And suddenly the article seems to have been a bad idea, isn't it Mr. Barreiro.
Not necessarily a bad idea, but I can see the direction isn't going where I'd hope it would.
I stand by what I say though, when I talk about making game worlds safe for everyone to play in, where no one, for whatever reason, is treated like badly or like a second class citizen.
For instance, I welcome anyone with an opinion to post their opinion here, and I will rethink my ideas if there are valid issues that can change my opinion on a given point. That said, if people commenting here wish to be hostile or mean spirited, people will probably react accordingly.
That said, I'm all for fart jokes and memes and whatnot... but again, I prefer not to be mean to other people on principle, and the DA piece for today was a reflection on what we can do to make our game worlds a more prosperous place.
Seems the community is not ready for that.
How could they, if developers themselves are not ready for it.
The comments in this article don't look too bad now, but at release, before the sanitation by mods, we had around 500 replies of the same nature as the first comment in this thread.
Bare in mind Gamasutra is almost exclusively professionals that often wager their reputation of name when they post, not the random internet we have here.
I just think you were a bit optimistic about the outcome
Heyo,
Yes, I think I'm optimistic about stuff like this. It's the Devil's advocate in me that thinks, "well, maybe there'll be good discussion."
Thanks for the link. I'm going to open it up and have a read in a few.
Thank you also for being rather nice about pointing out logical fallacies and other stuff. It's been a long time since I've taken up logic and evolution and whatnot.
A writer and gamer from the Philippines. Loves his mom dearly.
Isn't the act of telling someone else that they are wrong in their intolerance and should be tolerant of all people somewhat intolerant in itself? It seems that telling someone they are doing it wrong means you are not tolerating their chosen lifestyle. Maybe they were brought up that way and don't know differently. Is it still "their fault" they feel the way they do? Can you really expect them to set aside everything they have been exposed to in life to this point and see the "correct" way of things? Isn't that you being intolerant of what life has provided that person?
Tolerance is a slippery slope. No, I don't think people should be tolerant of everything and everyone. If someone annoys me, I tell them so. If someone is rude to me, I call them on it. Being "tolerant" isn't necessarily "better".
context.
it helps here too. almost nothing in this world is always %100 right or %100 wrong. there are clear exceptions in many cases/situations.
its ok to:
hate hatred
kill a killer
be intolerant of intolerance
inflict pain on your child (spanking them) who just inflicted pain upon somebody else.
whine about somebody who is whining about somebody else's whining (realizing that whining on its own is not a problem, its the HYPOCRISY of a person doing what they're complaining about somebody ELSE doing).
Isn't the act of telling someone else that they are wrong in their intolerance and should be tolerant of all people somewhat intolerant in itself? It seems that telling someone they are doing it wrong means you are not tolerating their chosen lifestyle. Maybe they were brought up that way and don't know differently. Is it still "their fault" they feel the way they do? Can you really expect them to set aside everything they have been exposed to in life to this point and see the "correct" way of things? Isn't that you being intolerant of what life has provided that person?
Tolerance is a slippery slope. No, I don't think people should be tolerant of everything and everyone. If someone annoys me, I tell them so. If someone is rude to me, I call them on it. Being "tolerant" isn't necessarily "better".
Good that you already named the fallacy almost ad verbatum.
The difference between someone that is intollerant towards intollerance is that intollerance is unethical and works against society (better yet, ANY society)
If a chosen "lifestyle" (for example being racist) is harmful, then yes, we are not obliged to tollerate it.
This has nothing to do with "doing/thinking it wrong", it has to do with being harmful or not.
You don't get to define what is unethical though. In a given society, lack of tolerance could provide a very real evolutionary advantage that significantly increased the chance of survival. Intolerance of the weak is present in nature every single day. Mother animals ditch the runts of a litter because it's probably not going to survive anyways and isn't worth the resources spent on it. Realistically, if nature says it's ok and nature "made" humans, how can humans say nature is wrong?
I'm sorry, when did this argument turn into Eugenics?
Because I thought we were past that with WW2 and I'm really not interested in regurgitating known facts about evolutionary morality and ethics.
I don't think Exilor understood what you were trying to say there. And I do agree with you on that point, yeah some like to create drama. My point was that you shouldn't judge all gays because a select few like to act like twats.
Of course, I think what he's refering to are people whose personalities are, 'gay'.
As two examples I have a long term friend whose gay and was previously in the closet for about twenty so years. We rarely talk about him being gay because we have a lot of common interests in literature,film, etc. To him he's sexuality isn't a big deal, it's just something he is, and he's comfortable about that. Much like mine being straight isn't a big deal to me.
My wife on the other hand has a friend whose gay and he's personaility is gay as well. He's only interested in discussing gay issues, gay lifestyle, camp and kitsch things and calling people out he think he's offending. It' apparently okay for him to be that way because he's gay and flamboyant people are like that, (?!)
Basically he doesn't have much of a personality so he's taken on a gay personna to compensate. It's a bit like those people who are really into cosplay or love Apple, their incapable of understanding anything outside that bubble because they created it to make themselves feel like they belong somewhere.
Those sorts of people get on my nerves because having any kind of discussion results in them either trying to turn it back on them or feeling offended by a contray opinion. The fact of the matter is some people like being in a, 'minority' group because it makes them feel special, not easy to include those sorts in a general scheme.
