MMO Player Crucified for Ganking

[metta]

Misbehaving players to be crucified in MMORPG

Players who misbehave in the Roman online role-playing game Roma Victor will be punished by having their characters crucified and displayed in public spaces for other players to mock and throw things at. The first crucifixion is being doled out to "Cynewulf," played by a 27 year-old electrical engineer from Flint, Michigan, whose crime is "ganking" (ripping off) new players as they first appear in game. Cynewulf will be hung on the cross for seven days.

Crucifixion is to be used as a form of player 'ban' within the virtual world of Roma Victor, with the length of the ban reflecting the severity of the punishment. For cheating by exploiting a bug and advancing his or her character's skills unfairly, for example, a player might typically receive a seven-day ban; multiple or more serious offenses will result in a longer (or even permanent) ban.

http://www.roma-victor.com/news/press/showpr.php?pr=060323a

[Charles]

I'm going to name my first character jesus. And then gank noobs.

[Dave Markell]

Way back in the UO days I argued for something much like this. I hate artificial barriers to misconduct. If someone wants to town kill, or steal, or gank newbies, a realistic setting says they should be able to. A realistic setting will also provide severe in-game consequences should such a person be caught. I argued for jail-time (a prolonged time-out for the account). This mechanism is similar in intent but a bit more, uh, dramatic.

[Rob Beschizza]

I'd hate to be the person whose job it is to go through new characters weeding out the "Je5us"es

[Thrrrpptt!]

Dang, I was going to post about this. :)

I think it's brilliant. It fits with the theme of the game and provides a meaningful punishment. It's a ban, effectively. I wonder, though, if they do anything to the player's alts as well. It's not nearly as effective if they can just play another character while the sentence is in effect.

[Dave Markell]

I wonder, though, if they do anything to the player's alts as well. It's not nearly as effective if they can just play another character while the sentence is in effect.

Very good question. I feel for exploits and violations of the ToS, they should probably close out the alts as well. For "individual" crimes like ganking, alts should be unaffected. But who knows what they'll do in practice?

[RichardC]

Crucifixion as a time out? Seems they'd be better off just doing a quick anachronism and putting in a pillory or stocks. Surely this would be better served as a galley of people who've been executed (banned) for their actions.

[Dave Markell]

Crucifixion as a time out? Seems they'd be better off just doing a quick anachronism and putting in a pillory or stocks. Surely this would be better served as a galley of people who've been executed (banned) for their actions.

People "rise from the dead" in MMO's all the time, you know :-).

[walTer]

I don't know...sure it goes with the game and all but it just seems, wrong somehow.

Not the banning but eh...I think I like it but ....

[Marcus]

I laughed at the jesus thing.

[John Many Jars]

I'm going to name my first character jesus. And then gank noobs.

Do you think a Puerto Rican character would really fit in with a Rome game?

[Jason McMaster]

I think I'll make a character and name him Barabus... see how that goes.

[Rob Beschizza]

http://www.celestialmechanics.com/avatar/timeout.jpg

[Simpilot]

http://www.celestialmechanics.com/avatar/timeout.jpg

haha, hilarious!

[Ben Sones]

Crucifixion as a time out?

That makes it even better for a character named Jesus. 'Cause you know he'll be back...

[Matt Perkins]

I'd wonder if the company will get sued by the person being publicly embarrassed... Public caning doesn't work here in the US, why would this be different?

I'm not saying they should, though I think it's a very juvenile way to punish someone, it doesn't really matter to me personally.

[Zephyr]

A couple weeks ago in WoW, a notorious ganker messed up one of our hunters doing his epic bow quest, thus causing a 3 hour cooldown before he could attempt it again. We tracked the guy down the next day and called in about 40 guild members, who then proceeded to sheep, sap, and mind control him for a good 30 minutes, until we got bored and made him drown with mind control. We haven't seen him ganking our hunters at the quest since then. :P

[Angrycoder]

I wonder if WW2 online is going to try and grab some free juvinile publicity by announcing that players will no longer be banned, instead the Nazis will cart them off to the Incinerators.

