Professor by day, griefer by night

[Ratman_tf]

Professor creates Superbadass villain in a game about Heroes and Villains and this is a bad thing? You got it all mixed up here that's what MMO's should be about, if people want to take on evil personas in a virtual world more the fucking power to them. I mean he's probably never even robbed a pen from the stationery room.

I loved that issue where Doctor Doom trained the city guards onto the Fantastic Four and then teabagged their corpses.

[Khaldun]

Huh.  Interesitng.  Isn't that exactly what the author of this paper is trying to do?

And as for this...

Just another "academic" fucking things up on a quest for knowledge and an overarching theory on gaming to unlock its secret deeper meaning. Nothing like academia coming into the party and fucking things up, much like they do at any kegger or club party event. Instead of just enjoying the event for what it is, there is always some agenda being played out that these super sleuths just have to figure out.

bah... 

Just no.  The paper is neither academic or journalistic, although I suppose it aspires to both.  The conclusions are obvious, logical and trivial and the facts behind the story consist of a lopsided retelling of anecdotes by an obvious retard.

Oh I agree... don't take that the wrong way. But its only a matter of time before a cyber Tea Room Trade type qualitative study comes out. I think this is the first shot fired by someone with some time under his belt. I know a few grad students I talked with at national meetings who were interested in studying online communities linked with games but none could find the backing from advisors or tenured faculty. 

? There's a significant field of people working on online communities linked with games, including grad students. It's not a huge field of study, sure, but it's there, and imho, there's some very good, careful work being done that I think explores questions that gamers do care about or ought to care about.

Even the question of griefing per se, really. All of us here are familiar with griefing as a phenomenon, we're familiar with disputes over what is or is not griefing, but that hardly means that we have a single or comprehensive explanation for what motivates griefers or that we can in all cases simply define what is or is not griefing beyond any dispute.

[Venkman]

I think it's interesting, but I also wonder what question needs to be answered in virtual worlds that hasn't already been answered by basic psychology. It's nice that worlds provide a nice controlled environment that let people push bounds they'd never push in the real world, but hasn't ample research already been done on people who do push those bounds in the real world?

Not a hard logic path to follow. Unless you assume everyone is good by nature until some external event changes them.

[Amarr HM]

I loved that issue where Doctor Doom trained the city guards onto the Fantastic Four and then teabagged their corpses.

I preferred the one where he pushed old grannies off the bus and spat in the bus drivers face, truly an evil genius.

[UnSub]

It's nice that worlds provide a nice controlled environment that let people push bounds they'd never push in the real world, but hasn't ample research already been done on people who do push those bounds in the real world?

Not a hard logic path to follow. Unless you assume everyone is good by nature until some external event changes them.

True, but online environments arguably lower the barriers to performing certain actions while our reactions to those events can be the same. The first online rape I believe is attributed to Mr Bungle; he never physically touched anyone, but his actions were felt by the victim to have incredibly harmful emotional effects.

So if it is easier to push the boundaries, at what point is "too far"? Insulting someone's sexuality? Teabagging them? Repeatedly ganking them until they log out in a ragequit?

What makes someone grief - and take enjoyment from it - is an interesting sociological question. Especially when it turns out the person doing it isn't a 14-yo with a grudge against the world, but a tenured professor.

[amiable]

You know, this guy is right.  Just the other day I was playing chess with a friend and right before he moved I spit directly into his face.  While clearly not against the rules he got up and became physically violent!!!!  It just goes to show you how strangely attached these folks are to their precious "unpoken rules" are when just playing a game.

Spitting into someone's face is universal gesture of contempt, completely unrelated and not attached to chess or any other activity you could be partaking at the time. You could spit into the guy's face out of the blue and in middle of street and odds are, you'd get the same reaction. Bending mechanics of computer game on the other hand ... that can only happen when playing said computer game and as part of that game.

Apples and oranges, in other words.

"Oh hey, when I act like a douchebag in real life people don't like me.  But that is like TOTALLY unrelated to how people should react to me when I am a douchebag in a  video game.  It's completely different!"

I also simply bent mechanics to spit in my opponents face.  It's reality's fault for not putting some kind of restriction on my behavior, perhaps we never should have evolved saliva glands.  But they are there, and there is nothing stopping me from using them, so they are obviously part of the game.