Temporarily locking this until we can go through it. I'll post again when reopened.
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Yes, I know this is Devils Advocate, and thus meant to drive page views, but couldn't some topic more relevant to gaming have been the topic of discussion?
I know that respect for individual rights and responsibilities has long since been passed over, in favor of what is good for this, or that group within the collective, but that doesn't make it right.
People are people. Respect for individuals, not collectives should be the foundation of not only society, but the games we choose to play as well.
Real inclusion comes from focus on what unites us, not what divides us.
I have many things I want to say just from being upset. Normally I don't say a thing. I know that in LoL that I will walk away from my team at times to take a few minutes to calm down. I normally want to just scream and ask "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?". I won't say that I can't cause that in others. I do try and not use any negative words though can't say that I am 100% successful though pretty sure that I only use them on vent with my friends.
The problem is that there is as much going on in reality as there is the internet. Too many people think in the "ME" sense. I have shocked people at counters for saying "Thank you and have a good day" as for them it is just what they are taught to say for the job and I just view it as common courtesy. I wave to someone and point at myself and say "my fault" when driving and do something stupid. I will also admit that I am doing badly when playing a game if necessary but unless playing a FPS with a mission of advancing and capturing points from the defense with a team of snipers then I might ask if we are all suppose to be playing snipers instead of trying to win. I do try and be good to the best of my ability and I don't try to see the internet as being a shield for me to be an @$$ that I see many do. I am too afraid of making mad the one person who goes off the deep end and hacks me to find me and hack into me with some weapon.
Unfortunately, I don't think asking people to be nice works where the technology permits anonymity. In the real world, consideration for others is encouraged by web of reciprocal relationships. Extreme anti-social behavior can be sanctioned.
However on the Internet, depending on game mechanics, those controls are much weaker and/or non-existent.
The result is the dark side of gaming - the flourishing of subcultures that are openly antagonistic and hate-filled. Chiding or complaining about this behavior is useless or counter-productive. In the absence of any reciprocal relationships, people have no inhibition about being dirtbags. In the absence of meaningful sanction, bad behavior is not deterred. And it doesn't take many bad apples to spoil the barrel - a relatively small part of a gaming population can poison a much larger environment, particularly if their behavior involves things like hacks and gold duping or is enabled by a permissive PVP ruleset (e.g. open world full loot).
Complaining, whether in-game or on forums, is counterproductive because that actually feeds the bad actors - they LIKE the attention, even (or perhaps especially) because it is negative. They ENJOY the displeasure they are causing others.
The first casualty, ironically, is player freedom. Unable to find a method to keep the bad seeds from driving off other customers, games become more and more theme-parkish. Player choice and freedoms are restricted so that, in order to limit what the bad actors can do, you also eliminate game play options for good actors.
The answer for some is to adopt a "hard core" attitude and pretend the problem either doesn't exist or is the fault of people being over-sensitive (e.g. "its just a game!"). But that is no solution for the people who enjoy online gaming for its potential immersive and creative aspects. A world by, for and run-by jerks is not a world they want to be part of.
We (speaking very much in general) even commonly use "gay" as a perjorative in the gamer community, so of course we have issues with the gay community that go well beyond GBLTIQ... into cultural issues of gender ambiguity and so on. Gender spoofing is a big issue also, and makes a lot of gamers, particularly males who never made it out of adolescence with a lot of security in their own identities, very uncomfortable.
So long as these gender issues persist in our culture, they'll be reflected in the games community, but yeah the
is WELL worth thinking about (and I have a comment on that stream too). The industry is really tone-deaf on this issue for the most part. Good for Trion, Bioware, and so on. And, you know, even Turbine who privately enforces, apparently, but won't publish policy, which is kind of lacking in spine.
History is on the side of these folks. This is a human rights issue.
In some cases, it's not the players who are the problem, it's the employees of the gaming company...GM's, and forum moderators in particular...who are the real instigators. When I played Eve a few years ago, their forums were so homophobically censored that even the word "gay" was banned.
I haven't played Eve in a few years so I don't know if things have improved there since, but this is hardly the only example. In WoW there was a transgender woman named Sara Andrews who created an LGBT-friendly guild and had her account banned for it, for no other reason than she advertised that the guild was LGBT-friendly: http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/profanity-filters-homophobic-slurs-and-blizzards-shaky-relati/#continued
This, to me, is a key part of the problem. Gaming companies can be part of the solution but too many times they're not only ignoring the problem, but actually the direct cause of it in the first place. This kind of exclusion can only continue to happen when the gaming companies allow it to happen or cause it themselves.
Think of it this way: If I, as a transsexual woman (yes, I am), go to a bar for a drink and an unruly customer verbally abuses me, it's the bartender's or the bouncer's job to defuse the situation or throw the bum out. If, on the other hand, the person abusing me is the bartender or the bouncer, or if they tell me to shut up as I'm being verbally abused, then chances are I'm going to go find another place to drink, and I'm going to take my friends with me.
I opened this article thinking it was either going to be about elitist/griefing/asshat players excluding casuals/newbies and how that can become a vicious cycle and a first class ticket to a divisive population and/or game developers coding single player games in online environments and how that prevents players from experiencing the pleasure of creating an inclusive virtual world community through inter-dependence...boy was I wrong.