[JMR]

That makes it even better for a character named Jesus. 'Cause you know he'll be back...

http://www.spidermine.com/crap/brb35651.png

Way back in the UO days I argued for something much like this. I hate artificial barriers to misconduct. If someone wants to town kill, or steal, or gank newbies, a realistic setting says they should be able to. A realistic setting will also provide severe in-game consequences should such a person be caught. I argued for jail-time (a prolonged time-out for the account). This mechanism is similar in intent but a bit more, uh, dramatic.

I agree as well. Those who equate PvP with unrestricted ganking of noobs should be prepared to suffer serious consequences if caught.

[jafd]

I showed this to someone, and they said, "Wow, that will quickly turn crucifixion into some kind of sick prestige thing."

And I said, "Isn't it that already?"

[Lum]

There are four different, equally bad reasons why this is a hilariously ill-concieved idea.

1) It rewards misbehavior with in-game visible recognition, which is one of the most valuable rewards you can be given in an MMO. I 100% guarantee you that there will be a line of people for the "penalty" of being strung up.

2) It unnecessarily toys with a very recognizable religious symbol for the great majority of the public. I don't care that Rome historically crucified people; the symbology has an entirely different meaning today and religious symbology is NOT something that needs to be toyed with in the current political setting.

3) It violates the privacy of those being punished. Many disagree that wrongdoers have any right of privacy; they tend to stop disagreeing when they become personally involved in a CS incident. Which leads into...

4) No in-game CS enforcement is perfect; there WILL be some people nailed to the cross who are "innocent". When this occurs, it's far easier to go back and fix things if the entire incident wasn't played out in the public town square.

[Jason McMaster]

There are four different, equally bad reasons why this is a hilariously ill-concieved idea.

1) It rewards misbehavior with in-game visible recognition, which is one of the most valuable rewards you can be given in an MMO. I 100% guarantee you that there will be a line of people for the "penalty" of being strung up.

2) It unnecessarily toys with a very recognizable religious symbol for the great majority of the public. I don't care that Rome historically crucified people; the symbology has an entirely different meaning today and religious symbology is NOT something that needs to be toyed with in the current political setting.

3) It violates the privacy of those being punished. Many disagree that wrongdoers have any right of privacy; they tend to stop disagreeing when they become personally involved in a CS incident. Which leads into...

4) No in-game CS enforcement is perfect; there WILL be some people nailed to the cross who are "innocent". When this occurs, it's far easier to go back and fix things if the entire incident wasn't played out in the public town square.

I happen to agree on all points. It's a magically retarded idea.

[instant0]

The question is if this crusifiction is automated or if it requires the combined effort of multiple player to apprehend, sentence and punish the perp.

If its automated I move for disqualification, since its just another synthetic countermeasure vs something that the 'community' should be able to solve.

And for the record; I loved UO 97-99 -> the lawless years :-)
(tbh; beta was the best, when you could kill town guards)

[Thrag]

So when the guy logs on does he see the view from his cross?

[Matt Perkins]

The "lawless years" in UO were grand. Sure, they were hard and you always had to watch your back, but the world was wide open.

My only grief with the lawless years were the designers/developers at that point trying to "balance" it and every patch just making a new uber combination. That was silly.

The rest of it was love. Hard fought, we don't care about you, police yourselves, love.

[Matt Perkins]

Oh, and for the record, Lum is right on all accounts. I didn't even see the "I'm so cool" effect of it. Yeah, this MMORPG is already shot.

[Damien Falgoust]

http://www.spidermine.com/crap/brb35651.png

Remember....Jesus gave up a three-day weekend for your sins.

[Charles]

So when the guy logs on does he see the view from his cross?

And his palms start bleeding.

[Jasper]

Roma Victor made something pathetic like this a design focus? They can't find something more interesting to tout in it's place? Sounds like one hell of game. Stupidest MMO idea I've heard yet.

[Charles]

I wonder what the crafting time is on a shroud of turin?

[RepoMan]

That is one FUGLY game, too....

[JMR]

Oh man I just checked out the screenies and it looks like WW2OL v1.0 era graphics.

[Bill Dungsroman]

"Man, I just wanted to RP a carpenter. WTF?"

[scharmers]

"Man, I just wanted to RP a carpenter. WTF?"

All the mix/max powergamers go with the Jewish Carpenter. Gives free waterwalking, transmutate water->wine, and resurrect x1/day powers.

