Really?

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Mephistopheles
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Really?

Post by Mephistopheles »

Does anyone remember that solid week of 30+ chars online constantly? Remember that day when Gal went to fight caddy for being jackasses and we had 50+ chars online?

well this following pm does not help ^ to happen
Teflon wrote:...Krunk marches together with some masked figures to flat Ronagan and awakes Bob by ordering him to come out. When Bob follows Krunks request, they surround Bob and Krunk hands over a parchment to Bob. Krunk says with an unflinching voice: "What do you choose?"

This is modified to: Krunk and some masked figures are on the way to Bob's flat and Krunk reads the parchment and thinks about what to say.

The parchment reads:
In regard to the crimes of the human Dreadheart and the orc Juumajin, the Don has decided:

For not paying his fees, Juumajin has to pay 50 gold (already includes the compensation). If this amount cannot be paid immediately, Juumajin has to work for the difference in the prison mine. For each missing 2 coppers, 1 ore needs to be delivered.

For not paying his fees, Dreadheart has to pay 50 gold, including the compensation. If this amount cannot be paid immediately, Dreadheart has to work for the difference in the prison mine. For each missing 2 coppers, 1 ore needs to be delivered.

For leaving Galmair and laying hand against others without permission, Dreadheart can choose between death or slavery. In case Dreadheart chooses slavery, he shall be put in magical footcuffs, which will cause his immediate death as soon as he leaves Galmair land or isn't close to the controller stone, which might be rented from the Don. Dreadhard would stay as slave until his brothers in crime, the lizard Fooser, the human Jefferson Gray and the orc Juumajin have accomplished their supposed services and worked off their debt to Galmair.
there is no escape from this
modified to:
not much time left to escape
.


((Unfortunately, you had to leave and we have to enforce it via this pm now. Please let me know, what your char will choose. In case you choose slavery, what I assume, we would expect you as a good rper to cooperate since we can't enforce it via script yet. Since your char wasn't supposed to leave Galmair land without permission before, nothing will really change your gameplay, except that breaking this rule will cause the death of your char from now on. In your char can't pay the fee, we will place him into the prison. Please let us know, when you log in the next time, so we can place him there.
If you have any questions, concerns or ideas you like to share with me, please drop me a pm. I will also be in the chat tomorrow evening, where I will give you answers to all your questions and explain the reasoning behind. Thank you, Teflon))
I won't go into smashing things further, but this here is why nobody but casual roleplayers who want to sit around a campfire and rp their kids will want to play illarion for an extended period, because I assure you I with the support of fellow roleplayers and with alot of effort I gathered people to do something that day when we had 50+ chars playing followed by a solid week of 30+ players constantly active, and I'm no force rp'ing gm. Is this what gms do to guys who enrich rp and brings players to the game? And then they have the balls to leave trolls and rule breakers as unpunished oocly as they are ig... "oh you attacked 5 members of my city and you're an outlaw? here just mine 100 coal, you'll be okay.." but yes.. kill the guy who fights for you, and your loyal citizen.

It's being handled by the staff and involved parties, but I think something like this needs to be put on blast because it's wrong on so many levels, Vil, Nitram and players deserve to see what bad gm'ing is.


Modifications with permission of all parties: Achae
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Mephistopheles
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some details

Post by Mephistopheles »

So bob pays a total of 60 gold and uncountable materials then po goes inactive for a week due to moving, I went inactive about the time that rule breaker spent an evening of cycling through characters and attacking people so I was rather angry about that.
Mephistopheles wrote:Gone for a bit, I'm a poor person to play with when I'm angry, so yar, will see you guys when I get my new house!

Hopefully by then things will have died down and back to normal. peace guys.

Ps, sorry to any gms I pissed off. sure you can understand, or maybe you're just used to it by now *shrugs* If you aren't a pansy troll rule breaker, then I love ya.
As you see I posted in downtime to be quite clear.

So this idea that bob hasn't paid his dues actually came around when Teflon checked the taxes and stuff to see that I hadn't donated that week, so now it's somehow ok to enslave or kill a char for inactivity, lovely.

