Playing to Win, If nothing else, check out the link at the top Options

[McAllister]

Here's the story of a man who played to win.

Here's a summary of the above article: in the MMORPG City of Heroes/City of Villains (heretofore referred to as CoH/V), there is a zone named Recluse's Victory (heretofore referred to as RV) where high-leveled played from both factions (heroes and villains) go to do battle. The description of RV, given by the developers at the time it was added to CoH/V, includes this; "The main Goal of Recluse’s Victory is to secure the Temporal Anchors, aka the pillboxes."

A psychology professor created a character named Twixt to play this game to win, and see what happened. He made heavy use of an ability in CoH/V called Teleport Foe. He used it to teleport his enemies into drones (which banish villains from the area, causing them no harm but making them travel some distance to return to RV) and powerful NPCs against whom the villains had, individually, no hope of surviving. There is no countermeasure with which to protect oneself from Teleport Foe, but this isn't seen as an issue, as A. it's terribly bad manners to use it the way Twixt used it, and B. the player using it gets no credit for the kill (if any), so what's the point? Well, the point is that, using this ability and others, Twixt was able to secure the Temporal Anchors even when heavily outnumbered with relative ease, and to the endless frustration of his foes.

Now, I'm NOT making generalized comparisons between this experiment and Shadowrun; I know of no person who's been presumptuous enough to proclaim (with any authority) what "the main goal" of Shadowrun is, so allow me to clarify that I'm NOT using this to defend any SR actions that are considered abusive or griefing (both of which Twixt was accused of being). However, I have two points I'd like to discuss with you.

1. The professor, who happened to be a longtime CoH/V player long before he decided to make Twixt and win at RV, was essentially conducting an experiment. Hell, my link even links to the paper he wrote about it. However, if I were to do something similar in CoH/V for the sole purpose of achieving "the main goal of Recluse's Victory," would there be something wrong with that? If so, what?

2. Wouldn't this guy make the most intense playtester ever? Honestly, if I were the company producing CoH/V, the first thing I'd do is nerf the hell out of Teleport Foe, and then I'd call this guy and be like "Please, please make a new character to win RV. We'll give your character a million dollars/experience/influence points [or whatever] and pay you for the work, but we want to see if there's anything else exploitable like that in the game." Hell, if I were making any game I'd pay him good money to give it a good going-over. I think it would be a pretty sweet arrangement.

[Glyph]

I think Shadowrun, like any other game, has a similar problem. Namely, that in addition to the rules as written, there are unspoken rules for each gaming table. The professor didn't cheat, and didn't even violate the premise of the game itself - rather, he violated some commonly held social conventions among the players. This is why I advocate that GMs should be clearer on their expectations for their game. Using simply the rules as written, without any creative interpretations or loopholes, players can still create a bewildering variety of characters, with power levels up and down the charts.

Dumpshock doesn't have the same level of consensus, but it has plenty of people who think that their version of the game is the one, true one. You may not hear "newb" or "griefer" much, but you will certainly hear things described as "broken", or "munchkin", or "obviously not what the developers intended".

[The Jake]

I don't understand how this relates to Shadowrun.

In Shadowrun, every job can have varying levels of success. There are no binary "win" conditions such as in a computer game.

Sorry for sounding obtuse but I don't understand your point/question.

- J.

[Totentanz]

1. The professor, who happened to be a longtime CoH/V player long before he decided to make Twixt and win at RV, was essentially conducting an experiment. Hell, my link even links to the paper he wrote about it. However, if I were to do something similar in CoH/V for the sole purpose of achieving "the main goal of Recluse's Victory," would there be something wrong with that? If so, what?

Personally, I think violating the commonly accepted conventions of the game community (as opposed to the game) is wrong, in a sense. Then again, commonly accepted conventions in the MMO world are anything but. In fact, I'd say that in most communities of any size and diversity there is a fair amount of wiggle room as to what is acceptable. Even if people can agree on the premise (munchkinism is bad), they can't agree on the definitions or rules to back it up. That is why I stay away from telling people they are playing SR wrong on these forums. It's not my place, and everybody really does have their own personal limits.

