Blood on the virtual carpet: Editor get's thrown out of online town.....

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
16 January 2004

Peter Ludlow is not just a computer gaming enthusiast. He's also a philosophy professor, with an abiding interest in the relationship between the real and the virtual worlds. So when the world's most successful virtual-reality game, the Sims, launched an online version just over a year ago, he didn't just join in for fun; he also decided that he could carry out the search for his next book.

And that was where the trouble started. Alphaville, the game's fictional city, could have gone in any number of directions, depending on the arbitrary decisions of the online game players who make up its people through their chosen "avatars", or game characters.

Blood on the virtual carpet

Alphaville is not nearly as bad as Ludlow describes. The EAGames people are trying to enforce some rules, to keep the game fun for casual Simmers. They booted him after warning him several times. What's your issue? Are you he?

I've only posted this once, why would that make me Mr Ludlow? Do you have personal experiences in Alphaville?

Virtual mobs showing up on your doorstep- demanding "simoleans." LOL

"You better give us all your simoleans, or we're gonna break your virtual kneecaps!"

Looks pretty reflective of our society, doesn't it.

Real life is boring. There's too much at risk.

These folks are just trying to inject some excitement into their lives.

http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/news/story.jsp?story=481707

(link to the original source of the story)

You can go to eBay and see people buying and selling characters that are already well-built up (level experience, items, etc). I used to have an online buddy who did it for a living. In too many ways the online gaming community is no different from the real world - people want to take short cuts.

I had experience in a massive web-based multiplayer; initially there were two groups who did very well — the intuitive players who built successful communities (whole is larger than the sum of its parts), and number crunchers who succeed individually, mostly by taking advantage of the weaker players in their own community.

When the number crunchers saw that they'd get their asses kicked when they pissed off a tightly-knit community of smaller players, they took a short cut - very illegally - to build their own *much* larger community. To keep up with them, the legit communities often imposed a sort of communist economy/resource system or brought in ringers of their own and imposed strategies on everyone. It was very successful but killed individuality within those communities.

There were several out-of-game "newspapers" or websites, but unlike the professor, they didn't go out of their way to publish where the 'cheats' could be found. The difference being, the game's elite players who used the cheats didn't want the masses catching on.

That and much other stuff that went on were eerily similar to real life. It's where I got my education in global politics :)

But my experiences haven't been so sinister. There were a lot of bad eggs/characters around, but no real cabals or anything. Typically, in my experience, the "good" people had a lot more experience with the game, and more loyalty, and more power. They truly cared about the virtual world that they lived in.

In any case, I think my point was that things aren't really like the virtual world in real life. I think it's alright that people "experiment" with these kinds of ideas in the virtual world, because they at least to get experience the outcome in a place where it doesn't really matter. I guess that's what I mean when I say it's harmless.

Sure can suck a few years out of your life, though :)

You're right in other ways. One of the biggest things I took from it was that success at the price of individuality and the ability to go on your natural instincts is one of the most draining things imaginable.

Got sick of MUDs. Waste of time, ultimately. A lot of work, and nothing to show for it.

At least with DU I learn how to argue and educate myself, maybe make a difference in the world.

Like I said, it was a great education in global politics.

If you treat certain groups like dogs, they'll act like dogs (middle east/terrorists).

Elites have more of a hand in creating the dog kennels (ghettos) than most people ever realize. They'll work hand-in-hand with the mafia-types and terrorists, as long as said types don't try to take a proper place in the "respectable" world and are content to be perceived as dogs.

The US is heading towards soviet-style communism more than most people are willing to see (specialized resource production/distribution). This is *not* a good thing.

:-)