This is a bit off-topic, but as there's a post here every few weeks about game morals, I thought I'd point to this rather interesting CNN article:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/fun.games/07/05/misbehaving.online.ap/index.html

PS - Please don't flame me: I don't work for CNN and do not necessarily agree with everything they say.

Intresting...though why would any griefer worth his name play the SIMS???


-homestar "yellowyard" runner

To be honest, any game that requires monthly fee should take measures to stop griefers.
can you imagine paying 15/month for vendetta, and for the first 3 weeks, you are nuked as soon as you leave your station by someone with too much money and free time? or getting killed in a bus while you are a newb and thereby never have a chance to progress?

Well, at this point, you aren't getting griefed until you wander out of your home sector. I don't think it will be as much of an issue as when we all started playing. Those DefBots are meanies.

In the full game there will be 1000's of sectors so encountering a griefer will be rare. Although thinking about it if you meet a griefer any help could be 1000's of sectors away.

I agree with that article whole heartdly. I would LOVE to see personal liability laws for in game actions. THEN I think people would realize that while the Internet DOES give you anonimity, it does NOT give you license to do WHATEVER you want.

Time to grow up folks... time to take the net out of the teen kid phase and into the adult mature phase. It starts with each of us.

Offensive post removed. Using an astrerisk does not change the fact that it was rude and abusive.

Fur...... grow up, and you want to put laws into video games???? LOL!

The only way I'd see it is the courts throwing out every single case of "standing." That means the plaintiff has no grounds for the action. We do, in America, have the right to "happiness," however, it's your choice to play the game, and your choice to play it at that time.

If someone gets riled over a game, pull the plug!!!! Go for a walk and put things back into perspective! It's a game!

Yeah fb, I hope that you just forgot to add the jk to that post, 'cause it's ridiculous. Sadly, I fear it'll happen. Probably around the time The Right to Read comes true (it's a story, go browse the gnu site to find it).

it was a joke. do you have no sense of humor?

Darn, I gotta read the posts before they get moderated with extreme prejudice (go play xtux if u think that is insulting, cause it ain't)

/me doesn't remmember the post, but he remmmebers the strange form of censoring, where the astrick was placed over the last letter as opposed to the vowel, which is the customary way. Peculiar, isn't it?

*sigh* you folks just don't get it do you?

JUST because you are anonymous on the net that does NOT give you the right to do whatever you want. For example (I had HOPED I'd not have to go into this kind of detail :() you can NOT post pictures of naked children on a website. That's against the law. You also can NOT go and engage in slanderious activities. That's against the law.

Let me give you a PRIME example that is OUT SIDE of the Internet. JUST because here in the US we have the right to free speech, that does NOT mean that you can walk into a movie theater and yell "FIRE" when there is no fire. If you don't believe me, PLEASE feel free to go and try it as an experiement. Be prepared though to spend some time in jail or pay a fine.

So no folks, my original post is NOT a joke. It's time that we all stood up and take RESPONSIBILITY for our actions. That means if you do something BAD THEN YOU ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES. DO NOT BLAME SOCIETY, YOUR PARENTS, YOUR UPBRINGING, WHAT HAPPENED 200 YEARS AGO, etc. What we are seeing here online is just another example of one of the growing pains that our society is having right now.

P.S.
DS4, I'm not talking about putting a law IN A VIDEO GAME. I am talking about being held responsible for your actions in SAID VIDEO GAME.

wow, what a heated discussion and how far from griefers we've come.
I just want to mention my point of view. I reckon laws should be part of the final game, as in there should be cops in Vendetta, that moderate actions of other people based on their status in the game and behaviour. Of course moderation would come as banning from stations (can't dock), declaring wanted (auto-bounty) and killing them for a day/week (jail simulation).
Flame on ;)

I use to play a little game for the mac, it had a good system for dealing with jerks, basically a court where jury people would sign up and stuff, if the person was found guilty, the jury would choose one, a time fine or a money fine, if the person couldn't pay the money they got more time.

Real example:

I was sexually abused by some idiot, i was keeping my cool while someone decided this was not acceptable, they filed a court thingy, a couple minutes later he was on a little box saying "I'm sorry, my brother was on at the time.", blah blah blah, he was found guilty 6 to 0. he got:
3 days game time of jail
one week banishment
Banishment was basically a guard patroling the town, if you got caught you would be sent out of the towns borders.

