Yes, it's a PvP zone. Enter at your own risk. You may not be able to do what you want to if there's opposite faction folks that are in the mood to fight, etc etc. We all know these things. Dolly knew these things, as much time as she spent in that zone. Yes, she should have probably found another way to level fast and been the better person instead of continuing to feed the Twixt troll. All that being true, Twixt still crossed a line. When it comes to "he dropped whatever he was doing the moment I walked in the zone and hounded me till I left, every time I was there" there's something wrong. Folks defending the virtues of the PvP zone keep deflecting what the real issue is. Twixt went too far. End of Story.
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.
[ QUOTE ]
But no one should go to my vacation spot and attempt to pass gas constantly in my direction, and then ask why I'm upset and don't go somewhere else... who's to say when I go somewhere else, someone won't do the same thing?
[/ QUOTE ]
But he really can't follow you to the other places if we are using that analogy. Twixt could only torment her in RV. You are saying that if she goes to Grandville, what is to say he won't follow her and stop her xp gain there? Oh wait, HE CAN'T. He can't follow her to RWZ and stop her xp gain, he can't follow her to Cim and stop her xp gain, etc, etc.
You guys have to separate the argument about what a huge [censored] Twixt is from the argument about whether you should continue to participate in a hobby that causes you to cry real tears.
Neither Lucifus nor I are defending Twixt's actions, and if someone was going to constantly try to harrass people, there are ways that the community and game designers can work on removing that person.
But if you are intentionally putting yourself into a PVP zone, intentionally coming out of your base and forcing your character into a situation where a person is going to tp it into things to make you cry IRL, and then you continue to just keep doing that and being really upset by it, then you really need to take inventory of your priorities.
The fact that Twixt was doing something bad and the fact that his "experiment" is an absolute joke are beside the point.
[ QUOTE ]
Folks defending the virtues of the PvP zone keep deflecting what the real issue is. Twixt went too far.
[/ QUOTE ]
Twixt going too far (yes, he did) is an effect from the real issue -- PvP should not become personal. As hard as that is to do it still holds true.
[ QUOTE ]
But he really can't follow you to the other places if we are using that analogy. Twixt could only torment her in RV. You are saying that if she goes to Grandville, what is to say he won't follow her and stop her xp gain there? Oh wait, HE CAN'T. He can't follow her to RWZ and stop her xp gain, he can't follow her to Cim and stop her xp gain, etc, etc.
[/ QUOTE ]
That analogy still holds true if you go to WoW and the same person gives you grief there... or if you go to Siren's Call instead of RV, or if he, say, works on the hero side to grief a Hamidon raid the player is in. Limiting the player's options to non-PvP is still limiting options.
Dolly doesn't have trouble with PvP, as I understand it... just someone intentionally getting her debt and messing up her badging. (Not to mention taunting and posting these results.)
[ QUOTE ]
You guys have to separate the argument about what a huge [censored] Twixt is from the argument about whether you should continue to participate in a hobby that causes you to cry real tears.
[/ QUOTE ]
I was just thinking something similar earlier when I replied. There seems to be a thinking that "Twixt is wrong/bad/whatever, but anything goes in a PvP zone." And that's a contradiction. If anything goes, how was what Twixt did wrong? I don't consider the wrong he did separate from Dolly's reaction; he's responsible for messing with her 'escape' in a way that other PvPers didn't manage to do.
Either he did wrong and should answer for it, or he didn't do wrong, and it's on Dolly. For my two pennies, he did wrong.
I know for a fact he made it his personal mission to try and run people from the zone. I was a hero that did the same thing as Doll, and Twixt would pull Arachnos to me to try and get me killed and debt. Is that a way to play the game how it was designed to be played? Is it a way to win the zone? Nope not in the least bit. It was a way for him to try and enforce his way of playing on others (but I still find it amushing that I caught him farming it up more than a few times... the hypocrite), or as a way of being just plain mean.
Part of the reason I empathize and side with Dolly in this is, it's happened to me before, but not in PvP. I was active in Victory for a few years before I came to Champion, and there were groups that intentionally did all they could to cause Hamidon raids to fail. And not like Dirty; these folks were pretty l33t and screwing with the server and diminishing the sense of community. This was before Spamming globals caused people trouble, and one of the types of griefing that eventually led to those controls.
I don't have a problem with someone deliberately saying, "If Lascota's toons enter a PvP zone, I will crush them." That works for me. But I have an issue with someone intentionally giving debt and trying to frustrate another player by drone-porting... or doing anything similar that avoids actual game design in favor of causing a player grief.
