“It’s not a rape simulator! It’s not real, so it doesn’t count, and I disagree with her choosing to be a virgin, so I fixed it.”

And with that I think this topic has been trolled enough (by someone who has bragged about being a professional troll on other boards) so I will take the last word.

This is precisely the problem with what you wrote – you’re an ultimate relativist, one who says “Well, if it’s what you like, go ahead.” Down that road lies Myst and Deer Hunter.

That’s the nice part about a PvP server; you don’t have to abide by any ultimate relativism. You can inform someone what you think of their playstyle by killing them.

If someone’s whole reason for being ingame is to get their next Uber Sword, that’s silly. By all rights, my killing them ingame, even if they have no chance of fighting back, *shouldn’t* make them unhappy if they were playing *properly*. If they were playing improperly – whose trouble is that, theirs or mine? Fortunately, the PvP switch gives me the tools to guide them in the proper direction.

Maybe the fact that you’re a Bartle Achiever explains part of it; I’m 0% achiever according to bartle, with 1/3rd split evenly between the other three categories. I focus on achieving things in real life; why, for the love of all that is holy, would I then want to log into a game and be expected to start achieving things again? If the desire to achieve ingame is siphoning off one’s drive and willpower from the real world, that can’t be healthy.

Why is playing for the “achievements” improper, you might ask? Because it’s not really a game. It’s a pellet machine, pushing for greater status and rank in a world that Does. Not. Actually. Exist.

The desire to use a skinner box is a pathology. PvP gives me an option to wean people from that pathology.

I don’t PvP for the challenge.

I don’t PvP to make some kid cry.

I PvP to educate people, and shape them through the better – to make them see that if dying in a videogame makes them cry, it’s due to an imperfection on their part. Self-knowledge is essential for self-improvement, after all, and by ganking them repeatedly in their futile quest to go hunt or whatever, I provide them the opportunity to for that reflection on one’s motives.

I don’t indulge their flawed pathologies, whereas a PvE system does.

‘Skinner box’ players are often addicts, in the very literal sense of the word. It’s every bit as possible to become addicted to computers as it is to drugs (such as sugar), and a desire to achieve in a DikuMUD-esque system is a prime indicator of addiction.

You don’t appease an addict. You force them to accept that they have a problem.

And hey, while you’re doing that philanthropy, you can take their stuff, too.

You don’t see how getting killed repeatedly prevents someone from playing the game? Maybe not playing your game — which, from your mention of voice chat, I suspect involves you getting off on them begging you not to keep killing them — but it prevents a lot of other people, those whose goal in the game is something other than being the punching bag of someone with a very small weiner — from playing their game. This is what I meant in my points about sociopaths lacking understanding of and empathy for others’ feelings or points of view.

I love PvP for exactly the reason you claim to: the intelligence. Once you learn how to kill a mob, you can kill it every time. It’s just a matter of bringing the right group and using the standard tactics. Humans are more fun because humans think, they react, they’re trying to beat me just as hard as I’m trying to beat them. They’re unpredictable. They’re smart. They’re all the things an AI isn’t. I know I’m gonna win against an AI, but I don’t know I’m gonna win against a human, and that’s where the fun is. My fun comes from knowing that I beat someone who could have beaten me, except that I was better than he was: smarter, faster, cleverer, whatever.

That’s exactly what you don’t get ganking newbies. What’s the point of killing someone who has no chance to win? There’s no challenge to it. There’s no uncertainty. There’s no need to be good, to push yourself to be better than you were, to think and react and win. There’s no feeling of accomplishment. It’s no different than slaughtering those spiders.

Except for one thing: The spiders don’t cry.

That’s what griefers (and you have put yourself firmly in that class by now) enjoy: the crying, as they call it. The feeling of power they get when they know they’ve ruined a game for someone else. The knowledge that JoeNewblet was trying to level, or to mine, or just to run to the next town, and they, in their mighty max-level ultra-gear power, wasted that player’s time, frustrated him, made the game less fun for him. Griefers get off on sitting there behind their keyboards imagining the disappointment, the rage, the unahppiness of someone who is trying to have fun and is being repeatedly frustrated.

It’s not the challenge; if you wanted a challenge, you would be a PvPer, not a griefer. It’s not the social aspect; normal adults do not get off on making little kids (or other adults, for that matter) cry.

Playing games is about the fun from the means, not ends. Nobody (at least, nobody smart) is just playing to get the next Uberfoozle Sword of Whack\’e2\’80\’99em +1. They\’e2\’80\’99re playing for the fun of the getting there.

