To be clear, from the quote that Philo referenced, it may be called a Play Nice Policy now, but, I'd prefer it just to be included the EULA, and it just lists the activities that are bannable offenses - in my back and forth in referenced thread, I clarified on that part. In that thread, I (and others) were mainly discussing griefing from the standpoint of an individual, group, or guild of actual players.
If you're talking about a Bot army, or a gold seller/buyer guild, then I would 10000% hope that it's aganist the EULA and would justify an immediate ban.
As far as Verant's statement goes, I'd argue that occured as much due to the lack of high level content as much as anything else. A few groupable zones with the best gear (Gukbottom/SolB) and really only two "raids" for a long time - Nagafen/Vox and a bit later Plane of Fear. If it was Launch/Kunark/Velious released in March of 1999 - I think that would have been much less of an issue.
Also, I agree, people in general have become more disrespectful, and typically selfish, let alone on an MMO, but I think Pantheon's appeal would draw in more like-minded individuals who are more respectful in general (obviously not all) just based on the need for community to advance. I do think this includes many requirements though for Pantheon to draw the right crowd, and foster a strong community - but I made my thoughts known in the previous thread of everything I think that needs to occur.
Kittik said:
Kilsin said: This is basically my thoughts as well, the community is stronger than people realise and when in-game, small griefing incidents will definitely be punished by the community by refusing to group with the offenders, spreading the bad rep of that player, "discussing" it in chat etc. and if it gets too much out of hand, a GM, Guide or Team member will always be around to help settle everyone down and act if necessary.
This won't work anymore. Against a single person who is honestly just having a bad day it might work against/on them. And the threat of community might work against single people everytime.
However, this thread was necro'd with the concern that MMO's theses days are a revenue gererating venture for Korean/Chinese plat farmers. They won't care about community, they won't respond to threats, they won't do anything but be removed from a GM and come back 1 week later. The whole group of them, or all 2 of them who are all multiboxing.
I gotta agree, and I wonder, Kilsin, if you're not looking at this from the point of view of a Vanguard player. An MMO where the community was so small as to reflect the behavior of a small village in the foothills where everybody knows everybody. In an MMO like that, it's easy to police the entire community. Word spreads fast because there aren't many people it has to go through, and if you piss off one person, everybody will know.
Be a jerk in Vanguard, and the small pool of potential groupmates becomes nonexistant. Heck, it wasn't long before there weren't any other servers for you to run to.
Be a jerk in the heydey of EQ, and you lose one small pool of potential groupmates out of many. Piss off one server, go to another.
There's gotta be a hard line somewhere if Pantheon becomes an MMO with a healthy population. Community policing is great, and essential, but it's not going to be enough.
Raidan said:Also, I agree, people in general have become more disrespectful, and typically selfish, let alone on an MMO, but I think Pantheon's appeal would draw in more like-minded individuals who are more respectful in general (obviously not all) just based on the need for community to advance. I do think this includes many requirements though for Pantheon to draw the right crowd, and foster a strong community - but I made my thoughts known in the previous thread of everything I think that needs to occur.
I gotta chime in on this particular point, as this is something we (myself included) say a lot.
"Pantheon will draw in a different crowd" or "Pantheon will be filled with like-minded people".
We have this idea that because those of us here on the forums are an older crowd from a different generation of MMO's, that means the general population of Pantheon will reflect that. After thinking about it, however, I gotta say ...it seems like a pipe dream.
I mean, sure, if Pantheon's population didn't increase substantially after release, that may be the case - but that also means Pantheon didn't succeed. We want Pantheon to succeed. If/when it does, the population will rise, and to think that only people like us will be drawn to that is a nice dream, but not realistic. People are drawn to what succeeds, regardless of their character. If Pantheon is a successful and good MMO, it will draw a crowd interested in a successful and good MMO. Full stop. And that includes a whole mess of people that don't share our values.
Fulton said: ... In the case of FD, I'm not sure how you could fix it other than to remove it completely. If you basically make it so mobs won't agro a nearby group if a non-member trains mobs near them and FDs, then that will be used as a pulling exploit. So we lose one way or the other.I'm just not sure there is an easy answer to any of it. We either have an open world with consequences for our actions, and actions of others, or we have a hand-holding zerg adventure where nothing really matters.
There is an easy answer. You start with a 60 minute recast/re-use timer on FD. As in, it can be used once per hour, max, and the timer does not reset even through death.
Just like any other potentially abusive spell, ability, or mechanic. Start with a value that makes it extraordinarily unlikely someone will use it for evil, then lower it, slightly, and test again.