The supposed attacking of other chars off the lands in which Bob was granted permission to, Pauldron isle (he was given verbal permission to mine there by Dranis, to be clear nobody ever stated clearly that Bob needed to ask more than once for permission to go there.) Yea sure he attacked chars on pauldron waay out from all the towns, but who was there to witness it? the dead guys? Theres no substance for a trial, all the Don recieved was a letter from Djirronnyma and he decided it was best to ignore his entire council, and his fellow gm to do well.. this. Now someone said the Don thinks bob is a liar.. but how would the Don get that idea? the only time I've ever seen the Don was to cough a couple times at an event. He never shows up when asked never tries to schedule anything when they ask for the don to be there he literally non-existent outside of events or personal interest. So he wouldn't know that the character bob was willing to start a unified operation to destroy Rhaeghandas (Bearers declined helping him, sea serpent worked with him long enough to have a conversation before they randomly turned and called him an enemy...) and acted as a loyal citizen for some time protecting people and doing his best.

Today the character Bob and other founding members presented a silver platter that a real Gynkese merchant lord would drool over, he stayed silent for the most part, asking questions when appropriate, then he decides he still wants to kill Bob.

And just one more thing to point out...

The Don and this sentence of slavery or death has only ever once before used this sentence... Bartimaeus Al'Jinni. I was able to break out through crazy dragon maddness, but eventually he was caught three times and I decided it wasn't fair to try and be one dude trying to fight everyone and not get killed for it, so dude died.

But Uhuru-Attacks a baron, gets charged with being a moshran cultist, attacks a chancellor-punishment:fine

Drathe Blue-Attempts to assassinate a noble- gets completely protected by the Don

Ashley Merideth Blackreigns-steals from a galmairian- Punishment:fine

Hew Keenaxe- Need I say more?

So why is it that in the history of crime in Galmair only Bartimaeus, Bob, and Juumajin have been charged with death or slavery, and only one guy to have it forced upon with bad gm'ing?
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rakust dorenstkzul
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Re: Really?

Post by rakust dorenstkzul »

I agree
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Alyssa El'anir
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Re: Really?

Post by Alyssa El'anir »

rakust dorenstkzul wrote:I agree
Yeah. Confining a character that much is taking it a bit far.
Hell, characters should be able to leave settlements without a GM force killing them.
Though the other mentioned examples were way too mild again in punishment, imo.
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Mephistopheles
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Re: Really?

Post by Mephistopheles »

But now what I really want an answer to..

If all of this is solved it will be out of character, because obviously there was zero reason to punish the char, period. However, how will I be expected to roleplay in lieu of this? is my badass alchemist warrior going to be expected to just accept this? Explain to me why a man who was once loyal to you and you try to have him enslaved or killed.. how do you deal with the consequences? Any normal player char would be getting friends about now because Bob is not a joke. But no, we're dealing with an immortal dwarf with the power to kill me with his mind, or his orc god with 50 strength can just pwn him in three hits.

If you want to pointlessly kill my char fight me with the engine, with a character you made and skilled. So then I can send you packing.

Gm leaders suck, make your own chars
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Djironnyma
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Re: Really?

Post by Djironnyma »

Plz watch your words merrphi. Complaining may be tolerated, but in a appropriate way. Anyway a rant about your hurted feelings will have mostly no result. If you are unhappy with the way a GM is dealing with you i adwise you to seek the direct contact to him or use the GM Abuse mail.

http://illarion.org/community/us_contact.php?contact=4
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Mephistopheles
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Re: Really?

Post by Mephistopheles »

Why be discrete about something like this? Do the staff not want players to openly note their experiences here or not? Or is it because I'm potentially hurting the feelings of the person involved because what I've been saying is true? I don't believe I'm being demeaning I rather thought I was bringing up valid points that players should be aware of when dealing with their game masters. If a member of the staff is abusive it should not be whispered about behind closed chat rooms.

I'm kinda out of material to rant about tbh, so I hadn't intended to continue unless some new and creative bs started spewing from someone's mouth as to what should happen and why. I'm simply hoping this post survives the day so more people can see it.
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Matron
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Re: Really?

Post by Matron »

If the !gm-complaint is still the same it was years ago, it is no liable option. If it is a non-staff-person who handles the complaints now, it might help, give it a try.
Also some transparency does no harm, after all we players still do not get to decide what happens to Mephy's chars.
@Dji: He is angry so he might not be choosing his words too wisely but then again I see nothing a GM would really get upset about, it's rough language but nothing too extreme.

