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Something I've noticed about some who defend this and other MMOs
ArcAngel3
Member Posts: 2,931
MMOs are usually fairly complex, having a number of different systems or aspects to the game. For example, you often have PvE combat, PvP combat, exploration, badge-hunting, crafting, socializing etc.
Often times bugs, issues or revamps hit some of these aspects very hard, and leave others relatively untouched. For example, those feeling the sting of recent revamps to CoX include crafting badgers and PvP players. Some like the merit system, but those who ran TF's mainly for rare recipe drops now may have to do the same TF four times before they can get the same recipe that they used to get after doing it once. That's not a slam on the merit system by the way, but it is a commentary on the calculations used to determine the time-sink.
I've noticed that people who are directly affected by unwanted issues or changes will express concern over these, understandably. I've then noticed that these comments tend to be followed by criticisms made by people who are not directly affected. For example, I've noticed that some of those who are most critical of PvPers have never really PvPed in the game, and have really no intention of doing so now.
I'm thinking that there could be more helpful interaction if instead of immediately jumping to the attack, people who are not directly affected by something would take the time to listen or do some research. You can be a very intelligent person and still not know everything that is going on in your MMO, and you may not know how changes affect your neighbour.
If it affects others though, it will very likely have an indirect impact on your own gaming experience. I think more listening and investigation would serve the game (and all players) better in the long run, rather than an uninformed, knee-jerk, critical response. Just a thought.
Comments
People generally want games to be made easier for themselves and harder for others. How is one supposed to advocate that without saying that things that mess up other people but don't affect you are really good updates?
I do believe you're catching my drift ^_^. I think it's called ego-centrism, and it doesn't really make for a healthy community experience--gaming or otherwise does it?
I do believe you're catching my drift ^_^. I think it's called ego-centrism, and it doesn't really make for a healthy community experience--gaming or otherwise does it?
Why can't I13 be called a good update except for the pvp changes? Saying an entire issue was bad because it harms a small percentage of the playerbase is even more ego-centric.
It's interesting that you've cottoned onto ego-centrism because that's exactly what I saw in your original post.
Your OP - a huge generalisation - paints anyone who has a point of view different to your own as uninformed, thoughtless and negative. Rather than talking about the game, you've crossed over into making negative personal statements about other forum members.
Not a healthy community experience...
There's a troll on top of me!
I do believe you're catching my drift ^_^. I think it's called ego-centrism, and it doesn't really make for a healthy community experience--gaming or otherwise does it?
Why can't I13 be called a good update except for the pvp changes? Saying an entire issue was bad because it harms a small percentage of the playerbase is even more ego-centric.
I haven't read anywhere in this thread where anyone said that the whole issue was bad. Who or what are you responding to?
The answer is simple, when people enjoy something and then someone goes and changes it on you and makes it worse for you, you get upset.
Ego-centrism? Of fucking course it is, why the hell else would you be playing a video game? For the sake of others?
"Ah well they nerfed the hell out of my class, but its ok because they gave your class a whole bunch of buffs so its all good!"
Naw, thats never gonna happen.
It's interesting that you've cottoned onto ego-centrism because that's exactly what I saw in your original post.
Your OP - a huge generalisation - paints anyone who has a point of view different to your own as uninformed, thoughtless and negative. Rather than talking about the game, you've crossed over into making negative personal statements about other forum members.
Not a healthy community experience...
Hmm well, I don't think anyone with a different point of view is thoughtless or negative, and I haven't attacked anyone. Actually I said that people who may not know what their neighbour is experiencing could be very intelligent. (Yes that's in the OP, and I meant it, feel free to confirm). They may just be unaware of certain recent changes or how they are impacting others. I surely don't think that discussing an apparent lack of awareness is some kind of attack, as you suggest.
I really didn't expect that highlighting something like this would evoke such hostility. I guess I've learned something else lol. Players may not realize how game changes affect others, and if you attempt to point this out, some will become quite hostile 0_o. I guess I'll treat this as another learning experience.
