Nerfed Again!: New Social Interactions Introduced in TC
by Alphaville Herald on 17/03/04 at 3:39 pm
Scammers, trial account sellers, and bot makers say “Thank You Maxis!”
Mafias Laugh.
Stratics Board Ho’s inexplicably think this will improve the game.
The new social interactions have been introduced in Test Center, and after they are debugged they will move to the rest of TSO. At a time when TSO players have been crying out for some new activities or objects in the game, Maxis has responded as only it could: Remove one of the few features of the game that led to interesting role play. Some months ago in an Op/Ed piece, Kiss argued that what killed TSO was the constant nerfing of the game (removing interesting features that could be deployed as acts of virtual aggression) to satisfy the crybabies that fell apart at the prospect of any social interaction that was more aggressive than a friendly hug. How prophetic that essay was.
In case you haven’t seen the details of the new social interactions, the bottom line is this. Red linking is now effectively a thing of the past. Giving balloons to create friends has been modified so that social interactions can decay over time, and must be maintained by continuing social interactions. The problems with this strategy are endless.
In the first place, the elimination of red linking is a present to the scammers. That was the only meaningful way players had of warning users of certain individuals. Second, for some reason, Maxis seems to thing that the new social interactions will eliminate the cheap friendship links that are either bought from strangers or given via trial accounts. The problem is that given the new labor intensive way of establishing friendship links, they have now established a motive for people to utilize bots and trial accounts to boost their friendship links while they are AFK! Bots that could do this are utterly trivial, and the one rule of TSO is, if you reward mind-numbingly boring tasks, sims will automate them.
Regarding Mafia’s, red-linking was never a particularly serious aspect of their griefing. It was a kind of fun game of paint ball that they could engage in, but never part of the core harassment techniques that the serious mafias have and will continue to deploy. Indeed, reached for comment, JC Soprano of The Sim Mafia argued that tagging was never part of their modus operandi: “look at our services section [on out web site] for example … no where on there is tagging”. For example, one strategy, popular with both mafias and scammers is to keep churning trial accounts to send abusive persons into properties. Another is to sit silently in your mark’s property and report whenever someone says “damn” or whenever they see a link to realsimsonline on the property. Isn’t snitching beneath a mafia boss? Not according to JC Soprano: “it [takes your mark] out of the picture for 3 days and in real life you cant tell me that mafia and other doesn’t drop a dime occasionally to get something done.”
In addition, Mafias, griefers, and stalkers can still bombard you with IMs. They can still take matters out of game. Indeed, the net result of this may be that mafias, griefers, etc. will resort to more serious forms of harassment, now that the basically innocent practice of red-linking has been eliminated. The law of unintended consequences rears its head once again. As JC summarized the situation ” If you cant play the game without tagging, then go back to first grade where they love to play tag.”
The only question remaining is why Maxis did this. Why, when there were so many other things that could have been done to improve the game did they resort to nerfing it even more? Here I think we need to return to the essay by Anonymous B – this was all driven by an attempt to minimize the legal liability of EA as much as possible. If you want to understand the actions of EA you need to think like a product liability lawyer: nerf the game. It doesn’t matter what the unintended consequences are – what matters is that you did your best to eliminate acts of hostility and reprisal within the game. That should be enough to cover your ass in court when conflicts spill out of game and someone gets hurt.
Ian
Mar 17th, 2004
I hate to be stupid, because I know there is a good answer, and when I find out, I will probably say.. “Oh yeah that makes sense”…but Why is this good for Trial Account sellers?
And by the way, doesn’t hit anybody, that Maxis spends there time devising how to TAKE away things, rather than GIVE/MAKE them?
JC Soprano
Mar 17th, 2004
Just wanted to add we don’t use trial accounts either. It indirectly sounded like we did in this story, but rest assured we don’t.
As for snitching, as I told Uri, it’s rarely done, but sometimes thats the only method that works with those who are really hard headed and stubborn. There are no true consequences in the game, but if you get someone suspended for banned for harrassment or whatever (reporting for swearing no longer works Uri) it shows them their are consequences.
