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Getting plundered turned me into a plunderer, lol
I started playing in Oct. I was getting plundered, my city looked like a hurricane went through it, and I was rushing techs.
Thank goodness for the people on the forums. My city looks better. I have better defense, but more importantly I learned it is just part of the game. I'm no longer in the bottom of the hood. I'm not first, but in the top 5. I will get plundered again when late for a collection or by someone whose city is more advanced.
This weekend my husband will probably beat me in Scrabble again, lol
I still love him
Your comment was quite clear. Here's the whole thing, so there's no possibility I'm excepting something out of context:
"Use intelligence advantage is how we beat animals and I'm not a saint and I'm okay with bullying so maybe I'm just a horrible person but I'm okay with it"
I'm missing where it says "I'm okay with bullying in the game."
Your comment was quite clear. Here's the whole thing, so there's no possibility I'm excepting something out of context:
"Use intelligence advantage is how we beat animals and I'm not a saint and I'm okay with bullying so maybe I'm just a horrible person but I'm okay with it"
I'm missing where it says "I'm okay with bullying in the game."[/i
I don't think there is anyway you honestly misunderstood his intent. You are simply wanting to argue for the sake of arguing.
There is no need to compare a game and RL. They are two separate issues.
Your comment was quite clear. Here's the whole thing, so there's no possibility I'm excepting something out of context:
"Use intelligence advantage is how we beat animals and I'm not a saint and I'm okay with bullying so maybe I'm just a horrible person but I'm okay with it"
I'm missing where it says "I'm okay with bullying in the game."
@Airlyn: I absolutely DID misunderstand his intent. Not surprisingly really, since so much of the discussion in this particular thread has ranged quite a way from strictly game-related matters. He's clarified now, so that's fine.
I mean humans just develop heuristics to not need to think about 99% of what they do. Else, you're correct, we would go crazy. But why does it follow that decisions aren't inherently moral or not?
To say "it's a game so nothing matters" is pretty silly imo. If the game was 100% against computers I would agree, but you must see that given humans are on the other side it does matter? Again, I'm not saying whether I think that makes it right or wrong, just that dismissing it entirely must be wrong.
Again, no one responded above but I'll re- ask one question:
1) Let's say I offer 10 Jewelry in return for 20 Granite, hoping to confuse someone into thinking it's 2:1 the other way. Is that moral?
As i said, to me there's no moral or ethical question, it's within the rules of the game.
RE:To say "it's a game so nothing matters" is pretty silly imo., I never said that, so no thoughts on that either.
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Of course there's other folks playing the game. Wjile I'm not responsible for how they react, taking into account their reactions is both reasonable and necessary for long term successful play.
To put this in game terms, I don't make it a habit to post trades that the majority of players consider 'unfair' in my favor, Not because I have any moral objection to taking advantage of players, but because a reputation as a bad trader will make the Way of the Peddler more difficult.
I would say it was unethical, but not necessarily immoral. If you just post the trade, and some random person takes it, it is not immoral. If you post the trade after chatting with someone and convincing them somehow that it is an equitable trade, and they then take the trade, it is immoral.
There are, I agree. Hardly the only evidence of new players being unaware of aspects of the game. Should they pay closer attention? Yes, of course. Based on comments on this forum though, there really are players very unpleasantly surprised when they discover plundering. I imagine it happens more often now that plundering isn't possible at the very beginning.
Of all the complaints from plundered players I've seen, I can't recall any that expressed surprise. They all seemed to be aware that it was part of the game, they just didn't think it was fair to be hit by players of a higher age, or to be hit by several people in a short span of time.
Of all the complaints from plundered players I've seen, I can't recall any that expressed surprise. They all seemed to be aware that it was part of the game, they just didn't think it was fair to be hit by players of a higher age, or to be hit by several people in a short span of time.
OP and the rest of those complaining- Do you have cancer? 99.9% of plundees who complain have cancer. Just trying to do my part with cancer research by keeping my records up to date.
