General Discussion

Actually I am not religious. I simply believe in making the world a better place for all that live in it.  I do believe that people should keep it real.  The role playing that you are reffering to in games is predetermined role playing by the developers of the game. The reason they usually make scamming and cheating against the rules is because it interferes with the enjoyment of the game for other players. Your enjoyment is limited to your enjoyment, when your enjoyment interferes with the enjoyment of your fellow players outside the lines of the game guidlines that is when you are overstepping your roleplaying. Yes there has to be limitations or else games will lose players due to the games being run over by creeps.  The justification of condeming creeps is to keep the game enjoyable for all players not just the creeps. If the game has in game thievery then go steal from the npcs and leave the real players alone. When your enjoyment is being a parasitic element preying upon unsuspecting players you become a  problem to the well being of the game and therefore should be eliminated in order to keep those would be victims paying for the game rather than lose memberships over one bad seed.

Originally posted by Gishgeron

 

Originally posted by deviliscious

no I would never say voice chat was manditory to use, but what in game chat would help with determining whether or not someone was a creep. Because it would be well known knowledge that if the creeps refuse to use voice or pretend they cannot, then it is alot easier to narrow down who is a creep and who isn't. Considering all the real girls I know in games actually like using headsets, there would be plenty of real girls on voice to help resolve this issue.  It would be alot harder for those guys trying to con people to get away with scamming people.  I don;t like to listen to everyone as well, but that is why there need to be separate channels just like setting chat to "guild" friends" ect. That way you do not have to listen to anyone you choose not to.  Sometimes I don't want to talk either , but if the option was there it would make it alot easier to determine if they are talking to a punk kid or not. The fact is that people these days do meet each other in games, I have met alot of people that I play with online. We party together, makes the games more fun that way.

 

  WoW has a voice chat system, and before that Ventrilo was used by ALOT of people anyway.  Even then, most people aren't always on it anyway.  Several (including me) don't use voice chat regardless.  There is no "good" way to identify creeps, I'm sorry to say.  In fact, theres no need to either.  You have no more need to discover that they are really female as you would have need to find out if they are really an orc.

  Fact is, you shouldn't be treating people ingame as actual representations of themselves anyway.  Any game with halfway decent immersion is going to have people becoming involved in what their character is supposed to be, not who they are.  You should view them as other characters in a game.  True sexuality is really not important at all, and has no bearing what-so-whomever of the person playing it as they relate to YOU.

  After all, its not like you are using the game to find a husband.  Its a game, the only thing you should be using other players for is doing things in the game.  Since there is no difference in the abilities of men or women to play games....and the act of playing any opposite sex IN game has no disadvantage...it suffers you nothing at all.  If you are worried about people who use the female toons for free items....I counter with the ideal that you should instead be worried about people who are giving them free things hoping to "hook up" with someone they met in a game.  Worse...hoping that "pretend items" would be enough to encourage a "hook up " to happen. 

  It would seem to me that the givers, not the takers, are the ones who REALLY have problems.

Eh?

I don't play with in game characters, I play with people.

Their sexuality is important to me. As is their physical and mental health, their happiness and all the other things that are important to me about all my friends.

The people I play with, have in game characters, but they are not in game characters.

Quite a few of them don't just live inside my computer but are people I have known all my life. People I stand next to at the bar, sit next to in the office. Real people. With real lives and real feelings.

For the record, I often fantasise about the women I play with meeting up with me in real life. It's a great fantasy I (and sometimes they) enjoy it.  I always bribe my friends (and my enemies), and I recommend this to anyone as a basic social skill. Smart people do. Buy a round of drinks everytime you walk into a bar and see what kind of a response you start getting from people.

People respond well when you go out of your way to do things to make them happy.

I carry in game items for girls always. Also in my car. My jacket pockets, everyehere I go, I also have presents for my mates children and for my employee's. It's the little things that make the world go round.

Originally posted by deviliscious

Actually I am not religious. I simply believe in making the world a better place for all that live in it.  I do believe that people should keep it real.  The role playing that you are reffering to in games is predetermined role playing by the developers of the game. The reason they usually make scamming and cheating against the rules is because it interferes with the enjoyment of the game for other players. Your enjoyment is limited to your enjoyment, when your enjoyment interferes with the enjoyment of your fellow players outside the lines of the game guidlines that is when you are overstepping your roleplaying. Yes there has to be limitations or else games will lose players due to the games being run over by creeps.  The justification of condeming creeps is to keep the game enjoyable for all players not just the creeps. If the game has in game thievery then go steal from the npcs and leave the real players alone. When your enjoyment is being a parasitic element preying upon unsuspecting players you become a  problem to the well being of the game and therefore should be eliminated in order to keep those would be victims paying for the game rather than lose memberships over one bad seed.

You talk like Dr Spock.

Hahahah! I do not! see now if you spoke to me on voice you wouldn;t be saying that! L0L!

Originally posted by baf

 

Eh?

 

 

I don't play with in game characters, I play with people.

Their sexuality is important to me. As is their physical and mental health, their happiness and all the other things that are important to me about all my friends.

The people I play with, have in game charcters, but they are not in game characters.

 

Quite a few of them don't just live inside my computer but are people I have known all my life. People I stand next to at the bar, sit next to in the office. Real people. With real lives and real feelings.