As the great man himself said "One love, one heart", is the world ready for Bob's vision yet? It wasn't back then.
There are a lot of factors that play into a "culture of exclusion" in online communities these days. Everything from community managers that pander to a few exclusive and snarky sycophants that cleverly bash other members of the community from the safety of their keyboards --- to the widespread and growing popularity of online games to a broader age group, which leads to younger people watching their "mature" counterparts for queues on how to properly act out in an online environment shrouded in anonymous, faceless interaction.
Now more than ever, it seems to be the standard to develop an online presence in General Chat channels by trying to outwit and outbash fellow members of the same server community, or exploiting the anonymous nature of online interaction to say things to others that an individual would never in a hundred years say to another in a face-to-face, one-on-one situation.
It saddens me to see that when I attend an event like PAX in Seattle, I am surrounded by fellow gamers that find a sense of community and comraderie in each other's presence, but when you take the face-to-face interaction out of the equation, suddenly someone thinks they are the "pro" to your "nubsauce", and people generally forget good manners and mutual respect for each other.
Some game developers help cultivate this behavior in the content they implement in their games, in the way they advertise, and in the way they interact with their communities or in the way they let members of their forum communities "troll" other community members without any intervention. This is especialy harmful when the "trolling" takes place in forums that are supposed to be geared towards a constructive purpose, such as "suggestion" forums or "feedback" forums.
While the game industry is indeed a business, it should not punish the "casual gamer" for not spending as much time logged in as a "hardcore" gamer through rigged "achievements" tailored toward people that have a lot more free time on their hands than others. Everyone that creates their own individual character in an MMO wants to create a unique and individualized personality for their character that is an extension of themselves. To offer cosmetic rewards and items to only a select few "elite" players while leaving every other subscriber to the wayside is another way in which game developers have created a sort of "exclusion" model, especially when they supposedly cater to the "casual gamer" crowd.
This is, of course, a double edged sword.
To create "open world" content anymore is to invite "griefing", "ninja'ing", and any other form of harassment, especially when a game is relatively successful, and policing an individual server community is a near-impossible task. In a catch-22 situation of trying to offer subscribers a hassle-free gameplay experience, it also finds itself caught in a conundrum of having to create instanced content that only allows only limited amount of players to participate without trivializing the content, or making the group size so large that organization becomes impossible. Inclusion is almost impossible in a game that relies heavily on event-driven content of the instanced variety. Somewhere, someone's going to be left behind, and feelings are going to be hurt.
However, catering only to the "hardcore" crowd creates another issue, especially when a game tries to blend a Player-versus-Environment (PvE) model with a Player-versus-Player (PvP) model. Petty rivalries, elitist attitudes, faulty game mechanics, and/or game balance issues explode into another exclusionist mess altogether. I saw one minor example of this recently in an MMO that I won't name, where someone that was very proficient in a PvP environment had worked their way up to the top ranks of PvP-reward gear. They joined a guild with some friends that were more PvE-centric, and because of the lack of certain stats on their PvP gear, they were not allowed to join their friends in PvE raid content. The guild leader refused to let them join in PvE raid content, but letting them join when their gear was missing crucial stats would have hampered the success of the raid.
So, what can a game developer do? Create more options for a variety of playstyles? Give crafters as much opportunity to craft epic rewards for themselves through long, arduous tasks as a PvE raider could obtain through a "hardcore" raid? Eliminate the need for PvP-only stats on PvP centric gear? Create a "spectator" mode for excess guild members that want to observe and somehow "participate" in their guild's PvE raid functions? How could they be rewarded for such participation? How could they participate so they don't feel left out? Perhaps a mix of SW:TOR's story-driven cinematics and "social" participation, where each person participating and/or spectating can vote for a particular decision and gain some sort of advancement and/or reward?
Maybe the scope needs to be broader. Perhaps there are other ways to keep subscribers entertained so that no matter what they do, and no matter how long they have to play, they can really feel like they've made some progress that leads them to fulfilling that need to individualize themselves in a MMO environment.
Let's face it. People LOVE outwardly cosmetic changes to their character that not only individualize their characters, but also glorify them. Look back on Ragnarok Online. The countless variations of individual cosmetic enhancements available were badges of pride, despite the silly, cutesy, anime-style, grindy feel of the game. The various outlandish tier armor sets of World of Warcraft, with the extreme appendages and particle effects, the LOOK was really what it was all about--- no one that raided hardcore content can deny that they LOVED strutting through a major city with a new tier piece, or legendary weapon with particle effect flames blazing overhead. Everyone could have a flying mount, but the really cool looking flying mounts that came from rare spawns, rare boss drops, and achievements were the ones people were really after, and this is where a level of exclusion was very apparent.
If there's one way that a game can offer a remotely inclusive feel to all of its subscribers, it would be through a very broad offering of outwardly individualized cosmetic changes that are made available through a wide variety of activities. It would require a very productive and dedicated art department, 3D modeling department, and a dedicated story development team to make it all fit together.
This is just one solution, but after years of playing various MMOs, I think it should be at least the starting foundation that everything else is built upon, because just as we all hate looking like "rodeo clowns" in mismatched gear, we all hate being left behind and excluded from being able to individualize ourselves in our chosen virtual worlds.
I am trying not to mock this entire line of resoning BUT it is so freakin' absurd, every single point made.
