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The Chinese Socialist MMOG
GP writes "How different is China? In the online game version of the idealized Socialist state, you gain experience points by 'doing good deeds' and 'thwarting spys'. You can even meet Chairman Mao!" From a great writeup by Scott Jennings on the game: "And now we have the online MMO version, 'Learn From Lei Feng Online', which allows you to... mend socks. Again - not making any of this up. To quote from the original Xinhua story 'For beginners, sewing and mending socks is the only way to increase experience and to upgrade,' said Jiao Jian, a six-grade pupil in Yuexiu District, quoted by the newspaper. He then continues. 'Every time you are promoted to a higher level, your clothes will become more average,' he said. I'm pretty sure this isn't a translation screw up. The longer you grind, the more you look like everyone else. I guess new users wear designer pastels or something."
I wonder if you get an immediate ban for using 1337 Falun Gong macros.
How much do you get for killing infant girls?
//and before you ask, yes. When this type of thing is so pervasive in your country, it is very necessary to repeatedly point it out
Where do I wait in line for a copy?
in real life, Mao believed that deflowering virgins would help him live longer
All I need now is a steady stream of corsage bearing virgins.
Just one question: What do I do with the flowers?
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Yeah, cause countries like the United States never make propaganda games, right? Man, china's such a fucked up country! How dare they do this?!
MABASPLOOM!
I have level 25 Narcing ability! I can tell the authorities in mere seconds if I see someone reading banned materials or thinking subversive thoughts!
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
A virtual sweatshop.
I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
To monitor what people are doing on their computers.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
And this is different from WoW in what way?
...would be if all PC gamers in China were REQUIRED to play a few hours of this game a day.
Muha muahahahhhaahaaa
Life is not for the lazy.
Amazing how well the ideological absurdity of utopian communism finds its expression in the mechanics of a multi-player online game. Or maybe it's not that amazing. Surely you World of Warcraft players, engaged in the "grind" of leveling, have heard an Orwellian Animal Farm voice calling "Work is Fun. Fun is Work. Fun is Unfun." Co-operation and submission to the group is explicitly rewarded through "Guilds" and similar organizations.
Of course, not only is the gameplay of multi-player online games ideologically communist, but the mechanics of game economies are explicitly communist. They are planned economies. Gold farming and black markets are exactly the same phenomenon. The Chinese Socialist online game will be interesting to watch for observers due to this inevitablity. How will they deal with external and internal black markets? Will it be possible to distinguish countermeasures gameplay from reality as ingame countermeasures are taken?
Infanticide does not happen "all the time" in China. Your MSN reference noted two phenomena: sex determination via selective abortion and infanticide. One is much more pervasive in China and I can assure you it's not infanticide, which was more common before the advent of Communism in China.
Speaking of Communism, you're also way off base blaming "Communism" for this phenomenon. China has a one-child policy which most experts feel is a necessary thing. It's because of their population size, not ideology. The preference for sons has its origins in China's agrarian/Confucian roots. It's an unfortunate thing that when you combine the "good" one-child policy with the "bad" preference for sons, you end up with trouble on a large scale.
In fact, if it hadn't been for China's best-known "Communist" leader, i.e., Mao Zedong, the population problem might not be so extreme, but unfortunately Mao held that China's greatest exploitable resource was manpower and thus more babies was more power, so he ignored calls for population control and urged baby-making instead. So in a sense the situation is opposite of how you portray it.
I will be spending all my time farming socks. I can hear them now, damm these American sock farmers.
Rather than use policy and statistics refute your egregiously false (and borderline racist) conception of Chinese culture, I'll just point you to some resources so that you can begin to correct your ignorance, if you so desire.
Well, the gender representation in China isn't really that alarming. According to the CIA World Factbook, males represent 53.0% of the 0-14 age group (lower for the 15-65 age group), compared to 51.1% in the US, and the UK for the same 0-14 age range.
If you want to see something really disturbing, look at the 15-65 age group for mid-east countries such as Kuwait and Qatar: 63.8% and 69.5% respectively.. ~2:1.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Another enticing feature in the socialist game is that the level 1 sock menders make the same gold/minute as the level 99 epic monster slayers!
