Online Game Event Sparks Player Riot 758
Grimwell Online is carrying a story entitled When does an Online Game go too far?. It details a post to a news group about a world event in the newly released A Tale in the Desert 2. The online game, which simulates an ancient Egyptian culture, was full of angry players after a developer-run event used openly discriminatory language against the female gender. Details on the event can be found at the ATITD2 Wiki, and commentary can be found on TerraNova.
Ancient Egypt? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe they were just going for authenticity?
Been there, done that (Score:5, Interesting)
As an in-game device to create tension and conflict; awesome. Job well done.
SWG had Riots too (Score:1, Interesting)
This even caused SWG to make a "no assembly without player event" policy.
In the future i think we are going to see this more and more, as mass groups of people get upset at sites, games, etc, they will be able to take action just by logging in.
Views of a player (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sad state of affairs (Score:3, Interesting)
While you may be right that the problem here was borne of immaturity, it's certainly not because this game attracts a more immature audience than other games.
Perhaps a better title for the article would be "When Political Correctness Spins Out of Control."
riot? how? (Score:5, Interesting)
What?
explanation of event (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:SWG had Riots too (Score:3, Interesting)
Rise up! (Score:3, Interesting)
If these women want to be treated "equally" during a time (Ancient Egypt) where the game most likely accurately portrays them as "unequal", then they should be playing the game as women have been subject to sufferage for many years.
Keep the whining, the finger-pointing, and the who-said-whats in the game where it is meant to be and work it out in there. After all, its a game, so my advice to these women is: WIN!
For the sake of argument... (Score:5, Interesting)
Are there any boundaries in role-playing? Some people seem to say no. Well, what if someone dresses up for an SCA event or Halloween as some offensive type character, and starts going off on someone in way most people would view as inappropriate (say, a person in a KKK costume and using the "n" word towards blacks/african-americans, etc.) Is that ok?
Since we don't live in ancient egypt, should we behave by today's standards in-game -- totally, partially, or not at all? Does role playing imply total immersion in character, or are there limits?
I also acceptable behavior should be very clearly defined so players know what to expect. I'm not well informed about the game, but I'd be curious what their policy states.
There was an incident years ago in EQ I think where someone playing a Dark Elf, either roleplayed or wrote about raping another in-game character (not a NPC, it was a PC acct). I recall it was quite graphic and, to me anyway, disturbing. I believe the player was banned, some said it was role-playing, others said it crossed the line. Was a huge debate. Thoughts?
Ok, some stuff to mull over -- I think it's an interesting topic as mmorpgs and rpgs continue to get more interesting and immersive.
Re:Morons! (Score:3, Interesting)
There was a long discussion/flame-war on rec.games.frp.dnd about this - specifically, what to do when something in-game ceases to be fun for the players. Specifically, a poster had given an example where, in game, a player had stated his intent for his character to rape an NPC (and a further intent to role-play the rape). The other players had stated that they did not want to be a part of this and did not want the player to continue with this course of action. The player did it anyway, so the other PCs killed the rapist PC.
Another poster on the group, a regular named Peter Knutsen said that the players were immature for letting their in-game feelings get in the way of the game, and for punishing the player for playing his character, even though the player with the rapist character's insistance on in-game rape was ruining the experience for everyone else. Flame war ensued.
You can read the thread here [google.com]
Re:Uhmm.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Let's try an analogy. Suppose you have a favourite restaurant. You eat there regularly. Then, one night, when your food arrives, suddenly the manager walks over to your table and urinates on your plate.
Would you just shrug your shoulders and go to a different restaurant? Or might you perhaps display a slight amount of disgust at his behaviour?
These people are paying for this game. You know what? That means they have a right to complain when one of the organisers suddenly changes the rules in a pointless and extremely offensive manner.
Re:Whaaaaa! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ancient Egypt? (Score:2, Interesting)
Arguably, it could have been because of Akenaten.
Re:Whaaaaa! (Score:3, Interesting)
We had historical facts to prove that several such events had happened, and that this was common for that day and age.
But no. Stupid idiotic feminists in class with nothing better to do made a protest against the story - and what was the worst part? Our team had a girl in the team who was the person who had actually come up with the story.