I do have to wonder though, why so hostile about an encouragement to try to investigate how game changes impact your fellow players?
Lol gotta love the honesty here ^_^. Yes I agree that it's ego-centric to get pissed off when someone ruins your fun. I also think it's only human, and don't see this as a bad thing. Of course people get ticked when you take things from them, break things, or chuck out their progress.
Maybe it has something to do with my childhood (my mom was really nice lol), but when I hear that someone else is going through that, I don't automatically think of ways to dismiss their concerns and attack them. For example, I've never played a stalker in CoV, but I understand why stalkers are upset about the massive reduction in the damage they can do. I've never played a dominator, but I understand that holding someone for only 2 seconds now, and doing very little damage, is probably a lot less fun than being able to hold them longer and actually do some damage. I don't use superjump powers, but I understand how frustrating it must be to have this suppressed in a pvp zone. I've also never been interested in crafting badges, at all, but I understand how much of a pain it must be to have Positron go back on his word and put badges out of reach.
I guess what puzzles me, is why some others have a hard time getting this. You say that your crafting game was just borked, and people tell you to stop whining and/or leave if you don't like it. Really, what's up with that?
Wouldn't it make for a better gaming experience if we heard about people getting kicked in the groin by a new revamp, and instead of turning on them, we'd actually listen and try to understand what's going on? We may even discover that our own gaming experience may also be indirectly affected, and not always for the good.
The problem Arc is you have historically argued your points reasonably and intelligently with people who have never displayed either. You are, unfortunately, listening to people who type because they have fingers, not because they have anything worth saying, or worth hearing. You seem to have noticed the trend, you question or criticize some aspect of a game and some assclown pops up claiming you're evil for doing so. When was the last time you had an intelligent exchange about some game aspect on this forum? Too many people with nothing better to do than defend some game that has never done anything for them but take their money and waste their time. Your best bet is to ignore such people, they don't reciprocate the respect and benefit of the doubt that you extend them and you not convincing them is of no consequence to either of you. its like arguing with your echo. Write them, and any expectation of objectivity, off for good. Having all too often been in your place, I say this for your own good. Leave them their illusions...
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." -Edmund Burke
Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?"
(Psalm 94:16)
I believe that you have just given me a gift. I'll try to accept it, and I see the wisdom. I'm really quite thankful ^_^. See you on the boards my friend.
/Salute
Np bro.
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." -Edmund Burke
Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?"
(Psalm 94:16)
It's interesting that you've cottoned onto ego-centrism because that's exactly what I saw in your original post.
Your OP - a huge generalisation - paints anyone who has a point of view different to your own as uninformed, thoughtless and negative. Rather than talking about the game, you've crossed over into making negative personal statements about other forum members.
Not a healthy community experience...
Hmm well, I don't think anyone with a different point of view is thoughtless or negative, and I haven't attacked anyone. Actually I said that people who may not know what their neighbour is experiencing could be very intelligent. (Yes that's in the OP, and I meant it, feel free to confirm). They may just be unaware of certain recent changes or how they are impacting others. I surely don't think that discussing an apparent lack of awareness is some kind of attack, as you suggest.
I really didn't expect that highlighting something like this would evoke such hostility. I guess I've learned something else lol. Players may not realize how game changes affect others, and if you attempt to point this out, some will become quite hostile 0_o. I guess I'll treat this as another learning experience.
I do have to wonder though, why so hostile about an encouragement to try to investigate how game changes impact your fellow players?
Hostile? What exactly in my post is hostile? I disagree with you and merely suggest that you have displayed the same characteristic (ego-centrism) you've accused others of - and if said accusation is hostile, wouldn't that make yours the first act of hostility?
As for why I bothered to post, I think your OP does cross the line a bit into a broad, generalised personal attack - which is uncivilised behaviour for this kind of forum. It doesn't discuss the game - just the potential personal deficiencies of those who disagree with you.
