When Gaming Gets Personal

I'd like to take it from another angle, Ptolemy. I couldn't decide the best of these threads to post this in, so hopefully it will get views here of those who are interested in the subject. 

Ptolemy wrote: Illy is a diplomacy game, War is a part of diplomacy. As long as there is a difference in ideas, conflict is inevitable, be it verbal, or physical. Does this mean a difference of ideas is bad? No. If everyone beloved the same thing, it'd be dull, real dull. So I don't care you believe land claiming is bad, you have to right to your opinions, just as other people have a right to theirs. So if you want to end land claiming, You'll have to be able to force them into that. Is that not what you are against? Using force and coercion to get your way. But you are not doing that, you are using words, atm. However, are you not trying to force your view onto others? Make them play how you want?

Do read the studies in "When gaming gets personel"  The evidence that playing online games does effect the emotional state of the player is overwhelming, to the point that nobody disputes it.  That the effects are positive or negative and for how long, that is the question.

jtk310 wrote: Do read the studies in "When gaming gets personel"  The evidence that playing online games does effect the emotional state of the player is overwhelming, to the point that nobody disputes it.  That the effects are positive or negative and for how long, that is the question. Read a lot of it, and I noticed the many flaws others have pointed out. I said that because I have my own opinion on whether your studies apply to illy at all, and it's dubious at best. Nice job noticing that I kind of strawman'd your argument though! I should be more careful. I was just hasty, I write these off the cuff. That playing online gaming effects people is not up for dispute in any forum of study of which I am aware.  It's how long and in what ways that we disagree.  I think that in anything which we are uncertain of our effects on others, especially if those effects could be negative, we should err on the side of caution.  We don't know what "playing the role of a bully" or being the "victim" of one "playing the role of a bully" in a game like Illyriad might be, but since that particular role is not needed to accomplish things, why allow it?  If you can have fun without the method of play mentioned, and by doing so reduce the risk to others, however minor that risk or the harm that risk may cause, why not refrain from that method of play? When I said, "To play correctly you must play as a geographical sovereign nation building game Land claimers are playing as geographical sovereign nations Land claimers are playing correctly Your replied in part, with: jtk310 wrote: "I don't think there is a right or wrong manner of play, so there is no reason I would attest that at all. Really you can remove that first statement, the other two I agree with. The fact is, I don't think ANYONE is playing incorrectly." Then if there is not "right or wrong" way to play, then why have any player sponsored rules?   We have them because we wish the game to be more fun for more people.  If that is the goal, then there are "right and wrong" rules...the "right" ones being those which bring us closer to our goals, and the "wrong" ones taking us away from our goals.   It is a fact that intimidation by threats of coercion is a form of play which makes many uncomfortable...and thus lowers their sense of fun.  There may be a few who get a charge out of such tactics, but since the tactics are generally felt by most humans to be restricted to games where they are a necessary part of the actual game, it would seem to me to be foolish to engage in that which does not move the entire community toward more fun.  The parallels are pretty clear between the "leave the newb's alone" and "don't intimidate by threats of coercion."     The Illy community, for a lot of reasons, is unique in the world of online gaming.  Almost every new player is shocked by the protection and support the players provide from those who would use "aggressive game play" against them.  Now I'm not saying that land claims themselves would do that, but certainly the use of intimidation by threats of coercion does not move us in the same direction as protecting the new players had done.  Furthermore, if we were to refrain from such behaviors, would it not make the game more appealing to the peaceful player?  So unless you have decided that all players must be prepared to be warriors, like it or not, you should stand with me against the use of intimidation by threats of coercion as a tactic.  In the end, the use of intimidation by threats of coercion narrows the range of play and makes one group-- those who which to play a peaceful style -- spend resources on protecting themselves.  This both slows them down and discourages their participation in the game..  Since the intimidation by threats of coercion does very little for the alliances that use it other than make a lot of people uncomfortable (less fun), why not drop it?  That would, indeed, be the "right" way to play. 3dk310 wrote: I took discrete maths so I know a little bit about pure logic. I don't feel like actually carefully crafting a real logical statement, so maybe I have no place discussing this with you. Momma says to play to your strengths, and yours is debate. No reason for me to fall in that trap!  The reason my arguments win is because they are logical.  My opponents (present company and several others excluded) generally don't debate at all but sink to sub-standard personal attacks, which is sad because some of them are very, very smart in other matters and I suspect could provide some good points.  I would suggest that a good warrior could be a good debater exactly because good debate is about, strategies and tactics. In this case, as I've argued before, you assume we are all playing the same game.  We are not, and it's disrespectful of others to force them through intimidation by threats of coercion, to do so, especially if you can play your "sovereign" nation with others who wish to play the same game without bother those who are here for other reasons.

