Goodbye, and good riddance

[Vetarnian]

It has taken two months, but I finally admit defeat. You griefers, and other members of what could only be called a "community" through a sick joke, have won. I'm done here; and in fact, it's not just me, it's the handful of individuals who made up our group, and who all started to play at the same time.

In fact, I turned out to be one of the most resilient, as most have stopped playing a few weeks ago. Maybe that makes them weaker -- or wiser, I don't know. But it hardly matters at this stage: they're gone, and so will I be after these parting words. Quite a pity, in fact, because this game looked and still looks promising, and after all those high-budget, low-enjoyment MMO games I've played, a sandbox MMO made by two guys in their proverbial basement, a venture I would have considered foolhardy just a few months ago, definitely looked like something worth checking out. I did not come in expecting a visual masterpiece; to me, a visual masterpiece is a euphemism for saying my computer can't run it anyway. But I did come in expecting something much more important than that, a community which cares about a game; instead, I found the worst community I have ever encountered in any MMO I've played, EVE included.

My mistake was to have forgotten the cardinal rule of sandboxes: nothing is stopping you from dropping your pants and relieving yourself, and the sand over here definitely has an unsavoury yellow tinge. It is as though the community for this game came strictly from the bottom of the barrel, a feat I would have thought reserved, until now, for free-for-all PvP titles like Darkfall, which pander to the same predictable hardcore gamer demographic that has considered itself cast adrift since the "Trammelization" of Ultima Online. But here was my second mistake: to calculate things on a scale merely made up of gamers, and I don't think it's the case here. Instead, you've managed to scrape in all that is wrong with the internet, every meme, every catchphrase, every little clique with their exclusive forums, down to the most infamous one, which needs not be identified; a world where everyone is Anonymous and twelve years old in mentality. I can't even say it's about gaming anymore; it's all about metagaming, all about which little clique will get to nail the scalp of this game to its virtual wall, because it's not about winning the game -- given the current mechanics, that is quite impossible --, it's about killing it. And I want nothing to do with this.

It's one thing to say this game is in alpha, and that griefing is a necessary part of the testing process; it's another to see a game where griefing is so commonplace that it appears to be the only way to play, while the developers are seemingly more content to work on such necessities as animal domestication, which will predictably be griefed into the ground like everything else, or improved kin relationships that mean nothing in a world where anybody who isn't your kin is automatically your enemy. But new content conveniently gives the impression that something, anything, is being done about the game: rearranging deck chairs and all that, never you mind the water gushing in. And that's also why I'm leaving: not because Jorb and Loftar have their priorities backwards, but because whatever they do, nothing could solve the problems of this game, because every mechanic and limitation to the current griefing they could think of will likewise be adopted and distorted by the griefers. Their failure will be the failure of every sandbox to date.

I'm thinking, for instance, of the Brodgar-Swampcrazed road, which I have no doubt must have proved extremely useful in the early stages of this map, especially before the introduction of boats. But then I started reading about those griefers who were placing plots right over the initial road, just for their usual giggles. So what if Jorb and Loftar gave everyone the ability to build public roads, over which nothing could be built? Well, I'm predicting that all of a sudden, those griefers would, like the mob, get into the paving business. Likewise, if palisade walls were reinforced so that they were actually nearly impossible to tear down, those griefers would suddenly find a use for all those trees they currently cut down for no reason.

From the start, we knew the perils of being too close to existing villages, so after a brief stay on an abandoned farm, we decided to settle as far away from "civilization" as possible. This was in the second half of October, so boats were already in the game. We crossed half of the main grid, and settled in a spot a fair distance from everything, but we only stayed there for a few days -- right until we realized then that we had built our cabins on the southern tip of Cake Province.

Then, as everyone had settled east (presumably because of the lack of boats early into the map), we decided to head in the opposite direction, in the unspoiled west, and we finally settled on a nice patch of grassland, dodging level-VIII animals, and putting together a small community of our own, away from every main group in the game. As "luck" would have it, a week later, just south of us, Novigrad opened, ostensibly in an attempt to demonstrate that the only solution to the Brodgar wasteland was to replicate it at various points on the map. For us, it meant being added to the griefing circuit.