@topic: I fear I have not caught much of what actually happened but I have to say that Mephy must have been doing something right if he managed to create an event drawing so many players. Something like that deserves reward rather than punishment since there are not many who try to provide entertainment. That he is being punished ingame is one thing but this sort of punishment is clearly over the top and aims to discourage the player/not the char.
As he tried to point out there have been people harassing the game and its players far worse than what Mephy's char did ingame (with proper roleplay from what I saw) and they have been treated less harshly. Permanently banned players keep creeping back and are allowed to remain. People ranting on the forums far worse than Mephy are given minor scolding, etc. I am fine with that as long as you use the same scale to punish everyone.

Speaking from personal experience, being GM is stressful and for me it was less fun than being a player only. I do not want to discourage Teflon or anyone else and reading the PM Mephy quoted I can see you are trying but I wonder how thoroughly that decision was discussed in the staff.

PS: Reading the proclamation of sentence again I think the mentioned "controlling stone" for the slave-cuffs might be a loophole meaning that Bob can rent it and leave town/Galmair lands after all? If that is the case, kudos to that idea.
Last edited by Matron on Mon Dec 07, 2015 12:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jupiter
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Re: Really?

Post by Jupiter »

You do not just express your experience, you accuse someone. That is a big difference. Gamemasters are people, too. That's why we don't do public trials. Just like we don't do public trials for players. And that is what you are aiming at here. You think your are in the right and go all "fight the power".

Honestly, stop with that "I am angry and now I make a post about it and I will regret that anyway some days later and promise not to do that again"-thing. It really starts to annoy. Annoying is not a good way to get your point over.

Cheers, Jupiter

PS: I thought the Pauldron chase was quite funny. But stuff that like takes the fun from it. I should stop reading the ooc boards.
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Djironnyma
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Re: Really?

Post by Djironnyma »

I dont care about what or how much you complain. I just advise you how you should behave if you want to change anything. And i warn you that i will use mod powers if you insult ppl further. E.g.: It is tolerateable if you say you believe the GMs are unfair to you and abuse their power. It is not ok if you say anyone would "suck". So watch your language.
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Nitram
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Re: Really?

Post by Nitram »

So this may require a few words to be said. :D

First the easy stuff :wink:
@Matron: The GM Complains (that are send here: Report gamemaster form) are handled by vilarion and me. Reports that are send there are always handled and addressed in the staff very fast. We take reports send there very seriously, because it usually takes a lot to push a player to the point where he/she uses this way of reporting misconduct by a GM. How ever reports to this place should be very well founded and you should be aware that we will contact you in case there are questions to your report.

And now… Mephistopheles… you are right. A load of players online is always a really good thing. And we always strive to do this. Also we are grateful for any ideas that help up in keeping the player count up and growing. But this is not what you wanted to do with this topic. The question is: What do you actually want to archive with this topic? That I start to publicly school our GMs? That the team tears each other up in public? This will not help to improve the game. So that will not happen. All this does is to create a bad (and non-productive) mood against the staff. Maybe you are right with the things you wrote here, maybe you are not. But you will not make this game a better place with a topic like this. Because all it does is to draw in the players who feel like the staff does not act in their favour. Most of the other players read over it, shrug and carry on.

This is mostly because this topic is, obviously a very one sided view on the actions that happened. It can't be anything else. If you feel that the GMs did do their job wrong to the point where the Administrators need to take action, you should use the report gamemaster form. We will review both sides and talk to every player and staff member involved to resolve the matter as good as possible and in favour of the game as a whole.

If you don't think your case with withstand a detailed review, you don't really have a case. :wink:

Still don't get me wrong. If one of the GMs does things that require a report by the players, you basically have to report it. Nothing expect crashes every 10 minutes is worse than a GM spoils the fun of everyone in the game.

Topics like this are nothing but a problem for the game as a whole. Because they very much focus all the negative aspects and in most cases only one side of the issue.

Regards,
Nitram
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Hew Keenaxe
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Re: Really?

