We can derive the following corollaries from this label:
a) The fact that it’s a “multiplayer” game carries with it the inherent implication of social interaction
b) The fact that it’s advertised as “massively” multiplayer means that part of the genre’s intended “appeal” is the ability to interact with “massive” numbers of people simultaneously
So, it’s both a game and a “social simulation for life”. Otherwise it wouldn’t need to be a “massively multiplayer” online role playing game.
“Toxic behavior” will always exist in social environments. No one you meet (either in real life or in-game) is under any obligation to “like you” or “be nice to you”. That you will meet rude people who will not be nice to you (in any context) is a fact of life.
Designing and developing a game, especially one that involves large-scale social interaction, with the goal of “preventing toxic behavior” raises numerous issues.
First, what exactly is “toxic behavior?” Leaving aside blatant examples like profanity-laden ad hominem attacks, what one person considers “toxic” or offensive may differ radically from the next.
Let’s consider a small scale example using a situation you presented as a basis:
To you, someone telling you that you’re “building your character wrong” constitutes toxic behavior. To me, it isn’t toxic at all, since I can (and will) just ignore it.
Whose definition of “toxic behavior” is valid? What makes that person’s definition of “toxic behavior” any more valid than the other’s? Why should the game be designed around that person’s definition of “toxic behavior?”
Do you see the problem?
Another issue that arises is “where do you draw the line?” How many restrictive features to “prevent toxic behavior” can you add before the game stops being a game and starts being a kindergarten classroom, with the developers acting as “teachers” forcing everyone to “play nice?”
This, in itself, brings up yet another issue: if there is a limit to the number of restrictive features that should be added, which features are the ones that get implemented, and which aren’t? Naturally, if there’s only so many instances of “toxic behavior” that can be prevented, some people’s definitions of “toxic behavior” won’t be accounted for by those features.
So we have the same problem again: whose definition of “toxic behavior” gets catered to? Why those people’s and not the others’?
The biggest problem with your reasoning, though, is that it’s heavily based on entitlement, as evinced by these statements:
A person’s motive for wanting to participate in a game is entirely subjective.
Some people may want to relieve stress. Others may want to compete, or they may want to leverage their gameplay into real-life profit - EVE Online and Second Life, where virtual assets sell for thousands of dollars, are good examples of this.
The fact that you play the game to “relieve stress” doesn’t mean everyone else does/will.
That’s fine. Here’s the problem: this game is not your (or anyone else’s) “personal hugbox”, to be designed to cater specifically to what you (or anyone else) consider a “fun experience”.
Again, I repeat: this game is massively multiplayer. That means that it’s comprised of many, many players, all with different opinions, mindsets, sensibilities, temperaments - in sum, different personalities.
Not everyone is going to like you. Does that mean things like rampant verbal abuse should be permitted? No. However, it also doesn’t mean that the game should be designed around “preventing toxic behavior.”
Ultimately, when you encounter “toxic behavior”, you are the one who has the last word as to whether or not it will affect you, and how. You can make the choice to ignore it and continue about your business.
If you find that you are incapable or unwilling to do that, then the problem isn’t the game or the players - it’s you.
In that case, if you really “just want to play a fun game” when you get home from work or whatever other stressful environment, you should just play a single-player game by yourself. That way, you can be absolutely sure that there will be 0 toxic behavior of any kind.
That’s your opinions. You can’t use opinions as facts.
The “MM” part of MMORPG stands for “massively multiplayer”, that’s fact. What is bad, what is not, what one needs in an MMO game and how one should react to others’ actions when oneself is involved are subjective opinions.
Bad behaviors happen when there are a lot of people, this is fact. But because so you think that we shouldn’t try to prevent and limit bad behaviors, that is your opinion.
Designing and developing a game, especially one that involves
large-scale social interaction, with the goal of “preventing toxic
behavior” raises numerous issues.
I see you write a lot but yet to see any of these “numerous issues” you said about in the context of your posts, issues that may actually negative affect the game.
So your example starts with:
To you, someone telling you that you’re “building your character wrong”
constitutes toxic behavior. To me, it isn’t toxic at all, since I can
(and will) just ignore it.
Yes, that is to you, to others they may feel different. I don’t know what opinion is “the right opinion” but your opinion is still opinion. I don’t understand how this is supposed to be one of these “numerous issues” you mentioned about.
Whose definition of “toxic behavior” is valid? What makes that person’s
definition of “toxic behavior” any more valid than the other’s? Why
should the game be designed around that person’s definition of “toxic
behavior?”
