A question of ethics in MMORPGs

[--Pete]

Hi,

Yep. As kandrathe says, I've been advocating something along those lines since before D2 was even announced as a future product. Those ideas went back to the old Buzzard Suggestion forum for D1.

No real need to make supplies (arrows, bolts, keys, pots) perishable since they get used up in time anyway. I think that would add a level of complexity without impacting game play. The idea of keys having a chance to work is nice. However, your math is off :) Ten keys each with a 10% probability of working would only give you a 65% chance of working. Right now keys are just a PITA. It would be nice if keys and chests were related, so that only one key would open a given chest and that key would not open any other chest. Then they begin to influence gameplay ("Do I keep a second stack of keys or do I risk not being able to open the chest?", "Do I go back and try the keys that I just found in the chest I couldn't open?"). Of course, to make that work you need to make chests more important. Say a guaranteed item of reasonable level for the area with increased odds of green, yellow or gold items.

There are lots of things that can be done

Indeed there are, like making day/night mean something (perhaps more Undead monsters at night, more animals during the day?) Making weather mean something (maybe lowered effectiveness with ranged weapons (wet bowstrings, you know?))

But as long as game design is dominated by the marketing and the fx departments, the best we can look forward to is games like D1 and D2 -- good games that miss being great.

--Pete

[Kasreyn]

Actually, I meant that the game should add the probabilities that each key has, and apply the total probability, the same way it does with resistance from items.

No real need to make supplies (arrows, bolts, keys, pots) perishable since they get used up in time anyway.

Good point. But I *would* prefer that bows have a repair cost. As it is, it seems Amazons get off really easy. In high difficulties (and even in Normal, after Act 2), costs for arrows become negligible. But really, bows are more subject to damage from use than many other kinds of weapon - bowstrings fray, crack, and eventually split and must be replaced.

I'd also like to see heavier bows require more Str than they currently do; fantasy fiction books like to talk about bows with 100-pound pulls, but I can say from experience, they're not very realistic. Not many people could fire a bow with that kind of pull for very long without wearing out.

As to the chests, I think it might be too complex to have each key attuned to a single chest. Rather, I think each key you buy should be a "skeleton" key that can open some but not all chests. It makes sense for a scoundrel like Gheed to sell skeleton keys. =P

The Undead at night, animals in the day is a great idea. For instance, in the Tamoe Highlands it might be Bone Mages and Bone Warriors at night, Blood Hawks and Moon Clans during the day. They did that in EverCrack (different mobs (enemies) spawn in an area depending on time of day), and it made the game more interesting. There were some areas that were newbie safe in the day, but dangerous even to mid-level characters at night...

As to games not dominated by marketing and fx, there are such games, but not in the genre of video games. =\ At least, not very many. I wonder which came first: videogamers' insistence on graphics being the first and foremost aspect of a new game, or videogame makers' decision that that should be their selling point? The chicken, or the egg?

-Kasreyn

[Count Duckula]

Count, I don't have too much to add of academic interest, but I think Blizzard censors certain words to keep from getting sued.  By whom I have no idea, but they must pay their lawyers for some reason.

I would think it is technically a little harder to ban strings, even those most of us here might consider hate speech, when there is nothing particularly wrong with the component parts, just how the words are juxtaposed.

True, the game won't let you use the L word, but (for example) you could create characters with names like SapphicAvenger and Tribade...though I suppose you can't do so on east.

In real life I am an advocate of free speech, but I hold that neither commercial speech nor hate speech is protected speech, at least in the U.S.  Actually I am glad that Blizzard makes an attempt to keep the realms clean.  I can only imagine what the chat screens would look like if they did not.

Hope your course goes well.

From LavCat: By whom I have no idea, but they must pay their lawyers for some reason. I would think it is technically a little harder to ban strings, even those most of us here might consider hate speech, when there is nothing particularly wrong with the component parts, just how the words are juxtaposed.

I have no idea about this either...can someone wise on this sort of thing give more information?

From Occhi: MMORPG, as I see it, is not what Diablo II is. The game does not reward role playing by any constructive measure, it is an attrition-based-combat-model-using dungeon crawl. And fun.

I know. I was adding D2 as a last resort, but other RPG communities (EverQuest, Sims, Baldur's Gate) have shrugged me off because I'm concerned with real-life ethics, not in-game ethics, like killing commoners and betraying authority and such. Keep in mind I'm giving this presentation to ~20 young college females who'd rather be shopping. I need to keep it simple. ^_^

So much for filters making any sense, you can't type D1ck on this forum.

