm genetically predisposed to...[name your malaise]" then, I'm prone to being fat, as is my brother, but with a healthy diet, and a bit of work, anyone can be in good shape. (And that helps one consume far less coffee trying to stay awake.) I'm not advertising any products, or taking any. And I do eat meat
As a side note: I can focus extremely well and suffer very little trouble in public speaking, despite having been "diagnosed" with ADHD and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and social anxiety. Oh, and I don't take any drugs for it. But I do take responsability for my actions... which leads into:
I think the main issue we should discuss is that people are inherently lazy, ignorant (and often stupid) cowards in our country and wanting someone else to do everything for them. I was using myself as an example because I'm that "radical" libertarian type who thinks that if you are too lazy to do it yourself, you should probably go plug into some machine to breathe and eat for you and die of heart failure and stop leeching off the rest of us when you go on life support. I don't say "lets kill them" I simply say "lets give them what they want, put them on a farm where they'll never see the sun again except in VR, and let them get as fat as they want, until the veins in their brain burst and they die, of their own doing."
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Sorry, but that's absolutely retarded. You clearly have no experience of or real knowledge of pot. No drug I've ever tried (and that's a fair number) has ever changed my personality. No one who wouldnt rape or assault withOUT the influence of a drug would do so under the influence of that drug. That's just throwing a red herring into the mix so the guy committing the crime can divest himself of responsibility. Or so that you can do it for him.
The sword was worth a good 5000 yuan on the open market. Adjusting that for GDP, that's around $3000 in the US.
In a society where factory workers often make less than a dollar a day, that's a lot more than $3000 is worth to an American. To some people, that's 10 years pay, so it's more like $300,000 to an American. Nothing justifies murder, but it gives you an idea of the emotional impact.
I'm green with envy.
Live forever, or die trying.
In a society where factory workers often make less than a dollar a day, that's a lot more than $3000 is worth to an American.
Uhm, no. That 5000 yuan is as valuable to them as $3000 USD would be to a USAmerican. That's why it's called an "exchange rate." $3000 US is the comparable amount, in US dollars, that would be equivalent to the same buying power in the US as 5000 yuan would be in their country.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
About 6 years ago, when I was in better shape, I put in some time on a truck unloading team. I was right out of high school.
:)
I was in good shape, but my back was starting to feel strain. Most of it was because working "safe" vs working "fast" are two different things and they wanted us working fast. I started arriving half hour early, and doing stretches and a few dozen situps. Also, I paid attention to how I was lifting things, and though a bit slower at times, I didn't suffer any injuries and my back pain went away without pills. I was sore though, I haven't found a way around that, so anyone with advice, please add
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I was talking to a couple, who are friends of my father's, and we were talking about video game addiction. When the subject came up the woman turned to her husband and said, "Oh God, remember how many times we stayed up all night playing Pac-Man and then had to go into work without any sleep or even call in occasionally."
I was floored. Pac-Man? But they explained that they would compete with each other, taking turns and getting higher and higher scores until they realized it was daybreak.
So, spending hours and hours playing a game to the detriment of your real world responsibilities is not something that can be attributed to MMORPGs.
I agree that you can get attached to stuff in game. BUt taking it too far (such as killing someone IRL) is really just way too far. One of the harsh realities of roleplaying is that noting is certain. your character can die at any moment, you can lose all your stuff. I think one problem is online gamers who never played and pen and paper games and so never got to really understand that DM's (through thieves, bandits, and any number of other monsters and villanous NPC's) can just take your stuff, off your character, and basically you have to grin and bear it. What we have now are tons of gamers who have never seen a die in their lives and who think that their flaming sword is a right they earned that will be a permanant part of their lives. Sorry, charlie. Get over it and enjoy the game.
Course, another problem is that this isn't a p&p game. You can't really act functionally without your powerful magic items in the upper levels of wow. If you're playing D&Dn and you lose your holy sword you can go get it back because the thief who stole it can't just leave the world whenever you show up or put it in a bank that you can't access.
The thing about thieves in p&p games is that you can get back at them and win your things back. Not the case in WOW.
According to Douglas Adams, there exists a super-intelligent shade of the color blue!
#1 Takes 15 minutes to install the OS from LiveCD.
#2 apt-get install kdevelop3*
done. You'll thank me later. Pretty much any Debian will suit your needs, and get you out of this 10hr maintainability problem.
Course you could be one of those sadistic Gentoo users.
Did ya try here?http://www.kdevelop.org/index.html?filename=3 .2/download.html
10Hrs, Wow. I have only hit this mark creating/transcoding DVDs. Although Trolltech's QT can be a bitch to compile on a slow machine.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
*especially* pot. In terms of it's influence on your behavior, it's far less signifigant than any "hard" drug, or even alcohol. And I've never even heard of someone blacking out on pot, not even from the rather ridiculously over-dramatized anti-drug videos they used to show us in high school.
