Rotonen's Christmas 2009 thought game

[Rotonen]

Since in most of western culture Christmas is supposed to be a time of being extra nice, let's try a little thought game, since you have been increasingly hostile towards each other in the past two or so years and the spiral is not showing any signs of healing:

1) You will from now on behave nicer towards each other, also in-game

OR

2) We will take down the eA server and never make it come back, since you are effectively begging us to do so

Why these two options? They both reduce the time it takes us to moderate you as a community. Every time we have to react to some issue you seem to have with each other, the development of the game gets more and more delayed.

Do pay attention that this is only a thought game topic which bears no impact on how we will actually solve this problem or if we even are going to try to solve it in any way. This is a place for self reflection as a community, so if you have anything to say to any of this, feel free to do so.

[Leela]

This is a place for self reflection as a community, so if you have anything to say to any of this, feel free to do so.

First of all, yes, people get get more and more rude, but why is that? It is not that way in every community. So what is the difference and how can we improve that? I mean, we as a community. I see a few rules and I see two GMs trying to enforce them, trying to calm trolls down, trying to help the community. But it is all trying. Too many trolls, too many rule brakers. And a GM can't be online the whole day because normally he has a real life. So we need more GMs and we need a community that accepts new GMs and don't see them as some bad policemen but as people who work for this community. But I think making the community seeing the GMs in another light is a loooong way.
That was my thought to Rotonen's post.

Now I keep the form from Rotonen's post for another idea
People stop moaning about the rules. Rules aren't their to be broken but to improve gameplay.
So:

<ironic>
1) Stop moaning about the rules

or

2) I tell SantaClause, so you will get no presents
</ironic>

cu ingame
Leela

[TheBasilisk]

That's somewhat unfair IMO. This only applies to a few members, and it really isn't nice making that affect everyone.

This is how a lot of teachers did things when I was in school - a couple of class members being noisy, and the whole class got a detention.

[Kage]

That's somewhat unfair IMO. This only applies to a few members, and it really isn't nice making that affect everyone.

This is how a lot of teachers did things when I was in school - a couple of class members being noisy, and the whole class got a detention.

Teachers do this because in real life because after detention the whole class will beat up the little brat.

Like I have said a million times.... make the whole world PvP... and let problems fix them self.

[TheBasilisk]

That's somewhat unfair IMO. This only applies to a few members, and it really isn't nice making that affect everyone.

This is how a lot of teachers did things when I was in school - a couple of class members being noisy, and the whole class got a detention.

Teachers do this because in real life because after detention the whole class will beat up the little brat.

Like I have said a million times.... make the whole world PvP... and let problems fix them self.

A: I guess...

B: No, it will just make problems worse because of people who go off and kill newbs because it's "fun". This will give them a very bad image of TMW... And we don't want that, right?
That's just my opinion though.

[Leela]

well pvp everywhere (except noob areas and cities) is not a bad idea i think. some higher levels will always be there to protect noobs who wanna go somewhere else we have not only trolls but also very helpful players

[TheBasilisk]

Maybe, if possible, allow people to attack others only if their levels are less than (targetlevel+5)?

Or not, because then stronger players couldn't protect newbies.

And disabling it in town is rather illogical too, because that's where most of these problems start.

[Crush]

Replacing administration by game masters with administration by PvP... What would this essentially mean?

It would mean that those who have the strongest characters have the most power in the game. Those who are powerful can make the rules for the weak and those who are stronger than the rulemakers can do what they want. The decision what is allowed and what is forbidden is no longer made by the server administration but by those who have the strongest characters.

How does this sound to you?

[TheBasilisk]

Replacing administration by game masters with administration by PvP... What would this essentially mean?

It would mean that those who have the strongest characters have the most power in the game. Those who are powerful can make the rules for the weak and those who are stronger than the rulemakers can do what they want. The decision what is allowed and what is forbidden is no longer made by the server administration but by those who have the strongest characters.

How does this sound to you?

Sort of like it is now, just a bit more unfair - I think the current system is fair - Platyna invests a lot of time in making TMW the best possible place. Who rules the mana world shouldn't be decided by who plays most, but who does most good for the society.

Well, that's my opinion anyway, please don't flame me for it.

[Leela]

I don't get why it works on other games and why it should not work in this game. Can someone explain me that?

[MoneyX]

Crush, just because most of the game area would be PVP, doesn't mean game rules have to be taken away..

