Not in all respects, but in some? Sure. Their attachment to their loot which they might lose/gain on any given day should be about like a Chess-player’s attachment to his pieces.

http://www.brokentoys.org/2001/01/03/one-shot-one-kill-author-lum-the-mad/

Old Lum was a lot more attuned to the relationship between the dominant paradigm of MMO design (with all the ways it caters to pathology) and prevalent flaws in the human psyche than New Lum.

Well, at least this serves as a monument to anyone wondering why I get banned from most DIKU-friendly forums eventually. (The straw that broke the camel’s back over at F13 was making the argument that Diablo epitomizes everything wrong with a certain type of game, and points to something wrong with the people who play them.)

Hyu :

And rarely do the devs offer such a golden opportunity to repeatedly rub their noses in their design faults like that. I mean, if I were you guys, *I* sure as hell wouldn’t have put up with a year of that from me. But it was quite satisfying, in that way that only telling people they’re wrong on the internet can be.

I know! I’m about at my limit after one day.

Scott Jennings :

Hyu :
You’re not beating him in RL? You’re beating him in a video-game?

The time investment said victim put in is real, which is why full-loot PvP games are somewhat more *HARDCORE* *EXTREME* than a kill in TF2.
Why do you have “major issues” with the entertainment of others (’oh my god, someone is enjoying a JRPG! They’re WRONG!’), yet object so strenuously when others express issues with the entertainment you enjoy? Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

I’m not objecting to the fact that they’re challenging my choice of entertainment; I’m simply pointing out that their objections are logically flawed. I can back up my arguments for the problems in the entertainment of others with sound logic.

Also, I don’t think full-loot PvP games are ‘hardcore’ or ‘extreme’ at all. They only feel that way if you have an unreasonable/vaguely pathological attachment to the items your character’s accumulated. I wouldn’t argue that AC Darktide or Darkfall are ‘hardcore’ or ‘extreme’ games, except if you mean ‘extreme’ in the very technical sense of being an outlier among the current crop of MMOs.

The guy I car-jacked in the game wasn’t “investing” time at all. He was simply playing the game, same as me.

If he saw it as an investment, well, that’s pathological, and I’m only so responsible for how pathological people approach a perfectly healthy game.

Saying it’s my fault if he’s bent out of shape about the car-jacking is like saying it’s my fault if someone cries after I beat them at chess. (I’m awful at chess, but hey, it’s an analogy.) He’s the one ‘doing it wrong’.

Okay, I’ll at least admit that making THOSE posts *definitely* put a silly grin on my face.

(Because, well, yes, DAoC would have been significantly better if it’d copied Asheron’s Call’s superior mechanics. And rarely do the devs offer such a golden opportunity to repeatedly rub their noses in their design faults like that. I mean, if I were you guys, *I* sure as hell wouldn’t have put up with a year of that from me. But it was quite satisfying, in that way that only telling people they’re wrong on the internet can be.)

The highest level I hit in DAoC was 30, I think. Getting past that required me to kill mobs repeatedly in the hopes of eventually finding something fun to do at a higher level. Quit CoH at the same level, for the same reason (though alts were more fun in CoH).

It’s not like DAoC PvE was ‘hard’. The fact that I only made it to level 30 before quitting was more a condemnation of your game design than anything else.

Hyu :

You’re not beating him in RL? You’re beating him in a video-game?

The time investment said victim put in is real, which is why full-loot PvP games are somewhat more *HARDCORE* *EXTREME* than a kill in TF2.

Why do you have “major issues” with the entertainment of others (‘oh my god, someone is enjoying a JRPG! They’re WRONG!’), yet object so strenuously when others express issues with the entertainment you enjoy? Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.