Silly mods. Not only is it offtopic, but the website he links to does NOT bolster his argument. He's just proven that all you have to do is bluster a bit and act like you know what you're talking about and you'll get modded up as +insightful when you're nothing of the sort.
Score one for the trolls...
I largely agree with your ideas about humanity's desire to escape reality, but I've also found from personal experience that it's possible to replace that escape from reality with reality that you truely enjoy. :)
During highschool and my first couple years of college, I played quite a few videogames, read books almost constantly, and went to movies frequently. But, for the past couple of years, I've replaced most of that with a girlfriend. We simply spent lots of time together, doing more "real" things, walking, talking, playing, - generally just being together.
During that time, my video game playing/book reading/movie watching was reduced by something like 3/4ths. But, now that we're seperated by an 18hour drive or $300 flight, I've noticed that I'm again reading lots of books, watching a couple movies a week, and, most disturbingly, playing WoW
I've found that the less enjoyable my reality is, the more I need to escape from it.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
I am always amazed when an american thinks the crime rates in the states are comparable to other places in the world.
Well, they are. Sorry if that "amazes" you. America's crime rates, with the exception of murder which has been dropping for a decade now, are all lower than Europe's and other countries. Facts supported by the numbers.
U.S. crime is actually at an all-time 30-year low. And here's an article: Britain, Australia top U.S. in violent crime. The U.S. wasn't even in the top 10!
3000 may be the comparable amount in terms of purchasing power, but external to those exchange rate differences, your average east asian laborer makes far less proportionally. I think that's what GP was stabbing at.
However, the comparison is probably not entirely valid, since people who own a computer and spend evenings farming away in WoW probably don't live on unskilled laborer wages.
The debate about the reseasons or roots to why these people play (and get obsessed by) these video games (or other forms of entertainment) could go on forever. After reading all the comments here, I find that most of you are missing the big picture. Remeber the choice Cypher makes in "The Matrix"...how many people would make the same decision if given a similar choice. Its like choosing the better of two hells. "So Bob, you can choose to either live out your days: a.)working in your 5x7 cube, going home to ur tiny apartment, repeating failed dating attempts, deal with all the emotional and physical pains life has to offer like depression and stubbing your toe OR b.)You can be kept on life support in a tube of goo with the assurance of a long life of battling virtual monsters, saving the princess, collecting coins and even if you fail...you can always load a save game....its your call Bob" WWMD? (what would mario do?)
Don't ya hate it when the correct spelling of your favorite screen name is taken?
Actually, the GP did a pretty good job equating the two, on the exchange rate market, 5000 yuan is worth about $600 but since the amount of wealth required for a similar standard of living differs, the poster appears to have compared it to wages or something similar. Well trained factory workers make more than a dollar a day, but still considerably less than their counterparts in the US.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
I've been playing WOW for about two months now and see this whole vitual/real issuse this way:
Blizzard creates virtual products as real as possible to make the players believe they are real in the virtual world. However, when a problem arises, Blizzard can claim it's virtual and claim ownershop and sweep the issue under the table. But to the rest of the playing world, it's real as life itself. Blizzard only cares because they're getting thier $50M a month in $14.95/mo fees. Blizzard wins. Customer lose.
From your sig "Doesn't the sink make the urinal redundant?"
I thought this was brilliant so I ran the idea past my wife. She said she didn't want urinal mints in her sink.
Again, he's at -1....it's cool to disagree with someone, but this guy is posting real links to support his argument. America isn't some crime haven. Most of our crime rates are lower than the UK's and Canada's, and the countries with the strictest gun control like Australia are actually #1 in violent crime. who is modding him down and why?!
"...I speculate that the violent outbreaks over video games isn't even perpetuated by the geeks and nerds, it's a result of video games/PC Games becoming easier and popular enough that the same sick people who kill people over a football game are now playing video games."
While I mostly agree, I don't agree with your next statement:
"People weren't killing each other when games were BBS style and you had to be a true nerd to even figure out how to connect, play them, and appreciate the ASCII art."
Through (unfortunate) personal experience, I had met quite a few "joe-psycho" types during the BBS days. By the late 80's, logging onto a BBS was not complicated. And, I have seen psycho nerds too.
Mostly the ones who caused trouble were the mid-teen types who had more time to sit around during the day than anyone else. If it wasn't for the BBS, they'd be in a gang.
Do you see? Do you see!??
Runner up: "Jules Vern was wrong when he said the future is a jock strap made of bees"
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
I thought this was brilliant so I ran the idea past my wife. She said she didn't want urinal mints in her sink.