Edit: Such as no spamming, or botting, etc

But you are right the high lvl's would be the most powerful. Isn't that how it was back in the day? Would be nice role playing.

[Tiana]

I have a few thoughts on this topic myself.

One thing that I feel might help the problem with trolls and spammers is more GM coverage, and perhaps more flexibility on how to handle these issues for the GM's. This might mean more GM's for TMW - which is not a bad thing as long as appropriate people are selected for this position. In terms of the GMs being able to handle the spammers and trollers more effectively, they would need to have very clear guidelines for themselves to provide accountability. My best example of what I mean by flexibility (from an actual event on another server): a character is trying to sell an item they don't have, and it can be proved that they don't have it through an inventory search on that character. The character is asked politely to stop trade spamming for an item they do not even have, when they refused to stop they were told the consequences of continuing to do so. When they still persisted then @chardropall in the middle of town. At that point they realized that they should stop spamming, and did... One important thing to remember is that all of this activity, warnings and item checks, shows up in the GM log to provide accountability.

Overall I do not see a need for more rules, but I do see a need for the existing rules to be enforced and enforced in a consistent manner. I am also a huge fan of the generic GM names. That way a new GM would not come with any previous baggage from their original character. I also see no need for the developers to have to step in to help enforce rules if there is appropriate GM coverage and clear guide-lines for them to follow. The developers should be doing what they do best - developing!

As for the idea of general PvP - I am not a fan of it. Part of the reason I was drawn to TMW is the lack of general PvP. That being said - for myself I have no reasons to worry about it anymore...

Thats my few cents worth on the topic.

[Wombat]

Overall I do not see a need for more rules, but I do see a need for the existing rules to be enforced and enforced in a consistent manner. I am also a huge fan of the generic GM names. That way a new GM would not come with any previous baggage from their original character. I also see no need for the developers to have to step in to help enforce rules if there is appropriate GM coverage and clear guide-lines for them to follow. The developers should be doing what they do best - developing!

As for the idea of general PvP - I am not a fan of it. Part of the reason I was drawn to TMW is the lack of general PvP. That being said - for myself I have no reasons to worry about it anymore...

While I am in favor of expanding PvP, I also favor generic GM names and enforcing whatever rules we have now consistently. However, PvP hasn't been taken up by any unofficial server and experiments in PvP show that it would need some tinkering to be balanced, so I don't know if I'd favor our current PvP as a way to enforce the current rules. I do think generic GM names would allow the GM to be judged off their actions and not a presumed bias. It can be assumed that just about anyone that has gained the attention of the developers, admins and other GMs has gained friends and foes over their period of gameplay. If they haven't, that would be nice, but most of the time the silent players don't show enough personality to either stand out or give a good assessment of how they would handle a GM role.

Most of the time when I play anymore, I limit myself to doing a few raids in the graveyard and have very little problems with players in the game. If the GMs would stop giving "in town" special treatment and just suggest people play the game and find some other spot to sit if they don't like what other players are doing, there might be more areas created by players to socialize and trade in. Maybe I'm wrong, but I remember when people were having difficulties with (non-english, trade and abusive) spam when Tulimshar was more the center and people just started moving around the map more to get away and created their own circles and I enjoyed running around trying to discover where all the players liked to gather and do small raids or talk. But then again, the number of players has multiplied and people seem to expect GM intervention more than when this was the case.

[Black Don]

I still think GM's policing socal situations is a horrible idea. GM's are people who come with their own bias and morals and those can conflict with others who do not do anything wrong other then to disagree with these moral stances. This has been the source of most GM abuse, and GM's being abused seen in game. PVP every were is a worse idea. That does not solve the issue only shifts the power to a different group. The best solution is the one we all ready have implemented but nobody seems to use or want to use. It is call 'ignore' it was the best social self moderation feature ever added to the game. If you don't want to hear spam, use ignore. If you don't want to hear someones trash talk, use ignore. If you don't want to interact with a 'looser' in any way, put them on ignore. Plus if you want to forgive someone you can take them off ignore too. I don't think we need anything new to fix this problem we just have to use what have and stop trying to force people to act the way we want them too. Policing the social aspect of the game is starting to become a form of censorship. I have alway felt that the best censor to what we want to hear is ourselves.

[The Scarlet Rhus]

Duck make the whole world PvP. People will sort it out for themselves. I would play if I could slaughter n00bs.

You could make the inside of buildings non-PvP, as well as towns.

Or have Policemen. These are kinda like GMs, but instead they catch murderers. Hahaha that would be cool