[Proposal] New Game Rules

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Tirifto
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[Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by Tirifto »

Hello fellow Manaworldians!

Since a while ago, I don't like our in-game rules very much. Overall they work, somehow, but parts of them seem either too unclear, too specific, wrong or pointless to me. For that reason, I have decided to rewrite the rules and propose the changes to be made.

So here goes my proposal, which aims to make better rules for all Manaworldians. I would like to hear everyone's opinion and feedback on this. So please say if you agree, disagree, find them good or lacking, or have ideas for further improvements. If there are errors, let's find them and correct them. Let's set the order for the future Mana World together!

Current TMW Rules
Players breaking the following rules may be banned (up to and including a permanent ban) or have their characters reset at the GM's discretion:
  1. Do not abuse other players (insults, swearing, and the like directed to a particular person or persons)
  2. No bots (including ANY AFK activity or automated following)
  3. No spamming / flooding (including trade spam)
  4. No begging
  5. Speak English on public chat
  6. Treat others the same way you would like to be treated
  7. No Keyloggers, hoaxes/phishing websites
  8. No Hateful language about race, religion, country (Example: US vs. EU), political beliefs, gender, etc.
  9. No Nudity/Sexually explicit content
  10. No Content that is considered illegal by law
  11. No Referral links for contests, promotions, or anything else
AFK botting will be determined by talking to players who are moving and/or attacking. Automated following will be determined by observation.

New Proposed TMW Rules
  1. Breaking these rules may eventually result in a permanent ban for the player!
  2. No insults, swearing, hate language or harrassment.
  3. No automated AFK activity. (Chat relays are allowed.)
  4. No spamming, flooding, repeated begging or obtrusive advertisements.
  5. Speak a language that players around you can understand.
  6. Do not share links to malicious, fraudalent or jumpscare websites.
  7. No NSFW content in public. (This includes mature roleplay.)
  8. No Content that is considered illegal by law.
AFK activity will be determined by talking to active player characters.
Links violating Rules 5 or 6 are tolerable when marked appropriately.

List of Changes Made to Each Rule
Spoiler:
  1. Simplified the description of possible punishment for breaking the rules by only mentioning the highest punishment as a possibility.
  2. Removed direction to particular person(s), because the rule works the same without it.
  3. Removed ban on general bots including chat relays, because they are doing nothing wrong. Removed ban on automated following because any misuse of that should be covered by other rules.
  4. Removed mention of trade spam because that's only normal spam in abnormal tab.
  5. Merged into rule 3.
  6. Extended the rule to treat all languages fairly, because the game should be welcoming to all nations.
  7. Removed this rule entirely because it's very subjective and can not be enforced. It may be a good moral compass, but not a good game rule.
  8. Made the terms more general and extended with jumpscares to prevent health hazard.
  9. Merged into rule 1 because they describe very similar topics. Greatly simplified, because different victims make hate language no better nor worse.
  10. Extended the rule to all Not Safe For Work content, because a dead body may be as offensive as a naked one. Extended to roleplay to prevent the sexually suggestive sitting phenomena.
  11. No changes. In the future, this must be clarified by writing which laws we are to follow.
  12. Merged into rule 3, because they describe similar topics. Extended and simplified to obtrusive advertising in general.
Reworded the description of AFK activity checking procedure.
Added an exception for some forbidden links which are properly marked as such.
List of Edits
Spoiler:
EDIT 1 (Copy of pre-edit post available here.)
  • Added the warning about consequences of breaknig the rules to both old and new proposed rules. New warning was changed appropriately. (Thank jesusalva, Reid, WildX.)
  • Changed the exception to forbidden links to only cover New Proposed Rules 5 and 6, because others may still be unacceptable. (Thank EJlol.)
  • Removed the note about future changes of New Proposed Rule 7, because the vagueness is intentional and beneficial. (Thank wushin.)
  • Changed instances of "and" in lists of possible offences to "or," which should better convey the point. (Thank Rill.)
  • Added the missing listed change about rewording of AFK activity checking description.
Last edited by Tirifto on 22 Jan 2017, 17:11, edited 1 time in total.
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EJlol
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by EJlol »

I agree with some changes, while I also disagree with some other suggested changes. I don't have much time at the moment, but I will comment on this one:
Forbidden links may be shared with clear and explicit warning about their content.
You must be very carefull by adding such an exception. If you use the wrong words, this opens the possibility sharing links about pirated software, child porn, etc... :roll: I don't think that is what you want, even when there is some kind of a warning around the link.
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WildX
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by WildX »

I could not agree more with all of the changes. Even the change to the very controversial "only English in public" rule seems to be the perfect compromise between maintaining a understandable chat for everybody and not discriminating if all players in the map speak another language and can speak it publicly without causing any issues.

