Goblinworks Blog: I Heard It through the Grapevine

[baalbamoth]

Valkenr wrote:

Not by any means, PFO is moving towards a great community, we only have 2 groups of 'haters' that try and stir up much of anything.

1. People who want to ruin other peoples enjoyment, and are finding that PFO will not be a home for them.

2. People who can't handle the thought open PvP.

actually point 1. is entirely 100% wrong, and reminds me of the most funny thing I ever heard at a gaming table... (but oh god how to tell this without a removal will be a struggle...)

At one of our games a regular but slightly weird and portly player came in and said he was going to miss the next few sessions because he was going to jail.

We asked why and he said the cops had picked him up for having a concealed weapon. We jabbed the guy a bit about what was likely to happen to him in the showers, where they other inmates were likely to conceal their weapons, and having a good laugh...

The guy said: "nu uh, I'VE BEEN DOING MY EXERCISES FOR MONTHS GETTING READY FOR THIS, AND ITS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR A GUY TO DO THAT TO ME NOW!!!"

We of course demaned to know what exercises... (I wont get graphic here but I'll just say it involved snapping pencils) to which we all nearly died laughing....

At which point our DM says: "dont you realize thats the last thing you want to do?!?!"

He replies: "hu, why?"

Our DM says: "because dummy, your issuing a challenge and becoming a novelty to the worst people on earth, and you cant run away!"

"their going to ask eachother,'hey did you shower with the guy who can do the pencil trick yet?'"

to which the look of panic on his face caused all of us did die at least for a few seconds in the 30 minutes of ceasless hilarity.

Telling a bunch of griefers that 1) its impossible to grief in PFO, and 2) they arent welcome is the most assured way to draw ALL of them in and have them testing your every possible limit. Ryan can probably expand a bit about that and the EVE community with what happens in that game when gigantic groups of griefers link up...

Its the absolute worst thing you could do. The best thing that you can do is try your best to include everyone, and everyone's playstyle, and everyone's communication style "in someway" within your game, maybe creating more rewards (power) for people who do not grief rather than try (and brag about) getting rid of it completely.

PS. in any team based PVP game, I believe greifing is actually impossible to get rid of.

[DeciusBrutus]

The way to prevent the prison shower problem is by having wardens who enforce the rules (not to be confounded with Warden). The problem exists because the people who can stop it choose not to, for reason that are beyond the scope of the current discussion. Goblinworks is precommitting to a stand of "this is unacceptable and there will not be habitual offenders.", and they have stated their public stance. Note that they have hinted at but not stated what their internal policy will be- which is precisely how it needs to be in order to prevent people from playing that game.

Which is not to say that the policy is or needs to be arbitrary and capricious. I suspect that permanent bans will be nonexistent among good-faith players and that virtually all actions will be specific warnings. There will still be a very vocal minority who try to control the discussion- just like people banned from GW2.

What griefing do you see in TF2 or LFD versus? Those are clearly team-based multiplayer, and the worst you can do is conspire with others on your team to kick other players.

[GrumpyMel]

I think some of you folks are really panicing over nothing. I'm pretty sure that the risk for anyone trying to be conscientious of the policy getting banhammered is minimal.

The reason is simple, these rules aren't being enforced by mindless robots. They are being enforced by thinking breathing human beings. In this case ones who's motivation lies in NOT senselessly banning people from the game who aren't creating a negative atmosphere.

For those that aren't aware, I'll let you in on a little secret. This isn't much different then how the justice system in the real world works, which is a far more serious situation then getting banned from a game. The only difference is that system is adjucated (at every level) by the public or people appointed to thier positions, at least indirectly, by the public. In PFO's case, as it is a privately owned entity, those adjucations are, naturaly, in the hands of GW, the entity who's service we are all using. It's in thier interest to adjucate things wisely and fairly...because ultimately they have to answer to thier audience (e.g. "Us" as a whole) and if they are being unfair or overly draconian in thier adjucations they will ultimately suffer for it, as thier audience isn't going to be satisfied with that.