"I think more listening and investigation would serve the game (and all players) better in the long run, rather than an uninformed, knee-jerk, critical response."
This is a nice summary of your post. While you've layed on the "they may be intelligent" you've also clearly throughout painted those who disagree with you as uninformed, thoughtless and negative.
People can disagree with you and be perfectly aware of how game changes affect other players. They may just not care. They may also, as I imagine the game developers did, weigh all considerations and decide that on balance, the changes are good.
Not that I necessarily think they are good - CoX has an incredibly rocky history when it comes to swinging the nerf bat and some of the changes that sparked this thread will make the game less enjoyable. But the game developers' ultimate goal isn't to make the game more enjoyable - it's to milk more money out of it. That means striking a delicate balance between fun and grind to keep people playing and paying for as long as possible.
It's interesting that you've cottoned onto ego-centrism because that's exactly what I saw in your original post.
Your OP - a huge generalisation - paints anyone who has a point of view different to your own as uninformed, thoughtless and negative. Rather than talking about the game, you've crossed over into making negative personal statements about other forum members.
Not a healthy community experience...
Hmm well, I don't think anyone with a different point of view is thoughtless or negative, and I haven't attacked anyone. Actually I said that people who may not know what their neighbour is experiencing could be very intelligent. (Yes that's in the OP, and I meant it, feel free to confirm). They may just be unaware of certain recent changes or how they are impacting others. I surely don't think that discussing an apparent lack of awareness is some kind of attack, as you suggest.
I really didn't expect that highlighting something like this would evoke such hostility. I guess I've learned something else lol. Players may not realize how game changes affect others, and if you attempt to point this out, some will become quite hostile 0_o. I guess I'll treat this as another learning experience.
I do have to wonder though, why so hostile about an encouragement to try to investigate how game changes impact your fellow players?
Hostile? What exactly in my post is hostile? I disagree with you and merely suggest that you have displayed the same characteristic (ego-centrism) you've accused others of - and if said accusation is hostile, wouldn't that make yours the first act of hostility?
As for why I bothered to post, I think your OP does cross the line a bit into a broad, generalised personal attack - which is uncivilised behaviour for this kind of forum. It doesn't discuss the game - just the potential personal deficiencies of those who disagree with you.
"I think more listening and investigation would serve the game (and all players) better in the long run, rather than an uninformed, knee-jerk, critical response."
This is a nice summary of your post. While you've layed on the "they may be intelligent" you've also clearly throughout painted those who disagree with you as uninformed, thoughtless and negative.
People can disagree with you and be perfectly aware of how game changes affect other players. They may just not care. They may also, as I imagine the game developers did, weigh all considerations and decide that on balance, the changes are good.
Not that I necessarily think they are good - CoX has an incredibly rocky history when it comes to swinging the nerf bat and some of the changes that sparked this thread will make the game less enjoyable. But the game developers' ultimate goal isn't to make the game more enjoyable - it's to milk more money out of it. That means striking a delicate balance between fun and grind to keep people playing and paying for as long as possible.
Oh hi there again Green. Well, I think what may be at issue here is the difficulty presented by communicating tone in written form.
You see, I really don't think that people are thoughtless or negative, and I really do have no intention of attacking people. I'll try to refer to the OP again for clarity. You see, most of the responses I've received in this particular forum (not yours) have come from people that eventually admitted they hadn't played the aspects of the game I was commenting on. I provided the PvP game as an example.
Even though they haven't played that part of the game, they were quick to dismiss anyone who raised concerns about it, and at times the language used came across as derogatory. So you see, my observation really was about a specific situation. Some folks really admitted not knowing what they were talking about, but saw fit to criticize others for raising concerns anyways.
I've seen this on these boards, but also saw this quite a bit on the official forums for CoX. Since it was a recurring pattern that seemed to get in the way of helpful dialogue, I thought I would highlight it and encourage a new, possibly more positive, direction.