[bwiltgen]

1) It rewards misbehavior with in-game visible recognition, which is one of the most valuable rewards you can be given in an MMO. I 100% guarantee you that there will be a line of people for the "penalty" of being strung up.
I completely agree with this point. What's interesting to me is that you can apparently get crucified from exploitation of the game as well.

From the press release:
For cheating by exploiting a bug and advancing his or her character's skills unfairly, for example, a player might typically receive a seven-day ban; multiple or more serious offences will result in a longer (or even permanent) ban.
This takes the punishment outside of simple etiquette control (eg to dissuade ganking). Sounds like they are thinking this will embarass the exploiters to stay away. Ha!

I can see a group of people whose sole goal it is in life is to figure out exploits in the game in order to publicly become "that guy who was crucified the longest!"

[Thrrrpptt!]

So you guys really think that people will actively try to get banned for say 3 weeks or more? For a game they want to play and are paying money for? Or that they'd risk permanant bans for repeat and flagrant transgressions? Would you do it with your WoW characters?

As I said earlier, it all hinges on what happens to their overall account, including alts. If alts are playable during the crucifiction, then I totally agree that people will create alts solely for the purpose of getting strung up on a cross. If alts aren't playable, I doubt any efforts at earning that honor will persist for long.

[Dhruin]

Yep, fugly. Thank god little indie efforts with interesting ideas disappear into ignominy before the wider public is subjected to their lack of multi-million-dollar resources and pixel shaders.

[jafd]

So you guys really think that people will actively try to get banned for say 3 weeks or more?
Unequivocably, yes. There are always asshats.

[Destarius]

A couple weeks ago in WoW, a notorious ganker messed up one of our hunters doing his epic bow quest, thus causing a 3 hour cooldown before he could attempt it again. We tracked the guy down the next day and called in about 40 guild members, who then proceeded to sheep, sap, and mind control him for a good 30 minutes, until we got bored and made him drown with mind control. We haven't seen him ganking our hunters at the quest since then. :P

What's the point? If I were the ganker, I would simply have a shower and a drink and come back later, and laugh at having wasted 40 persons' time for 30 minutes.

There needs to be a proper payback system which involves the admins.

[bwiltgen]

In my opinion Ultima Online (referring to the old law-less days) did it perfectly. IIRC, if you killed someone and they didn't fight back you were flagged Red. If someone was ganking you all you had to do was take the beating and they suffered a penalty. This caused two things:

Game penalty: Red meant guards attacked you on sight, so you couldn't safely enter towns.

Social penalty: It also meant that anyone could then turn around and kill you without any penalties whatsoever (sometimes you even got bounty rewards for killing a red). You were a branded man for a couple days.

Not only was the scheme effective on those levels but it also meant you could immediately tell if someone you were approaching was a ganker and either deserved a beating or was worth hiding from (normally the latter for me).

I wish current generation MMO's had this system. Especially WoW where ganking is so bloody rampant on pvp servers it's ruins a lot of the fun from the game.

[wildpokerman]

I'll name my character Bryan.

[JMR]

Yep, fugly. Thank god little indie efforts with interesting ideas disappear into ignominy before the wider public is subjected to their lack of multi-million-dollar resources and pixel shaders.

Well from what I've seen of Roma Victor and Irth Online (http://www.irthonline.com/) and from what I've experienced with Shadowbane and WW2OL, small indies should stay the hell out of the MMOG arena altogether.

[Gordon Cameron]

What's the point? If I were the ganker, I would simply have a shower and a drink and come back later, and laugh at having wasted 40 persons' time for 30 minutes.

It's not fun to effectively be forced to stop playing the game when you don't want to.

Sounds like a nice bit of comeuppance IMO, and the sort of "emergent" crap that MMOs are supposed to create. Though if I'd been the ganker I'd probably just have logged out and switched to an alt.

Alts: the best answer to corpse camping!

[Destarius]

Though if I'd been the ganker I'd probably just have logged out and switched to an alt.

Yes, there's no way you can make a person sit through 30 minutes of comeuppance unless he wants it. He was probably entertained by the 30 minutes of foolery.

[Gordon Cameron]

Yeah he probably wasn't just shaking his fist at the screen for half an hour. He might have been chatting with his guild trying to get a rescue of some kind, though.