Do players of virtual worlds have rights?
One of those questions that given my position, I shouldn't write about. No matter what, any answer I give is bound to be wrong, either from the perspective of my employers or my customers. Heck, even over on the non-commercial side of the fence, it's likely to raise some hackles among hardworking mud admins.
The pesky thing about rights is that they keep coming up. Players keep claiming that they have them. Admins keep liberally applying the word like some magic balm ("oh, you have every right to be upset…"), in every circumstance except the ones where the players want the notion of rights taken seriously. Of course, administrators of any virtual space are loathe to "grant players rights" because it curbs their ability to take action against people, restricts their ability to walk away from it all, holds them to standards they may not be able to live up to.
Here's a great example of a mud rights document from IgorMUD that I had to include, well, because:
>HELP RIGHTS
=============================================================================
Igor has adopted this bill of unalienable player rights, written by
Jacob Hallen aka Tintin:
PARAGRAPH 1
Every player has the right to be a frog.
PARAGRAPH 2
Should the system the player is on fail to implement the "being frog"
functionality, the player has a right to pretend he/she/it/Garlic is a frog.
PARAGRAPH 3
If a player does not exercise the right to be a frog, or to pretend to be one,
other players have a right to pretend it/she/Garlic/he is a frog.
==============================================================================
There's at least one theory of rights which says that rights aren't "granted" by anyone. They arise because the populace decides to grant them to themselves. Under this logic, the folks who rose up in France weren't looking for some king with a soon-to-be-foreshortened head to tell them, "You've got the right to live your lives freely." They told themselves that they had that right, and because they had said so, it was so. The flip side of this is that unless you continually fight to make that claim true, then it won't stick. The battleground is not a military one: it's a perception one; as long as everyone is convinced that people have rights, they do. They're inalienable only as long as only a minority does the, uh, aliening. And, of course, especially as long as they are enshrined in some sort of law. In other words, the guys in charge sign away a chunk of power, in writing, that the populace expects them to sign away.
There's another theory of rights which holds them to be intrinsic to people. Under this far more rigid standard, all those cultures which fail to grant them are benighted bastions of savagery. The harder part here is agreeing on what rights are intrinsic to all people everywhere-cultural differences tend to make that hard.
Many mud admins are of the belief that their muds are their private playgrounds. That they have discretion on how enters and who gets to stay. That they can choose to eject someone on any grounds whatsoever, can delete a character at a whim, can play favorites and choose to grant administrative favors to their friends. Even in pay-for-play circles, it is always made very clear who owns the data, who has to sign Terms of Service, etc. There's a bunch of this that is antithetical to the notion of rights.
Now, it's pretty clear that there are some rights which leak over from the real world into the virtual. If your local pay-for-play mud operator isn't providing adequate service, you can report them to the Better Business Bureau; there are probably sexual discrimination laws and harassment laws and slander laws that apply equally well in both kinds of space. But rights (and much less legislation) have not caught up to the notion of virtual spaces very well. Which makes for an interesting thought experiment.
What if we declared the rights of avatars?
I've based what follows on a couple of seminal documents: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen approved by the National Assembly of France on August 26 of 1789; and the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States, perhaps better known as the Bill of Rights. This is, perhaps, not the best basis from which to begin a stab at this hypothetical exercise, given our multicultural world today; some have suggested that a better starting point might be the United Nations Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I admit that one reason for choosing the version I did was its language, not its content per se.
So let's give it a whirl. This is all still hypothetical, OK?
When a time comes that new modes and venues exist for communities, and said modes are different enough from the existing ones that question arises as to the applicability of past custom and law; and when said venues have become a forum for interaction and society for the general public regardless of the intent of the creators of said venue; and at a time when said communities and spaces are rising in popularity and are now widely exploited for commercial gain; it behooves those involved in said communities and venues to affirm and declare the inalienable rights of the members of said communities. Therefore herein have been set forth those rights which are inalienable rights of the inhabitants of virtual spaces of all sorts, in their form henceforth referred to as avatars, in order that this declaration may continually remind those who hold power over virtual spaces and the avatars contained therein of their duties and responsibilities; in order that the forms of administration of a virtual space may be at any time compared to that of other virtual spaces; and in order that the grievances of players may hereafter be judged against the explicit rights set forth, to better govern the virtual space and improve the general welfare and happiness of all.
Therefore this document holds the following truths to be self-evident: That avatars are the manifestation of actual people in an online medium, and that their utterances, actions, thoughts, and emotions should be considered to be as valid as the utterances, actions, thoughts, and emotions of people in any other forum, venue, location, or space. That the well-established rights of man approved by the National Assembly of France on August 26th of 1789 do therefore apply to avatars in full measure saving only the aspects of said rights that do not pertain in a virtual space or which must be abrogated in order to ensure the continued existence of the space in question. That by the act of affirming membership in the community within the virtual space, the avatars form a social contract with the community, forming a populace which may and must self-affirm and self-impose rights and concomitant restrictions upon their behavior. That the nature of virtual spaces is such that there must, by physical law, always be a higher power or administrator who maintains the space and has complete power over all participants, but who is undeniably part of the community formed within the space and who must therefore take action in accord with that which benefits the space as well as the participants, and who therefore also has the rights of avatars and may have other rights as well. That the ease of moving between virtual spaces and the potential transience of the community do not limit or reduce the level of emotional and social involvement that avatars may have with the community, and that therefore the ease of moving between virtual spaces and the potential transience of the community do not in any way limit, curtail, or remove these rights from avatars on the alleged grounds that avatars can always simply leave.
Articles:
(Yes, I've had this knocking around my desk for that long.)
Lofty, eh? And I don't doubt that there's some folks out there right now seizing on this as an important document. For all I know, maybe it is.
But there's also some other folks who think that this exercise is plain dangerous. As an example, let me take a co-worker of mine to whom I showed an early draft. He pointed out that virtual world servers run on somebody's hardware. And that most declarations of rights give rights over personal property. By declaring that avatars have rights, we're abrogating that administrator's right to personal property.
Others point out that it's superfluous. After all, if virtual worlds are just extensions of the real world, then surely all the rights we already have apply?
What about if the virtual space in question is a game? Doesn't it, by its nature, obviate some of these rights?
And the biggie: what if you don't accept the basic premises in the prefatory paragraphs?