[Amarr HM]

I also simply bent mechanics to spit in my opponents face.  It's reality's fault for not putting some kind of restriction on my behavior, perhaps we never should have evolved saliva glands.  But they are there, and there is nothing stopping me from using them, so they are obviously part of the game.

I thought I'd highlight where you're going wrong here, for your own sake.

Computer game = not reality.

[IainC]

He (and many others) are also handwaving away the fact that often it isn't reasonably possible to fix some exploits in code and that saying 'the game lets you do this but you shouldn't' can be an acceptable way of resolving a problem like the one described. Either the exploit isn't considered critical enough to justify resources devoted to it (which doesn't make it less of an exploit) or fixing it will make something else worse.

In that case 'soft rules' are expected to be adhered to just as much as the limits of reality that are hard-coded into your digital crack of choice. I mean the game doesn't prevent you from installing a macro-botting program, wall hacks and radar right? So it must be ok and anyone who says otherwise just hates freedom!

[tmp]

"Oh hey, when I act like a douchebag in real life people don't like me.  But that is like TOTALLY unrelated to how people should react to me when I am a douchebag in a  video game.  It's completely different!"

You know, that's kind of the point -- for some people these things happening in a computer game do make it completely different. Actions which in real world have harmful physical impact lack that effect when the target is virtual doll, plus it is much easier to disregard potential reactions of the target when you never get to see them. Combined, that can and does warp behaviours quite a lot. You may see that guy to be a douchebag, and he may see you just a carebear who should qq more because your tears taste so sweet.

And with this in mind and social norms being mostly shaped by the views of majority at given point, it can be tricky to tell where that norm actually lies in what's pretty much very fresh environment. So it's not a bad thing to have some actual research into it.

[amiable]

I also simply bent mechanics to spit in my opponents face.  It's reality's fault for not putting some kind of restriction on my behavior, perhaps we never should have evolved saliva glands.  But they are there, and there is nothing stopping me from using them, so they are obviously part of the game.

I thought I'd highlight where you're going wrong here, for your own sake.

Computer game = not reality.

Wrong grammatically or philosophically?  I say this because I actually spent some time thinking about the possessive form of the word "reality."

In any event I think the point I am trying to make is obvious, in the context of any game there is a generally accepted concept known as "sportsmanship" (which varies from game to game) and when one steps outside those bounds, you are going to be disliked.  Now this concept varies based on the sport and the degree of being a jerk, take for example two examples from my high school football career:

1.  One of the players on our team had intimate relations with the sister of the opposing teams right tackle.  Throughout the course of the game several members of the team commented before plays about how great it was to #$%^ so-and-so's sister.  The ref overheard and actually kicked two players out for unsportsmanlike conduct.

2.  I watched a game where our JV team was so outmatched that they got blown out 60-something to zero.  In general everyone was pissed off that the opponent ran up the score.

Now it is not against the rules of the game to call someones sister a whore or to run up the score, but in general it is considered bad form and folks are not going to like or respect you if you do those kind of things.  Running up the score is considered bad form but acceptable, insulting relatives is considered beyond the pale.  The same thing applies to video games, if you repeatedly use a mechanic that the general community has agreed is broken, folks are not going to like or respect you.  Duh.  That's the issue I had with this professor's "research,"  he was "shocked, shocked" that folks were angry at him for his use of "legitimate" tactics.   Don't get me wrong, I have been a douchebag in plenty of games (lol suicide ganking in EvE, pking in diablo2) but I don't pretend for a single second that I was not doing it to deliberately be a jerk.

[tmp]

In any event I think the point I am trying to make is obvious, in the context of any game there is a generally accepted concept known as "sportsmanship" (which varies from game to game) and when one steps outside those bounds, you are going to be disliked.

For lot of obvious points there's counter-points though. Some of them even quite valid if approached with open mind.

Introducing the Scrub (or "sportsmanship vs playing to win")

[amiable]

In any event I think the point I am trying to make is obvious, in the context of any game there is a generally accepted concept known as "sportsmanship" (which varies from game to game) and when one steps outside those bounds, you are going to be disliked.

For lot of obvious points there's counter-points though. Some of them even quite valid if approached with open mind.

