That is assault because you are threatening physical violence. In the United States, verbal assault is the verbal threat of physical violence. On the other hand, "Give me all the money because you are ugly and stupid," is not assault, but merely attempted robbery.
Unlike some forms of traditional bullying, cyberbullying has to be speech because you can't physically hit someone over the internet. The speech of a bully saying harmful things is just as protected as my ability to make this post. Similarly, the speech of groups like the KKK or neo-nazis to promote their agendas is similarly protected. It doesn't matter if that speech is harmful to others, it is still protected.
Perhaps you could explain why you think this is not a free speech issue?
Well, I only played for a couple months, but as far as I could tell, a huge number of the quests are just kill-and-collect quests which feels like grinding. After level 20, an increasing number of quests are instance-based, meaning that you can't just hop in and complete a quest in an hour or so. (Perhaps Blizzard has since implemented a better group-finding system than a mere chat channel.) Plus, instance-based quests are necessarily kill-based, since you can't just run around collecting mushrooms or what-have-you without fighting the monsters.
However, whereas I like Diablo a lot, in WoW killing all those monsters feels like a chore since it is slow-paced, with a lot of downtime for healing and mana-restoration.
I think the issue is that Blizzard has effectively created two games. The first game is the quests and missions performed while leveling up—unfortunately, they didn't provide enough quests to actually level all the way, so people are forced to kill random monsters to make up the difference. The second game they've created is the item-farming game. A "naked" character without gear is only a fraction as effective as a character with good gear. Blizzard did the same thing with Diablo II, but the difference between the playstyles of the two games was less pronounced.
The problem is that some people only like one of the two games. Unfortunately, if you like the item game, you are forced to play the leveling game first.
Another difference that I think will just as quickly lead to the failure of a collaborative magazine is the problem of "too many editors." Compelling writing suffers from the myriad of tiny wording changes reflected wiki publishing. Wikipedia's "Featured Articles" (their highest category) usually have correct information, lots of citations, and good article layout, but they rarely have what I would arrogantly describe as really good writing.
Also, it will be easier if you cover the holes with cars to prevent the small antlions from respawning before you even try to fight the big antlion. It took me about five tries too. Shotgun and SMG secondary-fire (grenades) worked the best for me. Use the magnum if you have ammo for it.
This is an excellent point. I play a lot of RTS games, and I greatly enjoy watching replays. In my experience, replays with commentary can be both better and worse. They tend to follow the action well, but video game announcers suffer from the same inane chatter as other announcers.
You are supposed to type with your thumbs, with your fingers underneath. The screen rests on your fingers, and you read it between your palms. It'll work just fine.
Anything is innovative once you see it. The summary's question, "Why didn't I think of that?" illustrates this point. Ideas are more scarce than we would like to believe. Columbus gave a simple test that humorously backs this argument.
In the story, Christopher Columbus attends a dinner which a Spanish gentleman is giving in his honor. Columbus asks all the gentlemen in attendance to make an egg stand on end. After all the men have tried and failed, they state that it is impossible. Columbus then places the egg's small end on the table, breaking the shell a bit, so that it can stand upright. Columbus then states that it is "the simplest thing in the world. Anybody can do it, after he has been shown how!"
I don't play Eve, but I read through the little expose. At one point Kugutsumen said he got the information from SQL logs and implied that they were given not hacked.
Bullying is fundamentally different than self-defense. If you insult me and I make a snappy comeback and if you hit me and I hit you back, that's one thing. However, If you insult me, and I devote the next few hours to destroying your reputation among our peers, I think that is a completely different story.
If I'm a cyberbully and destroy your reputation among our peers, it is difficult for you to repair that with a snappy comeback. Cyberbullying has the same potential for harm that physical bullying does. Most people will come through it more-or-less all right; they'll have had a bad experience in school, but hopefully moving to a new city upon graduation and/or going to college will let them turn over a new leaf. However, there will always be fringe cases that cannot handle the psychological stress of physical or cyberbullying and resort to direct escapes like suicide or extreme physical violence like school shootings.
