Social experiment: Play PvP in a PvP zone and get universally hated for it

[MoonUnit]

Isn't something biased when they only hear one side of the story?

Personally it sounds like this "experiment" was just seeing how much you can troll and grief while still staying within the rules, but not the customs of the game/playerbase.

[The Boz]

Shocking results of a social experiment! Actively tryint to annoy people tends to annoy them!

[Gmr Leon]

I'm still baffled as to why Heroes wouldn't be hunting Villains in the first place. It might as well be City of Sunshine & BFFs instead.

1) Twixt's actions in PvP translated to an investment of time. By teleporting (the action described) villains into a row of firing squad computer-generated enemies, he would give the other character debt. This debt would impede the character's ability to gain experience by cutting it in half for a certain period of time. Thus, anyone who suffered from what Twixt did would pay for it by having their progress cut in half the next time they got the opportunity to play. A full portion of debt could take upwards of 3 hours of nonstop play to be worked off.

I think that might be why they wouldn't be. If the game were changed to benefit those engaged in PvP, they might be more than willing to break down their existing customs for those beneficial reasons.

[Alaris]

Isn't something biased when they only hear one side of the story?

Personally it sounds like this "experiment" was just seeing how much you can troll and grief while still staying within the rules, but not the customs of the game/playerbase.

Scientists are supposed to report what happened as objectively as possible. If the professor who published the study was as one-sided as the article, then that's just bad science.

Scientists can get fired for this.

I'm curious as to what the purpose and findings were, from a scientific point of view.

Edit: I'm reading the article, and here's a few things that come up:

1) The drones in question are there to protect safe zones. They were "not intended" to be used for PvP purposes. Death by drones does not incur a penalty or reward to either player, except for the person dying being respawned across the field. I put "not intended" in quotation marks, so it's hard to establish in this context whether the devs think this is a design flaw or not.

2) The tactic used by Twixt was agreed upon as being skill-less, and was a behavior banned in forums, well before Twixt started his work.

3) Some players also peacefully farmed XP in these zones, rather than engaging in PvP. Think cartographers in Jade Quarry. These people were also targetted by Twixt. He also interferred with friendly duels.

He became a social outcast as a result of generally being a jerk, even though doing so gave him a competitive edge. Give the guy a Nobel prize. /sarcasm

[Ringsgold]

I'm missing something. Please explain.

In my experience, gankers (or other forms of unwanted PvP) are very easy to avoid if you have some basic knowledge of the game you're playing. However my experience is only from age of conan. If a game has such a high punishment for dying I'd either avoid PvP entirely or play a different game.

If an in-game loss sets your life back 3 hours, for no reason other than a pve-hold-over of XP gain, then it's a bad pvp game regardless of side.

I agree, I thought Alaris was talking about standard ganking, not bad gameplay mechanics.

Also, yes it's bad science. Flaming and trolling is part of the internet and online games, if this "scientist" takes flames against him seriously he doesn't know a lot about the psychology he's dealing with.

[Simply Kedde]

I don't think what he did was unethical. I do think that he's rather stupid. What he did, effectively, was troll. Trolling may be defined as being as annoying as possible while staying within the rules. He was stunned and amazed that being so annoying would end up irritating and angering the people he was directing his annoying behavior towards. What a shocker, that one. I think the man would do well to study adultery. It seems an apt analogy. Adultery is legal, but if you do it, your spouse will still be pissed.

I endorse this comparison.

Whether unethical or not, I don't really care, but the experiment was over all pretty stupid and not very well thought out.
He came to a conclusion anyone with an inch of brain could've told him from the beginning, and in doing so was butt****ing annoying.

I'd agree to it not being unethical, and then settle for the game simply being ****ty if I understand the mechanic correctly.

[Zalis]

So it would have been okay if he hadn't used the teleport-to-firing-squad ability? Not trying to be a pain here, but the whole Hero/Villain seems fair game to me. The article alone didn't seem to make drones the clear distinction. Then again, I've been reading this while multi-tasking at work, so it could be my oversight.

[Alaris]

I only surfaced the article, but it still bugs me...

What was he trying to prove, and why is it interesting? I mean, I agree with Kedde, this was an experiment so predictable that it's not even worth doing in the first place.

Not all scientists are good scientists.

BTW: @Kedde: read my edit above, you'll see that the flaw is not that terrible.

Edit: @Zalis: the teleport ability is meant to teleport foes to your group, so you can beat him up. So you could, for example, teleport a monk where all your melee allies are and kill him, that'd be fine. The problem was with teleporting the foes into the insta-kill drones that protect the safe areas.

[CyanBoy]

I'm curious how his character could be so imbalanced that a group weren't even able to take him out. Anyone familiar with the game care to explain?

[David Holtzman]

I'm curious how his character could be so imbalanced that a group weren't even able to take him out. Anyone familiar with the game care to explain?

They were able to take him out.