And that's where it gets interesting: in the details. I basically posted the document to a mailing list with a collection of the smartest virtual world admins and designers I know. Here's some of the various comments from admins from various walks of life, who got to see the original draft of this document (names hidden to protect the innocent, and remarks vastly paraphrased, because many of the objections were hypothetical ones).
| A Declaration of the Rights of Avatars |
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| When a time comes that new modes and venues exist for communities, and said modes are different enough from the existing ones that question arises as to the applicability of past custom and law; |
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| and when said venues have become a forum for interaction and society for the general public regardless of the intent of the creators of said venue; and at a time when said communities and spaces are rising in popularity and are now widely exploited for commercial gain; it behooves those involved in said communities and venues to affirm and declare the inalienable rights of the members of said communities. Therefore herein have been set forth those rights which are inalienable rights of the inhabitants of virtual spaces of all sorts, in their form henceforth referred to as avatars, in order that this declaration may continually remind those who hold power over virtual spaces and the avatars contained therein of their duties and responsibilities; in order that the forms of administration of a virtual space may be at any time compared to that of other virtual spaces; and in order that the grievances of players may hereafter be judged against the explicit rights set forth, to better govern the virtual space and improve the general welfare and happiness of all. |
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| Therefore this document holds the following truths to be self-evident: That avatars are the manifestation of actual people in an online medium, and that their utterances, actions, thoughts, and emotions should be considered to be as valid as the utterances, actions, thoughts, and emotions of people in any other forum, venue, location, or space. |
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| That the well-established rights of man approved by the National Assembly of France on August 26th of 1789 do therefore apply to avatars in full measure saving only the aspects of said rights that do not pertain in a virtual space or which must be abrogated in order to ensure the continued existence of the space in question. |
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| That by the act of affirming membership in the community within the virtual space, the avatars form a social contract with the community, forming a populace which may and must self-affirm and self-impose rights and concomitant restrictions upon their behavior. |
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| That the nature of virtual spaces is such that there must, by physical law, always be a higher power or administrator who maintains the space and has complete power over all participants, but who is undeniably part of the community formed within the space and who must therefore take action in accord with that which benefits the space as well as the participants, and who therefore also has the rights of avatars and may have other rights as well. |
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| That the ease of moving between virtual spaces and the potential transience of the community do not limit or reduce the level of emotional and social involvement that avatars may have with the community, and that therefore the ease of moving between virtual spaces and the potential transience of the community do not in any way limit, curtail, or remove these rights from avatars on the alleged grounds that avatars can always simply leave. |
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Articles:
1. Avatars are created free and equal in rights. Special powers or privileges shall be founded solely on the common good, and not based on whim, favoritism, nepotism, or the caprice of those who hold power. Those who act as ordinary avatars within the space shall all have only the rights of normal avatars. |
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| 2. The aim of virtual communities is the common good of its citizenry, from which arise the rights of avatars. Foremost among these rights is the right to be treated as people and not as disembodied, meaningless, soulless puppets. Inherent in this right are therefore the natural and inalienable rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. |
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| 3. The principle of all sovereignty in a virtual space resides in the inalterable fact that somewhere there resides an individual who controls the hardware on which the virtual space is running, and the software with which it is created, and the database which makes up its existence. However, the body populace has the right to know and demand the enforcement of the standards by which this individual uses this power over the community, as authority must proceed from the community; a community that does not know the standards by which the administrators use their power is a community which permits its administrators to have no standards, and is therefore a community abetting in tyranny. |
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| 4. Liberty consists of the freedom to do anything which injures no one else including the weal of the community as a whole and as an entity instantiated on hardware and by software; the exercise of the natural rights of avatars are therefore limited solely by the rights of other avatars sharing the same space and participating in the same community. These limits can only be determined by a clear code of conduct. |
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| 5. The code of conduct can only prohibit those actions and utterances that are hurtful to society, inclusive of the harm that may be done to the fabric of the virtual space via hurt done to the hardware, software, or data; and likewise inclusive of the harm that may be done to the individual who maintains said hardware, software, or data, in that harm done to this individual may result in direct harm done to the community. |
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| 6. The code of conduct is the expression of the general will of the community and the will of the individual who maintains the hardware and software that makes up the virtual space. Every member of the community has the right to contribute either directly or via representatives in the shaping of the code of conduct as the culture of the virtual space evolves, particularly as it evolves in directions that the administrator did not predict; the ultimate right of the administrator to shape and define the code of conduct shall not be abrogated, but it is clear that the administrator therefore has the duty and responsibility to work with the community to arrive at a code of conduct that is shaped by the input of the community. As a member of the community himself, the administrator would be damaging the community itself if he failed in this responsibility, for abrogation of this right of avatars could result in the loss of population and therefore damage to the common weal. |
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| 7. No avatar shall be accused, muzzled, toaded, jailed, banned, or otherwise punished except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by the code of conduct. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished, even if said individual is one who has been granted special powers or privileges within the virtual space. But any avatar summoned or arrested in virtue of the code of conduct shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense. |
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| 8. The code of conduct shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted according to the provisions of a code of conduct promulgated before the commission of the offense; save in the case where the offense endangered the continued existence of the virtual space by attacking the hardware or software that provide the physical existence of the space. |
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| 9. As all avatars are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if detainment, temporary banning, jailing, gluing, freezing, or toading shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by the code of conduct. |
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| 10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by the code of conduct. |
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| 11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every avatar may, accordingly, speak, write, chat, post, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by the code of conduct, most particularly the abuse of affecting the performance of the space or the performance of a given avatar's representation of the space. |
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| 12. The security of the rights of avatars requires the existence of avatars with special powers and privileges, who are empowered to enforce the provisions of the code of conduct. These powers and privileges are therefore granted for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be entrusted. These powers and privileges are also therefore not an entitlement, and can and should be removed in any instance where they are no longer used for the good of all, even if the offense is merely inactivity. |
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| 13. A common contribution may, at the discretion of the individual who maintains the hardware, the software, and the data that make up the virtual space, be required in order to maintain the existence of avatars who enforce the code of conduct and to maintain the hardware and the software and the continued existence of the virtual space. Avatars have the right to know the nature and amount of the contribution in advance, and said required contribution should be equitably distributed among all the citizens without regard to their social position; special rights and privileges shall never pertain to the avatar who contributes more except insofar as the special powers and privileges require greater resources from the hardware, software, or data store, and would not be possible save for the resources obtainable with the contribution; and as long as any and all avatars are able to make this contribution and therefore gain the powers and privileges if they so choose; nor shall any articles of this declaration be contingent upon a contribution being made. |
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| 14. The community has the right to require of every administrator or individual with special powers and privileges granted for the purpose of administration, an account of his administration. |
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| 15. A virtual community in which the observance of the code of conduct is not assured and universal, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all. |
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| 16. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, and the virtual equivalent is integrity and persistence of data, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined per the code of conduct, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the avatar shall have been previously and equitably indemnified, saving only cases wherein the continued existence of the space is jeopardized by the existence or integrity of said data. |
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| 17. The administrators of the virtual space shall not abridge the freedom of assembly, save to preserve the performance and continued viability of the virtual space. |
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| 18. Avatars have the right to be secure in their persons, communications, designated private spaces, and effects, against unreasonable snooping, eavesdropping, searching and seizures, no activity pertaining thereto shall be undertaken by administrators save with probable cause supported by affirmation, particularly describing the goal of said investigations. |
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| 19. The enumeration in this document of rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by avatars. |
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"If I were the United States Secretary of Virtual Worlds and I were shopping around for an administration policy for USMud I would start with something like this. If I were Joe Businessman, I might pay lip-service to to this, but I sure as heck wouldn't put it in my user contract and leave myself open to lawsuits."
