A Thought

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Generation Greed

I encountered an "looting mechanism" within SWTOR.

Within a group, if you find something, the group members have 3 options :

- pass
- need
- greed

that's it.

There are no other options available.

I found this for the very first time - I honestly didn't know about it - at one Games Com when I played a beta of Neverwinter Online.

I truly didn't know what to make out of it - I didn't understand what it means. I needed some time to understand it, because - as I said before - I hadn't experienced this "looting mechanism" before.

Now, in SWTOR, people complain, because others are trespassing an unwritten rule saying that "Need" should be ONLY ONLY ONLY ONLY for equipping the own character. For nothing else. Even for the situation that it is not possible to play Droids, they say, they'd still put people who do "Need" for dropped Droid Parts onto their ignore list - or even report them (a few people appear to be really hard-headed about that).

Within SWTOR, these rules are nowhere actually written down.

Now, why did I call this entry "Generation Greed" ?

Because I believe that with calling an "looting behaviour" just "Greed" , something went wrong. And nobody noticed it.

Greed, from my personal - and I do hope, for most other people's as well - ethical standards is something bad. Greed is something that can destroy a society - well, yes, practically EVERYTHING; depending on how it is brought into effect.

- Exploiting of natural resources
- Industrial waste intocxicating citizens
- using lesser quality stuff for building houses which collapse with the slightest blow - and keeping the thus higher profits (this is the usual way the "building mafia" uses)
- Mafia in general
- Banksters
- Slavery (why use someone you have to pay for his work when you can use someone [a Slave] for free ?)

There are more than enough examples why Greed is bad. It was originally even called one of the Primal Sins of the Catholic Church.

And now Blizzard - I read it was Blizzard - came, and made Greed to become something actually good.

If you want the loot, then just "Greed" on it. Not "Want", just "Greed".

"Need" is something restrictred for your character only. And even worse, ONLY for your characters stats - "Need" on an item that has "Cunning" (I'm still speaking of SWTOR here, since i don't play WOW and I never did [it] ) is forbidden if your character's main stat is "Strength". For example.
"Forbidden" in the sense of these unwritten rules.

And since "Need" is so much restricted for actual use,
"Greed" is therefore the FAR better choice !

It's because "Greed" makes you get - if you are lucky - virtually EVERYTHING !
with "Greed" there are no restrictions whatsoever !
With "Greed" you can have items for your Companions, too ! Or if you want to "test out" an Strength-based item for your character who needs Cunning - go right away and "Greed" on it !

So, now, "Greed" becomes something good. It isn't bad anymore. Greed isn't anymore destroying nature, risking people's lives, intoxicating lungs and food, Greed has actually become something very, very good in MMOs. Gordon Gekko would be very, VERY happy.

The table has been turned.

Greed is something people have learned to rely on. In MMOs.

Let's hope that they are able to distinguish what they learned in MMOs from what's going on in Real Life,
like the almost proverbial "but I'm only hitting pixels !"

But I fear that the emotional impact is far too basic, far too much low-level for this learning lesson :
The person gets reinforced all of the time with the message of "Greed is good" - reainforced by the daily group questing in MMOs. Greed is - in my opinion - too much of an primal motivation that it could be easily unlearned for RL at the switching off of an Computer.
 
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pass-need-greed is not just SWTOR, it's also in STO.
and it's one of the most cretinous loot systems I've seen in my life. either gimme an item or don't offer me it at all.
 
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It occurred to me that this system of "Virtues" is basically non-existent in nowadays games. Reputation, yes, but not such a strong, strong emphasis on the Virtues.

And we won't see any ever again except the nauseating, mixed up morality of hollywood.

If you subscribe to any point of view but suicidally amoral hedonism you are a racist homophobe misongynist and how dare you opress people by suggesting they have moral fiber.
 
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pass-need-greed is not just SWTOR, it's also in STO.
and it's one of the most cretinous loot systems I've seen in my life. either gimme an item or don't offer me it at all.

It might make sense for the distribution within a group - but in fact - and that's my point - it is turning the meaning of an word upside-down. So to say.

They are basically twisting/distorting language.

Okay, only for one word, but ... just look at Gordon Gekko.
 
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A local newspaper has a list of new, upcoming games shown at the Games Com. 4 pages.

