Making sure that people can be held accountable for their piss poor behavior is something not many MMOs do anymore, more's the pity.
Look at games such as LOTRO, EQ2, AoC, FFXI even, all have means to stay private and name one person who quite because of that privacy? If some ones a troll and uses name changes to avoid public scrutiny, I just don't see someone paying $18 a week to just have the ability to troll the community nonstop. Someone who needs that service to protect themselves from harassment or wants to start over fresh without re rolling, will only do it once or twice. Any game company can check for abuse of name changes or put limits on time required before each of them. To just throw out all options of peoples privacy is just hurting people who do wish to start anew for credible reasons.
Back in the days everyone knowing everyone was a thing.
Everyone knowing the bad apples on the server was also a (Good) thing. Being able to switch your character name is never good unless in very specific circumstances like dead threats etc.
keep in mind that we are Human Beings, and Human Beings are "idiots". In fact have you ever been trapped by a troll? Even if someone said stupid stuff that got the whole server against them, then realizing they were an dumbass...
Interesting choice of words...
Originally posted by Knotwood
I haven't given up on it but because of the rocky launch I'm sure its going to be a bit lower then expected, but this is a fine example to use. Weather I am right or wrong, would that give people a reason to hunt me down on the forums here and harass me?
Think before you speak... or in the case of the Internet™ think before you type. When you make outrageous claims like the one you made for ESO; you will get flak and even possibly harassment over it. Knotwood you "should" know by now how the MMOPRG.com community is as a whole; or internet gaming forums in general (specifically when it comes to outlandish claims like the one you gave) and pass them as facts. You run the risk (or in this case) the very high risk of people calling you out or even ridiculing you.
Know this very basic formula: Outlandish claims (usually white knighting or extremely emotionally attachment to a game or company) + Passing all or most comments as facts + Coming up with any "formula" to support your opinions as facts = Witch Hunt in MMORPG.com 100% of the time.
History has already shown us this time and time again, yet people keep making the same threads over and over again. Look at the past 10-20 AAA and/or hyped MMO games on this site. You will have in almost every case someone who has to make that outlandish post of X Y Z game.
Examples are:
X Y Z game will have "similar" subscription numbers as WOW
X Y Z game will be the sleeper hit of 20XX
X Y Z game will sell millions and millions of boxes at launch
X Y Z game will never go F2P (I could see people making this claim for WOW or EVE; I'll get back to this)
X Y Z company will launch with zero or near zero issues/stability/bugs etc.
I could give another dozen examples but you get the idea. These types of threads go on and on and on every single time a P2P or B2P game comes out.
Originally posted by Knotwood
Well based on the fact that there is 7.5 billion people on the planet. Not to mention 300 million people in America alone, and every kid being raised on computers is now growing up and reaching millions countrywide, that number is going to grow to probably more then 100 million players entering the game market in the next decade in America alone.
(The above was your response to someone who asked you were was the logic behind 10 million subscribers.)
You should have done a little research; at least understanding the extreme saturation of theme park high fantasy MMOs that sometimes plays more like a single player game rather than a MMO, as well as the current trends of P2P MMOs.
As it currently stands (since last month; I haven't had time to check if there have been any new additions) there are currently only 9 MMORPGs that exclusively use the P2P business model. Every other MMO game released in the past 15+ years that started out as a P2P title ended up going F2P, or in most cases F2P + P2W, or they closed up shop. 6 of those games were released before 2005... only 3 after 2005. Add 2 more to that with the recent release of Wildstar and ESO and that puts the total to 11 games.
Yes we know it is $15 a month, yes we know that it comes down to 50 cents a day. But guess what? It isn't the difficulty of getting said $15, but rather is it worth it to you? I've made this statement in so many different ways in the past 3 years, that I have yet to receive one single rebuttal. This is why (in part) you were ridiculed. Also take note that no other P2P or B2P game has reached 10 million (concurrent) subscribers at any given time. The max I know is somewhere between 2-3 million (after WOW of course).
You "should" have stated that the game would have reached 1-2 million subscribers (or if you really wanted to white knight for whatever emotional attachment you have) then you should have said 3-4 million (for PC users). You would have received some flak, but nowhere near as saying 10 million.
To give you an example of how outlandish your 10 million sub thread was; it would be like me saying since there are 7+ billion people in the planet and with over X millions of players that have played P2P games in the past year I would come to the conclusion that
1. The next P2P game is going to have 10 20 30 millions subs
or
2. There will be a revitalization of the P2P MMORPG and that in the next 5 years there will be 50 P2P games.
Imagine the backlash I would get if I made a thread like the those two. Think before you speak... or in the case of the Internet™ think before you type.
keep in mind that we are Human Beings, and Human Beings are "idiots". In fact have you ever been trapped by a troll? Even if someone said stupid stuff that got the whole server against them, then realizing they were an dumbass...
Interesting choice of words...
Originally posted by Knotwood
I haven't given up on it but because of the rocky launch I'm sure its going to be a bit lower then expected, but this is a fine example to use. Weather I am right or wrong, would that give people a reason to hunt me down on the forums here and harass me?
Think before you speak... or in the case of the Internet™ think before you type. When you make outrageous claims like the one you made for ESO; you will get flak and even possibly harassment over it. Knotwood you "should" know by now how the MMOPRG.com community is as a whole; or internet gaming forums in general (specifically when it comes to outlandish claims like the one you gave) and pass them as facts. You run the risk (or in this case) the very high risk of people calling you out or even ridiculing you.
Know this very basic formula: Outlandish claims (usually white knighting or extremely emotionally attachment to a game or company) + Passing all or most comments as facts + Coming up with any "formula" to support your opinions as facts = Witch Hunt in MMORPG.com 100% of the time.
History has already shown us this time and time again, yet people keep making the same threads over and over again. Look at the past 10-20 AAA and/or hyped MMO games on this site. You will have in almost every case someone who has to make that outlandish post of X Y Z game.
