Morals and Videogames

[TheMadAsshatter]

This is something that I've done a lot of thinking about in the past few months, and reinforced by some of the themes shown in Sword Art Online, particularly the idea that how you act and what you put into a game character reflects upon your RL personality. This is something that I've thought a lot about, particularly after playing DayZ, and this can relate to any game where there are moral choices to be made. I'll start with DayZ, because it's purely player interaction rather than just NPCs.

I'll start my saying that DayZ is a freeform game, and that essentially means you get out of it what you put into it. I'm sure plenty of you have heard me rant and bitch about bandits in DayZ, and this has nothing to do with that, though it has helped me formulate some theories. DayZ being an open world game where you can do anything you want to, game mechanics permitting (with the exception of hacking and exploiting glitches), it kinda shows where your priorities lie when you have fun making the game harder for other players. I'm not just talking about killing on sight, there are worse things that can happen. I'll use my dad as an example; one time he was playing DayZ, and, predictably, he broke his legs on a staircase. So, with no morphine, no splint, over a kilometer away from a town with zombies to eat him to death, and no way as of yet to respawn, he started crawling around looking for something to either kill himself or patch his legs up. Not long afterwards, a player comes along and my dad is practically begging him to kill him. The other player stopped and looked at him, obviously showing that he knew that my dad was having a shitty day, and he fucking says no and runs the other way.

This is one of those situations where you really have to look at the behavior of the person in real life. My dad, having been crawling around for the last half hour, was quite obviously not enjoying himself. When he asks someone to kill him, a relatively easy thing to do, and, theoretically, a way to get out some aggression in game, and they refuse, it shows a very basic lack of respect for the player; it's below a lack of respect, it's just dick behavior because he wants to be a dick. Yeah, it's a game, an open world game where you can do anything you want, but when it comes to something like this, I can only relate it to griefing. This player, by intentionally leaving my dad to continue crawling around with broken legs, showed that he clearly just wanted to be a prick, for no other reason than exactly that.

The same can be applied to spawnkillers, specifically when it relates to people who are playing the game for the first time. Let's say you just got this game, you spawn in, and not even five minutes in, five minutes into a world you know nothing about and are eager to explore and discover, you get sniped. Let's say it happens again next time, and the time after that you run across someone who is armed and you ask them for help, noting that it's your first time playing and you've already been shot twice. They raise their gun and put a bullet in your brain, saying "Welcome to DayZ" in the process. Let's take a moment to look at the killer's motivation. They don't have much of a motivation other than "Hey, a player, let's kill him then taunt him with the typical welcoming phrase." There is no other motivation. They're a fresh spawn, so no gear; they're a brand new player, so hardly a threat; they just asked for help, so any vestige of thought that they are a threat is a fucking joke. At that point there is no reason to kill them other than either just to kill them, or to specifically make their gameplay experience less enjoyable; ie. griefing.

Maybe it's just because I usually play the hero type, but I feel like gamers have a responsibility to one another, no matter what game they're playing, to make it enjoyable to one another, at least those who take a game seriously. That's part of what I feel like the problem is with DayZ is that not many people take it seriously. There are some games that aren't really meant to be taken seriously, like Call of Duty, Battlefield, or really any other FPS, because the point of the game is to kill everyone on the enemy team. But in games that could be taken as RPGs, like DayZ or Minecraft, there is a certain level of sincerity that players need to put into their gameplay to get the full experience, and it's a damn shame when people come into those kinds of games looking to do nothing other than kill other players or turn the game dynamic inside out.

Going back to what I said about Sword Art Online, Kirito made a point of saying that any player's behavior in game is in some way a reflection of who they are. There are cases where this isn't true or doesn't matter, but in most cases I find it to be very valid. Just like an actor is never truly a character, but an actor playing a character, players in a video game put a bit of themselves into that videogame. If you're a nice guy in game, you're probably a nice guy in real life, and vice-versa. The only problem is those who fall into the "dick" category will rationalize it by saying "It's just a game, calm down, fag," or something along those lines.

[Derpestein]

In single player, I won't lie, I generally play for the evil faction first if that's an option.
However, in online games, I want to be a good person at least to people in my faction and even then I only attack people if they attack me.

Lets take for example...DCUO.

Speaking about the PVP server, here.

Just a bit of background info. DCUO is an MMORPG where you play as a superhero or super villain and you can customise what kind of power you get and what kind of weapon you wield. In the PVP server, Heroes and Villains can fight if they run across eachother in the two large maps.

