Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this entry I'd like to apologize for not updating more frequently. I began working back in September and my free time was cut down as well as my schedule was changed. I'll try to keep up now but no guarantees.
Now I was planning on making this post a while ago because it was one of the first impressions I had while playing Starcraft 2. One of the missions, named "Safe Haven", has the player making a choice between either siding with the Terrans (the humans) to save their colony from the Protoss (an advanced alien race). The reason that the Protoss are attacking is that the colony has become infested by the Zerg (swarm-like alien race). There is no cure for the infestation as far as either the Terrans or the Protoss know. So the choice is to save the colony or help the Protoss make sure that the infestation is controlled.
Now here's the part where I might be strange. When I came to the choice I realized that there wasn't a choice at all: I had to pick helping the Terrans. I even feel that we, as humans, are obliged to choose to help the Terrans. The reason why I think this is that if we are confronted by an alien species which we cannot reason with (the Protoss would try to wipe out the colony no matter what) we are obliged to do everything in our power to resist and defeat them. By all means we should attempt to reason with them first but, if that fails, then we must make sure that the threat they represent is neutralized. This is because the threat they represent is not just to a specific group of humans. They are a threat to all humans because their inability to reason out another solution means that they are fundamentally incapable of communicating with us. If they cannot communicate with us then they will always be a very real threat. A threat that is capable of wiping us out.
In this sense, if we are ever faced with a choice like this from an alien or foreign species, I believe we are obliged to help the humans to survive. They are not only representative of our species but the interaction is representative our ability to communicate with that alien species. If we cannot communicate with them and compromise then we cannot co-exist. We must end the threat that they represent and oppose them.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Groups and Responsibility
To start this off I'd like to outline a little scenario that I ran across the other day in World of Warcraft that is the inspiration for this upcoming post. I will also try to explain some of the things I am referring to. The other day I was running a dungeon (requires a group of five people). When we started one of the group members asked if we could skip a few of the bosses. Everyone in the group agreed to this and off we went barreling to the first boss we couldn't skip. After this boss died, the person who had asked up to skip ahead dropped group and left the dungeon. At first I wasn't sure why he dropped but, after thinking about, I came to the conclusion that he probably dropped because the item that he was going for didn't drop off the boss.
This was perhaps a round about sort of way to get to the point of this blog post but I felt that the story outlines it. Do we, as players, have any sort of obligation to other players with whom we group? I think that, perhaps, that question is too broad to be examined in just a blog post so I'll trim it down to something more manageable: Do we, as players, have an obligation to complete a group objective when it is possible for us to do so? I will offer a tentative answer here in the form of a maybe. The reasons why I say maybe are that there are some questions that need to be answered before we can determine that any obligation exists. Is there any implicit obligations in joining a group? Is there such a thing as an unstated group objective? There are likely more concerns than these but I want to focus on these.
The reason why I ask if there are any implicit obligations when joining a group is that groups are simply assembled and set inside a dungeon. In theory it is up to the players to decide what they are going to do in that situation. They don't have necessarily try to kill bosses since there is no in game mechanic that would force them forward once they have entered a dungeon. With this in mind I would say that there are, strictly speaking, no implicit obligations towards completing a dungeon when joining a group for one. At least in terms of game mechanics. There does seem to be an assumed goal behind joining a group for a dungeon and that is to try to complete the dungeon. This is a community driven goal rather than a designed goal but I think it can be safely said that it is an implicit one if that is the normal behavior of groups. I would say that this question must be taken as a maybe even if, in practice, we follow the assumed goal in pretty much all cases.
This does hinge on there being such things as unstated group objectives in the first place. I would like to argue that there unstated group objectives depending on the type of group. This is a more general question since I think it applies to any type of group. As an example for this, let's say that I joined a sales group. In that case, the unstated (or it wouldn't need to be stated) goal is to sell something. It is implied by the very name of the group. Other goals of the fictional sales group would have to be stated somewhere. So if one were to join a dungeon group then one would inherit the goal, or obligation, of what the group entails. Namely, running the dungeon if we go by the assumed goal of the dungeon. If one were to just join a group that wasn't specifically a dungeon group then there wouldn't be this unstated group objective.
Now there might be some question as to whether we have any obligations towards anonymous people in a game but I want to put that question aside. This isn't because it isn't a valid question but because it's one I think lies outside the scope of this post. I have the impression that we do have some obligations towards anonymous people but I don't want to get deeply into it.
So while the conclusion that I come to is a maybe (leaning more towards we do have an obligation in groups) all of this could have been circumvented by simply making a statement up front. In that sense he would have discharged his obligation by stating specifically what he was going to do. The rest of the group would have had to decide what to do then (allow him to continue running with us or replace him) but his obligation would have been gone. Perhaps honesty is the best policy even in a video game.