There are a lot of interesting points raised above. One of the most interesting is, why should an admin feel bound by the fact that others have made an emotional investment in their work?
A sense of responsibility?
A coworker and I got into a argument over this. Let's say you publicly say, "Hey, my empty lot is now open to the public, anyone can squat there!" In the real world, you can actually get in trouble for not providing adequate sanitation. You'd certainly be reviled as an insensitive slob for kicking the squatters off. The sense here is that by making the invitation, you are entering into a social contract with the people who may or may not come by and use the empty lot.
We can argue endlessly whether this is fair or not. It's not, in my opinion (but what is?). But it's still the case. If I personally invite people to squat in my empty lot and then some of them die because I failed to cover the open mineshaft, well, I'd feel a sense of responsibility. It'd sure be nice not to, but I will because I have developed a certain level of personal ethics that entail feeling that way.
Plenty of mud admins do not have this particular ethic--nor am I arguing that they must. But I think arguing whether they should is a good debate to have.
I would argue that if your goal is to have a thriving empty lot that develops into a small town, then you probably want to feel this sense of responsibility, because the squatters are not likely to thrive unless someone with authority over the lot does have that personal ethic.
In the real world, we actually go further than that--we can be held responsible for things that happen to trespassers on our property.
Now, you may have different intent for your virtual space--or your property. You may have just invited people there for the evening. So shutting down (as long as you announced it in advance) is still fine. There was an expectation established, after all.
It's also been pointed out by my panel of mud-cum-rights experts that technically, the property is intangible, which means we're actually in the realm of Group Intellectual Property Law, which is a nebulous construct even in the real world, much less the virtual. Here there be dragons.
On the point that the document as a whole restricts admins too much in managing the virtual spaces, I'd point out that having a clear code of conduct for both players and admins has been shown to make running the space go much smoother overall. Some argue that having unposted rules, or relying purely on community norms, helps curb the idiots or anarchists who find ways to skirt the posted rules. But we can reference the Minnie case (and the Finn case come to think of it) described in My Tiny Life for what can happen if unwritten rules are used against such a person and then others start to fear that it could be used against them with less cause. It's a very slippery slope.
Of course, having good tracking of patterns of behavior will mean that these people will likely get taken care of anyway. People who break any given rule repeatedly tend to break several of them repeatedly. So concrete advice to admins is, have a history of infractions for every avatar. It doesn't say anything in the document about not keeping records, establishing more severe penalties for repeated infractions, curtailing the freedoms of players with long admin records, etc. Presumably someone who has a long admin record isn't going to be considered a "good customer" anymore, right?
In a commercial endeavor, it makes sense to include money as a factor. Good customers may well get permitted more infractions, because the definition of an admin record is "things that cost us money (via admin time spent)." As long as this is in the code of conduct, and applies equally well to two different good customers who have paid the same amount, then you're fulfilling the letter of the article.
I'd submit that the enhanced recordkeeping alone from doing that would probably streamline your costs and make for better business decisions when the time comes to punish someone.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about all the admin commentary on the document is that the biggest concerns boil down to just a few things:
Then there are the mud admins who don't give a flip about population growth...
When all is said and done, though, I am clearly defending something completely implausible on one key level:
Mud players are people. They don't stop being people when they log on. Therefore they deserve to be treated like people. This means they have the rights of people. By joining a mud, they join a community of people. Rights arise from the community. But there's always someone with their finger on the power switch. But he's part of the community too, and should use his powers for the common good and the survival of the community. The fact that you can easily move to another mud doesn't mean that these rights go away.
Articles:
The interesting thing is that mud admins find the second doc much more palatable. Phrased in this way, it's not an abrogation of their power. It's concrete advice that will help you retain your playerbase. In fact, some even said they'd be willing to sign to it as a "declaration" because it would make them look good as admins to adhere to such a standard. There are damn few justifiable reasons to deny any of the things in the above version--and if you did, likely you'd be considered a jerk for doing it--or a power-hungry admin with a god complex (is there a difference?).
If admins see themselves as above the community, do they have any responsibilities towards the community whatsoever?
If they do, can they be articulated?
If they can be articulated and generally agreed upon, are they players' rights or are they merely good ethics on the part of a mud administrator?
One camp is going to argue that it's their mud, by god, and therefore they have the right to do whatever they want with it (and with the people in it). Some might temper this by saying that they don't have the right to violate RL law in the process, but I think a sizable faction would argue that even that doesn't curtail their power in any way.
Another camp is going to argue that with great power comes great responsibility, a la Spiderman. And that clear guidelines and the rule of law is the only way to handle a responsibility of such magnitude.
Both sides will agree that they still have their finger on the power button, and that this changes the landscape of "rights" considerably. And if you do feel that you are ethically bound to act responsibly, then you may have to violate some of your ethical principles in order to keep the mud running.
And if it's a commercial environment:
The irony is that it's all probably moot. The reason why players hold admins to this standard is because they have assumed that this standard is what should be there regardless. In other words, the advice works because it's what players expect and say they want. Which is no different from self-affirmed rights. This is probably why players scream that their rights have been violated when one of the above articles is violated (even if the admins are not signatories to any such document).