Actually, a lot of people play to get the next Uberfoozle Sword of Whack’em +1. That’s why there are so many games that dispense an endless supply of UFSoW +1, UFSoW +2, etc. Smart people play golf, too. I don’t pretend to understand why; to me, it’s just a good walk ruined. But people have fun with it, even if it’s not my kind of fun. Different people find their entertainment in different ways. To you the world is inside your head; you are unable to comprehend that other people might have different but equally valid beliefs, values, and goals than you do, including the desire to have fun in their own ways instead of facilitating your fun. To you there are only two ways: your way and the wrong way. Some people who think like that blow up buildings, but most just spend their lives in ever-increasing frustration and impotent rage against a world that stubbornly refuses to conform to the way they believe it should work.

But even that isn’t the point. There is no “fun of getting there” if you can’t ever get there. People like you — like the ones in Shadowbane — kept other players from having the opportunity to get there, wherever their chosen “there” was, or in fact to get anywhere.

It\’e2\’80\’99s the same thing with loot. Let\’e2\’80\’99s say someone kills me and loots my stuff. Does that prevent me from running? No. Does that prevent me from talking? No. So how is it preventing me from playing the game? Sure, I might need my sword to whack some monster, but is whacking the monster really the point?

Maybe whacking the monster — or getting out of Khar Th’Sekht alive — is not your goal in the game, but it’s the goal of a lot of other people. So is levelling, acquiring better gear, becoming wealthy, and a whole lot of other things. Maybe you don’t think that being stuck at level 1 (or 20, or whatever) and stark naked is holding you back in any meaningful way, but I’d bet you dollars to donuts that you level up your characters and buy them good gear. Why? Shouldn’t you just stay level 1 and sit there in town and talk to people?

As a result, the two most important things in being able to play the game are your ability to run around and your ability to talk.

Does getting killed keep you from running around? No. It may move you back to wherever your bindstone is, but once you hit the bindstone you can just keep on running. It sure doesn\’e2\’80\’99t keep you from talking.

Getting killed does prevent you from moving around. Well, at least other than the Tree in Khar and a ponit a hundred yards outside of it where the gank squads waited. (no, I wasn’t one of them, though I did go kill them on occasion) It prevents you from exploring. It prevents you from achieving. It prevents you from killing. About the only thing it doesn’t prevent you from doing is socializing, and as a KEAS/KAES player, I don’t really give a flying whistle about socializing, at least not unless I’m in a position of power/respect/influence of some sort, which is rarely the case for a naked newbie who can’t even walk out of town without dying.

If you\’e2\’80\’99d reply with “Well, what\’e2\’80\’99s the point of running if you can\’e2\’80\’99t get where you\’e2\’80\’99re running *to*?”, then congratulations – you just missed the entire point of MMOs. If you\’e2\’80\’99re playing for where you\’e2\’80\’99re running too, and not playing for the run itself, then you\’e2\’80\’99re not playing a game at all – you\’e2\’80\’99re just hitting the button on the skinner box to get your pellet.

Sorry, there is no fun whatsoever in repeatedly running from the gates of Khar to that point a hundred yards outside the gates where the killing zone begins. Nor is there any fun in trying over and over to get past the point where you were ganked only to be killed an equal number of times by some griefer camping your corpse. Even if we were to accept your premise that the only valid goal in a MMOG is to travel around and look at the scenery, your playstyle (which, interestingly enough, involves whacking many monsters, achieving high levels, and acquiring uber gear) prevents other players from doing even that much.

Incidentally, you’re contradicting your own statements. You say that levelling, acquiring gear, etc., is unimportant, but you do so yourself, most likely to maximum levels. You say that you like fighting other players for the challenge, yet you prefer to kill those who present no challenge. You say that others should enjoy simply running, without actually getting anywhere, yet you don’t go running around; you prevent other people from running around. You, sir, are a hypocrite of the first water.

You’re more than a hypocrite. Aggressive, yep, got that. Lack of empathy for others, uh-huh, bigtime. Lack of conscience or remorse, yup yah. Rationalizes actions and/or blames others, presenting front and center. Either you are a very immature individual who doesn’t comprehend that the people you interact with in a game are, in fact, people, or you are as

Maybe It’s just because I’m a really high Socializer/Explorer, but I don’t see how getting killed repeatedly prevents you from playing the game.

