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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8842741" data-attributes="member: 6877472">I was recently watching a video about play patterns, and how the players create their own social rules.&nbsp; For example, when studying MMO's, it's noted that players will decide for themselves, via consensus, what form of play is &quot;good&quot; or &quot;bad&quot;, irregardless of the intent of the developers.Some good examples include &quot;training&quot; in Everquest- a character will get the attention of a bunch of hostile NPC's and run them into a town.&nbsp; Despite being perfectly supported by game mechanics, the community took a dim view of it.&nbsp; So much so, that when they created a &quot;anything goes&quot; server, at the request of the community, one fellow quickly got banned for training large amounts of enemies into neutral towns.In City of Heroes, there were zones where heroes and villains were intended to PVP against each other.&nbsp; But since this was a rare opportunity for both factions to interact, a section of the PVP area was quickly turned into a social zone by the players, so they could hang out.&nbsp; If a player decided to actually force someone into PVP, they were severely ostracized and shunned by the community, to the point of death threats!Studies show that, even in absence of rules, players will create their own rules about a variety of things.&nbsp; So to me, it isn't that rules aren't important; they obviously are.&nbsp; It's more about knowing which rules are important to your play group, and which ones can be dispensed with if needed.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 8842741, member: 6877472"] I was recently watching a video about play patterns, and how the players create their own social rules. For example, when studying MMO's, it's noted that players will decide for themselves, via consensus, what form of play is "good" or "bad", irregardless of the intent of the developers. Some good examples include "training" in Everquest- a character will get the attention of a bunch of hostile NPC's and run them into a town. Despite being perfectly supported by game mechanics, the community took a dim view of it. So much so, that when they created a "anything goes" server, at the request of the community, one fellow quickly got banned for training large amounts of enemies into neutral towns. In City of Heroes, there were zones where heroes and villains were intended to PVP against each other. But since this was a rare opportunity for both factions to interact, a section of the PVP area was quickly turned into a social zone by the players, so they could hang out. If a player decided to actually force someone into PVP, they were severely ostracized and shunned by the community, to the point of death threats! Studies show that, even in absence of rules, players will create their own rules about a variety of things. So to me, it isn't that rules aren't important; they obviously are. It's more about knowing which rules are important to your play group, and which ones can be dispensed with if needed. [/QUOTE]

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