Link.

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Newb griefer doesn't have fun griefing, feels bullied, writes paper, proves sociology is a joke!

Interesting.

What did you expect from Loyola?

He believes it proved that, even in a 21st century digital fantasyland, an ugly side of real-world human nature pervades, a side that oppresses strangers whose behavior strays from that of the mainstream.

Also, there's a meaningful difference between "straying from the mainstream" in a non-harmful/interfering way (goth kid, gay kids, nerds, etc.), and doing do in a manner that is borderline illegal (Westboro Baptist Church, Sacha Baron Cohen, radical environmental "activists" such as Earth First, Aryssia, etc.) . . . one is behavior a society seeks to tolerate as "live and let live" while the other is violating that very precept.

But no one could stay alive long enough to defeat Twixt or drive him to quit.

Considering this is not a twitch game, I wonder if that's not indicative of a massive design flaw. Even if it's partly skill based, the fact that it is a one-trick pony still seems to prove the design flaw to me.

Myers was stunned by the reaction, since he obeyed the game's rules.

Myers was either a complete retard, which I doubt (though Loyola does make it more likely), or, rather than being stunned, Myers was desparately in need of something to publish and had nothing meaningful to say.

Though he worried that someone would show up at his Loyola office or home in Slidell and harass him or his family, no player ever succeeded in discovering Twixt was Myers.

Well, it's pretty fucking clear now. And since only the truly angry and unbalanced would still be holding a grudge, I guess we'll see what consequences, if any, the good Mr. Myers will reap from this "experiment."

heh sounds like a bunch of carebears from vo must also play COH

yea sounds like it, from what i read that game has a special arena of sorts, ment for open combat, instead the players use it as a chat room. not too dissimilar from players in vo hanging about in space (particularly b8 but in theory anywhere) chatting, when they could be in station chatting just the same.

Its interesting the difference between a simple fps where its kill or be killed and mmorg where social nature takes over and forms a community which includes its own customs and rules. Players that violate those rules and customs attract the 'conformity enforcer' behavior of the community.

Seems perfectly reasonable.

I think the good professor made the mistake of thinking that because it's in the internet, there are not real people behind the screens. Perhaps some people should get a better look of the 'virtual' world and realize that it is a part of the real world, not detached from it, without causal connections.

oh stfu toshiro those people at not right to harass him for killing them in an open pvp area they where a bunch of whinney ninnyes that probably didn't even know how to fight

I think they were more pissed off with HOW he was killing people, not the fact that he was. Sortof like you and player events.

That game must be extremely unbalanced if they had to gang up on him and he was still difficult to defeat.

Not so much more unbalanced than VO, where you can usually avoid a fight if you want to, despite having tk'ed someone.

I think their combat system is 1v1 at a time, though. Hard to tell from the article. The real question is how did one guy get access to an unstoppable, instant-kill move?

Moreover, I question the premise of his whole study: that the company's written rules are the one and only valid source of "game rules." In the real world, there's a decent argument that one's legal rights and obligations are the extent of one's duties to others--and that as long as one doesn't violate those, they shouldn't be subject to actively harrassing treatment by the rest of the world (they can be rejected and shunned, of course, because of freedom of association, but that's not the same thing as actively threatening/harrassing).

But in a virtual environment where everyone is opting into the game, I don't see the argument being anywhere near as strong that the only thing that matters is the Game Designers' stated purpose for the game environment. Surely, violating an expressly negative command would be grounds for removal from the game--but I don't see that pushing back about how and when to pursue a positive command ("have non-consensual PvP here!") is bullying those outside the mainstream. In an optional environment where everyone is paying to have fun, pushing back against the offending outlier, while not able to draw on the game rules for support, doesn't seem to be illegtimate.

But we all knew sociology was bullshit anyway.

Haha, there IS a peyclown connection...
Looks like peer pressure DOES work as advertised!

but peypey will never learn :(

meh i learned /leave 100 and vo has never been better