Blood on the virtual carpet

[windansea]

Blood on the virtual carpet: tempers flare as 'editor' is thrown out of online town with 80,000 inhabitants


By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
16 January 2004


Peter Ludlow is not just a computer gaming enthusiast. He's also a philosophy professor, with an abiding interest in the relationship between the real and the virtual worlds. So when the world's most successful virtual-reality game, the Sims, launched an online version just over a year ago, he didn't just join in for fun; he also decided that he could carry out research for his next book.

And that was where the trouble started. Alphaville, the game's fictional city, could have gone in any number of directions, depending on the arbitrary decisions of the online game players who make up its people through their chosen "avatars", or game characters.

Alphaville could have become a socialist utopia, a grand experiment in free-market capitalism or simply a reflection of the allure and the pitfalls of any real Western city.

more...
http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/news/story.jsp?story=481707

[mouse7]

1. MMORPGs are facinating decents into the depths of human depravity

Half the fun of playing the games is watching just how twisted some people get when freed of social constraints.

Evil characters templates are ALWAYS more popular than good character templates. They usually have to boost the abilities of the hero types to get anyone to play them.