The Chinese Socialist MMOG 200
GP writes "How different is China? In the online game version of the idealized Socialist state, you gain experience points by 'doing good deeds' and 'thwarting spys'. You can even meet Chairman Mao!" From a great writeup by Scott Jennings on the game: "And now we have the online MMO version, 'Learn From Lei Feng Online', which allows you to... mend socks. Again - not making any of this up. To quote from the original Xinhua story 'For beginners, sewing and mending socks is the only way to increase experience and to upgrade,' said Jiao Jian, a six-grade pupil in Yuexiu District, quoted by the newspaper. He then continues. 'Every time you are promoted to a higher level, your clothes will become more average,' he said. I'm pretty sure this isn't a translation screw up. The longer you grind, the more you look like everyone else. I guess new users wear designer pastels or something."
Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy way to install rootkits onto computers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
(Before you ask--yes, Chinese people really do consider us barbaric for our cultural idiosyncracies. And killing infant girls really isn't pervasive in modern China, even in rural areas, regardless of whatever uninformed drivel Microsoft-NBC is spewing today. Gain some perspective, please.)
Re:Hey mods!!! That's not off topic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Easy way to install rootkits onto computers (Score:3, Insightful)
However, the US isn't quite as experienced in these matters as China. My communications might get monitored for mentioning said keywords, but that doesn't mean the FBI or NSA is going to show up at my door and disappear me right away. It's just beginning to get bad in the US, but until the federal government does away with things like due process, it's nowhere near as bad as it is in China. Having rights slowly being taken away is not the same as having no rights to begin with.
The only advantage China has over the US (and what makes what you say true) is that China is enormous. Can't monitor everybody, so they go for the outspoken ones only.
Parent is right (Score:4, Insightful)
"Man, I just re-formatted my processor because I got a virus or a bug or something in my window."
"Yeah I know, you should use that linux-program I heard it really zaps those bugs!"
Talk about missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, probably even before. I can imagine some "but I really want to start directly at the top of Pong's high score table" whiner sitting on the side and spewing rationalizations about how actually playing the game is "work", and how those poor Pong players got scammed into working in their free time and paying for it. (And make no mistake, playing arcade games used to cost a _lot_ more than 13$ a month.) Fast forward a bit in time and you find the same kind of people whining about how deluded people are to invest any kind of time or effort into their entertainment and, god forbid, to cooperate with other players.
That's all that levels, xp, epic equipment, or PvP ranks are: a way to keep the score, not all that different from Pong's or PacMan's high score table, or from a RL football team's rank in the leagues and championships. And some people "grind" for that score (in fact, for some trying to beat the high score _is_ the challenge and the fun), some people just play the game for what it is and let the score just happen on its own, and... some busibodies stay on the sideline and try to sound deeply philosophical in their lament about how sad it is that people put up with "having" to spend hours on their entertainment, or "having" to interact with other people or whole groups. (E.g., the group around the arcade machine.)
And yes, some form of coop play always existed even in those arcade machines. Ever since the first game got a fire button to mash, in addition to the directional joystick/trackball/whatever, I recall people "grouping" and having specialized "group roles" at the arcades. E.g., one would guide the character/ship/whatever around and dodge enemy fire, and one was mashing the fire button and dropping the AOE "bomb" at the right moment for maximum effect. I.e., using the modern MMO terms very loosely, one was the "tank" keeping the team from taking damage and one was the "damage dealer", even if noone used those words at the time. I.e., even when the game didn't actually offer the in-game mechanics for that, some found their own makeshift ways to cooperate and interact with other humans, regardless of how many others sit around and whine about how everyone else should be a loner.
Get this: it's not a matter of "work" or "grind" to some end. That's the actual game. It's ok if I "have" to spend some hours doing quests in WoW, because exactly that was the whole point and purpose in the first place: to waste some hours in a game. Gaining some level or armour piece at the end is just a virtual pat on the back, but the real purpose was to waste those hours in the first place. That's what entertainment is all about: filling your time with something better than staring at the walls.
It may surprise you, but it's not just MMOs. Actually _most_ of the RL passtimes need some time or effort, and most are someone else's "work". Do you enjoy tweaking your car? That's a mechanic's "work". Do you enjoy going dancing? A professional dancer would call that "work". Taking digital photos in the park with your cool new camera? Yep, pro photographers would call that "work". Play tennis or basketball with your friends? That's a pro athlete's "work". _Watch_ sports? Sports journalists do that for a living. Watch a movie and maybe discuss them with your pals? Yep, that's a movie reviewer's "work". Etc.
You'll notice that they also all involve some time spent on that hobby. E.g., a movie buff may spend hours a day "grinding" through movies on their DVD player. E.g., someone with a digital camera may "grind" for hours taking photos of squirrels in the park. Etc. Some of those, *gasp* may even involve "grouping" with people. E.g., going dancing with a couple of friends instead of doing it solo. Some of those *gasp* may involve joining some kind of a "guild". E.g., joining some photo community or whatever kind of associati
Re:wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hey mods!!! That's not off topic (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing, you see, is that Kuwait and Qatar don't have a population of a billion people.
There are like 840,000 Quatari and 2.2 million Kuwaiti, that's respective male excedents of 155,400 and 256,000. China's 53% vs 51% for a population of 1,300,000,000 translates into a male excess of 26,000,000...
You could replace the whole Kuwaiti population by women 10 times and you still wouldn't have enough wives for these guys...