I'm 100% on board with these changes and would vote in favour.

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Alige
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by Alige »

+1
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by Amarynthus »

But how can one know if all other players on the map speak a given language?

And if I wander onto a map where all the players speak a language I don't know, it's fine with me if they continue ... but am I then not allowed to speak English? As written, that rule would make English in public against the rules in some situations.
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by WildX »

Amarynthus wrote:But how can one know if all other players on the map speak a given language?

And if I wander onto a map where all the players speak a language I don't know, it's fine with me if they continue ... but am I then not allowed to speak English? As written, that rule would make English in public against the rules in some situations.
Perhaps we could change it to: Speak English in public areas unless all persons around you are explicitly in favour of speaking another language.

This allows GMs to use their best judgement when dealing with this situation, while also guaranteeing English is always allowed.

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omatt
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by omatt »

Amarynthus wrote:But how can one know if all other players on the map speak a given language?

And if I wander onto a map where all the players speak a language I don't know, it's fine with me if they continue ... but am I then not allowed to speak English? As written, that rule would make English in public against the rules in some situations.
If the player don't know the language of other player, of course he has to talk english.
If i talk with Scoubi in a empty map, we 2 can talk french, if we are in town with players of we don't know their language, we talk english.

On second example i think this is more "if not all players understand my language here, i talk english", well, i hope this is that. Tirifto please explain what you mean.

btw, maybe a hiden GM want to understand what i say to Scoubi in general chat when we are only 2 on this map ?
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by WildX »

omatt wrote:btw, maybe a hiden GM want to understand what i say to Scoubi in general chat when we are only 2 on this map ?
GMs have no interest in spying on people. We would only take an interest in what someone is saying if rule breaking is reported, but requiring that people always speak in a way that assumes our hidden presence is quite unnecessary and would probably be creepy. :)

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omatt
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by omatt »

lol
"spying" are not was i had in mind, more like read no english message during a multiple @goto ^^
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by Tirifto »

EJlol wrote:If you use the wrong words, this opens the possibility sharing links about pirated software, child porn, etc...
This was mostly intended as an exception to New Rule 5, perhaps 6, but as it stands, it can indeed be interpreted in undesirable ways. This is noted and will be corrected with an edit later. Thank you for pointing it out!

(I plan to make edits as we find errors or come up with improvements. A log with changes and earlier proposals is going to be included.)

Also corrected will be grammatical errors concerning "and/or."
Amarynthus wrote:... that rule would make English in public against the rules in some situations.
Personally I think all languages should be on equal ground in General speech, so I'd be okay with that. When the rules treat all languages fairly, English does not lose its superiority, because the majority still speaks English, so this superiority will come along, but it will not be explicitly provided by the rules, nor should it, in my opinion.
omatt wrote:If the player don't know the language of other player, of course he has to talk english ...
... On second example i think this is more "if not all players understand my language here, i talk english", well, i hope this is that. Tirifto please explain what you mean.
The rule as-is doesn't make it clear how various situations should be handled. I do somewhat expect it to change before (and if) it gets accepted. But here is my view on languages.

I do not think talking in diverse languages is always a bad or disruptive thing. We probably wouldn't want two groups of different languages sitting around at the same place, each having a separate conversation the other group can't understand. That would likely (although not necessarily!) be disruptive.

But if, for example, there's a group speaking one language and a new player comes along and asks questions in a different language, and someone starts replying to him, and after a short conversation they leave together. I see very little harm in this event.

The main point I try to make is that speaking a different language is not a bad thing. Yes, of course English is a very well-known language that most of us can speak, but I've also met players who either spoke it very poorly or not at all. And if someone comes along and says something most of us wouldn't understand, they're not doing anything wrong, they just speak a different language. Their presence doesn't have to be disruptive.

Of course, if they keep on talking so that nobody can understand, it can be annoying, it is a bad move of them – considering social ethics – and we can have rules against that. But we live in a multilingual world and I believe we should be very tolerant at such events.

My change of the language rule was supposed to loosen the definition, because the current one says that we must always speak English. And however that is actually enforced in practice, by itself it is overly strict and intimidating, and can be interpreted as such. The new rule is much more vague, which is not always a good thing, but however you read it, however interpret it, it never means "always English, all else is forbidden." It's more tolerant and welcoming, and I think that this rule, however we end up wording it, should retain these qualities.