Here is an example. We had this one hard headed guy named Hakeem that kept coming to our lot and harrassing customers and us and what not. Very rudely and without warrant. After being asked to stop nicely he didn’t. Tagging wasn’t going to work with this guy either (this was before tagging became popular) so we got him suspended for 3 days. He e-mailed us bitching up a storm, called me a pussy for snitching etc. I replied back, you look at it as snitching when all I did was take you out of the picture. He replied back basically saying he’d never looked at it like that and he even said he had respect for me/us at that point.
If you take shit from people, plan on getting a lot more shit. Tagging is not a consequence for one’s action which is why we hardly ever tag and why things get so out of hand sometimes in this life of ours. Their has to be consequences for ones actions otherwise their is nothing but paranoia and chaos.
That’s my 2 cents. Anyone got any change? lol I’m waiting for the first graders to reply.
JC Soprano
http://www.thesimmafia.com
All-New Website!!
urizenus
Mar 17th, 2004
Trial accounts are mostly useful as cannon fodder in a war of harassment. You can keep sending them to harass someone without risk of loss and of course since you have new ones all the time you get around ban and ignore. Using them to boost frienship is not so obvious, since they are only temporary, but if automated they can maintain max friendship for the duration of their lives. If you keep rotating fresh trial accounts (and you have to keep acquiring new ones –that’s the good news for the sellers like Ian) then you can do very well on the friendship standings, thank you.
JC Soprano
Mar 17th, 2004
Yes, but if your caught using a temporary account in addition to a permanent account (tracable by IP address and peoples stupidity) you will be banned permanently. No suspensions or warnings, a permanent ban. Ask the old SSG regime, last time temps were used in this manor they lost over 20 people in a mass banning for using temporary accounts in addition to permanent ones. Everyone always thinks they are anonymous.
JC Soprano
http://www.thesimmafia.com
urizenus
Mar 17th, 2004
In the age of static IP addresses that might have been an issue, but my computer graps a new IP address every time I log on. Same for many others. Unless you are talking about cases where you have both accts running on the same IP address at the same time, but then many unique AOL users come in to this blog with the same IP address, so it is hard to conclude much from IP addresses.
JC Soprano
Mar 17th, 2004
If you use DSL or Cable though like most internet users, even if you have a static IP, 90% of the time it will pull the same IP once its released since that is an available IP. Unless your on dial-up or or you have a large pool of IP’s to pull from, you end up with the same one most of the time. I had comcast cable before I switched to DSL and I always had the same IP even though it was static. Same with my DSL service.
JC Soprano
http://www.thesimmafia.com
JC Soprano
Mar 17th, 2004
As for AOHell.. Enough said. The only time you really see instances of IP’s changing like that is when the ISP oversells the available IP slots. That is the case with AOL and which is probably why you see a lot fro mthe same address. Either that or your stats arte pulling the subnet and not the ip. I can get super technical on ya if you like lol I used to work for Intel Folsom doing mainframe and enterprise application network support. =)
JC Soprano
http://www.thesimmafia.com
JC Soprano
Mar 17th, 2004
Oh I forgot one other thing, obviously if two people are on TSO with the same IP address then EA can tell. EA can also tell if your using a temp account. All it takes is someone to report someone for using a temp in addition to a permanent. Proving it is a problem of its own. But more than likely your IP will match the IP you played with earlier in the day and they can trace by that. Only question is for things like that does EA keep a log and if so for how long?
Ian
Mar 17th, 2004
Well….EA can’t use that IP Tracing unless THEY HAVE WARNED You, or else isn’t it considered spy ware….Also…its not like there going to pick it up unless they get tipped off by a do gooder..In other words, if your not making a scence, there is nothing to worry about
Cocoanut
Mar 17th, 2004
I don’t appreciate being called a “ho,” Uri.
I would think a person of your academic caliber would be a tad above that sort of thing.
coco
RB
Mar 17th, 2004
I agree with Uri with the article. And i agree with JC for his tracing and related comments.
- RB
Banshee
Mar 18th, 2004
The real issue I have with this change is not the nerfing aspect, but the idea of adding another cumbersome time-consuming, slow to build task to a game that already has slow skill building and slow money making rates.
I have tested this out in TC before they had to pull it because of the crashes, and I can tell you that the friend scores build very slowly. I am told by others that it takes something like 30 minutes of nonstop positive interactions to develop into friend status, and then of course that decays so you have to keep going back at it. How the average sim is supposed to find the time to do this while also trying to prevent skill decay, build and maintain a house or make money is frankly beyond me.
