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Sep. 11th, 2010 04:35 pmhttp://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/loyola_university_professor_be.html is old but fascinating news. David Myers, a *55* year old college professor of communication (who I believe to be a distinct person from the David Myers who wrote my psych 101 textbook), was playing City of Heroes, an online MMO where the rules as written deliberately encouraged antagonism between players. Despite rules very deliberately set up to encourage fighting between heroes and villains, people *didn't*. Even in the designated PvP areas, they chatted with each other and teamed up on NPCs. Anyone with the least experience in games that allow PvP will be wondering "what the fuck?". Avoiding antagonism is not what MMOs are known for. And how brilliant is this guy to see this weird and beautiful set up, recognize it as a valid expression of social interaction, and study the conditions that led to and maintain it?
Not that brilliant, apparently, because his reaction to this gorgeous experimental opportunity was to hit it with a brick. More specifically, he munchkined together a character who could kill other characters by teleporting them to a protected area, where they would be killed by NPCs designed to prevent griefing. Note that in CoH, being killed by NPCs has drastically more consequences than being killed by players, so it was impossible for other players to strike back with equal force. The weirdly fawning article makes it sound like this guy was just too awesome for the mere mortals he played with to take him down. My understanding is that this is not true, he died plenty of times, it's just that dying at another player's hand has no consequences.
So his constant whining about how he was playing the game right and everyone else was wrong is profoundly misleading. Yes, what he did worked within the game's physic engine, but so did the villains-and-heroes social hour. Manipulating game mechanics designed to prevent griefing in order to hurt people seems to be a bigger abuse.
Second, it's pretty sad for anyone to declare other people are playing a game "wrong", but extra sad for a late middle aged professor in a people-focused discipline. I'm extra pissed at him because this was such a rich vein of research material and he could have destroyed it. He seems to have failed to change social norms (and the fact that they were robust in the face of such dedicated attack is extra interesting), but I doubt anyone else will study it now.
Third, there's his constant whining about how he was punished for violating social norms. He's very much using the phrases social outcasts use about the popular kids. So just in case he's reading, let me make something clear: "There is a difference between being picked on for doing something *different* and for doing something *harmful*, even when harmful is a subset of different. What you have proven is that people who are playing jacks together don't like it when someone runs up behind them and hits them with a brick. It says very little about how people who are playing jacks react to the one kid who wants to go off and read, or how they react when the new kid who looks different wants to join them playing jacks."
He then has the audacity to whine about the game not being fun because other people were writing mean things to him. Admittedly, they were extremely mean. But I have a hard time feeling sympathy for someone who gets hurt by words while throwing sticks and stones.
Fourth, who wrote that article? seriously? Other gamers are described as "faceless" and abusive (other players were saying some vicious stuff, but it's not clear if it was any worse than things he said). Myers/his character is described as "scrappy, high-leaping hero decked out in different-colored spandex suits and rocket boots" who "coolly picked his opponents off", and was so awesome "no one could stay alive long enough to defeat Twixt or drive him to quit. "
So what we have is a late middle aged man railing against a toy insisting in should be a game.
Not that brilliant, apparently, because his reaction to this gorgeous experimental opportunity was to hit it with a brick. More specifically, he munchkined together a character who could kill other characters by teleporting them to a protected area, where they would be killed by NPCs designed to prevent griefing. Note that in CoH, being killed by NPCs has drastically more consequences than being killed by players, so it was impossible for other players to strike back with equal force. The weirdly fawning article makes it sound like this guy was just too awesome for the mere mortals he played with to take him down. My understanding is that this is not true, he died plenty of times, it's just that dying at another player's hand has no consequences.
So his constant whining about how he was playing the game right and everyone else was wrong is profoundly misleading. Yes, what he did worked within the game's physic engine, but so did the villains-and-heroes social hour. Manipulating game mechanics designed to prevent griefing in order to hurt people seems to be a bigger abuse.
Second, it's pretty sad for anyone to declare other people are playing a game "wrong", but extra sad for a late middle aged professor in a people-focused discipline. I'm extra pissed at him because this was such a rich vein of research material and he could have destroyed it. He seems to have failed to change social norms (and the fact that they were robust in the face of such dedicated attack is extra interesting), but I doubt anyone else will study it now.
Third, there's his constant whining about how he was punished for violating social norms. He's very much using the phrases social outcasts use about the popular kids. So just in case he's reading, let me make something clear: "There is a difference between being picked on for doing something *different* and for doing something *harmful*, even when harmful is a subset of different. What you have proven is that people who are playing jacks together don't like it when someone runs up behind them and hits them with a brick. It says very little about how people who are playing jacks react to the one kid who wants to go off and read, or how they react when the new kid who looks different wants to join them playing jacks."
He then has the audacity to whine about the game not being fun because other people were writing mean things to him. Admittedly, they were extremely mean. But I have a hard time feeling sympathy for someone who gets hurt by words while throwing sticks and stones.
Fourth, who wrote that article? seriously? Other gamers are described as "faceless" and abusive (other players were saying some vicious stuff, but it's not clear if it was any worse than things he said). Myers/his character is described as "scrappy, high-leaping hero decked out in different-colored spandex suits and rocket boots" who "coolly picked his opponents off", and was so awesome "no one could stay alive long enough to defeat Twixt or drive him to quit. "
So what we have is a late middle aged man railing against a toy insisting in should be a game.
