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May 25, 2004

Comments

1.

I just typed in a reply to this, but it produced the following error:

Your comment has not been posted because it appears to contain questionable content. If you believe you have received this message in error, please contact the author of this weblog.

I'll post the message in pieces to see if I can isolate what it could possibly be complaining about...

Richard

2.

Many virtual worlds have had drugs in them before, of course (even MUD2 has alcohol). Naturally, some of these have been more responsible about it than others.

In Achaea's case, the only long-term effect on players of their character's taking Gleam is that they'll realise that drugs are for losers (if they didn't know already). I don't suppose that this will make the slightest difference to the "ban the evil Internet" brigade, or the dubious academics who feed off their fears, though.

Still, at least they said that Achaea was text-based (which was the subject of a little pre-article discussion over at The Mind's Eye.

Richard

3.

It turns out that the "dubious content" was the following opening line I'd used, which included a hyperlink to a Slashdot article on Gleam (now stripped out):

Does Wired get all its tip-offs from Slashdot nowadays?

Richard

4.

The article is disappointing. This has the potential to be a very interesting discussion and they squandered it with useless comparisons to the addictive nature of online gaming.

Where's the discussion of the benefits of making players weigh short-term benefits agains long-term negative effects? Or simply from a dev point of view, the rich possibilities of a game where player organizations voluntarily ban together against certain substances while others make careers underground. That sounds like quality content, but was only cited as an example of the mixed reaction from players.

Raph, there's your answer to fixing the broken smuggler class in SWG, btw.

Anyhow, the whole "*wink* MMO players know all about addiction since they're all addicted" kind of pissed me off, not so much because it's insulting as because it's weak and uninteresting.

5.

Staarkhand >Where's the discussion of the benefits of making players weigh short-term benefits agains long-term negative effects?

Right here right now :)

ATITD has at least one balancing factor – way point travel takes time credits, time credits are based on the time you are not playing the game. I think quite a few other MMOs operate similar balancing strategies.

But – what’s the point? Every hard core player I know has at least two accounts so is constantly building up off line time.

6.

>Staarkhand: The article is disappointing. This >has the potential to be a very interesting >discussion and they squandered it with useless >comparisons to the addictive nature of online >gaming.

>Where's the discussion of the benefits of >making players weigh short-term benefits agains >long-term negative effects? Or simply from a >dev point of view, the rich possibilities of a >game where player organizations voluntarily ban >together against certain substances while >others make careers underground. That sounds >like quality content, but was only cited as an >example of the mixed reaction from players.

I tried to lead the Wired reporter that way, but he was definitely focused on comparisons between character addiction and player addiction. I don't believe that "Mud/mmo addiction" has any business being lumped in with real, actual addictions either.

>Richard: In Achaea's case, the only long-term >effect on players of their character's taking >Gleam is that they'll realise that drugs are >for losers (if they didn't know already).

*Ahem* Well, as someone who drinks wine on a near-daily basis I'm going to disagree with you there.

Long-term, I expect that gleam will be used in basically two circumstances:
1. By players looking to try it just once, for the experience.
2. By a small handful of serious roleplayers looking to make their characters a little more interesting.

--matt

7.

Speed of the Serpent was actually done in a way where it can be used responsibly - a few shots of it really do give a meaningful reward, and even the most casual player logs in every few weeks.

If there's a fireworks show that you want to attend, or a friend that you haven't seen in a while, and you're otherwise short on waypoint time, there's no harm in doing a shot or two. Like real-life, it's the people who overindulge, and "just can't say no", who get bitten by the drug.

I'm not surprised that the opportunity to use SotS responsibly was downplayed in the article - saying drugs are sometimes OK is not exactly P.C.

Overall I thought it was a well done article though - it shows that MMOs are exploring some deep issues, and can be about more than [insert your favorite mainstream-media game-cliche.]

8.

This is Daniel Terdiman. I wrote the piece that is being discussed here.

I want to say that I appreciate the criticism of my piece...The point made by Staarkhand about missing an opportunity to discuss the benefits of giving players a platform for weighing short term benefits versus long term effects is well taken, and I hope to have a chance to look at that in the future.

I also understand why Staarkhand and Matt argue that making the comparison between in-world substance use and EverCrack is out of place. The two are clearly different things, but I felt it was worth mentioning the link, though it was a minor point in the article: one paragraph out of 26 in the story.

