Rules of a MMORPG & TMW FEEDBACK

[wushin]

Players, GMs, Admin, Trolls, Role-Players, & what ever please read this article
http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming2/laws- ... ld-design/

Due to the Nature of this topic, Moderation will be heavy. But please feel free to grab a rule and use NON-PLAYER specific examples of violations that occur.
DO NOT NAME NAMES, keep it anonymous and look at the core rule and how and why. As I'm sure several of us have violated a few.
Once again Do Not make this personal. If at any time someone says stop, you must stop. I don't want to lose honest critique in personal disputes, take those to GMs.
(Do not move this out of Feedback, It's asking for critique of TMW)

[o11c]

• We need stricter forum moderation in general; there are plenty of people who take one look at our forums and are scared to enter.
• We need to stop promoting trollish behavior, it just leads to more trolls.
• Everybody who has ever said "it's just a game" is wrong.
• There's no such thing as roleplaying an asshole, you're just being an asshole. Roleplaying can only thrive when there is *strict* moderation.
• We know that every change will be hated by existing players, even the ones who asked for it. The important question is, how will the change be taken by new players?
• The most important thing for TMW's forums is to provide a fertile environment for ideas. Bashing anybody's ideas is not that.

[Speiros02]

Ola’s Law About Laws
"Any general law about virtual worlds should be read as a challenge rather than as a guideline. You’ll learn more from attacking it than from accepting it."

This statement is both true and false, depending on the circumstances. For the sake of every other rule that comes after it, I agree with this one the most, as I disagree with one or two, but others wholeheartily agree with. These laws don't make for a fair critique of the game policies and procedures...what I mean as I don't think they'd be a good absolute touchstone for them. Some are good, but others have issues in a "Law" sense in their own right. Therefore, I think that if it was brought up by way as an argument to a rule/regulation, fine, but not as a "Law", whereby what they say is absolute, as this first law automatically abolishes the idea for the rest of them.

[blackrazor]

Those aren't rules. They are truisms. Sort of like Murphy's Laws.

They are academic, not administrative in nature.

If you were to take a bachelor's degree in MOG Engineering, I imagine you would find one of the courses to have a book containing these truisms, along with detailed explanations and examples. You would be expected to write papers or exams, defending or attacking specific ones, or giving detailed examples from the real (virtual) world of online games.

They contain wisdom and value, basically the distilled anecdotal observations from successful game designers who are willing to share in the lore of their craft. They can provide useful inspiration or insight into the nature of play, the nature of games and community, the nature of human psychology and pathology, especially anonymous or online. Great stuff for if you wish to start a new project, or better understand the one you currently occupy. On their own, they aren't going to change your project; but they can make you more aware of the moving parts behind the curtain.

[wushin]

I do think players bot in TMW cause the level grind and drop rate is awful.

[Crush]

Some of you seem to misinterpret that article. It is not so much about policing MMOs but more about how to develop and design them.

[wushin]

Correct Crush, it's about creating a virtual world based on the experience prior developers have learned. It's a list of standard rules that govern most virtual worlds.
I'm looking at it from a "What was thought wrong with this city we built on rock n roll?" and How can we improve our thought on the game to make it better.
Some of this list is completely social, other things are game mechanics, some about about story, etc. I think it's a good read and nice study. Specially considering a lot of this can be applied to the entire TMW family dynamic.

I'm attempting to give a wider audience a quick and easy glimpse into some of the problems We all face in our endeavor. The deeper your level of involvement the more able one should be able to apply this to our current status.

[DefinitelyNOTMrWho]

• We need stricter forum moderation in general; there are plenty of people who take one look at our forums and are scared to enter.

False. I never heard somebody saying that they're scared to enter the forum. The fact that new people don't register is because there aren't that many new people who play this game. A 10 year old kid wouldn't join the forum because it's boring to him.

• We need to stop promoting trollish behavior, it just leads to more trolls.

Nobody ever complained about this so called trollish behaviour. Check the forums, you'll see nobody complaining. Don't believe the hype, there is no such thing.

• Everybody who has ever said "it's just a game" is wrong.

It is just a game, you can click "quit" and it goes away.

• There's no such thing as roleplaying an *******, you're just being an *******. Roleplaying can only thrive when there is *strict* moderation.

The first sentence is true and I don't know about the second one because i never tried role-playing.

• We know that every change will be hated by existing players, even the ones who asked for it. The important question is, how will the change be taken by new players?

There are no new players. Maybe some kid thinks:"hey why don't i make an account and play this game", and after some days he just gets bored and resumes playing WoW or some other crap (because pressing X a million times to level isn't fun). It's just the usual players here.

• The most important thing for TMW's forums is to provide a fertile environment for ideas. Bashing anybody's ideas is not that.

Seems legit.

[AnonDuck]

[*] We need stricter forum moderation in general; there are plenty of people who take one look at our forums and are scared to enter.
[*] We need to stop promoting trollish behavior, it just leads to more trolls.

Yup.

[*] Everybody who has ever said "it's just a game" is wrong.

It's just a game. It should be fun. Taking the game too seriously makes things horrible. I think this is the cause of a lot of the drama around here, hence my 'Drama Llama' topic, 'The Drama World', etc. Honestly I think some(most?) of the people who post on here need to go outside and get some perspective. It's almost a mental illness for some people at this point. It's unhealthy for the people afflicted and the community at large.

[WildX]

*intelligent stuff*

I agree with MrWho.

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I know right.

[Hello=)]

As for me, link in first message is valuable enough as it explains heck a lot about RPGs. Shouldn't this thread be sticky to preserve link and rules in well-visible place?

[Nard]

• We need stricter forum moderation in general; there are plenty of people who take one look at our forums and are scared to enter.
• We need to stop promoting trollish behavior, it just leads to more trolls.
• Everybody who has ever said "it's just a game" is wrong.
• There's no such thing as roleplaying an *******, you're just being an *******. Roleplaying can only thrive when there is *strict* moderation.
• We know that every change will be hated by existing players, even the ones who asked for it. The important question is, how will the change be taken by new players?
• The most important thing for TMW's forums is to provide a fertile environment for ideas. Bashing anybody's ideas is not that.

Apply those rules to yourself first and stop attacking or calling with bird names anyone who doesn't agree with you. An administrator should behave himself.