Another weakness is that the new system heavily penalizes casual players. Given the other things that there are to do as a sim, if you are a casual player under this system you will never make or retain friends, and as a result the advanced interactions are taken away from you.
Finally, the fun with the negative interactions is gone. No more piledriving your friends for fun because if you do you will pay by reducing your friend score, and that means havinhg to do more positive interactions to replace that, all while you are loiking at your motive bars slide to red.
In all it is an intriguing idea because it parallels the offline sims and is also more realistic than the balloon system is. But in a game where there are so many other things to maintain that deteriorate over time, adding another one to the pile seems a bit much. Perhaps this could be fixed if they did not insist that the score decay over time?
B
urizenus
Mar 18th, 2004
I think you are dead on correct about this just adding more mind-numbingly boring and repetetive tasks to the game, Banshee. The frustration among part-time players is palpable. This new system might be fine for the Stratics Board Ho’s that clock 8 hours a day, but what about players who only have an hour or two? If the whiners and whingers on Stratics are driving what little bit of development is taking place on TSO, then this game is utterly doomed.
TRIAL NUMBER
Mar 18th, 2004
Call 1-866-543-5435 then wait for the voice bot to answer and then press 1, then 1, then 3 and then tell EA that you borrowed TSO from a friend and you would like a trial account. HAHA TOO BAD FOR TRIAL SELLERS
LM
Mar 18th, 2004
You know, I have been reading the AH for a while and have found it to be interesting. I have also read the comments from others here and elsewhere regarding Uri’s quest for publicity and questioning how academic his approach really is. But I still felt there was a lot of thought that went in to what Uri wrote, and some interesting questions raised in Uri’s articles. In addition, it seemed Uri maintained a level of respect for all on these pages.
I am sorely dissappointed with the use of the term “Stratic Board Ho” in this article. Very demeaning, very disrespectful, very… well, nasty. And about as unacademic as one can get.
I believe the true Uri has been revealed, and he/she… is ugly.
I feel sad about that.
LM
urizenus
Mar 18th, 2004
“as unacademic as one can get.”
Unacademic! Heaven forfend! Call the tweed police!
This isn’t high table. This is a blog covering happenings in an online game. If you don’t like what you read stop reading and go back to Stratics where they will protect you from bad words like ‘ho’.
Cocoanut
Mar 18th, 2004
I couldn’t count the times you have fallen back on the argument, “If you don’t like it, stop reading it.” Or, “Write your own.”
That’s a pretty childish way to respond to criticism, but you can be counted on to resort to it.
The issue isn’t that we need to be protected from bad words, as you well know. The point is a person is defined by the language he uses.
In addition, you should have more sense than to write off a huge group of people with a rather bitter stereotype like that. It’s innacurate.
Personally, I have a theory about you. I think you are a wannabe. I think you will say practically anything in order to sound cool. You’re really quite too old for that, and would do better to earn respect by being above the fray, rather than emulating it.
You tend to attract the dregs to this website anyway; unfortunately, you are starting to sound as crude as they do.
coco
urizenus
Mar 18th, 2004
>I couldn’t count the times you have fallen back on the argument, “If you don’t like it, stop reading it.” Or, “Write your own.”
Coco, it isn’t an argument, it’s advice. No one is making you read this or even asking you to. So I ask myself, why do you read it?
>You tend to attract the dregs to this website anyway
Well, obviously Coco, you are here.
Nick
Mar 18th, 2004
TRIAL NUMBER..or..rather..Zipper..let’s not be too much of a shit shall we?
Cocoanut
Mar 18th, 2004
“Well, obviously Coco, you are here.”
So? Is there some logical conclusion to be had here? I think not.
How about an apology from you, for calling us whores. A gentleman and a scholar would do that.
coco
urizenus
Mar 18th, 2004
Coco, you’re not a ho, you’re a board ho. There’s a difference. For example, someone might want to sleep with the former.
An apology, hmmmm, erm…
I think not.
