Don't Go Into The Corn Field

Via GameSetWatch, Clickable Culture's look at the Second Life version of purgatory - The Corn Field. A player explores an off-grid prison that misbehaving avatars are sent too for infractions. From the article: "Yaffle tested the limits of the prison, finding that communication to Second Life's 'Main Grid' was cut off. He even came up with a scheme to crash the server The Corn Field was running on in order to be teleported to the nearest safe simulator by default, but creating objects in The Corn Field appears to be impossible. Having exhausted his options, Yaffle merely waited around to see if anyone else would show up. A Linden Lab employee did stop by, but was incommunicado. 'If I was them, I would have been watching me and laughing,' Yaffle told me. 'I know I was laughing even though it was a punishment.'"

Comments

Cornfield?

[Havenwar]

Okay...so..that was a cute article... but.. uhm... I cant say I think much of the person who lets a nimrod that breaks rules and gets punished for it get any more attention.

His punishment was boredom, and... we pay him in "fame"?

gee. How... nice of us. Go rulebreakers, then!

How about punishment through stats/items?

[SamNmaX]

I'm not sure leaving people in a cornfield is really such a good idea, since as the article suggests this is almost something to look forward to. Instead, it would make sense to punish users with something they would fear: a loss of stats and/or items. If these players are willing to put hundreds of hours towards levelling or getting rare items, they will definately not be happy if you take some of that away.

Re:How about punishment through stats/items?

[vertinox]

I'm not sure leaving people in a cornfield is really such a good idea, since as the article suggests this is almost something to look forward to. Instead, it would make sense to punish users with something they would fear: a loss of stats and/or items.

Punishing people on an online world won't get them to change their behavior.

We have death penalty for murder, but that doesn't stop murders does it? In online games punishment must be education and not vindication because:

1.) The player is playing a game. He has no fear of real life death or personal loss no matter how much you punish them... If you punish painfully it will only piss off the person without getting them to change the errors of their ways.
2.) Punishment by admins makes even behaving players live in fear that they must follow invisible unsaid rules. They no longer play a game, but rather Second Gulag which they report offenses to the Soviet state in hopes of punishing other players (I've seen this in Ultima Online in which two guilds used favors from GMs in order to attempt to ban other players from both sides)
3.) Players are a community and will tell others about the "punishment" and if you piss them off they'll write extensive blogs and wage campaigns on web sites against your company and give you bad publicity. Sure there are limits to this... I mean if you ban a player who constantly destroys the game play experience for other s 24/7 then that is reasonable, but if you start banning for minor offenses then you'll rack up a horde of sympathetic persons who start bad mouthing your gaming company.

Lastly... This is the more important one of all these reasons...
4.) Second life guarentees intellecutal property rights to the things that players create in the game This mean monetary value as well. This maybe a Unique aspect of this MMOG but if you start banning people willy nilly you might over minor things or removing personal property you might get a lawsuit on your hand. Second life has an unreasonable (IMO) game economy of $500,000 of real money per month. This isn't something you can just dick around with.

Re:Dealing with rule breakers is a chore

[Anonymous Coward]

> Prejudice against those who break rules is just as bad as racism.

No. No, it's not.

Reference to the Twilight Zone ?

[file-exists-p]

Isn't this cornfield related to the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life" in which a kid with god-like powers send people "in the cornfield" to punish them ? The exact meaning of that "cornfield" is never given in the episode, though.

Re:wtf?

[Schickie]

On the subject of Cornfield and Second Life (thus cleverly avoiding "off-topic").

Troll? Whaddya mean troll?? What's trolling about a preference change? Is there a troll in one or more of my armpits?

Oh, ahh, no, I see ... hey look Mr. Moderator Man (you may sing along if you wish), that's a 'p' and an 'l' (repeat after me..."PPEEEE" ... "AAELLL") in front of "ucking". Not an "F", nor an "f", not even a "ph".

Further, I would take this opportunity to point out that:

A) Implying indirectly that a submitted "News" item may be of insignificant worth is not necessarily equivalent to trolling. And...

B) Your BLAK syndrome is not my fault.

[ Bi-Labially-Aspirated-Konsonant ] - the intentional "K" mis-spelling intended to subliminally convey a political affiliation, as in CCCP or ACLU.

( ...jeez... )

PS. Ok, so maybe I'm looking to square a troll.

Re:Ban them.

[Havenwar]

Hmmm, yes... and when criminals are put in prison or have to pay fines it damages the entire community... wife, kids, relatives, and so on.

But the damage of letting the crime go unpunished is larger, and I think the same is valid in this virtual case. If he needs to reconnect with his friends he should have other means to contact them with... if they havent exchanged emails at leats by then, they are probably not that tight. So the damage to the society is what... a few guys going "oh noes, my friend did somethign horrible and was PUNISHED...this is so bad. stop punishing people."

No... no.. doesnt fly.

But I do agree that it is annoying that people who get banned are given no acess to evidence, no rigth to defend themselves, or anything. I believe this will have to change, but it will take time. however... if guilty, they will have to be punished. Even if it does "harm the entire community". lesser of two evils, ya know.