That was your first mistake.
It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
Live forever, or die trying.
Speaking of porn an violence (from your sig)...
FTA: '...as author H.G. Wells predicted, "the future will accost us with boob-slapping ferocity."'
What a wonderful, affectionate outlook on the future. I'm looking forward to experiencing the ferocious boob-slapping. I've never been so proud of a bruised face and bloodied nose.
Yeah... I know exactly what you mean. I was just thinking about that for a while before writing this reply. I think my conclusion is, it's probably best to be as "well rounded" an individual as possible. In other words, yes - you *can* be entertained without "escaping reality" at all; whether that means "quality time" spent with someone you love, or simply doing a job that you truly enjoy doing. But at some point, it's still not a bad idea to delve into some of the more constructive forms of "escape entertainment". Reading books or watching movies or a play, catching some live music, or even playing video games are all ways to enjoy the artistic works someone else put effort into creating for you.
Therefore, even if you could be entertained 100% of the time without resorting to escapist entertainment provided by the culture around you, I'm not sure that's "ideal" or even a "worthy pursuit". I think the trick is just "moderation in all things".
It's just fascinating how the average person in China doesn't buy, "quality consumer goods," (by U.S. stands), yet in the U.S., 90% of our, "quality consumer goods," are manufactured in China. Either that, or it just proves that our standards aren't as high as we originally thought,...
And don't give up even when the going gets rough. The best part is finishing up a harder workout a month or two down the road and realizing that not only have you lost the weight, but you're stronger, faster, and you feel more alive and less prone to crashing on the couch devoid of energy. (Better in bed from what I've been told too, but don't let that be the ONLY motivation for being in shape ;)
/. and /.TFA's for kicks).
I don't have kids, and I doubt I can handle having them right now... mostly because I'm free spirited and could not handle the shackles marriage and kids would place on me.
As for your other question, my first motivation was looking back to my childhood which was half geek half jock (computer geek, but did karate, judo, soccer, swimming and played chess competitively) and realizing that I was in great shape as a child. I looked at myself and, after the shock wore off, I grabbed my brother, who is a runner and is in spectacular shape, and we took off jogging. What we were never taught in 7 years of consecutive gym class, as I'm sure everyone should recall the "mile run" and "fitness tests" which only worked for those who already knew how to run/jog/workout in middle and high school, I learned in one week from him. It is still not easy, and it is a battle of wills, but in one month I moved up from barely doing half a mile and falling over, to jogging 2 miles straight and having room to sprint the last quarter mile (some of my athletic abilities remained buried underneath the fat, but I felt at times as if I were going to drop and just give up... main thing: I didn't.)
That being said, know that I was a hard core gamer (and I played pretty much everything except for EQ 2 and WoW, and I still am, but I mostly play single player things where I can save or savestate (emulators) and just unplug and go do what I have to. I also liked Counterstrike because one could fire it up on a short break, shoot up a few rounds of terrorism/counterterrorism mayhem, and shutdown and go back to other things (it works in linux too and makes for GREAT lan parties). The only difference now, is that I know when to unplug and go take care of issues that require attention.
Besides, being that I'm a linux geek, despite getting almost every game to run in Wine and Cedega, I don't game as much as I used to, I find myself reading, studying, (and blowing off about 1 hour a day on
I think the main thing is feeling free, and feeling good, and knowing that I'm accomplishing something for myself at a very low cost (that being only time and effort). Plus, nobody can make a healthy diet and an exercise regimen illegal or declare it "unhealthy based on studies that show $X".
PS - my toughest challenge was cutting down on portion size at fast food places. I still hit Taco Bell occasionally (geek thing I guess) but I only get one thing off the menu... no sodas and no side dishes... and I leave full and feeling good. This, again, not only benefitted my wellness, but it has allowed my wallet to retain a sizeable chunk of change (3.99 meal suddenly becomes 1.99, and on days I eat at home or pack lunch at work, its even cheaper). I do keep a spreadsheet with what I eat, calorie count, fat calories, etc. I pretty much engineer my daily allowances to allow me to eat what I want and still not go over my allotment.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
the issue here is the depth of the obsession, and that's hardly linked to intelligence or tech-savvy. you could definitely argue that intelligence certainly helps one have perspective about what to kill someone over, but it isn't necessary, and intelligence doesn't guarantee that kind of common sense.
the expansion of gaming beyond an elite group of intelligentsia has certainly changed what games are, but it's really only the increased size of the gaming community that makes it more likely that people will become obsessed and kill each other over in-game items or events. fewer people playing = fewer bad eggs. simple statistics, nothing to do with the type of people playing and any particular flaws that may or may not be associated with a particular demographic playing.
hell, you could even argue to the contrary that the very commitment and dedication involved in being a true dork predisposes one to a certain kind of obsession with imaginary things, but i think most self-declared geeks might take issue with that.
i know i would.