"Pay it forward" ..lol... Don't bother actually playing the game..are you for real? lol..Occupy EQ2! If you are feelin' charitable do it IRL, where it matters.
"Same sex marraige"..in a game..How about Roman Catholocism and Bestiality? Or Polygamy? or hundreds of other "Humna conditions"? My droid fetish must be recognized and validated by game designers and players...NOW!
You have to be nice and recognize (and validate) every special snowflake you find! Just so you know I am a CAREBEAR™ and I think this is an absurd topic.
My Dad said it best.." Not everyone is going to like you ,it is just something you are going to have to accept " so leave the crybabing at the log-in screen.
The problem is they try to make games that make everyone happy but thats impossible, so with that mindset you're unconsciously deciding to make a shallow product that wont upset too many people.
Laughing-Man your argument is valid, and I dont generalize things often, but if everyone was gay how would the human race repopulate? You cannot argue that being gay IS different from the normal behavior of animals. {mod edit}Personally id say my viewpoint is about the best compromise the gay community can hope for.
Considering how ridiculously overpopulated this world is going to be in just the next 20 years, the world could probably do with a bit more "pink."
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Laughing-Man your argument is valid, and I dont generalize things often, but if everyone was gay how would the human race repopulate? You cannot argue that being gay IS different from the normal behavior of animals. {mod edit}Personally id say my viewpoint is about the best compromise the gay community can hope for.
Considering how ridiculously overpopulated this world is going to be in just the next 20 years, the world could probably do with a bit more "pink."
Well they are already trying to pussify the male population so maybe you'll get your wish.
The context of the OP was how this relates to GAMING. So I'll present what I consider inclusion / exclusion issues in GAMING that have become too much of a problem in many MMOs. Before I do that however, here are two guiding principles that get violated to too high a degree too often, thus becoming a problem:
Ability to Participate (inclusion principle)
Ability to Compete (inclusion principle)
The simplist example would be in PvP where a level 70 squashes a level 20. The level 20's ability to even Participate, much less Compete, is completely non-existent. Thus, you typically see Battlegrounds level bracketed to enable Participation and Competition (inclusion).
Without that kind of control large numbers of players would be excluded from game play. This is however a simpler example in a morass of a more complex disease in MMOs:
The Ouroboros Syndrome
Ouroborus is a bit of symbology from ancient Greece where it was intended to represent the cycle of life, infinity, rebirth.
Unfortunately in MMOs it manifests as a deadly disease to a game's community in that it represents a small population of players who reach the cap, or near it, who turn around and feed on the lower levels below them. Like the dragon Ouroborus who turned around and started eating itself starting at the tail.
Dev houses need to think about this dynamic much harder, in more mature fashion, instead of blindly catering to the "stock" delusion it makes sense to enslave large portions of the playerbase to a mindless GRIND under the presumption it's reasonable to expect people to accept login time relegated to WORK (for weeks or months) because . . . . eventually you'll get to a point where you will be Included in game play!
Player Attenuation
Player Attenuation is another dynamic contributing to Inclusion or Exclusion, and the Ouroboros Syndrome. It's not necessarily bad all by itself, because Progression is a part of game play. Players DO need rewards for progression, better gear, bigger challenges. Consider it then like the bacteria in your intestinal tract: Absolutely required for life itself (when in balance), but out of whack causes major problems.
Just remember your times sitting on the pot, grunting, in severe pain, from an intestinal problem if you don't believe me. Go ahead, close your eyes and quietly think back and remember. There we go! Not fun was it?
Inclusion and Exclusion in game play with others are often the result of of a game being structured exclusively around challenges and content presentation based on Environment Artifacts (E, gear and stats), and not Players (P).
Games are too often designed (to too high a degree) in a way to promote the Exclusion of players from participating with others by redirecting them to The Grind and Work, the Carrot being "if you just level up X amount, you'll finally be able to play". Except for the fact the cap, levelling, and "end game" is a constantly moving target so the problem never ends.
Progression needs to be there, don't get me wrong. It has it's place. However, Dev houses need to start paying MORE ATTENTION to human dynamics in game play instead of the amount of attention they do to mechanical grind mechanisms designed around a principle of EXCLUSION by virtue of spending time Working . . . in a game.
For instance: A zone or world event where there is a human-player engaged dynamic for either completion, or moving forward of stages. This might involve the solving of Puzzles, the running of stones/flags, what have you. Any level can participate. Boss/mob challenges are structured both for high and low levels so it's not arbitrarily restricted to "level x's".
Rewards match the level of the players as well as the level of participation in the event.
In this example the construct is designed to Include everyone, PLAYERS, and is not designed around the exclusive principle of "level x required", while presenting rewards matching everyones progression level. A level 60 can cheer on and/or support the level 10 figuring out the puzzle artifact or screen the level 20 running an objective well. The lower levels can back off and go "Whoa!" when the Boss or Boss Minion spawns and cheer on, perhaps even support, the hot-shot higher levels who then step forward for some serious mojo.
People can bring race, gender, what have you, into any conversation. That's life. The trick is to pay heed to an old saying: "Keep your eyes on the ball . . .".
Be courteous and patient with each other. Absolutely, that's just the path to good times with people. Unfortunately a lot of people are just full of Dumb, and none of us have the ability in a game to change that. So, /ignore them and move on.