I now read in that other thread that the griefing against Novigrad has continued even though the charterstone has been turned off. Let me just state for the record, lest we be accused of this, that even though we were less than happy about Novigrad being placed right next to us, we had nothing to do with any of the griefing incidents that have taken place there. I used to cross the river to Novigrad on occasion, to pick up high-level branches and the occasional log from trees that had already been chopped, but the last time I went, the fields were still there, and I'm afraid I don't know who is behind the recent incidents. Probably the same guys who have been griefing us ever since Novigrad opened.

We have nothing worth stealing, but that's hardly an argument to griefers, is it? So they went into our common perimeter, by which I mean the space between our plots (which was then surrounded only by branch fences), and cut down every tree we had left there for aesthetic reasons, even though they were your regular quality 10 trees and could easily be replanted. On one occasion, when it was still possible to move a filled cupboard, they went on my plot and dragged my cupboard outside, presumably hoping it would disintegrate before I could notice. The message was clear enough, though: Just wait and see what we'll do when you have items worth stealing. That's when the palisade went up, not because there is anything valuable on the other side, but because I wanted them to work for it.

The last griefing incident, a week ago or so, just demonstrated to what lengths they would go for ultimately petty results. A palisade surrounded our common perimeter, and for most of it, pending the creation of our village, there was only the requisite five-tile distance between our plots, with practically every item being on one plot or the other, and nothing worth stealing was left on unstaked land. But on one day, I had to leave a gate open, so that one of our later settlers could access the village; and the gate itself was not on staked ground. So later that day, one or more griefers cut through two layers of branch fences located between two other plots, went through the open gate, went around all the plots, and stole or destroyed one of the few items left on free ground: the winepress. Yes, that's right, the bleepin' winepress, which anyone could build using a few boards. They actually moved the churn that was in front of it to get to it. Futile, pointless, and the modus operandi for this game; even worse, the open gate was far inland, and could not be seen by someone on a boat on either of the rivers near us. So that means it was not even a case of seeing an opportunity: they actually went ashore, deliberately looked around for an entrance, and went in.

If you consider that this game is a massive grindfest, even for maintenance, even for eating, and that skills are pretty much a case of not only how much grinding you put in, but also when you joined, you will understand why, as a latecomer and a member of a smaller group, I'm sick of it.

I can also tell you of the time I went into the outer grids, carrying a boat around in level-X territory, using an alt with no skill to his name except what led to yeomanry and prospecting, and came back, sixty doses of rustroot extract and I don't know how many hours later, with nothing, because one of the mines the extract picked up was already claimed (by one of the usual suspects), and the other was under water. I would gladly have dispensed with wasting time looking around for mines to concentrate on farming, but the current game all but forced me to. It might have been different if it had a trading system that actually worked, wasn't reliant on an IRC channel I don't exactly feel like using, and wasn't driven by paranoia over the items being located back to their crafters. And I really have to applaud that splendid idea of introducing metal-coin-operated vending stands, when the only item which isn't readily available to everyone, hence the most traded for, also happens to be metal.

All of this points to the need to be economically self-sufficient, if only for security reasons; in other words, the same problem as with all sandboxes, where the pretense of a fully working trading system is blown apart, not aided, by the absence of regulation, which leads to a state of rampant paranoia, with all concerns being topped by a need to guarantee supply -- and you don't do that by trading. You know how EVE is supposed to have the most intricate economic system around? Well, that's a sham. Most strategic goods are not even traded except at outlandish prices, because, well, they're strategic; instead, for you and me and John Q. Newbie, trading will revolve around a grindfest at the lowest level, paid for with the equivalent of peanuts, because this form of trading isn't about the need for strategic resources, but about the laziness of the highers-up who clearly have better things to do than do newbie-level grinding jobs. They could do it themselves, but they don't want to, so they leave that to newbies; hence you get tritanium in EVE, and linen cloth here. That's not trading; that's wage-slavery, and the beauty of it is that there is always an influx of newbies to replace those who leave.

