(no subject)

[cmdr_zoom]

What is it about MMOs that seems to attract so many people with the self-control and moral sense of three year olds? Complete with the whining and the screaming tantrums when caught doing something they shouldn't, and when the Devs treat them as such by limiting what they can do?

EDIT: And this is where I have my semi-annual crisis of faith, wondering if having a moral sense, and not doing some things not for fear of being punished by the developers/cops/Man In The Sky, but because they're just wrong, is a lie made up to keep the sheep placated in a world (over)run by smiling sociopaths.

Comments

[seawasp]

No GMs, basically.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Longer, delayed feedback/punishment loop? Hard-coded mechanics unable to recognize and adapt to/disallow exploits and edge cases? Both? Other?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

No GMs, and the lack of any possible retribution. You can't throw dice at them, order them out of the house, or act in any way to punish people for anti-social behavior.

[seawasp]

Yep. I've said for years that the way to do an MMO that *I* would play is one where each player gets their own instantiation of the world (just set flags, you don't have to copy the whole thing). They can choose individual people for their party in their world, but they don't have to interact with anyone else if they don't want to. If they DO want to be in the totally open sandbox, fine, they can, but those of us who -- like me -- don't have 500 hours a month to dedicate to playing can still go in and play and not worry about the 14 year old who thinks it's hilarious to ambush Teh n00bz and then camp on the spot to kill them a few more times.

This also would allow players to derail The Plot without bothering other people. (I.e., the MMO of LotR currently has one key flaw that keeps me uninterested in playing it: the main plot is spectators-only)

[meagenimage.livejournal.com]

Since Everquest, MMOs that allow full player PvP are the exception rather than the rule. There are still ways for immature players to ruin someone's fun (killing monsters that you're trying to kill for a quest, dragging more monsters on top of you while you're trying to fight, general asshattery in chat), but getting ganked repeatedly in the newbie zones is not really a thing anymore.

Guild Wars lets you team up with up to eight friends (or NPC companions if you're short on friends) and then puts you in your own instance for all the actual gameplay, but it doesn't really make use of it to let you mess with the plot, it's all fairly linear. No monthly fees though, buy the box, play until you get bored or until servers shut down.

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

Also, some of them are three-year-olds.

[pyromaniac-ks.livejournal.com]

Although, to be fair, "having a moral sense" is a psychological construct, rather than something we get from some property of "wrongness" inherent in the universe. In the end, it all comes down to value judgements, and those are entirely subjective and individual. But hey, I'm a smiling sociopath, so what do I know?