Examples are:
X Y Z game will have "similar" subscription numbers as WOW
X Y Z game will be the sleeper hit of 20XX
X Y Z game will sell millions and millions of boxes at launch
X Y Z game will never go F2P (I could see people making this claim for WOW or EVE; I'll get back to this)
X Y Z company will launch with zero or near zero issues/stability/bugs etc.
I could give another dozen examples but you get the idea. These types of threads go on and on and on every single time a P2P or B2P game comes out.
Originally posted by Knotwood
Well based on the fact that there is 7.5 billion people on the planet. Not to mention 300 million people in America alone, and every kid being raised on computers is now growing up and reaching millions countrywide, that number is going to grow to probably more then 100 million players entering the game market in the next decade in America alone.
(The above was your response to someone who asked you were was the logic behind 10 million subscribers.)
You should have done a little research; at least understanding the extreme saturation of theme park high fantasy MMOs that sometimes plays more like a single player game rather than a MMO, as well as the current trends of P2P MMOs.
As it currently stands (since last month; I haven't had time to check if there have been any new additions) there are currently only 9 MMORPGs that exclusively use the P2P business model. Every other MMO game released in the past 15+ years that started out as a P2P title ended up going F2P, or in most cases F2P + P2W, or they closed up shop. 6 of those games were released before 2005... only 3 after 2005. Add 2 more to that with the recent release of Wildstar and ESO and that puts the total to 11 games.
Yes we know it is $15 a month, yes we know that it comes down to 50 cents a day. But guess what? It isn't the difficulty of getting said $15, but rather is it worth it to you? I've made this statement in so many different ways in the past 3 years, that I have yet to receive one single rebuttal. This is why (in part) you were ridiculed. Also take note that no other P2P or B2P game has reached 10 million (concurrent) subscribers at any given time. The max I know is somewhere between 2-3 million (after WOW of course).
You "should" have stated that the game would have reached 1-2 million subscribers (or if you really wanted to white knight for whatever emotional attachment you have) then you should have said 3-4 million (for PC users). You would have received some flak, but nowhere near as saying 10 million.
To give you an example of how outlandish your 10 million sub thread was; it would be like me saying since there are 7+ billion people in the planet and with over X millions of players that have played P2P games in the past year I would come to the conclusion that
1. The next P2P game is going to have 10 20 30 millions subs
or
2. There will be a revitalization of the P2P MMORPG and that in the next 5 years there will be 50 P2P games.
Imagine the backlash I would get if I made a thread like the those two. Think before you speak... or in the case of the Internet™ think before you type.
So let me sum up what you just said and show you how you proved the reason why there should be Anonimity in server transfers, name changes, and lode stone privacy options.
1. You state that I should think before I speak when making outlandish or white knight claims, even if those statements were well within terms of agreement.
2. You state that the frequency of these outlandish claims and statements are made every single game by diferant people.
3. that this can and will lead to being harassed. A trend. Which is within the terms of agreement of that service they use.
So, I take all three of those statements, and say it is TRUE. All three of your claims is 100% correct. Next let me put some context onto this.
1. I have the privillage to speak my mind in forums or in game however I wish as long as its within the terms of agreement of that service. Even if those things lead to myself getting harassed, the person who is breaking the terms of agreement with a service or game company would be the person who harasses, not the person who made the outlandish or white knight statement.
2 and 3. People in your eyes that make outlandish statements seems to occur at a high frequency every game by different types of people (trend), and likewise subject to harassment every single game release, We both recoginize that harassment WILL ALWAYS happen for things spoken that are within the rules of the game or terms of agreement, and that those people within the terms of agreement will receive harassment for this. No way to avoid it, unless not speaking their mind which is their privilage granted to them by the service they are using.
Its because of this harassment that is received for things spoken which might even be boarderling dumbass or flat out wrong, BUT is within terms of agreement, because of this, this is why there should be services to allow a person to avoid such harassment when it is so wide spread that it is at the server and guild levels within a game or even when they feel that this could by leaving a guild they were in, or simply wish never to associate with people they feel might make their game world uncomfortable.
Hope this helps you understand whos really in the right and wrong when looked at the terms of agreement and who is actually the ones breaking it. The only discipline in any game should come from the Game Company and GM or moderators themselves. Likewise if harassment exists for any reason and WILL ALWAYS happen to people who follow the terms of agreement, then they should ALWAYS offer services that WILL ALWAYS defeat such harassment without that person spending every day wondering if someone in their party was against them/harassing them, or having to call a GM and spend hours every day trying to fix, worry about or prove widespread harassment. People who follow the terms of agreement of any game should never be the ones punished for thigns they say or do that are within terms of agreement, wouldn't you agree?
The internet would be a better place if people had to own everything they say.
+1
Even in the form of harassment, which breaks Terms of Service against that person?
Perhaps a better example would be, when your talking to people in a game, would the things you were saying, differ if you were instead talking to the person face to face, if it would, then you need to take a moment and step back, and rethink the things you were going to say, just because things you say are said in a game, does not mean that they are also without consequence, as in real life, the things said in games can have an impact, but people mess up from time to time, its human, so if you do make a pigs ear of things, then trying to fix it, it's better than running away from it.
The internet would be a better place if people had to own everything they say.
What's your idea of owning what you say? That if someone says something right or wrong, or fights with another guild member and are in the wrong... how do they OWN what they say, and in what form will they be OWNING it? In the form of being harassed by other guild members or players, Public Justice and not GM justice?
If someone OWNS up to anyone it should only be the game company or a GM, and not the public at large. Let me take you way back to FFXI when some guy scamed another guy's scorpion harness, the person who got scamed found out where the other person lived and murdered him over a virtual item... is this what you want or mean by OWNing what you do or say in a game?
I say we need to step back from the view.... and really think about what "Public Justice" leads to. Theres a reason we have courtrooms and GM's and they should be the only ones to discipline in a game not players in the form of harassment.
When I say own I mean like in real life, you can't just spout off to your co-workers one day and then be someone else the next because things didn't go well for you, or you took it too far.
If you couldn't just change your identity at the drop of a hat and had to actually care about your reputation or working relationship with them you might act differently when dealing with others.
