We went and saw Alice in Wonderland over the weekend, and I noticed Curfew signs around the theaters. No, not the one pictured (it's a googled image). These just said Curfew Enforced, with no mention of age, parents, etc.
This was at the Galleria at Tyler (aka the "Tyler Mall" in Riverside California)
A part of me (once I figured out what it meant) was like YES! No little punks running amok!
Then another part of me bristled STRONGLY about it. It doesn't affect me in ANY sort of negative way. I'm 40, not particularly fond of kids, and I get annoyed to no end dealing with youthful vigor and asshattedness.
Anyhow, it got me to thinking & wondering about what WoW would be like if some sort of Curfew were enabled. Assume for a moment, that something like a juvenile curfew COULD be implimented in WoW. Also ignore the complexity involved with the wide array of time zones (ie Eastern time US, and say Brisbane time Oceanic)
In this "wonderland" existed, would you WANT Blizzard to have a curfew, so that we could have only adults playing after a certain hour?
The tipping point for this post cam rather late on Saturday night, as I was levelling a toon in the Single Abstract Noun guild over on Argent Dawn US. (a blogger/reader group started on both the EU and US AD servers, as hosted by Tamarind and MissMedicina, HERE [EU] and HERE [US] respectively)
Argent Dawn is an "normal" RP server, as in no world PvP. This means griefers have to be a little more creative in their grief.
So, I'm levelling up from levels 6-8, doing the quests us Space Goats need t odo, over on Azuremist Isle. The only problem is that it's REALLY tough to empty your bags, get quests, turn in quests, train or pretty much anything else WHEN SOME ASSHOLE KILLED ALL THE NPCs.
Not once.
Not twice.
But thrice.
Twice it was the same Troll DK, and the other time it was a Mage & Rogue (not sure what races - I didn't get close enough/notice) It was roughly 4 am server time when the last attack occurred.
Needless to say, I was rather pissed off, and wanted all asshats to die and GTF off the server.
Now, as much as I hate that kind of crap, but there are a couple reasons I would NOT want a curfew:
1 - I think it's nearly as likely to be an adult doing that crap as it is a youngster
2 - I really dislike arbitrary restrictions (ie, at a certain age, you must stop playing at a certain time)
So, even if it were possible, I would not want to have a curfew. (having parents monitoring their kids would be nice, but, if implimenting a curfew is nearly impossible, asking for parental involvement with many idiot kids would require a miracle)
Now, I don't have any great psychometric analysis for why I feel this way, or any peer reviewed papers that I can reference. It's just my gut that tells me that I don't want it, even if doing such a thing might improve my time in game a bit...
How do you guys feel about it?
If there's one thing to aim for, is more freedom, not more restrictions. Let's take the troll in your adventure. He's a troll, thus horde, and a DK, thus evil. His actions are chaotic evil and he deserves respect for them. On a small scale, he's feeling the rush of the kill, and you, the annoyance of not being able to empty bags and hand in quests. On a larger scale, he's sacrificing his time to hamper the development of his enemies. Which, again, is to be commended.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of restrictions in WoW still, you can't attack players from the same faction, you can't go to war with home cities, you can't betray your faction and so on. What we're all forgetting sometimes is that RPGs aren't about gear, epics, competition and progression that much, but more about CHOICES.
The first story about an awesome choice can be found here: http://notaddicted.com/content/you-are-now-hated-argent-dawn?s=25c1d3d3be64da883ef855bba902374e
It was the moment i realized the game is what you make it to be. But that would change the moment some curfew mechanic would be introduced, the game would stop being an RPG, but some linear shooter with rpg elements. And i would stop playing it.
I understand the NPC killing, at least to a point. Up to some arbitrary point, it's just goofing off, messing with the opposite faction, etc.
ReplyDeleteAfter that point (again, an arbitrary point - it will vary from individual to individual) it changes into "griefing". My best gut feeling/definition is "when it stops being a simple annoyance, and actually affects the way *I* want to play in a serious manner." (after all, *I* pay to play as well)
If I have to wait 5 or 10 minutes for the NPCs to respawn? Eh, annoying. When it gets closer to an hour, and the other side is simply camping the area? That becomes griefing. (which is pushing what happened the other night)
Is it Bannable to systematically grief the other side? I doubt it. BUT, at some point, you would have to hope that the other faction would show a modicum of respect and let folks play their game.
Anyhow, as I said in my post, I am NOT in favor of more restrictions. (though, in general, a bit more respect for fellow players might be nice)
Well that's the thing, there's war out there, man... a war ! The troll wasn't goofing off, he was employing guerrilla tactics. If i'd put my mind to stem the rise of the alliance, i would do a lot more than that. There was a story a couple of years ago about hordes killing connecting flightmasters, back when you'd have to hop from one to the other to get somewhere, no direct routes like now, i find that pretty cool. First and foremost, because it shook the alliance into bunching up and do some world pvp.
ReplyDeleteSee, the game went too carebearish at some point, we forgot this is about horde vs. alliance, i fell into the same trap, i don't know if i have 5k HKs this expansion, but the conflict is there.
That "i pay too" is a very american way to look at things. Take a look around the web, people got banned for using a G15 keyboard or advertising a GLBT friendly guild, so it's not a right to play, it's a privilege. I'm not saying it's right, but the consumer attitude has no place in an mmorpg. We pay to have lag-free servers and tech support, but what happens in-game, in the plains of nagrand, that's something we have to deal with ourselves.
I used to have a blacklist addon and i exacted revenge for every gank. I'll never forget how my lowbie hunter was ganked no less than 5 times, by 5 different 60s, on the road from tarren mill to old dalaran. I sucked it up, remembered the names and hunted them later on. There's a hundred things you can do. You can pay someone to gank them, you can log in your main, you can ask for help... but imo, what is wrong is to ask for the help of a higher authority. It's sorta like praying to jeebus to smite down your foes.
I agree there should be some respect, but i can perfectly respect you by /bowing to your corpse after i murdered you. Plus, there's the subjectivity factor. For instance, i find it hard to respect blood elves, horde paladins, alliance shaman, gnomes, paladins rolled in wotlk, DKs and so on and so forth. So you see, the griefing i would inflict would come from my own conviction, it wouldn't be anything personal per se... it's just the way war is :)
I am ever so happy that I ended up (via blind luck) on a "normal" server. World PvP is fun on occasion, but overall, it's more a source of frustration for me.
ReplyDeleteClearly, PvP servers work for a lot of folks, so I am glad they are available. But, they just seem like too much work...
Given how "into" the whole faction versus faction aspect of the game, I'm surprised you aren't on a RP PvP server. It seems like you would enjoy that even more.
Oh, I assume, based on your responses, that you agree with me that a curfew is a bad idea? :)
Oh definitely. I'm the advocate of even more freedom in-game, more options, more choices, preferably irreversible choices. We've been slowly chained more and more over the years, with the addition of more guards, sanctuaries, flying mounts, phasing, and so on. These are curfews. You're now stepping into the argent tournament grounds, keep your weapon sheathed. You are now in a contested area, mount up on your drake and fly as high as possible. You are now in the arena, you may not use your engineering toys. Etc, etc.
ReplyDeleteThis may be all good from a raider's point of view, but the random slaughter of innocents is what brought me to WoW in the first place. I don't know what limits or "curfews" cataclysm will bring, but i'm really, really hope it will bring back some faction pride and rpg-ish freedom.
Nah, I wouldn't like a curfew ingame. There are some awesome youngsters around who would be affected by it, and that would suck. There would also be ways to slip past it so it wouldn't really work out anyway I don't think.
ReplyDelete