Most importantly, saying, "Just fight back," ignores the fact that bullying is happening in the first place. It doesn't matter whether it is the big tough kid or a nerdy computer geek, bullying is someone taking advantage of their strength to harm someone else. It is wrong and will never be justified.
Bullying is a mindset, and has nothing to do with how big and strong one is. At the point someone is willing to get personal satisfaction and validation by causing another emotional or physical pain, they have crossed the line from healthy to sadistic. It would be intellectually dishonest to say that cyber-bullying is justified because "geeks were picked on first." In the real world, two wrongs do not make a right.
Balancing by numbers/statistics should only be done once the raw gameplay is already in place. If you don't have a playable implementation, balance discussions are purely hypothetical with all the false dilemma and overlooked factors that implies. Once an actual problem or imbalance is identified, numbers can be used to figure out a better value. I expect this applies to computer games as well, but all my experience is with board and card games.
Another interesting thing to note is that extensive use of numbers in balancing can blind people to the basic structure of a system. For example, in a turn-based system, variable hitpoint gain and energy/mana gain coupled with variable ability costs (between classes) is the exact same thing as a fixed energy and hitpoint gain and variable ability costs. The ratio is constant, so the implementation of the ratio can be simplified.
The article is essentially a fluff piece, but crammed between the useless paragraphs were occasional nuggets of practicality. The important thing to take away is that numbers are important in data models (which is what balancing a game involves.) Statistics is one way to quickly and abstractly summarize a lot of numbers. Read on for a boring, detail-oriented analysis:
While the article doesn't present it well, I think that the author probably is very good at tuning games. He doesn't come right out and say it, but it is important to target the statistics you are gathering to address some issue. For example, the example of "time to level" in an RPG shows consistent times with one outlying data point much lower than the others. The author leaves it as a hypothetical question, but this is a clear sign of an overpowered class or an exploit. However, if the data from this same example had instead been "damage done" or "quests attempted" or "distance walked" by players, it is doubtful that this same issue would have been noticed.
As a futher example, the statistics in designing a trick-taking card game would be different. The power of choosing trump could be modeled by how many tricks are taken with trump on average. The number of tricks per hand could change the accuracy (and relative risk) of bidding, so recording the average bid between design iterations could be useful.
Your concept would be even better if the game was implemented in a split-tiered leveling system. As you leveled up in the traditional sense, you could "become" better units i.e. siege tanks, high templar, defiler, etc. At the same time, you leveled up in tactical and strategic command as well. If you are a squad commander, you order your player-controlled subordinates to perform certain objectives and get bonus points for completing the task with minimal casualties. Your objects are in turn derived from another player representing a mid-tier commander like a lieutenant.
If balanced correctly, you could have fun playing at every level of tactical and skill level. Skilled strategy-minded players would naturally gravitate to higher command ranks, while talented combat-oriented players would naturally anchor squads. Looking at group composition would tell you whether your mixed marine/firebat/goliath group has a chance against the zealot/archon group, but it wouldn't tell you how capable those players and their command structure is.
Huh. I'd never heard of Project Visitor before or anything like it. Wikipedia has a half dozen other MMORTS games. Still, it would be sweet to see a company with the visibility of Blizzard move into the area.
Your point about Blizzard is well made, except that I was thinking of their recent history (Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft.) Within these games, we see that Blizzard does real-time games extremely well, and successfully transitioned one of their most popular titles to the MMORPG context. It is just as hard if not harder to transition an RTS to a FPS while retaining the same fanbase. I think an MMORTS is much more attractive from a business and consumer standpoint than an MMOFPS. Time will tell.
I agree that a Starcraft FPS would be awesome, but don't forget that Ghost got "indefinitely postponed". I feel like FPS fans are fewer in number than RTS fans, and they are certainly given more options to choose from. I'm also skeptical of the wisdom of moving so far from anything Blizzard has done before. However, I do think it would be interesting to see a MMORTS. No one has done that, and I think that tackling that project is something that suits Blizzard's strengths.