jtk310 wrote: I think we are all playing illyriad. If you play civilization, there are tons of ways to play it. That doesn't make it a different game if you go for a cultural civilization vs a warlike civilization. It's the same game with the same basic foundation behind it. The same engine runs it, the same code determines what effect actions have. The same is true here, there is a code base that determines how this game works. Everything else is social stuff, which accounts for differences in play style just like in any other game. Unless you aren't loading elgea.illyriad.co.uk when you play this game, I contend we are on the very same game with different play styles.  To cut through the minutia a bit, though, the big difference in opinion here is that you think attacking others in the game is disrespectful and I don't. I don't think your posted evidence that is supposed to prove that in-game attacks or threats will cause emotional damage even applies to this type of game or to the type of players we have. I doubt anyone is emotionally scarred by tiny battle flags slowly working toward their cities really, and I think it's a little unfair to keep pretending your evidence has any weight in this type of game when many in this very thread have pointed out that those studies are mainly regarding young players in mature games with graphic violence and realistic situations. This game has an older player base (very young people aren't allowed at all!), and nothing graphic happens here!

 There is a difference between what you say I'm saying and what I've actually said.  You say that I "think attacking others in the game is disrespectful," which is NOT at all what I've said.  What I say is that attacking others in the game who have given no good reason for being attacked, is disrespectful and that when you use intimidation by threats of coercion that is a form of attack because it uses threats of removal should the player exercise his or her game allowed options to settle in "your" territory.  I do believe this point has been made very clear in my arguments.  To reduce my arguments, as you have done, to "you don't like warfare" is another 'straw man' argument.

When you say, " I don't think your posted evidence that is supposed to prove that in-game attacks or threats will cause emotional damage even applies to this type of game or to the type of players we have," you, again, aren't presenting any argument that I've put forth.

What I have said is that the evidence presented in that post was never supposed to prove, and no claim that it did prove, that this game causes any harm.  Again, I have been very clear about that.  At no place do I ever say that there is scientific proof that this game causes harm.  There is anecdotal proof and I've spoken to two players who have left the game out of frustration with certain other members and their actions.  That is harm.  Perhaps not long term, but harm nevertheless. I've also spoken to a number of players who have experienced bullying in the game and had to help the player being bullied, sometimes by driving the bully from the game.  So bad things do happen in Illy and there are good players who want to do something about the bad things that happen.  But the wisest choice is to make sure we are clear on what the "bad" things are and what the "good" things are and to move toward the "good" and away from the "bad" so that more players have more fun.

You mention "to the type of players we have."  How would you describe those players?  Obviously they are older than some games.  But other than that, what would you say about them?  Whatever  your description is, though, you have to ask: "does the game require only those types play?  In other words, if somebody who was not of the type you envision wanted to play the game, is that possible? 

Actually, it is possible that certain types of players should not and have not been welcome in Illy.  The health of the game is directly proportional to the concern we all have in reigning in behaviors that are harmful to the game, don't you think?  If we suddenly got flooded by true bully's ...one's who would 'farm' new players for instance, or "remove" players they didn't like because of their political, religious, social, etc....status or stance, would we allow that?

We, the community of Illy are what we are exactly because we are self-policing.  We do not allow certain types of players and once they show what they are, we have and will stop them.  That is the tradition of Illy. 

Conversely, if peaceniks show up and want to become traders, gatherers, builders and what not, do we wish to encourage or discourage their participation?  If we wish to encourage their participation should we not extend the same protections to them that we do to new players exactly because they do not wish to be warriors (where as the new player may want to be a warrior or not but is unable due to size) should we not protect that?  In other words, the respect we show new players encourages them to remain and grow because it recognizes they are not threat and that their focus should be on growing rather than fighting.  Intimidation by threats of coercion does is not a move in the right direction because it forces small to medium peaceful players to prepare for wars they may wish to have not part of, or to avoid settling in areas they may wish to settle.

jtk310 wrote:  Now on to your questions.  1) Nah, we don't tell other alliances how to behave unless they violate our policies. We aren't the LC police.