Doesn't anyone see how this could be fun? Yeah, mending socks doesn't sound like a thrill, but what do you do for XPs when you're weak in a commercial fantasy game? Endlessly stab chickens? How is that more fun? No, I think mending socks in a sweatshop that more of a feel of honest labor.
I think my talent would be in being a newspaper reporter for the government. I'd try my best to sound like this North Korean paper. Really, it would be a blast! And I bet there would be all sorts of neat quests, like stopping burglars, helping fishermen, getting a village to quit smoking... the sort of stuff that would be really refreshing after months of "deliver this scroll to Naldemor and you shall receive this +2 sword and lots of XP!" Yes, it would take a lot of creativity to make this game fun, but I guess I am one of these people who still appreciates creativity.
From this article "Every time you are promoted to a higher level, your clothes will become more average."
"More average" is not it is supposed to mean. That word should mean "simple".
Also, the title should read the Chinese Revolutionary MMO.This has to do with the person Lei Feng itself and the background at that time. "He was characterized by propaganda as a selfless and modest figure after his death and consequently was an idol to many." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lei_Feng
He is protrayed as a selfless person, including his accidential death at 22. A quote from him: "Life is limited, but the service to the country is boundless. I want to use my limited life to boundless serve the country."
It was the time whe loyality to the party that matter's most. In was in the 1950 and 60's in the history, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
I really hate it when governments try to sneak propaganda into computer games. This indoctrination of youth is really creepy. You're never going to see me advocating or playing a game like this. Those Chinese are just so... so... sinister.
[/goes back to playing America's Army]
Most slashdotters don't know a damn thing about China. It is like listening to a bunch of humanities students talking about computers.
"Man, I just re-formatted my processor because I got a virus or a bug or something in my window."
"Yeah I know, you should use that linux-program I heard it really zaps those bugs!"
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
I'll be the karma whore.
Propaganda is a promotion of a cause or a particular idea - often times presented with a one-sided or distorted bias.
Advertising is a promotion of a product or service - often times presented with a one-sided or distorted bias
Put it another way, advertising may compel me to become fat or poor while propaganda may lead me to the gallows or the gas chamber.
I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
Amazing how the same lame sophistry dating all the way back to the first MUDs, and maybe even before, still gets spewed as if they were some deep revelation about humanity.
In fact, probably even before. I can imagine some "but I really want to start directly at the top of Pong's high score table" whiner sitting on the side and spewing rationalizations about how actually playing the game is "work", and how those poor Pong players got scammed into working in their free time and paying for it. (And make no mistake, playing arcade games used to cost a _lot_ more than 13$ a month.) Fast forward a bit in time and you find the same kind of people whining about how deluded people are to invest any kind of time or effort into their entertainment and, god forbid, to cooperate with other players.
That's all that levels, xp, epic equipment, or PvP ranks are: a way to keep the score, not all that different from Pong's or PacMan's high score table, or from a RL football team's rank in the leagues and championships. And some people "grind" for that score (in fact, for some trying to beat the high score _is_ the challenge and the fun), some people just play the game for what it is and let the score just happen on its own, and... some busibodies stay on the sideline and try to sound deeply philosophical in their lament about how sad it is that people put up with "having" to spend hours on their entertainment, or "having" to interact with other people or whole groups. (E.g., the group around the arcade machine.)
And yes, some form of coop play always existed even in those arcade machines. Ever since the first game got a fire button to mash, in addition to the directional joystick/trackball/whatever, I recall people "grouping" and having specialized "group roles" at the arcades. E.g., one would guide the character/ship/whatever around and dodge enemy fire, and one was mashing the fire button and dropping the AOE "bomb" at the right moment for maximum effect. I.e., using the modern MMO terms very loosely, one was the "tank" keeping the team from taking damage and one was the "damage dealer", even if noone used those words at the time. I.e., even when the game didn't actually offer the in-game mechanics for that, some found their own makeshift ways to cooperate and interact with other humans, regardless of how many others sit around and whine about how everyone else should be a loner.
