Comments on: If you only read one thing today …

By: spinks

spinks — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:37:00 +0000

Yeah, I thought the feedback ideas were very insightful. Also, you’re allowed to argue without everyone assuming you’re an asshole, don’t worry about that.

By: spinks

spinks — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:35:34 +0000

My experience in sandbox games is that it’s always been much much harder to effectively co-operate to keep the rules in place than to break them. Eventually even the most law abiding of internet police gets bored of being told that they can’t really stop the miscreants from doing it again as soon as they log off (unless staff get involved with bannings) so people lose interest.

You’d need to actually design a game where in game PC law enforcement was allowed to be effective. It used to be quite trendy in MU* design to be a proponent of player run justice, but in practice it either turns into dev-supported bullying or people lose interest because they aren’t ‘allowed’ to be effective (because there is no in game punishment that will stop a griefer from griefing as soon as they are allowed to do it again) or because breaking the law is just more fun. Anarchy may be the best you can get.

By: spinks

spinks — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:25:55 +0000

Maybe the guy who wrote that post is a horrible internet libertarian who liked it that way

By: Iloveholyshield

Iloveholyshield — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:23:03 +0000

If you tie this in with Stephenson’s analysis in Reamde, then you get that the most dramatic conflict is achieved when the game’s feedback mechanisms are balanced such that the griefers and the cooperators are of comparable strengths, giving them memorable antagonists. By the numbers, Eve actually has more cooperators than griefers, but paradoxically the griefers are better at cooperating in order to grief than the cooperators are at cooperating against griefing. Part of this is that many of the high-sec “cooperators” are bots.

By: Simon Jones who is blogless

Simon Jones who is blogless — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:13:13 +0000

The issue with CCP and the Goons et al is that the only reason the game gets as much press and occupies as much internet thoughtspace as it does is because of the things the goons and so on have done. CCP knows this so they have to make a choice as to if they want money or if they want a smaller, different terrible community to the terrible community they have now.

I played Eve before they showed up and it was a marginal little space trading game that appealed to horrible internet libeterians. I am always going to look askance when people declare there was some golden age before hand.

By: Goodmongo

Goodmongo — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:10:14 +0000

Over at “In an Age” we were discussing wants and waht game companies deliver. A game like “Dear Esther” will be done again if enough people bought the first game. If the company didn’t make money on it then don’t expect another one. Even the person making the game of their dreams can only do that for so long till they need to make a living.

By: Goodmongo

Goodmongo — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:05:53 +0000

Is this another take on genetics vs environment? Was Hitler an evil person or did his environment make him that way?

“none of us was born to be an asshole”

Based on the responses to the feminist post I’m willing to bet some think I was born that way. But can I counter that I was pushed to be that way?

The bottom line and reality is that there are both. Some will be evil and aholes regardless and others won’t because of laws and consequences and some other won’t because its not in their nature.

See that is critical. If we can be naturally good (vs good only because laws force us to be) then we can just as easily be bad.

What was true was this statement: “The thing is, everyone is seeking for maximum feedback.” That is because human nature requires feedback (postive or negative).

By: melponeme_k

melponeme_k — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:58:51 +0000

Every one on this planet is capable of sociopathic behavior under certain conditions. Anonymity is a big factor in bad behavior along with being with large groups of people. If you take away one of those factors, the penchant for being nasty falls. But there will always be some people who don’t care if their names are revealed or they become pariahs in a small community. The joy for those people is simply the ability to annoy or wound.

Games can change their tactics to contain maladaptive players in their games. No doubt.

Interestingly the game I’ve played with the least amount of griefing was Warhammer Online. Most likely because it had a small village like community and everyone knew everyone else.

By: Syl

Syl — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:45:53 +0000

I look forward to a future of more diversity in game design – and more boldness. Ive just played through ‘dear esther’ a second time last night and realized how i want more, I want to see more like this. games had to start somewhere and I believe all the stages we’ve come through were needed, but now that graphical and technical progress has reached such a high level its time they caught up conceptually.

By: Shintar

Shintar — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:50:57 +0000

I do wish every MMO designer would read that interview and have a long, hard look at what kind of behaviour their games encourage and whether that’s really what they want to achieve.

And I’m joining the “hoping Journey will be released for PC” crowd.