When playing EvE online many years ago, I was surprised by one enemy militia player.
Context: we were living partially in low sec systems where PvP was allowed. That's where PvP players from big alliances came when there were no 5k ppl fights for system control.
I've noticed one enemy player consitently being very chivalry about fights. He returned loot to less experienced people he won a fight with and was always humble in both defeat and victory. He even once returned a very expensive module that dropped from my ship after he won a fight with me. And that showed clearly I wasn't a new player that needed taking care off.
That taught me a lot about playing and general behavior in life. That it's not always about your results, but it's always about your style.
My first "player encounter" was with someone who patiently took me through many of the basics for over an hour at the very beginning (like 15 minutes in), then tricked me into attacking them so they could blow me up and get away with it. They were even in the process of explaining why some players might do it, but just left out the important parts.
That's the kind of troll I love. Technically they taught me another useful thing in the process, and it cost me effectively nothing because I could just reroll the character. High effort and low payoff is the best kind.
It might surprise you, but the tutorial nowadays actually gets you blown up twice. It's so strange, that the game actually tells you what to do now and you don't have to ask in help.
Low sec runs by different rules from the gankers in high sec or the politics of null sec. Especially if you're in the Faction Warfare zones. The standard view in Eve is that if you're in a fair fight, you're playing the game incorrectly. But with FW, a good chunk of the fights are honorable duels. And since FW players want more fights and more players in that zone, refunding ships for newbies and setting up balanced duels and rematches are common.
I never played EVE Online much, but I've heard there was a time some player were camp-killing newbies (known as Suicide ganking) in Jita star system which is a tradehub with a lot of activities. It got so bad CCP has to ban players who's doing that.
Another game, Elite Dangerous, also faces ganking problems, some people just doing it shamelessly (judging by the videos they uploaded), some even do it with cheat enabled.
Based on that, I think what you've experienced is rather rare. Maybe the individual are just a good person who's willing to do good even in a competitive environment, and you're lucky to have encountered such person.
I'd love to mention the Endless Forest, an artistic game from nearly twenty years ago where you were a deer and there were no real goals and communication was entirely with deer gestures and sounds. The idea was great and it was fun finding random other people (as deer) and exploring the fantasy world together.
A while ago when I got Resident Evil on the Wii. I found myself really fed up and depressed with the pee and poo coloured levels and relentless misery (maybe I should have known better than to rent Resident Evil!)
I had the idea of taking classic 3d videogame levels and landscaping them with flowers and benches. Executive function got the better of me, I but I still muse about it from time to time.
Spent years playing dota and honestly the most memorable thing wasnt any rampage or comeback. it was this one ranked game where our carry was flaming everyone, we were losing towers, team going quiet the way they do right before everyone gives up.
Our pos 5 just started calling plays. didnt argue, didnt mute, just "smoke in 30" and "ill ward their jungle, go." something about how calm he was made the carry stop typing and start playing. we won that game. nobody added each other after. just five strangers who pulled it together for 40 minutes and moved on.
Dota does this thing where it forces you to cooperate with someone whos actively hostile to you, in real time, with your mmr on the line. thats a very different kind of social experience than a peaceful lobby where everyone just decided to be nice.
Many games with a dedicated servers browser back in the early 2000s just turned into chatrooms at night. I’ve seen that even in games that this article calls out as being just about “shooting” like cs. But it happened on ET, CoD, JK, etc.
Hopefully we come full circle back to game lobbies. Game lobbies and fixed servers were the micro communities this article is dancing around. It worked remarkably well in the early days. I know I certainly miss it
Video games are incredible for the kinds of mini experiments and insights on human nature they throw up.
Player driven economies are a case in point. Everyone joins the game at the same level, and same handicap. Yet you end up with the same power law dynamics of wealth concentration.
Gaming is also one industry that does real research on online toxicity, and one of the more motivated sectors to finding a way to balance it out.
This is something that makes the frequency of cooperation in Arc Raiders somewhat anomalous.
Has this changed recently? I started playing at launch, and while initially it was a lot of fun and I had predominantly positive experiences, after a couple of weeks I quit because it devolved into little more than griefing. I don’t mind it getting a little sweaty here and there but I don’t have time for nonstop edgelords going lord of the flies in front of their 3 twitch viewers.
Of all the recent video games, Arc raiders has been just good fun to watch.
Cohh Carnage’s Arc Raider streams and saw many genuinely nice interactions, especially on rubber duck runs.
Interestingly, Solo Arc Raiders has a very different vibe than team Arc Raiders. In the few group based streams I watched, players shot each other by default. In solo it was less competitive.
I remember a lot of online servers from the Jedi Knight series where people would spend a lot of time talking (well.. writing in chat), messing around, making friendly duels or exploring weird custom mmaps.
I’ve always been fascinated about Arc Raiders since I’m more of a solo player these days. Might try it out next time it’s on sale, especially since I heard it runs flawless on Linux.
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Context: we were living partially in low sec systems where PvP was allowed. That's where PvP players from big alliances came when there were no 5k ppl fights for system control.
I've noticed one enemy player consitently being very chivalry about fights. He returned loot to less experienced people he won a fight with and was always humble in both defeat and victory. He even once returned a very expensive module that dropped from my ship after he won a fight with me. And that showed clearly I wasn't a new player that needed taking care off.
That taught me a lot about playing and general behavior in life. That it's not always about your results, but it's always about your style.
That's the kind of troll I love. Technically they taught me another useful thing in the process, and it cost me effectively nothing because I could just reroll the character. High effort and low payoff is the best kind.
> was always humble in both defeat and victory
I never played EVE Online much, but I've heard there was a time some player were camp-killing newbies (known as Suicide ganking) in Jita star system which is a tradehub with a lot of activities. It got so bad CCP has to ban players who's doing that.
Another game, Elite Dangerous, also faces ganking problems, some people just doing it shamelessly (judging by the videos they uploaded), some even do it with cheat enabled.
Based on that, I think what you've experienced is rather rare. Maybe the individual are just a good person who's willing to do good even in a competitive environment, and you're lucky to have encountered such person.
[0] https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
Does this serve any purpose?
Maybe it makes joining the military not too unappealing for teenagers.
I had the idea of taking classic 3d videogame levels and landscaping them with flowers and benches. Executive function got the better of me, I but I still muse about it from time to time.
Our pos 5 just started calling plays. didnt argue, didnt mute, just "smoke in 30" and "ill ward their jungle, go." something about how calm he was made the carry stop typing and start playing. we won that game. nobody added each other after. just five strangers who pulled it together for 40 minutes and moved on.
Dota does this thing where it forces you to cooperate with someone whos actively hostile to you, in real time, with your mmr on the line. thats a very different kind of social experience than a peaceful lobby where everyone just decided to be nice.
Player driven economies are a case in point. Everyone joins the game at the same level, and same handicap. Yet you end up with the same power law dynamics of wealth concentration.
Gaming is also one industry that does real research on online toxicity, and one of the more motivated sectors to finding a way to balance it out.
This is something that makes the frequency of cooperation in Arc Raiders somewhat anomalous.
Cohh Carnage’s Arc Raider streams and saw many genuinely nice interactions, especially on rubber duck runs.
Interestingly, Solo Arc Raiders has a very different vibe than team Arc Raiders. In the few group based streams I watched, players shot each other by default. In solo it was less competitive.
It was kinda weird considering the game type.
Next level, you medic and heal the hoovies. Winning every round automatically by not fighting.
(the store page and gameplay videos are purposely obtuse, its one of those 'dive in with no precognition for best results' kind of games)