I'm doing more testing on D2 on what is and isn't censored. Anyone mind helping me? :D Can't say Carlin's Seven Dirty Words, but you can get away with an astonishing amount of medical terminology. (Dibs on UrethraFranklin.)

I will ask: why is it that you are upset at Blizzard, rather than the players who come up with the lewd names? Part of the problem is that what offends you is what some find foolishly sohphomoric, and others find clever and witty, and still others find tiresome and boorish. Thus ever with 'humor' and punnery.

I'm upset at Blizzard for halfhearted enforcement, and how they're letting Battle.net deevolve into a sewer, with a few Minty Fresh pockets here and there. And you're right, Occhi, my personal feelings on that issue have no place in this presentation.

The folks exercising their free speech are also exercising their option to present themselves as jerkoffs.

There is wisdom in what you say, Rogue with a Heart. :)

Is a finder's fee a legal fee? Yes. There you are. And, like illicit drugs, without demand there would be No Supply Requirement! Right back to The Players. Sort of like Pogo once said: We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us!

Finders fee? Pogo? :blink:

I'm including a cap from an eBay auction of an item and comparing it to a stylish, popular shirt at Abercrombie and Fitch. That should make the girls gasp. :P

From Kasreyn: Maybe increase the cost of keys in NM/Hell, and set it so that there's a % chance each key might work on any given locked chest (say, 40% in Normal, 20% in NM, and 10% in Hell); thus in Hell, carrying 10 keys at all times would give an average 100% chance that ONE of them would work). It's always seemed silly to me that Gheed just HAPPENS to have keys for all these chests out in the wilderness...

Or even make different-colored keys and chests, and randomize both, with percentages. A common green chest can be opened with a common green key with 50% chance of nothing, while an uncommon purple chest can be opened with a rare purple key with only a 5% chance of nothing.

Things like this make me want to nudge the modders and go "there's a need here, and you have the talent..."

I'd also like to see heavier bows require more Str than they currently do; fantasy fiction books like to talk about bows with 100-pound pulls, but I can say from experience, they're not very realistic. Not many people could fire a bow with that kind of pull for very long without wearing out.

Depends on whether or not the person has 18 strength or not. Since I only have 9 on a good day, I couldn't, and thanks to my 11 dexterity, I'd probably snap the string on drop the silly thing.

[Nystul]

Considering the nature of the term "video games", I suspect that graphics were of paramount importance before there were even any marketers or customers involved. When I think of classic arcade games, I think of graphics and timing and virtually nothing else. Certainly by the time of Pacman, customers had made clear the need for more realistic graphics. Of course, the flip side to all of this are the adventure games like Zork, with no graphics or timing, and a lot of storyline.

The ability of humans to draw pictures, think up stories, develop complex game strategies, and so on has not increased much in 40 years (some might suggest it has decreased :P). The capacity of hardware to relate these things has increased tremendously. And in the meantime, thousands of years worth of gaming concepts have been consumed into the various video game genres. People want it all, and the industry has a harder and harder job to meet that expectation (whether it tries to or not, which is certainly debatable). But the games which meet the expectation on graphics and sound get noticed and bought, and months later people realize the concept, story, or balance is weak. The games which fall short on graphics end up on bargain bin shelves, and nobody plays long enough to realize the concept is great and the story is epic...

Even on this forum, with all the strategy freaks and bug-fixers, the main subject of discussion at the time of D2's release was whether the graphics were good enough! It takes a little time for that first impression to fade and everything else to become paramount.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Actually, I meant that the game should add the probabilities that each key has, and apply the total probability, the same way it does with resistance from items.

What would be the point? Since (IIRC) you can stack 12 keys in a slot, you would always have 100% chance of opening the first three locked chests you run across. Keys are cheap and they also drop often, thus there isn't much need to ever have less than ten. I think that changing keys would require more than just adding a probability to make it a significant part of the game.

But I *would* prefer that bows have a repair cost. . . . But really, bows are more subject to damage from use than many other kinds of weapon - bowstrings fray, crack, and eventually split and must be replaced.

Totally agree. Bows should be low cost, low durability items.

I'd also like to see heavier bows require more Str than they currently do; fantasy fiction books like to talk about bows with 100-pound pulls, but I can say from experience, they're not very realistic.

