Tony62
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Posted - 2009.01.15 04:13:00 -
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Let me tell you about an online game I used to play. It is called Ultima Online. I was one of the first to join and played for 5 years. It was initially a great game, you were on a planet or a shard as it was called and could go and fight monsters for money and skill or you could do a profession and earn money by trading. There were several continents and some of those were dangerous to be in or you could play in the safer areas that had more guards to protect you. There were also lots of dungeons that ranged from easy levels where you should survive with care up to ones that if you went in alone you would not come out alive.
Now, there were two types of players in the game, Blue, who were basically nice and didn't really bother other players. The others who were Red were players who were basically classed as criminals and murderers. So if a blue player went out into the big world to play and a red turned up well there was a fight and whoever won got the loot from the other player. It was great, you could party up with a few mates and go dungeon raiding, and if a group of reds showed up you could chose to fight or run.
But after a year or so the Reds were working out the game mechanics, cheating and not playing in the way that the programmers expected. It got so bad that blue players didnt want to leave guarded areas and started complaining that they could no longer have fun and enjoy the game as it was meant to be. Of course patch after patch was released to try to keep the reds honest, but it could never happen. The forums started to get nasty and people being flamed because they didn't want to be killed so much. No one really minded the odd death, or the stupid just kept going to dangerous know areas that reds held and nearly always died.
So the blues kept complaining and the reds called them Noobs and carebears and other insulting words. Things degenerated to the level where people (mainly blues) just canceled accounts, I mean why pay $20.00 a month and not have fun playing. Of course the Reds still had fun, they just ganked and killed and stole from the declining population, which declined even further untill the Game publisher started to panic, they were losing millions of dollars in game revenue. They came up with a solution in the end, duplicate the shard, segregate the population, leave all the reds on one shard and dont let them into the blue lands. the blues could travel between shards of course, so the reds initially did have some players to annoy or gank. But in the end the one of two blues that would go over to the reds lands would be dead in minutes so in the end no one did. Now of course the blues were sort of happy, they could play without the threat of being terrorized constantly. Of course the Reds who didnt want to earn an honest dollar got bored and left the game, a lot of blues didn't really play anymore either as some of the thrill had gone, so the publishers tried a few things but nothing ever worked and the game died. A few still played but nothing special.
If the reds had remained within the spirit of the game then things would have been different. So many used Illegal Mods, Knew about workarounds, exploits etc, flamed other players who complained about it and basically said you can all going to get FKD, I pay, so I play how I want.
Fair enough I suppose, just a shame when there ends up being no one else to play with but your self and CCP Close the game. If you just want to have fun, fun, ruining someone else's day, then go for it, its expected of you, but do it in the spirit of the game and its mechanics, don't look for exploits and then complain and flame non pirates for whining about it, they have a right to protect the game that that also pay for and should be able to play the way they want. If they stay in high sec they don't want to play with you at all and thats their right. You should stay out of their and hunt the ones that come in your areas. Flame On
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