  I never said view people as in game characters.  I said view in game characters AS in game characters.  More importantly, I said that you shouldn't waste time trying to use in game characters to identify with the strangers (whom you've never met) behind them.  Games are just that, games.  You shouldn't be viewing them as community halls where you discover your new lover for gods sake.  I realize that we make friends on these things, that we even BRING our own friends to them.  That doesn't mean you should base everything you see in the game off of that fact.

  There seems to be a disconnect here between reality, and video games.  The concept behind a video game is to be an escape from reality.  It appears that some of you think they are extensions of it.  I would say that THIS is the problem in actuality.  You want the imaginary to be the real.  When you discover that the imaginary ISN'T the real...you are either offended or disappointed.  I view games as pretend, and the people I meet playing them I view as people playing pretend characters in a pretend world.  I do not expect them to be accurate representations of that person.  Its nice when you get into a guild, and get to know people because you are around them all the time.  It happens.  But to be so disconnected with the fact that its still a pretend world....is sick.

Originally posted by deviliscious

Actually I am not religious. I simply believe in making the world a better place for all that live in it.  I do believe that people should keep it real.  The role playing that you are reffering to in games is predetermined role playing by the developers of the game. The reason they usually make scamming and cheating against the rules is because it interferes with the enjoyment of the game for other players. Your enjoyment is limited to your enjoyment, when your enjoyment interferes with the enjoyment of your fellow players outside the lines of the game guidlines that is when you are overstepping your roleplaying. Yes there has to be limitations or else games will lose players due to the games being run over by creeps.  The justification of condeming creeps is to keep the game enjoyable for all players not just the creeps. If the game has in game thievery then go steal from the npcs and leave the real players alone. When your enjoyment is being a parasitic element preying upon unsuspecting players you become a  problem to the well being of the game and therefore should be eliminated in order to keep those would be victims paying for the game rather than lose memberships over one bad seed.

k. being 'religious' or not is irrelevant. Do not take what I said before to hint that I thought you were. I just want to eliminate for readers any religious-based appeal to a morality. You moved right past that; nice.

So let's look at the basis for your appeal. You are claiming that the "parasitic element preying upon unsuspecting players" is making me become a "problem to the well being of the game". 

In real life, you would have more of a case. But here, I would maintain that the existence of such parasitic elements ENHANCES the well being of the game. Can't be much more opposite than that can I ?   hehe

Why do I think this? Because this is the real evil faction in an MMO. Unlike a horde/alliance choice made at character creation time, this is the real evil side of the virtual world. The ninja-looters, campers, griefers, con-men, thieves, backstabbers, liars, predators, actually make the virtual world interesting. Without them, you have a boring click-fest grind. Such behaviour polarizes the world into good and evil, and that's where the real competition exists (spilling out into forums even... hehe).

So you see, the well being of a game is just another arbitrary level of moral postulating. You say it helps, I say it hurts. How does one get out of this pickle?

By letting the world be FREE. Let everyone do whatever they want, and let everyone ASSUME responsibility for themself, take care of themself, be cautious, wary, to prove others and not just assume they are what they say they are.

To learn that in a game has been one of the easiest things I've ever taught my kids (3 sons). They are much less apt now to go give their money to somebody based on a scam, or trust that person X is really who they say they are.  It may sound hard and cruel, but it's nature.

EDIT: at first reading, I think Gish and I are saying essentially the same thing...

EDIT2: Just bringing it all back to the OP's point.... like I said to begin with. I believe it's ok to play opposite gender, and in that context, to use teenage hormones against others to manipulate and steal. The problem  in such cases is not my behaviour, but the other player's lack of ability to remember where they are... in a pretend world where they should be assuming nothing. Unless of course they enjoy the feeling of giving me (buxom elf ranger) their items... who is to say even that is not a good act?

1. often in games people pay for ingame items via item shops with real money, so stealing them or conning them out of those items is in fact is just as bad as stealing the money itself. People spend time  working for the items they have in their homes the same as they spend time working for the items they have on their characters.Stealing is the same regardless if it is in a game or not.  The case is the same in real life or virtual because the mental separation of the 2 is the problem. you only have one life whether you are sitting at your computer or are standing next to someone in person, it is all the same life.

2. the evil factions are in place already, and they are already limited by game develpoers to ensure balance in the game. If they wanted to add your content don't you think they would ask you for it?  If that was meant to be part of the game wouldn't you think they would have a "how to be a cheating scamming lying creep tutorial"? Adding more evil content throws the balance of the game off.

3. The fact is that the majority of players do not cheat/ lie/ scam to get what they want, and those that do often make the game so unenjoyable to play for the other players that they do not continue playing the game.  This is bad for a game because the game loses the monthly fees that would have been paid by those players. The math is simple. You have one guy who scams 12 people who then in turn quit  the game over the "poor community"  you have just lost 12 paying memberships in order to save one. The game would be better off removing the one person that may cause them to lose even more memberships rather than keep  catering to the troublemaker.

And just to let you know.. I have never been scammed myself in a game, yes I know plenty who have, and have quit the game over it, and I lend things out all the time. They always come back to me... But then again, I actually meet the people I play with.