Finally...as to Andrew Tepper's point that I neglected to write about responsible use of Speed of the Serpent, he told me when I interviewed him that 18 out of 36 players that had tried SotS had died. That's fully half of those who ever tried it. It's not that it's not PC to mention responsible use of substances - it's that there simply doesn't appear to be very much responsible use of SotS going on in the first place.

9.

Having spent days in UO suffering from the after effects of heavy drinking, I applaud the opportunity to add new and interesting in-game drugs. Alcohol in UO was well done. It provided no benefit, and destroyed your ability to cast magic (your magic regeneration would go negative). Thus, it was purely for entertainment purposes. During drinking contests, we would designate as the "Zero Hero" the person to first get their magic level to zero.

Everquest went too far. There your screen started to warp in a sickening fashion that would lead quickly to real world vomitting.

It's a good thing UO didn't go so extreme as Archea, or I'd definitely be ODed by now. I used to quaff Dexterity and Strength potions continuously for hours while dungeon crawling. (I developed alchemy skills so I could make them just in time) I would have found it very cool if my character built up a resistance, or started suffering from withdraw symptoms.

"Quick, I need some root! Must make strength potions!"

- Brask Mumei

10.

>Daniel wrote: I also understand why Staarkhand and Matt argue that making the comparison between in-world substance use and EverCrack is out of place. The two are clearly different things, but I felt it was worth mentioning the link, though it was a minor point in the article: one paragraph out of 26 in the story.

Well, for me, I have a two-fold objection to calling heavy mud playing an addiction. My first is that frankly, I don't think it's a good idea to call a product you're selling addictive in lawsuit-happy America.

My second is just that I've known people who had some pretty serious drug addictions, and the distance between a real addiction and an ingrained habit is enormous. Pot smokers, for instance, fall into the heavily ingrained habit, while heroin addicts (who can die from withdrawl if their addiction is serious enough) fall into the former. Granted, addiction is on an analog scale, not a binary one, but I see a fundamental difference between physical addiction and habit.

--matt
P.S. For the love of god, could someone kick the blog.com people and get them to put in a decent quoting function? (or tell me I'm a moron and show me what I'm missing.)

11.

Andrew Tepper>saying drugs are sometimes OK is not exactly P.C.

I suppose if we're talking political correctness we ought to mention that sometimes drugs ARE OK; ones prescribed by a doctor usually fall into that category. Take away my mother's anti-diabetes tablets and she's going to be cross for quite legitimate reasons.

My "drugs are for losers" line is directed at people who don't have a medical reason for taking them. However, since this would still mean that almost every reader of this blog would qualify as a loser to some degree, I'm not going to put up any defence of it. Besides, I know how much I dislike the holier-than-thou attitude that many vegetarians exhibit towards omnivores, and the holier-than-thou attitude of a teetotaller can be just as irritating for moderate drinkers...

Richard

12.

Daniel wrote> Finally...as to Andrew Tepper's point that I neglected to write about responsible use of Speed of the Serpent, he told me when I interviewed him that 18 out of 36 players that had tried SotS had died. That's fully half of those who ever tried it. It's not that it's not PC to mention responsible use of substances - it's that there simply doesn't appear to be very much responsible use of SotS going on in the first place.<

Hehe, a good deduction with the facts you know. But there is an additional piece of information that changes the picture. Its known to the Players that the “Scientists of Egypt” will find a cure for SotS addiction once 24 people have died. Hence, the majority of SotS deaths are Egyptians nobly dying for research, rather than hopeless addicts. (Typically Players who are quitting anyway, or second accounts). So don’t put down all the the drug users of Egypt as losers. Mind you there was the case of the wife who alledgedly tried to poison her husband with SotS…

Ren wrote>But – what’s the point? Every hard core player I know has at least two accounts so is constantly building up off line time.

True. But as a softcore player, I find it really nice. I can log on, join a “hardcore” project, and shift tons of stuff around Egypt with my copious offline time. Putting in incentives to not play continously seems responsible to me. I’d like to see servers that set a weekly limit on gains, experience, wealth, level etc. for those that want to play, but limit their time commitment. My sense though is that game designers are hardcore people, and such limits are foreign to them.



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