Rush to World

[HaemishM]

This is my world, you just a squirrel, looking for a nut.

[Fargull]

Nice article Haemish.  The only reply I have is that I don't want the hallway games we currently have with the EQ clones...

UO was a world of tangents, not a single progression to x level.  I do want a GAME though, not just a sandbox.  I would like to be able to be able to collect wood and build skies and go sking in a game, or if I wanted to get together a few friends for some cards, we could do that.. as well as going foozel bopping or capturing the flag, or exploring the dungeon.

[Bunk]

I want both, simple as that. I want a game in which I accomplish something, but I want to be allowed to do it my way at my own pace. I think it's one reason I like GTA:SA so much: it's a virtual sandbox of a world, but the game still gives you the ability to accomplish things even if you ignore the main "quests". Even if I'm just running around in the world, I can still find new things, raise my skills, find new jumps, pickup side missions, etc. Each of these things gives me that rewarding "ding" while not limiting me to having to follow the story to get those dings. Then, when I'm in the mood for more substantial accomplishment, the main quest line is there to continue along.

[Samwise]

As I've said, make GTA into a MMOG and you'd never hear from me again.  Whether or not you like the mafia/gangsta theme, it is what games/virtual worlds aspire to be.

[Kail]

One idea I've seen thrown around a few places (including here, I think, a while ago) was the idea of having "Intelligent" NPCs compensate for the more extreme player actions.  A lot of us want to be warriors, but nobody wants to die, so one solution seems to be to add in some NPC characters to act as Stormtroopers.  Players get to run around slaughtering all they want, but the average ratio of kills/deaths is way higher for all the players.  Players want worlds that will react to their actions, but their actions will reduce their worlds to charred wastelands in short order, so one solution would be to add in some NPC characters who would rebuild smashed villages, replant razed fields, and so on.  Few players want to do that, but you could get NPCs to do it, and who are they going to bitch to about their boring jobs?

Devs are designing worlds, so it seems to me that if X needs to get done, and nobody wants to do it, that the obvious solution would be to introduce some element to the world that would do it on it's own.  The least immersion breaking implementation of this that I can think of is to assign NPCs to do it.  That way, if some player comes along and decides that he does want to be a beet farmer after all, he has that option, but if nobody wants to do that (or not enough people), then the NPCs can do it instead, and nobody has to starve.  Obviously, this kind of thing would require some currently impossible AI work in addition to designing a game wherin that degree of freedom is possible, but as a pipe dream, I think it has merit.

Yes, there's going to be some moaning from the people who equate "I am happy" with "everyone else is sad," and see the second half of that statement as easier to attain than the first, but I think there are enough consumers out there that you don't have to cater to that kind of thing.

Last minute add:

As I've said, make GTA into a MMOG and you'd never hear from me again. Whether or not you like the mafia/gangsta theme, it is what games/virtual worlds aspire to be.

See, I'd disagree.  I'd argue that it's what MMORPGs already are (twitch aspects aside, and if that was your point, I'm sorry for mangling it).  You have a lot of space to run around in, but the things you can do in it are very limited.  Whether you're a gangsta criusing around in your pimped out ride or a Tauren rumbling around on your elite Kodo, the problem in an MMORPG is that there are going to be eight hundred other guys doing the exact same thing, right next to you.  GTA doesn't solve that.  Morrowind doesn't solve that.  I haven't seen a game that does solve that.  I would love to play a game that does, someday.

[schild]

Radiata Stories does the living world thing better than GTA and Morrowind.

[stray]

Radiata Stories does the living world thing better than GTA and Morrowind.

Hmm...

I'll check it out then.

Morrowind sucks all kinds of shit though, and shouldn't even be mentioned.

[Bunk]

Poo on you.

I just finished watching the Oblivion game play vid. I'm very interested in seeing how the NPC AI ends up. They are touting that npc's will react somewhat dynamically to what happens and what happens to be around them. I would have killed the bitch after she fireballed her dog for barking though.

[Samwise]

As I've said, make GTA into a MMOG and you'd never hear from me again. Whether or not you like the mafia/gangsta theme, it is what games/virtual worlds aspire to be.

See, I'd disagree.  I'd argue that it's what MMORPGs already are (twitch aspects aside, and if that was your point, I'm sorry for mangling it).

Twitch aspects are actually a big part of it, and the latency issue is a big part of why I don't expect to see a GTA MMOG any time soon.  The main difference between GTA and MMOGS is that just bumming around in the GTA world is pretty fun, mainly because the twitchy driving/racing stuff is fun - I spent hours just exploring San Andreas because it was fun to just rip around the world in a dirt bike looking for stuff, even if I didn't find anything.  I was hoping that Auto Assault would have some of that, but from what I'm hearing the "fun" part got cut out between idea and implementation.

The multiplayer thing is potentially sticky, though I think that if you made the world big enough (something like a square mile or two per player) you could mitigate a lot of the grief that would ensue from having a hundred player-controlled thugs per city block.  Add on ways for players to cooperate to mutual benefit (forming gangs or joining the police department or whatever) and you could have a damn fun game.

[koboshi]

My belief is that a virtual world sold as a video game is a project doomed to failure. Not only will you be fighting the players constantly because of the dissociation of morality in a world without physical consequences, but you'll be fighting the very real disparity between a world without end and a video game that can be won.

A Virtual World is Not a Game?

  If the mathematicians can use the word game in Game Theory, why cant virtual worlds call themselves games? {Rimshot} But seriously folks… I agree with you (I think) on the point that players who are used to single player games come to MMOGs expecting to be able to win them. But I don’t think that’s a problem of either worlds or games, if I come to a flight simulator expecting to play football that’s not the fault of the developers of the flight simulator.

PKing means never having to say you’re sorry?