 Exactly, "unless they violate our policies" is exactly the problem.  The community of Illy has the right to deny or grant policies, and only the community has that right as a whole.  Your claim to sovereignty is a form of rebellion.  In what is present day Utah, at one point, when it was a territory, there was a threatened movement to take that territory (which belonged to the citizens of the United States as a whole) and to separate part of it into a new country to be called "Deseret."  The US decided that such a move would not be allowed because the US was sovereign over that land, not the people there.  You can claim sovereignty all you want, but ultimately, your land is all of our land and the only sovereignty we have agreed to recognize is the ten square rule of settlement.  In Utah the movement to create a sovereign nation was averted when those who wished to do so considered the circumstances and were persuaded peacefully that the US was the sovereign of that territory.

 

jtk310 wrote:  2) Our sovereignty wasn't granted by anyone. Who granted Greece sovereignty? Who granted the ACTUAL Rome sovereignty? We need only be recognized as meeting the requirements by other powers, and I think that's the case here.

 You are correct.  Your sovereignty has not be granted by anyone and there a lot of us who will not be granting it any time soon.  The correct method of gaining sovereignty, historically speaking, is to first ask the people living there if they wish to separate from the current sovereign (which is the whole of the Illy community in this case) and then to ask the sovereign to allow the formation of a separate nation.  This was the procedure used in the case of West Virginia during the Civil War, Scotland only recently, and Barcelona in the near future.  Changes of sovereignty status can come only through two methods: negotiation and war.  By universally declaring sovereignty you have opted for the second without appealing at any time for the first.  I would recommend that you apply for a limited sovereignty by simply making a Declaration of Homeland and dropping the intimidation by threats of coercion, which is the only thing separating you from the DOH and the only thing that claims absolute sovereignty.

 But think for a moment about even your current claim.  Do you have the armies to defend against the whole of Illy?  Of course not.  Thus, at any point you could lose your absolute sovereignty because, in the end, it's not at all absolute.  Why give the rest of Illyriad any reason to take the limited sovereignty you could have away by trying to stretch it into absolute sovereignty you can't maintain anyway should the denizens of Illy decide to take it from you?

 

jtk310 wrote:  3) Only if you settle in Westmarch without talking to us first, and then only if you refuse to leave after we have asked nicely and offered recompense for lost time and for the costs of exo, as we have with others. If you refused at that point, we would see if anyone wished to speak on your behalf and talk sense into you. All disputes die before a sword is drawn so far! If that didn't work, to quote Oliver Windell Holmes: "Between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy but force."

 Of course Mr. Holmes was addressing the sure frustration of dealing with two incalcitrant sides.  His hope, as in all things, was a peaceful resolution through negotiation.  One does not throw out the goal of peace just because there is a war going on.

 The underlying belief that you can be sovereign of that area is the problem.  You wish to be absolute sovereigns but your sovereignty, as all sovereignty's is subject to the will of the larger and stronger group and thus, it is they who indulge your whims or not.  It may that they do so forever, or it may be that tomorrow you wake up with massive armies at your doorsteps.  Why not seek a permanent peace and adopt a DoH and show that you are wiling to work with the larger group and to respect their actual sovereignty?

 

jtk310 wrote:  4) How is moving there in defiance of our policy not forcing an entire alliance to play in your style? This has been asked before, obviously. The thing is, my style ALLOWS the use of force, as do the mechanics of the game. I am not really ashamed of this, and don't believe that players of illyriad should be ashamed of using force.

 Let's suppose I move to your claimed area.  You speak to me, you remonstrate, and you then remove me.  If I wish to settle in that area and keep my claim, I have to resist.  I would not have to resist if you didn't attack me, but you have declared that you will attack me, and so I am forced to build armies, etc.