Actually, the English longbow probably pulled all of that and more at the 36" full draw. While no bow has come down to us from the period of the Hundred Years War (and would not matter if it did, since wood that old would not have the properties it had when it was new) we do have a lot of information from forensics. The left wrist bones of many men of this period have multiple and extensive compression fractures. Those fractures are the result of extending the bow. The people who did the measurements have determined that bows with pulls of 90 to 120 pounds were needed to do that amount of damage. Spanish Yew is the favorite material for the English longbow, and, no, it was not imported. That's just the name of the plant, it grows quite well in England. When bows have been made from this plant in accordance with what details we have of bow construction of that day, they pull quite heavily, in about the same 90 to 120 pound range.

Realize that children started to learn the bow quite young, and continuous practice was required by law. Indeed, at various times, all other pastimes were forbidden so that people would only practice archery. Add to that the fact that these were rural people doing heavy farm work without the benefit of power tools. However, you do have a good point in the "Not many people could fire a bow with that kind of pull for very long without wearing out." In reality, an archer might fire a dozen arrows in a row. After that, the attack was repelled, and he got a chance to rest till the next one came (a matter of a few hours to perhaps days) or he had to defend himself in melee. The continuous machine gun fire of the bows in D1/D2 is not at all realistic. OTOH, the forty or fifty foot range (limited by on screen sighting distance) is equally wrong.

Frankly, bows are not handled worth a damn in any CRPG that I'm familiar with, and they aren't handled much better in pnp games.

As to games not dominated by marketing and fx, there are such games, but not in the genre of video games. =\ At least, not very many.

I'm still old fashioned enough to distinguish between "video" games and "computer" games. Video games are the descendants of Pong. The video, the sound, those are what those games are all about. The home versions were the consoles. Computer games started with neither sound nor graphics. The earliest computer games I know of (and played) were turn based games run in a batch environment. Even the later games in a time share environment were like dungeon and adventure (precursors to Zork) and (with the advent of controllable cursors using ANSI) rogue (granddaddy of Diablo). As the capability of consoles became greater, they drifted in the direction of adding more thought. And as the capabilities of the personal computer became greater, they started to add sound and graphics. The situation now is that the two systems are nearly capable of the same things.

But there are a *lot* of games out there that are not influenced by marketing. There are a lot of games, or add ons, or mods that are being done by gamers for gamers. It's just the commercial games that get hit by the desires of suits.

I wonder which came first: videogamers' insistence on graphics being the first and foremost aspect of a new game, or videogame makers' decision that that should be their selling point? The chicken, or the egg?

The egg, of course. Eggs were around long before chickens, and the first chicken came out of an egg laid by something that wasn't, quite, a chicken. :)

From my own dabbling with game programming, I'd guess it was the game designers that drove the video as much as anything. I've never worked on a game yet that didn't, eventually, push all the limits of the machine and left me saying "If only I could . . . ". It's the nature of the beast. After all, a word processor, a database, a spreadsheet all have some limitations of what is expected of them. The only limitation on a game is how cool and how fun the designers could make it.

--Pete

[CelticHound]

Actually, I see that as already built into the game. All gear - including bows and charms - goes away at some point and needs to be replaced.

I call it "playing hardcore". ;)

-- CH

[Guest]

All your questions show that you dont realy undertand what a MMORP is.

Its a product/service. The game provider is the vendor and the player is the customer.

The only ethics that enter into the transactions are-

-Is the product recieved what was promised.(ie Box says it includes special features which are not actually in game)

-Does the product function properly.(Ie does it crash to often etc)

-Is it a fit product(ie would it be right to sell a game involving orgies to 10 year olds? Would it be right to sell a game that tought children how to make real bombs?)


Im kind of tired of people acting like MMORPs are a society where people have rights beyond what is listed above.

Its a product, if you dont like it - stop subscribing.

[BanditAngel]

One key working on all locks in unrealistic, but so is the fact that a Strength 300 barbarian weilding a gigantic maul that can slay Diablo himself... can't just BASH the chest open. Sure, potions might be destroyed and anything else damaged a bit with a maul, but the point remains that the game doesn't let you do that. Personally I'd rather see keys removed - I don't like cluttering my inventory and I don't like dealing with locked chests that I can't open, since neither adds much to the game tactically or fun-wise.

