Usually, people who troll online games are fourteen-year-old, curly haired little douchebags with no aim in life other than to make people miserable. At least Loyola University media professor David Myers has an excuse -- he was trolling City of Heroes and becoming one of the most unpopular players in the world, all in the name of social studies.
When Myers first played City of Heroes/Villains, he noticed that the heroes and villains were not strictly playing by the rules, instead peacefully co-existing with each other and often taking out computer-controlled opponents instead of opposing factions. He decided to change all that with Twixt, a rocketboot-powered teleporting superhero who would whisk player-controlled villains in front of a cartoon robot firing line for instant kills. He was not liked.
"I know (how Twixt plays) is considered 'legal' but this person is getting really out of hand," said one player on a message board. "This guy has got to go."
Unfortunately, Myers wasn't going anywhere, as he was incredibly difficult to defeat. Twixt's persistance, as well as his "Yay, heroes. Go good team. Vills lose again," victory cry, drove people to the brink. Soon, Myers was receiving death threats and verbal abuse. One person wished cancer upon his mother, another said simply that: "EVERYBODY HATES YOU!"
So, why did Myers, who is an avid videogamer outside of his work, strive to become the world's most hated City of Heroes player? To prove that "modern-day social groups making use of modern-day technology can revert to "medieval and crude" methods in trying to manipulate and control others."
You didn't really have to turn yourself into a social pariah in order to prove that, Myers. You could have just read the comments to any random PlayStation 3 blog article.
[Thanks, Wardrox]
Contest:
10:20 AM on 07.07.2009
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They should give this guy a break, as he's only doing his job. While I can understand that this might turn into more negeative gaming press, he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Let him play, draw his own conclusions and report.
As for the prof? Good. Let him do what he wants to do. People don't like it? Fight back.
Shit, WoW makes it so you can't even TALK to the other faction. It enforces the games universe.
City of Heros/Villians should take a page out of Blizzards Manual. And don't say, "Then Heros/Villians will become like WoW." All MMO's are basically the same. If you break the game down to it's lowest common denominator, they are all grind sessions.
Well yeah, Death Threats are taking it to far in any circumstances, the point is that this "experiment" was moronic and the conclusion boiled down to "If you annoy people they'll get pissed of" :P
Sure, it's amusing, maybe even interesting but science it ain't.
But seriously. If you wanted to know that "Gamer + Anonymity + Annoyance = Over the top reaction", EVERYONE KNOWS.
...And Good and Evil are known to work together for a common goal in many things besides CoX. Example: Uber Villain X intends to destroy world. Villain lives on world, and would not like to die. Hero is a hero. Hero and Villain team up, put aside their squabbles and kill UVX.
Also, SCIENTIFIC JOURNALISM.
The biggest shithole in the country
Sounds like he was playing the game correctly to me.
Oh by the way, this makes you a dbag.
You want to see the absolute worst trolling, go back 10 years to Ultima Onlines first days. This was before most developers knew just how horrible people can be via anonymous pixels.
This is the very reason why game design has to be dictorial instead of democratic. The trick is to cover up the rules and restrictions to not be so obvious, while enhancing "the fun".
SCIENCE INDEED.
Nobody uses Teleport.
Sort of like Jim.
SCIENCE !
Actually, SWP said that in the third post, with an image macro no less.
I guess the question is who is wrong?