World 6

[Saif_Mahlik]

OH EM GEE! Where did the nuclear explosions happen?

[Jackard]

OH EM GEE! Where did the nuclear explosions happen?

world 5

[Josan]

Time to start a new, everyone sharpen your weapons! Cause' Josan is back with some new friends!

[Jackard]

Time to start a new, everyone sharpen your weapons! Cause' Josan is back with some new friends!

sounds like a line from childrens television

[Gaskin]

Time to start a new, everyone sharpen your weapons! Cause' Josan is back with some new friends!

I'm scared!!!






Wait...

[YingYang]

Here we go again

[Navian]

I didn't even realize I was playing on a new world! I came here looking to see when the next one would be.

Anyway... I've seen this far too many times in this thread, so here's my response. You cannot use the excuse 'It's just a game' if you're just playing yourself, and not your character. H&H has characters having a gajillion levels of skills and attributes, a complex economic system, and equipment with stats differing by an order of magnitude. If it's played like a player-versus-player contest rather than character-versus-character, it's dishonest. Spending more days pumping stats does not make you a better person, or even a better player.

Heck, it's a bit dishonest to claim there's a dichotomy between in-game and out-of-game acts in the first place. People tend to do what they get away with, and like to exert dominance when they can. Might makes right works well in the real world, where (with ages of difficulties) power falls into the hands of those most competent or well-equipped to wield it at the time, with the repressed always making grabs for it. That can work in H&H, too.

The problem is, H&H is a game. Not even a finished game, not even a beta version. Many things about it are amazingly arbitrary and unbalanced. The program doesn't work when players are out to get and keep whatever power they can in ways that would make no sense for their characters in a believable world. I've read a lot about game bugs and various resources to give players an edge. Thankfully, they're not all used widely or all the game's gears would just grind to a halt!

The short of the matter is that if you're not a 'scrub' player--the type that restricts themselves to an idealized set of rules for appropriate conduct--you don't have much right to say 'it's just a game'. Someone who acts with no code at all and plays to win clearly has got in in their head this game is their sidequest for dominance over their fellow man as opposed to a simulative, collaborative world where real people play fictional characters and see the rise and fall of dynasties and empires. 'Lulz' does not double as entertainment here unless you're an acting sociopath, go play games that involve direct and fair competition for that.

It's true that there's no way to overcome someone who takes every offense against their character personally, but it's easier to avoid it by adding some character to whatever grief you cause them. Perhaps you're playing a sadist, or you're just getting combat practice, proving yourself the world's best swordsman, etc.. Perhaps it's a territorial patrol, or retaliation for some slight. The point is to make your character attack their character, not to use your character as a tool to injure the person behind the other character, as that merely turns the game into a soapbox for misplaced power fantasies. It's best not to forget that none of the other characters are NPCs, either. To an evil character all other characters are only objects, not people, but the player has to remember that this is not only a game, but a multiplayer game, one where everyone can benefit from playing along, and everyone can ruin things by acting like the whole world exists only for their own amusement.

It can be fun to get attacked or raided in a way that contributes something to the game, a drama or story that gets the blood pumping. It's just too common for random acts of violence to go unexplained, unheralded, and conducted without a word, gesture, or purpose in-game. It's boring, it spoils the fun, and while it might have nothing to do with the proportions of the offending player's anatomy, it does seem to clearly indicate they have issues to work out with a therapist, and the 'just a game' excuse only paints them as complete hypocrites and emotional vampires.

Please don't be that guy.

[Sardte]

^ Tl;dr

[Dolby3d]

W7, here we go...........
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[Josan]

Time to start a new, everyone sharpen your weapons! Cause' Josan is back with some new friends!

sounds like a line from childrens television

Ouch, that hurt a little...