To say that I'm attacking people, suggests to me that you weren't really getting the message I was trying to send. I think you really assumed I was attacking people, and that this came from self-centered motivation on my part. The way you addressed me therefore came across as somewhat reactionary, which would be understandable if this is what I was doing.
I could be wrong of course, but that's what seemed to be happening. So, just to be clear, this is really about those who admit not knowing much about part of an MMO but see fit to criticize other players anyways when they raise concerns about it.
Hopefully that makes more sense, and doesn't sound like a generalized attack on other players ^_^. I still feel that this pattern exists for some, and that listening and doing a little research would be more productive than just criticizing people for highlighting their concerns. If I'm critiquing anything, it's a pattern of communication, not people.
I came into this post feeling as if I might have to disagree but after seeing your point I've often felt the same way about a lot of things, our lack of objectivity is often stunning to me.
But just taking mmos for example it is crazy seeing the games that have been wrecked or heavily influenced in a bad way by the community SWG does fall into this category as well believe it or not.
This problem though is going to rear it's head alot more in pvp games as pve since what is had by other players will adversely afect them.
Another good example is STO people scream from the mountain top about having a game where everyone can't be a captain of a ship from start that they should have to work on "crews" and earn the right which can actually be done in game if you so choose to join a "guild" and do that I believe, but even if not most of those opposed to the idea don't take into account those that it would ruin the experience for if that were the case, Star Trek was a sci fi show about a ship it's crew and their exploration of space.
I can't call it really I like to think that a happy medium exists in most things but often times you get the feeling that the sentiment is becoming more rare everyday.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Agreed; well said. I think this problem really shows up when developers take an approach that addresses one target audience's preference at the expense of another's. It seems like either/or thinking, or "splitting" as we say in my business. I'm sure that some of this is unavoidable, but at the same time I'm sure that some huge player schisms in MMOs could have been avoided by more skillful community management.
This can show itself in beta testing of course (like STO), and probably that's where it should be resolved for the most part. I think it really becomes unfortunate when target audience shifts occur in a live game though.
This happens to be the case with the CoX PvP revamp especially. The original system is suited to those who prefer fast-paced, 3D, super-powered combat, with multiple power variations. There is a learning curve to be sure for building a character suited to this, and for learning to move, attack and counter powers effectively. There's also a learning curve related to how to utilize various archetypes together in teams for the power combinations.
That all seemed to get chucked out the window in favour of a slow moving, movement suppressed game, with diminished power effectiveness. What this leaves is more toe-to-toe button mashing that tends to go on for a long time, until someone dies or hits the phase shift button--tbh.
This is a fairly major paradigm shift for a live game, and it really has hit a lot of the PvP players hard, which brings us back to my original point. Game changes can hit some players really hard while leaving others relatively untouched. I think it would be nice if people recognized this, and did a little listening before jumping to the attack--in defense of their MMO of choice.
I'm not sure that this will ever change in MMOs really, but it would be nice.
It's interesting that you've cottoned onto ego-centrism because that's exactly what I saw in your original post.
Your OP - a huge generalisation - paints anyone who has a point of view different to your own as uninformed, thoughtless and negative. Rather than talking about the game, you've crossed over into making negative personal statements about other forum members.
Not a healthy community experience...
Hmm well, I don't think anyone with a different point of view is thoughtless or negative, and I haven't attacked anyone. Actually I said that people who may not know what their neighbour is experiencing could be very intelligent. (Yes that's in the OP, and I meant it, feel free to confirm). They may just be unaware of certain recent changes or how they are impacting others. I surely don't think that discussing an apparent lack of awareness is some kind of attack, as you suggest.
I really didn't expect that highlighting something like this would evoke such hostility. I guess I've learned something else lol. Players may not realize how game changes affect others, and if you attempt to point this out, some will become quite hostile 0_o. I guess I'll treat this as another learning experience.
I do have to wonder though, why so hostile about an encouragement to try to investigate how game changes impact your fellow players?