I sincerely hope that the next Starcraft game is not a MMO. Starcraft is still my favorite Blizzard game because it was a delicious union of sci-fi coolness with three wildly unique races. Blizzard has talented designers, but I hate to see them ignore those of us who prefer real time strategy games. If they want to chase the money pot of another MMO, they should make one from Diablo since I don't care if they whore that franchise out. (Plus I think they'll just be stealing their own customers away from WOW.)
Words from one source should not be treated differently than if they came from a different source.
Registration becomes a tool for censorship when a blogger has to show (in court) that they do not fulfill the qualifications for requiring registration. It becomes a tool for censorship when the paperwork for registration can be slowed. Most importantly, it becomes a tool for censorship when a blogger has to think about whether their thoughts can be legally posted. Speech should be completely un-infringed so that any sort of comment is impeccably legal, regardless of context or origin.
In the initial discussion I made the point that any censorship is bad censorship, and I stand by that. A lot of people seem to feel that they got "taken" by political gaming, but disliking paid grassroots campaigns doesn't justify censorship. Don't be confused by where parties have drawn up their battle lines. Think for yourself.
From my original post:
Unopposed distribution of political speech, including the distribution of political pamphlets, has always been legal. At the very least, this law will cause a "chilling effect" on political bloggers, paid or otherwise. At its worst, it could rob our generation of our Johnathan Swifts, our Thomas Paines, and our James Madisons, all of whom published political pamphlets anonymously or under a pseudonym. Certainly this law would not prevent anonymous contributions to political thought, but my point is that political speech should not be infringed, regardless of its motivation. Stopping FUD is not worth sacrificing unopposed free speech.
(James Madison was one of the authors of the Federalist Papers.)
Unopposed distribution of political speech, including the distribution of political pamphlets, has always been legal. At the very least, this law will cause a "chilling effect" on political bloggers, paid or otherwise. At its worst, it could rob our generation of our Johnathan Swifts, our Thomas Paines, and our James Madisons, all of whom published political pamphlets anonymously or under a pseudonym. Certainly this law would not prevent anonymous contributions to political thought, but my point is that political speech should not be infringed, regardless of its motivation. Stopping FUD is not worth sacrificing unopposed free speech.
Well that's the part that'll get tossed out when challenged in court. However, to address your main point, adults always judge content for minors. "That video game is too violent for children" is only a hop, skip, and jump from "You can't eat that cookie now because it will ruin your appetite."
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Is your sig Alan Ginsberg?
That is assault because you are threatening physical violence. In the United States, verbal assault is the verbal threat of physical violence. On the other hand, "Give me all the money because you are ugly and stupid," is not assault, but merely attempted robbery.
Unlike some forms of traditional bullying, cyberbullying has to be speech because you can't physically hit someone over the internet. The speech of a bully saying harmful things is just as protected as my ability to make this post. Similarly, the speech of groups like the KKK or neo-nazis to promote their agendas is similarly protected. It doesn't matter if that speech is harmful to others, it is still protected.
Perhaps you could explain why you think this is not a free speech issue?
See my reply to another response below.
Well, I only played for a couple months, but as far as I could tell, a huge number of the quests are just kill-and-collect quests which feels like grinding. After level 20, an increasing number of quests are instance-based, meaning that you can't just hop in and complete a quest in an hour or so. (Perhaps Blizzard has since implemented a better group-finding system than a mere chat channel.) Plus, instance-based quests are necessarily kill-based, since you can't just run around collecting mushrooms or what-have-you without fighting the monsters.
However, whereas I like Diablo a lot, in WoW killing all those monsters feels like a chore since it is slow-paced, with a lot of downtime for healing and mana-restoration.