Introducing the Scrub (or "sportsmanship vs playing to win")

I was waiting for someone to bring up the "scrub" post.  The problem with that line of reasoning (at least in the original "scrub" post relating to Street Fighter, this one appears to have been modified) is that even the author acknowledges that there is some behavior in the context of the game engine that is unnacceptable (notably playing broken super characters that cannot be beaten) and the entire community has agreed upon this.  I think that is actually an excellent analogy to the case in point of teleport abuse.  It can be done in the game engine, but there is almost unanimous consensus that it should not be.

We are not discussing pvp or pking in general here, we are discussing the deliberate abuse of a mechanic that almost everyone agrees is stupid and unfair.

(Upon further reading I have some issues with this particular iteration of the "scrub mentality" post as it perverts the original document by including long winded diatribe as to why exploiting is acceptable.  The original deliberately stated that cheating/exploitng was NOT acceptable and focused more on the metagame around using powerful combos and developing defenses to them).

[tmp]

I was waiting for someone to bring up the "scrub" post.  The problem with that line of reasoning is that even the author acknowledges that there is some behavior in the context of the game engine that is unnacceptable (notably playing broken super characters that cannot be beaten) and the enitre community has agreed upon this.  I think that is actually an excellent analogy to the case in point of teleport abuse.  It can be done in the game engine, but there is almost unainmous consensus that it should not be.

We are not discussing pvp or pking in general here, we are discussing the deliberate abuse of a mechanic that almost everyone agrees is stupid and unfair.

I'd be willing to agree if not for a post in this very thread from someone who with little thinking had found some ways to turn tables on the mechanics abuser. Which in a way confirms the "scrub" thing -- problems that could otherwise be worked around stay problems when people choose to cry "unfair" rather than actively counter them. Also, the 'broken things everyone agrees shouldn't be used' are much easier to determine in games which limit the match to just two players duking it out. Open PvP by its very nature can neutralize some seemingly unbeatable advantages.

Or to put it in another way... he wasn't the only guy in game with access to teleport skill, was he?

edit:

(Upon further reading I have some issues with this particular iteration of the "scrub mentality" post as it perverts the original document by including long winded diatribe as to why exploiting is acceptable.  The original deliberately stated that cheating/exploitng was NOT acceptable and focused more on the metagame around using powerful combos and developing defenses to them).

You probably mean this version: http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html

[amiable]

I'd be willing to agree if not for a post in this very thread from someone who with little thinking had found some ways to turn tables on the mechanics abuser. Which in a way confirms the "scrub" thing -- problems that could otherwise be worked around stay problems when people choose to cry "unfair" rather than actively counter them. Also, the 'broken things everyone agrees shouldn't be used' are much easier to determine in games which limit the match to just two players duking it out. Open PvP by its very nature can neutralize some seemingly unbeatable advantages.

Or to put it in another way... he wasn't the only guy in game with access to teleport skill, was he?

Well first I think the enitre "scrub mentality" mindset was developed by a 14-year old in an attempt to rationalize poor sportmanship so if you are operating from that frame of refence I am just going to have to fundamentally disagree with you.  The issue is not whether teleporting can be countered.  The issue was players reactions to his behavior and the professors apparent surprise that folks thought he was a dickhead.  You have an option to be an unsportsmanlike dickhead who wants to win and all costs and ruin everyone else fun, but don't labor under the illusion that folks are going to view you as some kind of hero for your decidedly obnoxious behavior. (See Bobby Knight).

[tmp]

Only just noticed but interestingly enough, Sirlin has article on this very professor case -- http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2009/7/7/dr-house-and-the-professor-who-played-to-win.html

edit:

The issue was players reactions to his behavior and the professors apparent surprise that folks thought he was a dickhead.

I guess this just comes back to potential difference in views on what is acceptable as part of the play, which in turn can stem from different perceptions of virtual environment and how it alters (or not) impact of behaviours.

Also, there actually isn't much surprise or "shock" expressed in his paper, it's pretty much neutral in reporting the results. It seems lot of that "lolol why he's shocked at what he's found out" thing going around is a distortion casting the guy in negative light, quite like it happened to his character in game.

[amiable]

Also, there actually isn't much surprise or "shock" expressed in his paper, it's pretty much neutral in reporting the results. It seems lot of that "lolol why he's shocked at what he's found out" thing going around is a distortion casting the guy in negative light, quite like it happened to his character in game.