The Ball here for me is GAMING. I love gaming, I'd like to see more QUALITY in Gaming start to show itself, instead of a stagnant wash of repeating, mechanical, Grinds with different skins slapped over them.
Which leads me to to closing:
AGREEING TO THE DOMAIN for Inclusion and Exclusion (in game design/mechanics anyway ):
Inclusion and Exclusion in a game IMO stems from from Player Attenuation in levels/power that affects Ability to Participate, Ability to Compete . . . with others (players).
Most MMOs follow an open-ended steep climb upward in progression, thus the problem.
Given new players, even low to almost mid-level players, are the LIFE BLOOD of any game, the criteria is present for consideration in an MMO's design model for controlling and regulating progression and power scales at "end game":
Level 1 (or, heck, say level 5 if one is just too much for some).
Specifically, as an example of the concept:
End Game gear/stats/power will equal 20x that of a Level 5. Meaning, specifically, 15 to 20 level 5's would be able to kill a capped character . . . if they were smart, and knew how to play/pvp. Health pools, mitigations, to hit, etc. would be calibrated in a way to NOT allow anyone to become invulnerable based on a stat number alone, but would always require player action and attention.
However you slice it, however you dice it, if a game is based on an open-ended power scale aimed straight up, the design guarantees zero mode of Participation between players, either against each other or in service to each other once attentuation separates players by (x) levels.
Should a level 5 be viable in an end-game instance? No. But it's all in the details.
Comments
Heyo,
Yes, I think I'm optimistic about stuff like this. It's the Devil's advocate in me that thinks, "well, maybe there'll be good discussion."
Thanks for the link. I'm going to open it up and have a read in a few.
Thank you also for being rather nice about pointing out logical fallacies and other stuff. It's been a long time since I've taken up logic and evolution and whatnot.
A writer and gamer from the Philippines. Loves his mom dearly.
Can also be found on http://www.gamesandgeekery.com
context.
it helps here too. almost nothing in this world is always %100 right or %100 wrong. there are clear exceptions in many cases/situations.
its ok to:
hate hatred
kill a killer
be intolerant of intolerance
inflict pain on your child (spanking them) who just inflicted pain upon somebody else.
whine about somebody who is whining about somebody else's whining (realizing that whining on its own is not a problem, its the HYPOCRISY of a person doing what they're complaining about somebody ELSE doing).
---------------------------
Corpus Callosum
---------------------------
I'm sorry, when did this argument turn into Eugenics?
Because I thought we were past that with WW2 and I'm really not interested in regurgitating known facts about evolutionary morality and ethics.
Of course, I think what he's refering to are people whose personalities are, 'gay'.
As two examples I have a long term friend whose gay and was previously in the closet for about twenty so years. We rarely talk about him being gay because we have a lot of common interests in literature,film, etc. To him he's sexuality isn't a big deal, it's just something he is, and he's comfortable about that. Much like mine being straight isn't a big deal to me.
My wife on the other hand has a friend whose gay and he's personaility is gay as well. He's only interested in discussing gay issues, gay lifestyle, camp and kitsch things and calling people out he think he's offending. It' apparently okay for him to be that way because he's gay and flamboyant people are like that, (?!)
Basically he doesn't have much of a personality so he's taken on a gay personna to compensate. It's a bit like those people who are really into cosplay or love Apple, their incapable of understanding anything outside that bubble because they created it to make themselves feel like they belong somewhere.
Those sorts of people get on my nerves because having any kind of discussion results in them either trying to turn it back on them or feeling offended by a contray opinion. The fact of the matter is some people like being in a, 'minority' group because it makes them feel special, not easy to include those sorts in a general scheme.
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
Temporarily locking this until we can go through it. I'll post again when reopened.
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I'm reopening the thread now. Please remember to keep to the topic at hand, and to actually discuss points.
Be civil, and don't make it personal.
Thanks, guys.
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Given the age in which we live, did we really need a column dealing with Political Correctness? (also known as cultural Marxism).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism
Yes, I know this is Devils Advocate, and thus meant to drive page views, but couldn't some topic more relevant to gaming have been the topic of discussion?
I know that respect for individual rights and responsibilities has long since been passed over, in favor of what is good for this, or that group within the collective, but that doesn't make it right.
People are people. Respect for individuals, not collectives should be the foundation of not only society, but the games we choose to play as well.
Real inclusion comes from focus on what unites us, not what divides us.
I have many things I want to say just from being upset. Normally I don't say a thing. I know that in LoL that I will walk away from my team at times to take a few minutes to calm down. I normally want to just scream and ask "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?". I won't say that I can't cause that in others. I do try and not use any negative words though can't say that I am 100% successful though pretty sure that I only use them on vent with my friends.
The problem is that there is as much going on in reality as there is the internet. Too many people think in the "ME" sense. I have shocked people at counters for saying "Thank you and have a good day" as for them it is just what they are taught to say for the job and I just view it as common courtesy. I wave to someone and point at myself and say "my fault" when driving and do something stupid. I will also admit that I am doing badly when playing a game if necessary but unless playing a FPS with a mission of advancing and capturing points from the defense with a team of snipers then I might ask if we are all suppose to be playing snipers instead of trying to win. I do try and be good to the best of my ability and I don't try to see the internet as being a shield for me to be an @$$ that I see many do. I am too afraid of making mad the one person who goes off the deep end and hacks me to find me and hack into me with some weapon.