First, it’s not just only Saber who feels so. Second, it’s not about “designing the game around a person’s definition of ‘toxic behavior’”. It’s about letting people point out their needs and so design solutions so that the more people who are happy the better. Different players want different things and sometime what they want are so conflict with each other so it’s impossible to please everyone, that’s fact, but that doesn’t mean things have to be the way you believe them to be. I yet to see anything to show that what you think the best will actually please the majority of people while the point of a game like this is to please its players. As of now OP is having at least 6 likes for his thread means there is at least 7 people who disagreed with you, 7 people who will be unhappy if things go the way you believe, the rest maybe just kind of whatever is fine. Now we count how many people who agreed with you here? At least on number, ain’t those who agreed with you is the minority? This means that OP’s solution will make more people happy (less unhappy people), based on this we can know which is better. Still you think your opinion is the best for everyone?
Another issue that arises is “where do you draw the line?”
How many restrictive features to “prevent toxic behavior” can you add
before the game stops being a game and starts being a kindergarten
classroom, with the developers acting as “teachers” forcing everyone to
“play nice?”
He / she doesn’t need to draw anything because the person is only asking for an option so that if you want to show your equipments and stats, you can do so, and if some others don’t, they also have the right to choose their option. Just that, no more. The person doesn’t ask anything as much as to have for a police force in the game to enforce justice. Don’t put words to the mouths of others. He / she doesn’t need to know what the prick justice is because they didn’t ask for that.
Here I quote Aries:
can we ALSO have an option to not let that information be available to the public IF we dont want.
He use the word “also” mean that he also want others who don’t feel like him to have their option. He didn’t ask for there to be only one option which is the way that will please him, he ask for a solution to please the more people, the better.
Now have a look at yourself. You seem to ultimately want things to be the way you believe them should be and noway else. Others’ voices, opinions, their feelings, their needs seem to hold no value to you as long as they are different from you. It’s like you think apple pies are the best, some others feel like they want chocolate pie more, they ask to find another kind of pie in which both of you can enjoy though not enjoy as much. But no, you want apple pie because it’s best for you and therefor it must also be the best for them, what you believe absolute has to be the best.
Remember that you don’t own the game, you own nothing here, you are just the same as everyone. You have the right to voice your opinions, others have theirs too, the developers will then choose what they think are better based on their own experiences. You have no right to tell others to not play the game because they don’t agreed with you. That just show how much you are deluded about yourself here.
While debating is a mean to find solutions to solve problems and make things easier for people. I personally feel that some people involve in debates purely to provide that they are right, they know more, they know best, they are smarter, they are superior, that what they think are nothing short of absolution. The world is so sad with many suffering is partly thanks to their egoists but okay I think I am going a bit too far with this.
This is a redundant statement. Yes, they’re my opinions - who else’s opinions could they be, if not mine?
The difference between you and I is that I base my “opinions” on reasoning, not emotion.
Nowhere in my post do I “use my opinions as facts” - I present my points and back them with my reasoning. This is called an argument.
“How one should react to others’ actions when oneself is involved” is not an opinion - it’s a personal prerogative. That is, it’s something you decide yourself.
No one has the right to opine as to how you will ultimately respond to a situation… unless your reaction(s) carry the possibility of infringing upon other people’s rights. That’s where my point comes in.
Adding restrictive feature(s) to games simply because you are incapable of displaying the maturity required to deal with “having your feelings hurt” is ridiculous.
And another thing…
You keep throwing the word “opinion” around as if it constitutes a valid rebuttal to anything I’ve said.
You do realize that by your “logic”, everything you’ve said in your post is your opinion, meaning I can just as easily turn your “argument” around and say
“But because so you think that we should try to prevent and limit bad behaviors, that is your opinion.”
So my “opinion” is that (your definition of) “bad behaviors” shouldn’t be prevented and limited (this is an extremely oversimplified interpretation of my post, but for the purpose of this response it will do). Yours is that they should.
What makes your “opinion” more valid than mine?
Since you allegedly “can’t see” what the issues are, I’ll clarify:
[size=20]The first issue is one of ETHICS. Related sections:[/size]
If you still “can’t see” what the problem is here, I’ll spell it out for you as clearly as I can:
[size=15]Before anything is done to “PREVENT TOXIC BEHAVIOR”, we must first provide a definition of what “TOXIC BEHAVIOR” is.[/size]
[size=15]However, not everyone has the same definition of what “toxic behavior” is. So, whose definition of “toxic behavior” is valid? Why that person’s and not someone else’s? If it’s a group of people that all have the same definition, why that group’s definition and not another group’s?[/size]
[size=15]How does this all relate to ETHICS? Simple: because we need to define what “toxic behavior” is before doing anything to “prevent” it, the act of creating restrictive features to “prevent toxic behavior” would necessitate that the game’s developers cater to one specific person or group’s definition of what “toxic behavior” is.[/size]
[size=20]This is called FAVORITISM.[/size]
[size=20]The second issue is one of LIMITATION. Related section:[/size]
[size=14]If the developers decide to show favoritism to a specific person or group by catering to their definition of what “toxic behavior” is as established by ISSUE ONE, then that person or group has the power to decide what restrictive features to “prevent toxic behavior” are added into the game.[/size]
[size=14]They can do this simply by changing (or appending to) their definition of what “toxic behavior” is. Today it’s a feature to hide your equips and stats so people don’t criticize you about it. Tomorrow it could be a feature to punish people for refusing to let you in their party, or a feature to ban anyone that opens up a shop near you.[/size]
[size=14]Because people define behaviors that “hurt their feelings” or otherwise upset them as “toxic”, absolutely any behavior at all could be construed as “toxic” by this group, as long as they feel somehow “offended” by it.[/size]
[size=20]This would mean that in the context of the game, people’s rights would end where this group or person’s “feelings” begin.[/size]
If you still “can’t see” what the issues are, I don’t know what to tell you.