We aren't discussing his paper.  We are discussing what he said to a reporter during an interview, things like:

"He believes it proved that, even in a 21st century digital fantasyland, an ugly side of real-world human nature pervades, a side that oppresses strangers whose behavior strays from that of the mainstream."

Yes, people thought he was a dickhead for acting like a dickhead, and then they "oppressed" him by ostracizing him.  I demand this man be given a chair at Yale!

Also from the article:

"Myers was stunned by the reaction, since he obeyed the game's rules"

We are not in any way distorting what this dude said.  He was "stunned" that folks would have a negative reaction to his acting like a douche.   See why we are laughing at him?

[Amarr HM]

He (and many others) are also handwaving away the fact that often it isn't reasonably possible to fix some exploits in code and that saying 'the game lets you do this but you shouldn't' can be an acceptable way of resolving a problem like the one described. Either the exploit isn't considered critical enough to justify resources devoted to it (which doesn't make it less of an exploit) or fixing it will make something else worse.

Hehe "developer think" You wouldn't even need to touch the code just publish a blog stating it's an exploit anyone reported doing it will be dealt with, this is pretty much what CCP do except without the devblog :P

[Nevermore]

Only just noticed but interestingly enough, Sirlin has article on this very professor case -- http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2009/7/7/dr-house-and-the-professor-who-played-to-win.html

The problem with that article is it takes everything Myers wrote in his paper at face value.  Unfortunately there are numerous distortions in that paper, and more than one outright lie.  Reasonable conclusions can't be drawn from it because the data is unreliable.

[kildorn]

In any event I think the point I am trying to make is obvious, in the context of any game there is a generally accepted concept known as "sportsmanship" (which varies from game to game) and when one steps outside those bounds, you are going to be disliked.

For lot of obvious points there's counter-points though. Some of them even quite valid if approached with open mind.

Introducing the Scrub (or "sportsmanship vs playing to win")

Nothing about playing to win (assuming you aren't out and out cheating) should absolve any social stigma for doing so, however.

I can expect some level of scorn and derision if I say, bust out my A game against a basketball team of quadriplegics. Why? Because it's a dick move. Now, should I play to win? Certainly, in a highly competitive arena.

I will note for a second though, that Twixt was not "playing to win" by the rules of the game. He was playing to stall. His method of killing opposing players did nothing to earn points for himself or his team. The equivalent to playing a soccer game with the express intent of simply injuring the other team off the field. While you may technically be "winning" in a sense, you are not winning by the rules of the game (which would be to score points).

This entirely stops short of the extreme of "play to win", which would be anything goes playstyle. Radar hacks, steriods, drugging the opposing players, whatnot. There's a hard stop where skill at a game matters, versus doing ANYTHING to win.

[Khaldun]

I think it's interesting, but I also wonder what question needs to be answered in virtual worlds that hasn't already been answered by basic psychology. It's nice that worlds provide a nice controlled environment that let people push bounds they'd never push in the real world, but hasn't ample research already been done on people who do push those bounds in the real world?

Not a hard logic path to follow. Unless you assume everyone is good by nature until some external event changes them.

I think there's a set of aesthetic and interpretative questions about virtual worlds that parallel the questions that any cultural form raises: what works, what doesn't, what's meaningful or artistic or beautiful, what advances or changes the form, what retards its development. Same questions that a smart, thoughtful, knowledgeable person can ask about film, or literature, or theater, etc., just that those questions take on a particular character when digital games or virtual worlds are the subject.

There's a second set of more sociological and psychological questions about virtual worlds where something like basic psychology is relevant. First, keep in mind that there are plenty of questions about psychology, sociology and cultural practices that are far from "answered", so any new source of data or new environment can be useful. There's interesting research, for example, about how players in virtual worlds tend to maintain distance between avatars that's roughly similar to the distance that we tend to maintain between ourselves and others in the real world, and that being too close to another avatar produces some of the same discomfort that being too close in the real world can. Once you see the research, you say, "Of course!", but it's still interesting to discover that our social psychology is portable into a representation of a person. (The results change also depending on the way a game represents an avatar and whether or not you're dealing with avatars you presume to be controlled by other people or avatars that are controlled by the game engine.)