Unfortunately, I don't think asking people to be nice works where the technology permits anonymity. In the real world, consideration for others is encouraged by web of reciprocal relationships. Extreme anti-social behavior can be sanctioned.
However on the Internet, depending on game mechanics, those controls are much weaker and/or non-existent.
The result is the dark side of gaming - the flourishing of subcultures that are openly antagonistic and hate-filled. Chiding or complaining about this behavior is useless or counter-productive. In the absence of any reciprocal relationships, people have no inhibition about being dirtbags. In the absence of meaningful sanction, bad behavior is not deterred. And it doesn't take many bad apples to spoil the barrel - a relatively small part of a gaming population can poison a much larger environment, particularly if their behavior involves things like hacks and gold duping or is enabled by a permissive PVP ruleset (e.g. open world full loot).
Complaining, whether in-game or on forums, is counterproductive because that actually feeds the bad actors - they LIKE the attention, even (or perhaps especially) because it is negative. They ENJOY the displeasure they are causing others.
The first casualty, ironically, is player freedom. Unable to find a method to keep the bad seeds from driving off other customers, games become more and more theme-parkish. Player choice and freedoms are restricted so that, in order to limit what the bad actors can do, you also eliminate game play options for good actors.
The answer for some is to adopt a "hard core" attitude and pretend the problem either doesn't exist or is the fault of people being over-sensitive (e.g. "its just a game!"). But that is no solution for the people who enjoy online gaming for its potential immersive and creative aspects. A world by, for and run-by jerks is not a world they want to be part of.
I hate everyone equally.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
[mod edit]
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977042395
We (speaking very much in general) even commonly use "gay" as a perjorative in the gamer community, so of course we have issues with the gay community that go well beyond GBLTIQ... into cultural issues of gender ambiguity and so on. Gender spoofing is a big issue also, and makes a lot of gamers, particularly males who never made it out of adolescence with a lot of security in their own identities, very uncomfortable.
So long as these gender issues persist in our culture, they'll be reflected in the games community, but yeah the
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/39367/Opinion_Awful_Lot_Of_Heterosexuals_Around_Here.php
is WELL worth thinking about (and I have a comment on that stream too). The industry is really tone-deaf on this issue for the most part. Good for Trion, Bioware, and so on. And, you know, even Turbine who privately enforces, apparently, but won't publish policy, which is kind of lacking in spine.
History is on the side of these folks. This is a human rights issue.
Shava Nerad
resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
In some cases, it's not the players who are the problem, it's the employees of the gaming company...GM's, and forum moderators in particular...who are the real instigators. When I played Eve a few years ago, their forums were so homophobically censored that even the word "gay" was banned.
I used to write a blog about Eve and I took on the issue in a long post titled "'Gay' Is NOT A Dirty Word!", which can be found here: http://justagirlandherthorax.blogspot.com/2007/08/gay-is-not-dirty-word.html
I haven't played Eve in a few years so I don't know if things have improved there since, but this is hardly the only example. In WoW there was a transgender woman named Sara Andrews who created an LGBT-friendly guild and had her account banned for it, for no other reason than she advertised that the guild was LGBT-friendly: http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/profanity-filters-homophobic-slurs-and-blizzards-shaky-relati/#continued
This, to me, is a key part of the problem. Gaming companies can be part of the solution but too many times they're not only ignoring the problem, but actually the direct cause of it in the first place. This kind of exclusion can only continue to happen when the gaming companies allow it to happen or cause it themselves.
Think of it this way: If I, as a transsexual woman (yes, I am), go to a bar for a drink and an unruly customer verbally abuses me, it's the bartender's or the bouncer's job to defuse the situation or throw the bum out. If, on the other hand, the person abusing me is the bartender or the bouncer, or if they tell me to shut up as I'm being verbally abused, then chances are I'm going to go find another place to drink, and I'm going to take my friends with me.
I opened this article thinking it was either going to be about elitist/griefing/asshat players excluding casuals/newbies and how that can become a vicious cycle and a first class ticket to a divisive population and/or game developers coding single player games in online environments and how that prevents players from experiencing the pleasure of creating an inclusive virtual world community through inter-dependence...boy was I wrong.
As the great man himself said "One love, one heart", is the world ready for Bob's vision yet? It wasn't back then.
There are a lot of factors that play into a "culture of exclusion" in online communities these days. Everything from community managers that pander to a few exclusive and snarky sycophants that cleverly bash other members of the community from the safety of their keyboards --- to the widespread and growing popularity of online games to a broader age group, which leads to younger people watching their "mature" counterparts for queues on how to properly act out in an online environment shrouded in anonymous, faceless interaction.
Now more than ever, it seems to be the standard to develop an online presence in General Chat channels by trying to outwit and outbash fellow members of the same server community, or exploiting the anonymous nature of online interaction to say things to others that an individual would never in a hundred years say to another in a face-to-face, one-on-one situation.
It saddens me to see that when I attend an event like PAX in Seattle, I am surrounded by fellow gamers that find a sense of community and comraderie in each other's presence, but when you take the face-to-face interaction out of the equation, suddenly someone thinks they are the "pro" to your "nubsauce", and people generally forget good manners and mutual respect for each other.