  If a person was given a gun and a potential suicide bomber to shoot, all but the most extreme idealists would not fail to kill the bomber. Why? Because most people’s morality is relative, in this case the potential action of the bomber is counter balanced with the weight of one’s morality. Consider, is there nothing, no one, you[\i] would kill for? Morality accounted for, most people are potential killers. Morality is not why people don’t kill in real life. People don’t kill people because they fear retribution. People fear retribution because the aggrieved party is usually represented by another party who will not stand for such an attack. Said party might be another member of the victim’s family, friends, community, or a paid operative of said groups. But you make a good point if you kill my character online I cant just reach over and punch you (“physical consequences”), but I can kill your character. And as long as the game doesn’t prevent that I see no difference from a real and a virtual world.

Player Killer = Asshole?

  Let’s take a MASE look at Player killers, what motivates them? I propose that player killers want: the challenge of fighting a worthy adversary, the glory of being a famous PKer, the money that can be won, and the psychological thrill of killing another player.  I suppose you, along with many others, would consider only the last to be of importance, and hence your outlook on PKers in general. But if you allow for the considerations of the other factors PKer doesn’t have to be a totally negative description. In your piece you alluded to player justice as if it must be a drab and toilsome ‘civic duty’, but why? It’s not like it has to be the American justice system with its tiers of bureaucracy, frontier justice is much sexier. I mean bounty hunters are just PKers killing PKers, it meets all four motivators for a PKer and acts only to curtail PKers. A legitimate police officer fulfills three of the motivators (-money), the same goes for a soldier. The point is (and I think it’s a similar point to the point you’re making in the article) that in a virtual world PKers aren’t bad, they just are, just as we must consider scorpions, jackals, and sharks, not as evil creatures, but simply as a part of the natural order.

Hey, Niche! Get to a point!

  You’re not discussing the differences between a virtual world and a game, your having an existential argument.  Is it better to live in a world where god decides your life for you, or to live in a world where you decide your own fate? Is it better to live in a world where god will smite anyone who is evil or one where people are subject to one another? Is it better to live in a world where you have someone you can hold responsible for all the evil in the world or one in which you have only yourself to blame for the state of your life?

 

I'm quite sure that the subsequent forum thread on this topic will likely degenerate into a sidetrack derailment, a pages-long rehashing of the oldest religious crusade in MMOG's, PVP vs. PVE.

  Ha! You were wrong, it devolved into a discussion of Grand Theft Auto.

[Yegolev]

The main difference between GTA and MMOGS is that just bumming around in the GTA world is pretty fun, mainly because the twitchy driving/racing stuff is fun - I spent hours just exploring San Andreas because it was fun to just rip around the world in a dirt bike looking for stuff, even if I didn't find anything.

This has been touched on, but I would submit that San Andreas is very fun because you don't have other players screwing up your shit.  Of course this might actually be OK in San Andreas Online, as I am now going to call it.  The thing is that a noob riding a BMX in Ganton is going to be really pissed off when someone shows up in a Hydra to ruin his date with Denise, so you have to think about character advancement in designing SAO.  The possibility of making SAO a game without advancement seems like the most interesting route: characters have static attributes and all areas are immediately accessible, so they guy who just watched Denise eat a missile could drive her ride to Venturas (or whereever), grab his own Hydra and seek flaming revenge.

The multiplayer thing is potentially sticky, though I think that if you made the world big enough (something like a square mile or two per player) you could mitigate a lot of the grief that would ensue from having a hundred player-controlled thugs per city block.  Add on ways for players to cooperate to mutual benefit (forming gangs or joining the police department or whatever) and you could have a damn fun game.

I agree, but I have to once again trot out my mantra of fewer players are better.  Let's forget the word "massive" and instead use the word "persistent" because we aren't interested in a game with two thousand gangstas.  We want our gang to be a tight group of our partners, taking turf or whatever from another tight group.  Cap these groups at, say, thirty players each and you have the opportunity to not only know your crew but know your enemy.  In fact, I'd go so far as to limit the number of gangs as well as the number of members, indirectly creating a low "server" cap.  Maybe, pulling from my ass, four gangs of twenty members each.

[Samwise]

I agree with what you said.

[Sky]

The point is (and I think it’s a similar point to the point you’re making in the article) that in a virtual world PKers aren’t bad, they just are, just as we must consider scorpions, jackals, and sharks, not as evil creatures, but simply as a part of the natural order.

Either way, VW or game, there's no place for the kind of behaviour that PKs (and griefers in general, but by pk I mean non-consentual pvp aimed at disturbing the non-consentual party's game experience) bring into the experience.

In a game, sportsmanship applies. You don't take a shit on the field or tackle the QB after the ball is thrown.

In a VW, then the rules of society should take hold, unless you are a big fan of anarchy, in which case, meet Bubba, your 325lb master.

In both cases, something needs to be done with the socially stunted and undesirable elements. In other words, there is no excuse for being a jackass, especially if someone else is being negatively affected by your actions as such.

I'm surprised there is a debate about this still. How can one defend immature and disruptive behaviour? Really?

I agree, but I have to once again trot out my mantra of fewer players are better

That's been my mantra for a long time, harking back to hearing Designer Dragon utter it once, regarding maximum community density, iirc (around 250 people) before things start to fragment into sub-communities.

And Siege Perilous was an incredible shard in UO. You knew almost every single character or at least their reputation. THAT IS A MMORPG. Not the theme park nonsense devs are trying for these days - theme parks suck.

[HaemishM]

My belief is that a virtual world sold as a video game is a project doomed to failure. Not only will you be fighting the players constantly because of the dissociation of morality in a world without physical consequences, but you'll be fighting the very real disparity between a world without end and a video game that can be won.

A Virtual World is Not a Game?

  If the mathematicians can use the word game in Game Theory, why cant virtual worlds call themselves games? {Rimshot} But seriously folks… I agree with you (I think) on the point that players who are used to single player games come to MMOGs expecting to be able to win them. But I don’t think that’s a problem of either worlds or games, if I come to a flight simulator expecting to play football that’s not the fault of the developers of the flight simulator.

In part, I think it's a problem of marketing. MMOG's are being sold as virtual worlds, when they are nothing of the sort, because someone expecting to come into a video game is going to act like it's a video game. They are going to want to win the game, they are going to want to do all the things you normally associate with video games, including playing however the hell they want, they are going to expect to be entertained. Virtual worlds don't and shouldn't promise any of those things. That doesn't mean they can't contain those things, a la mini-games and such, but virtual worlds are supposed to be about more than just being a game, they are supposed to be a community.