/. is what happens when geeks talk. get used to it.
An interesting way of looking at it, I only wish I had mod points.
"You're quite the self-righteous little prick aren't you"
Yes, you are. Read back through your posts. You're pulling the same tired forum crap that narcissists have been doing for years - busting up parent messages into arbitrary excerpts and then "refuting" the pieces without context, in order to sound "right", and feed your ego. The internet is chock full of it, and Slashdot is no exception. Say what you mean and then get out of the forum.
The greatest of the stimulant abusers I've known were MMO gamers, and I say this honestly. One can game for *very* long stretches when fueled by bumps of cocaine or hits of speed. The bright ones were able to freelance for fair sums, blow it on... blow... and then skip class for a week while snorting and level-grinding. Sure, coke-snorting ex-jock lawyers can go hit the town and ride their egos, but bars close, bladders fill, stomachs empty, and someone still has to drive home. MMO gamers, on the other hand, are snug and secure in their own homes, without any distractions, and with no inconvenient need to conceal their activities.
With regards to (ab)use of drugs and alcohol by jocks and geeks, the only difference I've ever noticed is that geeks drink better beer.
i remember one BBS get together at a pizza place, some dude pulled a katana on another guy for a fight they started in Tele-Arena. this was probably 94 or 95.
who the hell carries a katana with them? a geek, who's crazy enough to pull it on a guy over a fight that started in an imaginary playland on a majorbbs game.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
Geez, I thought I had no life.
Glad I don't play any MMORPGs... yet. Some people take things too seriously. I've heard a story in a reputable PC magazine (maximum pc) about someone who died after play on the computer at a cyber cafe non stop for 21 hours or so. But to say that this is new is clearly wrong. People always get obsessed over something that takes up a good part of their life. A couple weeks ago I read a story in the newspaper about a kid who accidentally killed an older kid after a baseball game because he had lost and thought the older kid was being mean or something.
All your base are belong to Wii.
I know, I have Ubuntu installed on my PC. I've had a thought of apt-get install kubuntu-desktop, but then had this stupid idea of trying Mandrake 10.1.
I've already returned to Ubuntu.
That has got to be one the best posts I've ever read. "your average joe-psycho can hop in and get pissed off in record time." That is frigging classic. And im not being sarcastic. LOL.
All this madness is founded in addiction. It is becoming semantics to argue if a game is real or not anymore. Because it is becoming so realistic. The people you interact with are real. This is what counts. Your not just playing a single-player fantasy experience. What brings it to an all new level is that it is real. That its live with other people through a different body and experience. Your arms, fingers, and eyes merely become an interface and you are immersed in another world for all intents and purposes.
The real core of it is addiction. Addicted to the positive emotions and feelings extracted from these experiences. Its critically simple that when rewarded our minds create pleasure that we seek out over and over again.
A sword, regardless of its independent value, wouldn't be worth killing if there wasn't a world that made it real to exist in. So this implies that the real reason someone valued the sword was to have that sword in that particular world. An equally rare sword in a less popular game world wouldn't be as worthy. The addiction to the experience creates these perceived values. Perceived friends, marriages, alliances, and experiences.
In this way they should be looked no differently upon than a drug. What is the purpose of a drug? To help you (or force you) to escape reality. Hmmm... interesting parallels. And the qualities of addiction are present. You take away a hardcore MMO player of WoW or example and they WILL experience withdrawals. The psychological addiction is to blame.
Cancer sticks, beer, wine, it doesn't matter. People find things to be addicted to.
Lets also consider that we can't be surprised that there was 1 psycho killer out of 3.5 million people. People kill people every day and it far outweighs that ratio. Not that its right or good. But the sheer numbers of the population of that game world and the diversity... its bound to happen by statistics alone.
Thank You...
I could not agree more, but seeing this thread pan out was kind of interesting.
"Fighting over the internet is like a race in the special olympics. Even if you win you're still a retard."
PS: To the parent I will reiterate that I strongly advise you and your girlfriend to seek psychiatric counseling.
Drop out. Turn on. Tune in.
Tune in. Turn on. Drop out.
Turn on. Tune in. Drop out.
Drop out. Tune in. Turn on.
Turn on. Tune in. Drop Out.
Drug users know about meditation.
You get kicked off the server if you're AFK for 30 mins or so, so 90% of the population are probably not AFK in inns.
Played game, and MMORPG doesn't have an S in it....
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
Besides which, you're neither informative nor insightful bonch. So why don't you go back into your little troll hidey-hole now?