First 2 pages : Diversity of game genres, family-friendly & colourful. All consoles.

Next 2 pages : 2 or 3 game genres, everything is dark, brutal, dark colours, killing enemies of the main theme in most of these games. All for PC (a few for consoles, too).

To me, that's just another sign of the degeneration of the PC platform.

Actually, it's very striking, just to look at the colour palette alone.
 
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The Need/Greed/Pass looting mechanism worked very well for MMORPG groups when I played them. Occasionally someone in a pickup group would Need something they obviously didn't need but within friends/guild it was flawless. MUCH easier/faster than passing out items with a master looter.
 
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Just to type this thought in here before it becomes forgotten again :

Conflict based storytelling is leading into a dead lane. It goes nowhere, at least in MMOs.

I'vbe been playing SWTOR (and DDO a bit, too), and what I see is : NOTHING BUT conflict.

This becomes tedious and boring over time.

Because this means fighting, fighting, fighting.

In terms of storytelling, this is unhealthy, because, what it does NOT show in-game (but it DOES exist in Real Life !!! ) is :

- farmers
- crafters
- Joe Public
- families
- non-aggressive animals
- any non-combat related profession
- wanderers
- millers
- mechanics (at least for non-war-machines)
- bureaucrats
- writers
- messengers
- smiths (at least not those who do no weapons)
- scientists
- gardeners
- sailors
- cooks
- bakers
- miners
- any other profession NOT related to any sort of fighting.

Over time, conflict-based storytelling leads into an dead end, because once you have nothing but fighting within a game - or within a story as well, or within a movie, or in any other media), it becomes tiresome at one point. It creates some sort of burnout - for some later, for some sooner.

Plus, conflict-based storytelling is narrowing down possibilities of storytelling (like a funnel) into only one or a few variations of the same theme. You can produce only so mamny variations of the same theme of combat, of conflicht.

Plus, another point is that conflict-based storytelling effectively ignores or even negates the existence of anything NOT combat related - like the professions I listed above. In conflict-based storytelling, no-one mentions the miller or the baker.
And that even although they are there - in the backgrounds. Providing EVERYONE within the story with bread, for example.

Tristram and any other town in this game : A dead town. They are not going to survive, because there is no farmer, no miller, and no baker there. This is the ultimatively reduced conflict-based storytelling : Everything but the mere objects required for maintaining conflict-based storytelling is simply left out.

Me, I'm dreaming of one day being able to write a "Reiseroman", a genre of literature for which there doesn't seem to exist a direct translation (at least according to Wikipedia) : A "Reiseroman" is basically anovel describing a journey; a journey, and the landscapes around it. The Old Ways is some sort of an "Reiseroman", I guess (I haven't read it yet). A Reiseroman is not at all an sight-seeing tour; in fact, it takes more emphasis on describing people, customs, the environment met during the journey than anything regarded "important" like for example castles. A Reiseroman is about the journey, not about the sight-seeing.

It would be - I suspect - the ultimate opposite of conflict-based storytelling : A Reiseroman takes emphasis on the normal people, on Joe Public, not of anyone "important".

But, to sum it up, I still believe that conflict-based storytelling can become boring and tedious over time, if used too often.
And in MMOs, it is used too often.
 
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I'm currently experiencing the "dark side of nerdism" side of gaming : As long as I don't know everything mechanic-wise or otherwise within a game, I'm considered irrelevant. And my opinion of course as well.

It boils down to saying to people that their opinion ( ! ) is irrelevant, simply because they don't know a game enough.

In the end, projecting this issue further on, it means that in ANY forum I'm in, I can be thrown out (mentally) because I don't know what the forum is about good enough.

I call this the "dark side of nerdism", because this basically means that
social status = based on grade of knowledge.

Who doesn't know enough gets an lower social status (e.g. in an discussion) than those people who know the thing the forum is about much better. And at the top of this ... "Knowledgecracy" or "Technocracy" stands the Nerd.
 
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Regarding the "need/greed" loot system.... This was the players solution to fair loot distribution which first arose in World of Warcraft. It wasn't officially supported by the game until it became so popular that blizzard added the GUI options for it. Prior to that people just said n or g then used the random number generator to /roll. To this day, when playing with my old wow buddies, I still say "N!!!" when good stuff drops. This is 100% a community collective idea.