So the real point of a document like this would be to see how many admins would sign, not how many players. As an admin, yes, I'd probably sign, in the sense that I'd agree that these are solid administrative principles in terms of practical effect.
The question then becomes, if we subscribe in terms of practical effect, and as long as there are sufficient loopholes present that we can exercise power when we need to, who cares whether players think these are rights, laws, doohickeys, or power fantasies? (Welcome to the Machiavellian world of player relations!)
Why do you want freedom to do things that are bad admin or business practice? (even considering that "freedom" and so on are total mirages in this whole situation...)
Especially since "rights" in the real world already have zero power?
(Note that I am not suggesting that all the muds or commercial endeavors should run out and implement this list of "rights," nor am I suggesting that if they don't that they are run by power-hungry maniacs. This is too complex an issue to reduce to that level.)
The last step that would be required to actually make such a document into a Bill of Rights for players would be for it to be codified into "law," (which is probablt a Code of Conduct or Terms of Service agreement signed by all players, account holders, and admins) and thus be something that admins would be bound to. Admins are, by and large, not going to do this, even though some of the commercial MMORPG companies do require their game masters to sign documents saying that they will behave in a manner surprisingly similar to what the document espouses. But there's an interesting forward-thinking pie-in-the-sky reason for admins to contemplate doing so someday...
Someday there won't be any admins. Someday it's gonna be your bank records and your grocery shopping and your credit report and yes, your virtual homepage with data that exists nowhere else. Someday it's gonna be Snow Crash and Neuromancer and Otherland all wrapped up into one, and it may be a little harder to write to Customer Service. Your avatar profile might be your credit record and your resume and your academic transcript, as well as your XP earned.
On the day that happens, I bet we'll all wish we had a few more rights in the face of a very large, distributed server, anarchic, virtual world where it might be very very hard to move to a different service provider. Heck, I would bet that those folks who plan to play Bioware's forthcoming Neverwinter Nights might very well want their admins to sign such a doc. The future is already almost here.
So in the end, all the Declaration of the Rights of Avatars is, is a useful tool for players and admins alike: admins who don't know what they are doing can use it as a blueprint, and players can use it to evaluate mud administrations in search of one they like.
So yeah. I'm not seriously proposing that we declare the rights of avatars. The doc is, as has been shown, riddled with gotchas and logical holes. It's a hypothetical exercise.
For now.
The original thread on Declaring the Rights of Avatars can be found at the MUD-Dev Archives.
- Raph Koster
August 27th, 2000
Gene Emery with Reuters news service explains the social dynamics of his Sims Online experience.
'Sims Online' Offers Surprises for the Sociable
By REUTERS
Filed at 7:22 a.m. ET
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (Reuters) - So, no sooner had I stepped inside Rodney's Romp Room, than June, a beautiful brunette, came over and asked if she could give me a warm, passionate kiss.
I, hoping to spare her the pain of rejection, politely agreed, only to have a beautiful blonde come over and ask if she could kiss me the same way. I, being a believer in equal treatment, felt compelled to accept.
That's how the catfight began.
Aaah, such are the challenges when you join ``The Sims Online,'' the new multiplayer version of an immensely popular computer game series from Maxis and Electronic Arts.
The original ``Sims'' is a low-violence role-playing game that, at first blush, seems designed for people who need to get a life -- even an odd sort of life.
The player, represented by a small animated figure on the screen, interacts with other computer-controlled characters. The goals: To earn money, buy a house, and keep yourself fed, rested, educated, clean, and entertained.
I found the game intriguing, though not particularly addictive, probably because I've got enough challenges already with a wife, kids, parents, etc.
``The Sims Online'' may look like ``The Sims'' games, but it's a vastly different product because all the characters in the online game are controlled by real people. You can speak to them, you can relate to them, and you can role-play with them. It's like having a secret life in a world that is, for many reasons, friendlier than our own.
Getting started requires a $50 software package. Then would-be players must register with a credit card number (so they can be charged $10 per month) and give some personal information -- such as their birth date and telephone number -- which should be voluntary, but isn't.
Then it's time to select a fictitious virtual city to live in (there were five available when I tried the game), pick a name, describe some likes/dislikes of your character, and choose a figure to represent yourself.
Women have 226 outfits and 234 heads to choose from. Men have 172 outfits and 189 heads, including a skull, a mime, several aliens, polar bears, thieves, a zombie and a one-eyed robot.
I avoided the superhero costumes, kilts, spacesuits, leisure suits, gladiator garb, and the overweight topless guy in dungarees. Instead, I selected a bald guy with a goatee in standard slacks and shirt, named my creation Desmond, and decided to pose as a pet psychic -- a bad move because it turns out the game has no pets -- at least not yet. You can create up to three personae at a time, and retire them once you tire of them.
The game gives you a handy way to find areas that specialize in shopping, entertainment, romance, games, or just hanging out. You can also scroll down the list of other popular characters.
In the place I chose to live, East Jerome, the population included players who call themselves Al Einstein, Britney Spears, MmmMmm Good, Kragoth the Mighty, Xena, and Fox Mulder.
The characters in ``The Sims'' speak their own language; their inflections provide clues to what they mean. But this game also lets players type in messages that appear as speech balloons. Alternatively, you can chat privately with specific individuals in a side channel.
Lots of interesting characters roam the cities. There's Snowball, who has the head of a polar bear; Niecy, who said she is 17 in real life, whose character became ``engaged'' to another character after just one day, and wished her real-life boyfriend showed the same kind of commitment; and Tonya, whose motto was ``A gurl only needs 4 animals in her life: a mink on her back, a tiger in bed, a jaguar in the garage and a jackass to pay for all of it.''
This is not a game for online introverts. It can be pretty boring sitting in a room watching your character play chess or work on a chalkboard problem to build up logic points. Be prepared to keep yourself busy chatting with the other visitors.
And even if you enjoy chatting, which you can do for free in any of the thousands of Internet chat rooms, you still have to devote a lot of time to sleeping, finding food, and emptying your bladder.
A unique thing about ``The Sims Online'' is that it offers a precious commodity that, for most of us, modern life can no longer provide: A world with a sense of safety.