I can see it getting down to maybe 30 minutes, but lower than that and you're into "It's worth it for me to blow this abilitly to train-kill that group, and I don't care about the re-cast penalty". Same goes for Smoke Bomb, btw.
But this presumes single pulling with a Rogue or a Monk is NOT an overarching design goal for Pantheon. If it is, they'll never change it, because they want it like this. If Rogues and Monks are meant to pull singles non-stop, then.. buckle up, we're riding the pain train and Joppa is driving.
OR
You change FD and Smoke Bomb so they only work if you're on the hate list of 1 (or maybe 2?) mobs, max. If it's more than 1, you gain a 90% snare, they see through your feign/stealth, they crit every hit, they never miss, they stun you on every hit, and they kill you. And none of this "they might kill you" they beat your sorry ass like you owe them money, twice. Think that's too harsh? Ok, maybe instead you add a 30-50% snare per mob chasing you, after you hit a max-train-quantity threshold, to stop Monks & Rogues (and, arguably, anyone/everyone) from training the entire zone around intentionally (for content bypass or general douchebaggery). There's lots of creative options, implementations, and solutions. Many of them permit class distinctive abilities without the evil of maliciously training others.
Fixing how abilities can be used is how to make them not be abused. That's the easy answer.
@Tralyan
I respectfully disagree that it's a dream. Even if they're not 100% like-minded, players will adapt if it's absolutely necessary. But, they will have to be forced. There has to be an absolute need for community to progress - yes that means forced grouping, best gear requires groups, etc. Solo progression can't be viable (realize I didn't say no soloing, period, ever, so please don't derail the thread with that discussion). Anonymity can't be an option - no name changes, no server transfers, etc. I think you will weed out the people who can't handle it, while others will fall in line. Obviously, to my aforementioned bot army references and gold farmers, ban them - that's a different discussion. I'd even ban the buyers as well, but I get it - $$$ subscriptions.
I think the better question is, can an MMO that challenging today succeed? I think it can and I hope Pantheon sticks to its roots regardless of external pressures and proves to the gaming world that it can as well.
Raidan said:@Tralyan
I respectfully disagree that it's a dream. Even if they're not 100% like-minded, players will adapt if it's absolutely necessary. But, they will have to be forced. There has to be an absolute need for community to progress - yes that means forced grouping, best gear requires groups, etc. Solo progression can't be viable (realize I didn't say no soloing, period, ever, so please don't derail the thread with that discussion). Anonymity can't be an option - no name changes, no server transfers, etc. I think you will weed out the people who can't handle it, while others will fall in line. Obviously, to my aforementioned bot army references and gold farmers, ban them - that's a different discussion. I'd even ban the buyers as well, but I get it - $$$ subscriptions.
I think the better question is, can an MMO that challenging today succeed? I think it can and I hope Pantheon sticks to its roots regardless of external pressures and proves to the gaming world that it can as well.
Raidan, I absolutely hope you're right.
Play Nice? Or simply giving everyone a trophy?
I think the closest thing to Pantheon we have had recently was Vanguard.
Many techniques were created by the SOE designers in that game over the years to defeat what was percieved as "not playing nice", or "hey, let the other kids win sometimes".
One of the primary "brilliant ideas" was lockout timers. Which in all reality were a joke and only designed to slap down powerful guilds that were dominating raid content.
These powerful guilds were not cheating, or KSing or doing anything wrong. They were just well organized, diligent, good at killing raid targets and keeping them killed.
It felt kind of dirty that SoE had to create arbitrary ridiculous rules to cater to the casual guilds that were much less rigorous in their raiding skills. They might have well just instanced the game at that point.
I guess the point I am trying to make, is be careful of creating rules and functionality in the name of "play nice" that really only denude skill and competition.
Raidan said:@Tralyan
I respectfully disagree that it's a dream. Even if they're not 100% like-minded, players will adapt if it's absolutely necessary. But, they will have to be forced. There has to be an absolute need for community to progress - yes that means forced grouping, best gear requires groups, etc. Solo progression can't be viable (realize I didn't say no soloing, period, ever, so please don't derail the thread with that discussion). Anonymity can't be an option - no name changes, no server transfers, etc. I think you will weed out the people who can't handle it, while others will fall in line. Obviously, to my aforementioned bot army references and gold farmers, ban them - that's a different discussion. I'd even ban the buyers as well, but I get it - $$$ subscriptions.
I think the better question is, can an MMO that challenging today succeed? I think it can and I hope Pantheon sticks to its roots regardless of external pressures and proves to the gaming world that it can as well.