Blah. Feminists are funny people, they'd protest for something like this when their argument has no basis whatsoever - would they rather have us portray black women as plantation owners? It was a HISTORICAL story - how else did they expect us to set it up as?
End result? We ended up with a politically correct story set in times - and it was so out of place.
I mean, these same would not raise their voices when women in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries are being abused, and when flesh-trade is so rampant in Asia. But they'd raise hue and cry over a graduate class project.
Bleh. Stupid females.
Description of Malakai Event and some Thoughts (Score:2, Interesting)
Well since you jerks at Slashdot have stampeded all over our Forums and Wiki, depriving me of some late Friday afternoon entertainment before leaving work, I will have to comment on the "trader Malakai" event here.
Background. ATITD is an odd MMORPG of ~2000 players, English French and German speaking, from 6 continents (at least). The player base tends to be literate and older than usual MMO's. Roughly half of the attendees at our recent player meet were women. To Teppy's chagrin, many players do not distinguish between their real person and their avatar. According to an anonymous survey on the Forum, most players have the same gender as their avatar.
Event summary. A system-wide announcement that the trader Malakai from foreign lands is walking to a easily-accessible destination in the world. (Announcement implies that Malakai is being played by a game master.) Malakai has some useful, some unique, and some worthless items. Malakai is dishonest in trades. Further, he won't trade with women (avatars), calls them slaves and inquires about purchasing one. Egyptians become angry, handing Malakai dung and other items to prevent him from further trades. One citizen posts a very upset post to the Forums, stating that said citizen is a black woman and found the trader's behavior personally offensive. A debate ensues.
A noblewoman searching for Malakai arrives, claiming that Malakai has stolen the items he is trading from her family. Some people who have traded with the noblewoman give the stolen goods back. Now hunted by both Egypt's citizens and his countrymen, Malakai disappears.
Effects? A huge debate ensues on the Forum and in-game. Some women are absolutely offended by this event. The GM who ran Malakai gives a lame description of what was supposed to happen at this top-secret, hastily put-together event. Offended by this top-secret event, Egypt's best roll-playing GM quits the game. Perhaps three dozen others quit as well. Pharaoh ("Teppy") interviews one of the quitting players (who won't give her real identity). During the interview, Pharaoh fails to justify this event on any firmer ground than his whim.
My thoughts. Malakai was a poorly concieved character who would have been a lot more interesting had the whole events team been involved in creating it. The GM who ran Malakai is a great coder but a sadistic, yet dull role-player. I hope that in the future he asks for help in creating these evil characters. Sensitive and difficult issues are worthwhile to address in our little society, but hurting people in order to address these points should not be necessary. IMHO, the main problem with this event was that it hurt some people in order to make a larger point.
Another poster pointed this out, but it is sort of late to complain about sexism. Female avatars had a slight advantage before this event, now they are slightly adversely affected by this one event. I do hope this event brings these issues to the front, because there are some real issues of balance between the genders that should be addressed in the game.
--Erika
Re:Whaaaaa! (Score:3, Interesting)
MMORPG and roleplaying (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Whaaaaa! (Score:5, Interesting)
I started losing interest in Star Wars: Galaxies right around the time of the Imperial Crackdown. It was supposed to really kick things up and create tensions between the factions. As a Doctor, I resolved that from the time following the Imperial invasions (scripted within the game, meant to cause a lot of death and panic among only a certain population of the game), that I would henceforth only provide my services to Rebels. Imperials or neutrals were out of luck. Well, a neutral could get service if I could be assured by a trusted source that they were truly neutral and not a covert Imperial. I should explain, to those not familiar with the game, that the services of a Doctor are very much in demand, and practically taken as a right by many players. It's hard to be known as a Doctor, because you are constantly plagued with people sending
So, quite a lot of people got very pissed off, and some were accusing me of being exactly like a racist. A racist?? This is a fucking war, people! The problem was that so many players regularly socialized with people of whatever faction relative to their own. I don't know what the factions were really for other than those that particularly sought PvP action. Everybody just sort of picked a side, and picked their friends and business associates independantly of that. None of the Rebels were upset of course, none of them pointed out any unfairness, as they were getting the service. Only the people who were refused service that they felt they had some kind of right to, as equally paying customers of the game, not even considering their characters or the environment we were playing in. Or even considering that this is service rendered by a player, a person not obligated to do JACK SHIT for anyone else at all. They just started screaming "racist!" and other stupidity. Not very much roleplaying going on there at all, and just to get some peace I had to revoke my policy after a mere two days. I did manage to start an ongoing war between my guild and an Imperial guild though, with a related action. That was pretty satisfying, even though they handed our asses to us a lot, that wasn't the point.