You never have to worry if the guy you're talking to is a closet rapist, or worse. You are not allowed to steal, even if you're playing the role of a thief. If someone is being annoying, you can instruct the game to ignore them. If they persist, the owner of the house can banish them with a few clicks of a mouse. In extreme cases, you can complain to the game's developers and the offenders will be banished. Punishment is swift, unequivocal and not debatable.
In short, the rules are designed to encourage people to get along. It rewards you for making friends, and working and playing together. And because you're always anonymous, it's easy to take the risk of meeting people and interacting with them freely.
If only real life could be like that.
``The Sims Online'' is rated for Teens because of the potential for comic mischief, mild violence and mature sexual themes.
-- -- -- --
(Gene Emery is a columnist who covers science and technology. His Internet address is GEmery(at)Cox.net. Any opinions in the column are his alone.)
There.com had a big publicity splash - a good way to talk about online games and economy without focusing on the over-hyped Sims Online I guess. Here's a piece from the Wall Street Journal online: Online Game Hopes to Convert Virtual Cash Into Real Revenue
January 8, 2003
Online Game Hopes to Convert
Virtual Cash Into Real Revenue
By DON CLARK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Will people pay real money to help virtual characters buy make-believe stuff?
A Silicon Valley start-up called There Inc. plans to test that premise -- and create new sources of revenue for online entertainment in the process.
The closely held company has spent $17 million and more than four years building an online world that is designed to let users take the form of simulated avatars that can move, chat, have fun and flirt. Besides monthly user subscriptions, There hopes to be paid by companies such as Web portals and ski resorts to build themed virtual destinations for promotional purposes or to produce revenue. The company also hopes the U.S. government will buy a simulation of the terrain in Afghanistan for use by military commanders there.
The company's monetary policy is even more striking. Like "The Sims Online," which was just launched by Electronic Arts Inc., There will give users ways to earn fictitious currency that they can spend on virtual homes, entertainment and goods. For example, members are expected to try on and buy virtual shoes from Nike Inc. and apparel from Levi-Strauss Co. at animated kiosks in There, and buy real-world items by clicking on an Internet link.
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In the virtual world created by the start-up There, characters explore, flirt and play, sometimes with virtual pets, in a range of exotic settings that includes a dark forest, a tropical island, a city in the clouds and a replica of ancient Egypt. They can chat and display emotions based on typed commands.
The key difference in There: Users will also be able to trade real money for play money, using credit cards to buy additional "Therebucks" beyond those they earn or those that come with their subscriptions.
There, of Menlo Park, Calif., decided to make currency sales a key revenue source after a user test in the summer of 2001 that offered $100 cash honorariums to 300 users. The company tried offering the users the chance to trade some of the real cash for fictitious currency. "Something like 50 or 60 of them converted some or all of their $100 to buy more Therebucks," says Tom Melcher, There's chief executive officer. "We were astonished."
The 80-employee company, started in 1998 by a Stanford University computer-science Ph.D. named Will Harvey, is discussing its plans for the first time this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It will begin registering users for its first public test, which will begin in mid-January, and expects a formal launch in the third quarter.
There is just one sign of the shifting boundaries between real and virtual economics. Some users in popular role-playing games, such as Electronic Arts' Ultima Online and Sony Corp.'s EverQuest , already make real money by auctioning off characters, weapons and other objects.
MindArk AB, a Swedish computer-game designer, has discussed a free online game called Project Entropia that would let players buy objects to use in their adventures, and even take money out of the game. In South Korea, NeoWiz Corp. operates a popular animated chat service that lets users buy virtual clothes and other goods for their two-dimensional characters.
Trading game currency for real dollars is a touchy topic, partly because it could give affluent players an advantage. In Sims Online, for example, characters earn currency called Simoleans for selling virtual pizzas, artwork and the like, or working cooperatively with others. The Sims "rewards players for what they create within the community, not for the wealth they hold in real life," says Jeff Brown, an Electronic Arts spokesman. "The fun is in building up your character, not in buying a happy ending before you start."
Linden Lab, a San Francisco start-up that is building an online community like There's, called Second Life, also shies away from selling virtual currency outright. "The greater majority of people would lose interest, because then the experience would start seeming like a bad copy of real life," says Philip Rosedale, the chief executive officer.
Controlling exchange rates and prices for goods and services is also very difficult, which is why most real-world governments no longer try, says Edward Castronova, an associate professor of economics at California State University in Fullerton, who has written extensively on virtual economics. He nonetheless regards There as an interesting experiment.
"What are the macroeconomic implications?" Mr. Castronova asks. "We don't know yet."
Mr. Melcher acknowledges the potential for problems but believes that the ability of people to earn Therebucks will prevent currency purchasers from distorting the experience. There studied NeoWiz's business model, and Mr. Melcher got some free advice from a friend, Dimitri Demekas, an economist and virtual-world buff who works on real-world issues for the International Monetary Fund.
The company opted not to limit the amount of currency in its economy but plans to set exchange rates and to influence prices through fees on virtual goods and services that users sell. It also plans to review users' creations to minimize profane artwork and copyright violations. Mr. Melcher doesn't rule out the emergence of secondary markets in virtual currency or goods outside There, but he hopes to reduce the incentive by offering a built-in auction function that could eventually enable real commerce to emerge if ground rules can be refined.
Unlike "The Sims Online," where the imperative is to satisfy characters' needs, such as food, comfort, hygiene and fun, There and Linden Lab style their worlds as virtual vacation destinations without gamelike objectives. Instead of the Sims' god's-eye view, they offer three-dimensional characters that can operate from a first-person perspective and look coy, sexy, angry or sad based on typed-in keyboard commands. There's Earth-inspired environment is broken up into a lush island, a forest realm, a cloud city and a replica of ancient Egypt. Users can walk through those landscapes or ride dune buggies or "hoverboards," which are like snowboards that fly. There recommends that players have, at minimum, a late-model $700 PC with a graphics card. A 56-kilobyte modem is sufficient, though faster connections allow conversations via microphone rather than typing.
Virtual flirting is expected to flourish. On New Year's Eve and in the preceding daylight hours, the Sims Online recorded half a million virtual kisses -- a process that requires two characters to agree -- at 5,000 online parties, says Gordon Walton, an executive producer with the game.
Stalking and harassment have been key concerns since text-based online adventures emerged in the 1970s. To reduce the possibility, There and its predecessors have developed an "ignore" function so that users won't be bothered by people they specify. There, which has raised $33 million in total funding, including $16 million from its employees, got advice from veterans in the field such as Amy Jo Kim, author of a book on online communities.