 Now let's look at it from your perspective.  I move into your claim and settle.  It is true that I am taking space, and that I might use some of the resources in your claim, the but amount is insignificant.  How has my presence I forced you to not make war?  Can you not still enter into PVP with willing parties?  Are there no other warriors out there willing to fight? (In fact I would surmise that the use of land claims will lead to fewer wars in the future as the clustering would make it very, very  difficult to take on a land claiming alliance).

 As for your style ALLOWing for the use of force, it also ALLOWS for restraint from the use of force, does it not?  I recognize the need for force in some situations, like when you are attacked, but I also recognize the right to restrain yourself from using force.  Use force when in PVP or when attacked, and restrain yourself when not in PVP and/or attacked.  Your use of intimidation by threats of coercion tells the peaceful that you do not intend to restrain yourself against them. Which forces them,  even now, to start building armies when they may not wish to do so,

 

jtk310 wrote: 5) They are allowed to settle, just not freely. Asking is a simple thing, and ensures better relations with your neighbors. If we are a sovereign state, borders must be maintained or we lose one of the defining characteristics. If you ask to stay there, you get more than simple settlement (this really factors in more in the next question). Eventually, Roman predominance in the area will lead to military protection for all inside our holdings. It will lead to a safer and happier populace in ALL of Westmarch, not just our cities.

 Exactly.  "Just not freely."   The game grants us to settle anywhere there is a free space.  The players have determined, for the good of the game, that 10 squares is the space of sovereignty around a settlement.  You have decided that the area of you claim is no longer free to settle, and thus, you have declared that you will have two types of players there: those in your alliance, the kings, queens, barons, and the rest, and the slaves -- those who are their at your indulgence but who will always live under a threat of being "removed" should they incur the wrath for any reason, of the "sovereign." 

 

jtk310 wrote:  6) Because of our eventual ambitions, we wish to have control of who is there. We wish to be able to keep, for instance, former enemies out of Westmarch. This is because we don't want them to benefit from Roman rule and then use that benefit against us. We also need strategic position and first choice of available resources to produce the best result for the entirety of our claimed area. This benefits many, and since we have not had to follow through on any threats (I ain't going to say we didn't make 'em), I think our version of the land claim is much stronger than a simple declaration. We have grand ambitions to effect grand change, and that takes grand resources and grand patience

 As for keeping your former enemies out of Westmarch I'd offer that that should have been part of any peace settlement you made...and it probably is.  As for future enemies, I'd be surprised if, once you issue a DoH, any of your enemies were to try to settle there as they would be putting their own city in much, much greater danger than the danger they might pose to you.  The point of clustering is exactly that you have a much higher concentration of power.  You don't need every single space in the area to have that.  I'm even willing to bet that if you approached all those potential enemies and just asked politely that their members stay out of Westmarch (without the threats of removal), you'd get pretty much complete agreement.  A DoH is a notification that you intend to cluster in a particular area and if you follow it up with actually doing so, you accomplish your goals faster than the current method that needs to be constantly defended.  In general few alliances want to start wars as they are very costly.  One of the precursors to war though, is often the issuance of belligerent statements of intimidation backed by the threat of coercion.  So take a step back and retract such a statement.  Do it for your own protection, for the peace of Illy, and for the improvement of the game.

 As for benefiting from Roman rule, what benefits?  You speak of safety, but from whom are the peaceful players threatened?  Are not the only real threats coming from the warrior class who insists on land claims?  And are they safe from the rules you might decide to create in the future?  Once you are allowed absolute sovereignty you have absolute control.  And those whom might allow to settle in your area become your subjects...meaning they can be subjected to any rule you decide to make.

I know you claim now to be benevolent rulers.  But you've already shown that you will "do what it takes" to seize control of an area that rightfully belongs to all the players of Illy.  In the future, should a player grow large and powerful while living under Roman rule, large enough to be taking resources you feel you need, will you not "do what it takes" to maintain your rule and make some more rules about how big a non-alliance player can become?  Or how many NPC's he or she can take, or how many caravans of resources, or what and how many minerals or herbs?  The answer is that you have already declared that your needs are above all the needs of any and all other players in your area and that any settler there will do as you say. 

But let's take it further.  Suppose you are being hammered by a lot of other alliances and my two or three cities are in your land.  You are running out of resources.  What's to keep you from "taxing" my cities?  What's to keep you from "conscripting" my soldiers?  The point is, if you take absolute sovereignty, I have no safety.  Your guarantees are nice, but you've already shown that you will "do what it takes" including restricting the right of settlement of all players of Illy.