However, I'm not generally opposed to a little psychological experimentation, just leery of the implications of every third dick-head manufacturing his own excuse to do something similar. Course, it sounds like the devs of the game need to address the issue.

On 2, I'm not a game developer, but I have several friends that used to work as testers. They have told me that often times the biggest bugs/balance issues are known when the game ships, they simply run into a logistical no-win scenario in fixing it before the game needs to be finished. I don't really have an opinion about whether he would make a good tester or not.

And for the record, almost everybody playing that game in that scenario wanted to "win." The whole point of community conventions is to provide a framework within which people strive to attain a (sometimes) competing goal. In this case, they all wanted to win.

To extrapolate briefly to SR, if a group wanted to play a game oriented around "winning," that is, to make the best characters possible and beat everything completely, more power to them. It's just a game. However, if one person is doing this to the detriment of others' enjoyment, that is a problem. The opposite is also true. If a "heavy roleplayer" was playing with a group of competitive "winners" and the HR was hurting the groups' fun, the HR would be equally in the wrong.

RP groups are a little like BDSM clubs:

1: Communicate
2: Have "fun."
3: Stop when people say stop, watermelon, hamster, banana, etc.

[McAllister]

To be honest, TheJake, it has more to do with Dumpshock then Shadowrun. I really just read it, thought "Great Scott, I wonder what the folks up/down/over at DS would make of this," and posted.

And Glyph and Totentanz, here's what might actually be my point in the whole thing; having no "the main goal is..." for Shadowrun is probably why I like it better than I would CoH/V. I honestly marvel at people who're addicted to WoW (and honestly believe that some, though by no means all, of its players are truly addicted) with the same morbid curiosity as I do anorexics; I don't understand how they have the willpower to do what they do, but they see it as more difficult NOT to. I'd rather play a PnP RPG where the goal is as unique as the character I create any day, unless I'm feeling so unsocial I don't want to bother, which is when Rainbow Six Vegas 2 helps. Always another ski-masked, ethnically ambiguous terrorist to mow down.

So, I'm glad to hear your opinions, and the consensus that "munchkins are bad, but munchkinisim is relative" makes a lot of sense.

[McAllister]

And, being a lover of analogies, I'll admit I was tickled (French or otherwise) by Totentanz' special comparison.

[The Jake]

To be honest, TheJake, it has more to do with Dumpshock then Shadowrun. I really just read it, thought "Great Scott, I wonder what the folks up/down/over at DS would make of this," and posted.

No stress.

In that case, it is only unfair if it poses an unfair disadvantage to other players. I would consider it dirty however. This is no different to being ganked while levelling up your toon in WOW by someone numerous levels above you. It's dirty/harsh/childish even - but legal.

- J.

[suppenhuhn]

1)
I think the reason he was shunned is that he simply ruined the game for everyone else.
It's not that he pvped in a pvp zone but the way he did it.
From what i read in his paper ( which only states the obvious that if you behave like an asshole all the time then no one likes you) what he did was using a fear power on his foes, thus making them unable to act and then teleporting them across the playing field to those drones that then obliterate said character.
Tactics that don't allow your foe to do anything do ruin the game for that player if you do it all the time.
Since CoH started out purely pve you already have a very small playerbase that actually likes competitive gameplay and thus not loosing any of those players is paramount.
The main goal of RV is to capture bases, the tactic he used doesn't accomplish that.
The main goal of a game is to have fun, his tactic ruined it for everyone but him.
Villains are normally outnumbered by at least 2 to 1 because most players prefer the heroes for a couple of issues so winning the vast majority of the games you play in there has nothing to do with this tactic, in fact he would most likely be more helpful to his side if he just played normally.

To me it looks like he was shunned for his antisocial behaviour which is to be expected and nothing to write home about, much less write a paper on it.

I think he is a prime example of people abusing the anonymity of the internet to behave in an antisocial way which he then dresses as experiment with an outcome that is neither unexpected nor interesting.