I'm pretty sure if GW see's that someone is being harrassed into making a techincal violation of language policy...and such violations aren't in that persons general nature...it's the harrasers that are going to be banhammered. As someone with close freinds in law enforcment...I can tell you that with pretty much anything short of a major felony, this is EXACTLY how law enforcement officers work in practice. They make judgement calls all the time, there are alot of things they could cite individuals for as technical violations....mostly it's only the purposefull trouble makers and agressors that end up getting cited for something sigificant (outside of a few major things, like weapons violations that the officer really doesn't have any leeway on)...and they get to know who those people are pretty quickly.

Finally, it's pretty easy to avoid breaking policy with a modicum of common sense and self-discipline. There are thousands of ways in the English language to express ones displeasure with a situation or individual without resorting to vulgarity or PFO's "no go" list.

P.S. In terms of policing game communities, while you can't completely stop griefing you can go a very long way towards minimizing it. I saw this first hand in some large commercial MUDS (e.g. "Gemstone"). This is especialy the case if you get the community on board with setting the tone in what is/is not acceptable behavior according to the community standards. GW's INVITE ONLY policy for the initial phase of the game will go a long way towards this. Kinda hard to organize a significant griefing campaign if 99 percent of those involved aren't getting invited into the game...and those that greif have to wait 9 months after being tossed out for thier newly established e-mail accounts to get invited back in. Alot of the games that do have rampant griefing do so because they don't care enought about griefing to make it a priority to devote resources to curtail it...or actively encourage griefing.

[Nihimon]

baalbamoth wrote:

Telling a bunch of griefers that 1) its impossible to grief in PFO, and 2) they arent welcome is the most assured way to draw ALL of them in and have them testing your every possible limit.

First, Griefers will be testing the limits regardless of the challenge.

Second, your analogy of jail-house rapists to griefers, while certainly apt in some regards, really breaks down for a couple of very obvious reasons:
1. In PFO, Griefers will be kicked out - in jail, the rapists aren't normally removed from the population;
2. In PFO, the moderators are explicitly trying to make the environment pleasant for the non-griefers - in jail, the guards are not focused on making the stay as enjoyable as possible for the non-rapists;

Third, you'll notice that the community here is already fairly well established. Even though you're potentially a Goon troll, you're arguments are being addressed seriously, and civilly.

[baalbamoth]

I purposefully did not say anything in my previous posting about rape or sex... all I talked about was "showering" everything else you "Assumed" I had to do that to avoid a possible ban or removal by a admin.

I would much prefer a system were such careful observance of the rules of communication would not be necessary, so I could just play a game freely without having to worry if something I said was going to get me banned or suspended, or recieve a warning about. Again I'd rather play with abusive language than play with the fear of abusive admins with too much power.

The idea that maybe I play this game, do 200+hrs of in-game work building content, only to get suspended or banned for 5 minutes of angry tirade makes me not really wanna bother putting the time in or playing at all.

as a citizen I do have many protections from potentially corrupt or emotionally unstable law enforcement officers, first of which are my constitutional rights... we've been told we have no right to an appeal, but after spending our money and more importantly our time, what rights do players have to protect them from a potentially power mad or abusive admin?

[Marthian]

baalbamoth wrote:

Again I'd rather play with abusive language than play with the fear of abusive admins with too much power.

And this is your problem. They've already said they are not allowing abusive language period. You are exaggerating this too much. How are admins abusive because they won't let you swear? And quite honestly, you really need to read up on Paizo more (and the community as well). They have GREAT customer satisfaction (I hardly ever see complaints, and if I do, a friendly staff member is there to fix it.) and I bet Goblinworks will be no different. The community is extremely nice, and there are hardly any issues. We DO NOT have ANY corrupt mods or admins on Paizo's website. And seriously, if you are a good person and don't swear (like you should in public ANYWAYS), you SHOULDN'T have to worry about it.

baalbamoth wrote:

The idea that maybe I play this game, do 200+hrs of in-game work building content, only to get suspended or banned for 5 minutes of angry tirade makes me not really wanna bother putting the time in or playing at all.

