Dan Ariely has some insights on the likelyhood of people to 'cheat' in any given situation. Note: He is not a game developer, this is about human behaviour.

Most of his talk goes against established game theory, but much of it rings true.

I wonder how much of this could be applied to online gaming.

In one instance, he talks about how people will much more readily steal tokens or items than cash, even if they have the same intrinsic value. Is there some possible way to give weight to game items by making them more like real money or something else we would apply the sort of psychological guilt he refers to?

And what about signing some sort of 'moral code' document, as he exampled, to significantly reduce cheating? Self-policing methods like this are probably a lot more effective than trying to convince players they're being watched, or having players report player abuse / exploits (which I suspect psychologically speaking, isn't much deterrent at all).

I'm re-re-revamping this blog back to NecroRogIcon.

My plan to fully investigate every major MMORPG never got jumpstarted. My best experiences with these games are with my close-knit group of friends. I enjoy playing a few great games rather than sampling them all.

Oh I'm bound to still throw my opinions around. ;)

I'm no longer a tight industry insider, but I still get the urge to swim in those streams now and then. Overall for this blog however, too tight of a focus just left me less inclined to write, it felt too forced and thus my updates became few and far between.

For a few weeks there, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to keep this webspace at all, it felt like it was just an old shoe that I hadn't thrown out because I'd had it forever. Plus, I've become more of a private person in recent years and I'm not always comfortable with such a public space.

But I need somewhere to vent and stream my thoughts, whether they be about Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, or some brand of mustard that I happen to like. This is that space, so I'll relabel it appropriately as such.

MMOROG as a name also felt a bit too cult-of-me. Heh, certainly NecroRogIcon is too, but it just suits me, it's more apt.