2)
No he wouldn't.
If you discover such a grave balancing issue you are expected to file a report and not abuse it to piss off other players. The former has most likely been done by someone before him.

[Totentanz]

To be honest, TheJake, it has more to do with Dumpshock then Shadowrun. I really just read it, thought "Great Scott, I wonder what the folks up/down/over at DS would make of this," and posted.

And Glyph and Totentanz, here's what might actually be my point in the whole thing; having no "the main goal is..." for Shadowrun is probably why I like it better than I would CoH/V. I honestly marvel at people who're addicted to WoW (and honestly believe that some, though by no means all, of its players are truly addicted) with the same morbid curiosity as I do anorexics; I don't understand how they have the willpower to do what they do, but they see it as more difficult NOT to. I'd rather play a PnP RPG where the goal is as unique as the character I create any day, unless I'm feeling so unsocial I don't want to bother, which is when Rainbow Six Vegas 2 helps. Always another ski-masked, ethnically ambiguous terrorist to mow down.

So, I'm glad to hear your opinions, and the consensus that "munchkins are bad, but munchkinisim is relative" makes a lot of sense.

As a former MMO player myself, I see it as just another form of escapism. You are willing to spend a fair amount of time making characters and posting them here, often with no potential for playing them. MMO's provide much the same entertainment. They challenge people with a competitive mechanical system and expect them to navigate it to succeed while working with other people. In this case, the server is simply the GM, and the other MMO players are your fellow PCs. There are definitely MMO addicts, but there are also RP addicts.

The psychological reward from MMO's I've noticed comes in several flavors.

First, there is that part of the human mind that wants to create. RP'ers do it with their characters, GM's do it with their worlds, and MMO players do it with their characters. It isn't much different on a mental level from body builders who spend all their free time in the gym to get that last centimeter on their biceps, or chess masters who play for hours every day. People can quibble over what is more "productive," but personally I see that as mostly irrelevant in terms of the psychological reward.

Second, being good at something. Everybody wants to be great, if not the best, at something. Some people get that thrill out of tracking down the best gear and best builds for their toons There are PnP RP'ers who want that, too. We see threads all the time here on DS about people wanting to make the "best" blah blah. They want to master the system, to feel "good" at SR. MMO players want to feel "good" at MMO's.

Third, social interaction. Despite America's ever-growing love with the rugged loner, most people desire social interaction on some level. I know a lot of people who meet all their friends and get most of their socializing done in the realm of PnP RP. Similarly, some people scratch that itch online. Maybe they have social anxiety, maybe they just got beat up too much in highschool, maybe they just lead busy lives and finding like-minded people is difficult in their industry. I've met exceedingly normal people who play WoW, for instance. I'm not saying the meat world is better, or that PnP socializing is better, or that MMO socializing is superior. Everybody just does it their own way.

Finally, social recognition. People play MMO's to hear others say, "Damn, you were a badass in that AV." They don't just want to win, they want other people to look up to them or at least acknowledge their prowess. Some people just want to be good in their estimation, others need to hear the world say it.

Yeah, I think we can all agree that we don't like munchkins, however we define them. One man's munchkin is another man's noob who can't make a decent character.

[Krypter]

"Finite players play within boundaries. Infinite players play with boundaries."

[Tachi]

The main goal of RV is to capture bases, the tactic he used doesn't accomplish that.

Are you sure you read that? It said quite clearly that he was capturing the pillboxes, sometimes single-handedly.

It's all relative. If you're on the winning side, it's cool. If you're on the losing side, they're "cheating".

Sounds like a bunch of whiny BS from people who can't adjust to new circumstances. Get over it or go elsewhere. While that may not be entirely possible on a MMO, you can still always adjust, use his tactics against him. Escalation does work sometimes. They bring a knife, you bring a Rocket Propelled Grenade. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Just like in SR. You're allowed to slaughter the other PCs and take their stuff. And, the other players are allowed to refuse to play with you.

People just have to find a game that fits them and stop whining when things don't go the way that the script in thier head says it should.

