I wish I could get paid to troll MMORPGs.
A Loyala University professor does, and I'm not kidding, a soshul experiment on City of Heroes. Long story short (because long article is long), David Myers, in his persona of "Twixt", is a general asshat in the game and then gets a paper out of talking about how awesome his character was and how mean people were to him.

If that mess wasn't wanky enough, arguments have broken out in the comments. Some feel that since "Twixt" wasn't breaking any rules, nobody has a right to complain.

The research was obvious. It's sociology in a video game world. Since a high percentage of people are online, either playing a game or posting in some fashion, it is important. The internet is creating a new social way, so to speak. What if his "death threats" materialized? over a stupid game. I'd care.

Also, he was following the designed rules. The game created that area of the game for good to battle evil (hero's vs villians). The gamers decided not to do that and just use it as a neutral ground to chat with their good or evil counterparts. he just decided to follow the games rules, not the societies rules. You make it sound like he's such a jerk.

it's like, he's the guy on I-10 driving 60mph while everyone else is driving 75mph. He's not following society, but the rules created. Are we saying we're all the 75mph drivers cursing out the guy actually going the speed limit? -- Kyros

Some feel that being pissed off when someone comes in and acts like an asshat to disrupt people's fun is, in fact, a reasonable reaction.

You make good points, kyros, but I don't agree. Playing games by the official rules isn't the same as following the law. Games are social by their very nature. The point is supposed to be having a good time. Driving on the freeway is a necessary evil. We dislike the slowpoke because he's in our way, not because he's being "mean."

Ever gotten together with a group to play Monopoly and have them introduce all these strange rules? It can be fun. And if you're there to have fun, what the group wants to do is more important, more relevant to social interaction, than whatever is written on the box lid.

The socially acceptable reaction to such a situation would be either to go along with the group, or decline to play. The social unacceptable reaction is to join the game -- indeed, demand to play -- and then irritate everyone by refusing to go along with the others.

Online communities go well beyond gaming, and it's community that is ultimately the important thing here. Say, for example, I joined an online community on a Website for photographers. The Website's own hosting rules require that I avoid copyright infringement and porn. However, I might then select a community which has also asked that I post no hate speech.

If I then disregard the communities' wishes by posting hate speech, I can have no other intention than to make the community angry with me. The fact that they would then BE angry with me is obvious.

His story that defying the unwritten rules of the game brought him hostility is certainly believable enough. I just don't see why this is worthy of academic research. It's like researching that people like to be complimented or generally tend to run from fire. -- Homespon

Let me sum this up and see if I understand.

The professor went into a zone where players are competing against each other, a zone where players are supposed to attack other players. A zone where the purpose is to be "mean" to each other. A zone where aggression is a VIRTUE.

And he's surprised when people get angry and aggressive at him?

That would be like if I went into a gay bar and was SHOCKED when another man hit on me.

He entered a natively aggressive "community" and was surprised that he received aggression.

If he doesn't understand such a basic concept, someone needs to take this guy's PhD away, but that's just my opinion. -- Philotic, who I think missed the point somewhere.

A few people bring in personal stories about what really happened with the infamous Twixt.

"I'm actually a CoH player who PvPed both with and against Twixt (I am not any of the players named, and my verbal interactions with Twixt were quite limited). I'd like to clear up a few things that seem to be missing. Note that I am, in no way, discounting the seriousness of death threats, but maybe a little more understanding of what really took place will allow people to relate better to the frustration.

1) Twixt's actions in PvP translated to an investment of time. By teleporting (the action described) villains into a row of firing squad computer-generated enemies, he would give the other character debt. This debt would impede the character's ability to gain experience by cutting it in half for a certain period of time. Thus, anyone who suffered from what Twixt did would pay for it by having their progress cut in half the next time they got the opportunity to play. A full portion of debt could take upwards of 3 hours of nonstop play to be worked off.

Imagine you go play miniature golf. Directly in front of you is a group of 10 children who have no idea what they're doing. You are unable to skip past them, and as is allowed, they refuse to let you pass. Due to this inconvenience, you only get to play 9 holes (or 4, if you're only on a 9-hole course). Would you be frustrated? I sure would be. They didn't break the rules, but they hurt the fun of my outing by specifically robbing me of the time that I had dedicated to accomplishing my goal. It's not much different than traffic, bowling balls getting stuck in the lanes, people talking during a movie, or any other issue that would rob an individual of their free time. The individuals causing your frustration may not be breaking the rules, but they are affecting your enjoyment.

2) Twixt's account of what took place in the PvP zones he visited just plain isn't accurate.