For me, the most interesting distinctive sociological and anthropological questions about virtual worlds involve questions about the interaction between design & rulesets on one hand and the culture and society of a given virtual world on the other. Those are interesting questions because we have a lot of the same kinds of issues in the world at large (the relationship between laws and behavior, social structure and behavior, deep psychology or biology and behavior, history and behavior, and so on), but virtual worlds sometimes let you think about those questions in novel ways. Sometimes because the rules-to-practices relationships are a lot simpler than in the real world--you can see new cultural practices or social relationships shift and form after developers make a small change in the rules or game environment, or conversely, you can see players stubbornly reproducing some practices even when developers try to get them to change what they're doing. Sometimes because of the time and spatial compression of virtual worlds: things happen far faster and in a smaller physical and social space than the world at large. Sometimes because the relationship between developers and players has some really distinctive aspects that aren't closely mimicked or paralleled in the real world, or because a gameworld can do or be things that the real world cannot be.

[tmp]

Nothing about playing to win (assuming you aren't out and out cheating) should absolve any social stigma for doing so, however.

I can expect some level of scorn and derision if I say, bust out my A game against a basketball team of quadriplegics. Why? Because it's a dick move.

If the team of quadriplegics enters the game with your team fully aware you'll play to the best of your ability and they don't request a handicap, the alternate view could be it's a dick move to pity them and not play at your actual level. As it's apparently not what they want, and it's not like someone is twisting their arm to get them into that game with you.

Overall the point being... that 'social stigma' etc, it can often stem from difference in opinions where neither of the views is actually more valid than other. It can be expected as reaction yes, but not necessarily taken into account as any kind of worthy feedback by the person who sees no logical reason to subscribe to that view to begin with. "Cry some moar" etc.

I will note for a second though, that Twixt was not "playing to win" by the rules of the game. He was playing to stall. His method of killing opposing players did nothing to earn points for himself or his team.

Well, the goal as per rules of the game was to take control of multiple hotspots in the zone, and he claims that's what he's been achieving during his play. If that's the case then i'd have to conclude he was indeed playing to win *and* winning, at least according to how the game rules would define victory conditions.

[Musashi]

Why was he not banned?

[kildorn]

Well, the goal as per rules of the game was to take control of multiple hotspots in the zone, and he claims that's what he's been achieving during his play. If that's the case then i'd have to conclude he was indeed playing to win *and* winning, at least according to how the game rules would define victory conditions.

He can't have been obtaining the objectives (someone else may have been, but not him), since you'll not from nevermore's description of the zone, only one said hotspot is within his normal drone hunting range.

Now, if the hotspots were full of faction NPCs that he was pulling into while capping/defending the point, you have a point.

If he's just killing hostiles by dragging them into random NPC packs, he's doing nothing more than deathmatching in the middle of the WSG field. Which isn't winning by any real measure of the rules of the game.

[Venkman]

For me, the most interesting distinctive sociological and anthropological questions about virtual worlds involve questions about the interaction between design & rulesets on one hand and the culture and society of a given virtual world on the other. Those are interesting questions because we have a lot of the same kinds of issues in the world at large (the relationship between laws and behavior, social structure and behavior, deep psychology or biology and behavior, history and behavior, and so on), but virtual worlds sometimes let you think about those questions in novel ways. Sometimes because the rules-to-practices relationships are a lot simpler than in the real world--you can see new cultural practices or social relationships shift and form after developers make a small change in the rules or game environment, or conversely, you can see players stubbornly reproducing some practices even when developers try to get them to change what they're doing. Sometimes because of the time and spatial compression of virtual worlds: things happen far faster and in a smaller physical and social space than the world at large. Sometimes because the relationship between developers and players has some really distinctive aspects that aren't closely mimicked or paralleled in the real world, or because a gameworld can do or be things that the real world cannot be.

You raised some great points. I should clarify that I'm not looking to write off these worlds as mere simulcra of what we already know about human existence. Rather, I think the "surprise" and "uniqueness" aspect often trumpeted in reports of player behavior inflate the actual amount of surprise and uniqueness a semi-aware person should have about them. Having those reactions from a newb is fine. Having those from a scientist is where I have the problem.

Separately, to the quote above, yea, that's the part I find the most intriguing as well. While some of our behaviors may be transportable, the environment itself changes the outcome. The challenge isn't the changed behavior, it's the disproportionate impact that behavior has on other people. But there's still an underlying question I've often wondered about:

Do the percentage of people "cheating" in some form in a virtual world correlate in any way to the percentage of people in the physical world? Do permissive anonymous worlds unlock an inner-cheat in all of us? Or do most people bring with them the morals of the real space?

