Gamers are psychos

What's up, duders.

Today, I contucted a experiment.

I would go around in the free roam mode in Red Dead Redemption. I would have my weapon holstered at all times, and only walk, not even jog. It's important to note that in free roam, players have the option to work togheter, or kill each other for no reason.

The goal was to see if it was possible to enjoy the open world of Red Dead, without getting killed by others, if I went about my own business, never harming them.

The results were dissapointing, though not surprising.

I have yet to not be attacked by anyone who I've encountered. Literally, every single person I've encountered so far has killed me, although I have posed no threat to them. As of now, I've met 64 unique players, and I've been killed a total of 324 times.

I've been playing for one hour. And yes, I've been counting.

Interpret that as you may, but for me at least, I find it tough to continue to advocate that games don't desentisize people. Clearly, if given the chance, people will repeatedly attack someone who is no threat to them, if there are no consequenses for doing so.

And yes, before anyone comments on it, I do believe that the way we behave in virtual worlds reflect upon the kinds of person one truly is. It's easy to dismiss this as "it's a game", but I reject that thought. Aren't games supposed to be fun? What kind of sick mind would find any kind of fun in shooting at people who do them no harm?

Gamers, I'm dissappointed in you. I thought we were better than this.

Err - I'd be more surprised if you hadn't walked into the existing community around Red Dead where the norm for most interactions online as been established as PvP. It's like walking onto a WoW PvP server and wondering why you were being killed all the time by the opposing faction.

If you want to experience nuance in the online gaming space, try Day Z out - and watch out for the bandits.

If you seriously think that people who shoot pixels at other pixels in a game like RDR would just go out and do the same in real life then no, they're not the ones who are psychos.

If that's how you feel in a neutral zone, I wonder how you'd react to people teamkilling in a co-op mandatory game.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAU0o6S276E#t=21m30s

For some reason it won't embed or link.

Seems scientific enough.

I've never played RDR's multiplayer but I can only assume that you were playing some kind of deathmatch? Well, isn't the point of that to kill the other players?

I'll need more context on the multiplayer, but this ground is almost as solid as the one used to say that Mass Effect had rape in it.

That's not exactly what I'm saying, but I do think there is a more solid connection between the way we act in a virtual world and the way we act in our day-to-day lives. Again, why would anyone go shooting random people over and over and over? People who are doing them no harm. Is that fun?

Yes.

Eh, sounds like you walked into something that has well established rules and whatnot. PvP as someone else said above. Red Dead has been out for awhile now. I doubt anyone still playing the multiplayer is playing it to help random people. I'm not sure how serious you are about the whole psycho statement, but in case you aren't joking, you should probably take wider and more relevant samples before coming to conclusions like that.

Free roam is not a deathmatch scenario. It is 16 players across the entire map of the game. You can team up and take down enemy strongholds, play poker, hunt with other players, explore the map or any number of other things. Instead, people ride around shooting everyone else. It's a shame.

That's fair. I never said anything about helping others. I'm just wondering why anyone would go about shooting everyone else, especially if a person does nothing to provoke. You barely get any XP for doing so, so there is literally no other award than killing other people. I find that scary.

I loved Red Dead, but not for its multiplayer. I played online once, but for some reason, the group of people I was playing with decided to target me and kill me over and over and if I fought back they'd act like I was overstepping and doing something I shouldn't be, whereas they have free rain to grief me and ruin my experience while also verbally spewing idiotic insults at me.

It could've been a coincidence, but it was probably one of, if not the, worst experiences I've had playing a game online.

It's basically any session of the game online. Again, it's a shame, because after all the DLC, the game world is just bursting with things to do. Still, no one uses it, and those who want to use it, never get the chance because their hunted by everyone else.

@peasantabuse: Why do you find that entertaining?

I feel like there's some irony in you noting this fact, Legion.

Though, yes, people often express their personal senselessness in videogames.

@truthtellah: Whaaat am I missing? I don't get the irony, and I'm not being sarcastic or anything, I just really don't get it. Or does it have something to do with my username?

Yeah I remember playing online back when it came out and it was pretty much just a people shooting at each other constantly.

I would assume anyone playing a 3 year old game online, which has not received any new content in awhile would be dangerously insane. So I find your sample to not be indicative of the wider population.

What you seem to have stepped into, my friend, is the unforgiving wild west that is the internet. You have not stepped into an even remotely accurate representation of people's psyche. You have stepped into an area where a person's actions have absolutely no consequence in the real world whatsoever, therefore, they will act as they please against pixels that they neither know nor care about.