"Complunoma" seems to initially progress very rapidly, and patients feel they are near-death. Then it plateaus and the near-death status continues indefinitely. Research shows that complunoma is caused completely by mythomania. Which is the good news- since there is a direct cause, there is a direct cure- psychotherapy treatment. Once the mythomania is cured, the complunoma completely dissolves. It is a miracle!
OP and the rest of those complaining- Do you have cancer? 99.9% of plundees who complain have cancer. Just trying to do my part with cancer research by keeping my records up to date.
"Complunoma" seems to initially progress very rapidly, and patients feel they are near-death. Then it plateaus and the near-death status continues indefinitely. Research shows that complunoma is caused completely by mythomania. Which is the good news- since there is a direct cause, there is a direct cure- psychotherapy treatment. Once the mythomania is cured, the complunoma completely dissolves. It is a miracle!
This is one of the roots of the logic I disagree with and why I call out the 'dismissal' that there is no ethics to be had here. Ethics: "moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity". If a moral principle of mine is to not harm others, even in a video game, then pillaging is a dilemma. You can speak for yourself when you proclaim there is no moral or ethical dilemma, but you cannot categorically dismiss that there is no moral quandary for everybody else. This is why I default to ethics being subjective, because like an opinion, it comes from an individual's principles that govern their decision making. If I understand you correctly, your opinion (and argument) is there is no moral or ethical dilemma because the rules allow it. You justify plundering because we are allowed to by the rules. This is why I brought up the spectrum of real-life sports and human activities that have have rules. There are rules of war, does that justify the killing? There are rules to football, does that justify the head injuries? There are rules to baseball, does that justify stealing a base? Each can be argued from an ethics standpoint. That's where my argument stops. There is always the fundamental question of right and wrong, but some questions are more easily answered(less complicated) than others.
Graviton said:
That's the heart of the matter here: semantics. It's called plundering, so people want to believe there's something immoral about it. But in this context there isn't, no matter how hard somebody tries to find it.
I don't believe the word plundering is the genesis of people believing there is something wrong about the action. It starts when they have something taken away from them that they believe is theirs by right. The term plundering just describes the behavior and should inform us that the action is one of transgression. I think we are in agreement that the judgement of immorality then comes with how we view gaming. Within the game universe, it is immoral(stealing). Since it is a game universe in a bigger universe, the immorality of stealing is being dismissed. Harm is done, but since it is a game, many players become amoral about their actions within it and how those actions effect others. I believe it's that amorality versus immorality that leads to the differences between plunderers who declare there is no harm done versus those who perform rationalization to argue how 'plundering isn't stealing'.
Graviton said:
But you're again making the mistake of drawing a comparison to real-life situations. This is a game where nobody is harmed, no real property is damaged nor stolen. There are no consequences. If you want to have a moral debate about war or robbing one's neighbor, we can do that, but there are no parallels with this game other than the word "plunder".
Incorrect. You are making the mistake of not acknowledging there are real-world people playing within the game and that there are real world & in-game world consequences. Mental health is a heavily debated thing, but crymail is all the evidence we need to prove that players experience mental anguish(harm) when being plundered. The problem with outright dismissal is it tells other players that they are lying about that anguish.There are plenty of in-game consequences, as the game allows a player to strike back in multiple ways. There is even a game rule consequence for plundering, less chance at a BP compared to aiding. When we frame the dismissal as 'it's just a game and does not reflect reality', then I understand why you argue that there can be no argument. Games are a reflection of real life, to create an absolute delineation between them is strange to me when we have historical quest lines to remind us of the reflection, forum posts of varying distress and invest real life time into the game reality.
To be fair, there are many cures for the mental anguish of pillaging. This is why we can easily dismiss the forum posts of people that quickly show themselves to be stupidly selfish and ignorant of game mechanics.
Graviton said:
That there is no true harm done is only one reason we can determine that ethics are not involved. I could argue that there is harm done in the context of the game, so that's not enough. There's harm done by plundering, in the context of the game, so that alone does not exempt it from ethical standards. What really renders the moral question moot is that stealing a base is a rules-defined play just an intentional walk or bunting to move the runner over. There is no ethical component because it's an intentional part of the game design.