My experience is the opposite. I remember wanting to be a good guy when I first started playing MMO's. Eventually I was assimilated into the crowd that manipulated content. I wanted to raid and experience all content and ultimately become a by-product of my environment. When it comes to what kind of community Pantheon will have, it's definitely a pipedream to think that everybody will embrace the oldschool philosophies. It's been stated that VR will be "casting a broader net" -- specifically to attract younger players and those who enjoy survival games, MOBA's, or games like Call of Duty. My gut tells me that if anybody is going to need to adapt, it's the oldschool folks catching up with the times. I remember when Blockbuster had a massive market share of it's industry. They failed to adapt and they ultimately went out of business. Savvy players know they need to adapt, especially while vying for resources that can be monopolized. I'm a bit jaded by my experience and want nothing more than Pantheon to be a game where being a "hero" means something. And I don't mean a hero in the eyes of the people, I mean the hero that gets to kill the dragons. Both would be great, ideally -- and that is the part where things get tricky. It always seems like an either/or choice. If you want to kill the dragons you need to evolve and be willing to compete at the highest level, especially in a game that features DPS Racing. Dog eat dog, kill or be killed, however you want to look at it.
Raidan said:I think the better question is, can an MMO that challenging today succeed? I think it can and I hope Pantheon sticks to its roots regardless of external pressures and proves to the gaming world that it can as well.
A MMO that is challenging can succeed so long as the challenge of the game itself isn't superseded by the challenge of beating other players. Such as what Zew is promoting above with the claim lockouts were bad.
I sitll have nightmares about dealing with a certain nefarious EQ guild back in the day. They continued their less-than-honest practices through a few games. I've seen a guild with the same name mentioned in the guild threads and I've had an immediate, emotional, unhappy reaction to the word. I really hope it isn't the same guild from the EQ days. *shudders* Yes, I realize that sounds dramatic.
Anyway, in a perfect world, play nice is the same as we try to live our every day lives. "Do unto others..." however, most of us veterens know there will always be those who love disrupting others. Trolls (and not the fantasy race) have existed since the dawn of human-kind. Some of us just aren't happy unless others are miserable. The whole role play excuse makes me, as the leader of an evil-aligned guild, so freaking mad. You can play evil without griefing, pissing people off or being an in-game douche. It's been part of our personal guild conduct rules since 1999.
The players are going to need official assistance from VR for any kind of consistant curtailing against the inevitable cheaters and griefers. On the other hand, the higher-skilled guilds may want to consider allowing discourse with other, smaller, guilds over content. Just because you can lock down an encounter or zone 24/7 doesn't necessarily mean you can't take days off, or work with your server community to set up some kind of rotation so others may have a shot at the mobs/dungeon/zone/etc.
Play nice is remembering this is a game. There are more people in this game than just you or your guild. Community needs to be about all of us. I know this probably sounds hippy-dippy, but if we all respect and work together our game environment could be the best there ever was.
Iksar said:A MMO that is challenging can succeed so long as the challenge of the game itself isn't superseded by the challenge of beating other players. Such as what Zew is promoting above with the claim lockouts were bad.
Being competitive with other players is a choice. I believe the point is that hard barriers shouldn't be put in place to hinder competitive guilds just because a section of the player base thinks it breeds toxic behavior and/or don't want to be competitive themselves.
I'm not opposed to holding players accountable and enforcing "nice", but let's not trample on other playstyles in the crusade of enforcing subjectively acceptible behavior.
oneADseven said:It's poor game design, though, when you allow guilds to monopolize quest mobs that are needed for an epic weapon. It's poor game design when you give quest mobs required for access keys valuable loot.
I don't completely disagree with you there when it comes to PvE servers. I don't have any concrete solutions. We have a more direct enforcement route on the typical non-faction PvP server, and direct player competition.
All I'm saying is that in a desire to enforce certain behavior, there has to be due care to not trample on other playstyles just because a certain portion of players subjectively perceive a different playstyle as a symptom.
zewtastic said:Play Nice? Or simply giving everyone a trophy?
I think the closest thing to Pantheon we have had recently was Vanguard.
Many techniques were created by the SOE designers in that game over the years to defeat what was percieved as "not playing nice", or "hey, let the other kids win sometimes".
One of the primary "brilliant ideas" was lockout timers. Which in all reality were a joke and only designed to slap down powerful guilds that were dominating raid content.
These powerful guilds were not cheating, or KSing or doing anything wrong. They were just well organized, diligent, good at killing raid targets and keeping them killed.
It felt kind of dirty that SoE had to create arbitrary ridiculous rules to cater to the casual guilds that were much less rigorous in their raiding skills. They might have well just instanced the game at that point.