Some game developers help cultivate this behavior in the content they implement in their games, in the way they advertise, and in the way they interact with their communities or in the way they let members of their forum communities "troll" other community members without any intervention. This is especialy harmful when the "trolling" takes place in forums that are supposed to be geared towards a constructive purpose, such as "suggestion" forums or "feedback" forums.
While the game industry is indeed a business, it should not punish the "casual gamer" for not spending as much time logged in as a "hardcore" gamer through rigged "achievements" tailored toward people that have a lot more free time on their hands than others. Everyone that creates their own individual character in an MMO wants to create a unique and individualized personality for their character that is an extension of themselves. To offer cosmetic rewards and items to only a select few "elite" players while leaving every other subscriber to the wayside is another way in which game developers have created a sort of "exclusion" model, especially when they supposedly cater to the "casual gamer" crowd.
This is, of course, a double edged sword.
To create "open world" content anymore is to invite "griefing", "ninja'ing", and any other form of harassment, especially when a game is relatively successful, and policing an individual server community is a near-impossible task. In a catch-22 situation of trying to offer subscribers a hassle-free gameplay experience, it also finds itself caught in a conundrum of having to create instanced content that only allows only limited amount of players to participate without trivializing the content, or making the group size so large that organization becomes impossible. Inclusion is almost impossible in a game that relies heavily on event-driven content of the instanced variety. Somewhere, someone's going to be left behind, and feelings are going to be hurt.
However, catering only to the "hardcore" crowd creates another issue, especially when a game tries to blend a Player-versus-Environment (PvE) model with a Player-versus-Player (PvP) model. Petty rivalries, elitist attitudes, faulty game mechanics, and/or game balance issues explode into another exclusionist mess altogether. I saw one minor example of this recently in an MMO that I won't name, where someone that was very proficient in a PvP environment had worked their way up to the top ranks of PvP-reward gear. They joined a guild with some friends that were more PvE-centric, and because of the lack of certain stats on their PvP gear, they were not allowed to join their friends in PvE raid content. The guild leader refused to let them join in PvE raid content, but letting them join when their gear was missing crucial stats would have hampered the success of the raid.
So, what can a game developer do? Create more options for a variety of playstyles? Give crafters as much opportunity to craft epic rewards for themselves through long, arduous tasks as a PvE raider could obtain through a "hardcore" raid? Eliminate the need for PvP-only stats on PvP centric gear? Create a "spectator" mode for excess guild members that want to observe and somehow "participate" in their guild's PvE raid functions? How could they be rewarded for such participation? How could they participate so they don't feel left out? Perhaps a mix of SW:TOR's story-driven cinematics and "social" participation, where each person participating and/or spectating can vote for a particular decision and gain some sort of advancement and/or reward?
Maybe the scope needs to be broader. Perhaps there are other ways to keep subscribers entertained so that no matter what they do, and no matter how long they have to play, they can really feel like they've made some progress that leads them to fulfilling that need to individualize themselves in a MMO environment.
Let's face it. People LOVE outwardly cosmetic changes to their character that not only individualize their characters, but also glorify them. Look back on Ragnarok Online. The countless variations of individual cosmetic enhancements available were badges of pride, despite the silly, cutesy, anime-style, grindy feel of the game. The various outlandish tier armor sets of World of Warcraft, with the extreme appendages and particle effects, the LOOK was really what it was all about--- no one that raided hardcore content can deny that they LOVED strutting through a major city with a new tier piece, or legendary weapon with particle effect flames blazing overhead. Everyone could have a flying mount, but the really cool looking flying mounts that came from rare spawns, rare boss drops, and achievements were the ones people were really after, and this is where a level of exclusion was very apparent.
If there's one way that a game can offer a remotely inclusive feel to all of its subscribers, it would be through a very broad offering of outwardly individualized cosmetic changes that are made available through a wide variety of activities. It would require a very productive and dedicated art department, 3D modeling department, and a dedicated story development team to make it all fit together.
This is just one solution, but after years of playing various MMOs, I think it should be at least the starting foundation that everything else is built upon, because just as we all hate looking like "rodeo clowns" in mismatched gear, we all hate being left behind and excluded from being able to individualize ourselves in our chosen virtual worlds.
We have enough of that trash IRL...
the amount of mod edits is amusing!
I am trying not to mock this entire line of resoning BUT it is so freakin' absurd, every single point made.
"Pay it forward" ..lol... Don't bother actually playing the game..are you for real? lol..Occupy EQ2! If you are feelin' charitable do it IRL, where it matters.
"Same sex marraige"..in a game..How about Roman Catholocism and Bestiality? Or Polygamy? or hundreds of other "Humna conditions"? My droid fetish must be recognized and validated by game designers and players...NOW!
You have to be nice and recognize (and validate) every special snowflake you find! Just so you know I am a CAREBEAR™ and I think this is an absurd topic.
My Dad said it best.." Not everyone is going to like you ,it is just something you are going to have to accept " so leave the crybabing at the log-in screen.
The problem is they try to make games that make everyone happy but thats impossible, so with that mindset you're unconsciously deciding to make a shallow product that wont upset too many people.
Considering how ridiculously overpopulated this world is going to be in just the next 20 years, the world could probably do with a bit more "pink."