I find it odious that a professor would use unwitting players in a MMO as guinea pigs and systematically pursue them and repeatedly use a game defect for the purpose of intentionally inflicting emotional distress in players in order to gague their reactions for his "research". This goes way beyond random griefing, this is Nazi science.
[ QUOTE ]
Is that a way to play the game how it was designed to be played?
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes.
[ QUOTE ]
Is it a way to win the zone?
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes.
[ QUOTE ]
Nope not in the least bit.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry, but you're wrong.
Provoking verbal pvp, the way he wrote about it after. Those were wrong.
You could argue that continually capitalizing on easy kills where there were more substantial targets as threats to a zone win was wrong as well, even though they are all valid targets.
I've read through a lot more of what Twixt has written about the time he spent in CoX, including the rather bizarre defences he has put forward for his actions on various blogs and forums.
Yesterday I was feeling hurt because an apparent sociopath turned out to be an average joe who was running an experiment.
Now I feel differently. It's fairly obvious from Mr. Myers' statements that his professor self - appearing as rational yet obtuse in his publications - is actually the mask or fake persona. As people have argued against him and eroded his flimsy explanations, it is the more familiar, disturbing and maniacal Twixt that shines through.
I don't know how many of you have read much of what this person has said in response to his critics, but I feel that it is the university and the academic website/reporter that he has fooled, not us. Twixt is just Twixt. He has returned to talking about other people and social conventions in the same baffling manner that he did when he was trolling other players in RV.
I think that Mr. Myers probably entered the field of sociology in an attempt to make sense of a large aspect of life that makes no sense to him.
As I said before (and as he has quoted me saying), Twixt doesn't appear to understand that there are other real people in the world who hold different views to his own. When someone responds to him by arguing he has done something wrong, he (both in and out of game) responds by simply denying he has ever done it. He does this in abrupt shorthand, e.g. "Never did", "not done" and seems incapable of explaining further.
His defence on some sites eventually backs him into a corner where he begins to reveal his true motives. This individual seems to believe that "games" and their rulesets create an "aesthetic" that has value over and above social conventions. He fails to comprehend any definition of "game" other than his own narrow version, and therefore denies that social conventions can be considered games too.
Twixt seems genuinely disturbed that anyone has the gall to deviate from "game rules" in favour of social convention. He says things like "it's a shame" or that the world loses value when people don't follow strict game rulesheets.
He reminds me of an autistic person who spends countless hours playing a very intricate and private "game" with a box of paperclips, counting and arranging them, and then screams incoherently when someone takes one of the clips away from him to actually use it because they needed it for something practical.
In short, I feel much more comfortable with the situation now that I see his response to criticisms has caused him to fall back into his old "Twixtisms", where (for example) he is now defending his abusive language in-game by saying this was him being "whacky" or "playful".
Should scientists conducting experiments be "playful"? Was Milgram "playful"? Is it good science or research to say things like:
"slimeball farmer hero bois i wuld kill u if i could ho ho"
to the subjects of your study?
What an odd person.
Anyway, suffice to say that I will be forwarding a complaint to the IRB, quoting some of the things said here and the logs I have from my various confrontations with Twixt. I don't think someone should be able to act as badly as he has and then simply get away with it, let alone profit from it.
I was fine with the idea of him just being a very mean person - people (including me) say lots of stupid things on the intertubez that we don't mean and would never even think of saying to people in person, especially when upset.
What annoys me is the way that he is misrepresenting the past and how he is using it for his own benefit.
The Widow's Dark Hand - leader of Faux Pas
Champion Server
Tee Hee!
[ QUOTE ]
That analogy still holds true if you go to WoW and the same person gives you grief there... or if you go to Siren's Call instead of RV, or if he, say, works on the hero side to grief a Hamidon raid the player is in. Limiting the player's options to non-PvP is still limiting options.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah but going to Siren's is still intentionally going to a PVP zone and that isn't really a different option. There are sooooooo many zones to level in besides the very small number of PVP zones. I won't even get started on what AE has done for making that even more true. Twixt could have easily interrupted her just by attacking her over and over and you could call that "limiting her options" but it really isn't, it is just using the zone for pvp which is why it is there. The heavies and easy xp you get from that zone is there because of the risks you have to take to be there.
Her option wasn't being limited so much as she wasn't willing to deal with the consequences of her decision.
[ QUOTE ]
Dolly doesn't have trouble with PvP, as I understand it... just someone intentionally getting her debt and messing up her badging. (Not to mention taunting and posting these results.)
[/ QUOTE ]
Well she has a problem in so much as she wasn't wanting to participate in it and he was, which is always a common argument in that zone. Saying you don't want to PVP while standing in a PVP zone is always going to be a losing argument. The taunting and posting of his results is just him being an [censored].