Hostile? What exactly in my post is hostile? I disagree with you and merely suggest that you have displayed the same characteristic (ego-centrism) you've accused others of - and if said accusation is hostile, wouldn't that make yours the first act of hostility?
As for why I bothered to post, I think your OP does cross the line a bit into a broad, generalised personal attack - which is uncivilised behaviour for this kind of forum. It doesn't discuss the game - just the potential personal deficiencies of those who disagree with you.
"I think more listening and investigation would serve the game (and all players) better in the long run, rather than an uninformed, knee-jerk, critical response."
This is a nice summary of your post. While you've layed on the "they may be intelligent" you've also clearly throughout painted those who disagree with you as uninformed, thoughtless and negative.
People can disagree with you and be perfectly aware of how game changes affect other players. They may just not care. They may also, as I imagine the game developers did, weigh all considerations and decide that on balance, the changes are good.
Not that I necessarily think they are good - CoX has an incredibly rocky history when it comes to swinging the nerf bat and some of the changes that sparked this thread will make the game less enjoyable. But the game developers' ultimate goal isn't to make the game more enjoyable - it's to milk more money out of it. That means striking a delicate balance between fun and grind to keep people playing and paying for as long as possible.
Oh hi there again Green. Well, I think what may be at issue here is the difficulty presented by communicating tone in written form.
You see, I really don't think that people are thoughtless or negative, and I really do have no intention of attacking people. I'll try to refer to the OP again for clarity. You see, most of the responses I've received in this particular forum (not yours) have come from people that eventually admitted they hadn't played the aspects of the game I was commenting on. I provided the PvP game as an example.
Even though they haven't played that part of the game, they were quick to dismiss anyone who raised concerns about it, and at times the language used came across as derogatory. So you see, my observation really was about a specific situation. Some folks really admitted not knowing what they were talking about, but saw fit to criticize others for raising concerns anyways.
I've seen this on these boards, but also saw this quite a bit on the official forums for CoX. Since it was a recurring pattern that seemed to get in the way of helpful dialogue, I thought I would highlight it and encourage a new, possibly more positive, direction.
To say that I'm attacking people, suggests to me that you weren't really getting the message I was trying to send. I think you really assumed I was attacking people, and that this came from self-centered motivation on my part. The way you addressed me therefore came across as somewhat reactionary, which would be understandable if this is what I was doing.
I could be wrong of course, but that's what seemed to be happening. So, just to be clear, this is really about those who admit not knowing much about part of an MMO but see fit to criticize other players anyways when they raise concerns about it.
Hopefully that makes more sense, and doesn't sound like a generalized attack on other players ^_^. I still feel that this pattern exists for some, and that listening and doing a little research would be more productive than just criticizing people for highlighting their concerns. If I'm critiquing anything, it's a pattern of communication, not people.
You know an important rule of communication is that the communicator has to get his point to the reciever. See what you did above is to blame (I am "sure" you didn't mean it) for not getting your message. Here is a better way, say you didn't send the message properly (oh a self-admission!) then rephrase the original message in a way which is better for the person you are writing it for. What you have done (doesn't matter if you meant it or not) is turn it into personalization because he didn't get your message (it comes out as he is at fault).
Now forget the above if you are only concerned with posturing.
I got what he was saying exactly the firts time he mentioned it. The guy who was attacking him is at fault for not understanding what he was trying to get across, so, perhaps you could take some of your snooty, thinly masked attack and go elsewhere.
Issue 13 had both good and bad results, the good is that the merit system makes it easier to afford hard to get or expensive recipes (125-200 merits is better than 50-100 mil recipe) and people doing TF rolls are making at least 200 million a week by flipping the market with them. An ITF runs with the same people or VG/SG (or coalition network) averages 50-70 minutes and several do it more than once a day, sure is a whole lot better than sitting in Battle Maiden or liberate TV farms.