An earlier proposal I made asked for English to be used in normal public meetings and gatherings. That is not a sensible rule (because people of other languages can and do meet and gather, too), but maybe it'll help someone come up with a better idea.

Thanks to everyone who replied, by the way. We're getting very important feedback and discussion this way. Keep it up! :D

EDIT: Corrections in quote styling and attribution.
Last edited by Tirifto on 21 Jan 2017, 18:01, edited 1 time in total.
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omatt
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by omatt »

Then, i don't love at all this vision of multi language ingame.
If i come in town, and a group of players talk (for exemple) spanish, it's sure or i leave, or i press f7.
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by jesusalva »

As requested by Piglet, and extensively discussed by Freeyorp, Reid, Mistergrey, Jesusalva and at some extend, Tirifto, on #themanaworld IRC channel, datestamp 2017-01-21 00:23 to 01:41 UTC:

Please add a reminder that the ban applies to the person controlling the char, and not to the char itself.
Exceptions to the rules can be done by the GM, in such cases, the GM will be responsible for their actions.


Exceptions can be:
1- Banning only one char or account
2- Not banning, and using a more light punishment
3- Adding a preventive ban in case the player is doing something evidently wrong not stated on rules above. The GM will be fully responsible if him/her chose to do so.

...If anything was forgotten, please do not hesit to complement.
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Tirifto
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by Tirifto »

jesusalva wrote: ... Please add a reminder that the ban applies to the person controlling the char, and not to the char itself.
Exceptions to the rules can be done by the GM, in such cases, the GM will be responsible for their actions ...

Exceptions can be:
1- Banning only one char or account
2- Not banning, and using a more light punishment
3- Adding a preventive ban in case the player is doing something evidently wrong not stated on rules above. The GM will be fully responsible if him/her chose to do so ...
The notice about punishment (bans/resets) is not covered by the rule proposal right now; this has been noted and I will be adding info about punishment for the next edit.

I do not think the GMs should need to make any exceptions (at least for the common cases), because that makes the punishment system more complex. What you list as exceptions should be within the scope of punishment and the player should be made aware of that.

I am only unsure of the 3rd exception in your list. The rules should cover anything evidently wrong. If a GM feels that something is not explicitly breaking the rules but still wrong and they decide to issue punishment, then they are obviously taking the responsibility on themselves. This can happen, but do we need to mention it here?

The current text reads: "Players breaking the following rules may be banned (up to and including a permanent ban) or have their characters reset at the GM's discretion."

I propose that we use something like this instead: "Breaking these rules may be punished by a reset or ban on the player character, player account or a ban on the player themselves. Bans can be both temporary and permanent."

Please do share your thoughts on this proposed change. Corrections and improvements also welcome!
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by WildX »

@jesusalva Maybe this thread would be better to specify such thing?

To me it seems pretty obvious that the ban applies to the human behind the keyboard rather than the account, as otherwise the permanent block would have little difference from a reset, as the person can just make a new account every time. Piglet likes to argue about stuff that isn't a problem to anyone else. Mistergrey and I have had some experience with that. I'm personally against any changes unless we get feedback from other players that this is a grey area to them, because I don't think it is and if you ask me Piglet just wanted an argument.
Tirifto wrote:
The current text reads: "Players breaking the following rules may be banned (up to and including a permanent ban) or have their characters reset at the GM's discretion."

I propose that we use something like this instead: "Breaking these rules may be punished by a reset or ban on the player character, player account or a ban on the player themselves. Bans can be both temporary and permanent."
This should be amended to reflect how we deal with botting now, which no longer include resets (see the topic I linked above).

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Tirifto
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Re: [Proposal] New Game Rules

Post by Tirifto »

It would be nice for the rules to give the players an idea of how they can be punished. I do not think a rewording of the current notice is necessary, but it may be helpful. Also, I would personally prefer if it came after the rules, rather than before them.
WildX wrote:... This should be amended to reflect how we deal with botting now, which no longer include resets (see the topic I linked above).
WildX in linked topic wrote:... First offence: Player is banned for 30 days (@ban <name> <30d>) , level is reset to 0 ...
I might be misunderstanding something here, but reset seems to be mentioned in the linked topic. Otherwise what I think should be mentioned by the rules is the scope of punishment. The details (what offence brings which punishment) linked as separate article, or perhaps added after a separator. One would primarily be interested in that immediately before or after breaking the rules.
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