PKing means never having to say you’re sorry?

  If a person was given a gun and a potential suicide bomber to shoot, all but the most extreme idealists would not fail to kill the bomber. Why? Because most people’s morality is relative, in this case the potential action of the bomber is counter balanced with the weight of one’s morality. Consider, is there nothing, no one, you[\i] would kill for? Morality accounted for, most people are potential killers. Morality is not why people don’t kill in real life. People don’t kill people because they fear retribution. People fear retribution because the aggrieved party is usually represented by another party who will not stand for such an attack. Said party might be another member of the victim’s family, friends, community, or a paid operative of said groups. But you make a good point if you kill my character online I cant just reach over and punch you (“physical consequences”), but I can kill your character. And as long as the game doesn’t prevent that I see no difference from a real and a virtual world.

I believe that most people have the capacity for violence but not the stomach. It's one thing to be ABLE to kill someone, it's another to do it. Most people need to be pushed to some extreme in order to kill. And while what you say is extreme (suicide bomber), I still think some would be unable to pull the trigger despite wanting to. I do not believe that every person or even most people are only restricted from their violent tendencies by the threat of authoritarian punishment (or at least not corporeal punishment).

Player Killer = Asshole?

  Let’s take a MASE look at Player killers, what motivates them? I propose that player killers want: the challenge of fighting a worthy adversary, the glory of being a famous PKer, the money that can be won, and the psychological thrill of killing another player.  I suppose you, along with many others, would consider only the last to be of importance, and hence your outlook on PKers in general. But if you allow for the considerations of the other factors PKer doesn’t have to be a totally negative description. In your piece you alluded to player justice as if it must be a drab and toilsome ‘civic duty’, but why? It’s not like it has to be the American justice system with its tiers of bureaucracy, frontier justice is much sexier. I mean bounty hunters are just PKers killing PKers, it meets all four motivators for a PKer and acts only to curtail PKers. A legitimate police officer fulfills three of the motivators (-money), the same goes for a soldier. The point is (and I think it’s a similar point to the point you’re making in the article) that in a virtual world PKers aren’t bad, they just are, just as we must consider scorpions, jackals, and sharks, not as evil creatures, but simply as a part of the natural order.

I used PKers as opposed to PVPers because they are not one and the same. If, as I believe, the founding principle of making a virtual world is that you are trying to create an entirely new community, then PKers, those who kill simply because they can and simply because it will piss their victim off, those people are the enemy of your virtual world. Period. They destroy community. Period. During history, even rampaging Mongols had reasons for their rampages. PKers generally do not, other than the "lamentations of your women." And if you are talking about a subscription game, something the player pays for and thus expects entertainment out of, even more so.

Now if you want a virtual world as an experiment in human group psychology, that's a different story. But that's one of the points I'm making. If sold as video games, players have a right to expect to be entertained, and being the victim is not entertaining. But being the victim is part of being a world. Hence game over world for paid subscription MMOG's.

I'm quite sure that the subsequent forum thread on this topic will likely degenerate into a sidetrack derailment, a pages-long rehashing of the oldest religious crusade in MMOG's, PVP vs. PVE.

  Ha! You were wrong, it devolved into a discussion of Grand Theft Auto.

GTA is the ages old discussion of PVP vs. PVE.  :-D I'd play a GTA MMOG too, so long as it wasn't gangsta style.

[AcidCat]

MMOG's are being sold as virtual worlds, when they are nothing of the sort, because someone expecting to come into a video game is going to act like it's a video game. They are going to want to win the game, they are going to want to do all the things you normally associate with video games, including playing however the hell they want, they are going to expect to be entertained. 

Well I don't think there are any video games out there that truly let you play however you want, nor is there the expectation of such. There are always limits and rules in even the most freeform games, and I don't think gamers have any expectation of some gaming nirvana where anything they can think of they can do.

I know when I think of "game worlds" I'm really just thinking of game environments. I enjoy the game world of WoW, it is colorful and varied, and has character and a sense of style and place. And it exists in service to the game - which I think any game world should. These game vs. world MMO discussions impart a whole set of assumptions on what a "world" is in this context - namely a greater sense of freedom and wider range of activities and potential interactions with other players. It seems like kind of a contrived dichotomy, because most players want both a game and a world - and I don't think they have any expectation that the world is going to entail complete freedom or some kind of complete alternate-reality community.

Who really just wants a "world"? I think very few are looking for that degree of escape from reality, if you have a virtual world that requires all kinds of banal tasks and allows others to interfere with your experience in all kinds of ways, well that's not much of an escape from the real world anyway, you're just replicating the same kind of mundane details, tasks, and interactions that people face in reality. The discussion is really about what kind of gameplay you want and how much freedom you want players to have, and there is a whole spectrum of options.

[Pococurante]

Who really just wants a "world"? I think very few are looking for that degree of escape from reality, if you have a virtual world that requires all kinds of banal tasks and allows others to interfere with your experience in all kinds of ways, well that's not much of an escape from the real world anyway, you're just replicating the same kind of mundane details, tasks, and interactions that people face in reality. The discussion is really about what kind of gameplay you want and how much freedom you want players to have, and there is a whole spectrum of options.

An A_Second_Life_23234 hits your assumption for 999999 damage!
An A_Second_Life_23234 hits your assumption for 999999 damage!
An A_Second_Life_23234 hits your assumption for 999999 damage!
An A_Second_Life_23234 hits your assumption for 999999 damage!
Your assumption dies horribly.
An A_Second_Life_23234 hits your assumption for 999999 damage!

Sorry but your last sentence just seemed wholly at odds with the premise of the rest of your paragraph.

[tazelbain]

Lately I have been think of issue in terms structured vs unstructered play.  What makes GTA feel worldish is that it allows unstructed play options as well as structured ones.  And that fun, unstructured play usually involved interacting  with the world in some colorful way, like the "Make the Police very mad." game. I think we can all agree that a simulation isn't going to work, but I want a game with a world that you can interact with.  Modern MMOGs provide very little unstructured play, everything has become so narrowly focused on xp/item farming that if you want to do anything else you might as well just log off.