The bad is the pvp changes, it left such a negative impact in zone pvp (one of my favorite pastimes before i13), more people has phase shift/hibernate/personal force field/blahblahblah and defense sets are broken because when I had capped tohit I was unable to hit an SR scrapper, another thing is the taunt's -range debuff. The outcome of the pvp changes has made the pvp zones much quieter (even Freedom's) and drove away many hardcore pvpers (many pvp SG/VGs has gotten quiet).
What I never understand is why devs dont play the game, no I dont mean the game they are developing, but play the customer support game.
Let me give you an example, lets say a certain game has 3 classes, Fighter, Mage, Rogue
They discover they need to nerf Rogue and Mages dmg a little, but they decide fighters defense isnt up to par. So if they dont play the game the notes go like this:
Mage:
Fire Mages damage reduces to balance
Rogue:
Rogue stealth strikes damage reduced to balance
Fighter:
Defense increased to balance
Now every fighter reading this is goind "HELL YEAH" and every Mage and Rogue is saying "WTF they nerf us and buff fighters, thats BS"
Now if the devs had played the game, the notes would read:
Mage:
Fire Mages damage slightly reduced, they were doing way more damage than was intended. Mana regeration increased and power recharge slightly increased.
Rogue:
Rogue stealth strikes were determined to do to much damage, stealth defense and power recharge time slightly increased to compensate.
Fighter:
Fighter defense was found to be less effective than designed, defense increased to compensate. Fighter stamina use for defending againest attacks slightly increased.
Now this post gives both negative/positive things happening to each class, to make the statements true, this is what the devs did:
Mage: Dmg -10%, mana use -.1%, recharge time increased .1%
Rogue: Dmg -15%, stealth defense +.1%, recharge time increased .1%
Fighter: Def +10%, stamina use per attack increased .1%
Thats you saw .1% (with the period), the statements ring true but the knee jerk reaction isnt anti-fighter, later all anyone is thinking of is how much is slightly across the board. So as usual no way to keep the devs from being bashed, but the community doesnt immediatly begin attacking each other based on class.
Now devs may actually play the game and use the first set of notes so that players attack each other in posts, rogues and mages attacking the change and fighters blindly defending it to keep some of the focus off those who decided to do it, but there is NO WAY to stop any negative change from being critized toward those who made them so the devs should man up and let themselves take all the heat and keep the community healthy.
Cith of Heroes/Villians
--------------------------
Heroes:
Xenomorph 50 scrapper - Virtue
Polar Force 50 Blaster - Virtue
Villians:
Rhino Hulk 50 Brute - Virtue
Destructor 48 Corruptor - Virtue
Currently playing:
DC Universe
Planetside 2
Magic Online
Simunomics, the Massive Multiplayer Economic Simulation Game. Play for free.
As always, well-written Arc. I'm just curious as to why you chose the City of Heroes forum to post this in, rather than the general forum? Sure, CoX is cited as the most recent example of this kneejerk defensive behavior but we see this across the board in several games.
I agree that egocentrism plays a role in these defensive attitudes but would also point your towards the concept of congitive dissonance as a motivator for these types of kneejerk reactions. Cognitive dissonance is a theory that says basically when people have an experience which directly conflicts with their beliefs, they suffer some amount of discomfort until they either a.) change their attitude so that aligns with the new experience or b.) reassure themselves that there really is no conflict with some type of personal rationalization. Please note, not everyone experiences this for a given situation.
One might experience cognitive dissonance while purchasing a new car -- it seems so expensive and counter to your purchasing habits thus you might experience some amount of regret for the first few days...unti you can justify it as a good purchase (it will pay for itself in the long run, you spend lots of time in the car commuting to work, chicks dig the car thus talking to you more, or you simply feel that you deserve it.) Or maybe you won't experience any conflict at all because you can afford the car.
I submit to you for consideration then that some mmo gamers experience a certain amount of cognitive dissonance when their game is criticized. I think you might agree that certain games, particularly mmos, can be woven into the identity of some individuals. And, considering the types of people on these boards (this is a board for mmo-enthusiasts after all), the likelihood of personal investment in a game is presumed to be a bit higher.