The reason you “don’t understand” how it relates to the issues I brought up is that you took a single sentence, which was an example used to help convey my actual point, and treated it as my whole argument, which is what comes after that sentence.
First, using the singular term “person” was a convention employed to simplify the wording in my point. The same logic applies if it’s a group of people with the same definition. I have made sure to illustrate this in my arguments above.
Okay.
Conversely, it doesn’t mean things have to be the way you (or Saber) want them to be either.
What’s your point?
I’ve yet to see any proof that what you claim is best will please the majority of people either.
What’s your point?
I really don’t even know where to begin with this.
1.) Do you have any proof that they liked his post because they agree with his viewpoint and design decisions? Any proof he didn’t just make alts and like his own post to make it seem like his idea is well-liked?
2.) Do you have any proof that the portion of this game’s user base that frequents this board is an accurate representation of the opinions, viewpoints and beliefs of the whole?
3.) Do you have any proof that OP’s “solution” will result in “more people happy (less unhappy people)” in the long run? Or even on launch day?
4.) Are you seriously trying to pass a sample size of under 10 people as appropriate for providing a generalized idea of the opinions, viewpoints and beliefs of a population of tens of thousands of people?
5.) And are you seriously trying to use “likes” on a message board as a foundation for an argument? Are you joking?
“I’ve got more Twitter followers than you, therefore I’m right!”
Absurd.
Honestly, I was stuck between answering your post and just ignoring it for a while, because it’s pretty obvious from your weak arguments and refusal/failure to directly respond to or counter any of my arguments that you’re not interested in an actual discussion.
You make your actual motivation for responding to me abundantly clear in your closing paragraphs:
What I get from this little spiel here is this:
You “read” (skimmed) my post until you became offended enough to warrant writing a response, threw together a few ramshackle “arguments” that ultimately amount to nothing more than “that’s just your opinion”, and punctuated it with passive-aggressive ad-hominem attacks.
In other words, like many people on these sorts of video game forums, you interpret any challenge or questioning of your reasoning/“opinions” as a personal attack on yourself, even though the argument in question contains no such attack(s) of any kind.
Whether you continue to this or not is not my problem. However, I won’t bother responding to any posts you make of that nature in the future.
man stop making a fuss about it. Having a box check option to hide or show your equip would allow you to show if you want, someone to hide if they want it, and if you’d like to know what they’re using just go ahead and politely socialize with them. Why such a fuss abut it. It’s a mmo sure, but hey, world has 8billion people in it, and we can still live a reserved life if we want, so why not be reserved in the game as well?
and why does it matter if someone is going to discover any kind of build? If someone feels better for the sake of privacy, mystery or anything else, it doesn’t matter, I just don’t understand why you come to be against a feature that can be disabled at your will.
You are both arguing the same point. Neither of you wants to add restrictions to the game.You both want to give players the freedom to choose whether or not their gears should be hidden. EXACTLY WHAT THE OP SUGGESTED. The reasoning behind why you both want the feature is irrelevant.You can stop the bickering now.
It should not be hidden.
But after thinking a while, I remember not all people play the game has the maturity. Many of them are in school life and their ‘feeling’ still under protection. Different from people who has gone to ‘real life’ where their ‘feeling’ just used to being hurt so they know how to deal with it.
Not everyone is open-minded to take criticism, not everyone is generous to share their build. Like you said, it’s about Ethnic.
We’re here to show our opinions, if people can’t take it, there’s nothing to do about it.
Since the game will contain all kind of people. It’s the Devs to decide.
I think in the first place an inspection option is not even a must-have feature in a game. If a game has it it’s a bonus. I don’t even understand the whole discussion actually because all of the games I know and has it has the option to disable it… Maybe in early games when this feature was totally new you couldn’t disable it but since then it changed… for a reason.