Calso
Mar 19th, 2004
What’s the difference between a Stratic’s Board Ho and an Alphaville Herald Ho? Uri are you implying that those posting to this blog are for some reason superior to the others? Sounds like a biased, elitist attitude to me.
urizenus
Mar 19th, 2004
Hmmm, do I think that Alphaville Herald readers and contributors are superior to the haters and Maxis-fluffers on Sims Stratics?
Would any impartial observer think otherwise?
Antonio Armone
Mar 19th, 2004
*agreed* whenever I post on stratics its only to chew em out…now ALOT due to removal of tagging…
::ant::
Ian
Mar 19th, 2004
TRIAL NUMBERS … you are ignorant, I think you are the same person who randomly IMed me on AIM “Hahhaa I know your trick I am going to tell everyone”…. Ignorance..
its not about calling up..you get like what.. the most 4 per day….the trick I use makes 25per second..
Sigh, if ignorance was bliss.
And as for Coco, you got what you deserved. If your going to come here and say something against the majority, Which by all means is Okay, you are free to express your opinion, but expect backlash and to be criticized.
LM
Mar 19th, 2004
Sadly, the professor resorts to a tepid “Don’t read this if you don’t like it,” as well as assuming that I am reading a particular board on the web (!), instead of acknowledging that one of his readers has lost respect for him. (I guess it’s a he — I really don’t know, so if it is a she, I apologize for any gender mixups here.)
You are being a little thick, by design or maybe you really are; if it is the latter then here it is as plainly as I can put it:
It’s not the WORD “Ho” that disappoints me, nor do I need protection from it. I am disappointed that someone for whom I had some respect, someone I had come to regard as at least thoughtful and thought provoking, educated and somewhat erudite, used this word on purpose just for the effect — to be downright disrespectful and provocative.
I am just disappointed, Uri. In you.
I have used worse words, believe me. But not in a publication on the web, where I am claiming to be an academic studying virtual communities.
However, perhaps I AM being silly. You have just stated, “This is just a Blog.” I have been reading what I thought was more than just the average blog. I can admit when I am wrong… this has turned out to be at best an average, everyday ranting blog.
Sigh.
I guess I am a rarity, then. When someone uses incendiary language like that, I tune out whatever point they are trying to make. Respect and civility… ah, nevermind.
Like I said, I am just disappointed in you. I will get over it, and of course I will move on. Whether I come here to read or not remains to be seen, but I know either way it will not matter to you.
Now that I know who you are, I can… readjust my expectations.
LM
Cocoanut
Mar 19th, 2004
Ian, I never said anything against the majority, unless you are saying that the majority are dregs.
I said, “You [this site] tend to attract the dregs to this website anyway”.
That is different from saying “Everyone on this website is the dregs” of society, or even “the majority of people on this website are dregs” of society.
The dregs are a subset of the posters on this site. Exactly how big a subset was not addressed in my sentence.
The professor point out that I was here, thus implying I must also be part of the dregs. That is an error of logic, of course. It assumes that the subset which is dregs actually comprises the entirety of the posters on this site.
Since I’m sure he, being a professor in the very philosophy department where I learned logic, knows that, and so it’s just another cheap shot. If he doesn’t know that, well, that bodes quite ill for the student body at the U. of M.
You, on the other hand, assumed that the subset of dregs on this site was the “majority” of posters to this site. While that is less faulty than the assumption the professor made, I never stated that, either.
What I said was the site attracts the dregs of society.
To give an analogy, imagine there is a grocery store near you you aren’t particularly crazy about, since for some reason of location or serendipity it seems to attract the dregs of local society. You certainly wouldn’t mean, by saying that, that everyone who ever came in there was also the dregs, would you?
coco
urizenus
Mar 19th, 2004
Coco says:
“The professor point out [sic] that I was here, thus implying I must also be part of the dregs. That is an error of logic, of course. It assumes that the subset which is dregs actually comprises the entirety of the posters on this site.”
No coco, that isn’t what I said. I said that you are here, therefore it must be true that the site attracts the dregs. You reversed the order of the conditional.
urizenus
Mar 19th, 2004
LM says: “I have used worse words, believe me. But not in a publication on the web, where I am claiming to be an academic studying virtual communities.”