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Well they are already trying to pussify the male population so maybe you'll get your wish.
The context of the OP was how this relates to GAMING. So I'll present what I consider inclusion / exclusion issues in GAMING that have become too much of a problem in many MMOs. Before I do that however, here are two guiding principles that get violated to too high a degree too often, thus becoming a problem:
Ability to Participate (inclusion principle)
Ability to Compete (inclusion principle)
The simplist example would be in PvP where a level 70 squashes a level 20. The level 20's ability to even Participate, much less Compete, is completely non-existent. Thus, you typically see Battlegrounds level bracketed to enable Participation and Competition (inclusion).
Without that kind of control large numbers of players would be excluded from game play. This is however a simpler example in a morass of a more complex disease in MMOs:
The Ouroboros Syndrome
Ouroborus is a bit of symbology from ancient Greece where it was intended to represent the cycle of life, infinity, rebirth.
Unfortunately in MMOs it manifests as a deadly disease to a game's community in that it represents a small population of players who reach the cap, or near it, who turn around and feed on the lower levels below them. Like the dragon Ouroborus who turned around and started eating itself starting at the tail.
Dev houses need to think about this dynamic much harder, in more mature fashion, instead of blindly catering to the "stock" delusion it makes sense to enslave large portions of the playerbase to a mindless GRIND under the presumption it's reasonable to expect people to accept login time relegated to WORK (for weeks or months) because . . . . eventually you'll get to a point where you will be Included in game play!
Player Attenuation
Player Attenuation is another dynamic contributing to Inclusion or Exclusion, and the Ouroboros Syndrome. It's not necessarily bad all by itself, because Progression is a part of game play. Players DO need rewards for progression, better gear, bigger challenges. Consider it then like the bacteria in your intestinal tract: Absolutely required for life itself (when in balance), but out of whack causes major problems.
Just remember your times sitting on the pot, grunting, in severe pain, from an intestinal problem if you don't believe me. Go ahead, close your eyes and quietly think back and remember. There we go! Not fun was it?
Inclusion and Exclusion in game play with others are often the result of of a game being structured exclusively around challenges and content presentation based on Environment Artifacts (E, gear and stats), and not Players (P).
Games are too often designed (to too high a degree) in a way to promote the Exclusion of players from participating with others by redirecting them to The Grind and Work, the Carrot being "if you just level up X amount, you'll finally be able to play". Except for the fact the cap, levelling, and "end game" is a constantly moving target so the problem never ends.
Progression needs to be there, don't get me wrong. It has it's place. However, Dev houses need to start paying MORE ATTENTION to human dynamics in game play instead of the amount of attention they do to mechanical grind mechanisms designed around a principle of EXCLUSION by virtue of spending time Working . . . in a game.
For instance: A zone or world event where there is a human-player engaged dynamic for either completion, or moving forward of stages. This might involve the solving of Puzzles, the running of stones/flags, what have you. Any level can participate. Boss/mob challenges are structured both for high and low levels so it's not arbitrarily restricted to "level x's".
Rewards match the level of the players as well as the level of participation in the event.
In this example the construct is designed to Include everyone, PLAYERS, and is not designed around the exclusive principle of "level x required", while presenting rewards matching everyones progression level. A level 60 can cheer on and/or support the level 10 figuring out the puzzle artifact or screen the level 20 running an objective well. The lower levels can back off and go "Whoa!" when the Boss or Boss Minion spawns and cheer on, perhaps even support, the hot-shot higher levels who then step forward for some serious mojo.
People can bring race, gender, what have you, into any conversation. That's life. The trick is to pay heed to an old saying: "Keep your eyes on the ball . . .".
Be courteous and patient with each other. Absolutely, that's just the path to good times with people. Unfortunately a lot of people are just full of Dumb, and none of us have the ability in a game to change that. So, /ignore them and move on.
The Ball here for me is GAMING. I love gaming, I'd like to see more QUALITY in Gaming start to show itself, instead of a stagnant wash of repeating, mechanical, Grinds with different skins slapped over them.
Which leads me to to closing:
AGREEING TO THE DOMAIN for Inclusion and Exclusion (in game design/mechanics anyway
):
Inclusion and Exclusion in a game IMO stems from from Player Attenuation in levels/power that affects Ability to Participate, Ability to Compete . . . with others (players).
Most MMOs follow an open-ended steep climb upward in progression, thus the problem.
Given new players, even low to almost mid-level players, are the LIFE BLOOD of any game, the criteria is present for consideration in an MMO's design model for controlling and regulating progression and power scales at "end game":
Level 1 (or, heck, say level 5 if one is just too much for some).
Specifically, as an example of the concept:
End Game gear/stats/power will equal 20x that of a Level 5. Meaning, specifically, 15 to 20 level 5's would be able to kill a capped character . . . if they were smart, and knew how to play/pvp. Health pools, mitigations, to hit, etc. would be calibrated in a way to NOT allow anyone to become invulnerable based on a stat number alone, but would always require player action and attention.
However you slice it, however you dice it, if a game is based on an open-ended power scale aimed straight up, the design guarantees zero mode of Participation between players, either against each other or in service to each other once attentuation separates players by (x) levels.
Should a level 5 be viable in an end-game instance? No. But it's all in the details.
Wherever you go, there you are.