@jwonz: The chess analogy is flawed or irrelevant here because in chess, you have perfect balance or fairness; each competitor normally starts with the same number of pieces at the same positions. In Rust, those who have enough time or enough no-life in their life can get a head start and acquire ALL the pieces in the perfect positions, so when a newcomer arriver comes with NO pieces and NO strategic position whatsoever, they're nothing but ants to stomp on for the guy who had a head start. There is simply NO comparison between chess and what people CHOOSE to feel for losing a match fair and square and the shitty mechanics of Rust, which breed injustice and toxicity, and what people have NO option after the 20th kill within 5 minutes of spawning but to feel!
And violent games do not necessarily make people violent but they DO sensitize gamers to violence; this much we have no doubt about today. There is plenty of research out there to show you that engaging in virtual violence, especially when uncalled for, like how it happens in Rust when the powerful player gains absolutely NOTHING from the naked newcomer who literally just spawned and yet they still CHOOSE to gank them and squash them like a bug, engaging in this sort of violence habitually inevitably leads to desensitization toward violence of this type. The gamer becomes confused IRL as to what is fair and what is not, and they do not cringe from news or even pictures of violence as they used to before they lived for years while engaging in violence. I again emphasize that this may not necessarily turn the gamer to be violent (although this is actually still a possibility) but the desensitization is simply an empirical fact by now from the numbers of experiments that have been done for this matter.
I've been saying for years that "No, it's NOT just a game"; it's a piece of culture, propaganda, ideology, habit, and emotional conditioning. However, extremely few "gamers" in today's world have any awareness about this or read that much to begin with so they begin to acquire the awareness.
The relevance of this issue is that a game like Rust, which breeds this hostility and toxicity toward helpless, loot-less players, should actually die and be forgotten as soon as possible. We definitely do not need to condition more human beings into insensitivity toward unnecessary, mindless violence, by encouraging them to feel overpowered while they "virtually" commit the most heinous crimes all under the banner of ... "it's just a game". Yeah, they may not necessarily commit the same crimes IRL tomorrow, but they sure as hell won't cringe at all no more when they hear about them. Desensitization is real and it's all the powers-to-be really want from the vast majority of their sheep: Desensitized, complacent, dumb, good, obedient subjects -- I mean, citizens.
@jwonz: While I admire your optimistic view of people, my experience with countless toxic gamers in the past tells me that most of them (even if not all) actually do not respond well to communication or reason. Man, you cannot change people who are willing to listen! The change must come from within. You really think you can change people who feel superior and overpowered in their fake world and encouraged by cancerous game dynamics and mechanics? If you do this only once, I hope you'll be streaming it so you can show it to the world; show how you changed one of the sociopaths playing Rust into a decent human being who is willing to help and share. I'd actually love to watch something like this so that I hope in humanity again. Until then, I stand by my analogy, likening these cancerous sociopaths to cancered, rotten apples, and they simply must be removed from the community by banning their accounts just like you remove bad apples from a basket.
And I agree with you that game mechanics can and do create toxicity. This is just magnified in Rust but you can see it everywhere; even the general community of the iconic game, World of Warcraft, moved into toxicity and elitism mainly due to the game mechanics. Putting enemies near a metal vein and forcing a player to fight those enemies only for another player to come and mine that vein with ease and the vein is gone for X minutes is a prime example of how WoW slowly created toxicity and frustration in its community. That changed later on in the newest patches but who knows whether it was because Blizzard realized how they themselves were creating toxicity and enmity in their player base.
And while I agree with you that the game mechanics need to change in an intelligent way to foster a cooperative and generous spirit, rather than enmity and toxicity, we still have to acknowledge that human beings still CHOOSE to engage in and participate in a game with toxic mechanics and that breeds toxicity in them; they choose to stay, sometimes for years, rather than quitting the game that makes them become so ugly and looking for one that fosters positive feelings. People become sociopaths via their daily choices, after all; they're not always born that way. I reckon ... they're rarely born that way.
This aliens/zombies "event" ... what do the dates mean? Are you gonna be able to play this mode only for a month?? The answer is probably no but I'm really confused. I don't play Rainbow Six but this new mode has gotten me really interested and I want to know whether I can keep playing it or it's just an "event" or what. Any answers would be appreciated.
@brad8stew: Forget "reward"; that word is wrong. Remember the OTHER things the reviewer said: This game allows people who have spent a 1000 hours playing it to see newcomers as ants to squash. Once you've acquired this kind of experience and when you can invest that kind of time right at the start of a server reset, nobody else can have fun other than someone that that 1000-hours dude chooses to help. If he happens to be a sociopath, though, good luck trying to play on his server as a new player!
@markus: Dude, you do NOT decrease rotting in a basket of apples by adding MORE healthy apples! What kind of logic is that?! You ELIMINATE the rotting by REMOVING the rotten apples! I truly don't understand what has happened to the vast majority of the human population in today's world ... it's as if very few people can think logically anymore.
"The reason is 3-point review, which will ruin the inflow of new players into Rust - which is very important, because this exact inflow is decreasing the level of toxicity and encourages communication." Yep, bring in more innocent, decent folks to suffer from the toxicity of this cancerous Rust community because that "encourages communication". What kind of "communication" exactly can you have with sociopaths, trolls, and toxic gamers?
I agree with this review. Only sociopaths and masochists would play a game like this. Err ... unemployed sociopaths -- I hasten to add. Enjoy, weirdos.
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