Spam Spam Spam Humbug 54 Redux – What Kind of Bad Behaviour Should Be Allowed in Games?
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Production Note
The ending of this episode previously featured Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody for an outtro track. This was (not incorrectly) flagged by Spotify (the parent company of Anchor.fm, where the podcast is hosted) as a copyright issue, and so the last few minutes had to be re-edited. Fortunately, the entirety of the main discussion of the episode was able to be preserved.
Podcast Topic(s)
With reference to a previous discussion about Star Citizen, we discuss how Squadron 42, the single-player game that is connected to the larger Star Citizen universe, has reportedly been delayed. Which actually comes as something of a surprise, since I don’t think most people were expecting to see Squadron 42 released in 2016. But, for what it’s worth, it now officially won’t be; 2017 is now being touted as the year for it. What has been released, however, is Star Citizen Alpha 2.5, which does look rather awesome.
We also revisit Pokemon GO, because we can’t seem to avoid mentioning this game; we discuss how Niantic are adding a “buddy feature” to the game. Not in the sense that you can play with a real life friend, however; you can, instead, designate one of your stable of Pokemon as your buddy; as you walk with your buddy, you’ll accrue bonuses and (this is probably the biggest draw of the new feature) Candy relevant to the Pokemon evolutionary tree that your buddy is in. And while the game may still be declining, Niantic don’t seem to be hurting all that much; they’ve made over $440 million thus far, and have already begun working on other projects. Also, in the recent Apple event, it was announced that the game will be getting an Apple Watch app…which kind of punts it from being strictly in the “game” category, and puts it more into the “fitness app” category.
We also take a look at some of the different ways players behave badly in MMORPGs and multiplayer games. Specific examples include, but aren’t limited to: griefing in Ultima Online, griefing in Shroud of the Avatar, item-renaming “scams” in Shroud of the Avatar & third-party lot sales being reversed, the risk of allowing third-party content into a game (e.g. the radio stations in Shroud of the Avatar’s aether vibration items), and straight-up cheating/exploitation of game systems (or bugs).
And it probably won’t come as a surprise to hear that we don’t think that the solution to every single problem is to punish players; there are even creative solutions for dealing with cheaters that don’t involve banning them from a game entirely. Sometimes, the source of the problem is mistakes made by the developer, or miscommunication about the sort of game that is being developed; if players are simply making use of extant systems in ways that are completely legitimate, but outside the intent of the developers, should they be punished for that?
You may also wish to check out Boolean Dragon’s discussion of some of these issues, which took place during a Hearth of Britannia Dragonsmeet a couple years ago.
Also mentioned: This study about cheating and toxic behaviour in video games, and this research about how behaving badly in games can make us more morally sensitive in real life.
And we round out the episode with some discussion of a few other news items, such as the fact that CD Projekt Red is now worth $1 billion, the availability of the Game of the Year edition of The Witcher 3, and the news that Cyberpunk 2077 is now evidently in full development; there are more people working on it now, according to some reports, than worked on The Witcher 3.
Titan Quest Anniversary Edition was released by THQ Nordic , to celebrate the game’s tenth anniversary.
Peter Moore, EA’s Chief Competition Officer, put a stop to the rumour that EA is consdering producing a remaster of the Mass Effect trilogy, stressing that the company’s focus is entirely on Andromeda at this time. We also got a first look at some Andromeda gameplay as part of PlayStation Meeting 2016. Takeaways from the video vary from one news outlet to the next; my thoughts are that the game looks gorgeous, and the addition of a jetpack adds the potential for a lot of interesting exploration options…hopefully. It would, after all, be relatively easy for BioWare to fall into the trap of making the game a platformer that tries not to be a platformer. The gameplay footage featured a male version of the Ryder player-character, which caught some people by surprise (Female Ryder was introduced during the E3 presentation for the game), but it turns out that players won’t have to choose which Ryder appears in their game; Male Ryder and Female Ryder are siblings, and whichever one the player doesn’t choose to play as will still appear in the game at various points. Oh, and the character wearing the N7 armour that appeared during the Ghost Riders in the Sky trailer turns out to be the father of the Ryder siblings.
Additionally, it seems that Nintendo Is Making a Mario Game for iOS.
And Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, the spiritual successor to the Castlevania games has been delayed until 2018.
Community & Patronage
As always, this episode of Spam Spam Spam Humbug is brought to you by our Patreon backers; thank you to everyone who supports Spam Spam Spam Humbug and the Ultima Codex by that means. And, as always, a hearty thank you to our co-producers: Seth, Goldenflame, Dominik, Violation, Helgraf, Gronkh, Pascal, Thorwan, and Winfield.
Also, a note of thanks to Vladimir, who started supporting the podcast in July! So, many thanks Vladimir; I didn’t mention you by name in the show this time, but you’ll soon be joining the list above in whatever form the podcast continues in.
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Music
Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix
Ultima 6 Theme (from Punchfest) by Lorto Dragon
In a multiplayer game, it is inevitable that some players will abuse or take advantage of others. Which of these behaviours, if any, should developers allow to take place, and which should they work to prevent?