If things always went just the way you want, the world would be an unbelievably boring place.

[Ravor]

Think about that for a second. Assuming that it is really true that he was singlehandly "winning" what was supposed to be a team exercise you don't think something is wrong? If his story is true than it's clear to me that teleport foe needs to be finetuned, otherwise this combo becomes a "must have", and in any game that is a bad thing, just like the old days when spikers could clear entire zones by themselves.

[Tachi]

I agree, it does need to be worked on for balance. But, I refuse to concede that he was doing anything wrong by taking advantage of what was available to him. Until their programmers do something about it, the only choice the other players have is to adjust or lose.

[Ravor]

I disagree because I believe that once he discovered that his combo fell into the "must have" pile he should have reported it as a bug and found something else, devs are human like everyone else and taking advatage of their fuck ups isn't "fair play" anymore than it would be right for a Blood Mage to use the original rules for Blood Spirits to eat the entire world.

[Tachi]

I never said anything about fair play. I believe fair play occurs only when people fail to prepare properly. Saying it's not fair elicits ZERO sympathy from me. No offense, but, as they say, "If it's a fair fight, your tactics suck." I agree with you that the devs/programmers need to do something to prevent everyone from having identical characters and to maintain balance, but, if they choose not to, ADJUST! I believe "fair" means you've willingly let yourself be handicapped, which is a stupid thing to do. "Fair" has no place anywhere in the real world, not even in MMOs, RPGs, organized sports, and most definately not in business or warfare (which amount to the same thing, really).

I can see your point, it's just that we have very different ways of looking at things.

[Ravor]

I'll go as far as agreeing that life itself isn't fair, but if a game tries to repersent itself as balanced, which RPGs, MMOs, and organized sports do then mess ups in the rules needs to be addressed, both by the devs but also by the players.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing how well a MMO that outright poo-pooed game balance and offered must-have and gimp builds on purpose in a purely survival of the fitest mold would fair on the market. Personally I think that it woudl be a small, but sucessful niche.

[Starmage21]

Sounds a lot like an ethics vs law comparison to me. It was legal, but not cool (unethical)

[Totentanz]

I never said anything about fair play. I believe fair play occurs only when people fail to prepare properly. Saying it's not fair elicits ZERO sympathy from me. No offense, but, as they say, "If it's a fair fight, your tactics suck." I agree with you that the devs/programmers need to do something to prevent everyone from having identical characters and to maintain balance, but, if they choose not to, ADJUST! I believe "fair" means you've willingly let yourself be handicapped, which is a stupid thing to do. "Fair" has no place anywhere in the real world, not even in MMOs, RPGs, organized sports, and most definately not in business or warfare (which amount to the same thing, really).

I can see your point, it's just that we have very different ways of looking at things.

Would you mind defining fair?

To be clear, are you arguing that people shouldn't strive for fairness or play by fair rules in online worlds or the real one?

What are the limitations of your "fair-less" philosophy, if any?

[Chrysalis]

This sounds like one of those arguments off the Wizards boards in the 1990s, when certain card combinations were discovered to destroy decks and opponents without really trying.

MMOs and even RPGs have the same weaknesses, but rarely are they as obviosuly exploited as they are in Magic.

[Tachi]

Would you mind defining fair?
To be clear, are you arguing that people shouldn't strive for fairness or play by fair rules in online worlds or the real one?
What are the limitations of your "fair-less" philosophy, if any?

I get the distinctive feeling someone is trying to walk me into a trap, but, screw it, I feel like doing something stupid.

Dictionary Version,
Fair:
Free from bias, dishonesty or injustice.
Proper under the rules.
Unmarked by conditions favoring one side over the other.

My version,
Fair:
Failing to seek or use any possible advantage within the letter of the rules, because said advantage is not necessarily within the spirit of the rules, because someone else didn't think of it first, because it's deemed "socially unacceptable", because someone will think you're mean, or because the rules have not yet been adjusted to prevent it.

As long as you don't break any rules, anything goes.