Anyways...

I remember sometime from my time in the PVP server.
Level 30 people camping newbies at their quest sites. (Level 30 is the highest level in game.)
They just stand there waiting for newbies to come in or come out and kill them. Why? Why not go find some other level thirties and kill them? Are you that shitty at the game and that much of a prick to wait for level threes and fours, people who barely finished the tutorial, to come into their first real quest and kill them?

There were some cool people who when they saw a newbie, rather than killing them, just followed them around. (I've had this happen to me. A level thirty hero was following me around and I was like wutlol.) and only attacked if the newbie was dumb and attacked them.
Like this one time.

Backstory of my Char

I was Minion Zero, a former Minion to Gen Eric the Villanious, who after getting into a freak accident that gave him ice powers and finding a steel rod to use as a staff and killed GETV, became a super villain.

I was around level 15-ish and on my way to a quest, I found a newbie hero. I just went up to him and posed, saying something like "HELLO, HERO. HOW ARE YOU THIS FINE DAY?"
I don't know what the heck was going through his head when he saw me but almost the instant he saw me, he hit me for...Barely 13 damage. He got killed in barely four hits. Anyway...

I think the reason he did it was because of the Kill Newbies On Sight people.
It makes newbies kill other people on sight too.

TLDR: Be as assholish as you want in single player.
Be okay on the online multiplayer mode or you'll make other assholes.

[Frizan]

I feel the same way. There are just some unspoken rules in some games that you need to follow in order to play it the "right way"(I put that in quotes because it's a fairly subjective notion). Which brings me to my main point: Some people misunderstand what the "right way" to play the game is.

An example that's close to me is gear-twinks in Dark Souls. During the early-to-middle of the game's life, people called gear-twinks would go through the game normally, make a new character and then perform a glitch on that character to get the weapons from their normal character into the hands of their new ones. They would then use the combination of their low level and their high-level equipment to invade and inevitably destroy other low level players. Some people could do this "legit" with a single player by doing a low level run, but it's the same affect. Anyway, these gear-twinks would "HILARIOUSLY" send the person they mercilessly murdered a "Welcome to Dark Souls" message, giving new people the impression that Dark Souls was, indeed, meant to be an unfair game. This royally pissed off Soul veterans like me, who played the games for their challenging but FAIR gameplay.

This breeded more gear-twinks out of the victims of it, or as Derpestein eloquently put it, breeded more assholes. This spread the fore-mentioned misconception even further, and word gets out, so less and less people wanted to play the game because other people said it was unfair. This shit was actually hurting the game, a game many people love to (un)death. So, what a lot of people did, was use the methods of the gear-twinks against them. We all used the glitch or went through the game at a low soul level, and then offered ourselves up as summons to new players. Since more often than not, we were more skilled than the malicious party, we utterly destroyed them. We kept at this until it all died down, and new people could play the game as it was actually supposed to be played. Nevermind some of the gear-twinks, in a last ditch effort to defend their actions, said that FromSoft encouraged griefing, which they most certainly did not. Its actually kind of funny how desperate these people got, it's as if ruining other people's fun is the only thing in their life that has meaning.

Just to think, that whole shitstorm was caused by certain people who were assholes just to be assholes, and sacrificed proper play in exchange for the tools needed to be assholes effectively.

[Vordak]

Absolutely agreed. Morever, even if you aren't the noble type of player, but rather one that ejoys PKing, maraduering and looting, that isn't neccesarily being an asshole. Some healthy competition is always enjoyable, and im sure everybody has seen quite the lot of multiplayer games with constant rivlary between farmers and "pirates", but even those people usualy won't go around killing newbies for fun or easy profit. Though true, they still a constant source of butthurt.

[Joshua15555]

TheMadAsshatter said
The same can be applied to spawnkillers, specifically when it relates to people who are playing the game for the first time. Let's say you just got this game, you spawn in, and not even five minutes in, five minutes into a world you know nothing about and are eager to explore and discover, you get sniped.

I have this hilarious image of someone spawning into a world, looking around in amazement. "Oh wow this is amazin-" ded.

[Gwazi Magnum]

I think it really varies on a case to case basis.

Sometimes they're simply roleplaying being a dick, other time's they may just feel inferior in RL and feel the need to express dominance in game, sometimes they take pleasure from people's pain, other time's it's just how the game plays (will touch on this more later) etc.

