Hmm... I'm infinitely glad that this kind of philosophical debate has risen from what is a cyberpunk RP in all but name, thereby philosophy is a given at any time, since cyberpunk lives and breathes on existentialism/nihilism above all else.
Now, I would be even more glad if this extended to it's rightful place as well, that is, the IC tab. It's cool to discuss the work from a meta POV, but doing the question IC is what really counts.
While I should comment that there's no right or wrong when it comes to these things, just different viewpoints, here are my retorts to the last couple posts.
Alright, time for a little more philosophy. The concept of Deep Ground was created some time in the near future (Let's say 2020, give or take a year) as a last resort to determine the best canidates for jobs. I'm sure everyone knows that it's steadily becoming harder to find a job in modern parts of the world as it sits, but what will it be like in thirty or forty years from the current time? Simply put, Deep Ground was born out of necessity and reflects the true, cutthroat nature of humanity. The strong survive, and the weak fall behind. Exactly like reality, if you think about it.
Yeah, it may have been the case when DGO was implemented. A hasty measure to try to prevent social collapse that's inherent of bad planned politics that result from the unleashed spread of predatory capitalism.
"Dog eats dog" being the key phrase here.
However, there's a problem with hasty, easy solutions, people get accommodated far too fast. Once you give them a bone to gnaw on, because there's no meat, most will not let the bone go even if the chance of meat is promised after a trip to another place. After all, why risk what you have now, if you don'thave the guarantee of success? That's just how people are.
On the current state of DGO, people grew used to the Deep Ground Program. They lost their drive to fight for themselves because it's simply in human nature to do so. The game isn't new, it's an established part of society, it means that people got used to it long ago. Even the best medicine becomes a poison if use take too much of it.
DGO as it currently exists is a cancer to the society.
<Snipped quote by Mega Birb>
Sorta. If you really want to really look at the symbolism, you could look at it like this: In a way, deep ground is a metaphor for human survival in the sense that it strips living down to its bare essentials, fighting for survival. It sort of tugs at the human instinct to fight and come out on top, to the fairly primal survival stuff, since the system is based around killing stuff.
The problem with deep ground is that it seems to promote a cut-throat nature, cooperating for mutual gain and also resorting to backstabs if it works for you, basically being extremely selfish in order to become successful (though that isn't really how it turned out I guess)
Technically speaking though, Deep Ground is also a good indication of cooperative play because you need other people working together to beat really tough content and having people watch your back is pretty essential in a cut throat industry.
It's sort of like the old strength to smarts debate (sort of). Which one is stronger, the guy who lifts 50 kg everyday or the guy that made the theory of relativity? The thing is, both can beat the other one way or another, or that's how it should be. The problem people have in Deep Ground is that, in theory, the guy who lifts 50 kg everyday will come out ahead of the relativity guy, though it was explicitly stated that a level 1 guy can beat a level 9 guy if he had advantages.
I don't actually know where I'm going with this, but I got to say that I agree with you. Deep Ground does represent the dog-eat-dog mentality of real life but the fact that you can succeed by getting carried by your high-level friends or wreck a dude several levels higher than you by using your brain also represents real life in that doing weird shit sometimes also gets you places.
You're mostly right in everything, except that you take a false premise. DGO isn't about collaboration, it's planned as a MOBA game. Sure, you can have a team of buddies and there are some random creeps that you can slay, but ultimately you'll only progress over the ladder by crushing other people under your feet.
DGO promotes a nocive society built over children that are bred to ignore others suffering in their own favor. Sure, it's a world where one needs a bit of a steel mind if they wanna trive, but you don't need to become full apathetic and sociopathic to do it, DGO however breeds that.
You'll only succeed if you cause others to fail, if the bottom line of DGO, instead of you fighting for your success and leading other people to theirs. If you don't believe on how ranked MOBA games breed monsters out of people, try to play ranked League of Legends and you'll see.
That's a study case of the nociveness of combined internet anonymity and enforced competition... on a game that ultimately amounts to nothing, even if some poor sods think they can become
"pro gamers" if they climb to the top of the ladder. Instead, put your character's future on the line and I'm sure you can escalate things well enough to see how much of a hell DGO must really be.