Get this: it's not a matter of "work" or "grind" to some end. That's the actual game. It's ok if I "have" to spend some hours doing quests in WoW, because exactly that was the whole point and purpose in the first place: to waste some hours in a game. Gaining some level or armour piece at the end is just a virtual pat on the back, but the real purpose was to waste those hours in the first place. That's what entertainment is all about: filling your time with something better than staring at the walls.
It may surprise you, but it's not just MMOs. Actually _most_ of the RL passtimes need some time or effort, and most are someone else's "work". Do you enjoy tweaking your car? That's a mechanic's "work". Do you enjoy going dancing? A professional dancer would call that "work". Taking digital photos in the park with your cool new camera? Yep, pro photographers would call that "work". Play tennis or basketball with your friends? That's a pro athlete's "work". _Watch_ sports? Sports journalists do that for a living. Watch a movie and maybe discuss them with your pals? Yep, that's a movie reviewer's "work". Etc.
You'll notice that they also all involve some time spent on that hobby. E.g., a movie buff may spend hours a day "grinding" through movies on their DVD player. E.g., someone with a digital camera may "grind" for hours taking photos of squirrels in the park. Etc. Some of those, *gasp* may even involve "grouping" with people. E.g., going dancing with a couple of friends instead of doing it solo. Some of those *gasp* may involve joining some kind of a "guild". E.g., joining some photo community or whatever kind of associati
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
No they aren't and factory workers in China or anywhere else in poor countries do not have a good standard of living. Stop believing economists' lies, sweatshops are not good for anyone except corporations; why do you think they're illegal in the developed world?
The thing, you see, is that Kuwait and Qatar don't have a population of a billion people.
There are like 840,000 Quatari and 2.2 million Kuwaiti, that's respective male excedents of 155,400 and 256,000. China's 53% vs 51% for a population of 1,300,000,000 translates into a male excess of 26,000,000...
You could replace the whole Kuwaiti population by women 10 times and you still wouldn't have enough wives for these guys...
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Basically what you describe there is insightful in its own right, but it's basically a sub-set of what Bartle described for MUD players. His division went something like this:
- socializers: basically the people who are there to chat, make friends, organize a guild, organize a player town/community/whatever, and generally be social about it
- achievers: people who want to have the highest score, a level 60 character, the biggest player house or the full epic suit for their class, etc.
- explorers: people who like discovering stuff. It can be finding a new quest, a new piece of the story, a new area, seeing a new instance, or finding out some cool new trick using the tools the game gives them. E.g., that you can get some cool effect by using two spells as a combination. (A lot of people who "just like to play the game" actually fall in this category: they like constantly being given new stuff to do or new pieces of the story. Then again, some don't fall in this category.)
- killers: these are the people whose fun is to annoy, harrass, humiliate, and whose greatest achievement is if they can get someone to leave the game completely, effectively perma-killing them from the game. A.k.a., "griefers". (Note that unlike what the term "killer" might imply, this isn't equivalent to "pvp players". Not all pvp players are killers, and not all killers are into pvp. Indeed a lot find more effective ways to harrass their victims.)
Basically while your distinction does have merit, and indeed is made by Bartle himself too, you seem to be sorta lumping the achievers and killers in one large category, and the socializers and explorers in the other. The distinction does exist in Bartle's paper too, as one of the divisions of his set: people who "play with" something/someone, versus people who "act upon" something or someone.
But it's only half the story. Dividing it again, gives some important distinctions too. For example while both might grind to level 60, an "achiever" may do it just for achievement sake, while a "killer" might do it to better gank or humiliate others.
And yes, you're right in another aspect: it's one of the major reason for social frictions among players. Many of those falling mostly in one category can't possibly understand what those in another category find fun in that. Maybe they're immature? Or whatever.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
if a right can vary by culture, then it's not fundamental. By definition a fundamental right is one that applies across cultural boundries. You can argue that there are no fundamental rights if you like, but you can't argue that they vary from one country to the next. That's a non-sequitor.
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