LM, I don’t see any place here where I claim to be an academic studying virtual communities. This is a blog/newspaper/fan site that covers issues in game that are interesting to me. It is what I do for fun. Don’t tell me how to spend my free time. Also, neither you nor Coco is God and neither are either of you my mother, so stop telling me what kind of language I should use. If you don’t like what you find here, kindly take your Church Lady Uber-manners Advice and GO AWAY. And also, you are quite right about one thing: I don’t give a flying fig whether you respect me or not.
Cocoanut
Mar 19th, 2004
“No coco, that isn’t what I said. I said that you are here, therefore it must be true that the site attracts the dregs. You reversed the order of the conditional.”
I see what you mean now, professor, but you could have been more clear.
And thank you so much for pointing out my typo.
You know, you say this is what you for fun, but the fact is very many of us come here thinking you are a professor at the University of Michigan, an academic studying virtual communities, who, I believe, plans a future book on the topic, and we expect better.
So there is quite the disconnect between when people read how you actually talk (to us, to me, for instance) and the image we have of you as a professor. It’s just not possible to keep them that separate, though you may wish for us to.
And I would object to being called a whore of any kind, anywhere, including any board I participate in. Do you stand for free speech or not?
I’m not God, and thank God I’m not your mother. But I do think you approach this blog, as you call it, not as an actual newspaper for Alphaville, but as a personal club for yourself. If you don’t like what someone says on it, you (repeatedly) tell them to go away.
And generally that someone is not a person using tons of profanity, cursing out another poster, writing at a fourth-grade level, or in general being completely reprehensible and obnoxious. (You may ask them to hold it down.) You reserve your bluntest invective for those of us who hold you, Uri, to a certain standard, and as I have explained, it is hardly surprising that we might do so.
I don’t have any plans to go away. If people see that I have disappeared completely, it probably means that I have either died or been banned from this site.
coco
urizenus
Mar 19th, 2004
“You know, you say this is what you for fun, but the fact is very many of us come here thinking you are a professor at the University of Michigan, an academic studying virtual communities, who, I believe, plans a future book on the topic, and we expect better.”
Look Coco, I can’t be responsible for your delusions or your expectations for me. I’m not what you think I should be? Well too bad for you. I am not in this world to live up to your twisted standards of how persons should behave. I find your constant moralizing and attempts to control the lives of others utterly repulsive, and in point of fact I consider you to be the worst kind of griefer. The mere fact that you refuse to leave and persist in harassing me and the other posters here is testimony to just that fact: you are a griefer.
Finally, everyone keeps talking about this book, but *I* never said I was writing one on this topic.
Cocoanut
Mar 19th, 2004
So, posting my own opinion, in the various places where I have, you consider harrassing? Pretty thin-skinned.
coco
urizenus
Mar 20th, 2004
No Coco, you are not “harrassing” [sic] or a griefer because you post your opinion. This blog has over 3000 posts from people who have posted their opinions, in many cases doing so in a highly critical manner. That does not make them griefers.
The difference in your case is that you are not here posting your opinion about any claim of fact or idea. You are here as a self-appointed moral judge of me and the people who post here. Some of your moral pronouncements are based on some invented idea of what you think I am or I should be doing. The rest of your moral pronouncements are based on your half-baked understanding of the TOS and your taking it to have Talmudic force over which you alone have some divinely inspired interpretive authority.
Get off your high horse Coco. You have no right to judge me nor anyone else here. You have no authority to tell me what I as an academic should be doing, nor do you have the authority to tell me as a gamer running a fan site what should be doing. It is my site, and I don’t need to subscribe to your rules for how my site should be run. You are not God. You have no right whatsoever to tell me how to run this site.
Furthermore, God (who, recall, is *not* identical to you)did not make you the author of The Rules of the Game. People will invent their own rules of play in TSO and you have no authority to judge the rules they choose to play by. Finally you are in no position to judge the people here that make their living by providing valuable economic services in what is, in point of fact, a very large virtual economy.
The reason that you are the worst kind of griefer is that most griefers merely attempt to disrupt a site by spamming it with abusive language of some form. You do this, carefully wrapping your abuse and disruptive behavior in the mantle of the language of “rules” and “morality” and “proper behavior” but that only makes you worse than the common griefer. It makes you worse because you are griefer while at the same time you take on the airs of one who is morally superior. And that, Coco, is why I find you the most morally repulsive griefer in this game.
