Welcome everyone, to a new chapter of MMOries of a Gamer. This week, I introduce a new topic for the column, leaving behind my personal experiences regarding specific MMOs I’ve played over the last ten years to embrace some new themes. I’ll tell you of some of the concepts that marked my gaming experience and are exclusive to the online community, like this week’s topic: Need Before Greed.
In 2000, I was beginning my MMO life and becoming familiar with a lot of new concepts, never seen before in offline games. I remember the first time I saw my first “lol” typed on the game chat… “What’s that, an schematic tie fighter?” Everything was brand new, a different way to play and to interact with your game. Beside the typical NPCs, I was interacting with human beings, controlling their characters, helping me or disturbing me, so the “human factor” was included in these games. Community began to be probably the most important thing in the MMOs we played from 1999-2000.
As everything was so social, you needed others to achieve almost everything you wanted; concepts like greed, treason, friendship, envy, etc. became part of the equation, starting with your own personality. One of these concepts, probably the first that really shocked me and made me think, was Need Before Greed. “Ok, everyone, we have a full group. Start pulling… oh, wait, how do we loot, nbg?” I didn’t know “nbg” was the acronym for Need Before Greed: an agreement between every single member of the group that puts the one needing the loot dropped first in line to get it, ahead of the ones wanting loot to sell for money. When the leader of the group explained that to me, I really started to understand how deep and complex MMOs can be, because of the social aspects.
I thought it was great some players managed to have such a civic attitude. When two members needed an item dropped, then luck decided who got it but, after some time playing, I found many players that hated this rule, wanting to leave everything in the hands of roll checks (/roll, /random.) Was that the classic duality? good versus evil? simple generosity or greed? the human factor. Some like to act one way and some like to act the opposite.
I like need before greed. In all these years playing MMOs, I’ve seen uncountably unfair loot distribution due to the lack of this polite rule. Sometimes, a single player is so lucky that s/he gets everything the group has gotten as a whole, with the effort of everyone, leaving the rest of the group with the bad feeling of playing time lost and empty efforts. Nobody likes to spend 2-3 hours clearing a dungeon just to see one lucky player get everything. Why then do some people refuse to respect nbg? Why some get to steal the loot and then scape?… the human factor.
Need Before Greed proves that MMOs are little “real” worlds, with their own economy, society and people evolving characters. Like the real life we live, where you can find helpful people and really bad people, MMOs and their communities offer the essence of human attitudes. Isn’t it just a game? Shouldn’t we just play and enjoy? No, these are games, but you’re playing with other people, so you need to respect others and take care in the things you do.
I’ve seen arguments and bitter debates just to define what “need” means. Though nbg is a good rule, it’s not perfect at all. Anyway, remember the important thing about that “rule”, generosity. NBG was made to avoid greedy players disturbing others, so it’s nonsense to try and pervert the rule so you get what you want. If you find someone rude, selfish and greedy, kick him out of the group. If he is the leader, leave the group, try always to stay calm and don’t get angry, that is when you have to remember it’s only a game.
“Treat grave problems lightly and light problems gravely.” is a Chinese proverb that will help you adopt the right attitude when facing problems. Use it on MMOs and remember the need before greed attitude will grant you the friendship of many players, the most precious treasure you can get.
See you all next week on MMOries of a Gamer: PvP.
The problem with need before greed is that it’s pretty hard on those of us who already have most of what we need. In general, such people feel entitled, on account of already having put in hard work to achieve what they have. And to see someone say they ‘need’ rareWidget01 when they already got three other pieces of loot this week, on account of how undergeared they were going in, can be galling.
It’s always funny how the ‘human element’ gets blamed first and foremost. Like, the programmers put in the code to enable the stuff you don’t like, yet do we blame the programmers when someone goes along and does the stuff you don’t like? They couldn’t have done it without the programmers first enabling the suckage.
And in terms of ‘perverting’ the rule, generally what I find is that everyone is perverting the rule to their own agenda. The worst perverts are the ones who think they have the one and only true way of using it.
Ironically, if everyone realises they are perverting the rule, the end result is usually less perverted than if someone goes in thinking they know right and wrong.
Abosulutely right, Nbarnes, that’s exactly why I say “NBG” is not perfect at all.
In the past, the “seniority” method was used frequently, now, some guilds use several attendance points systems. It’s not perfect neither.
What I was trying to say is, against imperfection: positive attitude.
Callan, your statements fall into the same contradiction you critize, as you are trying to communicate your truth, when you say what you say above.
I think your mixing up a truth about a ‘right’ way, and a truth that contains no right or wrong. Mine was the latter.
On an unrelated side story, when I first played wow (I don’t anymore), I grouped with a friend and the need/greed came up. I read them as completely opposite – greedy sounded like it would take something over need, so I wasn’t greedy and clicked need. The funny thing was my friend types to me as if to scold me that I didn’t need that. Even with me, his friend, he jumped the gun straight to scolding rather than realising he hadn’t explained anything to me.
And there’s where the social factor comes into play… communication is very important and every gamer should try and ask first, before going on a rampage about ninja-looters or any other subject source of apossible misunderstanding.
One can try and change the game or the rules to fit their way of thinking, but we can affect a game just so much, and that’s where I think Pedro put some blame on the human factor. Most of the time we take things for granted and let ourselves be carried away by our feelings. It’s just natural, but a more relaxed/possitive approach to the game would in many occasions let us (and others) enjoy much more our spare time, imho.
That’s the idea, Sema, exactly :)