[WayAbvPar]

He (and many others) are also handwaving away the fact that often it isn't reasonably possible to fix some exploits in code and that saying 'the game lets you do this but you shouldn't' can be an acceptable way of resolving a problem like the one described. Either the exploit isn't considered critical enough to justify resources devoted to it (which doesn't make it less of an exploit) or fixing it will make something else worse.

In that case 'soft rules' are expected to be adhered to just as much as the limits of reality that are hard-coded into your digital crack of choice. I mean the game doesn't prevent you from installing a macro-botting program, wall hacks and radar right? So it must be ok and anyone who says otherwise just hates freedom!

If the 'soft rules' were put in place by the development team and communicated to the player base, then he would have been banned after a warning or two. If the dev team wasn't concerned enough about it to take any action, it is fair game. Sure the guy is a dick, but I will never tire of harvesting the tears of people who play PvP games, enter PvP zones, and then bitch when they get killed. That just baffles me.

[Nevermore]

Why was he not banned?

Because it's nearly impossible to be banned from CoX.  At least back then, might be different now that it's Paragon Studios.  GMing was always handled directly by NCsoft though, and they had one GM pool that did the duties for all their active games.

[tmp]

He can't have been obtaining the objectives (someone else may have been, but not him), since you'll not from nevermore's description of the zone, only one said hotspot is within his normal drone hunting range.

Well, that's presuming that teleporting people into guarding NPCs was the only thing he was doing in the zone 24/7 leaving him no time for anything else. If it was on the other hand used simply as a way to get the people out of path to the actual objective then it doesn't exclude possibility he was winning the games there eventually. If his claim of winning games was false i'd expect people to deny/question it, just like they did with his other claims...

[Nevermore]

If the 'soft rules' were put in place by the development team and communicated to the player base, then he would have been banned after a warning or two. If the dev team wasn't concerned enough about it to take any action, it is fair game. Sure the guy is a dick, but I will never tire of harvesting the tears of people who play PvP games, enter PvP zones, and then bitch when they get killed. That just baffles me.

This is just guessing but I wouldn't be surprised if it was just considered too much of a headache to have to constantly police the behavior instead of just ignore it.  I'm not sure exactly what the relationship between the studio (Cryptic and later Paragon Studio) and the admin functions (NCsoft doing GMing, accounts, billing and the like) is like and who gets final say on what would be actionable or not.  I know that when NCsoft had that big GM layoff (I think it was after Auto Assault crashed and burned) it became really hard to get a GM to respond to even gamestopping issues in a timely fashion.  Getting a GM to investigate whether or not someone was droning in PvP was probably deemed too time consuming to bother with.

[Nevermore]

He can't have been obtaining the objectives (someone else may have been, but not him), since you'll not from nevermore's description of the zone, only one said hotspot is within his normal drone hunting range.

Well, that's presuming that teleporting people into guarding NPCs was the only thing he was doing in the zone 24/7 leaving him no time for anything else. If it was on the other hand used simply as a way to get the people out of path to the actual objective then it doesn't exclude possibility he was winning the games there eventually. If his claim of winning games was false i'd expect people to deny/question it, just like they did with his other claims...

It's actually not a trivial thing to capture a pillbox unless it's a group of people doing it or no one is bothering you.  Not hard so much as time consuming.  I can't say he's lying about it, but I find his claim that he captured the zone "hundreds of times" to be questionable.  Not impossible, since in the morning and early afternoon the pvp zones were mostly devoid of people, but he spins it as though he's some unstoppable cyclone sweeping all opposition aside as he single-handedly claimed victory for the heroes despite the best efforts of the villains to stop him.  Let me assure you this was not the case.

It sounds like he had a lot of free time so he could have done a lot of that zone capturing when there wasn't much opposition.  

Oh, that reminds me of the influence farmers, who did spend most of their time farming in RV at off-peak hours.  These were not the regular players just trying to get influence for whatever, these were the 'professional' farmers that sold influence. Aka, the Chinese goldfarmers.  They did this in RV because one of the many design flaws of the zone is the mechanics of the 'Heavies'.  Heavies are large robots that you can take control of as pets.  They are very powerful and hard to kill.  The design is that you use the heavies to help capture the pillboxes and as something that changes up PvP some from the other zones.  Sort of like the WoW vehicles.  

