I really dont see how exploiting a design flaw is any better than exploiting a glitch.AngloDoom said:
Science Discovers That MMOG Players Are Jerks
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
Kudos to him then. Anyone having the balls to stand by their convictions and play in a way that's enjoyable to them rather than doing exactly what that throng of angry nerds who are the hardcore MMO player base say they should be doing, is nothing short of a hero.Caliban1972 said:
If CoH are remotely like any other MMO, as I'm sure it is, it's filled with people who can't wait to find someone who does things in any way differently than the majority, so they can take a giant digital dump on said player.
It's amazing how the veil of internet anonymity can turn the most normal, intelligent people into drooling mouth-breathers in an instant. The internet is full of jerks, no matter what game, forum, or chat service you're using.
It's not. I'm fairly certain it has a greater proportion of casual players than WoW, since the game is designed for pickup-and-play teaming to be startlingly easy, my own experiences with the game are overwhelmingly positive, and even the game forums have a smaller percentage of assholes than I've seen in other MMOs.Byers said:
I say, as if you actually cared. Anyone who can defend a troll for "having balls" is a lost cause.
First reaction:
Essentially, a guy acts like a jerk online in order to study social reactions to it. It is not surprising that this resulted in social ostracism. It is interesting, but it's also a very intuitive conclusion: human societies produce, over time, implicit codes of conduct and taboos. What the article refers to as 'breaching', from Garfinkel, appears to involve deliberately breaching those codes and taboos, and observing the reponses.
In this case, it appears that Twixt was initially corrected relatively politely and attempts were made to return him to compliance. As Twixt's player was aware of the social rules and complying would defeat the point of the experiment, he ignored them, attempted corrections became more vehement, and punishments for non-compliance were doled out, including initially attempts at in-game punishment (e.g. 'everyone kill Twixt') and, when such measures proved ineffective, social ostracism.
This is not actually surprising. Social norms are socially enforced. Break them, and attempts will be made first to ensure awareness of the rules, and once it is clear that the person is deliberately breaking social rules, first the community will attempt some form of rehabilitation, and if that is not possible, will do everything possible to remove the offender from the society.
All that's clear. The interesting thing, and what the study is actually aimed at, is that the social rules being so vehemently enforced here clash with the system rules, i.e. the game rules, the closest thing the game environment has to 'natural law'. As the study clearly explained, for those who read it, there are disputes in the field about how and why social laws develop.
In this case, it appears to be a matter of relative priorities. The game law defines the purpose of RV rather clearly; as a direct competition between 'heroes' and 'villains'. However, player priorities are usually 'to have fun'. In a well-designed game, system priorities (i.e. 'win') and player priorities (i.e. 'fun') match up well. In this case, Twixt detected a dissonance between those two priorities. In essence, Twixt was playing Stop Having Fun, Guys [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StopHavingFunGuys].
However, the particularly intriguing thing about this clash is that the system priority is objective and the player priority objective. For any player, ?winning? is the same thing: capturing the right number of pillboxes. ?Fun?, on the other hand, differs from player to player. Given the shared priority of fun, the player base develops rules and codes of behaviour designed to promote the greatest amount of fun for the greatest number. A ?griefer? might enjoy themselves, but the community aim is for the maximum number of players to enjoy themselves, and the many will use their greater numbers to ostracise and thus defeat the few.
One notices that the accusations against Twixt often centred around his tactics being ?unfair?. Implicit in that is the suggestion that his behaviour did not lead to game enjoyment for others; indeed, it adversely affected their game experience. While according to the game rules his sole objective is the victory of his team, i.e. the ?heroes?, the social rules mandate a degree of altruism, and factor the enjoyment of other players into the player?s objectives. It should go without saying that in a real armed conflict ? if we were talking about real heroes and villains fighting for a city ? the enjoyment of the other participants would be irrelevant. Treating the game as a simple simulation of armed conflict is one of Twixt?s sins in this sense. If anyone is familiar with GNS theory, the game rules were to a degree simulationist, while the social laws demanded a more gamist standard; while realistically a member of one team should perhaps do anything to destroy the other team regardless of gamer social codes, in the name of mutual enjoyment a concession is made.