This was perhaps a round about sort of way to get to the point of this blog post but I felt that the story outlines it. Do we, as players, have any sort of obligation to other players with whom we group? I think that, perhaps, that question is too broad to be examined in just a blog post so I'll trim it down to something more manageable: Do we, as players, have an obligation to complete a group objective when it is possible for us to do so? I will offer a tentative answer here in the form of a maybe. The reasons why I say maybe are that there are some questions that need to be answered before we can determine that any obligation exists. Is there any implicit obligations in joining a group? Is there such a thing as an unstated group objective? There are likely more concerns than these but I want to focus on these.
The reason why I ask if there are any implicit obligations when joining a group is that groups are simply assembled and set inside a dungeon. In theory it is up to the players to decide what they are going to do in that situation. They don't have necessarily try to kill bosses since there is no in game mechanic that would force them forward once they have entered a dungeon. With this in mind I would say that there are, strictly speaking, no implicit obligations towards completing a dungeon when joining a group for one. At least in terms of game mechanics. There does seem to be an assumed goal behind joining a group for a dungeon and that is to try to complete the dungeon. This is a community driven goal rather than a designed goal but I think it can be safely said that it is an implicit one if that is the normal behavior of groups. I would say that this question must be taken as a maybe even if, in practice, we follow the assumed goal in pretty much all cases.
This does hinge on there being such things as unstated group objectives in the first place. I would like to argue that there unstated group objectives depending on the type of group. This is a more general question since I think it applies to any type of group. As an example for this, let's say that I joined a sales group. In that case, the unstated (or it wouldn't need to be stated) goal is to sell something. It is implied by the very name of the group. Other goals of the fictional sales group would have to be stated somewhere. So if one were to join a dungeon group then one would inherit the goal, or obligation, of what the group entails. Namely, running the dungeon if we go by the assumed goal of the dungeon. If one were to just join a group that wasn't specifically a dungeon group then there wouldn't be this unstated group objective.
Now there might be some question as to whether we have any obligations towards anonymous people in a game but I want to put that question aside. This isn't because it isn't a valid question but because it's one I think lies outside the scope of this post. I have the impression that we do have some obligations towards anonymous people but I don't want to get deeply into it.
So while the conclusion that I come to is a maybe (leaning more towards we do have an obligation in groups) all of this could have been circumvented by simply making a statement up front. In that sense he would have discharged his obligation by stating specifically what he was going to do. The rest of the group would have had to decide what to do then (allow him to continue running with us or replace him) but his obligation would have been gone. Perhaps honesty is the best policy even in a video game.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Introduction
Well, this is my first post, of what I hope to be many posts, in this blog. I am extremely new at blogging so please cut me some slack when you read this.
I'd like to start out by giving you guys a little idea of what this blog will be about. This blog will, most likely, be about ethical issues that I run into while I play different games. I suppose I shall caveat this by saying that I am mostly playing World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, and Warhammer Online. These aren't the only games I play but I think it's pretty obvious to see that I tend to play mmorpgs (massive multiplayer online role playing games). I also play table top pen and paper rpgs. I have played many other games in the past so I will try to draw on them from time to time when I do post.
This blog will most certainly not have anything even close to academic rigor since I want it to be something more of place where I can share some of my thoughts on issues I run in to. These issues will mostly be ethical ones though I won't rule out other types of issues. The reason that I want to write about ethical issues is that I find we have a lot of strange ethical issues floating around in games that we, as players, tend to gloss over. I want to take a look at these and try to pull them apart.
I can't guarantee anything about how frequent these posts will come. I hope to post at least once a week but I do want to be able to work out my thoughts properly before I come here to post them. I do have some ideas already floating around that I want to explore so I hope to put a couple of those up here as soon as possible.
I'd like to thank you guys for your interest. I don't think this blog will be for everyone but I do hope that some people find it interesting and that it can spark some discussion. I will also try to respond to comments if I can. Also if I'm not being really clear in my posts please call me out on it in the comments and I will try to edit and clarify.
I'd like to start out by giving you guys a little idea of what this blog will be about. This blog will, most likely, be about ethical issues that I run into while I play different games. I suppose I shall caveat this by saying that I am mostly playing World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, and Warhammer Online. These aren't the only games I play but I think it's pretty obvious to see that I tend to play mmorpgs (massive multiplayer online role playing games). I also play table top pen and paper rpgs. I have played many other games in the past so I will try to draw on them from time to time when I do post.
This blog will most certainly not have anything even close to academic rigor since I want it to be something more of place where I can share some of my thoughts on issues I run in to. These issues will mostly be ethical ones though I won't rule out other types of issues. The reason that I want to write about ethical issues is that I find we have a lot of strange ethical issues floating around in games that we, as players, tend to gloss over. I want to take a look at these and try to pull them apart.
I can't guarantee anything about how frequent these posts will come. I hope to post at least once a week but I do want to be able to work out my thoughts properly before I come here to post them. I do have some ideas already floating around that I want to explore so I hope to put a couple of those up here as soon as possible.
I'd like to thank you guys for your interest. I don't think this blog will be for everyone but I do hope that some people find it interesting and that it can spark some discussion. I will also try to respond to comments if I can. Also if I'm not being really clear in my posts please call me out on it in the comments and I will try to edit and clarify.
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