From reading your replies to people you seem to think it's ok to say whatever you want and treat people however you want and when you have to deal with the consequences of acting like that you just want to run away and be someone else.
When I say own I mean like in real life, you can't just spout off to your co-workers one day and then be someone else the next because things didn't go well for you, or you took it too far.
If you couldn't just change your identity at the drop of a hat and had to actually care about your reputation or working relationship with them you might act differently when dealing with others.
From reading your replies to people you seem to think it's ok to say whatever you want and treat people however you want and when you have to deal with the consequences of acting like that you just want to run away and be someone else.
.... while crying "Harassment!"
I think you nailed it, Damonville, along with someone else earlier in the thread who remarked how once upon a time in MMOs (mostly back around early EQ1, FFXI, L2...), you had even less anonymity. People got to know you on your own server. For better or worse, your actions and your attitude defined how people saw and considered you. If you ran around spouting off ridiculous remarks, generally acting like a jerk, people were going to ostracize you. If you were cool, they'd know of this as well, and would welcome you. It's called personal responsibility and accountability for how you speak and behave.
And it definitely seems to me that the OP is trying to escape any personal accountability or responsibility for their own words/actions, by playing the victim card and crying "harassment!" because people are calling them out over remarks they made.
I agree there are reasons why the reason to change your name or "disappear" in an online game should exist... but trying to hide from the fallout of your own words isn't one of them.
The whole thread is hilarious - giving people the chance to completely mask themselves to not deal with the consequences of what they did and said is just an invitation to become a ....
I called people out on being mindless, whiteknights or even bought by companies to hype games on this forum. I took the retaliation and the bans if I went too far. Never once did I consider making a new account.
If you can't back up your opinion and deal with the consequences - don't tell others about it.
Also I don't believe for a second that all that "the whole server with all the guilds could make one person's life miserable" shit exists. (Outside of EVE)
You are posting that here in a matter of fact attitude just like you did with the 10 mil subscribers.
When I say own I mean like in real life, you can't just spout off to your co-workers one day and then be someone else the next because things didn't go well for you, or you took it too far.
If you couldn't just change your identity at the drop of a hat and had to actually care about your reputation or working relationship with them you might act differently when dealing with others.
From reading your replies to people you seem to think it's ok to say whatever you want and treat people however you want and when you have to deal with the consequences of acting like that you just want to run away and be someone else.
.... while crying "Harassment!"
I think you nailed it, Damonville, along with someone else earlier in the thread who remarked how once upon a time in MMOs (mostly back around early EQ1, FFXI, L2...), you had even less anonymity. People got to know you on your own server. For better or worse, your actions and your attitude defined how people saw and considered you. If you ran around spouting off ridiculous remarks, generally acting like a jerk, people were going to ostracize you. If you were cool, they'd know of this as well, and would welcome you. It's called personal responsibility and accountability for how you speak and behave.
And it definitely seems to me that the OP is trying to escape any personal accountability or responsibility for their own words/actions, by playing the victim card and crying "harassment!" because people are calling them out over remarks they made.
I agree there are reasons why the reason to change your name or "disappear" in an online game should exist... but trying to hide from the fallout of your own words isn't one of them.
I'm calling false attribution on this one, particularly because you're only looking at the negative. There was server transfer available for much of vanilla WoW yet people still cared about their reputation. If simply being unable to flee and start over is what kept everyone from being assholes to each other then vanilla WoW would have been over-run with people constantly being jerks, but it wasn't, not really until wotlk did the community go to hell.
When there was a server community and people knew they would likely see the people in their group again and would very likely need their help or at least cooperation again that largely kept people in line and wanting to make a good impression. It was far more the positive aspect of social interaction that kept people in line not the fear of retribution. It's when cross server group finder (for dungeons and bgs) came around and you were thrown into random groups filled with people you would never see again that people started going crazy. This is because the positive rewards of possible future interaction had been stripped away.
In short people had been able to flee the negative consequences of their actions for years, it wasn't really until much of the positive incentives for good behavior had been removed that the death spiral really began.
I'm calling false attribution on this one, particularly because you're only looking at the negative. There was server transfer available for much of vanilla WoW yet people still cared about their reputation. If simply being unable to flee and start over is what kept everyone from being assholes to each other then vanilla WoW would have been over-run with people constantly being jerks, but it wasn't, not really until wotlk did the community go to hell.
Call it what you like. It changes absolutely nothing, because your argument is undermined by one very major detail:
People still cared about their reputation (at least before cross-server everything came around) in WoW for the same reasons they cared about their reputation in XI, in L2 and in other MMOs...
Server transfers aren't free. They're also limited and restricted (not all servers are open to transfer at all times), and you usually can't make a transfer more than once every 90 days or so.
They cost $25. In some MMOs they're even more expensive. I think they were $50 in Lineage 2 - and player reputation was *huge* in L2.
That additional cost - on top of a monthly sub, especially - tends to be a significant deterrent for people. It's even an issue for many people who'd like to change servers simply because theirs is too inactive, etc.
So, considering those things, if you make a transfer, pay the fee... then realize you screwed up and want to go back, or to another server instead.. you now are out the transfer fee, and are stuck on the new server for at least 90 days before you can switch again. May as well just create a new character at that point.
It's not like you can just hop from one server to another on a whim. If that were the case, then your point would have merit. As it stands, however, it doesn't.
So, if someone is pushed to the point of switching servers, then their "penance" (if you will) for whatever they did to bring them to that point cost them not only in terms of a negative in-game reputation, but in actual real-world money. It's literally hitting them in the wallet.
They're also left with the potentially daunting task of joining an established community of people they don't know and having to start from the bottom, finding a good group, etc. etc. That can be rather discouraging as well.
Seems to me it'd be wiser, and cheaper, to simply not be a jackass so you never have to make those choices in the first place.