Really, it?s a fascinating study, and I think the title of this topic and the article in The Escapist is highly misleading. The study does not demonstrate or even attempt to demonstrate that ?MMOG players are jerks?; this is bad journalism, and makes me wonder if Malygris bothered to read the study or understand what the point of it is. On the contrary, it?s about the evolution of social laws, restrictions, and taboos, and about the reactions to a person who violates what could be called ?gamer?s honour?. The CoH/V player community behaved reasonably, and indeed as real life communities behave when faced with repeat violators of social law.
On a final note, I was depressed that the study pluralised ?NPC? with an apostrophe. It was otherwise well-written, but I am saddened if academic standards in the US are now so low that such blatant grammatical errors are the norm.
Essentially, a guy acts like a jerk online in order to study social reactions to it. It is not surprising that this resulted in social ostracism. It is interesting, but it's also a very intuitive conclusion: human societies produce, over time, implicit codes of conduct and taboos. What the article refers to as 'breaching', from Garfinkel, appears to involve deliberately breaching those codes and taboos, and observing the reponses.
In this case, it appears that Twixt was initially corrected relatively politely and attempts were made to return him to compliance. As Twixt's player was aware of the social rules and complying would defeat the point of the experiment, he ignored them, attempted corrections became more vehement, and punishments for non-compliance were doled out, including initially attempts at in-game punishment (e.g. 'everyone kill Twixt') and, when such measures proved ineffective, social ostracism.
This is not actually surprising. Social norms are socially enforced. Break them, and attempts will be made first to ensure awareness of the rules, and once it is clear that the person is deliberately breaking social rules, first the community will attempt some form of rehabilitation, and if that is not possible, will do everything possible to remove the offender from the society.
All that's clear. The interesting thing, and what the study is actually aimed at, is that the social rules being so vehemently enforced here clash with the system rules, i.e. the game rules, the closest thing the game environment has to 'natural law'. As the study clearly explained, for those who read it, there are disputes in the field about how and why social laws develop.
In this case, it appears to be a matter of relative priorities. The game law defines the purpose of RV rather clearly; as a direct competition between 'heroes' and 'villains'. However, player priorities are usually 'to have fun'. In a well-designed game, system priorities (i.e. 'win') and player priorities (i.e. 'fun') match up well. In this case, Twixt detected a dissonance between those two priorities. In essence, Twixt was playing Stop Having Fun, Guys [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StopHavingFunGuys].
However, the particularly intriguing thing about this clash is that the system priority is objective and the player priority objective. For any player, ?winning? is the same thing: capturing the right number of pillboxes. ?Fun?, on the other hand, differs from player to player. Given the shared priority of fun, the player base develops rules and codes of behaviour designed to promote the greatest amount of fun for the greatest number. A ?griefer? might enjoy themselves, but the community aim is for the maximum number of players to enjoy themselves, and the many will use their greater numbers to ostracise and thus defeat the few.
One notices that the accusations against Twixt often centred around his tactics being ?unfair?. Implicit in that is the suggestion that his behaviour did not lead to game enjoyment for others; indeed, it adversely affected their game experience. While according to the game rules his sole objective is the victory of his team, i.e. the ?heroes?, the social rules mandate a degree of altruism, and factor the enjoyment of other players into the player?s objectives. It should go without saying that in a real armed conflict ? if we were talking about real heroes and villains fighting for a city ? the enjoyment of the other participants would be irrelevant. Treating the game as a simple simulation of armed conflict is one of Twixt?s sins in this sense. If anyone is familiar with GNS theory, the game rules were to a degree simulationist, while the social laws demanded a more gamist standard; while realistically a member of one team should perhaps do anything to destroy the other team regardless of gamer social codes, in the name of mutual enjoyment a concession is made.