Regarding a story with no conflict.... Can't wait to play "Mums holiday slideshow from Thailand". :p

Conflict is part of every story ever because that's the interesting point. And games do give you alignment/virtue options. Some conflicts you can solve with diplomacy, some with trickery, some with force... Games do this all the time!
 
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In SWTOR, the "nned" or "gree" thing often causes problems, because players choose "need" for companions.

And some players insist that "need" for dropping droid parts just isn't there. They put everyone onto their ignore-list who does "need" on ddropped droid parts.
 
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Taken from the SWTOR forums :

There are an astonishingly high number of PvP people who actually ( ! ) think like this :

it is true that the game should be balanced around the best people

I just can't do anything else but facepalm + shake my head when I read stuff like this. To me, it's like an mental illness, I'm sorry, to demand that the sun circles the earth.

Is this Capitalism thinking ? That everything should be made so that it fits the best of the best ? Or where does this way of thinking come from ? Because to me, this is just alien. I just cannot understand how someone can think like this.
To call this "Eliticism" is an understatement to me.

And worst, I fear that there might actual people in RL thinking this way !

Society has to be balanced towards the richest of the richtest … yeah, right, sounds similarly stupid …
 
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:)
 
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Taken from the SWTOR forums :

There are an astonishingly high number of PvP people who actually ( ! ) think like this :



I just can't do anything else but facepalm + shake my head when I read stuff like this. To me, it's like an mental illness, I'm sorry, to demand that the sun circles the earth.

Is this Capitalism thinking ? That everything should be made so that it fits the best of the best ? Or where does this way of thinking come from ? Because to me, this is just alien. I just cannot understand how someone can think like this.
To call this "Eliticism" is an understatement to me.

And worst, I fear that there might actual people in RL thinking this way !

Society has to be balanced towards the richest of the richtest … yeah, right, sounds similarly stupid …

It is a consequence of online gaming. Balancing has always been troublesome for video games that failed to provide rulesets that scale up and down well along with the players' skill.
Before online gaming, competitive play was expensive. Attending a three day lan was about 200 ~400 euros. Events could not be repeated.

With online gaming, it is a permanent flying circus, there is no more needs for accomodation, renting a venue etc so there is nearly prize tournaments every day.

This gave birth to a professional scene. Potentially, people are ready to pay to see excellent players. So the game must be balanced toward them.

The same spirit spreads for every game with an online version.

That is another reason why I stick to SP games whose gameplay should not require online play.
 
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I've played online games, mostly mmo products, since 1996 and, to this day, I don't understand the attraction whatsoever in pvp. It just parts my hair.....I mean, if I want to fight someone in real life, that's easily done by stepping outside and picking a fight, or by going to the gym. PVE, now, that I understand and really enjoy.
 
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Taken from the SWTOR forums :

There are an astonishingly high number of PvP people who actually ( ! ) think like this :

"The game should be balanced around the best players"

I just can't do anything else but facepalm + shake my head when I read stuff like this. To me, it's like an mental illness, I'm sorry, to demand that the sun circles the earth.

Is this Capitalism thinking ? That everything should be made so that it fits the best of the best ? Or where does this way of thinking come from ? Because to me, this is just alien. I just cannot understand how someone can think like this.
To call this "Eliticism" is an understatement to me.

And worst, I fear that there might actual people in RL thinking this way !

Society has to be balanced towards the richest of the richtest … yeah, right, sounds similarly stupid …

lol dude...

You can't balance two classes by having two players of vastly different skill level compete. Likewise, if the players are not "the best" and therefore don't know how to play their class to its fullest potential you won't get a clear representation of class balance either.

What you want are two players of equal skill who know how to get 100% out of their class and are therefore considered the best.

This is a perfectly reasonable and obvious statement to make. What on earth are you carrying on about!? xD
 
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I I don't understand the attraction whatsoever in pvp. It just parts my hair…..I mean, if I want to fight someone in real life, that's easily done by stepping outside and picking a fight.

ROFL

are you serious?

How about "I don't understand the attraction to fighting people in real life at all. I could easily just log in to a game for some PvP and not end up in jail for assault like a total fucking idiot."

Fixed? No? Amazing!
 
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