Playing games is about the fun from the means, not “ends”. Nobody (at least, nobody smart) is just playing to get the next Uberfoozle Sword of Whack’em +1. They’re playing for the fun of the getting there.

As a result, the two most important things in being able to play the game are your ability to run around and your ability to talk.

Does getting killed keep you from running around? No. It may move you back to wherever your bindstone is, but once you hit the bindstone you can just keep on running. It sure doesn’t keep you from talking.

If anything, I’d say that a PvE mez keeps you from playing the game far more than getting ganked repeatedly would.

If you’d reply with “Well, what’s the point of running if you can’t get where you’re running *to*?”, then congratulations – you just missed the entire point of MMOs. If you’re playing for where you’re running too, and not playing for the run itself, then you’re not playing a game at all – you’re just hitting the button on the skinner box to get your pellet.

It’s the same thing with loot. Let’s say someone kills me and loots my stuff. Does that prevent me from running? No. Does that prevent me from talking? No. So how is it preventing me from playing the game? Sure, I might need my sword to whack some monster, but is whacking the monster really the point?

The chat system in any well-designed MMO (and by well-designed, I mean “doesn’t have raids that give uber loot”) is the greatest measure of your power and ability to impact the world, not your level or your loot. So long as you can keep on talking (to act upon the world), and keep on running (to experience the world – otherwise, why not just connect to the world’s chat server in IRC) I don’t see how you’ve been held back in any meaningful way.

“I notice you two don\’e2\’80\’99t talk about your great adventures mowing down scads of level 20 spiders. You\’e2\’80\’99d laugh at someone who posted here and talked about the wonders of farming crap mobs. What\’e2\’80\’99s the difference between killing these spiders and killing the newbies that I wave at and go about my business?”

If the spiders had the same AI as human newbies, and could interact with me via the chat system in the same way human newbies do, it’d be equivalent.

The point isn’t “we like killing newbies because there’s a human being behind them”. I like killing newbies (or anyone else ingame for that matter) because they approximate a far better AI, not just in combat terms but also in political and social terms, than a computer can yet do.

When we get level 20 spider mobs that can pass the turing test and can ‘write their own stories’ in a way as compelling as what current PvP servers can put out, PvP would be quite obsolete. Especially if you could flip a variable on the server and have the spider mobs stop using l33tspeak.

The point of playing with other humans isn’t to treat them as humans – it’s to replicate a much more sophisticated AI than any game in the near future will be able to produce.

Shadowbane is an excellent example. I had it easy — I was in the first wave of players, I had a good guild and we were allied with our server’s uber-guild, so I levelled up in relative safety and got driven out of the game by the broken software, broken economy, broken CS, and generally broken game instead. But it was unplayable for the people who came later. I talked to people who never made another level, in two weeks of trying, after they left Newbie Island. People like you and Joe camped the safeholds and slaughtered any new players trying to seek somewhere to level. They were naked because all of their gear broke and their money was looted, they were frustrated because the game, to them, was an endless sequence of death, death, and death, and they had no alternatives. The guilds didn’t recruit anyone below about 40 at least. No handful of level 20 newbies stood a chance against geared-up 60′s. A friend of mine (healer/channeler) took out a full group, or close to it, farming at ants. Solo. If every newbie on the server had gathered together, a single group of rank-5′s could have taken them out. So, of course, after weeks of getting ganked and nothing but frustration to show for their money, those players quit paying. The result? Shadowbane has 4 servers now, down from 12 at launch. The game is on life support.

It comes back to the difference between a MMORPG and a FPS: In an FPS, it’s not necessary to win fights to get better. You keep on losing, you learn from every fight, and eventually you start to win. In Shadowbane, though, or any game of its kind (including early WoW) it is necessary to win in order to get better. I don’t care how l33t you think you are, if you take a level 20 character, any class, any gear, and you duel my 60 warrior, it doesn’t matter that neither my skills nor my gear are anything outstanding. You are going to die. And you are going to die every single time. If your ability to improve — that is, to level — was dependant on you being able to beat me, you would stay level 20 until you quit the game in frustration, and took your subscription fees with you.

I am a PvPer, not a griefer like you and Joe. I don’t gank newbies. Why? Partly ethical reasons — I’m from another generation, one where being mean and a bully was considered detestable, not admirable. But, also, it goes against the whole reason I PvP in the first place. I want to prove I’m better. I want to beat someone who should be able to win, but they lose because I’m better than they are, not someone who never had a chance to begin with. Ganking newbies doesn’t do my e-peen any more good than what I’m doing right now — farming low-level mobs for some tradeskill mats I need.