I think the issue is that Blizzard has effectively created two games. The first game is the quests and missions performed while leveling up—unfortunately, they didn't provide enough quests to actually level all the way, so people are forced to kill random monsters to make up the difference. The second game they've created is the item-farming game. A "naked" character without gear is only a fraction as effective as a character with good gear. Blizzard did the same thing with Diablo II, but the difference between the playstyles of the two games was less pronounced.
The problem is that some people only like one of the two games. Unfortunately, if you like the item game, you are forced to play the leveling game first.
Another difference that I think will just as quickly lead to the failure of a collaborative magazine is the problem of "too many editors." Compelling writing suffers from the myriad of tiny wording changes reflected wiki publishing. Wikipedia's "Featured Articles" (their highest category) usually have correct information, lots of citations, and good article layout, but they rarely have what I would arrogantly describe as really good writing.
The RIAA looks the answer up in their gut.
Also, it will be easier if you cover the holes with cars to prevent the small antlions from respawning before you even try to fight the big antlion. It took me about five tries too. Shotgun and SMG secondary-fire (grenades) worked the best for me. Use the magnum if you have ammo for it.
This is an excellent point. I play a lot of RTS games, and I greatly enjoy watching replays. In my experience, replays with commentary can be both better and worse. They tend to follow the action well, but video game announcers suffer from the same inane chatter as other announcers.
You are supposed to type with your thumbs, with your fingers underneath. The screen rests on your fingers, and you read it between your palms. It'll work just fine.
I don't play Eve, but I read through the little expose. At one point Kugutsumen said he got the information from SQL logs and implied that they were given not hacked.
Bullying is fundamentally different than self-defense. If you insult me and I make a snappy comeback and if you hit me and I hit you back, that's one thing. However, If you insult me, and I devote the next few hours to destroying your reputation among our peers, I think that is a completely different story.
If I'm a cyberbully and destroy your reputation among our peers, it is difficult for you to repair that with a snappy comeback. Cyberbullying has the same potential for harm that physical bullying does. Most people will come through it more-or-less all right; they'll have had a bad experience in school, but hopefully moving to a new city upon graduation and/or going to college will let them turn over a new leaf. However, there will always be fringe cases that cannot handle the psychological stress of physical or cyberbullying and resort to direct escapes like suicide or extreme physical violence like school shootings.
Most importantly, saying, "Just fight back," ignores the fact that bullying is happening in the first place. It doesn't matter whether it is the big tough kid or a nerdy computer geek, bullying is someone taking advantage of their strength to harm someone else. It is wrong and will never be justified.
Bullying is a mindset, and has nothing to do with how big and strong one is. At the point someone is willing to get personal satisfaction and validation by causing another emotional or physical pain, they have crossed the line from healthy to sadistic. It would be intellectually dishonest to say that cyber-bullying is justified because "geeks were picked on first." In the real world, two wrongs do not make a right.
Balancing by numbers/statistics should only be done once the raw gameplay is already in place. If you don't have a playable implementation, balance discussions are purely hypothetical with all the false dilemma and overlooked factors that implies. Once an actual problem or imbalance is identified, numbers can be used to figure out a better value. I expect this applies to computer games as well, but all my experience is with board and card games.
Another interesting thing to note is that extensive use of numbers in balancing can blind people to the basic structure of a system. For example, in a turn-based system, variable hitpoint gain and energy/mana gain coupled with variable ability costs (between classes) is the exact same thing as a fixed energy and hitpoint gain and variable ability costs. The ratio is constant, so the implementation of the ratio can be simplified.
The article is essentially a fluff piece, but crammed between the useless paragraphs were occasional nuggets of practicality. The important thing to take away is that numbers are important in data models (which is what balancing a game involves.) Statistics is one way to quickly and abstractly summarize a lot of numbers. Read on for a boring, detail-oriented analysis:
While the article doesn't present it well, I think that the author probably is very good at tuning games. He doesn't come right out and say it, but it is important to target the statistics you are gathering to address some issue. For example, the example of "time to level" in an RPG shows consistent times with one outlying data point much lower than the others. The author leaves it as a hypothetical question, but this is a clear sign of an overpowered class or an exploit. However, if the data from this same example had instead been "damage done" or "quests attempted" or "distance walked" by players, it is doubtful that this same issue would have been noticed.