When there was a server community and people knew they would likely see the people in their group again and would very likely need their help or at least cooperation again that largely kept people in line and wanting to make a good impression. It was far more the positive aspect of social interaction that kept people in line not the fear of retribution. It's when cross server group finder (for dungeons and bgs) came around and you were thrown into random groups filled with people you would never see again that people started going crazy. This is because the positive rewards of possible future interaction had been stripped away.
No disagreement there. But I'm not sure how any of that refutes any of what I said? Is that just an aside?
In short people had been able to flee the negative consequences of their actions for years, it wasn't really until much of the positive incentives for good behavior had been removed that the death spiral really began.
Again, they had the option... but it was a very limited one, and came at a very real and - for many - very prohibitive price. Again, it was cheaper, and easier, to just not be a jerk in the first place. Most understood this. Some didn't and only realized it after the damage was done.
Let me begin by stating that harassment is unacceptable and should not be tolerated.
Having said that, anonimity is the problem with most MMO's and their communities. I'm all for keeping real life identities private of course, but in game identities should not be.
From personal experience, the moment players were allowed to change servers and change names was the moment communities started going downhill.
Call it what you like. It changes absolutely nothing, because your argument is undermined by one very major detail:
People still cared about their reputation (at least before cross-server everything came around) in WoW for the same reasons they cared about their reputation in XI, in L2 and in other MMOs...
Server transfers aren't free. They're also limited and restricted (not all servers are open to transfer at all times), and you usually can't make a transfer more than once every 90 days or so.
They cost $25. In some MMOs they're even more expensive. I think they were $50 in Lineage 2 - and player reputation was *huge* in L2.
That additional cost - on top of a monthly sub, especially - tends to be a significant deterrent for people. It's even an issue for many people who'd like to change servers simply because theirs is too inactive, etc.
So, considering those things, if you make a transfer, pay the fee... then realize you screwed up and want to go back, or to another server instead.. you now are out the transfer fee, and are stuck on the new server for at least 90 days before you can switch again. May as well just create a new character at that point.
It's not like you can just hop from one server to another on a whim. If that were the case, then your point would have merit. As it stands, however, it doesn't.
So, if someone is pushed to the point of switching servers, then their "penance" (if you will) for whatever they did to bring them to that point cost them not only in terms of a negative in-game reputation, but in actual real-world money. It's literally hitting them in the wallet.
They're also left with the potentially daunting task of joining an established community of people they don't know and having to start from the bottom, finding a good group, etc. etc. That can be rather discouraging as well.
Seems to me it'd be wiser, and cheaper, to simply not be a jackass so you never have to make those choices in the first place.
You do realize where this discussion began right? You and others were arguing that server transfers and anonymity in general were bad for community and now you tell me that the price of server transfer is so high that it really isn't that harmful to community at all.
My point is, if your premise that server transfers are harmful to community is correct then there should have been a noticeable decline in community when WoW added server transfers mid vanilla, yet there wasn't. In fact I recall encountering more jerks in early vanilla WoW than in Burning Crusade when server transfers were commonly done. It wasn't really until the rise of group finder that community noticeably started to deteriorate.
Also L2 is an extreme outlier compared to modern themeparks. In L2 reputation was inherently more valuable because anyone could turn on you at any moment and the death penalty was far higher than any modern mmo. Also because cheating was rampant a certain section of the population very much valued not being considered a botter.
You have to be known, its how the census makes sure you are a tax paying citizen within the kingdoms. But seriously though, yu have a couple of options.
1) Making a new character, people do not get to see your new details if you do not have the character selected on lodestone.
2) Transfer servers, if you don't like getting whispers or people smack talk you in game, then you move servers.
Tbh that should suffice, anything causing you a greater issue needs to be addressed via ticket.
Let me begin by stating that harassment is unacceptable and should not be tolerated.
Having said that, anonimity is the problem with most MMO's and their communities. I'm all for keeping real life identities private of course, but in game identities should not be.
From personal experience, the moment players were allowed to change servers and change names was the moment communities started going downhill.
Ok, I get it, you dont like trolls in game so much that you want them all to pay for it!
How exactly do you do this? By harassing that troll right? WRONG. What you find out as you online game for many modern type mmo's is that trolling and harassment has taken a whole new level, in the form of guilds these days. There is more trolls then there are honest people. I was a part of some guilds in the past where the leader and all of thier members enjoyed trolling pug members who joined us. I felt it was wrong, most times it was just because of that persons gear or inexperience on the content we ran. Everyone in that guild did not care who knew them or anything else because they only ran with thier own guild members, never caring or having any consequence for thier actions, but ALWAYS continuting to troll and letting people die and doing harassment to people. GM's were never called, GM's would never do anything to these people, and they never needed to change thier names or do server transfers.
Its not the Anonimity that IS the reason for harassment, its the people who harass others. These people are who they are and they will always be assholes, and frankley do not care about thier image one bit. They will always have friends and guild members to run with and never have to OWN what they do. Because the trolls and assholes dont care about name changes and transfers and they cannot be policed by GM's, there should be an option for the people who are harassed or trolled by trolls and assholes and should have the right to protect themselfs from being targeted for harassment by these people in the form of name changes and server transfers that cannot be tracked by Character checks on Lodestone. (seriously, should people be hunted down by harassers past a server transfer?)
You try to look at this as black and white and the Harassers win every time, not the people who want anonimity for solid reasons. GM's are unable to prevent something happening to people, but you cannot let your hate for trolls bind you on whats really happening behind the scenese.
Guilds harrrass people regaurdless of anonimity. Tell me y ou never seen a Guild who would hate on a person who left your guild or had a conflict or fight inside the guild? It happens. What is a crime really is that these guild members can harrass that past guildmember without any consequences and they are the ones who are not looking for a name change or server transfer. So lets put the shoe on the right foot of who is the source of harassment in game and why annonomity should be there to protect the victims of harasment instead.