Then don't. If you can't control angry tirades and swearing, again not the game for you. That isn't Goblinworks or Paizo's fault, that's yours. If you are having anger issues, you should simply log off and vent steam.

baalbamoth wrote:

as a citizen I do have many protections from potentially corrupt or emotionally unstable law enforcement officers, first of which are my constitutional rights... we've been told we have no right to an appeal, but after spending our money and more importantly our time, what rights do players have to protect them from a potentially power mad or abusive admin?

There is NOTHING corrupt in having them out and say you can't say abusive things. There IS a thing called Terms of Agreement, and those ARE practically law-binding (even if no one reads them.) And really, by no repeals, I'm betting it's on a case-by-case. If you just let one slip, you (hopefully) should get off with a warning. However, go say your going to do horrible things to someone or say consecutive explicit words to someone, you aren't going to get a repeal for that: Chat logs exist.

Paizo (at the risk of sounding like a fanboy) is not a company I look at and think "Jeez, they are terrible." There are WAY worse companies out there. Look at Electronic Arts, AT&T, and Sony: You can't even file a class-action lawsuit against them if you use their service. source

[AvenaOats]

Came across this interesting article: Runescape puts botters on trial in Botany Bay and lets players decide their fate

PCGamer wrote:

“From today, any player caught botting will be given two warnings to allow them to change their ways, after which they will be permanently banned from the game – with no appeals,” say Jagex. “At each warning stage the botter’s avatar will change to signify to the rest of the community that they have been caught botting. After receiving their second and final warning should they break the rules again, the bot avatar will be transferred to a new area called Botany Bay to await the judgment of the community.”

When a bot is detected, a giant dragon hand will descend from the sky and point at the avatar so that players in the vicinity will know of their guilt. After a series of temporary bans and warnings, repeat offenders will be permanently booted from the game and sent to a remote island for destruction.

Players will receive a special pitchfork item for sitting on a jury. When the inevitable GUILTY judgement is passed, they’ll get to vote on the method by which the bot avatar is executed from a selection of fates that include “being stomped upon by a dragon and blasted in a ray of light from the RuneScape gods.”

“We take a very hard line on cheaters in our game and have taken the unique move to name and shame those who have been breaking one of our most important rules,” lead designer Mark Ogilvie explains. “We have wanted to do this for some time and we hope that by bringing the actions of those who cheat to the attention of the wider community, we can make a massive step towards eliminating botting from the game”.

Tags on detected botters and also conspicious excommunication are turning the botting into a social construct in game. :)

[Gruffling]

I'll freely admit that (particularly when tired or hungry, both common MMO states) that I can have serious anger issues. Its pretty simple for me, I yell and lambast my monitor with spittle and rage. I can't be bothered to type out the sailor's speech, and so its not an issue. I honestly don't care, nor do I somehow expect my rage at a video game to have any significant impact on the people pissing me off (they're likely trolls or racist pigs anyway), so the act of typing out a tirade into a public chat is even more useless than getting angry in the first place. I know the people I'm pissed at will just laugh.

This is really really really simple. Anti-corporation paranoia, and previous disappointments regarding "false promises" in all honesty shouldn't prevent you from having a good time in a game where the very basic ground rule of "Don't be D!ck" is in effect. Claiming somehow that a thousand negative experiences with previous games (made by different people, with far different community priorities, with different tech, under different design goals) will set the expectations of a new MMO is just silly.

I'll restate my previous post's basica premise. Dropping an f-bomb out of the context of a loss or momentary frustration probably isn't going to get anyone's attention, much like walking down a crowded street and seeing someone stub their toe and cry out an expletive in pain isn't going to get more than a sour look. Attacking anyone with language, of any kind, will get someone ban-hammered as quick as a process will allow. The basic guidelines of not using commonly understood slurs and hostile language (as have been printed in the blog, and in Ryan's post, and copied about a dozen times) should be pretty damn simple.

And Finally, and this is also telling, @baalbamoth:

Why do you find the proposition of these rules so hard to swallow, when by the very act of arguing against them you are following them. The rules proposed for PFO communications are essentially no different than the rules of these Forums, that you are required to use to argue that the rules are not to your liking. Think on that for a few...