How and who defines what true harm is? I claim harm, you claim no harm. I have provided an example of harm. You must now find a way to argue that this mental anguish either does not exist or does not matter. I have a hard time believing that the first reaction anybody has to being plundered is not some form of being upset.
As to the baseball, we are 90% in accord. 5% of the discord is that the ethical question of "Is stealing a base okay?" is quickly answered by 'It's part of the rules'. The ethical component is there, just easily answered and ignored by our brains busy processing other information. the final 5% is your use of moot: "subject to debate, dispute, or uncertainty, and typically not admitting of a final decision". I believe you are driving to a final decision, so your use of moot may not be the literal proper use, yet.
No, you are not allowed to attack your neighbor and steal his property. You can petition the government if you believe your neighbor has wronged you, and perhaps receive an order of compensatory damages. But you've got to prove your neighbor harmed you first. You can defend yourself against your neighbor, but then you aren't attacking him at all, he's attacking you. In no case does the real world allow you to attack your neighbor and take his things.
This is why I said your analogy is flawed. If we are using FoE as our base, we need to distinguish 'game rules created by man' versus 'rules created by programming'. Programming allows us to plunder, the rules created by man varies. In real life, it is the same and this is why I would argue that real world rules are physics. Physics allows us to attack our neighbors and steal. The rules of man are what you are speaking to. If we use the rule of man in real life and analogize that to FoE, we then must treat plunderers as stealing, unless we break from moral absolutism and argue that stealing is only bad if the culture says it is so. So which rule set is the analogy using? Programming/Physics or Man/Man? It's important to make that distinction when wielding analogies.
Now we're ignoring the morality and ethics involved and appealing to authority, or societal norms. This seems to be the argument that if you won't be punished, then it's okay. That completely ignores any moral component.
Again, this is not analogous to plundering in FoE even if we accept your argument, because the governing body sanctions and in some ways encourages us to attack our neighbor and take his stuff. It's not merely tolerated or something that is ignored, it's part of the inherent design of the game and actively encouraged.
My whole argument has ignored speaking directly to specific moral components of plundering, because I am not making a moral argument about plundering. I'm arguing that we can have one.
I like the stealing a base in baseball example. Why? Because I feel it is a good analogy to us on people who argue plunderers are immoral.
My answer to the following moral questions are the same.
"Is it okay to steal a base in baseball?"
"Is it okay to plunder a city in Forge of Empires?"
Yes, because the game is designed for it. It is meant as part of the challenge of the game and to elicit excitement from the players and onlookers. The players should understand these rules and not be surprised by them when the action occurs.
The mental anguish of onlookers or players from the steal/plunder action is not enough reason for me to advocate suspending or changing the rules of the game. The mental anguish can be adequately resolved through proper use of coping mechanisms. If that fails, then the onlooker/player can remove themselves from the game. The suspending or changing of the rules of the game would create more anguish to a greater amount of onlookers/players, thus I see no reason to value this minority's anguish as greater than the majority.
As someone who advocates for bigger social issues, I see the similarities that can be drawn between the terminology. This is why I do not deny or disregard the anguish & unjust feelings the plundered may feel. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
My argument to allow for the moral question to be asked allows the plundered to ask it, receive an explanation and hopefully learn to cope with the realities of the game. If they don't, I remind them that they are arguing for a first person shooter game to not allow anyone to shoot. By that point, the interlocutor will show if they have a rational argument, or are throwing a tantrum. I hope for the best(Rational), but plan for the worst(Tantrum or Troll).
I'm describing reality and the differences between real life reality versus FoE reality. Conflating punishment with morals is a problem, because they are separate things. Lynch mobs or capital punishment are a good place to ruminate on why punishment versus morals are separate entities. What is the difference between a moral and immoral person if one restrains the action for fear of punishment and the other never performs the same action that would be punished?