I'll admit I'm not 100% innocent in this though to start. Sometimes when I play Planetside 2 when waiting for my friends to get on and stuff I'll sit in the warp gate in my sunderer. And when I see someone spawn a ship I ram my sunderer into them trying to flip them over. I really just do it for the reactions, both from how the people flying the ship freak out at times and how the friends I'm with over Skype go "Anthony! What the hell!?" while laughing.

Now with Day Z, Rust and Dark Souls I don't do shit like that.

Dark Soul's is a pain enough single player to fight the NPCs, I prefer to avoid shadow fights where I can. But it's right down written into the lore and plotline as to why people are unfair to new guys.

For example let's look at Lautec and Solaire.

Lautrec: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o95uUu7I9Xs&list=UUe0DNp0mKMqrYVaTundyr9w
Solaire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skV-q5KjrUA&list=UUe0DNp0mKMqrYVaTundyr9w

Notice how Lautrec largely reflects the kind of player who would grief and do anything for personal gain? While Solaire largely reflects the social and friendly player who wants to help people and play alongside them? Both reflect dark souls, both reflect paths the player can take with your own playthrough. I won't argue for a second that it didn't have some kind of negative effect on new players, but it was a purposeful design choice in dark souls to better drive home the world you are playing in.

Day Z and Rust is also part of the design. You are in a post-apocalyptic world with everyone fighting to survive. People preying on one another for survival is natural, it's what almost any game or show with that theme (Fallout, Walking Dead etc.) highlight. But there's still choice, do you go the easy route of raiding others for more supplies, or take the hard route of trusting people and working together to make a better society?

Personally in Rust I tried the later, and we soon as a successful village of 6 people going on. Sadly we were stupid enough to make said city on Hangar and it quickly fell apart to outside griefers raiding said town when we were offline. But that's part of what the game is designed for, if people didn't grief the game would be too easy and you'd get everything far too quickly. So really people like that are kind of required for the game to function right, otherwise it simply wouldn't be as fun or last as long.

And also, not all games are for everyone. Some people enjoy cruel and unforgiving games, others prefer more fair and friendly games. We have a variety of genres and difficulty levels for a reason. There's a reason why games like Skyrim have mods whose sole purpose is to make things harder, or more realistic.

I know this isn't actually what the OP was asking, but I felt this needed to be addressed because it does tie into the players morality. Now to answer the OP more directly.

There are times the person is really just trying to be an asshole, but there other times there is no ill-will meant. That's just how the game works. And also to note, it is a video game and not real life. People play things in games they would never do in real life. Just look at GTA, killing countless innocent people. Millions have done that in GTA, but almost no one has done that in real life.

[Frizan]

Actually, in real life, what would "really happen" is that everyone would stick together in an apocalyptic situation. It's basic survival instinct. Our species would have died out almost instantly if our ancient ancestors just decided to kill each other non stop. Wanna know what would happen to the rare troublemakers? They would be shunned/killed for the greater cause of the society. Sorry, I just hate it when people play games like Rust and Day Z just to kill every person they meet and try to defend themselves with "but this is what would ACTUALLY happen!" It's intellectual dishonesty/willful ignorance.

As for Dark Souls, Lautrec griefs the player for a purpose. He kills the Firekeeper to lure the Chosen Undead, so he can get their humanity. You could argue player character griefers do the same, but they ultimately don't care about humanity, they just want to be dicks. Lautrec had a purpose to killing you beyond "lolwhatever". That's why I feel that griefers have no place in the Souls games. They ultimately serve no purpose to the game-world, and they get nothing tangible out of killing their peers.

[Gwazi Magnum]

Humanity would not just band together into one community after an apocalypse. The more logical people would, but at lot of people would use this as a chance to take advantage of others. Take things for themselves, and there would be warring groups anyways. Humanity is full of that, packs, nations, tribes warring with one another. Without a legal system in place during the apocalypse the amount of human killing would increase.

So no, not 100% of people would go Day Z in real life. But a lot of people would, even if it doesn't make logical sense it was a lot of people will do out of pure selfishness and greed. If you don't like that you don't need to play Day Z or Rust, but don't go calling an entire community dishonest/ignorant simply because you dislike the game premise.

As for Dark Souls, griefing or not raiding players give benefits. It gives souls, it gives humanity. It is exactly what the game is designed for people to do. Honestly, you're attacking players for playing a game the way it's meant to be played. If you don't like said game that's totally fine, but you not liking a game doesn't mean the people who do play it are now wrong.