Jorb and Loftar, I want to tell you this: I came into this game hoping that maybe you would actually manage something that no other game could: a cohesive virtual world where villages could coexist, land be settled, roads be built, alliances be made, and peaceful players be left in peace. Instead, I find bands of roving griefers, a grindfest at every level, a world where boats now trump everything (there should be far less rivers and a few isolated small lakes here and there), a hierarchy based on joining date, and this... community. I don't have an easy answer for you about what you ought to do; an easy answer would have been to ditch this community and start anew, but that's obviously not an option. First thing I would do, though, is release that map of the eastern grid, because I'm tired of hearing about "Chernobyl", "Xanadu" or "Wayneville" without even knowing where they are, and their location being considered a quasi-state secret by those who do know, even though they seem to be legion. Second, I would drop every development on features which do not involve village management, trading, or security generally. But I'm all too aware that this is a sandbox, and that even those solutions might prove ineffective. So I guess we will be looking elsewhere for a game worth playing.

To the rest of you, save the few decent people we have encountered: Goodbye, and good riddance.

[Chakravanti]

[ZeApple]

tl;dr.
ragequit pretty much.

[sabinati]

man if there's one thing i love it's long winded whiners. goodbye and good luck, you will be missed.

[Vetarnian]

Ah yes, there is nothing I like better than the fabled "tl;dr", or How To Make a Contribution to a Thread Without Actually Contributing, Because I Haven't Read It.

As for "ragequitting", no, I'm much too blasé for that. But I see what will kill this game, and it's this rabble; thanks for proving it.

[sabinati]

i read it.

[Froggeryz]

so basically you had stuff on unclaimed land and you rage about it getting destroyed/taken?
I didn't read all of it, will read it when I have time

[Spiff]

so basically you had stuff on unclaimed land and you rage about it getting destroyed/taken?
I didn't read all of it, will read it when I have time

He's pissed because someone knocked over his winepress. If you think leaving your gate open and having a winepress smashed is griefing, this game is not for you anyway.

[Kasakun]

While I actually have to say that I agree on a lot of points, especially the enormous ABYSSAL cleft between new and old players, and the deficient economy, I have to say that... well. This is a sandbox game, and it's content is more or less generated through human interaction. I might be jaded, but I see this as a perfect example on what happens in a state of total anarchy and cliques of tightly-knit "feudal" provinces, enforcing their rule through insurmountable military power.

Griefing will happen, of course - in reality, in the dark ages, it was probably even worse. A village could really only defend itself against vastly superiour military power by either paying the levy to the "feudal lord(s)", or simply escaping by being obscure and hard to find. The third option, really, is to become stop being a sheep and become a wolf too.

No, I don't like it either, and I think there should at the very least exist a "kindergarten" area for newbs to play around and get comfortable with the game in. Most MMOs have these - a small sheltered area where you can't be griefed, but on the other hand is very limited in terms of resources and opportunities.

As for the loss of your items, I can only say that I'm sorry - I've actually been to your settlement a few times, but that was probably before said griefing began. If you're not hell-bent on leaving alltogether, feel free to send me a PM and I think I could arrange lodging at our place - we were a rather large group to begin with, but the steep learning curve (cliff!) wittled us down to more or less two.

All things said, I think this game needs to be taken with a grain of salt, and that the only real way to combat griefing is to stick together in groups. Oh, and sooner or later you'll be able to detect trespassing scents, and then it's open hunting season on griefers.

[Agarrett]

I read most of it, skipped over most of the rambling paragraphs.

Seriously, every knows and deals with these problems, that's why you never see anyone in Brodgar, except for traders, that's why everything around Brodgar is decaying and abandoned. As for settling north of Novigrad, that sucks for you. You should of settled in level 10 animal territory like everyone else is, outside the main super grid. I'm absolutely positive if you did settle someplace pretty far out, then you would be left alone, unless you angered someone. Griefers usually lurk around the main super grid.