[ QUOTE ]
I was just thinking something similar earlier when I replied. There seems to be a thinking that "Twixt is wrong/bad/whatever, but anything goes in a PvP zone." And that's a contradiction. If anything goes, how was what Twixt did wrong? I don't consider the wrong he did separate from Dolly's reaction; he's responsible for messing with her 'escape' in a way that other PvPers didn't manage to do.
[/ QUOTE ]
It was bad what he did and it was very permissible in the pvp zone. It isn't a contradiction. They are just both equally true. Anything goes in PVP zones which is why he must have never been banned. Yet what he did was annoying and bad. They aren't contradictions, they are just both true statements that aren't mutually exclusive.
He was able to ruin her escape because I think most PVPers will just give up after killing you a few times, this guy seemed to just stay in the zone all day, every day like it was his job. Seems more like he was a sociopath instead of a PVPer.
[ QUOTE ]
Either he did wrong and should answer for it, or he didn't do wrong, and it's on Dolly. For my two pennies, he did wrong.
[/ QUOTE ]
What he did was bad by the rules of socially accepted behavior but not wrong by the laws of the game unless we go into that grey area of harrassment. But that is kind of a hard case to make when in was just in this one PVP zone that she didn't have to be in.
You guys are trying to make this all black and white, and be avenging internet white knights for Dolly, and that is ridiculous. You need to let her know about letting people get to you and about focusing on what's important in life.
Twixt is just laughing at her pain right now, and he is laughing at all of you guys claiming what he did was an outrage.
If the game is making you cry, time to step away from it.
[ QUOTE ]
Twixt still crossed a line. When it comes to "he dropped whatever he was doing the moment I walked in the zone and hounded me till I left, every time I was there" there's something wrong. Folks defending the virtues of the PvP zone keep deflecting what the real issue is. Twixt went too far. End of Story.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'll put it to you this way. Let's say we are on a base in Afghanistan. If I'm going "outside the wire"(off the base, past a point of protection, etc) then I can reasonably expect to be shot at sometimes. It will NOT happen every time. However, just because I know it probably won't happen every time, do you think I will leave the base without my Flak Jacket or my Kevlar helmet, my M-16 or my frag grenades? No. I will prepare each and every time to encounter the enemy, and so will the people allowing me to go off base. They won't let me go alone, they will send people with me so that we can watch eachother's backs.
Now, apply that to the PvP zone. Going into the PvP zone is like going "outside the wire"(outside of protection from enemy contact, right?). Sometimes you can go to Warburg and get nukes without a hitch, without even seeing a villain. I've done it. But sometimes you end up having to fight some, or leave the zone. Hell, I've killed people for their codes before. It's what the zone is there for. To go to Warburg for nukes(Or RV for XP) and not be prepared mentally and physically for enemy contact means that you have already lost. So for Dolly to go to RV expecting that eventually she can just be left alone for her exploitive xp gathering while other people should not do what the zone was intended for is just ignorant. Makes me wanna go to RV with a hero for a few nights.
Stay inside the wire, Dolls, and the bad man can't hurt you no mo'.
"What he did was bad by the rules of socially accepted behavior but not wrong by the laws of the game unless we go into that grey area of harrassment. But that is kind of a hard case to make when in was just in this one PVP zone that she didn't have to be in."
This is indeed the central point of Twixt's "research", but it fails to acknowledge that games are a part of social convention and their rules can and are *changed* when following them causes undue harm.
If moving a pawn in Chess causes offence, then a law is passed to stop people moving pawns. There are real examples in the past of offensive games or aspects of games being revised in the name of morality (e.g. negative racial stereotypes being phased out).
Game rules are not sacred, games are created by people and altered by those same people all the time, for all sorts of reasons.
I'm not sure how big the story has been in the USA but in the UK there has been a huge uproad concerning the outrageous expense claims that members of parliament or "MPs" (i.e. lawmakers) have submitted at the expense of the taxpayer. to boost their salaries and make money from property deals.
The defence put forward was that all the claims made were within the rules. This hasn't stopped dozens of MPs from being fired and others being forced to stand down at the next national election. The resulting public pressure, outrage and media frenzy isn't simply a force of social normality trying to stomp out deviant behaviour, it is a force of justice aimed at righting the wrong that has occurred, regardless of whether people were "playing by the rules".
The Widow's Dark Hand - leader of Faux Pas
Champion Server
Tee Hee!