What would we expect to happen then if a game is criticized, a piece of someone's identity is effectively criticized?In the case of the pvp changes in CoX, the game is being criticized by PvPers yet the the non-pvp folk (as you point out) are still chiming in when there appears to be no direct vested interest as they don't play that part of the game or are generally ignorant of it. Well, for some, CoX is still the best game around (just as others believe LotRO, SWG, DFO is) and cannot necessarily handle that criticism -- in order to reconcile such differences, either they have to agree that the game is being hurt or they can tell the pvper's that they are wrong, the changes aren't that big of a deal and to get over it. Then the non-pvper feels better about CoX again.
I absolutely agree with you that there should be more listening and discourse about such changes but we're also dealing with the hurdles of fundamental psychology too.
As always, well-written Arc. I'm just curious as to why you chose the City of Heroes forum to post this in, rather than the general forum? Sure, CoX is cited as the most recent example of this kneejerk defensive behavior but we see this across the board in several games.
I agree that egocentrism plays a role in these defensive attitudes but would also point your towards the concept of congitive dissonance as a motivator for these types of kneejerk reactions. Cognitive dissonance is a theory that says basically when people have an experience which directly conflicts with their beliefs, they suffer some amount of discomfort until they either a.) change their attitude so that aligns with the new experience or b.) reassure themselves that there really is no conflict with some type of personal rationalization. Please note, not everyone experiences this for a given situation.
One might experience cognitive dissonance while purchasing a new car -- it seems so expensive and counter to your purchasing habits thus you might experience some amount of regret for the first few days...unti you can justify it as a good purchase (it will pay for itself in the long run, you spend lots of time in the car commuting to work, chicks dig the car thus talking to you more, or you simply feel that you deserve it.) Or maybe you won't experience any conflict at all because you can afford the car.
I submit to you for consideration then that some mmo gamers experience a certain amount of cognitive dissonance when their game is criticized. I think you might agree that certain games, particularly mmos, can be woven into the identity of some individuals. And, considering the types of people on these boards (this is a board for mmo-enthusiasts after all), the likelihood of personal investment in a game is presumed to be a bit higher.
What would we expect to happen then if a game is criticized, a piece of someone's identity is effectively criticized?In the case of the pvp changes in CoX, the game is being criticized by PvPers yet the the non-pvp folk (as you point out) are still chiming in when there appears to be no direct vested interest as they don't play that part of the game or are generally ignorant of it. Well, for some, CoX is still the best game around (just as others believe LotRO, SWG, DFO is) and cannot necessarily handle that criticism -- in order to reconcile such differences, either they have to agree that the game is being hurt or they can tell the pvper's that they are wrong, the changes aren't that big of a deal and to get over it. Then the non-pvper feels better about CoX again.
I absolutely agree with you that there should be more listening and discourse about such changes but we're also dealing with the hurdles of fundamental psychology too.
Oh hey there Rain, sorry I haven't visited the CoH boards in a while
. I agree with you on a number of points here. First off, yes, I do see this in all kinds of MMOs. Also, you're right in thinking that I'm discussing it here because of the recent PvP revamp, reaction, and counter-reaction, largely by unaffected players. Third, I completely agree with your cognitive dissonance hypothesis ^_^. Good point.
I guess sometimes I hope that people won't hold their schemas quite so rigidly. People, I think, often don't recognize their lenses, or why they happen to be quite so important to them--what function they serve if you will.
One thing I've noticed in MMOs is that some of the dynamics foster an emotional dependence on the games and/or their communities. I think you hit on this with your comments regarding identity. I think when this dependence is threatened in some way that the dissonance becomes particularly accute. I then think that people tend to take the approach that the best defense is a good offence, and people with legitimate concerns get shouted down, dismissed, misrepresented, insulted, etc. etc..
If I had more time and energy, I'd do some formal research on the sociology of MMOs lol. Toooo busy unfortunately. I think it would be a very rich area of study ^_^.