You assume a FoE governing body sanctions and encourages players to attack their neighbors and take their stuff similar to how real world governments enforce rules on civil society. Again, we need to figure out what our analogy is. Are the game developers creating the world with code? Then they are gods, not a governing body within the game world, but supreme beings that reside outside of it. If we are analogizing them as a government, then where is their headquarters in the game? How do we visit it? How do we interact with them in the game? Can we pillage them? Lead a revolution? Elect a president? Regardless of analogy frame, it doesn't effect how we question the morality of rules and laws. We can, and should, question them. Thankfully, some ethical quandaries are easier than others.
Of course I have. Just because somebody believes they need something more than the guy who owns it doesn't mean stealing it is suddenly okay. I'm reminded of Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy:
I chuckled. A good example of why the plundered do not have a strong argument to justify a change to plundering & why we sympathize with the man who is forced to steal medicine to save his wife.
Rather, you're attempting to dismiss my argument by assigning a motivation to it and then arguing against that. I said the debate was over before it's begun because, as I subsequently explained, there is no morality involved in this context, unlike the same action in the real world. I believe I've sufficiently laid out why plundering in FoE, and stealing a base in baseball, have no moral nor ethical component at all, unlike plundering and stealing in the real world.
Attempt? Nay, I did assign it. Until more information gives me new options, that is how the assigning will remain. The motivation interests me only in so much that it affects and informs how arguments are being formed. I figure arguing against a motivation is like arguing against an opinion. A waste of time. I try to focus on the argument.
Hence why I argue that there is morality involved, because it is involved in all actions and contexts, be they real or game. That is why context is important. If someone said "I plunder people's goods everyday", without context, we could assume immoral behavior. Only with context do we recognize that the immorality of the action is so small, that we dismiss it as inconsequential. To divorce ourselves from morality because it is a game is to use similar logic of software & music pirates. There is no harm being done, they are only taking one copy of something that can be infinitely copied, it is not the same as stealing a physical object (car, CD/DvDs), etc. The difference between FoE Plunderers and those pirates? The rules of John C. Reilly man determine illegality, the discussion of of morality or ethics can show us if the law is just.
I don't understand why they feel the need to do so. If morality was an issue regarding every aspect of life and every decision had a perceived moral impact, we never would have survived past the stone age. So, now someone is going to wonder, when did man develop morals? Are they inherited or are they taught? In my opinion they are an aspect of our civilization and culture.
I play a game. That game is not my civilization or culture. I do not live in the game.
Therefore whether I plunder or not has nothing at all to do with morality.
For my part, I just enjoy ethical/morality/philosophical discussions. I figure there is a balancing act between human civilization survival and enforcing social order. Morality discussions are a luxury we can afford since the constant struggle to survive is no longer a day-to-day thing compared to what it was(I assume) in the stone age.
My thoughts on your questions: 1st) I wonder that too. My current thought is morals became a thing on the first disagreement between humans that lead to a verbal social contract to maintain order(Evolution/Sociological perspective). Religious perspective can vary, but my first thought is how I've seen some people argue that without following a doctrine/god/religion, a person cannot be moral(Moral Absolutist?, Original Sin factors into that I'm sure).
2nd) My thoughts are both. Biological instincts of kinship and acquired knowledge informing one's decisions moving forward.
I agree that morals are an aspect of civilization and culture, but I find it interesting/confusing when people draw a separation between a game and culture. I argue that a game IS a part of our civilization and culture. Civilization gives us the tools to create games and culture informs what the game is about. The historical quests, for example, are drawn from both. Military leaders conquests & scientists have shaped human civilization while allowing artists and others to generate something for future generations to interact with. If a game isn't culture, then what about movies, books and fine cuisine? Are all these things just consumed and forgotten? If so, then I agree that morality is irrelevant to people who are nothing more than zombie consumers or animals. To those of us that think of ourselves to be more than that, we should look at why we create this separation between things we enjoy and 'serious' talks of morality.
I'd say it isn't moral (I see your leading question and raise you a...) by virtue of the individual's intent being to deceive someone else. I would rank the immorality of the action as low to nil, due to the context of the action being in a game and my judgement of the 'harm' done as being low to nil. Regardless of morality judgement, I would view this specific player with more caution than I would others, since they have admitted to deceiving other players through the nature of their trades.