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Twixt still crossed a line. When it comes to "he dropped whatever he was doing the moment I walked in the zone and hounded me till I left, every time I was there" there's something wrong. Folks defending the virtues of the PvP zone keep deflecting what the real issue is. Twixt went too far. End of Story.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'll put it to you this way. Let's say we are on a base in Afghanistan. If I'm going "outside the wire"(off the base, past a point of protection, etc) then I can reasonably expect to be shot at sometimes. It will NOT happen every time. However, just because I know it probably won't happen every time, do you think I will leave the base without my Flak Jacket or my Kevlar helmet, my M-16 or my frag grenades? No. I will prepare each and every time to encounter the enemy, and so will the people allowing me to go off base. They won't let me go alone, they will send people with me so that we can watch eachother's backs.
Now, apply that to the PvP zone. Going into the PvP zone is like going "outside the wire"(outside of protection from enemy contact, right?). Sometimes you can go to Warburg and get nukes without a hitch, without even seeing a villain. I've done it. But sometimes you end up having to fight some, or leave the zone. Hell, I've killed people for their codes before. It's what the zone is there for. To go to Warburg for nukes(Or RV for XP) and not be prepared mentally and physically for enemy contact means that you have already lost. So for Dolly to go to RV expecting that eventually she can just be left alone for her exploitive xp gathering while other people should not do what the zone was intended for is just ignorant. Makes me wanna go to RV with a hero for a few nights.
Stay inside the wire, Dolls, and the bad man can't hurt you no mo'.
[/ QUOTE ]
To extend this analogy a little further. Let's say that I go out into battle one day and I'm captured. I'm then thrown in the enemy jail.
When guards arrive at my cell with food, sometimes they beat me up. A few punches here and there. It's ethically questionable in a vague sense but hey, it is war after all and I'm not stupid enough to think this wouldn't happen. I did kill some of their friends after all.
But...there is this one guy who even disturbs the other guards. Every time it's his turn to bring the food, he comes into the cell and does some very very bad things. Over and over.
After I'm freed and the war is over, the bad guy who shocked his fellow guards writes a book about what he did. Nothing he did is technically a war crime by the current definition, in fact his behavious even helped his side becuase it was a good interrogation technique for gathering information.
People across the world read the book. They aren't very impressed. What the guy did was so bad that governments actually pass a new law that redefines his activities as war crimes. He isn't put on trial retrospectively, but his career certainly isn't helped by his actions and eventually he drops out of the army and is forever known as "that guy"...
The fact that he's completely unrepentent and fails to even acknowledge the public outcry makes him less popular than the actions themselves.
The Widow's Dark Hand - leader of Faux Pas
Champion Server
Tee Hee!
[ QUOTE ]
<snip>
To extend this analogy a little further. Let's say that I go out into battle one day and I'm captured. I'm then thrown in the enemy jail.
</snip>
[/ QUOTE ]
Analogy ends right there, you can leave a PvP zone at any time, you can't leave a prison.
Anyway, my thoughts on this are, Twixt was/is an [censored], but if it really was enough to bring you to tears, you really need to re-examine your life and priorities.
[ QUOTE ]
To extend this analogy a little further. Let's say that I go out into battle one day and I'm captured. I'm then thrown in the enemy jail.
When guards arrive at my cell with food, sometimes they beat me up. A few punches here and there. It's ethically questionable in a vague sense but hey, it is war after all and I'm not stupid enough to think this wouldn't happen. I did kill some of their friends after all.
But...there is this one guy who even disturbs the other guards. Every time it's his turn to bring the food, he comes into the cell and does some very very bad things. Over and over.
After I'm freed and the war is over, the bad guy who shocked his fellow guards writes a book about what he did. Nothing he did is technically a war crime by the current definition, in fact his behavious even helped his side becuase it was a good interrogation technique for gathering information.
People across the world read the book. They aren't very impressed. What the guy did was so bad that governments actually pass a new law that redefines his activities as war crimes. He isn't put on trial retrospectively, but his career certainly isn't helped by his actions and eventually he drops out of the army and is forever known as "that guy"...
The fact that he's completely unrepentent and fails to even acknowledge the public outcry makes him less popular than the actions themselves.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, but let's say that the door to that jail cell was open EVERY day. You could leave if you wanted to, but instead you decided to stay because they had good food(it's my analogy for the xp, no one goes to prison for the food, no one goes to pvp zones for xp, lol) and thought that maybe the next day the mean guard wouldn't beat you up anymore. And he did. Over and over. Every day. Jail cell door is open. You could leave. But you don't. Every Day. Over and over. Beat you up. And laugh about it.
That makes it different, doesn't it?
[ QUOTE ]
If the game is making you cry, time to step away from it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ah, but she did not cry over the game. She has indicated on many occasions that she enjoys both the game and its PvP option. However, her tearful frustrations did come out of the specific malice of one individual, and that emotional impact does transcend the in-game/out-of-game boundary.