[HaemishM]

Who really just wants a "world"? I think very few are looking for that degree of escape from reality, if you have a virtual world that requires all kinds of banal tasks and allows others to interfere with your experience in all kinds of ways, well that's not much of an escape from the real world anyway, you're just replicating the same kind of mundane details, tasks, and interactions that people face in reality.

That's exactly what I'm talking about, and why I harp on trying to sell virtual worlds in video game clothing.

[Pococurante]

Sure how a product is marketed should reflect the actual service provided.

But that's a different thing than saying VWs are bad and have no market relevance.  Which is a silly statement considering the history of online RPGs.

[HaemishM]

The history of online RPG's has been one of taking a good idea and fucking it up in such a horrible fashion it resembles the fractured mind of a 3-year old retarded molestation victim.

[koboshi]

In part, I think it's a problem of marketing. MMOG's are being sold as virtual worlds, when they are nothing of the sort, because someone expecting to come into a video game is going to act like it's a video game.

If they are being sold as virtual worlds, why should people who buy it expect it to be a video game, and not a virtual world... as advertised?!?!?!

I believe that most people have the capacity for violence but not the stomach. It's one thing to be ABLE to kill someone, it's another to do it. Most people need to be pushed to some extreme in order to kill. And while what you say is extreme (suicide bomber), I still think some would be unable to pull the trigger despite wanting to. I do not believe that every person or even most people are only restricted from their violent tendencies by the threat of authoritarian punishment (or at least not corporeal punishment).

  Then what does?

  The great thing about discussing virtual worlds is that we can draw from reality to some extent. Ask yourself, why do people in the real world kill, or in your case why are some people in the real world unwilling to kill. That’s what I did to draw up my list of motivators.

  The reason I ask for this is that I require justification for removal of liberties. (a personality quirk to be sure) Removing PKers by removing the ability to PK is like a surgeon removing an infected hangnail by amputating the hand. When you start talking about those kinds of drastic measures I start looking for a second opinion. I’m not saying that you’re wrong, just that if you’re right, you haven’t proved it.

I used PKers as opposed to PVPers because they are not one and the same. If, as I believe, the founding principle of making a virtual world is that you are trying to create an entirely new community, then PKers, those who kill simply because they can and simply because it will piss their victim off, those people are the enemy of your virtual world. Period. They destroy community. Period. During history, even rampaging Mongols had reasons for their rampages. PKers generally do not, other than the "lamentations of your women." And if you are talking about a subscription game, something the player pays for and thus expects entertainment out of, even more so.

  The PKer who lives online is not defined as a psycho- or socio-path. Players in the context of MMOGs are by definition sociopaths. These are the three factors on which to diagnose a sociopath: 

Glibness/superficial charm: rarely discuss their real life online
Egocentricity/Grandiose sense of self-worth: I am 1337!
Pathological lying: players frequently refer to their avatar as if it were themselves, ie. “I am” vs “my character is”
Cunning/Manipulative: what good player isn’t?

Lack of remorse or guilt: Did you cry for all the gombas you killed?
Callous/Lack of empathy: you cried when Bambi’s mom died, but would you cry if your guild member’s did?
Shallow affect: is there really anything to your character’s personality then,”I’m a meat puppet!”
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions: “Dude, it’s only a game!“

Need for stimulation/Proneness to boredom: why do you think you play games!
Parasitic lifestyle:  why play an MMOG if you didn’t need others
Lack of realistic, long-term goals: I guess that depends on the definition of realistic and long term.
Impulsivity: players crave LFG dynamics because they demand instant gratification.
Irresponsibility: players often quit games without redistributing their wealth, or even announcing their departure

  Ok, then we are defining PKers as PVPers whose main/only motivator is the thrill of killing, and not money, fame, or challenge. Furthermore I would submit that PKers seek a sub-motivator of the thrill motivator, they are motivated to assert their dominance. This leads the PKer to hunt the weak and unprepared, they don’t want a fair fight they want a win.

  Fine, but my point remains, for every PKer there is another PVPer who can be used to counteract them. As I said bounty hunters, hitmen, and other “legal” agents, fulfill the same motivator as the PKer, but the thrill can include the sub-motivators of vengeance, and justice, as well as dominance. That means that games which allow such groups will include a powerful counterbalancing force to that of the griefing PKers.

  It’s a long argument to be sure but the basic point is instead of lopping off a players hand you should just give them a bar of soap and tell them to use it every once in a while.

Now if you want a virtual world as an experiment in human group psychology, that's a different story. But that's one of the points I'm making. If sold as video games, players have a right to expect to be entertained, and being the victim is not entertaining. But being the victim is part of being a world. Hence game over world for paid subscription MMOG's.

  Who lied and told you that you don’t get victimized in video games? players lose games all the time. Players die in games, often many times over. Have you ever played a two player game? Putting aside the dozen or so games with coop, a two player game requires that a player loses every game! And that loss is at the hand of another player! Are you not entertained!

  And why, oh why, do you think that a utopian game is a good thing? Utopia means no enemies. Sorry warriors, you can go home now. Utopia means no need. Sorry crafters, we won’t be needing your services anymore. Utopia means no players. Sorry devs we’re going to have to say goodbye to you. On the other hand strife and need means that everyone has a job to do. Didn’t the Fifth Element teach you anything? Why wouldn’t game designers want PKers?

[Samwise]

How about this - I want a game that takes place in a world I can interact with.  A raw unformed world a la Second Life isn't really what I'm after, but a world that's static except for random foozle spawns and a couple of large prescripted events isn't what I'm after either.

I enjoy interacting with complex systems and watching them change.  It doesn't have to be in a big way, but I like the idea of the world reacting to my presence and actions in some way.  This isn't a game in and of itself, but even a fairly simple game that's wrapped in an interactive world (Black and White comes to mind as a mediocre "game" wrapped in a complex and interesting "world") will keep me entertained for quite a while.

