| From reading the earlier articles, I believe the player in question was -- * Going to PvP-specific areas only (i.e. areas where 'hero' player characters are meant to fight 'villain' player characters) * Using 'in-character' communication to indicate he wanted to fight villains, like heroes in that area supposedly do. His character was a hero. * Using a teleport power to move some nearby villain player characters near non-player-characters, who would then kill the villains. * Subsequently using 'in-character' communication to cheer about having killed villains. * This was a major issue because many, many players in those player-vs-player (hero vs villain) areas instead would use the areas for 'farming,' i.e. trying to get experience points (or in-character currency) by killing non-player-characters instead. * The 'written vs. unwritten rules' that he broke were specifically the customs of what players were actually doing in those areas (farming) vs what the game designers had intended them to do (kill each other). That conflict between the intended purpose of a game's aspects and how others reacted to it being used that way is the main focus of that professor's article. He seemed to expect for people to suspend their disbelief and remain fully in-character, i.e. following the game's ostensible in-character limitations. |
And, ah yes, farming! I think I love a player who disrupts that disgustingly boring cycle that ruins the interest in most online worlds. No wonder they hated him, he disrupted their farming!