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I think that Mr. Myers probably entered the field of sociology in an attempt to make sense of a large aspect of life that makes no sense to him.
[/ QUOTE ]
Myers is a communication professor, not sociology. I know its a bit nitpicky to point that out, but no one likes the idea of a sloppy researcher in their discipline. Including me. 
---
I've been told that sometimes my lucidity is frightening.
---
Your logic is no match for concentrated stupid. - Organica
---
Current MAs:
Stop the catgirl rampage! #66361
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If the game is making you cry, time to step away from it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ah, but she did not cry over the game. She has indicated on many occasions that she enjoys both the game and its PvP option. However, her tearful frustrations did come out of the specific malice of one individual, and that emotional impact does transcend the in-game/out-of-game boundary.
[/ QUOTE ]
Jesus, split hairs much?
[ QUOTE ]
If moving a pawn in Chess causes offence, then a law is passed to stop people moving pawns. There are real examples in the past of offensive games or aspects of games being revised in the name of morality (e.g. negative racial stereotypes being phased out).
[/ QUOTE ]
You mean like white guys going before black guys in chess, right?
- Ping (@iltat, @Pinghole)
Don't take it personally if you think I was mean to you. I'm an ******* to everyone.
It's a penguin thing. Pingu FTW.
You can do PvP without harassing players, you can harass players outside of PvP. The two are not synonymous.
Prof. Myers was not engaging in PvP. He wasn't trying to win scenarios. Being in a PvP zone does not give you carte blanch for any kind of behavior. This is still a game and there is a player code of conduct and a EULA. There are still norms of decent behavior even in PvP games where players are trying to virtually kill each other. Prof Myers' research was about examining the borders of acceptable behavior and seeing what lay beyond - and to that end he was trying to inflict emotional distress on players and it appears he went to great lengths to achieve those ends.
It's not gaming, it's griefing. It's not proper research, it's an ethical breach.
[ QUOTE ]
This is still a game and there is a player code of conduct and a EULA. There are still norms of decent behavior even in PvP games where players are trying to virtually kill each other.
[/ QUOTE ]
He never seemed to have been suspended or banned by the GMs so what does that tell you about your point?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If moving a pawn in Chess causes offence, then a law is passed to stop people moving pawns. There are real examples in the past of offensive games or aspects of games being revised in the name of morality (e.g. negative racial stereotypes being phased out).
[/ QUOTE ]
You mean like white guys going before black guys in chess, right?
[/ QUOTE ]
I lol'd.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Is that a way to play the game how it was designed to be played?
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes.
[ QUOTE ]
Is it a way to win the zone?
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes.
[ QUOTE ]
Nope not in the least bit.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry, but you're wrong.
Provoking verbal pvp, the way he wrote about it after. Those were wrong.
You could argue that continually capitalizing on easy kills where there were more substantial targets as threats to a zone win was wrong as well, even though they are all valid targets.
[/ QUOTE ]
Please explain to me how killing another !!!!!!----->HERO <----!!!!!! is a way to win the zone?
Getting rid of dead weight?
Kidding aside, I miss-read that part of your post. I thought you simply meant training NPC's on a player.
I'm not commenting on the merits (or lack thereof) of Twixt's actions and behavior. I've done that.
This is not directed towards anyone in particular.
What I will say is Risk vs. Reward. If someone goes to a PvP zone to do whatever, especially for good xp or badges only, and doesn't expect some retribution by means of PvP is daydreaming in fallacy land. Then if someone gets upset by it, well, they shouldn't be there or at least change their perspective on the place they've entered.
There is/was definate sub-communities within the PvP aspects of the game in regards to zones -- be them fightclubbers, farmers, badgers or something else that is outside the zone's intent.
There has always been some drama associated with these within the zone. Why? Because they are creating a carebear (yes, I said it) attitude. While these social/anti-social groups have their right to say and do what they wish (sans exploitation), they don't have the right to do that and complain that their actions are being debilitated. They are in a PvP zone.
Any complaints about people ganking, interupting duels, causing debt, blocking badge locations, droning or similar are groundless. People getting upset, causing a scene in /b or dramatizing it here from the PvP aspects of a zone should suck it up or not go there thinking that their fun may not or should not get interupted and even disputed.
PvP can be frustrating, yes, but weigh the frustration and let the fun come from actively participating in why the zone is there - PvP. If you want consentual PvP go to the arena. If you want no holds barred PvP go to the zones.
Risk a bruised ego vs the reward of the elation from a battle, win or lose.