Fox Gaden
DUST University
Ivy League
322
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Posted - 2013.05.21 15:01:00 -
[1] - Quote
For a lot of players who are new to New Eden, the recent AWOXing incident which started with Grief University infiltrating and sabotaging a DUST University Planetary Conquest match, may have been their first introduction to Meta Gaming within the New Eden universe. Some of you are looking at what happened and are thinking: GÇ£Cool!GÇ¥ But some of you who are new here are probably thinking: GÇ£Wait a minute. That is Griefing! IsnGÇÖt Griefing bad? If the Meta Game is just about lying and cheating, I am not sure that I want to be a part of that!GÇ¥ So I want to address these concerns and explain Meta Gaming in its broader context so that new players understand how the Meta Game adds to the experience of both DUST 514 and EVE Online.
Meta Gaming is both about building stuff up, and tarring stuff down. Are you a builder? Or are you a destroyer? Either way, there is a place for you in the Meta Game.
DUST University is an example of the positive building side of the Meta Game. ItGÇÖs origins go back 9 years to the forming of EVE University in EVE Online. The tutorial in EVE at the time was very primitive and the game was very complicated. New players were having a lot of trouble. Someone decided that they would form a charitable organization to help new players learn the game. They created the EVE University Corporation and found like minded people to help. These people built an organization that is known to every EVE player today, and is widely respected. DUST University formed as a way of providing that same assistance to new players in DUST 514. We recruited players who like to help people. Our instructors are working on guides, training plans, and new ways of providing training. Our directors are building relationships with other Corporations in order to gain their experience and setup training opportunities.
I give the example of DUST University because it is a part of the Meta Game that I am directly involved in. But there are many other examples. In EVE, players have created their own banks and venture capital firms with thousands of customers. Some of these turn out to be schemes, while others are legitimate.
While some build for charity, and some build for profit, others build for power. In EVE there are Coalitions which control vast reaches of space. The conflicts between these coalitions, when recorded, read like an epic story from a history far in the future. There have been several intergalactic wars in EVE involving thousands of people flying thousands of ships, even single battles involving over a thousand players. This is not some fictional background story written by the developers for the RPGÇÖers. This is real history, real events, that happened in a virtual world. With the introduction of Planetary Conquest we are seeing the beginnings of this in DUST514.
So, the Meta Game is about building organizations, and about epic stories of real history in a virtual world, but what about the griefing? What about the lying, the backstabbing, the betrayals and the cheating?
Well, it is hard to have a good story, or a compelling game, without a bad guy. Or many bad guys. There is no Dragon in the last level of DUST. CCP does not give you end game bosses. CCP gives you a sandbox where players make their own stories. In EVE flying through Low and NULL Security space is exciting because there is danger. There is danger because there are pirates. Those pirates are real players. Without them EVE would be Hello Kitty in space. We need the cut-throats, the griefers, and the freaks to make the game interesting. In DUST we have Imperfects who like to play at being the bad guys. We have Grief University and now others who have taken advantage of the lack of security mechanics in Planetary Conquest matches to cause trouble for other Corporations. We will have more sophisticated and elaborate infiltrations, schemes and thefts as the game evolves.
Now you must realize that while CCP encourages the meta game, they also consider it part of their games and will step in if things get too far out of balance. This AWOXing strategy will soon be nerfed, just as CCP would nerf a blatantly over powered gun. It is too easy to infiltrate a Corporation and sabotage a Planetary Conquest match currently. It requires no skill. It is essentially the Noob Tub of Infiltration. After the nerfs happen, it will still be possible to infiltrate a Corporation and sabotage a Planetary Conquest match, but it will require skill, patience, and timing. Those who are successful will feel more like skilled spies, and the respect they receive from the community for pulling it off will be much greater. While those who play on the straight and narrow will find that setting up their security procedures is just as much a part of the game as setting up their dropsuit fittings, and for many, just as fun.
Finally, I want to differentiate between greifing and harassment. CCP tries to give their players the tools to work out their own conflicts, but sometimes people go too far. If someone is going so far they are preventing you from playing the game, or are causing you problems outside of the game, then you should put in a petition. CCP will get involved when someone truly crosses the line. Griefing is when someone plays the bad guy in the game, but Harassment is when someone uses the game to be a real life bad guy. |