As a futher example, the statistics in designing a trick-taking card game would be different. The power of choosing trump could be modeled by how many tricks are taken with trump on average. The number of tricks per hand could change the accuracy (and relative risk) of bidding, so recording the average bid between design iterations could be useful.
Your concept would be even better if the game was implemented in a split-tiered leveling system. As you leveled up in the traditional sense, you could "become" better units i.e. siege tanks, high templar, defiler, etc. At the same time, you leveled up in tactical and strategic command as well. If you are a squad commander, you order your player-controlled subordinates to perform certain objectives and get bonus points for completing the task with minimal casualties. Your objects are in turn derived from another player representing a mid-tier commander like a lieutenant.
If balanced correctly, you could have fun playing at every level of tactical and skill level. Skilled strategy-minded players would naturally gravitate to higher command ranks, while talented combat-oriented players would naturally anchor squads. Looking at group composition would tell you whether your mixed marine/firebat/goliath group has a chance against the zealot/archon group, but it wouldn't tell you how capable those players and their command structure is.
Huh. I'd never heard of Project Visitor before or anything like it. Wikipedia has a half dozen other MMORTS games. Still, it would be sweet to see a company with the visibility of Blizzard move into the area.
Your point about Blizzard is well made, except that I was thinking of their recent history (Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft.) Within these games, we see that Blizzard does real-time games extremely well, and successfully transitioned one of their most popular titles to the MMORPG context. It is just as hard if not harder to transition an RTS to a FPS while retaining the same fanbase. I think an MMORTS is much more attractive from a business and consumer standpoint than an MMOFPS. Time will tell.
I agree that a Starcraft FPS would be awesome, but don't forget that Ghost got "indefinitely postponed". I feel like FPS fans are fewer in number than RTS fans, and they are certainly given more options to choose from. I'm also skeptical of the wisdom of moving so far from anything Blizzard has done before. However, I do think it would be interesting to see a MMORTS. No one has done that, and I think that tackling that project is something that suits Blizzard's strengths.
I sincerely hope that the next Starcraft game is not a MMO. Starcraft is still my favorite Blizzard game because it was a delicious union of sci-fi coolness with three wildly unique races. Blizzard has talented designers, but I hate to see them ignore those of us who prefer real time strategy games. If they want to chase the money pot of another MMO, they should make one from Diablo since I don't care if they whore that franchise out. (Plus I think they'll just be stealing their own customers away from WOW.)
Words from one source should not be treated differently than if they came from a different source.
Registration becomes a tool for censorship when a blogger has to show (in court) that they do not fulfill the qualifications for requiring registration. It becomes a tool for censorship when the paperwork for registration can be slowed. Most importantly, it becomes a tool for censorship when a blogger has to think about whether their thoughts can be legally posted. Speech should be completely un-infringed so that any sort of comment is impeccably legal, regardless of context or origin.
From my original post:
(James Madison was one of the authors of the Federalist Papers.)
Unopposed distribution of political speech, including the distribution of political pamphlets, has always been legal. At the very least, this law will cause a "chilling effect" on political bloggers, paid or otherwise. At its worst, it could rob our generation of our Johnathan Swifts, our Thomas Paines, and our James Madisons, all of whom published political pamphlets anonymously or under a pseudonym. Certainly this law would not prevent anonymous contributions to political thought, but my point is that political speech should not be infringed, regardless of its motivation. Stopping FUD is not worth sacrificing unopposed free speech.
Well that's the part that'll get tossed out when challenged in court. However, to address your main point, adults always judge content for minors. "That video game is too violent for children" is only a hop, skip, and jump from "You can't eat that cookie now because it will ruin your appetite."