[Frizan]

Magic Magnum said
not 100% of people would go Day Z in real life. But a lot of people would, even if it doesn't make logical sense it was a lot of people will do out of pure selfishness and greed.

Yes that's actually more than likely. My idealism often gets in the way of my logic.

Magic Magnum said
but don't go calling an entire community dishonest/ignorant simply because you dislike the game premise.

Uh. I didn't. Quit putting words in my mouth, you're hurting my jaw.

Magic Magnum said
As for Dark Souls, griefing or not raiding players give benefits. It gives souls, it gives humanity. It is exactly what the game is designed for people to do.

I obviously didn't make myself clear enough. When I talk of griefers, I mean people who abuse game mechanics/pacing (the disgusting imbalance that is pyromancy scaling, getting powerful gear from a later area and then using them on people that are no where near being able to get to said area) and glitches (bottomless box glitch) to essentially pick on people. They don't care about the souls or humanity they get; that stuff isn't even on their mind when they go about their antics. They just want to fuck with people who don't have a chance in hell of beating them.

Magic Magnum said
Honestly, you're attacking players for playing a game the way it's meant to be played. If you don't like said game that's totally fine, but you not liking a game doesn't mean the people who do play it are now wrong.

This part is subjective in its entirety. Who says your/others way of the playing the game is correct, and who says mine is? People who share the same opinions. Keyword: opinions.

I think it's against the spirit of the game to amp yourself up so you can get an unfair advantage against other people, because the game is meant to be challenging but fair. You may not think the same way, and while I may not like your view, I can't exactly do much to make you see everything my way(besides that'd be boring. What would off-topic be without stupid subjective arguments like these?)

Also, I LOVE Dark Souls. It was my first souls game, and I have fun playing it to this day. I will also say this again: Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said everyone that plays Dark Souls is playing it wrong. I just disagree with the bad apples of the community who go out of their way to essentially bully other players.

[Gwazi Magnum]

The pyromancy OP stuff also fits Dark Souls in my opinion, not everything is going to be balanced/the same effectiveness. Realistically there will be some things more dangerous and effective than others. That's how life works, I imagine Dark Souls would try reflecting that.

The Early items is honestly something the game was purposely designed for. Considering no attempts were made with patches to cut players off it's safe to assume the developers intended people to be able to do that if they tried hard enough.

Using glitches I can agree is not something the developers or dark souls is intended for. But even if Dark Souls is meant to be a bit fair, it's a brutal fairness. The new player had the same opportunities as others to speed ahead and snag certain items, if one player had the preparedness/initiative to do it and the other didn't that will be reflected in the battle's balance. It should also be noted that the way the game is coded the higher level the player get's the easier it is to fight against invaders cause there's less of a level distance. The invasions were never quite meant to be fair, but meant to more reflect a prey vs predator sort of thing where eventually the prey could turn into the predator.

[Frizan]

Magic Magnum said
The pyromancy OP stuff also fits Dark Souls in my opinion, not everything is going to be balanced/the same effectiveness. Realistically-

I'll just reiterate a post I remember from old-guild about "realistic" things in games/rps

"Realistically.
Undead.
Wat."

In a game like Dark Souls, where the purpose is actually to get the player to have fun and be satisfied with their progress, instead of being punishingly difficult, balance is of the utmost importance, and "realism" has limited place within its world.

Magic Magnum said
The Early items is honestly something the game was purposely designed for. Considering no attempts were made with patches to cut players off it's safe to assume the developers intended people to be able to do that if they tried hard enough.

Going back to "how the game is really meant to be played", the developers put in a level system for a reason: For you to level up. They want you to level up as you progress through those areas. So in later areas, they obviously intend for you to be a higher level than people in, say, the Undead Parish, and NOT be able to invade them with your +15 Infinity Blade of Pwnage. Besides, that "No patch, fair game!" argument is just...ugh. You know what else they didn't patch out? Pivot backstabs, which are performed by obfuscation of the lock-on system. Pivot backstabs are backstabs you would never be able to pull off otherwise due to your character's turning speed.

Not only that, but then comes in the problem of patching something like that. How the hell do you "patch" the game in such a way that you can stop people from taking certain weapons to certain areas? Without some kind of level restriction on areas(there's that reference to leveling up again), it can't be done.

[Brovo]

First of all, of all the things to be taking advice about morality from, Sword Art Online is definitely not in my top picks. Considering they preach about morality one minute and make most of the female cast needy beyond all logical, coherent reason. It's not a bad show, but it's definitely not well constructed in terms of exploring morality or philosophy or other pretty complex topics.