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A good fit (Score:3, Insightful)
Communism:
- in America the manifestation of anything evil, repressive or stupidly unrealistic is labelled 'communism'. Satan is a Communist, no doubt. Nobody knows why.
- in the rest of the world 'Communism' is a political viewpoint, something about sharing etc etc.
Capitalism:
- in America the manifestation of anything good, true and beautiful. God is definitely a capitalist. Again, nobody really knows why this is the case, but if you ask wuaetions or express dissent, then you are a Communist!!
- in the rest of the world 'Capitalism' is another political viewpoint, something about money, but who really cares?
Democracy:
- in America, a synonym for 'capitalism', 'freedom' and doing what your priest/pastor/church leader tells you.
- in the rest of the world this is simply a method for choosing who should lead the country.
To an American an expression such as 'communist democracy' is an oxymoron, something that makes no sense. To the rest of the world this is not inherently contradictory, and indeed there are examples of countries that approach this - Denmark, Sweden and Norway have at times not been far from that.
The very strange and indeed scary thing is that America - or at least their president - think they have to go out in the world and teach everybody else how to think. But how can one even comtemplate such a thing when Americans are mentally so far from the rest of us?
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes because it means the person in question is not part of the "we" and will have different ideas of what rights are fundamental.
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A good fit (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Trying to enforce _your_ own point of view, regardless of what people want, is what's incompatible with democracy. It's not even just about communism. The USA McCarthy era trying to enforce capitalism and weed out any communist thinking wasn't a particularly democratic process or a case of "land of the free".
Freedom and democracy mean that the people are able to choose whatever they choose, including communism, capitalism, something in between, or something very stupid. (E.g., ancient Athens democratically chose to wage war on Sparta, even though the power of Athens was naval and Sparta was landlocked on a mountain. And most land battles had been won for Athens by the Spartan elites. Let's just say Athens never recovered from that mistake.) But that's what democracy means: letting the people choose for themselves.
And there's this fundamentally post-McCarthy American point of view that, given freedom and a right to choose, anyone would choose a cult of the psychopaths. (In the medical sense, not in the axe murderer sense.) That anyone would choose a dog-eat-dog world, where it's only right to be chewed up and spit out by those more powerful than you. And that there are no other shades of grey.
In practice, in Europe for example most countries have democratically chosen something in between. Something where enough economic freedom is left to keep the economy going, but there are plenty of safety nets for those who aren't CEOs. Some countries, as was pointed out, veered pretty far to the left.
But even if I was to accept your points, the GP point still stands: there's something particularly stupid in claiming basically "everything I don't like is communistic." In this case someone argues that "working" in WoW to gain an advantage over other players is somehow communistic, because he doesn't like that. Excuse me? Last I've heard having to work to gain an advantage was the very fundament of capitalism.
That's really the whole problem. For some people "communism", "capitalism" and so on have lost any trace of their real meaning and are some generic synonim for "evil" and "good". Everything they like, including getting a free meal, is "capitalistic" and "democratic". Everything they dislike, e.g., having to work to get a reward, is inherently "communist" and "totalitarian". They've become just buzzwords triggering some Pavlov's Dog kind of prescribed response, without any thinking involved.
Re:Talk about missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
a) Playing the game for the fun. Enjoying walking around, iteracting with other players, discovering new places, facing new challenges and beating them and maybe getting a cool outfit for your avatar in the process - playing because it feels good.
b) Being the best, having the fattest loot and letting everybody else know about it. Being able to publicly proclaiming one's 1337ness, rubbing it in everybody else's face and going around calling all else noobs - in other words, an ego trip.
The big conflict between this two factions is born out of the following factors:
To summon it, less mature players with the drive to spend enormous ammounts of time doing repetitive tasks in order to increase their 1337ness and (due to few or no responsabilities ) plenty of free time on their hands (type b) are, purelly due to game mechanics that reward repetitive behaviour, placed in a position in which they can easilly spoil the enjoyment of those players that play purelly for the fun of playing (type a). Some of these type b players take advantage of such built-in game mechanicas and will actually go out of their way to pester all other players.
Hence the conflict.
Personally i would love to see some type of player segregation (into different servers) on the basis of maturity. I doubt that this will ever happen within a single game - most likelly the segregation will naturally occur as game publishers put out more games aimed at the casual player crowd.
Diversity of information is good. (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't have a problem with a socialist game, as long as its just a game. All the talk we give on censorship, the least we can do is be accepting of their version of free speech even if its not something we'd find popular.
We can have socialist games, or communist games, ultimately it's not real. As long as we can sell our ultra capitalist games to China, I think they have the right to sell their socialist games to us.
Re:Easy way to install rootkits onto computers (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, as an alternative for disappearing for just as long, walk down a street in Shanghai yelling "Taiwan is a free and independent country!"
I suggest these as better ways to spend your time than making absurd comparisons between the United States and China. Notice, that in trying to make you go away for a long time, I didn't suggest that you walk down a street in New York yelling "America invaded Iraq!" or ask you to go to a book store in New York and look for something by Karl Marx.
Re:A good fit (Score:2, Insightful)
I recently learned that Benito Mussolini's granddaughter Alessandra Mussolini (who is also a fascist) has a seat in the European Parliament [eu.int].
In a free society you can't prevent people from being assholes; even elected to democratic institutions.
Re:Hmm (Score:1, Insightful)