I guess the point I am trying to make, is be careful of creating rules and functionality in the name of "play nice" that really only denude skill and competition.
They were well organized, diligent, good at killing raid targets and keeping them killed. These powerful guilds were ALSO cheating, or KSing or doing anything wrong.
With all due respect, you must have played a different Vanguard than I. I noticed each of the top guilds do so at times, although 2 guilds it seemed frowned upon griefing activities and to be fair, most if not every guild had someone who did something sometime. (2 guilds had no problem with exploiting, the other had a good reputation, but that is all I can speak to.)
However, 1 guild was notorious in particular. These guilds particularly seemed to be frustrated when we were trying to do progression on mobs that were on farm for them. It wasn't until we were able and made it clear we were willing to get into wipefests with them that they would trade attempts. (They still would try to wipe us by casting graphics intensive spells directly next to us, in hopes of crashing enough people to cause us to fail.)
You may say, 'see! you wiped them back and then they would play nice!' 1) we were forced to stoop to their level. 2) they continued to grief other guilds that they could frustrate into leaving content.
P.S. These top guilds, in Vanguard, were the only ones to be able to test certain new content. They learned the bugs in test and exploited them in live, then reported them when other guilds progressed to that point. (getting adds to spawn in walls, Kotasoth and the Sisters event are the ones I know of, but I am sure I did not know all of them.)
alephen said:zewtastic said:Play Nice? Or simply giving everyone a trophy?
I think the closest thing to Pantheon we have had recently was Vanguard.
Many techniques were created by the SOE designers in that game over the years to defeat what was percieved as "not playing nice", or "hey, let the other kids win sometimes".
One of the primary "brilliant ideas" was lockout timers. Which in all reality were a joke and only designed to slap down powerful guilds that were dominating raid content.
These powerful guilds were not cheating, or KSing or doing anything wrong. They were just well organized, diligent, good at killing raid targets and keeping them killed.
It felt kind of dirty that SoE had to create arbitrary ridiculous rules to cater to the casual guilds that were much less rigorous in their raiding skills. They might have well just instanced the game at that point.
I guess the point I am trying to make, is be careful of creating rules and functionality in the name of "play nice" that really only denude skill and competition.
They were well organized, diligent, good at killing raid targets and keeping them killed. These powerful guilds were ALSO cheating, or KSing or doing anything wrong.
With all due respect, you must have played a different Vanguard than I. I noticed each of the top guilds do so at times, although 2 guilds it seemed frowned upon griefing activities and to be fair, most if not every guild had someone who did something sometime. (2 guilds had no problem with exploiting, the other had a good reputation, but that is all I can speak to.)
However, 1 guild was notorious in particular. These guilds particularly seemed to be frustrated when we were trying to do progression on mobs that were on farm for them. It wasn't until we were able and made it clear we were willing to get into wipefests with them that they would trade attempts. (They still would try to wipe us by casting graphics intensive spells directly next to us, in hopes of crashing enough people to cause us to fail.)
You may say, 'see! you wiped them back and then they would play nice!' 1) we were forced to stoop to their level. 2) they continued to grief other guilds that they could frustrate into leaving content.
P.S. These top guilds, in Vanguard, were the only ones to be able to test certain new content. They learned the bugs in test and exploited them in live, then reported them when other guilds progressed to that point. (getting adds to spawn in walls, Kotasoth and the Sisters event are the ones I know of, but I am sure I did not know all of them.)
That's obviously some of the reasons why public test realms and such are a big down for the game, it burns content faster and make people train for the "release" instead of having to figure the strategy on live. Bosses should be surprising and never a full known recipe book, unless you already tested them numerous times.
I replied to Zew with the following: (editing to address everyone this time and added some more details but I cannot go into it any more than this)
We have internal policies on a lot of things, folks, many of which cannot be shared publically yet or at all depending on the nature of them and if they can be abused externally if people have that knowledge of how we operate. We have policies in regards to in-game behaviour in place and when we get around to officially launching the game they may be published but there is a good chance that they will remain internal only for VR staff to go by when dealing with in-game incidents.
This discussion though really is a dead end and while I appreciate everyone's concern, we can't really comment on it officially and probably never will be able too. The only way people will most likely find out is when they break the in-game rules and have punishments issued.
As I have said previously, it will take teamwork from everyone to help police and control these situations, community action is more powerful than many of you may think and when it fails or isn't enough, we can intervene if and when required.
I would like to chime in with what is fundamental for dealing with toxic behaviour . Some have already mentionned it but it deserves to be really stressed .