[DeciusBrutus]

baalbamoth wrote:

as a citizen I do have many protections from potentially corrupt or emotionally unstable law enforcement officers, first of which are my constitutional rights... we've been told we have no right to an appeal, but after spending our money and more importantly our time, what rights do players have to protect them from a potentially power mad or abusive admin?

Now I know you're from SA or a similar site. Look at their banlist and tell me that isn't the definition of the abusive administration that you are afraid of.

Not having rules is the opposite of preventing abuse of power; without rules there is no rationale to contest a suspension or ban.

[GrumpyMel]

The bottom line is that this REALLY is a self-correcting issue. If GW ends up being overly draconion or unfair in thier enforcement of policy (which I really don't expect will happen)they are really going to be hurting themselves FAR more then anyone else, because that will be driving players away from the game. That's the LAST thing they want to happen.

For us players, this is simply a place for entertainment. We may be very fond of it indeed, even develop attachments to it.... and I'm sure it would be a sad thing to lose access. However, ultimately we can always go somewhere else or find something else to do for our entertainment. For GW and thier staff, it's thier LIVELIHOOD, it's something that they've poured thier blood, sweat, tears and finance into, it's something that feeds thier families. No way are they going to want to jepordize that by unneccessarly pushing players away from the game. If they do, they are the ones who will be suffering for it far more then you or I.

Yes in much larger companies that produce different types of MMO's they can sometimes afford to be rotten in thier interactions with players. That happens because community is far less important in those type of games, because high level decision makers are isolated not only from the player base but from thier own lower level staff, because that staff feels unappreciated and ill-treated by thier company and because the percentage of players effected makes a very small dent in thier overall population.

I can assure you GW isn't that type of company. The type of game they are building here lives or dies by the quality of it's community and GW knows that. It's not such a large game that it's likely to be out of touch with it's community, let alone it's own staff. Heck, how many game companies do you get to participate in conversations on the forums with the CEO, while the game is still in development? I've been gaming for almost 30 years now and I've never seen that before.

I think I can predict pretty accurately how GW is likely to enforce thier policies. They are going to try to weed out the small minority of players who's interest is in wrecking the enjoyment of other players and making the community a toxic place. They are going to do that because it's in thier enlightened self-interest for them to do so... and as players it's in our interest for them to do that as well. They absolutely aren't going to be interested in getting rid of people who are a positive contribution to the community who might have one bad day or honest slip up.

However, they aren't going to spell out in publicaly posted notice that they can be bound to anything that a miscreant could use to lawyer them to death and gum up the process of getting someone who really doesn't belong here removed. Ultimately, as with any provider of a service, you are just going to have to trust them to act in a reasonable and responsible manner in the way they provide that service....and if you can't trust them to do that, why on earth would you even consider giving them your business?

[Valkenr]

Marthian wrote:

baalbamoth wrote:

Again I'd rather play with abusive language than play with the fear of abusive admins with too much power.

And this is your problem. They've already said they are not allowing abusive language period. You are exaggerating this too much. How are admins abusive because they won't let you swear?

They never said people can't swear, just the very abrasive/potentially disgusting stuff.

-----

"Get those [expletive] goblins off the [expletive] wall." Should be OK.

"You [expletive] [expletive], I can't believe how [expletive] [expletive] you must [expletive] with [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] pancakes." Should be not OK.

So basically unless you are using swearing to hurt someones feelings, you shouldn't get in trouble. If someones feelings are hurt by swearing not directed at them, they do not belong in an online environment. Also, swearing is not the only way to offend someone, so it shouldn't be arbitrarily viewed as 'bad'.

[Gruffling]

pancakes!

[Nihimon]

Valkenr wrote:

"You [expletive] [expletive], I can't believe how [expletive] [expletive] you must [expletive] with [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] pancakes."

Anyone else feeling a weird curiosity about the uncensored version?

[Hudax]

Nihimon wrote:

Valkenr wrote:

"You [expletive] [expletive], I can't believe how [expletive] [expletive] you must [expletive] with [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] pancakes."

Anyone else feeling a weird curiosity about the uncensored version?