Calso
Mar 20th, 2004
With all the criticism you dish out Uri why is it you are so unable to accept any yourself?
Calling Coco the worst kind of griefer is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. She has done no more in expressing herself to you than you yourself have done to others, yet for some reason it’s different when it has to do with you personally.
Can we say double standard?
I too had much respect for you in the beginning; I’ve been reading this blog for months and enjoyed it for the most part. But when you start baring your teeth at people some real ugliness of character shows and taints the respect I once had for you and this blog.
I know, I know… You don’t give a flying fig, and that’s too bad in my opinion.
LM
Mar 20th, 2004
Awww, Uri… I can’t help it now, I feel sorry for you.
You said: “Don’t tell me how to spend my free time.” Where in my comment did I tell you how to spend your free time? Man… you are *not* that delusional — I *know* you are not.
Nor, fellow soul, did I tell you *what* language to use — I simply told you that I was disappointed in you. That is a heartfelt response on my part and the only way to describe how I felt. And since you invite comments here, that is why I told you how I felt.
No, I am not your mother, Uri — but from just where is your emotional reponse which prompted you to state that springing?
Coco, you and I apparently are threatening to assume Mother and/or God-like powers in Uri’s mind (which is the stronger power I wonder?) — else why would he feel the need to rail against us using those particular nouns?
Awww, Jeez. I am thinking it is one of two things: either Uri really *does* feel these things — or he does not, and is just trying to stir the pot. Either way, it is fascinating, and come to think of it, I believe I shall start saving this particular discourse for a book of my own.
You quite obviously give a flying fig, dear Uri, or your responses would not contain the heat that they do.
LM
RB
Mar 20th, 2004
Coco, chill alright. Just chill.
your old fashioned and out of touch.
Your a board ho, im a board ho. A few others are board ho’s too.
Anything you do constantly and frequently without change can be quite crudely referred to as “whoring” .
It’s is not a common term, mainly used in online gaming circles. FPS (first person shooter) most especially. If someone ALWAYS uses a rocket launcher for instance, they can be called a rocket whore. Whoring or being a ho at something follows the same lines as “hoarding” . But istead of getting things and keeping them to grow a bigger collection , it is the fact of what you do repeditivly (yeah can’t spell that) and quite frequently.
You are a morals whore Coco, because that’s all you appear to do here. Is preach the repugnent evils of all kinds of things. This is nothing personal, But merely an education on the correct usage of crude slang and terms not used in mainstream but limited to specialist areas.
Uri was in no way implying you sell sex like the traditional defination of the word. When used properly and correctly as explained above it can not be offensive at all to some people and sometimes even amusing. As it just pokes fun at and bags what someone does far too much.
TY, that was todays social lesson on the intrinsiques (yeah you bet i spelled that wrong too) of specialist and sometimes underground speech.
Good day to you.
- RB
Cocoanut
Mar 20th, 2004
Thank you for clarifying that bit of slang, RB. Yes, I would be a board ho if that means posting on a board a lot and over a length of time. (But not if it means hating, Maxis fluffing, or – lol – being someone no one wants to sleep with.)
Ok, and so if I am a morals ho, that would make you, Uri, and many of the other posters here cheat ho’s?
As for Uri’s point of view (as always, much more nastily put than yours, RB), what it boils down to is I’m against cheating. “Cheating” being defined as cheat bots and other things against TOS.
Now RB, I’ve got a feeling you (if you haven’t already) would be the first to admit, yep, the pizza bot is cheating; so what.
Uri, on the other hand, goes into contortions to maintain that the rules of the game are in fact some nebulous concept floating in outer space that has nothing to do with, or should have nothing to do with, people’s actual conduct in the game. That the fact that third-party cheat bots are against the rules is completely irrelevant in terms of “people’s games”, and that no one has any “right” to make the judgment that they are relevant, and wrong.
Since I am apparently head morals ho around here, I will make yet another “judgment”: That an honest cheater is morally superior to a deluded one. (Or at least more intelligent.)
The major thing I talk about on these boards in terms of morals is cheating, and I do make that point a lot. On the other hand, half this board is ABOUT cheating.
So, because I call people on cheating where calling them is appropriate, this somehow makes me the most morally repulsive griefer in the game. (That in itself is a moral judgment.)