"If you can build a place that women love, the guys will show up," Mr. Melcher says. "The reverse is not true."
Write to Don Clark at don.clark@wsj.com
Important early article about multiplayer online games, especially player-killing, one of the early contentious issues. But also, Amy Jo Kim covers game-governance here as well: Killers Have More Fun
Wired, Issue 6.05 - May 1998
Killers Have More Fun
By Amy Jo Kim
Games like Ultima Online are grand social experiments in community building. There's just one little problem.
Tonight, like every night for the past eight months, tens of thousands of players will log on to Britannia, a fictional online universe. They'll come to embroider upon make-believe lives as healers, fighters, mages, and rogues. And they'll stay - up to four hours each - because of the seductive quality of pure immersion. Zooming in from around the world, this nightly legion has made Origin's Ultima Online the fastest-growing networked game in the genre's short history. Despite formidable hardware requirements, a steep learning curve, and wildly mixed reviews, more than 100,000 copies of UO were sold in its first three months.
So what's going on here? Something out of the ordinary, beginning with the sheer dimensions of the playing field. UO is massive: Each of its 10 servers can hold 2,500 simultaneous players. (In contrast, the graphical chat environment PalaceServer can support 1,000 users in one location at the same time, and id Software's famed Quake II can handle only 200 players.) As demand grows, Origin can launch new "shards" - servers holding parallel worlds - to support even more players.On some nights, more than 14,000 players are logged on at once. More than half of them log on every day.
Ultima Online is not the first multiplayer networked role-playing game - an honor generally given to Diabloor Meridian 59. And other developers have since leaped into the multiplayer arena. With impressive visuals and a true 3-D engine, Sony's upcoming EverQuestis widely expected to give UO a run for its money. A similar game, Asheron's Call,will enjoy the benefit of Microsoft's marketing muscle. A buzz is building around Kaon Interactive's Terra: Battle for the Outland,developed by former BBN employees including Albert Stevens and Joshua Smith, who created military-training sims for the Department of Defense. 10six,due out this summer, raises the stakes even further, with a virtual economy based on real dollars and hosting up to 1 million players at a time.
UO, for its part, was introduced last September with a blockbuster marketing campaign of Hollywood proportions. And the game delivers the visual goods. The towns, forests, and dungeons of Britannia are more than just intricately rendered; details are meaningful - you can pick up and read a book on the library shelf or play a game of checkers in the tavern. The people and creatures are charmingly animated; sound effects and music cues are used sparingly yet effectively. You hear hoofbeats as you watch three knights ride by on horseback, their capes flowing in the breeze, followed by a lumbering bear and a bedraggled dog.
Equally important, Ultima Online's territories are the most expansive yet in the online gaming world. Britannia occupies some 32,000 screens, with 15 major cities, 9 shrines, 7 dungeons, and vast stretches of uncharted wilderness. As more and more players put down roots, the landscape in each of the parallel Britannias changes accordingly. A citizen of this vast land, meanwhile, is born naked and accumulates clothing and possessions, whether by making, buying, or stealing them. With practice, players become progressively more powerful and skillful - and it's reflected in their outfits. Indeed, seniority and in-game savvy is expressed in an immediate, graphic way: The clothes make the man or woman. The visual correspondence between what things look like and what they can do is exhilarating.
And let us not forget Britannia's emergent economy, another distinctive characteristic and the source of an extraordinary amount of strategizing, not to mention wardrobe acquiring, day in and day out. Players can develop many skills and myriad ways to exploit them for cash. The result - a community that rewards obsessive dedication and reveals inner characteristics through worldly trappings in hyperreal-time - is something compelling. In fact, it's nearly irresistible.
So what's the problem? A few weeks after UO's release, a player named Mohdri Dragon initiated one of the game's first public displays of civil disobedience, to call attention to Origin's lax response to numerous unfixed bugs while it built new features. Hundreds of players gathered together in the capital, stripped their characters naked, and stormed the castle of Lord British - aka Richard Garriott, the real-life creator of the Ultima series. Once inside the castle, the players drank themselves silly, trashed Lord British's throne room, and protested loudly, much to the amusement and consternation of the game's developers. "Everyone had a strong opinion, and many players were expressing opposite sides of the same issue," says Lord British, who watched the event from behind an invisible cloak. The players, in other words, started to behave like citizens anywhere.
But the true dilemma goes way beyond the bugs. Johnny Wilson, a huge fan of the Ultima series from which UO springs, sees role-playing games as interactive ethical parables. "The best Ultima games made people realize that there were consequences to their actions," he says, "and that life is not black-and-white." A deceptively jolly person with a disarming manner and a nose for bullshit, Wilson is editor in chief of Computer Gaming Worldand a recovering biblical scholar with a PhD in Old Testament studies. He went into gaming believing that "role-playing games will be the true religion of the 21st century."
Now, Wilson resorts to the classics to express his deep unhappiness with UO: "Ultima Online begins with hubris and ends in Greek tragedy. The hubris is a result of being unwilling to learn from others' mistakes. The tragedy is that it could have been so much more."
Wilson's assessment is typical of the gaming-industry élite. Randy Farmer, virtual-worlds pioneer and senior designer at Electric Communities, says, "Unfortunately, Origin seems to have ignored many of the lessons that our industry has learned in the last 10 years of building online worlds. They're making the same mistakes that first-time virtual-world builders always make."
What he means is that the people behind UO neglected, in their obsession with realism, to create a meaningful moral experience for players - dramatic story lines or quests guided by noble purposes or even a system of civic rewards. There's no shortage of realism in this game - the trouble is, many of the nonviolent activities in UO are realistic to the point of numbingly lifelike boredom: If you choose to be a tailor, you can make a passable living at it, but only after untold hours of repetitive sewing. And there's no moral incentive for choosing tailoring - or any honorable, upstanding vocation, for that matter. So why be a tailor? In fact, why not prey on the tailors?
True, Ultima Online is many things to many people. Habitués of online salons come looking for intellectual sparring and verbal repartee. Some other people log on in search of intimate but anonymous social relationships. Still others play the game with cunning yet also a discernible amount of self-restraint, getting rich while staying pretty honest. But there's no avoiding where the real action is: An ever-growing number are playing UO to kill everything that moves.