People did chat because many of the players had played together prior to the release of City of Villains (CoH was released in May of 2004 while CoV in October of 2006). Most of us already knew each other. However, that didn't result in a lack of fighting. Many times, Twixt would simply teleport people from battles already in place to his computer-generated death squads. He's presenting the situation as if he was the only one using the zones correctly when, in actuality, he was just the only one manipulating loopholes to allow him to generally be mean to other players. That's the biggest reason why he was despised.

3) Twixt commonly made fun of players he killed.

He did not simply say random hero-supporting things, he oftentimes bragged openly after using his computer-generated helpers to kill someone. Like any other competitive situation, bragging and talking trash will earn people talking back and becoming more upset. He worked to goad individuals into becoming angrier at what he did.

He mentions the forums as a place where people speculated about parts of his life, but he seems to have left out where he posted kill-logs from his time spent in PvP zones. He posted quite frequently on those boards, and he went out of his way to fuel the hate that developed for him. Professional athletes who do such a thing are widely derided by the media and fans. Twixt worked hard to generate hate, he was not simply an innocent victim.

4) Twixt died. A lot.

Twixt perfected his method of generating debt for other players by dying a whole lot along the way. Statements like, "But no one could stay alive long enough to defeat Twixt..." completely misrepresent what happened.

5) Twixt's research plays a role by examining another realm of society, but his results are predictable.

It's not surprising that people get upset when you're mean to them without reason. On an unmarked curb, it's legal for me to park 5 feet away from the cars in front of and behind me, but it's simply rude to do so. If I did so directly in front of hundreds of different people who were looking for a parking spot, it's not unreasonable to think that these individuals would be angry with me. I would say that's completely predictable. It's also not unheard of for such individuals to threaten others in such a situation. The fact that the anonymity of the internet allows such hotheads to go more extreme with their threats shouldn't exactly come as a shock to anyone either. Thus, while I think research into the societies of online communities can be interesting, I don't think Twixt's can be classified as such.

It's a shame that Twixt is the face of the CoH PvP and gaming community. He presents a very one-sided tale that some folks, such as the writer of this article, have apparently bought into entirely. A whole lot of good takes place in that community, but apparently, writing about that just wouldn't sell a book. -- iltat

As I player of City of Heroes I was a member of the population that the professor performed his behavioral experimentation on. Twixt was hardly the "most reviled player." Actually he was generally considered an annoyance at worst. Something akin to the kid in the playground who kicks the ball across the street or pokes the cat with a stick. The only "fame" he garnered in the community, the thing that made him anything but another anonymous player was the consistent self promotion. The fact that some people were extremely annoyed with him is hardly surprising. Broadcasting (typing so every player nearby must see your words) boasts and taunts and insults hardly wins friends. So the professor is writing a book that essentially says "Nobody likes a braggart and a poor sport” and “If one acts outside the norms of decorum of a society at the expense of others they get shunned by that society." -- hewhorocks

Some dispute the validity of studying City of Heroes at all:

The first word that comes to my mind is pathetic.

Not the way twixt was treated, nor that Myers was threatened, nor that some players did not like the way Myers was treated

Pathetic in that the TP would publish anything on such dreck. Pathetic in that a venerable university like Loyola would pay someone to engage in such useless research. Pathetic in that a whole lot of time and valuable resources were wasted by a lot of people playing a comic book game.

Hey TP how about some investigative journalism on the JP politician scumbags! -- Velociraptor

And I have no idea what the heck this guy is on about.

What a total joke. Send your kids to Loyola, and your children's tuition will go to pay for this guy to sit there and play video games. Well what do you expect from the university that brought you "professor" Bill Quigley??? And of course Quigley is tight pals working closely with Tracie Washington, and he also represents ACORN, all while happily on the payroll at Loyola University. So think about that before you consider sending your children to Loyola or patronizing any of their events (such as concerts, speakers etc.). That is where your money is going to end up going -- not to educate students but to keep Quigley, Washington and ACORN in business, and to buy this guy a new joystick and advanced video card for his video games! -- Weatherbane

The City of Heroes forum also discusses the subject. Supposedly there's another thread on it, but I can't seem to find it.

Hyperstrike makes a very interesting point.

Okay, here's my luddite take on this after reading the article, seeing his "leaving CoH" blog post, and doing a bit of search-fu through what's left of his posts in the board.

He "perfected" a way to abuse one of the mechanics of the game while ignoring several others (such as the reward mechanic).

When confronted by someone for whom his preferred method of assault didn't work effectively enough on, he left the zone.