Seems to me that really all it boils down to is Uri doesn’t want me stating my opinion that cheating is wrong (or whatever other opinion I state that is counter to his). He doesn’t want me to say what I think here.
And RB, think about it: If you think back on the posts I have made on this board, many of them have to do with defending Dyerbrook as an honest (relatively speaking) person; defending the BDSM community for their right to do their thing; and probably some other things, like talking about the facts of the professor’s own case as I understand them (and taking the professor’s word on those facts where no other confirmation is available).
You may not like my opinion that breaking the rules of any game is wrong. But I don’t like your opinion that breaking the rules is okay.
coco
urizenus
Mar 20th, 2004
Coco, you are completely missing the point. My point is not that it’s good to break the rules. My point is that Coco does not get to tell us what the rules are. God did not make Coco Game-Master and Keeper of the R00lz.
RB, thanks for the vocabulary lesson. Exactly right, you old Board Ho you. Now maybe you can explain the gamerz use of ‘fluffer’ to Coco. And we haven’t used ‘camping bitch’ yet, but its bound to come up, so let’s pre-empt that one too with a quick definition.
And LM and Calso, I would like to respond to your points, but I was unable to locate any, except that you don’t like me and you took intro to Psychology once and may or may not have passed. Well, thanks for sharing.
Ian
Mar 20th, 2004
Uri, just one word (well maybe three) LOL….your witty comments always crack me up. R00lz LOL
Coco, I have seen your posts on Stratics and wow, you are just a “Board Bitch”, go suck on Maxis’/EA’s tet.
RB
Mar 20th, 2004
Coco,
“Now RB, I’ve got a feeling you (if you haven’t already) would be the first to admit, yep, the pizza bot is cheating; so what.”
Damm straight. lol. Bots are cheating. so what. I don’t use em personally, but does’nt mean others won’t do it for me.
I make alot more manipulating the system legitimatley. no, no one ask.
“You may not like my opinion that breaking the rules of any game is wrong. But I don’t like your opinion that breaking the rules is okay.”
Ok, well at least we agree that we don’t like each other.
Uri,
“Now maybe you can explain the gamerz use of ‘fluffer’ to Coco. And we haven’t used ‘camping bitch’ yet, but its bound to come up, so let’s pre-empt that one too with a quick definition.”
The term fluffer is not familiar to me. ive never used it nor seen it used. And C.B can’t be used here or in TSO, it’s too exact i think.
- RB
Baetty
Mar 20th, 2004
Ok,
Uzi, it doesnt sound like you know what you are talking about, first of all, if someone gets scammed then they can “barate” them once, and then they show up on the scammers web. Keep in mind that they can add a comment even if they are not enemies yet. I also dont appreciate being called a “ho”.
Although mafias were not all bad, it was bringing more bad to the game than good. The people who got tagged by griefers and people that “wanted in” the mafias were leaving the game. There were complaints to maxis all the time. The current system we had didnt make sense. period. This system actually has some thought in it, people are more social (for now) and it completely changed TC. So we will see what mafias come up with to keep roleplaying (which they can do with this new system)
Mafias can still tag eachother without being enemies…trust me, there are ways that if mafias really wanted to roleplay, then they could. Obviously you havn’t tried this new version on TC, if you have, then it doesnt sound like it.
As long as you talk to the person in IM or whatever, it will not decay. As babyish as the people that complained about being tagged were, tehre were way more of them than there were people wanting them to keep tagging in game (from maxis’ point of view anyways. And these people were paying customers, people that kept leaving the game kept filling out the survey on why they left the game, and most of the surveys had tagging as part of the reason of leaving. People would say “maxis why dont you do anything about tagging?!”
Say what you want, be immature and call the MBers hos, if thats what you really feel about us
LM
Mar 21st, 2004
Hmmm…
Ah, well… If you fail to see my point, Uri, then you are thick or in denial. Either way, I understand your need to maintain the viability of your construct.
Good luck to you; I hope you are getting what you need from all of this.
Still observing and recording it, because, well, it IS still a fascinating study (don’t know how long it will remain that way, though)…
LM
Tory
Mar 21st, 2004
Uri said:
“The rest of your moral pronouncements are based on your half-baked understanding of the TOS and your taking it to have Talmudic force over which you alone have some divinely inspired interpretive authority.”