The white magic of the avatar
Ultima Online, Richard Garriott originally promised, would be "a living breathing magical place, where people could forge true alternative lives." More than 2.5 million copies of Ultima's first eight installments sold worldwide, and fans eagerly awaited the arrival of the online version of their beloved alternative universe.
Garriott had published his first role-playing game, Akalabeth,in 1979, when he was 19. It was an early graphic adventure game for the Apple IIe, heavily influenced by his experiences playing Dungeons & Dragonswith friends. The game did reasonably well, and Garriott dropped out of college to pursue his dream of creating computer games full-time. He quickly published several more games, under the name Ultima.
After completing Ultima III, Garriott, still in his early 20s, became troubled by the lack of moral context in his games - a criticism widely levied against his first gaming love, D&D. He even received letters accusing him of being "the Satanic perverter of America's youth." The criticism hit home. Garriott decided to use his creations to explore the ethical and spiritual issues that he was wrestling with in his own life. With Ultima IV, he created a game that you would win only by upholding what he called the Eight Britannian Virtues: compassion, valor, honor, honesty, spirituality, sacrifice, justice, and humility. The player who met the challenges of the game within this moral code became not just a hero, but the Avatar, savior of Britannia. Yet Garriott had moments of doubting the value of virtue. "While I was writing Ultima IV," he remembers, "I was sure that nobody would get it, people would hate it, and it would be the end of my career."
But his gamble paid off - big time. Released in 1985, Ultima IV sold 180,000 units on the Apple IIe - a big hit for that machine. Garriott developed his next two Ultima game worlds around his concept of the Avatar and the Virtues and extended the in-game philosophy to address an even broader range of social and moral issues - paying particular attention to the murky territory between good and evil. Ultima VI, released in 1990, was a thoughtful treatise on prejudice that caused people to see their own social assumptions in a new light. Ultima VIIexplored the dangers of fundamentalism, with its rigid adherence to moral strictures; 1994's Ultima VIII further deepened the conflict between darkness and light.
The series was heralded as a welcome alternative to the mindless violence of many computer games; Ultima hatched thousands of dedicated, participatory fans and several online clubs. And within the fan pantheon, no one was more revered than Lord British, ruler of Britannia.
Lord British is an idealized father figure - strong and brave, patient and loving, wise and powerful - a suitable mien for the alter ego of the games' creator. Garriott lives in a custom-built castle in Austin, Texas, where he collects medieval armor, ancient astronomical devices, and ritualistic African masks. He regularly attends fantasy-gaming conventions as Lord British, dressed in full medieval regalia and proclaiming the gospel of Ultima to his loyal subjects. Garriott is known for his friendly and accessible manner and for taking the time to mingle with fans. "A couple of years ago," remembers one Lord British admirer, Lady Whisper, "we held a barbecue at our house for the Ultima fans attending GenCon, a fantasy convention here in Milwaukee. I invited Richard to join us, and he brought along several Origin employees and friends and stayed more than three hours." On her Web page, Lady Whisper proudly displays a cherished photograph from this event: her son, Adam Dupre (named for an Ultima character), seated happily in the lap of Lord British.
The black magic of player-killers
Garriott sees Ultima Online as a natural extension of the Ultima legacy, but virtuous role-playing fans had better check their utopian visions at the door. In the Ultima Online of today, many of the thousands of players who slide in nightly appear never to have heard of the Eight Virtues. Britannia is overrun with maniacal, brutal, twitchy-fingered Quakekillers who are ready to murder anyone on sight. Whether this development was intentional or inevitable - or both - is an enduring question, but it is certainly a salient fact of Britannian life.
Garriott wanted to highlight the Virtues, yet he created an online world in which it's easy, tempting, and lucrative to commit lethal crimes. In fact, it is so simple to off a fellow traveler in Britannia that the widespread gaming phenomenon of PKing, or player-killing, has traumatized the realm. Much of UO's evolving culture, in fact, now revolves around simply trying to stay out of harm's way.
Far from a place where virtue is rewarded, the kingdom is ruled by intimidation, power dynamics, and conspicuous consumption. PKing to acquire worldly goods is the most lucrative career choice around. But that's not all. Denizens who live in accordance with the Eight Virtues often find themselves not only poor, bored, and frustrated, but inadvertently punished by the laws of the land. These high-minded players toil in small-time professions, while players with highly developed combat skills reign supreme: They terrorize newcomers, kill for money, and broadcast their wealth and power by building huge castles. It's a tough place to be a noble avatar.
It should be noted, however, that there is life after death in Britannia. When players die, they become ghosts and must follow one of several paths to resurrection, from visiting a shrine to receiving a high-level spell from a traveling companion or a healer, one of a handful of nonplayer characters programmed into the game.
But the low road remains far too tempting. Chris Hawley is a high school student who's logged many hours playing UO and even more playing Quake II."The biggest problem with UO," he observes, "is that playing a good guy gets really boring. The bad guys are having much more fun."
Hawley bought Ultima Online when it first came out. "In the old days," he said (referring to a time only months ago), "I had a lot of fun playing. I started off as a lumberjack and quickly progressed in the game." He enjoyed killing monsters - from lowly mongbats to marauding orcs to dungeon-dwelling liches - making and selling crossbows, and helping other players. But within a few weeks, the monster population had dwindled due to excessive hunting, and the shopkeepers no longer wanted to purchase crossbows, because there was a glut on the market.
Bored, Hawley started to explore other aspects of the game. While practicing magic, he mistakenly cast some spells in town, which left him marked as an evil player. The next day, defending himself against an attack, he mistakenly targeted the wrong player, further darkening his reputation.
Within the span of a few days, he had fully embraced the dark side and quickly earned the title of Dread Lord. He could no longer enter the towns, and newcomers ran in fear when he approached. But much to his surprise, he started having a really great time. "Being a bad guy is loads of fun - there's more to do, more options to explore. You still get to hang out with lots of great people and help them out, but you're helping out other Dread Lords like yourself. And many of them are more interesting than the good-guy players I used to hang out with."
As it happens, this is consistent with Garriott's original vision for online gaming. "When we first launched UO, we set out to create a world that supported the evil player as a legitimate role," he says. Outlaws and monsters are simply two different types of carnivores, all part of one continuous organic system. "Players who choose the life of an outlaw," he explains, "essentially become powerful and intelligent monsters - akin to other monsters in the world, but even more sophisticated and interesting, because they're real human players."
