I was going to write tonight about Toronto, and about the hubris/perceived hubris of the city and it's folk. I even spent time thinking about it today! But, another topic has stolen my attention, one that'll either appeal to more people, or less.

This is in relation to a little game called FaitH. For those of you who don't know it's an online rpg/strategy game, and it's pretty dang fun. Right there though there's a big hubbub about how newbies should be treated and what kind of protection they deserve. For the record, they have plenty of protection as it is, as I'll allude to in the main body of my response. Those of you who don't play can check it out by going to www.dragonclawstudio.com and creating a free trial account. This was all started when a person from a kingdom that has lost 2 children of targar went onto the forums and bitched about it. Now onto my primary response.

First off, I'm doing this without benefit of having read the latest posts on the thread, which means I've probably missed a lot considering how active it is. But for my purposes, I don't think it'll make too much of a difference.

I'd just like to point out to everyone that what we are doing here is playing a game. As such, we should realize that a game is based upon a given set of rules and codes created by the developers to give us the world we play in. As players, we simply play in this world. There is no need for moral conduct, because it isn't required to play the game. Perhaps that is a cold sentiment. So let me divide the two primary groups I see arguing here. The humanist faction, that wants to worry about the newbies and protect them, and the realists who believe in tough love and that the only way to learn anything in any world is to live in it. Both sides have valid opinions, and obviously very impassioned opinions.

For my two cents, I just want to ask a question...does anyone ever go into a online game and expect to win immediately? Do any of you join a WarCraft III game, or BF1942, or anything for that matter, and expect to kick ass right off the bat? I doubt it. You go in starting off knowing that people will be better than you, and you WILL get your ass kicked. FaitH I think does an admirable job of protecting newbies, far more protection than most games in fact. It's easy to argue that a kingdom that is 50% of another kingdom's power should be protected, and that's fine. But if your kingdom is just about even with another, why the hell should you be protected from them, and not them from you? Because remember, when you limit who can attack you, you limit who you can attack. Already we have large percentages of power range that is ruled out as unfair. There comes a point when it simply becomes ridiculous.

For those people who say that tough love and learning from losing isn't a good way of teaching people, then I say you're absolutely full of shit. Do you honestly think coddling someone will teach them how to survive? Not really. Experience teaches everything. Remember that? The quality that everyone in the world seems to value so highly? Experience. You can't gain that without fighting, and yes, on occasion you will lose. That's life. So I think to limit the newbies even more, would be to just cripple them. The current protections are very adequate. If the devs decide that they aren't, then it'll be changed. But it's all an argument we've been over time and time again. I was around back before Children of Targar, before kingdom powerscore/provincial powerscore attacking ranges. I can say that without a doubt this game has come a long, long, long way.

And threads like this are what keep it growing. People complain that the community doesn't care, but I wholeheartedly disagree. If no one cared, then why is this being so hotly debated? This just shows how important it is to everyone that this game be as fun and fair as possible for everyone. This is a great community.

There's so much more to say, but I really have no desire to write a whole damned book about this. So lets just go back to our game and have fun. :)

~K (ks_world_blog@hotmail.com)