The flaw is you still get influence from killing NPCs when your Heavy kills them.  Thus, the goldfarmer gets a Heavy and has it kill all the enemy faction NPCs for almost free influence.  This is not considered an exploit.  Obviously, the goldfarmer hates and refuses to engage in PvP if at all humanly possible.  Most fit the tired stereotype of having very limited knowledge of English, thus you'd hear 'No PK' if you attacked one.  So the vitriol aimed at Twixt wouldn't have come from the goldfarmers, but it's likely some of his assumptions that people wouldn't PvP in RV was based on the goldfarmers.  But in all honesty, Myers should have known better since it was very common knowledge about what was going on with them.

Edit: also, Villain-side goldfarming was more popular for the farmers than Hero-side because the Villain Heavy has a large PBAoE attack that will one-hit kill anything except boss-level NPCs, and the Heavy will just two or three hit kill those.  The Hero Heavy has nasty attacks too, but the damage attacks it has are mostly single-target.  Its AoE is made up of more crowd control, which makes it much less efficient for farming.

[amiable]

If the team of quadriplegics enters the game with your team fully aware you'll play to the best of your ability and they don't request a handicap, the alternate view could be it's a dick move to pity them and not play at your actual level. As it's apparently not what they want, and it's not like someone is twisting their arm to get them into that game with you.

I see, your that guy! You know, the guy who trashtalks at the company softball game.  The guy who deliberately fouls a 90 pound 14 year old girl in their rec league game.  The guy who comes to nickel poker game wearing sunglasses and sitting stone-faced like he was Chris Moneymaker.

Dude, not every leisure time activity is the Superbowl.  There are rational limits to the degree of competitiveness one exhibits that relate to the activity and circumstance one belongs in.  If you were playing in the NBA finals you would be expected to play far more aggressively then in a pick up game with your 12 year old niece.  Now apply that to video games.  Sure if I was in a competitive league with money on the line folks would expect bringing your A-game and doing everything possible to win.  Sitting around with your level 80 rogue and one-shotting everyone in the Barrens: dick move (I should know, I have done this).  Why can't you understand this?

I am not saying this should be stopped, you may have a very good reason to kill level 20's in the Barrens (maybe to draw out higher level characters in their guild).  But don't pretend your not playing the asshat card, because you are.

[Musashi]

Why was he not banned?

Because it's nearly impossible to be banned from CoX.  At least back then, might be different now that it's Paragon Studios.  GMing was always handled directly by NCsoft though, and they had one GM pool that did the duties for all their active games.

Of course it wasn't impossible to ban him.  They just didn't.  They probably should have, as it was pretty clearly an unintended exploit.  I mean, Blizz would have banned him in two shakes of a lamb's tail.  On the other hand, Blizz probably would have closed the loophole too.

[Nevermore]

Why was he not banned?

Because it's nearly impossible to be banned from CoX.  At least back then, might be different now that it's Paragon Studios.  GMing was always handled directly by NCsoft though, and they had one GM pool that did the duties for all their active games.

Of course it wasn't impossible to ban him.  They just didn't.  They probably should have, as it was pretty clearly an unintended exploit.  I mean, Blizz would have banned him in two shakes of a lamb's tail.  On the other hand, Blizz probably would have closed the loophole too.

Of course it's not impossible for NCsoft/Cryptic/Paragon to ban someone.  I'm saying the way they set the system up it's nearly impossible for a player to do something that gets them banned.  You have to move well past the grey areas and into actions that force the Admin's hands before you get into ban territory.  I've tried to lay out possible reasons why that's so, but I've never seen the inner workings of how NCsoft set up their GM structure so I'm just speculating and could be way off base.

Yes, Blizz would have banned him and imo rightly so.  But as far as I know Vivendi isn't doing the GMing for Blizzard.  Blizzard does that for themselves.  Extra layer of hierarchy + not enough staff = lots of stuff gets ignored.  At least, that's my theory.

[Khaldun]

Do the percentage of people "cheating" in some form in a virtual world correlate in any way to the percentage of people in the physical world? Do permissive anonymous worlds unlock an inner-cheat in all of us? Or do most people bring with them the morals of the real space?