In the end your own actions show the danger to the players of Illy more than any words I could ever utter.  Intimidation does not improve the fun for all, it does not secure what you wish to secure any faster, and it invites slavery and wars.  Slavery in your lands and wars against you.  It is impractical and unwise even from a pragmatic point of view, let alone unethical.

Contrast this with dropping the intimidation by threats of coercion and adopting a DoH.  With a DoH you don't control your land absolutely but within the limits of settlement and the respect of other players, respect earned by the very willingness to put all of Ily ahead of your desire for absolute control.  You are still free to cluster for strength.  But without unilaterally exempting others from the land.  You are still free to grab all that land by settling it, but not the land you haven't yet settled.  And, because you have issued a DoH, should you find your "enemies" blatantly attempting to settle in the midst of your cities (which would be impossible if you just spaced them correctly), you would have justifiable grounds for war since if it was blatant it would be obvious what they intended to start a war.  Personally I can't think of many situations where that would happen, but it could.  And if it did, and you went to war, the rest of Illy would probably let you clobber the new-comers, which you could do because you would naturally have the necessary clustered strength.

Yet, even if you were to claim the sovereignty to the borders of your land, any alliance that wished to attack you could just cluster at the borders anyway.   So your "absolute sovereignty" does very to protect you from any determined enemy. More to the point though, why not let your enemies settle where they want as both you and your enemies are warriors.  Wouldn't it insure more wars if you were to do that?  More fun and none of the expense to other non-warrior players.

The choice is, Illyriad can either have a small group of "sovereign" nations fighting it out to the subjugation of all other styles of play, or it can be free.  Join the fight for freedom and drop the land claim for a Declaration of Homeland.

AJ

JodaMyth wrote:     I havent read the entirety of this thread because I, like everyone else, have a finite lifespan. My understanding is that AJ is unhappy with how the game is being played, that sounds like a fine opinion to me. Everyone is allowed to have those opinions, personally I have been on Illy over a year and a half now and never have unwillingly been in a PvP situation. Then again I don't go out of my way to control the way others play the game, like both AJs rants and the land claims have done in their own way.       That is part of what drew me to Illy, in previous games PvP was just part of everyday events and not some massive spectacle to debate. You did not need a reason to go to war, if asked for one "boredom" was, and still is, a valid excuse. If I may offer some advice, if a game pushes you to type 10's of thousands of words on a forum trying to protest recent events in said game then it may be time to try something new that doesn't cause you as much distress or inundate you with a need to mold the game into what you think it should be.

But Joda, I LIKE my style of play.  I like being the guy who points out that gamers are people too.  I like reminding people that people should not be treated like pixels on the page, that what happens in Illy doesn't always stay in Illy, and that irrational responses to rational arguments are exactly that...irrational.  I like what I do and am having some fun doing it.

But most of all I like most of the people here and find that they too wish that as many people as can have fun have as much fun as they can while here.  I'm not trying to get you or anybody else to give up your fun, but to only recognize that it is impossible for everybody to have fun in the sandbox without some reasonable accommodation for the fun others want to have...which means in some cases giving up a bit of your fun for the sake of everybody else.  By force I mean, of course not only intimidation by threats of coercion, but actual in-game force where you take people's cities because you don't like them, you are bored, you don't like that they out debated you, and so on and so on.  I say as much as possible play the way you want, but allow other the right to do the same out of respect.

Now of course you want to reduce the logic of argument to "my opinion" but I'm buying that.  It's not my opinion, it's what logic and rational thought says.  Even if I didn't think it, it would still be true.  And how do you know that it's not what logic and rational though would say?  You can't say because you haven't read it.  So you have no basis to claim, as you imply by your statement, that it's "merely" my opinion.  There is reality you know, and you've just run into it.  Hope your toe doesn't hurt too much.

Besides that, you probably read about 6 times faster than you write.  How about actually reading my posts with some of the time you spend not answering any of my points.  Read just one carefully and then respond to the logic or lack thereof. I think you will be glad you did, and I certainly will as sometimes, in spite of ourselves, we become persuaded.

AJ