It is fundamental to distinguish if we deal with a toxic individual or a toxic guild .
If it is the former then there are 100 ways to solve the problem among which PNP, EULA, GM, ban even reputation and players' community measures . It generally works .
If it is the latter then basically nothing of the above works . Almost everybody can come with an example from EQ or another MMO where many toxic individuals banded together in one Guild so that individual measures (if they were taken what was rarely the case) had absolutely no result . For example on E'ci EQ server there was an infamous toxic Guild that I won't name but which made the life miserable for most players by training, KSing, epic spawn camping, raid disrupting etc . Finally, after a very long time SoE had to disband the Guild and ban almost all its members . The life on E'ci was much better for everybody who was still playing on this server after that but I don't know if such a dramatic measure has been taken more than 2 or 3 times over all EQ servers in 10 years .
The point of my post being that toxic Guilds are a much more serious and difficult matter than mere toxic individuals . In my knowledge there has never been an EULA or PNP which specifically deals with collective toxic behaviour . This might be but is not limited to a player who uses his alt (or a specific account) for training and disrupting raids when the Guild leader says so . If this account is banned, then it is just somebody else in the Guild who will continue the business . And if this account is banned, another takes over . I am sure you see the picture and how this can go forever .
So my hope is that VR will find a policy how to deal with toxic Guilds . If they do then my hat off - it will be a premiere in the MMO world .
vjek said:Kilsin said:... and when it fails or isn't enough, we can intervene if and when required.Does this mean VR is committing to 24x7 in-game live GM support, at launch?
Unsure at this stage, we have team members from all around the world and depending on how we manage our GM's and Guides, their location and how many servers we launch with, it is possible but not guaranteed. We will have report functions and other systems in place to handle emergencies though and we should have Guides on in place of GM's to monitor where needed.
Also, a lot of people are over thinking this and jumping to conclusions. We have several internal policies that will be working in harmony with community reporting, GM policing and community policing, so don;t think just because I have mentioned that the community will play a big part means it will be the "Wild West" and we don't care, it is the opposite, but we will lean on the community to help us.
I have cleaned the thread up and removed a lot of off-topic post about lockout timers, they have nothing to do with play nice policies and we more about endgame choke points in raiding, we also have many discussions on that topic so please join in on those and leave them out of this discussion, please.
Tralyan said:Raidan said:@Tralyan
I respectfully disagree that it's a dream. Even if they're not 100% like-minded, players will adapt if it's absolutely necessary. But, they will have to be forced. There has to be an absolute need for community to progress - yes that means forced grouping, best gear requires groups, etc. Solo progression can't be viable (realize I didn't say no soloing, period, ever, so please don't derail the thread with that discussion). Anonymity can't be an option - no name changes, no server transfers, etc. I think you will weed out the people who can't handle it, while others will fall in line. Obviously, to my aforementioned bot army references and gold farmers, ban them - that's a different discussion. I'd even ban the buyers as well, but I get it - $$$ subscriptions.
I think the better question is, can an MMO that challenging today succeed? I think it can and I hope Pantheon sticks to its roots regardless of external pressures and proves to the gaming world that it can as well.
Raidan, I absolutely hope you're right.
Raidan is always on point.
Whether someone is an "employee" gets rather complicated and within the United States varies state by state. If someone is not an employee the minimum wage rules do not apply.
Many many people work as "interns" where they look to the outside world as employees but do not get paid - or do not get paid much.
VR certainly can have Guides without paying them - they just need to make sure they don't have the duties and oversight of employees.
In the US, we definitely have a volunteer system.
Many museums and parks have docents that do not get paid.
I know golf courses that have volunteer marshals.
In some cases docents and marchals may get some type of benefit such as free tickets or comped golf. But generally they are non-paid volunteers.
@iksar You may be right, I'm not sure how Docents and other voluteers get handled by obviously for profit organizations, but it does go on.
My thinking always runs to the "you get what you pay for", and free anything is going to be suspect.
Volunteers in the past have abused their positions, and they will do it in the future. No way to avoid that.
The "Wild West" is generally synonymous with "lawlessness." Not really sure how to interpret what has been stated on this thread other than the official policy is that there is an internal policy with potential for abuse, and that rule-breakers will find out what the rules are after they break them and are punished for it. So in order to reverse engineer the process (assuming it's consistent), players exhibit bad behavior on throwaway accounts to learn exactly what they can get away with. Sounds like a Wild West / Judge Dredd hybrid where the world is the wild west ... the players are the inhabitants ... and the GM's are the judge, jury, and executioner. Interesting. That's how I interpreted it, anyway.