For instance, when I load up League of Legends, I do it with the express purpose of picking a champion and brutally murdering my opponents over and over again, regardless of their level of skill, how polite or mean they are, or otherwise. I will murder them as many times as it requires to steamroll my way into their base and destroy it. The entire purpose of the game is designed around forming an arbitrary conflict over a piece of terrain with the express purpose of annihilating the competition in any way you can. If that means camping them, ganking them, constantly killing them when they're alone, or otherwise committing to predatory assaults, you do that, because that is the point of the game.

Now people who, say, play DayZ and kill noobs, they do it purely to kill time. They revel in their power and enjoy wielding it against others. Then--and this is the most important part--they log off and go back to the real world. See, in League of Legends, I will camp, gank, and otherwise ruin other people to the best of my ability for the sole, express purpose of achieving military victory. That is the point of the game, the point of the exercise: To defeat my opponent however I can. However, it is just a game. It is a simulation, a form of entertainment. In real life I would not go about with a sniper rifle and shoot people, nor would I try to repeatedly stab them and murder wave after wave of civilians and police officers. In real life I go to work at home depot, I pay my taxes, I spend time with my family, I write short stories and poetry, occasionally I stare at pictures of ferrets, and I play video games.

And in some of those video games, I play out simulated conflicts in which I murder people, whether or not that is the objective is beside the point that it is simulated and I use it to entertain myself. How I entertain myself is hardly indicative of who I am as a person, considering who I am as a person is someone who is fully willing to stop conflict wherever possible, to try and practice empathetic responses when people are in pain, to simply try to be a good person as my father taught me to be. If I read fiction involving copious amounts of violence, would that make me more predicated towards it? If I enjoyed reading a book where someone takes power from another person, or bullies another person, even if it's humorous, would that in turn be indicative that I am a bad person? No! Of course not. Is my laughing at Achmed the Undead Terrorist skits making me an "Islamaphobe"? No! Of course not.

They're just forms of entertainment at the end of the day. How someone enjoys their entertainment, especially forms of virtual or simulated entertainment such as movies and games and books, does not imply them to be anything more than someone who has vicarious experiences. If anything, to explore the darker sides of ourselves in fiction, in simulation, better arms ourselves for what we'll find when we inevitable have that portion of our life where we have to face the darker sides of ourselves. We'll have seen it, experienced it, lived it, used it, and thus be better able to understand it, and control it, rather than attempting to repress it.

As human beings we have dark impulses. It's just part of how we survived four billion years of merciless evolution. If anything I'd say that simulated violence and bullying and so on are vastly superior to the alternative of shaming ourselves into pretending that we are fractured or inherently flawed. That instead of attempting to contain that which nature has bred into us, we find a healthy way of expressing it, exploring it, and even enjoying it in a purely fantastical setting, rather than in the real world. Do I deny that the behaviour of spawn camping noobs in a game is dickish? No. It's totally dickish. That guy is a complete dick for doing that, but does that mean that guy is a complete dick in real life? Hardly. Maybe he blows off steam camping noobs because in real life he works an extremely stressful job helping the mentally unstable recover, or healing the sick and wounded, or policing the streets, or etc.

tl;dr: You don't know who that person is in real life and making judgements about their behaviour in a completely simulated environment without understanding the circumstances of their life is so erroneous as to indicate a complete lack of real world experience.

[Gwazi Magnum]

Frizan said I'll just reiterate a post I remember from old-guild about "realistic" things in games/rps"

Realistically.
Undead.
Wat."

In a game like Dark Souls, where the purpose is actually to get the player to have fun and be satisfied with their progress, instead of being punishingly difficult, balance is of the utmost importance, and "realism" has limited place within its world.

Just cause there some fantasy elements doesn't mean all sense of realism is thrown out the window.
For example Walking Dead, zombies are not realistic. But they don't use it as an excuse to ignore survival basics, they still need to gather resources and survive none the less.

It's all about trying to stay realistic according to the confines of your fantasy world. It's not all or nothing, you can be realistic in some aspects and not realistic in others.

Frizan said Going back to "how the game is really meant to be played", the developers put in a level system for a reason: For you to level up. They want you to level up as you progress through those areas. So in later areas, they obviously intend for you to be a higher level than people in, say, the Undead Parish, and NOT be able to invade them with your +15 Infinity Blade of Pwnage.