Knotwood, all i can say is that if you have encountered this in game, then it must have been something pretty bad to have caused it. Personally i've never come across this kind of thing, ever. Thats not to say that i haven't had a falling out with a few people in games, i certainly have, but not to the degree where everyone and their friends decided to do something about it
I've only played on a few of the servers in FFXIV;ARR, currently Odin and Cerberus, Moogle turned french and i had to abandon that one
but i have to say that from what i've seen, the only annoying behavior i've found is from the occasional gold spammer
keep in mind that we are Human Beings, and Human Beings are "idiots". In fact have you ever been trapped by a troll? Even if someone said stupid stuff that got the whole server against them, then realizing they were an dumbass...
Interesting choice of words...
Originally posted by Knotwood
I haven't given up on it but because of the rocky launch I'm sure its going to be a bit lower then expected, but this is a fine example to use. Weather I am right or wrong, would that give people a reason to hunt me down on the forums here and harass me?
Think before you speak... or in the case of the Internet™ think before you type. When you make outrageous claims like the one you made for ESO; you will get flak and even possibly harassment over it. Knotwood you "should" know by now how the MMOPRG.com community is as a whole; or internet gaming forums in general (specifically when it comes to outlandish claims like the one you gave) and pass them as facts. You run the risk (or in this case) the very high risk of people calling you out or even ridiculing you.
Know this very basic formula: Outlandish claims (usually white knighting or extremely emotionally attachment to a game or company) + Passing all or most comments as facts + Coming up with any "formula" to support your opinions as facts = Witch Hunt in MMORPG.com 100% of the time.
History has already shown us this time and time again, yet people keep making the same threads over and over again. Look at the past 10-20 AAA and/or hyped MMO games on this site. You will have in almost every case someone who has to make that outlandish post of X Y Z game.
Examples are:
X Y Z game will have "similar" subscription numbers as WOW
X Y Z game will be the sleeper hit of 20XX
X Y Z game will sell millions and millions of boxes at launch
X Y Z game will never go F2P (I could see people making this claim for WOW or EVE; I'll get back to this)
X Y Z company will launch with zero or near zero issues/stability/bugs etc.
I could give another dozen examples but you get the idea. These types of threads go on and on and on every single time a P2P or B2P game comes out.
Originally posted by Knotwood
Well based on the fact that there is 7.5 billion people on the planet. Not to mention 300 million people in America alone, and every kid being raised on computers is now growing up and reaching millions countrywide, that number is going to grow to probably more then 100 million players entering the game market in the next decade in America alone.
(The above was your response to someone who asked you were was the logic behind 10 million subscribers.)
You should have done a little research; at least understanding the extreme saturation of theme park high fantasy MMOs that sometimes plays more like a single player game rather than a MMO, as well as the current trends of P2P MMOs.
As it currently stands (since last month; I haven't had time to check if there have been any new additions) there are currently only 9 MMORPGs that exclusively use the P2P business model. Every other MMO game released in the past 15+ years that started out as a P2P title ended up going F2P, or in most cases F2P + P2W, or they closed up shop. 6 of those games were released before 2005... only 3 after 2005. Add 2 more to that with the recent release of Wildstar and ESO and that puts the total to 11 games.
Yes we know it is $15 a month, yes we know that it comes down to 50 cents a day. But guess what? It isn't the difficulty of getting said $15, but rather is it worth it to you? I've made this statement in so many different ways in the past 3 years, that I have yet to receive one single rebuttal. This is why (in part) you were ridiculed. Also take note that no other P2P or B2P game has reached 10 million (concurrent) subscribers at any given time. The max I know is somewhere between 2-3 million (after WOW of course).
You "should" have stated that the game would have reached 1-2 million subscribers (or if you really wanted to white knight for whatever emotional attachment you have) then you should have said 3-4 million (for PC users). You would have received some flak, but nowhere near as saying 10 million.
To give you an example of how outlandish your 10 million sub thread was; it would be like me saying since there are 7+ billion people in the planet and with over X millions of players that have played P2P games in the past year I would come to the conclusion that
1. The next P2P game is going to have 10 20 30 millions subs
or
2. There will be a revitalization of the P2P MMORPG and that in the next 5 years there will be 50 P2P games.
Imagine the backlash I would get if I made a thread like the those two. Think before you speak... or in the case of the Internet™ think before you type.
1. You state that I should think before I speak when making outlandish or white knight claims, even if those statements were well within terms of agreement.
2. You state that the frequency of these outlandish claims and statements are made every single game by different people.
3. That this can and will lead to being harassed. A trend. Which is within the terms of agreement of that service they use.
1. I have the privilege to speak my mind in forums or in game however I wish as long as its within the terms of agreement of that service. Even if those things lead to myself getting harassed, the person who is breaking the terms of agreement with a service or game company would be the person who harasses, not the person who made the outlandish or white knight statement.
Its because of this harassment that is received for things spoken which might even be borderline dumbass or flat out wrong, BUT is within terms of agreement.
Hope this helps you understand who is really in the right and wrong when looked at the terms of agreement and who is actually the ones breaking it. People who follow the terms of agreement of any game should never be the ones punished for things they say or do that are within terms of agreement, wouldn't you agree?
Everything you said in the above quote is wrong (except for that last question). White knighting and trolling are basically the same thing (as seen by most companies not necessarily by us). Most of these companies have already dealt with unconstructive/baiting posts long enough to know when they see one... for years. You don't have the privilege to speak your mind (especially topics that can lead to harassment or one that leads to an overall negative impact in the gaming forum).
It is pretty obvious, like you said; that writing stuff which is flat out wrong or being a dumbass will usually lead to harassment. This is why gaming companies have a TOS. There will usually be some difference here and there, and they will usually have broad general examples: No company is going to list 1 million examples of what is considered trolling/white knighting/baiting. Common sense "should" kick in... key word being should.
Please do not post false, fabricated and/or fictitious information. It is unconstructive and will only confuse others. Please be careful with what you post and keep in mind that your words can affect others more than you may expect.
Creating threads for the sole purpose of causing unrest on the forums
Causing disturbances in forum threads, such as picking fights, making off topic posts that ruin the thread, insulting other posters
Making non-constructive posts
So no, in most gaming forums you can't just go and make up information and white knight the hell out X Y Z game because the company knows that this will in almost every case lead to harassment, name calling, adding little to no value to the forums, and will usually have a negative impact.