That word, pixels, is important. I didn't say people. I said pixels. Actual people generally have some sense of empathy and do not really want to commit mass murder on horseback.

EDIT: There's even a term for this. Originally coined as the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory", its name is now the much more appropriate "Online disinhibition effect".

So, you find it scary that people are playing the game to play the game, and not to get meta rewards like xp.

huh

I have a friend I used to play free roam with co-op, but his idea of co-op was turn on me all the time and blow me up with dynamite.

No, I find it scary that people ignore everything else you can do in multiplayer, and just go around shooting other people in the back, without even have their gun drawn.

I am indeed making a joke referencing your namesake, yes. Complaining about the many who come together for a seemingly senseless purpose.

@believer258: I disagree with that. I think that people project their personalities into the way they behave in a virtual world. As you noted, there are no consequences, and I guess that's why they do it. That part of their personalities has no place any other aspect of society, and therefore they bring it online.

@legion_: All I can say is that these people have been playing RDR multiplayer for 3 years. I'm sure there were people who were into the other stuff to start, now they have settled on the pvp aspect.

If you played DayZ when it was first getting popular, you will have seen the player base evolve in a similar manner. Initially, there were definitely bandits, but people were generally willing to group up with strangers and have a good time. That still exists, but people have been burned so many times that most just shoot on sight as a preventative measure. I still go back to that mod sometimes, and its not that I am a psychopath, but I will shoot unsuspecting people all the time. Because that is what the meta has evolved to.

You know theres a PVP-disabled free roam mode in RDR right?

So if you join a PvP active free roam its usually cus guys wanna dick around in the open world getting in fights right?

some experiment...."Omg i joined a PvP active free roam where its generalyl understood people dick around and fight each other in and got killed! gamers are psychos!"

Just join the PvP disabled one? I mean thats like joining a CoD match and going "whats everyones problem? they're SHOOTING ME! they must be desensitized to violence!"

@foolishchaos: Still, in RDR, when I got shot down fifteen times by the same person, and still don't act hostile in any way, and they continue to shoot me down... Well, let's just say I'm not buying that as a preventative measure.

@legion_: Why do you keep approaching someone who has killed you 15 times? That person is obviously there for the pvp.

Again, when I make no hostile action, no matter how many times they shoot me down, why do they continue to do so? It's clear to me that there is something fundamentally wrong with people who condone that kind of behaviour. If PVP was the aspect of it that they enjoyed, they would just play deathmatches. But no, there is something more to it than that.

Man, Day Z is pretty stressfull though and there ARE a lot of idiots running around (I and some friends were once attacked by a player only wielding an axe, even though we were three people and armed with shotguns and assault rifles, at least the guy had a whole lot of supplies for us...)

But i'm also the kind of idiot who enjoys Day Z just as PvE game and immediately run into the middle of the map just to roam around with friends without getting sniped by some weird boring people who camp for 12 hours just to kill somebody.

I don't. That's perhaps even more unsetteling. Most people will actively hunt you down.

It doesn't make them psychotic, or mean that they have mental problems, or whatever. It means that deep down they're assholes, a trait that isn't uncommon in the human race and especially isn't uncommon on the internet. But an asshole isn't mentally unstable just because he's being an asshole, and an asshole is in his rectal prime when there are no consequences.

I don't believe that anonymity would make real people kill other real people. People who blame video games for every violent act that makes the 6 o'clock news have been looking for evidence of this for years and it has never once held up under scrutiny.

@legion_: It's PVP they are there to fight you! How is this hard to understand.

@legion_: Right. But you joined a PvP active free roam lobby. You KNEW you'd get attacked, its the entire point. If you just wanted to walk the scope of the game, taking in the atmosphere and peacefully interacting with other players, theres a mode dedicated to that.

Again, calling people out on fighting each other in a mode pretty much designed for that is sorta crazy.

Maybe the guys kept killing you cus you were easy kills and they could rank up faster? You're not fighting back, why not farm you? You're not running away so clearly you don't mind.

It's a dumb "experiment" with a dumb conclusion. Again, its like joining a Battlefield 3 map, seeing its the oil refinery and saying "Oh I'm going to roleplay as a oil worker trying to mantain the refinery in the middle of the battle" then calling everyone psychos cus they shot you.

Yeah, I was really looking forward to play Red Dead online but after everyone just kills me and I have to ride on a donkey all the time it was extremely disappointing.