Not really. I've seen enough after-school WoW trade chat to pretty much know exactly what he's talking about.

And I'm fine with people getting banned for talking about doing that to pancakes.

:)

[Valkenr]

Nihimon wrote:

Valkenr wrote:

"You [expletive] [expletive], I can't believe how [expletive] [expletive] you must [expletive] with [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] pancakes."

Anyone else feeling a weird curiosity about the uncensored version?

Yes. I wonder what people can come up with. Who can make the best MadLib?

Also this will Illustrate my point that peoples minds will start going to horrible places when they see censorship. As seen on YouTube(a good one is very rare) bleeps in the right places can make children's shows seem horrible.

[Marthian]

Valkenr wrote:

They never said people can't swear, just the very abrasive/potentially disgusting stuff.

So basically unless you are using swearing to hurt someones feelings, you shouldn't get in trouble. If someones feelings are hurt by swearing not directed at them, they do not belong in an online environment. Also, swearing is not the only way to offend someone, so it shouldn't be arbitrarily viewed as 'bad'.

Generally, swearing does fall under "Offensive things."

Some people don't want to hear swearing, and it happens everywhere, does that mean they don't belong in an offline society anywhere?

[AvenaOats]

Another interesting feedback on bots, ArenaNet: On Botting and What We’re Doing About It

GW2 Forum wrote:

-snip-We are actively improving our means of detecting ‘bot’ activity in the game automatically. This includes tools for our customer support team to help them verify ‘botting’ reports and efficiently issue account terminations. Recently we have also hired a team of data specialists who will be helping us create more effective tools for analyzing reports of ‘botting.’

As a side effect, these efforts directly impact the operations of third-party gold sellers (and spammers). In conjunction with ‘bot’ removal we also take Real Money Trading very seriously and actively remove hundreds of gold spammers and sellers each day.

[Mogloth]

Click click, bloody click pancakes!

[DeciusBrutus]

Valkenr wrote:

Nihimon wrote:

Valkenr wrote:

"You [expletive] [expletive], I can't believe how [expletive] [expletive] you must [expletive] with [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] pancakes."

Anyone else feeling a weird curiosity about the uncensored version?

Yes. I wonder what people can come up with. Who can make the best MadLib?

Also this will Illustrate my point that peoples minds will start going to horrible places when they see censorship. As seen on YouTube(a good one is very rare) bleeps in the right places can make children's shows seem horrible.

Bonus points for archaic words used in a grammatically correct manner.

[Valkenr]

Mogloth wrote:

Click click, bloody click pancakes!

So that was what my subconscious was pointing to, had forgotten about that scene.

[Kryzbyn]

Anyone who;s seen the 'Onyxia wipe' video on youtube knows what unacceptable levels of language are.

[Gruffling]

MAOR DOTZ!!! MANY DOTZ!!! OK STOP DOTZ....

[Kryzbyn]

DOTS UP ON EVERYTIME

[baalbamoth]

50 DKP... MINUS!!!

Honestly, loved that guy, btw did you ever hear the players vid of that wipe? aparently the guy was an indian drill sargent, and the players themselves loved the guy, said he was the best clan leader they ever had.

another point about that... all of that took place on teamspeak etc. so nothing to get ban hammered from, however... If I remember right with PF online, if you send an abuseive IM to somebody and they open it, even if its not on public chat, thats another one you can get a no-appeal ban hammer from. (and again... your dealing with having somebody else define abuse and define harassment, where is the line drawn between an angry statement and an abusive one?)

I see a lot of postings about "you dont really need to worry about it because the all powerful admins are really good guys that dont want to kick people out" I havent always seen that as the case in other MMO's I did have one suspension because I caught somebody stealing from me durring an item transfer (UO2 you had to drop it on the ground and re-log with your other character to pick it up), reporting it did no good and I decided to make it my goal in life to ruin his fun in that game. I got reported and suspended.