If the person was not guilty, you got the punishment instead, this discouraged a lot of BS trials.
I have a feeling a system like this might work in this game, but the people selected to be the jury would have to be selected with some care because certain people here are prejudice against people.

*puts up flame guard*

Oh yes, and i forgot to mention.

My brother in that game, got 4 characters jailed, then banished, then baned, then a temporary ban on the account, then a permanent ban on the account.

Wow furball, that is sad...

I like that game's plan, let's do our own! yay!

My opinion is that there's no need to impose legal regulations on game actions beyond perhaps the normal regulations on speech in a public area.

Note that not everyone playing a game is likely to even be in one country. International legal issues are very difficult to manage, and in this case, the potential offences generally aren't worth dealing with. (The worst that can possibly be done is sexual harassment of some limited form, which can easily be swiftly handled by game moderators, or taken on by the society within the game.)

One also has to realise and be aware that online games are simply a form of communication and the worlds they take place in are imaginary - none of the actions that take place are in any way real. If you don't like the game, then it's your prerogative not to play it - unsubscribe. If you want your money back, then that's something that you take up with the company that makes the game, not the other players. If there are people in the game you'd still like to maintain communication with, get their e-mail addresses or ICQ numbers or something.

That being said, "griefers" are an issue. Not for the law to take care of, but the game designers, and the society that exists within the game. If people are picking on new characters and killing them repeatedly or undertaking other actions that take advantage of weaker players and this is seen to be inappropriate and detracting from the game as a whole, then the game needs to be designed to take such "griefers" into account. (I don't think that I've ever heard the term "griefer" used in reference to a Quake 3 player.)

Suicidal Lemming's example of an ingame court based system is one way of dealing with the issue. Another is making the actions seen as explotative less effective. The fact that new players fly free ships and the defence bots in home sectors are steps in this direction. The people acting like underhanded pirates, in my opinion, actually serve to make the game somewhat more interesting, if kept to reasonable limitations by the rules of the game. New players, of course, should always have the ability to progress, and this should be helped by in-game structures, both in the rules of the game and in the player society, that protect new players to some reasonable extent. On the other hand, if there are no risks (of a virtual sort) involved in a game, it is often quite a bit less interesting to play.

As for those who exploit the rules of the game, they merely indicate problems with the rules, and serve to highlight things that should probably be changed in future releases. Along these lines are those who use macros to perform actions. Macros are basically impossible to stop directly (there are perhaps ways to look at the client side input for patterns, but these things can be circumvented). The real issue that people using macros brings up is that the actions required to progress are overly repetitive and hence can be scripted at all. If you need to do something that a machine can do better in order to progress in the game, of course you'll want to make a machine do it. The solution is to come up with a system that needs higher-level thinking for progression, or interesting, dynamic actions of some sort. Things that are typically difficult to impossible to script. This also makes for a better game overall.

- Mesostel Ze

Urza: I'm going to leave your post up because it is generally well though out, but you need to go back and clean up the language or it goes. We have a selectable language filter in-game, but it doesn't work here.

Edit: Post deleted

I think its unfair to class all pirates as griefers... the thing is, we're SUPPOSED to be the bad guys. While there are always those who take it beyond the RPG sense (Im talking about the so-called 'pirates' who shoot down busses for the fun of it) most will only target you if youre in a cargo ship or get within such a range that you could easily be hostile.

The n00bs DO have a chance. I remember being a n00b once myself, and getting whacked repeatedly by Khral in 3.1. Now I can beat him in a duel. The people who I killed in centaurs a month or so ago have been dogfighting and duelling while I've been pirating, and are now absolutely vicious with a grudge to bear ('and' comes to mind...) and there are always the traders that just turn round and unload all their ammo on you (marcuse, BusMasteR). The problem is when a n00b gets the cash for an expensive cargo ship and flies to a so-called 'secret' sector like 14, and expects somehow not to get shot.

First, Sam, well thought out post and frankly I agree with most all of what you posted.

NOW, let me clear up a few misconceptions.

#1) Do I SPECIFICALLY think that a law SPECIFICALLY designed to address griefers in game needs to be on the books?

NO

#2) Do I think that people should be banned and/or have their accounts deleted for carrying the killing too far?

YES

#3) Am I against ALL pirates or pirating

NO

#4) Do I feel that people should be responsible for their actions in game?

YES

#5) Do I think that existing laws can be applied to griefers?

YES

#6) SHOULD they be?

99.9% of the time, no the offense does not rise to the level of needing civil/criminal charges being applied.