Blizzard Treats Gay/Lesbian Group Unfairly

http://www.innewsweekly.com/innews/?class_code=Ga&article_code=1172

It's hard to even play World of Warcraft without wading through all the chat about how this or that tactic is "gay," and yet Blizzard did not allow a guild to advertise that it's a friendly safe-haven for gay and lesbian players. The reason Blizzard gave is that such a guild could cause those members to be harassed, and that other players would not like that the guild is discriminating based on sexual orientation.

This is exactly the kind of thing that is completely embarassing about Blizzard policies and a perfect illustration of how bad our virtual worlds are right now.

Even though Blizzard has a history of trying to babysit every possible player behavior, I didn't think they'd attept to regulate player-run guilds. Maybe it's ok if a guild has only Christian players in it, as long as they don't advertise? Maybe the Gay and Lesbian guild could have "stayed in the closet" and been ok?

The irony is that decisions like these are meant to make the game a "happier, safer place," and yet they will eventually drive away reasonable people looking for a reasonable environment in which to interact. Blizzard already lost the founders of that guild as customers, and I guess they lost me too.

--Sirlin

Virtual Worlds and the problem of player-rights

I'd appreciate some help from any thoughtful people about my post here on virtual worlds and player rights. You can find the post here.

Basically, the most current virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft have medieval heirarchy, where players have nearly no rights at all. In 100 years, this type of online government will be a cute footnote. I'm outraged that you aren't outraged about this, as virtual worlds will become increasingly important in the future, for reasons that reach beyond games. I'd like to be part of the solution, so lend a hand. So far the three most important topics I can identify are

1) Freedom of speech
2) Privacy
3) Ownership of virtual items

The question isn't whether these things should be allowed. I consider it self-evident that they should be. The question is how to deal with the consequences, and what other important rights should be addressed along with these.

This particular topic is too important to be burried in my blog, and I think the discussion on the forums would be more long-lasting, so I request that you post there.

Thanks,
--Sirlin

PS -- At the top of this blog, there's now a link to the Atom feed.

Second Life calls the FBI

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2005/12/the_solution_to.html#more

Some people shut down the MMO Second Life by creating self-replicating objects with the in-game scripting system that replicated so much that they crashed the server. The CEO of Linden Labs (the game's publisher) turned over the names the griefers to the FBI.

I'm usually quick to point out the problems of banning people who perform legal in-game actions that have consequences that "you don't like." In almost all of these cases, good answers are "have the developer fix the problem in the code" or possibly "allow players a way of policing or otherwise sort out the problem themselves." This is an extreme case though, since these actions caused the entire server to crash, denying all other players the ability to play and the company the ability to make money. Perhaps in this extreme case, it *IS* correct for the developer to step in and ban, and call the authorities. Almost anything less than this probably does not warrant a ban or any penalty to the player from the developer.

In a Street Fighter tournament, if you do something that intentially crashes the game, you lose the round. Hypethetically, if you did something that somehow not only crashed the game, but stopped the entire tournament from happening, we would not hesitate to eject you from the building.

Meanwhile World of Warcraft will ban you for "playing too much," attacking Lord Kazzak in various unsanctioned ways, using a rogue/warlock combo to lure bosses too far from their spawn points, fighting on rooftops, entering unfinished areas (why are they accessible at all?), buying gold or items on ebay (eventually the courts will probably overrule them on this), collaborating with the other faction in battlegrounds, "using terrain exploits to your advantage," player-created casions (that merely use the in-game /random command), player-created bingo games, profanity (even though there is an in-game language filter, to say nothing of free speech), posting on forums about whether a guild is full of Blizzard employees, posting on the forums about why you were banned for posting about something seemingly constructive, having a name such as JustKidding, SergantTaco, TheAthiest, or roflcopter...and a whole lot more things, too.

Finall tally:
-----------
Linden Labs--Probably Justified
World of Warcraft--Apparently Fascist. :(

--Sirlin

Resident Evil 4 is Really Good

I played one third of RE4 on GameCube, then got distracted by something and never finished. I just bought RE4 for PS2 and finished it one time through. Here are some highlights:

--Fairly bad story
--The shooting gallery mini-games are the worst idea to appear in any game this year
--The entire portrayal of the merchant is ridiculous and clashes with rest of the game (and his mini-games do even more damage to the 4th wall).

I give the game and A+, and it is the best game of 2005 that I know of (even taking God of War and World of Warcraft into account). It has an incredible amount of "design" in it. Every few steps there's some scripted scenario.

--Villagers are trying to get into a little two-story house. You must fend them off for X minutes.
--Pilot a small boat which is being dragged through the lake by a huge monster which you must defeat with a harpoon (a weapon only usable in this sequence).
--Get to the top of a castle while catapults are attacking you from all angles. You pretty much have to use the sniper rifle to take out the catapult operators.
--Protect a female NPC who is performing a task in an area you can't reach. Keep enemies off of her so she can complete the task.
--Survive a mine-car ride (with three connected mine-cars) while enemies jump into the car along the way.
--Use an infrared scope to see and shoot 4 special areas on one type of enemy, or he will keep regenerating and never die.

This list could go on and on and on. Not only does this game have great graphics, great sound, and a great core mechanic and controls...but it has so many specialized scripted sequences that it feels like about 20 games in one. I'm really blown away by the total experience.

It leaves me with one question though. Should games have that much content? Almost 20 hours of one play through (with soooo many different kinds of gameplay along the way) and a whole bunch of extra missions and replayablity afterwards. That kind of content costs tons of money to make, takes a long time, causes the publisher to bear a huge risk and makes them afraid to experiment. Plus, I'm not sure the average gamer wants a game that long. What a game of this quality that lasted 2 or 3 hours and cost $10? Should we be trying to make something like that? Or is that a bad idea for some reason?

--Sirlin