In regards to what gruffling said... yes on these forums I have had postings deleted, as many as a few pages, mostly because somebody made a personal attack against me, I responded, got flagged and because I was not the popular guy (IE a troll) they deleted some great arguements that had absolutely nothing to do with was was said between me and the other forum member... the mods here just arbitrarilly deleted like five pages of everyone's postings under the "dont be a jerk" rule. total overkill. so now, I gotta watch my language, and if I'm going to be advisarial in my opinions, I gotta be very careful about how I phrase my responses, I hate it but I do it, and no... I'm not happy about it.

[Marthian]

Then DON'T be a jerk. Simple as that. And also, in real life, you shouldn't be retaliating against people, even verbally, or you wind up in more trouble than them.

Also, if you haven't noticed already, this isn't going to be a typical MMO.

I hate to be personally, but you just sound vengeful. If someone gives you crap, you don't generally pursue making their life miserable, or you get in more trouble. (Best thing to do about scammers is ignore, report, and move on.)

Think about it: If I did this in real life, what kind of trouble could I get into?

[DeciusBrutus]

baalbamoth wrote:

... reporting it did no good and I decided to make it my goal in life to ruin his fun in that game. I got reported and suspended.

Sounds like their system worked as intended.

No offense intended, but I suspect that you might be the direct cause of your negative experience with moderation.

[AvenaOats]

I read recently that a judge considered a certain increase in violent assault cases on Facebook networks of social contacts because people needed up saying things that they'd probably never say in person.

I'm sure keeping talk as if you were in polite/respectable/in front of your folks company, is not a bad guideline and eskewing swearing (usu. a means of increasing the emotional pitch) a reliable practice. I guess in work where there are clear roles it naturally follows how people know what is appropriate to say or not say and that's something online games probably have to overcome. A sample of people with similar interests/values etc is always going to give a head start on helping people form socially positive experiences - so the staggered invite start is a very good idea. I'm definitely of the opinion that I do not want to be a player in the most mainstream these days, for the reason that the community is never likely to be very cohesive.

[Nihimon]

baalbamoth wrote:

If I remember right with PF online, if you send an abuseive IM to somebody and they open it, even if its not on public chat, thats another one you can get a no-appeal ban hammer from.

Either you don't remember right, or you're being intentionally dishonest. I'm not going to spend too much effort trying to figure out which.

[baalbamoth]

I dont let myself get walked on IRL, so not really comfortable letting it happen online either, especially if somebody steals from me and the "athorities" choose not to do anything about it. I pretty much quit playing that game after it happened.

speaking of that... people seem to think that sticking up for yourself makes you a jerk, especially if you have strong or unpopular opinions or your not the kind of person to run and tattle on somebody at the first opertunity.

I know I'm generally a pretty reactionary guy, and generally dislike anyone in athority. When I was a kid they told me I had "oppositionally defiant disorder" meaning anything I was told, I generally thought of all the ways the person speaking to me was wrong. I guess I never really grew out of it. BUT to assume a "troll" like me has no place in society or in online games is dead wrong.

IRL when 12 innocent people got arrested in my home town, I gathered 300 protesters on a chilly december morning at 8:00 AM to protest which was covered by every major news network in the U.S.A. I then set up a court support program so each of the 12 had at least a supporter or two sitting at every court appearance. 2 years later and everyone (all 12) had their charges dropped. I also worked as a union outreach coordinator for the third largest union in the country, and got 200 union hardhats to march with Occupy Oakland when they took over the port of oakland and shut down all shipping for two days in or out of the city.

theres no doubt that my influence is mostly caustic for a corrupt or unjust systems, but what comes out of my actions are generally positive.

[Nihimon]

baalbamoth wrote:

... if somebody steals from me and the "athorities" choose not to do anything about it.

If the "authorities" need a crystal ball to be able to know who's telling the truth, then you shouldn't expect them to believe you just because you know you're right.

[Onishi]

Nihimon wrote:

baalbamoth wrote:

If I remember right with PF online, if you send an abuseive IM to somebody and they open it, even if its not on public chat, thats another one you can get a no-appeal ban hammer from.

Either you don't remember right, or you're being intentionally dishonest. I'm not going to spend too much effort trying to figure out which.