Obviously levels main design purpose was to level up.
But the invasions are also not purely random, there are scripts to fight people of ______ level range.
And it is coded in a way that low level players are going to get invaded by higher level people, while high level players tend to get invaded by weaker people.
That was a design choice, which once again resembles a Prey Vs Predator deal. Not a completely fair/balanced fight.

If it was meant to be completely fair/balanced the level ranges would not be so extreme, nor would they favor the stronger player so much. But it is still fair in the sense that if the new player is smart and skilled enough they can pull of a victory.

Frizan said Besides, that "No patch, fair game!" argument is just...ugh. You know what else they didn't patch out? Pivot backstabs, which are performed by obfuscation of the lock-on system. Pivot backstabs are backstabs you would never be able to pull off otherwise due to your character's turning speed.

Not only that, but then comes in the problem of patching something like that. How the hell do you "patch" the game in such a way that you can stop people from taking certain weapons to certain areas? Without some kind of level restriction on areas(there's that reference to leveling up again), it can't be done.

Not liking a feature isn't the same as it being something that should of been patched but wasn't.

And patching the item acquire system is rather simple, enforce railroading.
All those items are obtainable early because the game is more open world, where if you smart (and use the master key, which you can start with) you can reach those spots early.

They would not of had such inter-connected areas, or given master keys if that wasn't an intended design choice.
Also note it's not as simple as say "Take two steps to the left and boom, OP item".

It takes effort, skill and smarts to maneuver around the stronger enemies to obtain said items earlier. It's a risk vs reward system.

[vancexentan]

I play within the game's meaning. If I'm playing Batman Arkham Origins my job is to kill the other people and if I can save my own team mates but at the end of the day my objective is to take out the bad guys or enemy gang and win the game. I'm not going to help my team stay alive when I can single handedly wipe out the enemy on my lonesome. Does that mean in real life I'd be so callous? Maybe depends on how much I like the guys I'm working with or how important they are in the grand scheme of things. That being said I love when a team can pull together and absolutely wreck house.

On Payday 2 it's a cuthroat ordeal. I'll help you if you help me and we'll all get out of there together. However if you do something stupid and I have to risk my own neck and the mission to help your ass then I'm more than likely going to let the cops cart you away. It's a matter of what is practical.

In Dragon Age Origins I play a character normally who is likewise practical like the previously mentioned. I will gladly help out anyone but not at the cost of harming my own team or the kingdom. I'm not going to help out the templars half the time in the second game because half of them are xenophobic and those who aren't I tend to help. That being said I'll still gladly take out my sword and put it in a mage's guts if he's going crazed. I took over the throne as a human noble warden so I can have a close hand in what the queen says and not just be 'warden commander' I am King Consort, Lord of Amarathine, slayer of the archdemon, and Commander of The Grey Wardens friend to the elves and dwarves alike. That kind of thinking is what made me constantly pick the little prick that backstabs you in the dwarf origin noble story for the guy stuck in his old ways so badly he'd do worse for the dwarves than the little prick. You can't go forward if you're looking backward less you trip or go extremely slowly.

In Left 4 Dead 2 I play it smart I pick my spots and I am not afraid of outright ditching teams if needed to win the round. But that's something I wouldn't do in real life unless there was no way of saving them. In real life I'd do all I can to help out my team because if they die that's one less gun helping me even if it's less food in my belly. I would prefer being hungry to not being safer any day.

In Borderlands 2 I'm not stingy with stuff unless it's stupidly rare and will be willing to give a weapon I don't need away. I'm going to help my team and I'm not going to ditch them because we work better together than we do alone. That's just common sense.

On the other hand I side with the imperials in skyrim while carrying and hording stuff for my own hubris like some sort of dragon.

In command and conquer I'd prefer not to lose men but winning the mission takes precedent and if I need to send a wave or two at the enemy then so be it. I'll do my best to find any other way around doing and my turtle style of play reflects that. Wait till I'm the strongest then come out and go all in or nothing.

I'm sure you're seeing a pattern here. I'm a guy who prefers practicality over flair. I'm a guy who prefers survival to team spirit unless it benefits me otherwise. I'm the guy who looks at the grand scheme of things and makes what I believe is the best possible choice for victory in the end. And I'd say in that regard my play style in games reflect who I am despite the fact there are some things I do in games I'd never even consider doing in real life. Like selling people as slaves, murdering towns of completely innocent people, brutally gunning down someone for their shoes, etc.