[Glazius]

Who lied and told you that you don’t get victimized in video games? players lose games all the time. Players die in games, often many times over. Have you ever played a two player game? Putting aside the dozen or so games with coop, a two player game requires that a player loses every game! And that loss is at the hand of another player! Are you not entertained!

Hey, Koboshi? Quick question.

If they stopped calling penalties, would football be a better game, or a worse one?

--GF

[HaemishM]

In part, I think it's a problem of marketing. MMOG's are being sold as virtual worlds, when they are nothing of the sort, because someone expecting to come into a video game is going to act like it's a video game.

If they are being sold as virtual worlds, why should people who buy it expect it to be a video game, and not a virtual world... as advertised?!?!?!

They are sold in video game stores, and advertised as video games. They are promised as virtual worlds, but really, the marketers don't even know what that term means. It's just a nice buzzword to them, and it is wholly inaccurate. Video game is implied by the very medium.

I believe that most people have the capacity for violence but not the stomach. It's one thing to be ABLE to kill someone, it's another to do it. Most people need to be pushed to some extreme in order to kill. And while what you say is extreme (suicide bomber), I still think some would be unable to pull the trigger despite wanting to. I do not believe that every person or even most people are only restricted from their violent tendencies by the threat of authoritarian punishment (or at least not corporeal punishment).

  Then what does?

Absolute morality? The Golden Rule? Fear of failure to kill and thus be killed? Social responsiblity? Or even just the fact that the taking of another HUMAN life is icky, and frightening and halfway through the act, most people just don't have the stomach for it? Hell, most people don't have the stomach to kill a dog or cat except in the most life-threatening of circumstances. Almost none of those motivators will prevent a person from killing in a video game though, because we can dissociate ourselves from the acts our avatars perform.

  The great thing about discussing virtual worlds is that we can draw from reality to some extent. Ask yourself, why do people in the real world kill, or in your case why are some people in the real world unwilling to kill. That’s what I did to draw up my list of motivators.

  The reason I ask for this is that I require justification for removal of liberties. (a personality quirk to be sure) Removing PKers by removing the ability to PK is like a surgeon removing an infected hangnail by amputating the hand. When you start talking about those kinds of drastic measures I start looking for a second opinion. I’m not saying that you’re wrong, just that if you’re right, you haven’t proved it.

I never said I wanted to remove PVP or PKing from a virtual world. I personally think they are both vitally and absolutely necessary to a true virtual world. But that's the problem with making a virtual world as an entertainment product, people want to be entertained, not victimized. And not everyone thinks that kill or be killed IS entertainment. Thus we had the problem UO ran into when it allowed PKers free reign, they lost massive amounts of subscriptions. So they added punitive measures to PKing in order to restrict it. The justification was they'd rather have a paying profitable online game than a dead, empty money-losing virtual world.

It's the contradiction. You want a free virtual world, but as players what we do with that freedom often destroys the very world we inhabit. And maybe that's one of the most important lessons we can learn from a virtual world experiment: the beast would feed on itself if left unchecked. That's why civilizations form. That's how communities survive, by sublimating individual desires for the greater good.

Of course, a Randian disciple just had a stroke somewhere, and Ayn Rand turned over in her grave at that thought.

  Ok, then we are defining PKers as PVPers whose main/only motivator is the thrill of killing, and not money, fame, or challenge. Furthermore I would submit that PKers seek a sub-motivator of the thrill motivator, they are motivated to assert their dominance. This leads the PKer to hunt the weak and unprepared, they don’t want a fair fight they want a win.

See the UO Dread Lord Days, and the loss of sheep that made for so many lost subscriptions.

  Fine, but my point remains, for every PKer there is another PVPer who can be used to counteract them.

No, there isn't. Sure there are SOME Anit-PK's, some who would enjoy that game. But they are outnumbered by even more people who do not want to be bothered. You obviously think player justice would work, or that players being able to exact revenge is justice. It isn't, or at least it isn't the kind of justice people want to pay for. They don't just want the PK to suffer, they don't want to be interrupted in the first place. Which is completely antithetical to everything a virtual world stands for.

As I said bounty hunters, hitmen, and other “legal” agents, fulfill the same motivator as the PKer, but the thrill can include the sub-motivators of vengeance, and justice, as well as dominance. That means that games which allow such groups will include a powerful counterbalancing force to that of the griefing PKers.

  It’s a long argument to be sure but the basic point is instead of lopping off a players hand you should just give them a bar of soap and tell them to use it every once in a while.

At which point they pull out their own bar of soap made of human skin and kill you.

There are not enough anti's to counterbalance the PKers in a world of unrestricted action. In addition, giving the players the kind of power in-game they would need in order for player justice to be even moderately successful would be opening the developer up to legal liabilities no company is willing to pay for. Which is why I think real virtual worlds are either going to have to be niche products, OR free research experiments. A Tale in the Desert is a great example with their player voting system, but that is a system which WOULD NOT WORK in a large, paid MMOG.

Now if you want a virtual world as an experiment in human group psychology, that's a different story. But that's one of the points I'm making. If sold as video games, players have a right to expect to be entertained, and being the victim is not entertaining. But being the victim is part of being a world. Hence game over world for paid subscription MMOG's.

  Who lied and told you that you don’t get victimized in video games? players lose games all the time. Players die in games, often many times over. Have you ever played a two player game? Putting aside the dozen or so games with coop, a two player game requires that a player loses every game! And that loss is at the hand of another player! Are you not entertained!

I do not equate losing with being victimized. I equate 1) losing without even the hope of victory or fighting back with victimization and 2) losing and then being verbally and physically harrassed by the winner as he humps my corpse, takes all my shit and continually kills me over and over again until I have to log off in disgust with victimization. Losing isn't being victimized necessarily, but there are losing conditions made possible by virtual worlds and MMOG's that ARE victimizing.

  And why, oh why, do you think that a utopian game is a good thing?