Agreed, I have not heard anything of no appeal at all, there certainly are ways to get in trouble not in public chat (within the game) that pretty much anyone would agree with. Lets say Joe the jerk, continues to throw PM's to the same girl, or even dozens of different female characters he dosn't know, with lude requests. Heck anyone who's played any f2p, or even WoW durring certain erras have run into bots/people who flood people with PM's for gold selling sites etc...

Now that is not to be mistaken for say, 2 consentual adults agreeing to a adults only conversation, I have heard nothing from GW to imply that a GM is going to pop into the conversation and ban either or both. That is just a ridiculous fear right there, and more or less the exact opposite of what I've been hearing from the devs.

[Waruko]

Can I please have links to the news about the protest you led? It sounds interesting. Also the video of the players praising the drill sergeant, and the D&D Insider developer murder. I like collecting information, little hobby. Not the Oakland port incident though, already looked that up. Thank you.

[GrumpyMel]

@baalbamoth,

You need to be able to seperate what's happening to your character from what's happening to you. In this type of game, your character will get killed by other players...ALOT. Your character may be stolen from or scammed (within the context of the rules), you may get assasinated, you may have an INN that you worked very hard to build burned to the ground.

These things all happen within the context of the game, they are happening to your character, not to you. It would be perfectly ok for your character to seek vengence on those characters who commited those action.... once you even start thinking about making the PLAYER behind those other characters miserable, you need to walk away.

If someone is harrassing you as a player and acting outside the context of the rules then you need to REPORT it period....you've got to remember as a player you really have NO POWER in this environment to enforce the rules against other players, ZERO. So it's futile to even try. The GM's have both the power and responsibility to enforce the rules, you need to let them do it.

Think of it as a football game. If someone on the opposing team puts a hard but legal hit on you after you've caught the ball and really rings your bell, that's NOT the other player doing anything directed at you personaly. That's them simply doing thier job in trying to help thier team win the game. The appropriate response there is not to get mad at them but to go over after the game and shake thier hand and congratulate them on a well played game. If someone put's a cheap shot on you after the play was over, clearly directed to hurt you...that's the REF's job to deal with. Thier the ones who have the flags and the power to call penalties. If you try to do something about it yourself, you are just going to end up hurting yourself and your team, because you'll be drawing penalties too. That's playing dumb. If the REF didn't see it to make the call, that's just bad luck....you let them know what happaned and if it repeats itself chances are pretty good they WILL see it and be able to call a penalty that time.

If you can't handle that kind of thing, then honestly, you're playing the wrong game.

[DeciusBrutus]

baalbamoth wrote:

I dont let myself get walked on IRL, so not really comfortable letting it happen online either, especially if somebody steals from me and the "athorities" choose not to do anything about it. I pretty much quit playing that game after it happened.

Extrapolating from that, if you thought that a specific person stole from you IRL, but the police and/or courts determined that there wasn't enough evidence, you would harass the person who thought stole from you until they got a restraining order, and then sulk about how unfair the world is because the authorities helped them but didn't help you. Is that fair and fairly accurate?

Do you understand why that behavior is something that we want to strongly discourage?

[Ryan Dancey]

I think thus thread has been derailed enough. Lets move on from Baalbamoth and his approach to life & conflict resolution.

[Elorebaen]

Ryan Dancey wrote:

I think thus thread has been derailed enough. Lets move on from Baalbamoth and his approach to life & conflict resolution.

Saner words have not been spoken.

[baalbamoth]

Ryan Dancey wrote:

I think thus thread has been derailed enough. Lets move on from Baalbamoth and his approach to life & conflict resolution.

lol caught in the act!

k just to finish up on a few questions I got asked...

to Waruko:

heres the link to a story on the the murder suicide
http://kotaku.com/5032443/xbox-developer-dead-in-murder+suicide

heres a thread about why 4.0 failed w/o the VTT

http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/315975-wizards-coast-dungeons-dragons-ins ider-d-d-4th-edition-hasbro-some-history.html

The DDI pitch was that the 4th Edition would be designed so that it would work best when played with DDI. DDI had a big VTT component of its design that would be the driver of this move to get folks to hybridize their tabletop game with digital tools. Unfortunately, a tragedy struck the DDI team and it never really recovered. The VTT wasn't ready when 4e launched, and the explicit link between 4e and DDI that had been proposed to Hasbro's execs never materialized. The team did a yoeman's effort to make 4e work anyway while the VTT evolved, but they simply couldn't hit the numbers they'd promised selling books alone. The marketplace backlash to 4e didn't help either.