As for bows, the reason CRPGs handle them badly is because they're creating the entirely unrealistic charecter of the Archer, who has to be able to keep up with the Fighter charecter just fine. The most realistic use of archery in a game would be a fighter who fires a few shots before a fight, but even then, archery was designed for MASS COMBAT, and RPGs are designed for small groups instead. That's why archers are rarely realistic - it doesn't work from a balance perspective. Unless the fighter ambushed the archer, the archer should have more than enough time to put a couple of arrows through the fighters head, heart, or whatever. And if the fighter blocks these arrows with a shield, then the archer is mincemeat. Not a terribly fun game :)

[Count Duckula]

All your questions show that you dont realy undertand what a MMORP is.

I know what a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game is. I am questioning user ethics in MMORPGs and trying to make a 30-minute presentation to a roomful of bored college women about it. My presentation would be drastically different if, say, I was presenting it to a roomful of Lurkers. But since I'm presenting it to a roomful of bored college women, it's Diablo for Dummies.

My question of ethics are not professional, they are moral. Philosophy 101 students do nothing but tackle moral ethics like these, usually in relation to dead white guys, and usually out on Front Quad.

Is cheating in a computer game or selling items from a computer game online ethical from a moral standpoint? Or is it okay because it's just a computer game?

Im kind of tired of people acting like MMORPs are a society where people have rights beyond what is listed above.

Gotta fight for your rights someplace. :P

Its a product, if you dont like it - stop subscribing.

I enjoy the product. I wouldn't have invested ~$100 in Blizzard merchandise if I didn't. I'm making an attempt at impartiality, but comments like that make me long for the Ashideena and the +2 warhammer power it brings. "For the glory of Lathander!" *SWACK!*

[Occhidiangela]

Sort of like Pogo once said: We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us!

Pogo. Comic strip that dates me a bit, by Walt Kelly. Political satire, and quite a bit funnier than Doonsbury in its heyday, which was pretty funny, in my opinion.

More explanation here: Pogo Article
Fan site here: Pogo Fansite
Biographical Sketch: Walt Kelly

Finders fee?

A fee charged for providing a service, such as I am an art expert, and my client wants to purchase an original Bolty. I find it, he buys it from Bolty, but I get a fee for having found it.

I'm including a cap from an eBay auction of an item and comparing it to a stylish, popular shirt at Abercrombie and Fitch. That should make the girls gasp.

I like that. :) Hope you get a rise out of them.

[Hammerskjold]

>I know what a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game is.

>But since I'm presenting it to a roomful of bored college women, it's Diablo for Dummies.

Ok, but since Diablo is not a MMORPG, isn't that a misleading example? Wouldn't something like Everquest, DAoC, Sims online or UltimaOnline be more accurate to use as a study, or examples? Websites like Stratics or Gamasutra.com also has some good articles that might help you out.

[Count Duckula]

Ok, but since Diablo is not a MMORPG, isn't that a misleading example?

It is. But since the Lurker Lounge is the only place where I've gotten a significant response (i.e. the thread is somewhat still on topic), I have to go with what I've got.

::ponders a change to Ethics in Online Gaming::

[Guest]

I still think your subject is a mess.

You have mixed normal bussiness ethics(the stuff i mentioned in my last post) with personal ethics in a virtual world.

1 The bussiness stuff is a non issue. Its no different than subscribing to a cable service or buying a power tool in essence. You would do well to not waste time adressing any of this.

Reread you first post if you will see that this is all you talked about originally.




2 personal ethics ins a virtual world - now this is hearty subject, ripe for examination. A few starter points....

-Should you worry about hurting the real person behind another toon, even if you only deal with them through the game?(not someone you chat about RL with).

-Is it wrong to roleplay a bad person?

- Is it wrong to encourage unhealthy actions in other players? Could doing this effect how they act in RL?

-If you can tell someone spends an unhealthy amount of time playing- should you encourgae them to quite?



Thats just some ideas, I am sure there are many better points to explore too.

[Hammerskjold]

>But since the Lurker Lounge is the only place where I've gotten a significant response (i.e. the thread is somewhat still on topic), I have to go with what I've got.

Schedule permitting, hopefully you've looked at more than just players message boards for your research. Like I mentioned, there's Gamasutra.com. And Stratics which is great for MMORPGS. If you got a Chapters bookstore nearby, you can check their magazine section to see if they have the Game Developers Conference publication.