I don't. I think it's a very bad thing and is why I wrote this article and others. Because I truly believe developers of virtual worlds have the idea they CAN make a utopian game world without ever considering the consequences. Consequences such as what you illuminate below:

Utopia means no enemies. Sorry warriors, you can go home now. Utopia means no need. Sorry crafters, we won’t be needing your services anymore. Utopia means no players. Sorry devs we’re going to have to say goodbye to you. On the other hand strife and need means that everyone has a job to do.

Why wouldn’t game designers want PKers?

Because PKers (not PVPers) drive away paying customers in droves, in numbers that are exponentially greater than their own numbers, and they do so without really adding anything of value to the community of the game. A virtual world's main feature HAS to be community, and anything that damages that is damaging the core of the game. If the game is trying to make a profit, damaging the core of the game is a bad thing.

[Fargull]

See the UO Dread Lord Days, and the loss of sheep that made for so many lost subscriptions.

No, there isn't. Sure there are SOME Anit-PK's, some who would enjoy that game. But they are outnumbered by even more people who do not want to be bothered. You obviously think player justice would work, or that players being able to exact revenge is justice. It isn't, or at least it isn't the kind of justice people want to pay for. They don't just want the PK to suffer, they don't want to be interrupted in the first place. Which is completely antithetical to everything a virtual world stands for.

Haemish,

I know this has been said and common myth has this written in stone with the blood of virgins, but why did UO not dissappear when EQ came out?  I don't believe the truth of this statement anymore.  I have never seen an in print statement from someone inside in the know from Origin or even EA that claims they were loosing subscriptions faster than Paris Hilton lost her virginity.

SB would have been a great game if the ability to build your character fully could have been done with in the NPC city, instead of just having upper character growth done through playermade destructable forts.  The initial interest before SB.exe put a spike through the forehead of hope, proves that a market exists for a fully pvp environment.

[HaemishM]

I know this has been said and common myth has this written in stone with the blood of virgins, but why did UO not dissappear when EQ came out? 

It has widely been stated and accepted that the answer to this question is Trammel.

I don't believe the truth of this statement anymore.  I have never seen an in print statement from someone inside in the know from Origin or even EA that claims they were loosing subscriptions faster than Paris Hilton lost her virginity.

Ask Raph or Calandryll. Both have said it a number of times.

SB would have been a great game if the ability to build your character fully could have been done with in the NPC city, instead of just having upper character growth done through playermade destructable forts.  The initial interest before SB.exe put a spike through the forehead of hope, proves that a market exists for a fully pvp environment.

Sure there is a market. It's still smaller of a market than non-PVP or PVP-restricted games. It is a niche market in the MMOG market, and I'm ok with that. Niche makes PVP better.

[Sky]

Who lied and told you that you don’t get victimized in video games? players lose games all the time. Players die in games, often many times over. Have you ever played a two player game? Putting aside the dozen or so games with coop, a two player game requires that a player loses every game! And that loss is at the hand of another player! Are you not entertained!

Do you understand the difference between a participant and a victim? Do you understand the concept of consentual pvp?

[Merusk]

And, as usual, it turns into a "PK is good vs PvP is good, PKs are twats" discussion.

Here's a question to those who promote the old UO 'everyone kills anyone at any time and it's more rewardting to kill players than do anything else' (Which was the crux of the problem) design.

If I had a game and you were a player, would you  pay me $15 a month if I /killed you over and over and took all your stuff whenever you reequipped or walked outside of a specified area, or hell just because I felt like it?

[Sky]

The problem I had with UO wasn't non-consentual pvp. Not a bit, in fact, though some of the servers got very ghetto-ized.

It was that non-combat professions were required to harvest their materials in those non-consentual areas. I don't think dungeons should be safe havens where you can farm earth ellies all day long, but I do think that miners should have had some protected ranges so they weren't ganked with the traditional "Just a pick and some ore wtf"

Ahh...remember that old bug where you could carry a forge in your pack and smelt on the spot? Anyway, yeah: it's the old pk vs pvp argument. Like anything else, it's all how it's done, guns don't kill people, etc.

[Fargull]

And, as usual, it turns into a "PK is good vs PvP is good, PKs are twats" discussion.

Here's a question to those who promote the old UO 'everyone kills anyone at any time and it's more rewardting to kill players than do anything else' (Which was the crux of the problem) design.

If I had a game and you were a player, would you  pay me $15 a month if I /killed you over and over and took all your stuff whenever you reequipped or walked outside of a specified area, or hell just because I felt like it?

Merusk,

I never had this happen in UO.  I had six or seven friends that were playing, non of us ran in the PK crowd, and I think on a whole I only killed like six people over the almost 2 years I played (from beta).  I had one friend get killed like four times trying to mine, but he said fuck that and came back with his higher level mage with some demon scrolls and ate the guy for lunch.

Don't know, maybe Great Lakes was different, but honestly, the only pain in my ass with UO was the damn lag.

[koboshi]

They are sold in video game stores, and advertised as video games. They are promised as virtual worlds, but really, the marketers don't even know what that term means. It's just a nice buzzword to them, and it is wholly inaccurate. Video game is implied by the very medium.

 And what medium is that? CDs? DVDs? They can hold anything from scholastic applications to pop music. Or is it the fact that you buy them in video game stores? None of these constitute a definitive videogame medium. Game stores sell movies, candy, and, action figures. MMOGs and video games aren’t sold exclusively in video game stores either, they are sold in Target, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart, along side groceries, washing machines, and plungers. So what is it? That it is shelved along side other pc games? No store I have ever been to have made genre specific shelving, they put the RTSs, the FPS, and the RPGs on the same shelf, and does that confuse you? When you argue that it’s defined by what shares its “medium” I have to wonder what the hell your talking about.

It's the contradiction. You want a free virtual world, but as players what we do with that freedom often destroys the very world we inhabit. And maybe that's one of the most important lessons we can learn from a virtual world experiment: the beast would feed on itself if left unchecked. That's why civilizations form. That's how communities survive, by sublimating individual desires for the greater good.