You do realize where this discussion began right? You and others were arguing that server transfers and anonymity in general were bad for community and now you tell me that the price of server transfer is so high that it really isn't that harmful to community at all.
To be clear, this is the specific bit of your post I was addressing/responding to.
"There was server transfer available for much of vanilla WoW yet people still cared about their reputation. If simply being unable to flee and start over is what kept everyone from being assholes to each other then vanilla WoW would have been over-run with people constantly being jerks, but it wasn't, not really until wotlk did the community go to hell."
In my response, I was illustrating the fallacy of your assertion, by pointing out that the cost of server transfers being expensive (monetarily and socially) prevents people from just easily hopping ship and moving to another server to preserve their anonymity and escape the repercussions of their own behavior.
The reason server transfers being introduced didn't send the community down the tubes is because those transfers came with restrictions and a considerable cost attached. Being a jerk to others on your server community would inevitably lead to a poor reputation...
... which would then lead to fewer and fewer people wanting you around or inviting you into groups ...
... which would lead to you having a very difficult time accomplishing things ...
... which would lead to you having to make the choice of having to either deal with your self-inflicted status, or cough up $25 to escape to another server for a fresh start... including all the issues that involves (server availability, your name being available, etc).
That exact scenario has played out many times, across a number of MMOs.
All things considered, it's easier and cheaper in the long run to simply not be a dick to other players. And that's why merely introducing server transfers didn't bring the community crashing down. Because it comes at a cost players would typically rather avoid.
Now... If server transfers were free.. and had shorter, or no restrictions on when you could transfer again, everything I just laid out would be off the table, and we'd be having a different discussion.
My point is, if your premise that server transfers are harmful to community is correct then there should have been a noticeable decline in community when WoW added server transfers mid vanilla, yet there wasn't. In fact I recall encountering more jerks in early vanilla WoW than in Burning Crusade when server transfers were commonly done. It wasn't really until the rise of group finder that community noticeably started to deteriorate.
I'm tempted to just ask you to read what I just said, with the intent that you'll realize what you just said makes no sense. However, on the possibility that I'd end up having to clarify it anyway, I'll just go ahead and do so now...
Aside from your statements being an argument from personal experience (aka a logical fallacy), the addition of server transfers would have had no perceptible change in overall player behavior because, as I said... server transfers weren't a cheap and easy way to flee one's own reputation. Recall how I said there's a monetary and social cost, not to mention the possibility of making a poor choice then having to wait 90 days to change servers again... and how those things would be a deterrent to people.. how it'd be easier, and less expensive, to just not be a jerk in the first place.. etc. etc.
Yeah.That.
There's your explanation of why there was no noticeable change in player behavior after Blizzard introduced server transfers... which I already explained.
Are you even bothering to read or comprehend my posts? Or am I wasting my time typing all this?
Also L2 is an extreme outlier compared to modern themeparks. In L2 reputation was inherently more valuable because anyone could turn on you at any moment and the death penalty was far higher than any modern mmo. Also because cheating was rampant a certain section of the population very much valued not being considered a botter.
That's beside the point. The point is... to repeat myself yet again...
Fleeing your reputation - in L2 or any other such MMO - is a costly thing to do, and that cost tends to be a deterrent... Hence, it's easer to just not be a jerk in the first place, so the need to flee to another server never becomes an issue in the first place.Why reputation matters is incidental. The end result is the same.
SE is very heavy handed when their ToS agreement is broken, Harassment is not tolerated, but you need to report it, if you want to leave based on something you wrongfully did, maybe it's a good idea not to do it in the first place. Unlike WoW your reputation in FFXIV is very important, be mindful of it, or wind up making an alt and forking over real money to begin a new.
Comments
Look at games such as LOTRO, EQ2, AoC, FFXI even, all have means to stay private and name one person who quite because of that privacy? If some ones a troll and uses name changes to avoid public scrutiny, I just don't see someone paying $18 a week to just have the ability to troll the community nonstop. Someone who needs that service to protect themselves from harassment or wants to start over fresh without re rolling, will only do it once or twice. Any game company can check for abuse of name changes or put limits on time required before each of them. To just throw out all options of peoples privacy is just hurting people who do wish to start anew for credible reasons.
Back in the days everyone knowing everyone was a thing.
Everyone knowing the bad apples on the server was also a (Good) thing. Being able to switch your character name is never good unless in very specific circumstances like dead threats etc.
Interesting choice of words...
Think before you speak... or in the case of the Internet™ think before you type. When you make outrageous claims like the one you made for ESO; you will get flak and even possibly harassment over it. Knotwood you "should" know by now how the MMOPRG.com community is as a whole; or internet gaming forums in general (specifically when it comes to outlandish claims like the one you gave) and pass them as facts. You run the risk (or in this case) the very high risk of people calling you out or even ridiculing you.
Know this very basic formula: Outlandish claims (usually white knighting or extremely emotionally attachment to a game or company) + Passing all or most comments as facts + Coming up with any "formula" to support your opinions as facts = Witch Hunt in MMORPG.com 100% of the time.
History has already shown us this time and time again, yet people keep making the same threads over and over again. Look at the past 10-20 AAA and/or hyped MMO games on this site. You will have in almost every case someone who has to make that outlandish post of X Y Z game.
Examples are:
X Y Z game will have "similar" subscription numbers as WOW
X Y Z game will be the sleeper hit of 20XX
X Y Z game will sell millions and millions of boxes at launch
X Y Z game will never go F2P (I could see people making this claim for WOW or EVE; I'll get back to this)
X Y Z company will launch with zero or near zero issues/stability/bugs etc.
I could give another dozen examples but you get the idea. These types of threads go on and on and on every single time a P2P or B2P game comes out.
(The above was your response to someone who asked you were was the logic behind 10 million subscribers.)