The only time fairness should enter into the equation is when it's a law enforcement issue, a contract or agreement you have signed, handing out punishment, dealing with allies or subordinates, and dealing with those who depend on you or who you depend on.

Beyond that, I'm a firm believer that, "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying."
I'm not the type of person to put down my gun just because my opponent only has a knife, instead, I'd just fucking shoot him. It's not my fault he didn't come prepared. If someone cheats and I lose, I'm not going to bitch that it was "unfair", I'll just remember the trick and use it myself, while trying to come up with a way to counter it the next time someone uses it on me.

Many poeple may say that this makes me a bad or mean person.

My answer: So what?

[Totentanz]

A trap? No. Your statements were both vehement and broad. I wanted clarification.

I agree with you to an extent, but not to the degree you have pushed it. I think life, society, and people are more complicated than all that.

However, I don't see it as part of the thread to get into the minutiae. Moreover, it's hardly helpful or appropriate for the forum.

[suppenhuhn]

Are you sure you read that? It said quite clearly that he was capturing the pillboxes, sometimes single-handedly.

It's all relative. If you're on the winning side, it's cool. If you're on the losing side, they're "cheating".

Sounds like a bunch of whiny BS from people who can't adjust to new circumstances. Get over it or go elsewhere. While that may not be entirely possible on a MMO, you can still always adjust, use his tactics against him. Escalation does work sometimes. They bring a knife, you bring a Rocket Propelled Grenade. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Just like in SR. You're allowed to slaughter the other PCs and take their stuff. And, the other players are allowed to refuse to play with you.

People just have to find a game that fits them and stop whining when things don't go the way that the script in thier head says it should.

If things always went just the way you want, the world would be an unbelievably boring place.

Yes i read what he wrote, but i also played said game myself and what he says simply doesn't work that way.
This "droning" only really works when you sit in your starting base which means you do nothing to help your side win.
Tping people into npcs is only really dangerous to people who are not buffed, most likely because they didn't want to pvp.
Both has nothing to do with winning that map but a lot with annoying other players.

Apparently his side didn't think what he did was cool either btw.

[KarmaInferno]

It's not that surprising.

He went outside that community's commonly held unspoken rules of conduct. In so, he got an advantage over others, but was subsequently shunned over it.

So, action leads to consequences.

There's a term from EvE Online known as "E-Bushido". It's a derogatory one, coined by one group who looked down on a much larger and more established group's practices of fair play and very specific acceptable behavior. What's interesting is that the game itself sets no behavioral rules of this sort - players are allowed to lie, cheat, extort, and scam in-game as much as they like, with the only constraints being the reactions to such behavior by the game community.

I say "looked" in the first sentence of the last paragraph, as in past tense, because as of a month or so ago that much larger group has been wiped out by the other group. Partly because the smaller group did NOT follow the established unspoken agreements.

So the smaller group has "won", but they have a reputation for being untrustworthy sneaky bastards. It's probably a good thing for them that they don't care a bit about their reputation.

So herein lies the core of the issue - politeness only matters to those who care about reputation.

If you're among others that also care about reputation, social rules work fine, more or less. Among those who don't value rep, such constructs are useless.


-karma

[Ravor]

Of course, such behavior really only works on the internet where there isn't really any permament conquenses for being enough of an ass that you are a threat to "polite" society.

[toturi]

Of course, such behavior really only works on the internet where there isn't really any permament conquenses for being enough of an ass that you are a threat to "polite" society.

That is because so called polite society is the powers that be and those people can change the rules to benefit themselves, whether it is societal rules(fashion trends, lifestyles, etc) or simply by changing the law. Those guys control the objective markers, so to speak and resist any change to the status quo, and can do so by changing the fundamental rules of the game.

Most people are comfortable with a certain standard of living, they want a job, a house, some money in the bank. But if someone else comes along willing to work more for less pay and take away those jobs, they form unions, make protests, assemble lobby groups. We see it all the time in RL too; if some other people do not play by a certain set of accepted rules, those polite people try ways and means to stop them and throw obstacles in their way.