  But that’s just my point. Civilizations do form. Hell since the eighties’ introduction of chaos and complexity theories many mathematicians are beginning to think that it’s not even about being civilized or even sentient, chaotic systems often shift to form organized systems. Those mathematic models don’t have anything as high and mighty as morals (or the thought that death is ‘icky’) holding back their destructive tendencies and yet they survive, and flourish. I point this out because I don’t want anyone to think that I am making this argument out of some belief in the inherent goodness of man, but rather in the belief that MMOGs are a subset of the rational world, and that as such they will obey the same rational laws.

 It’s a long argument to be sure but the basic point is instead of lopping off a players hand you should just give them a bar of soap and tell them to use it every once in a while.

At which point they pull out their own bar of soap made of human skin and kill you.

 

A Tale in the Desert is a great example with their player voting system, but that is a system which WOULD NOT WORK in a large, paid MMOG.

 Your right! Democracy is impossible in a large group of people, like say a country about a third the size of North America. It wouldn’t even make it a year.
  Price=tax
  Vote=yes
  Large=295,734,134
  Lifespan=229y

I do not equate losing with being victimized. I equate 1) losing without even the hope of victory or fighting back with victimization and 2) losing and then being verbally and physically harrassed by the winner as he humps my corpse, takes all my shit and continually kills me over and over again until I have to log off in disgust with victimization. Losing isn't being victimized necessarily, but there are losing conditions made possible by virtual worlds and MMOG's that ARE victimizing.

1)  Let me ask you this, in an MMOG, if you walked up naked to a dragon’s lair and started poking around in his treasure chests (exploits aside) would you expect to survive? No. Why not? Because experience and common sense tells you you’re going to get killed. So if some MMOG player came to the boards complaining about how the dragons were too hard and they should be removed you would blame the player not the devs. Now lets say some player is hunting alone far from a safe city, why doesn’t your experience of Jason movies, much less MMOGs, tell you that was a bad idea? Why is it that when you see players getting killed by PKers (i.e. extremely hard enemies, beating up extremely weak players) your response isn’t, “Why didn’t you run idiot”, or even, “Tell us who the bastard was and we’ll kick their ass if we see them”, but rather, “Hey devs you fucked up my game! I’m quitting/suing this fucking game”? I get that you don’t like it. What I don’t get is that you fail to stop reenacting negatively reinforced behavior.

2)  Once again this is not an experience exclusive to MMOGs. It is prevalent in most vs. games (which an MMOG is, by ANY definition). Have you never been corpse juggled in a fighting game? Have you never been privy to “trash talk”? And what about the ultimate corpse violation, FATALITY! In which in a completely helpless state you are torn asunder.

And, as usual, it turns into a "PK is good vs PvP is good, PKs are twats" discussion.

 No this is an existential argument about man’s responsibility to mankind’s behavior… carefully hidden in innuendo.

If I had a game and you were a player, would you pay me $15 a month if I /killed you over and over and took all your stuff whenever you reequipped or walked outside of a specified area, or hell just because I felt like it?

  I played Mario Brothers 3. it cost me 50 or so bucks when I got it new. I died more times than I can remember. If I used a suit, fire flower, raccoon, tanooki, I would loose any power I had previously equipped. If I ever died with the suit on I lost it. Finally, some of the suits like P-wing would be lost upon exiting a level. Yes I played it and I never blamed Nintendo for the loss of my suits.

  On the last count I guess your right I have, in no game ever, been /smite-ed, and I wouldn’t want to be. But then again, is that really a complaint about virtual worlds?

Do you understand the concept of consentual pvp?

Yes, it’s consenting to play a game with PVP, whether the scope of that game is a duel between two participants, joining a war, or entering an open PVP online game. Seriously, do you go to orgies and get mad when someone tries to fuck you?

 And why, oh why, do you think that a utopian game is a good thing?

I don't. I think it's a very bad thing and is why I wrote this article and others. Because I truly believe developers of virtual worlds have the idea they CAN make a utopian game world without ever considering the consequences. Consequences such as what you illuminate [above]

 The only devs trying to make a utopia are those who are making MMOGs that DON’T have PVP, because sometimes people die, the devs who are making them so they DON’T have player run economies, because people should get paid a lot for their cracked bronze ax of uselessness, in sort, the developers who wish to make very expensive, overly complicated, and inefficiently produced, massively multiplayer online single player games.

  MMOGs are not meant to be science experiments, simulations of real life, or absolutely democratic.
  MMOGs are also not meant to be overly simple, level crawls, or single player games.
  MMOGs are supposed to be social, challenging, fair, reasonable, rewarding, games.

  To say that they can’t be “virtual worlds” or that they can’t be “games” are both wrong, because as with all of these arguments the middle ground is the only right answer.

[Merusk]

And I've heard stories from people who couldn't step outside of town without dying.  I didn't address UO because I didn't play it.  There were enough bad reviews that I gave it a pass.   I was talking about a specific group of people.  Those who think that for PVP to have 'meaning' it needs to be as if not more 'rewarding' than PvE.  Players are your mobs, there to farm, and they're loser carebears if they don't want to pay their $15 a month just to be farmed.

  Well,l how about if you're put in the position that you're the sheep for a wolf you can't fight against? Do you still want to pay the $15?  I'm tired of the argument that PKs add anything other than subscription losses to a game. PvP is good, PKs= blight, I'm done with the argument and just wanted to try and frame it in a way they might understand. Obviously I've failed.

[HaemishM]

They are sold in video game stores, and advertised as video games. They are promised as virtual worlds, but really, the marketers don't even know what that term means. It's just a nice buzzword to them, and it is wholly inaccurate. Video game is implied by the very medium.

 And what medium is that? CDs? DVDs? They can hold anything from scholastic applications to pop music. Or is it the fact that you buy them in video game stores? None of these constitute a definitive videogame medium. Game stores sell movies, candy, and, action figures. MMOGs and video games aren’t sold exclusively in video game stores either, they are sold in Target, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart, along side groceries, washing machines, and plungers. So what is it? That it is shelved along side other pc games? No store I have ever been to have made genre specific shelving, they put the RTSs, the FPS, and the RPGs on the same shelf, and does that confuse you? When you argue that it’s defined by what shares its “medium” I have to wonder what the hell your talking about.