I'm leaning yes, but with stipulations. I find it immoral to knowingly weaponize guilt as a way to harass or emotional harm someone. The problem with most judgments of moral character is knowing their intent and context. Is someone lashing out, inadvertently using guilt to harm someone in an argument? Or are they coldly calculating... every...word...to...maximize...every...emotional...cut. Are they using guilt to set someone onto a moral path?
I guess the needed question is, what action is someone attempting to use to make you feel immoral?
I'd argue the player, ultimately. Inno could assist the player by creating an tutorial quest to help with their education. I agree that a plunderer is under no obligation to explain to other players how the game works. I think too many people take the absence of a positive (such as going out of one's way to educate others) as a negative. Which I find disheartening.
@Airlyn: I absolutely DID misunderstand his intent. Not surprisingly really, since so much of the discussion in this particular thread has ranged quite a way from strictly game-related matters. He's clarified now, so that's fine.
It's fascinates me how people are emboldened to reveal their inner ugly natures thanks to the anonymity of the internet and then to attempt to hide, justify or deny it with the 'it's only a game' argument. I'm glad @Stephen Longshanks pushed the moral character argument further, as it helps highlight how actions in a game can be reflective of personal character.
This is one of the roots of the logic I disagree with and why I call out the 'dismissal' that there is no ethics to be had here. Ethics: "moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity". If a moral principle of mine is to not harm others, even in a video game, then pillaging is a dilemma. You can speak for yourself when you proclaim there is no moral or ethical dilemma, but you cannot categorically dismiss that there is no moral quandary for everybody else.
I have stated the reasons that there is no objective moral component to plundering in FoE (the game was designed for it and encourages it, so it is not a violation of either the letter nor the spirit of the rules, in fact it's quite the opposite; and no real-world harm is done). But now you've moved on to whether or not a player might feel that it's immoral or unethical. I of course cannot speak for what someone else wants to feel except to say that feelings are more often than not wrong and counterproductive to an exercise like this, for they are by definition irrational things. I cannot speak for someone who wants to invent a moral quandry for themselves in a circumstance that doesn't carry its own. But that's all they're doing: inventing it for themselves. They're role-playing FoE, and if that's what they want to do, then okay.
You said you enjoy philosophical discussions. I don't, at least not anymore. If I were twenty years younger I would go back and forth with you for days on every nuance and every set of circumstances to plumb every depth and shadow of ethicality. I often did, spending hours upon hours on political message boards. I've discussed and debated economics with everyone from Marxists to free marketeers. I've discussed and debated politics with everyone from anarchists to fascists. Of course those discussions invariable involved ethical questions of all kinds. Been there, done that; I've heard it all, and through it all I've solidified my own philosophy. I have now sated my desire to duke it out over Big Questions. Nowadays, I think there's a lot to be said for stating one's position and then shutting the hell up. Which I will now do, at the risk of being accused of "hiding"' or some such. I've been accused of worse and more inaccurate things.
The same can be said of plundering in this game. Where people make a mistake, where people try to conjure an ethical question out of thin air, is when they equate this game with real-world plundering. In the real world, attacking one's neighbor and taking his stuff is indeed unethical and immoral.
In the 'real world' this has happened, is happening and will happen again. Our 'ethical' and moral' perceptions are influenced by a number of things, but the long and short of it is that these things happen because someone gains something through use of force. Plunder gains you goods, coins etc. Real world same thing. Is it immoral to want things? Maybe. Either way make it cost too much to take your stuff and they'll leave you be. Just like in RL. Otherwise suck it up, smoke some pot and go hang out in your hippie circle.
It's natural to recoil at ethical responsibility, agency is not an easy thing to learn and maintain, woe is the life of the moral philosopher, so that's essentially how we survive, we rationalize, deny, ignore etc.
It is fascinating to read the contrasting views on moral and ethical responsibility here. However everyone ignores this fact: no universal concept of morality or ethics exist. What is right to one person will be reprehensible to the next and varies by culture, religion, upbringing etc. Ethical responsibility all comes down to interpretation and wide social acceptance.