Having said that I experienced some of the best multiplayer in GTA 4 free-roam when 2 random people in cop cars showed up and chased me all around the city until I let myself get arrested and get into the back of their car. I also climbed up a huge tower in the park and kicked them off as they chased me to the top, man that was the best time.

I'd say it depends on the game and the options people have - there's not much to do in RDR multiplayer aside from the mission stuff, right? Whereas GTA 4 has all the vehicles to race, the airport is fun, there are helicopters as well as the mission stuff to keep you occupied or make your own fun.

@believer258: I'm not the kind of person who thinks that video games cause violent actions. I actually think it's the other way around. I think that a lot of violent people actively use video games as a outlet for their frustrations. And of course a asshole is psychotic to a degree. I mean, why would anyone want to be a asshole? It's anti-social behaviour at it's absolute worst.

I don't see how killing players in open world free roam is any different than killing NPCs in GTA. People find fun in anarchy, not necessarily in the act of killing in itself. They find fun in breaking the rules. Did you watch the quick look I linked you? In RDR's free roam case, there is no rule saying you have to kill people for points, but there's no rule saying that you can't kill people either. It's the wild west and there is no fun to be had in peace time. Again, what's the difference between finding fun in killing players and killing NPCs? Why is one more sinister than the other? Is Vinny harboring misogynistic sociopathic tendencies because of the Sleeping Dogs quick look?

No, it's not the same at all. The goal in a game of BF is to kill other people. That's not the objective of free roam in RDR. There's so much more to do, and if they just want to kill each other all the time, why not play deathmatch? I think it's an outlet for their anti-social behaviour. And it's not for the XP. You literally get like 5 XP for each kill. You get 2000 XP for doing the easiest gang hideout.

Also, I'd like to share a story about Dark Souls with you, which basically proves that gamers aren't all assholes.

I've made several different characters in Dark Souls since i love that game. You're aware other players can invade your world and pretty much gank you right? Well on multiple occasions I've had people invade my world, see that I'm a fairly fresh character, so they dropped rare items (I've gotten a free titanite slab from an invader before anyone who's played dark souls knows thats pretty damn rare). Then they leave without hurting me.

I've had another just keep his shield up and lead me to secrets. I've had one invade me, then send me a message over XBL saying "kill me, free souls and humanity! Enjoy!" then let me kill him.

But why? Why would you hunt someone like it's sport, and kill them over and over, when the person is doing nothing to harm you? It's clear to me that it's something wrong with people who do that.

One time I played RDR online with a couple of friends and I got to drive a carriage. Of course, it only took me about five seconds before I drove off a cliff and killed us all.

That was pretty fun.

@clonedzero: That's never happened to me, and I've played that game a insane amount of time.

Gamers are mentally deranged psychopaths. It's true. As a community we must own up to it.

You're joining a free roam server in a game designed specifically to shoot things. Every player is given more than one gun and the game allows players to either cooperate or not. Seeing a player simply walking down the street isn't normal in a game designed around horse riding and shootouts.

To them you're the outside acting strange in their environment. You stand out like a sore thumb in a world designed to have gun fights. To be shocked that you then got killed is unfounded and not at all scientific.

Maybe they want to engage in open world PvP combat, where its wide open and people can get creative instead of being limited to an arena? I've done it, its fun to get in massive 10 player horse back shootouts in the freeaim mode.

And again, I can't stress this enough. There is a freeroam mode in RDR that you can't kill other players in yet you refuse to acknowledge that. They added it for people wanting to experience the game as you did. Yet you joined the mode that is basically just "open world deathmatch" instead of "lets play co-op and beat the hideouts". Since when they added the other one, thats how the playerbase split.

So, kill people who don't do what you do? Now, where have I heard that before...

Just out of curiosity, are there any achievments tied to killing other people in free roam mode?

Also, yeah try playing Day Z. It might convince you that all people are assholes but there are moments where a total stranger approaches you while you lie on the ground with broken bones, heals your wounds and gives you something to eat. And that's just awesome. And then you shoot him in the head while he is looking away! (Don't actually do that if you have a soul!)

Gamers are not psychos. You just seem to be a goody two-shoes. Lighten up a little.

Yes out of context my quote says that. My point was in a game designed with guns in every players hand and with both cooperative and non-cooperative choices you shouldn't be shocked when players choose non.

Or Nazis. Whatever.

Where have you heard that before? Also why are you doing this in the PVP free roam?