Then there's this article\interview:
http://www.aicg.com/modules.php?op=modload...order=0&thold=0

There's a good tidbit there about the (im)maturity of video games as an art form, or at least as a means of communications. You can even check out recent laws regarding this. (Eg: Do electronic games fall under the categories of things like songs, paintings, films, or novels? Or are they just electronic versions of games like Monopoly or a deck of cards, where silly notions like freedom of expressions do not apply.)

>My presentation would be drastically different if, say, I was presenting it to a roomful of Lurkers. But since I'm presenting it to a roomful of bored college women,

I understand you might have to re-word certain things for the benefit of non-gamers. But your understanding of the topic, and the accuracy of your research should not be affected by which audience is listening.

[whyBish]

It's philosophy 101 not PhD thesis. If it's anything like NZ I doubt tyou'd need to have more than one reference source to get a decent mark...
P.S. Tell us how you get on Duckula.
The funny thing is, I see more interest in the questions that could be asked than in any answers that could be provided.

- Can you make friends/love someone you never phyically meet? (I suppose its like penfriends)
- Are inter-game reputations important? How can you get reputation permanence online?
- How can you achieve online discrimination (i.e. summing up a players expected behaviours at a glance. E.G. seeing an amazon with a pike at a level 9 W.P. leads you to certain assumptions. Characters with certain names lead you to certain assumptions etc.)? Is discrimination a bad thing (online)?
- Is lying in game like lying in real life?

In a large environment, you playing random games you are unlikely to ever see a person again. Would you behave the same way to people you meet in real life if you know you will never see them again and that their reaction to you will not be transmitted inderectly to anyone you know in R.L.?

- Is playing a character of the opposite sex misleading?
- Is role-playing a character of the opposite sex misleading?
- Is an online affair possible? Does an online marriage in game mean anything?

- How would answers to the above change if the online community had a similar population mix to R.L. population mix?
(The assumption of almost everyone I met on BNET (as most other online places) once I typed a few English sentences was that I was a male from the North American continent.)

- How do people percieve other online personas? (e.g. when I first hit the lounge I though Occhi was some smart kid (the poetry stuff :) ), Then (much) later I had images of some bloke in a military outfit, then an image of a cool father sitting at a bedside making up stories)

Note that online is a good place to look at AI questions. e.g. If I found out tomorrow that Occhi was really just some complex algorithm and not a person at all, does that change things? Can I be friends with Lines of Code?

Anyway, good luck with your presentation!

[whyBish]

[i]If they buy their own flag and burn it in political protest, fine, I am free to consider them an asshole, a European, or an Arab: or even all three. :)

Just a cultural aside, if that sentence was used here it would not make sense, you use European to describe someone from Europe, here we use it to describe someone with predominantly European ancestry.

Its funny every 4 years at census when you read papers with letters to the editor of 6-8th generation NZers complaining that they are legally required to define themselves as European :blink:

[Occhidiangela]

Since I have been required to fill out 'ethnic' information on official forms, which became very common in the past 5-10 years, I decided to conduct a silent protest:

I always check "Other" or write in "American." I give no dignity to any of the categories that are listed because I personally object to the purposes behind them. Both of them are technically true, and therefore are not false representations.

I learned a while back that you are best off if take people as you find them. How to turn that thought into a government policy is, I suspect, a rather large undertaking. :)

[the Langolier]

Since I have been required to fill out 'ethnic' information on official forms, which became very common in the past 5-10 years, I decided to conduct a silent protest:

I always check "Other" or write in "American."  I give no dignity to any of the categories that are listed because I personally object to the purposes behind them.

As do I. It is, however, a perfectly valid question when paired with others relating to height, weight, age, hair color, eye color, etc - it can be used to better describe physical features. Exactly how does it relate to name, social security number, address, etc? The only thing it could possibly do is to support descrimination (even against white males such as myself, especially on scholarship applications).

[Guest]

If it wasnt for questions like these, how else would the Republican party realize that it could mostly ignore blacks and focus all its efforts on whites and hispaniics?

How would the democrats know if they can maintain the hispanic vote they can ignore all non union white males?


These questions let polictical parties save tons of money by ignoring select large demographic groups.

[ShadowHM]

I too have been working on this one for years.

The common question, when getting to know someone, especially in a country/city with such a high proportion of immigrants, is "What is your nationality?" or "What is your background?". Both mean the same thing, for some.

And the answer has to be "Canadian".

The notion that one can still be Italian after four generations of Canadian citizenship is just as foolish as the notion that one can still be Pakistani after one generation of Canadian citizenship.