I notice you two don’t talk about your great adventures mowing down scads of level 20 spiders. You’d laugh at someone who posted here and talked about the wonders of farming crap mobs. What’s the difference between killing these spiders and killing the newbies that I wave at and go about my business? A human being on the other side of the computer who is upset that they can’t play the game because of you.

I have never felt marginalized because I play on a PvP server. The fact that you want to deny other players the option of playing on a carebear server if they choose shows me that you’re not a PvPer looking for opponents, you’re a griefer looking for victims. Your fun comes from ruining other people’s fun.

The fact that people like you exist, devoting your efforts to wrecking the product (called ‘fun’) that the game companies are selling, is what makes them so leery of releasing PvP games. So it’s thanks to little Internet sociopaths like you that the rest of us, the real PvPers, people who understand the concepts of ‘game’, ‘sportsmanship’, etc., can’t get a decent open PvP game.

I agree with everything joe had to say except asking for alternative rule servers. If you put all the game systems of an MMO together and were serving a meal – pvpers are not the dog under the table getting handed scraps such as alternative rules servers. Should we have alternative servers where you can form guilds, or collect items, or do quests? absolutely not. PvP should be a complete system within the context of the entire game, it has its place to happen (zones), it has its effect on the game (rewards, penalties), it interacts with the other playstyles (examples such as unlocking pve content through pvp(not individually but as a team) and most importantly encourages participation not discourages.

Like Joe I too am wishing more dev houses would take this approach. I am pleased with the success of wow with almost half their servers being pvp rules and no wow server is truly -pvp in that you cannot do it at all. I think that should light up the eyes of some execs.

- A

Lack of challenge, lack of risk. If you wanted to play such a game, you might just as well toss a ball in the air and bet whether gravity will affect it – it will. Such a game might be fun for someone with with a serious mental disability but anyone with a reading age of above 5 would pass it by.

If there were not some other consequence, that is. In this case, there is. That consequence is to upset other people. If you get off on that, i suspect the Law or possibly the Prison Service is for you.

>Why is a fight more fun when both players have a semi-equal shot, and >either one can fight back hard?

If you really don’t understand that, i won’t even begin to try to explain it. Keep on licking the windows of the short bus, Joe.

\’e2\’80\’9cSociopathy\’e2\’80\’9d implies that online games are societies.

Playing games is an action that is undertaken by members of existing societies. That’s where the greifer’s argument of “it’s just a game” falls apart. It’s just a game, yes, and chess is just a game, but that doesn’t justify you walking into a tournament and dumping chessboards on the floor. The society in question isn’t inside the game, it’s outside — it’s the one you live in every day of your life. And that society has certain expectations of behavior of its members, like “you don’t wreck other people’s games just to get your jollies” whether those games are chess tournaments or MMOGs.

Sociopathy (now wrapped into ‘antisocial personality disorder’) is defined as lacking understanding of the feelings of others, especially empathy for others’ suffering. Even with what little I know of you from your comments on this blog, you certainly exhibit the aggressiveness and especially the lack of remorse that the DSM-IV lists as characteristic of the disorder. You are indifferent to the effects of your behavior, you rationalize the wrong you do as someone else’s fault, or something the victim deserved, and I suspect you might show a few more of the diagnostic characteristics as well. The biggie, though, is being unable to understand or empathize with other people’s feelings, and you have demonstrated that repeatedly in this discussion.

Sociopathy is not violation of laws, although sociopaths do violate laws because of who and what they are. Sociopathy is being an insensitive griefer, someone whose personal pleasure trumps someone else’s pain, someone with no sense that the rest of the world is anything other than bad special effects — and that, my friend, is you. Or at least the person you have presented yourself as.

The whole point of a MMO is to have an avatar separate from oneself – where actions done, and done by you, are not \’e2\’80\’9cyou\’e2\’80\’9d, per se.>/i>

But the actions you do are done by you, per se. If you crash the game server, that’s you. If you hack the game, that’s you. And if you make it impossible for another person to play the game, or enjoy the game, by other means — such as griefing — that, too, is you.

What\’e2\’80\’99s the point of a virtual system, if not to free us from the bonds of being in a society?

Why distance ourselves from our own humanity via a computer interface, if we\’e2\’80\’99re just going to keep on acting human?

I don’t think I can even begin to answer this. It would be easier to explain color to a blind man than civilization to a sociopath.