Anyhow, I wasn't happy with the fact that the whole game world there is just too comfortable for everyone. "It is a period of civil war", what the hell is wrong with acting like it? Everything, apparently.
Re:Whaaaaa! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is implemented in Arcanum, where Half-Orcs and Orcs receive open discrimination to a large scale. For example, there are some NPCs that use Orcs as slave labour for industrial production, and consider Half-Orcs to be no better than slave fodder.
The bigotry in the game only becomes fun when the player gets a chance to mess around with the concept. For example, there is an event where Orcs in Tarant riot and seize control of a warehouse. From there, you can choose to either put down the rebellion (chaotic or neutral, depending), leave the rebellion as it is (neutral), inform the leader of the rebellion that the guards outside are trying to trick him (lawful or neutral, not sure), or to give aid to the rebellion by killing the guards (chaotic). You might be able to kill the owner of the warehouse before the rebillion starts, but I haven't seen that happen yet.
While the options listed might not produce the perfect result, they do cover most of the actions performed by PCs and are pretty reasonable. Heping the rebellion may be chaotic, but does teach those bigots a lesson for treating Orcs as animal slaves.
Misplaced Outrage (Score:3, Interesting)
The ultimate point being that you can explore, and enjoy an online fantasy world without endorsing what occurs in that world. If we can't have discriminatory or asshole NPCs how do you acheive game conflict. Nothing I have seen suggests the game is *advocating* this position. I think this sort of thing can give important flavor and something for the players to campaign against.
In a broader sense I think these outrages are not only misplaced but cause us to miss broader issues. There is no danger in the modern world that people will backslide and start treating women as property again. However, there are plenty of subtle ways in which women are kept down and oppressed. This sort of 'outrage' detracts from the real issue.
For instance 90% of males I know, even 'liberated' males prefer to date women who are less assertive and intelligent than them. Girls who act like their male friends in assertivity and arguing about CS (or math or whatever) simply aren't found desierable. Guys who think logically are awarded with praise while often girls who do the same thing are chided for being too 'masculine'.
Every time we waste our time and focus on one of these 'outrages' we make things worse. Men get to think of themselves as 'liberated' and supporting equality for women when in fact they are the heart of the modern problem. It is only by focusing attention of these subtle inter-personal interactions can any true progress be made.
He was SUPPOSED to be nasty (Score:4, Interesting)
Consider the name MALakai -- base being mal ('bad' in french, and latin/greek -- think MALadjusted).and it turned out that many of the people who traded with him ended up losing what they traded for to begin with (so the women refused service were proabably better off for it).
I've played in a live RPG where I came this close to being randomly attacked by a friggin GM, had an arm turned into a tentacle and told that I'd fallen in love with another character who my most recent interaction with resulted in both of us being dead. -- and that's just game creatures (introduced by the company who ran the game).
Nasty occurences are meant to be part of any good RPG. How people respond to such distrubances is IMHO more important (malakai was (rightly) hounded out of the country).
That the ATITD community ejected the cad the way they did says more (IMHO) about the game than that he was inserted into the plot.
I can't get any hard data on just how bad the 'riots' were, but I get a feeling that a reaction like that was intended.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Whaaaaa! (Score:3, Interesting)
I've never played one of these games in my life. They are "after my time" as the saying goes. However, not only do I defend my statement, but I would take my point further to say that *any* game (online or not) that featured a game character treating the player in a racist, sexist, or otherwise bigotted way would make the press. Especially if published by a big game maker. Look at the amount of flak Grand Theft Auto: Vice City received for its depiction of Haitians and Cubans [wikipedia.org], and its violence, especially against women. When social mores are broken in a game, you don't have to be an out-of-touch role playing zombie to see that it will have political impact in the real world.
Re:Uhm... Missing the bigger picture here? (Score:2, Interesting)