He claims to have stopped playing due to "upcoming changes in the game made by the developer".

The upcoming changes he mentions were, *TA-DAAAA!*, Issue 13. This issue made drastic changes to PVP and several of these changes HEAVILY impacted on his preferred method of assaulting other players.

What he was doing technically falls under Section 6, Subsection D, item 9.

It's split up, so I'll give you the text in sentence form.

"You agree not to use the service to stalk or otherwise harass another member."

What he was doing qualifies as harassment. Especially if I'm reading a few of the chat/kill logs right.

DarkEther points out that he was doing it wrong anyway.

The page linked by the original post shows obvious bias in how the events were represented, which makes me wonder what is actual intentions were. He made himself sound impervious to others while completing objectives encouraged by the game itself, when his description of specific details makes that sound impossible. He intentionally avoided all PvP reward mechanics, according to his described tactics, which means he wasn't playing how it was intended by the developers. That means his stated purpose doesn't match up with the details of his experiment. So, he's either incompetent, or a liar.

He could just as well have been spamming healing aura at level 1 in a wentworth's. It's "legal", but there's no reason to do it other than intentionally aggrivating players, and it'd take a daft individual to believe it's somehow the designed purpose of the game.

In addition to Nerd Rage, people like SilverAgeFan also provide academic distaste.

Read through some of his posts. I don't think the man's research persona was as carefully crafted as his academic paper asserts. He repeatedly expresses interest in and engagement with other MMOs, wavers between being articulate, speaking in txt type and then writing weak limericks. I think he was playing as he preferred in earnest and then asking questions later. Again, much more art than science.

Also, he seems obsessed about both the intentions and rules of i13 PvP and comes off as MUCH more engaged in (and enraged by) the subject than the cool, aloof stance he describes in his paper when he discusses the "natural laws" provided by the game universe.

I'm left wondering if the shifting rules of PvP were a "breach" upon the order he expected and required for his "research." Doesn't the formal modification of the rules to support more "sportsmanly" behaviour than he displayed indicate that though tactics he was using were for a time "legal," that after data mining they were deemed an "exploit"? His actions contributed to actions by the developers to change PvP. Isn't THAT in itself as significant as the rage he evoked from fellow players in RV? Not much time is given to that in his analysis.

If anything, there is perhaps a MUCH more interesting analysis hiding behind this narrative of a triad of realms: natural law (which I still think is NOT what Myers asserts it is, but closer to the root of cybernetics and electronic computation), social law (the informal mores and norms which he does fairly accurately recognize), and legislation (the ever evolving rules set by the governing authority of the realm, in our case the devs and publisher. this is the stuff he grossly misidentified IMO as "natural law".) In some ways, his actions are more akin to wallstreeters and banksters ripping us all off for nearly 30 years in manners that often were within the law but may have violated what is sometimes referred to as "the spirit of the law." In other words, an exploit. And just like those power tie wearing con artists, Dr. Myers cries foul when the laws of the land are modified to cinch up a few loopholes he actively exploited. So yeah, after reading his paper last night and digesting it while I slept, I've solidified my own opinions that this is a very poor excuse for scholarship indeed.

(And to the small minority in here coming in to LOL at folks getting worked up, note that I'm not really offended by the PvP stuff. Not my concern. But I do appreciate good, insightful research when I read it. And if I'm worked up about anything here, it's his tremendously sloppy work that bothers me! And if you get LULZ from seeing someone have interests and values beyond the narrow confines of this game and a desire to sometimes engage others in earnest discussion of those interests, LOL away folks at what you misidentify as "forum drama.")

LVConvert is pretty sure he knows what's going on.

Looks like Twixt came into PvP with a preconceived mindset, looked to do whatever he could to negatively affect the playerbase so he could support the conclusion he had already made.

For someone who is studying social conventions and social conflict to ONLY act in a socially negative way isn't academically honest, even if it is within the "rules of the game."

A more balanced approach would have been to have a Twixt character and one that would have been the exact opposite, and one that was neutral, and to chart the resulting interactions with all three.

Plus in his paper he said he had been playing for almost 2 years, logging "thousands of hours."

I think someone got caught playing during work time by a higher power and had to figure out a way to turn his play into work.

And it continues like this for a goodly while, with people arguing over whether Twixt was harmless, annoying, or an insult to the academic community. A thread on RPG.net's forums is also mulling over the matter (with the occasional "LOL taking it seriously nerdrage LOL"), but that part of the forum is members-only so I won't be quoting anything.


EDIT: Sorry, I went out before this made it through the queue. Cut is in place now.