I find the term “half-baked understanding” really telling here. Let’s see, who was banned by Maxis for their “understanding” of the TOS? Who then launched a campaign against Maxis for not allowing free speech in the game?
Seems to me that someone who plays by the rules and has never been banned from the game (and therefore all EA games) would have a better grasp on how to interpret the TOS than someone whose interpretation got them thrown out in the first place.
Then again, maybe it’s just me.
TJ
urizenus
Mar 21st, 2004
Torid, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that I was in fact in violation of the TOS when terminated. As observed here, there were no links whatsoever to any outside sites at the time. That’s just the fact of the matter.
But this is not the issue. Coco’s error was in thinking that selling simoleans was against the TOS. (discussed in the in one of the threads below). This is not the case. You can sell simoleans so long as you do not advertise them in game.
Cocoanut
Mar 21st, 2004
You are exactly right, Uri. Another poster referred me to a rather obscure question/answer/search section where the correct answer was given. I was basing my answer on what I had been told by a mod and on the TOS as it is stated on the Terms of Agreement page.
However, as you point out, this was then superceded by the question/answer section which specifically addressed the practice. So I learned something new.
Just as you learned something new after you accused me of being another poster, “thanksaloturi,” due to the similarity in our IP’s. Although I protested that it was not me, you pretty much laughed at me and patted me on the head when I said I was not. (“Yes, yes, coco…”)
You would not take my word for it, even though I have been willing to take your word when you state that you had removed the link to your website some hours before you discovered your ban had been put into effect.
Then something happened. Someone must have comfirmed to you that two people can have the same IP, because on a thread somewhere below, I noticed you explaining that to someone else – as if you’d known it all along.
You aren’t infallible either.
Show me your Rules of Conduct for this site. I need to peruse them to find rule 14-C, or whatever it is, that states, “Coco does not get to tell us what the rules are.”
For a person who champions free speech, that statement – that I can’t talk about what the rules of the game are – sounds pretty ridiculous, don’t you think?
coco
urizenus
Mar 21st, 2004
Coco, you are free to tell us what you think would make for good rules, and you are free to tell us that you think there are some set of RULES of HOW TO PLAY TSO and that you know what they are. It does not follow that you are thereby telling us what the rules *are*. That is to say, your claims do not have normative force and we are not bound by them, whatever you may think. Accordingly, when you judge us for not following *your* rules, I think it is entirely appropriate for us to tell you to take a hike.
Finally, I think it is just a matter of gross error on your part to think that a MMORPG platform like TSO does or should or even could have a single set of rules for everyone. But you are free to express gross errors here. If I ever get around to shutting up people that are wildly wrong about things I’ll have to shut myself up first.
Cocoanut
Mar 21st, 2004
Well, they do. It’s called the TOS.
coco
urizenus
Mar 21st, 2004
Wrong Coco, the TOS is a contract between the user and the corporation, it is not a set of rules governing play within the game.
Cocoanut
Mar 21st, 2004
So it is therefore okay to use pizza bots, i.e., third-party programs?
coco
urizenus
Mar 22nd, 2004
At worst, someone using a pizza bot is in violation of their contract with with EA. That is a matter between EA and the bot user, and does not affect me or you in the slightest (if EA doesn’t care enough to declare the contract void why should I care about it?). No rights of yours or mine are being violated by the breach.
Furthermore, it is not my job to punish people for alleged breach of contracts with large corporations. I’m not a civil attorney nor an expert in contract law, nor am I myself a judge in a civil court of law, nor can I predict what a civil court would do if a pizza-bot case came before it, which it won’t, because EA doesn’t care enough to try and void such contracts and probably figures they would lose in any case. If you want to stick your nose in the contractual relations holding between others, well go ahead, but you have no business being there and any opinion you express on the matter has no authority whatsoever and is only so much noise.
Closer to home, it IS clear that the use of money generated by a pizza bot violates no terms of the contract whatsoever, so if people want to buy and sell simoleans so generated that is their business. If you don’t like it, well too bad for you. If you object that the practice is wrong you are advocating an alleged moral principle that is constructed out of thin air.