You should have done a little research; at least understanding the extreme saturation of theme park high fantasy MMOs that sometimes plays more like a single player game rather than a MMO, as well as the current trends of P2P MMOs.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/394763/page/2
As it currently stands (since last month; I haven't had time to check if there have been any new additions) there are currently only 9 MMORPGs that exclusively use the P2P business model. Every other MMO game released in the past 15+ years that started out as a P2P title ended up going F2P, or in most cases F2P + P2W, or they closed up shop. 6 of those games were released before 2005... only 3 after 2005. Add 2 more to that with the recent release of Wildstar and ESO and that puts the total to 11 games.
Yes we know it is $15 a month, yes we know that it comes down to 50 cents a day. But guess what? It isn't the difficulty of getting said $15, but rather is it worth it to you? I've made this statement in so many different ways in the past 3 years, that I have yet to receive one single rebuttal. This is why (in part) you were ridiculed. Also take note that no other P2P or B2P game has reached 10 million (concurrent) subscribers at any given time. The max I know is somewhere between 2-3 million (after WOW of course).
You "should" have stated that the game would have reached 1-2 million subscribers (or if you really wanted to white knight for whatever emotional attachment you have) then you should have said 3-4 million (for PC users). You would have received some flak, but nowhere near as saying 10 million.
To give you an example of how outlandish your 10 million sub thread was; it would be like me saying since there are 7+ billion people in the planet and with over X millions of players that have played P2P games in the past year I would come to the conclusion that
1. The next P2P game is going to have 10 20 30 millions subs
or
2. There will be a revitalization of the P2P MMORPG and that in the next 5 years there will be 50 P2P games.
Imagine the backlash I would get if I made a thread like the those two. Think before you speak... or in the case of the Internet™ think before you type.
So let me sum up what you just said and show you how you proved the reason why there should be Anonimity in server transfers, name changes, and lode stone privacy options.
1. You state that I should think before I speak when making outlandish or white knight claims, even if those statements were well within terms of agreement.
2. You state that the frequency of these outlandish claims and statements are made every single game by diferant people.
3. that this can and will lead to being harassed. A trend. Which is within the terms of agreement of that service they use.
So, I take all three of those statements, and say it is TRUE. All three of your claims is 100% correct. Next let me put some context onto this.
1. I have the privillage to speak my mind in forums or in game however I wish as long as its within the terms of agreement of that service. Even if those things lead to myself getting harassed, the person who is breaking the terms of agreement with a service or game company would be the person who harasses, not the person who made the outlandish or white knight statement.
2 and 3. People in your eyes that make outlandish statements seems to occur at a high frequency every game by different types of people (trend), and likewise subject to harassment every single game release, We both recoginize that harassment WILL ALWAYS happen for things spoken that are within the rules of the game or terms of agreement, and that those people within the terms of agreement will receive harassment for this. No way to avoid it, unless not speaking their mind which is their privilage granted to them by the service they are using.
Its because of this harassment that is received for things spoken which might even be boarderling dumbass or flat out wrong, BUT is within terms of agreement, because of this, this is why there should be services to allow a person to avoid such harassment when it is so wide spread that it is at the server and guild levels within a game or even when they feel that this could by leaving a guild they were in, or simply wish never to associate with people they feel might make their game world uncomfortable.
Hope this helps you understand whos really in the right and wrong when looked at the terms of agreement and who is actually the ones breaking it. The only discipline in any game should come from the Game Company and GM or moderators themselves. Likewise if harassment exists for any reason and WILL ALWAYS happen to people who follow the terms of agreement, then they should ALWAYS offer services that WILL ALWAYS defeat such harassment without that person spending every day wondering if someone in their party was against them/harassing them, or having to call a GM and spend hours every day trying to fix, worry about or prove widespread harassment. People who follow the terms of agreement of any game should never be the ones punished for thigns they say or do that are within terms of agreement, wouldn't you agree?
+1
Even in the form of harassment, which breaks Terms of Service against that person?
Perhaps a better example would be, when your talking to people in a game, would the things you were saying, differ if you were instead talking to the person face to face, if it would, then you need to take a moment and step back, and rethink the things you were going to say, just because things you say are said in a game, does not mean that they are also without consequence, as in real life, the things said in games can have an impact, but people mess up from time to time, its human, so if you do make a pigs ear of things, then trying to fix it, it's better than running away from it.
When I say own I mean like in real life, you can't just spout off to your co-workers one day and then be someone else the next because things didn't go well for you, or you took it too far.
If you couldn't just change your identity at the drop of a hat and had to actually care about your reputation or working relationship with them you might act differently when dealing with others.
From reading your replies to people you seem to think it's ok to say whatever you want and treat people however you want and when you have to deal with the consequences of acting like that you just want to run away and be someone else.
.... while crying "Harassment!"
I think you nailed it, Damonville, along with someone else earlier in the thread who remarked how once upon a time in MMOs (mostly back around early EQ1, FFXI, L2...), you had even less anonymity. People got to know you on your own server. For better or worse, your actions and your attitude defined how people saw and considered you. If you ran around spouting off ridiculous remarks, generally acting like a jerk, people were going to ostracize you. If you were cool, they'd know of this as well, and would welcome you. It's called personal responsibility and accountability for how you speak and behave.
And it definitely seems to me that the OP is trying to escape any personal accountability or responsibility for their own words/actions, by playing the victim card and crying "harassment!" because people are calling them out over remarks they made.
I agree there are reasons why the reason to change your name or "disappear" in an online game should exist... but trying to hide from the fallout of your own words isn't one of them.
The whole thread is hilarious - giving people the chance to completely mask themselves to not deal with the consequences of what they did and said is just an invitation to become a ....
I called people out on being mindless, whiteknights or even bought by companies to hype games on this forum. I took the retaliation and the bans if I went too far. Never once did I consider making a new account.
If you can't back up your opinion and deal with the consequences - don't tell others about it.
Also I don't believe for a second that all that "the whole server with all the guilds could make one person's life miserable" shit exists. (Outside of EVE)
You are posting that here in a matter of fact attitude just like you did with the 10 mil subscribers.
It's all just fantasy made up by you.