Really, it?s a fascinating study, and I think the title of this topic and the article in The Escapist is highly misleading. The study does not demonstrate or even attempt to demonstrate that ?MMOG players are jerks?; this is bad journalism, and makes me wonder if Malygris bothered to read the study or understand what the point of it is. On the contrary, it?s about the evolution of social laws, restrictions, and taboos, and about the reactions to a person who violates what could be called ?gamer?s honour?. The CoH/V player community behaved reasonably, and indeed as real life communities behave when faced with repeat violators of social law.
On a final note, I was depressed that the study pluralised ?NPC? with an apostrophe. It was otherwise well-written, but I am saddened if academic standards in the US are now so low that such blatant grammatical errors are the norm.
Anyone who enjoys grind is obviously a jerk. Look at your bosses.VincentX3 said:
I didn't have this problem in CoH or CoV because I was so silent.
I progressed very far in the game and because of my nature of teaming up with other players and making new friends until slowly I could insult other players, I fit in quite well.
Then I realized what I was becoming and that made me throw the disk out the window.
I went back to my FPS.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that saw through this. Twixt was basically just trolling. I know this sounds extremely childish, but it must be said: He started it.
He went outside the social norms. He broke the rules set down by the society, and the society reacted accordingly. They rejected him saying, "You're a disturbance. Get the fuck out." I can't believe Twixt tried to spin this like he was innocent. That's like walking around yelling swear words at children and old people, then wondering why others around you are getting upset.
He went outside the social norms. He broke the rules set down by the society, and the society reacted accordingly. They rejected him saying, "You're a disturbance. Get the fuck out." I can't believe Twixt tried to spin this like he was innocent. That's like walking around yelling swear words at children and old people, then wondering why others around you are getting upset.
now THATS interesting i played city of villians a few months back (don't anymore because of no time or money to play it back to guild wars now) and i found them to be incredibly friendly.
also this guy must be the only villian on the game, i would love to be able to be that famous and sought after, i say it would make the game better
just made him rambo in a video game.
also this guy must be the only villian on the game, i would love to be able to be that famous and sought after, i say it would make the game better
just made him rambo in a video game.that still dose not give them the rights to try to find him and his family in real life . its a fucking game.saregos said:
No one tried to find his family or tried to confront him in real life in any way. It's the internet, remember? An enormous pool of anonymous jerk-offs who just want a little attention every now and again. It was an empty threat, and if he honestly feared for his life, he should get his internet taken away, as he is clearly not ready to handle it. It would be damn near impossible to find his IP and track it to his residence anyway. He acted like a douche, people treated him like a douche. Plain and simple everyday internet dumbfuckery.you rolled a one said:
Why does innocence even factor into it? The experiment was 'go to a structured online community, behave like an asshat yet in complete accordance with the stated game rules, and thus demonstrate that social rules do not organically arise from system rules'. He thus deliberately escalated the disturbance, because he needed vocal responses. The response ranged, at its highest level, to the most meaningful punishment the other players could threaten. That's what happens when conflict is escalated.Raykuza said:
ok Neutral you do make a valid point, but theres still some holes. he didnt choose to not team, he was forced to not team, yes his methods were shady but he wasnt greifin he was roleplayin but abit to extreme. also he was decently known, before that, he was in onea the bigger guilds in the game and had lottsa ppl who he played with before the experiment, and just because he was playin abit differently they booted him and ppl shunned him. ok i admit he did go to far on some things but at the same time, the fact is he got death threats just for disrupting there precious little order. yea i wouldnt contribute anything to that game, why would i waste my time on abuncha losers who completely punish and try to get banned and even mass try to kill someone who , while yes i admit crossed a few social lines , just did things alittle differently. everyone sees things differently and i respect your right to have your own view too, it was just for me i just saw a really stupid reaction to a minor issue. he didnt even set out to grief, he set out to follow the ingame rules, albit very strictly, it was the ppl in the game that assumed he was griefing just to be an ass. Yea sure he got no xp or stuff from tping into the npcs, that wasnt his goal. he was trien to win the area like the designers of the game designed the area for, and while yes abit cheap, was still just useing the resources available to him there.