I dont have a link for the player comments on the wipe, but it was on youtube about a year or so ago..

about the protests and 12 defendants... somebody actually made a comic book about it, hit me with a PM and I'll send you a link.

@nihmon and grumpy mel- this is more "on topic" its straight from the blog...

https://goblinworks.com/blog/

"And if you initiate a private conversation with someone and say offensive things to them and they flag you for harassment or abuse, you'll find yourself out of the game as well."

better be real careful about who ya PM...

side note: in the game I was referring to, transfering items was not controled or protected, so admins would do nothing about theft other than maybe say "we know everyone transfers items between characters, but because we dont have a mechanic for it yet, your doing it at your own risk, next time find a better hiding place"

that wasnt good enough for me, kinda like saying if you leave your car unlocked and somebody steals it the cops say "well since we dont arrest people for theft, I guess you shouldent have done that, next time dont leave it unlocked" while the guy drives away in your car...

@Decius: in real life I live in a small town, (dont know if you've ever lived in one, but its a lot diffrent than the suburbs) I have a lot of friends and 4 attorneys. Nobody steals from me and if they did I have a lot of other ways to deal with it, harassment isnt one of them.

[Onishi]

baalbamoth wrote:

"And if you initiate a private conversation with someone and say offensive things to them and they flag you for harassment or abuse, you'll find yourself out of the game as well."

better be real careful about who ya PM...

Well that should be obvious IMO... PMs that are clearly unwanted could obviously go into that category. The thing is that the whole conversation will be flagged, meaning most likely the GMs should exercise some common sense.

IE say 2 people are flirting through PMs, it slowly goes upward, and then one person steps over the line, the second person complains, first one apologizes and stops, but the first person flags it anyway. I'd expect at the worse the GM's issue the first person a warning. On the other hand if that person continues long after the second clearly states things are unwelcome, the consiquences would likely be worse.

And finally someone directly opening with things more serious IE directly PMing strangers with crude comments, gold spamming etc... How is that any different than doing it in public chat?

[Waruko]

Aaaaah, how did I miss that Kotaku article!? Thank you very much.

[Nihimon]

Nihimon wrote:

baalbamoth wrote:

If I remember right with PF online, if you send an abuseive IM to somebody and they open it, even if its not on public chat, thats another one you can get a no-appeal ban hammer from.

Either you don't remember right, or you're being intentionally dishonest.

baalbamoth wrote:

@nihmon and grumpy mel- this is more "on topic" its straight from the blog...

https://goblinworks.com/blog/

"And if you initiate a private conversation with someone and say offensive things to them and they flag you for harassment or abuse, you'll find yourself out of the game as well."

better be real careful about who ya PM...

You got me. I misread "IM" to mean something outside of PFO. Maybe it was the "and they open it" that threw me off. I wasn't being careful.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that if you send someone tells in-game that you will be held accountable for that.

My sincere apologies to everyone who wishes this thread would just end already.

[Mogloth]

Nihimon wrote:

My sincere apologies to everyone who wishes this thread would just end already.

Easiest way for that to happen would be for people to just simply stop responding.

[Ryan Dancey]

11 messages after being asked to move on, and people are not moving on.

Sigh.

[Nihimon]

@Ryan, there's a reason people have to stay "don't feed the trolls". It's the same reason people have to say "don't stand in fire". It takes time and experience - and a good example - to really learn the lesson. I think I've got it now, in this particular instance, but I can't make a guarantee. There's something about human nature that compels us to try to explain ourselves - I think I remember someone saying that was the basic theme of Dostoyevsky.

[Ryan Dancey]

A message about not continuing to talk about a topic is still talking about a topic.

[Kryzbyn]

First rule of Don't Talk About it Club is...