I think this is exactly the kind of question that:

a) gamers are keenly aware of
b) have been discussing avidly more or less ever since MUDs
c) is both important and really difficult to resolve in any final way (important for good design, important for having fun in games, important for what it might tell us about cheating or rules-breaking in the wider world)
d) academic games research could contribute to exploring in ways that go beyond or complement what gamers themselves already know

Mia Consolvo has a really good book on cheating in MMOs that at the very least would enliven any discussion of these issues. I just think gamers sometimes tend to feel so jaded both by long experience with games and by having long since arrived at their own personal theory about these issues that they forget how live and open these kinds of questions still are. It's one reason that even here, on a games-centered forum, it's getting hard to keep some conversations about games going for very long and everyone goes off to Politics or whatever, because there's a tendency to say, "Eh, we already know the answer to this, there's nothing to talk about any more, stfu". I agree that when you've been talking about an issue forever, there's a tendency to just want to wash your hands of it and walk away, but sometimes there's a good reason why a topic just won't go away.

This is not to say that this particular researcher's work is the best way to explore these questions, mind you. But just one small thought: it can be pretty hard if you're writing about games for non-gamer audiences to figure out what to explain and not explain, and there's often a certain amount of mugging for the camera going on just because you can't start by saying, "Ok, we already all know that most of this is an old and established story in virtual worlds, so let me cut to the chase and tell you about the one interesting novelty to the way I was looking at this issue."

[AutomaticZen]

If the team of quadriplegics enters the game with your team fully aware you'll play to the best of your ability and they don't request a handicap, the alternate view could be it's a dick move to pity them and not play at your actual level. As it's apparently not what they want, and it's not like someone is twisting their arm to get them into that game with you.

I see, your that guy! You know, the guy who trashtalks at the company softball game.  The guy who deliberately fouls a 90 pound 14 year old girl in their rec league game.  The guy who comes to nickel poker game wearing sunglasses and sitting stone-faced like he was Chris Moneymaker.

Dude, not every leisure time activity is the Superbowl.  There are rational limits to the degree of competitiveness one exhibits that relate to the activity and circumstance one belongs in.  If you were playing in the NBA finals you would be expected to play far more aggressively then in a pick up game with your 12 year old niece.  Now apply that to video games.  Sure if I was in a competitive league with money on the line folks would expect bringing your A-game and doing everything possible to win.  Sitting around with your level 80 rogue and one-shotting everyone in the Barrens: dick move (I should know, I have done this).  Why can't you understand this?

I am not saying this should be stopped, you may have a very good reason to kill level 20's in the Barrens (maybe to draw out higher level characters in their guild).  But don't pretend your not playing the asshat card, because you are.

Wrong metaphor.  It's one-shotting a level 20 who's standing in Icecrown somehow. 

Anyways, context is everything. 

If your favorite team is playing another in competitive basketball, and they're crushing them 80-0 at the half, do you think they should stop?

[tmp]

I see, your that guy! You know, the guy who trashtalks at the company softball game.  The guy who deliberately fouls a 90 pound 14 year old girl in their rec league game.  The guy who comes to nickel poker game wearing sunglasses and sitting stone-faced like he was Chris Moneymaker.

No, more of the guy who doesn't get a popping vein if the other party chooses to play it rough. Winning (or losing) an all-out match tends to be more satisfying than playing one where you know the opponent is going easy on you, so if i get opportunity for one it just seems silly to cry "oh but it's lame".

I don't think that many people actually enjoy knowing they were deliberately given a handicap because their opponent thought they suck so much they need one, when it wasn't arranged beforehand. Of course ymmv.

Dude, not every leisure time activity is the Superbowl.  There are rational limits to the degree of competitiveness one exhibits that relate to the activity and circumstance one belongs in.  If you were playing in the NBA finals you would be expected to play far more aggressively then in a pick up game with your 12 year old niece.

What if it's 12 year olds playing with one another, are they allowed to play aggressively against someone who is as (un)skilled as they are? Or is this not allowed and they're being dicks if they try because it's not NBA? Or what if it's activity where there's no risk of physical injury which would cause the "won't someone please think of the children" card no longer really apply?

While true that not every leisure activity is the Superbowl it doesn't equal it is somehow wrong to ever make it anything more focused than just casual dicking around. Rational rules stop being rational when they're applied too strictly.