This dynamic works, as long as everyone is playing the same game. But what happens when players who think they're attending an online Renaissance Faire find themselves at the mercy of a violent, abusive gang of thugs? In today's Britannia, it's not uncommon to stumble across groups of evil players who talk like Snoop Doggy Dogg, dress like gangstas, and act like rampaging punks.
When Garriott was asked to respond to disillusioned Ultima fans, it was Lord British who answered. Perhaps he was talking as much about all of cyberspace as about Ultima when he gravely proclaimed: "Those who have truly learned the lessons of the Ultima games should cease their complaining, rise to the challenge, and make Britannia into the place they want it to be."
Very monarchial, you might say. But this regal perspective is harder to maintain outside the castle walls, where PKing has become almost as ubiquitous as it is in Quake. Indeed, virtually as soon as Britannia was launched commercially, it became obvious that PKing was going to be a big problem. In one of many efforts to stem this rising epidemic, Origin created a bounty system, whereby "good" players who showed proof of killing a PKer could earn financial rewards and status. In short, it instituted vigilante justice. Before long, the streets of Britannia were buzzing with conversations about how to best hunt down the PKers. Players now had a quest, and they eagerly set about refining their hunting strategy and moral stance. The good guys were behaving more like the bad guys - and having loads of fun themselves in the process.
The anti-PK backlash resulted in an epiphany of sorts: The paradox of violence in online worlds is that while it generates moral outrage, it also encourages players to band together into tightly knit groups of trusted comrades. These groups - tribes, clans, families, or guilds - are what Britannian culture, and perhaps online culture in general, is really all about.
The tribes
There are already more than 420 member-created guilds in Britannia, and the number is rising. Not surprisingly, guild wars are becoming a popular pastime.
Guilds are not unique to UO - they spring up whenever an online game allows player-killing. They're also a familiar phenomenon in Doom, Quake,and Diablo; the similar apprenticeship program in Asheron's Call gives mentors a percentage of the new player's experience points, serving as a kind of protection racket for newbies.
But the guilds of Britannia, which range in size from 3 to 300, are more numerous and varied than those of other games. The Yew Town Council is a nascent civil society reminiscent of the Knights of the Round Table, formed in direct response to PKing. A powerful adventurer donated 50,000 gold pieces (a sum that would, incidentally, take a tailor weeks to earn) and a warship, which was recently christened in a formal ceremony that also instituted an initial code of honor. The Britannian Thespians League, on the other hand, is preparing to introduce a new kind of play to Britannia: It is building sets, holding auditions for actors, and writing a script that's loosely based on "The Emperor's New Clothes."
Then there are the guilds reminiscent of the Elks Club in its heyday. Mohdri Dragon is a longtime member of the Talons of Justice, which migrated to UO from another online game, Diablo. One night recently, he offered to take my character, DarkStarr, on a tour of the Talons' newly purchased Guild Tower. Upon arrival, the place was bustling with activity. The tour ended in a waiting room designed for those wishing to have an audience with Lord William, the guild's leader, who promotes the Eight Britannian Virtues.
After a few moments, three powerful-looking characters emerged from Lord William's chambers. They were dressed alike, in full-body armor with matching dark-green robes and sashes. "You can go in now," one of them said. "The transaction is complete."
Mohdri and DarkStarr entered the room and bowed before Lord William, who was sitting behind an imposing desk. After chatting for a few moments, Lord William said, "Unfortunately, I must take your leave. We have just formed an alliance with the Guardians of the Sacred Order, and they have invited us to attend a swearing-in ceremony for their newest members." He paused for a moment, assessing DarkStarr's trustworthiness. "You are welcome to join us, Milady, for this auspicious occasion."
Lord William led the group to the meeting with the Guardians of the Sacred Order, but he didn't have far to go. Lord Randolph, the order's chief, created a magical moongate that teleported all of us to the Throne Room, deep inside the gated castle of Lord British.
The ritual unfolded with dignified solemnity. The members of each guild, looking quite splendid in their matching outfits, lined up for inspection. Lord Randolph took the stage and made a heartfelt speech. One by one, the new recruits came up to be sworn into the brotherhood. They bowed, drank a sip of ceremonial wine, and each received a dark-green sash to signify their new status.
Then the partying began. Someone had brought a cake, and even DarkStarr added two hams, which she brought in her backpack, to the feast. Bottles of champagne were passed around, causing some new members to speak loudly and bump into each other. The two clans intermingled, discussing how they could help each other defend their homesteads. It was late when Lord William graciously thanked DarkStarr for coming, and Mohdri kindly escorted her back to town.
The next evening Britannia taught DarkStarr another lesson - one without the formality of the preceding exchange. The Insidious Brotherhood is a group of bloodthirsty player-killers and dangerous religious fanatics. Rumor has it that the guild worships the evil Guardian, a character from Ultima VII, and performs pagan rituals over its hapless victims. Xavori, infamous rogue and consummate role-player, invited DarkStarr to join the Brotherhood for an evening of merriment and senseless violence. (Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.) The two made their way to Elegant Chaos, the guild's headquarters. When they arrived, the brethren were hanging out, casually hurling fireballs at each other. They crowded around DarkStarr - "Who's the newcomer? It's a female!" - and made crude jokes. To entertain DarkStarr, they killed a wandering healer, ate some of the victim's body parts, and prayed together over the corpse, offering it as a sacrifice to the evil Guardian.
The head of the Insidious Brotherhood, Magical Bubba, was adept at building consensus among his rowdy comrades - a skill that enabled him to turn this small band of evil characters into a lean, mean fighting machine. In the guild wars, the Brotherhood oft vanquished guilds many times its size.
At one point, things turned really ugly. In a display of brute force, Bubba turned himself into a gorilla and threatened to sodomize Xavori with a thigh bone taken from one of the victims. Unintimidated, Xavori cast a blazing firewall at Bubba - but because of server lag (or perhaps bad aim) it hit DarkStarr instead, killing her instantly.
The hosts gathered around, staring down at the corpse in momentary dismay. One of them cried out, "You've killed the reporter from Wired, you moron!"
Roadkill. A fitting end, it would seem, for a journey through Britannia these days. Now, what about those Eight Virtues?
Amy Jo Kim (amyjo@naima.com) designs online social environments. She is writing a book about Web community-building, due out this summer from PeachPit Press.