I'm calling false attribution on this one, particularly because you're only looking at the negative. There was server transfer available for much of vanilla WoW yet people still cared about their reputation. If simply being unable to flee and start over is what kept everyone from being assholes to each other then vanilla WoW would have been over-run with people constantly being jerks, but it wasn't, not really until wotlk did the community go to hell.
When there was a server community and people knew they would likely see the people in their group again and would very likely need their help or at least cooperation again that largely kept people in line and wanting to make a good impression. It was far more the positive aspect of social interaction that kept people in line not the fear of retribution. It's when cross server group finder (for dungeons and bgs) came around and you were thrown into random groups filled with people you would never see again that people started going crazy. This is because the positive rewards of possible future interaction had been stripped away.
In short people had been able to flee the negative consequences of their actions for years, it wasn't really until much of the positive incentives for good behavior had been removed that the death spiral really began.
The leadership of the People's Republic of China could not possibly agree with this statement more so +1 billion.
It wasn't a joke.... In china the internet doesn't provide you any anonymity.
Let me begin by stating that harassment is unacceptable and should not be tolerated.
Having said that, anonimity is the problem with most MMO's and their communities. I'm all for keeping real life identities private of course, but in game identities should not be.
From personal experience, the moment players were allowed to change servers and change names was the moment communities started going downhill.
You do realize where this discussion began right? You and others were arguing that server transfers and anonymity in general were bad for community and now you tell me that the price of server transfer is so high that it really isn't that harmful to community at all.
My point is, if your premise that server transfers are harmful to community is correct then there should have been a noticeable decline in community when WoW added server transfers mid vanilla, yet there wasn't. In fact I recall encountering more jerks in early vanilla WoW than in Burning Crusade when server transfers were commonly done. It wasn't really until the rise of group finder that community noticeably started to deteriorate.
Also L2 is an extreme outlier compared to modern themeparks. In L2 reputation was inherently more valuable because anyone could turn on you at any moment and the death penalty was far higher than any modern mmo. Also because cheating was rampant a certain section of the population very much valued not being considered a botter.
You have to be known, its how the census makes sure you are a tax paying citizen within the kingdoms. But seriously though, yu have a couple of options.
1) Making a new character, people do not get to see your new details if you do not have the character selected on lodestone.
2) Transfer servers, if you don't like getting whispers or people smack talk you in game, then you move servers.
Tbh that should suffice, anything causing you a greater issue needs to be addressed via ticket.
Ok, I get it, you dont like trolls in game so much that you want them all to pay for it!
How exactly do you do this? By harassing that troll right? WRONG. What you find out as you online game for many modern type mmo's is that trolling and harassment has taken a whole new level, in the form of guilds these days. There is more trolls then there are honest people. I was a part of some guilds in the past where the leader and all of thier members enjoyed trolling pug members who joined us. I felt it was wrong, most times it was just because of that persons gear or inexperience on the content we ran. Everyone in that guild did not care who knew them or anything else because they only ran with thier own guild members, never caring or having any consequence for thier actions, but ALWAYS continuting to troll and letting people die and doing harassment to people. GM's were never called, GM's would never do anything to these people, and they never needed to change thier names or do server transfers.
Its not the Anonimity that IS the reason for harassment, its the people who harass others. These people are who they are and they will always be assholes, and frankley do not care about thier image one bit. They will always have friends and guild members to run with and never have to OWN what they do. Because the trolls and assholes dont care about name changes and transfers and they cannot be policed by GM's, there should be an option for the people who are harassed or trolled by trolls and assholes and should have the right to protect themselfs from being targeted for harassment by these people in the form of name changes and server transfers that cannot be tracked by Character checks on Lodestone. (seriously, should people be hunted down by harassers past a server transfer?)
You try to look at this as black and white and the Harassers win every time, not the people who want anonimity for solid reasons. GM's are unable to prevent something happening to people, but you cannot let your hate for trolls bind you on whats really happening behind the scenese.
Guilds harrrass people regaurdless of anonimity. Tell me y ou never seen a Guild who would hate on a person who left your guild or had a conflict or fight inside the guild? It happens. What is a crime really is that these guild members can harrass that past guildmember without any consequences and they are the ones who are not looking for a name change or server transfer. So lets put the shoe on the right foot of who is the source of harassment in game and why annonomity should be there to protect the victims of harasment instead.
Knotwood, all i can say is that if you have encountered this in game, then it must have been something pretty bad to have caused it. Personally i've never come across this kind of thing, ever. Thats not to say that i haven't had a falling out with a few people in games, i certainly have, but not to the degree where everyone and their friends decided to do something about it
I've only played on a few of the servers in FFXIV;ARR, currently Odin and Cerberus, Moogle turned french and i had to abandon that one
but i have to say that from what i've seen, the only annoying behavior i've found is from the occasional gold spammer
Everything you said in the above quote is wrong (except for that last question). White knighting and trolling are basically the same thing (as seen by most companies not necessarily by us). Most of these companies have already dealt with unconstructive/baiting posts long enough to know when they see one... for years. You don't have the privilege to speak your mind (especially topics that can lead to harassment or one that leads to an overall negative impact in the gaming forum).
It is pretty obvious, like you said; that writing stuff which is flat out wrong or being a dumbass will usually lead to harassment. This is why gaming companies have a TOS. There will usually be some difference here and there, and they will usually have broad general examples: No company is going to list 1 million examples of what is considered trolling/white knighting/baiting. Common sense "should" kick in... key word being should.
3 examples:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/63104-Welcome-to-Forum-General-Discussion!
Please do not post false, fabricated and/or fictitious information. It is unconstructive and will only confuse others. Please be careful with what you post and keep in mind that your words can affect others more than you may expect.
https://forums.station.sony.com/everquestnext/index.php?help/terms
Trolling is posting provocatively with reasonable expectation of provoking an emotional response (intentional or not). Trolling can include.
Causing disturbances in forum threads, such as picking fights, making off topic posts that ruin the thread, insulting other posters
Making non-constructive posts
I have plenty of problems with FFXIV, but this isn't one of them.