The medium of video games. You know, it's sold in the video game section of the major stores like Target, Wal-Mart, it's sold with other video games, both PC and console and portable.

I'm saying virtual worlds should not be sold as MMOG's, or marketed as games because while they might have games in them, if the game part comes first, the world will have to suffer. Like, for example, adding restrictions to PKing that are arbitrary so people don't get ganked and quit the world. I am saying just what you are saying about PVP/PK, if you restrict it, it's not a virtual world anymore, it's a game.

Nothing is inherently wrong with either one, unless you try selling a virtual world as a game.

A Tale in the Desert is a great example with their player voting system, but that is a system which WOULD NOT WORK in a large, paid MMOG.

 Your right! Democracy is impossible in a large group of people, like say a country about a third the size of North America. It wouldn’t even make it a year.
  Price=tax
  Vote=yes
  Large=295,734,134
  Lifespan=229y

Real-life countries are not MMOG's we can just choose to stop paying for and stop playing. Nice try, though.

I do not equate losing with being victimized. I equate 1) losing without even the hope of victory or fighting back with victimization and 2) losing and then being verbally and physically harrassed by the winner as he humps my corpse, takes all my shit and continually kills me over and over again until I have to log off in disgust with victimization. Losing isn't being victimized necessarily, but there are losing conditions made possible by virtual worlds and MMOG's that ARE victimizing.

1)  Let me ask you this, in an MMOG, if you walked up naked to a dragon’s lair and started poking around in his treasure chests (exploits aside) would you expect to survive? No. Why not? Because experience and common sense tells you you’re going to get killed. So if some MMOG player came to the boards complaining about how the dragons were too hard and they should be removed you would blame the player not the devs. Now lets say some player is hunting alone far from a safe city, why doesn’t your experience of Jason movies, much less MMOGs, tell you that was a bad idea? Why is it that when you see players getting killed by PKers (i.e. extremely hard enemies, beating up extremely weak players) your response isn’t, “Why didn’t you run idiot”, or even, “Tell us who the bastard was and we’ll kick their ass if we see them”, but rather, “Hey devs you fucked up my game! I’m quitting/suing this fucking game”? I get that you don’t like it. What I don’t get is that you fail to stop reenacting negatively reinforced behavior.

That's not my response, that's the response of the majority of people who play and pay for MMOG's. It is a fact. Yes, there is a market for people who like and will deal with being PKed outside of town, but it isn't not a large enough market to justify the budget for a virtual world in which there are no restrictions on PK. I personally don't mind PVP, but I am not the average MMOG player.

No this is an existential argument about man’s responsibility to mankind’s behavior… carefully hidden in innuendo.

You're starting to get it.

 On the last count I guess your right I have, in no game ever, been /smite-ed, and I wouldn’t want to be. But then again, is that really a complaint about virtual worlds?

Yes, because it's the kind of behaviour that happens entirely too easily in MMOG's, more so than in any of the other type of examples you listed.

Do you understand the concept of consentual pvp?

Yes, it’s consenting to play a game with PVP, whether the scope of that game is a duel between two participants, joining a war, or entering an open PVP online game. Seriously, do you go to orgies and get mad when someone tries to fuck you?

You make the mistake of thinking most people believe MMOG's are a vs. game. That was the problem I mentioned in the article. The developers (and many/most) of the players did NOT think of UO as a competitive game environment. Their desire was not to have a competitive environment; this desire of course clashed violently with the desire of the people who DID want a competitive environment. Thus you had conflict that was detrimental to the community of the game, and eventually Trammel was the solution. A shitty, shitty solution, but it has informed the decisions of all MMOG developers since.

The only devs trying to make a utopia are those who are making MMOGs that DON’T have PVP, because sometimes people die, the devs who are making them so they DON’T have player run economies, because people should get paid a lot for their cracked bronze ax of uselessness, in sort, the developers who wish to make very expensive, overly complicated, and inefficiently produced, massively multiplayer online single player games.

  MMOGs are not meant to be science experiments, simulations of real life, or absolutely democratic.
  MMOGs are also not meant to be overly simple, level crawls, or single player games.
  MMOGs are supposed to be social, challenging, fair, reasonable, rewarding, games.

  To say that they can’t be “virtual worlds” or that they can’t be “games” are both wrong, because as with all of these arguments the middle ground is the only right answer.

You just summarized my article. Congratulations.

[Fargull]

  Well,l how about if you're put in the position that you're the sheep for a wolf you can't fight against? Do you still want to pay the $15?  I'm tired of the argument that PKs add anything other than subscription losses to a game. PvP is good, PKs= blight, I'm done with the argument and just wanted to try and frame it in a way they might understand. Obviously I've failed.

Understand.  The only real complaint I had with UO, is that the PK's would close down part of the content, guess that doesn't count for the gold farmers...

Abusers of the game mechanics for fun and profit against others is not something I advocate.  The noise ratio with UO was just the fact that one's single player interaction got mixed with other players game.  Now, one thing I never understood about UO was the ability to chop up player bodies for fun and gore.  That was just strange on the design part.

[koboshi]

  Well,l how about if you're put in the position that you're the sheep for a wolf you can't fight against? Do you still want to pay the $15?  I'm tired of the argument that PKs add anything other than subscription losses to a game. PvP is good, PKs= blight, I'm done with the argument and just wanted to try and frame it in a way they might understand. Obviously I've failed.

  That's the same argument as the /smite argument. If the devs ARE farming you out to PKers by, say limiting your ability to strike back, then yes, you vote with your dollars and quit the game. But suggesting that open PVP = Unrestricted PVP is just wrong. Players should be held just as responsible for their murderous tendencies as they are rewarded for their heroic. If you give gold for good deeds take it from them for bad, or something like that. I’m not against regulation just against tossing the baby out with the bathwater.
 
  In the interest of full disclosure: No, I am not a PKer, nor do I believe that PKing is a decent/worthwhile/entertaining/legitimate strategy. For me, if some fucker attacks me, all I require is the knowledge that I CAN retaliate, as long as there is that possibility I'm not going to cry over moving pixels.