Post by Hew Keenaxe »

I am glad I was notified of this post.
It is hard for me to believe, but I completely agree with Mephy.
BTW, Hew has been fined, banned from all towns and sent to the mines several times. When these did not seem to work, he was sold into slavery on punishment of death.
What made this OK, was that the execution if he did not comply, would be carried out by other player characters. The sentence was handed down by other player characters. The highest bidder (Won) the responsibility of Hews future actions. Hew would be this bidders slave until said bidder felt he was repaid of his costs and felt he received a fair amount of servitude.
As is, Hew is still a slave. (Due to my not playing long enough to work it off.)
This was a fair resolution.
A GM enforced, slavery or death. A permadeath. Is not fair, or in the best interest of the game.
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Re: Really?

Post by Teflon »

Why would the Don trust Bob?
The Don has no reason to trust Bob at all. He is usually wary about anyone. He had already received warnings about Bob before Bob became chancellors. There were always complains that Bob would mainly work for his own but not the town's interests. Then Bob drops his position as chancellor, which the Don considers as breaking a deal. Even worse, Bob went to battle afterwards despite the other chancellors stated clearly not to go. In the big trial, it could be proven that Bob is a liar. The Don even showed his distrust during the trial by mentioning several times that they would have to prove themselves. Furthermore, the tax records were checked four times and each time Bob paid constantly more taxes than before, except the last time.

Code: Select all

Oct 30 08:44:40 Script (info): [taxes] Ulquiorra Dreadhart paid 4551. 
Nov 7 08:23:21 Script (info): [taxes] Ulquiorra Dreadhart paid 5278.
Nov 17 11:21:23 Script (info): [taxes] Ulquiorra Dreadhart paid 7911.
Nov 23 13:54:24 Script (info): [taxes] Ulquiorra Dreadhart paid 6915.
Quite obvious that something is not going on as it is supposed to be. Even if we would accept that you had to log off and could not pay your fees immediately one or two times, the fact that it increased constantly and you had still about 50% more than in the beginning doesn't support your claim. And I save us the time to talk about the missing donations. Just a reminder:
Valerio Guilianni says: We will change the conditions now, so that they fit better to your assumptions. Meaning, you all will serve as force to the town but whatever you earn, collect, whatever by your activities, you will give it to the town.
Another reason for the Don not to trust Bob are reports that Bob and his friends are planing a coup against the leadership of Galmair. Considering the past of Bob and his warmonger attitude, the Don has enough reasons to assume these reports are true and to see himself in the position to make the first move.
Then comes the report by the Bearers. The Don doesn't trust Dji either but more than Bob with his history and plans. There was not much than the words of Bob that Bob wouldn't have attacked the Bearers, when Bob was confronted with this accusation. In other words, nothing. So, the Don sees himself also forced to take action to avoid a war, which would be most likely a loss.


Permissions
The Don stated during the trial:
Valerio Guilianni says: Just that you understand, you will ask for permission of your actions.
Valerio Guilianni says: No raiding, no hunting, no smashing by your own.
Valerio Guilianni says: Only when the chancellors allow it.
As you can see, he says chancellors -> plural. The Don knew that Dranis is a member of the Free Man and expected that your chars would most likely abuse it since previous chancellors already raised this concern. In the confrontation yesterday, both other chancellors did not know about such permission. Meaning, neither Bob nor even Dranis did report it to the other chancellors or the Don.
Furthermore, why should there be such thing as a permanent permission? Why would anyone have to ask for permission to do something if it is granted anyway? That just makes no sense. Fact is, your char has had to ask for permission and he didn't. So, Bob just broke another deal with the Don and gave him even more reasons for the sentence.


The Sentence - death
The sentence includes definitely a harsh element with the thread of permanent death, but it is a thread in the end and considering the past of Bob, his plans and what was said in the trial, it is just reasonable. Your char was even warned by the Don during the big trial, that they risk death, if they don't follow the orders. For instance:
Valerio Guilianni says: If you think you can run away, your heads might become interesting for others.
The sentence in the trial was rather mild and many other players complained about it, because it offered so many loopholes. So, you could have expected that if you misbehave any time soon again, it will have more serious consequences. At some point, it is too much and your char is doing far too much. He fools, lies and threats not just others but also the chancellors and even the Don. Yes, you can try but you should expect consequences when the Don figures out you want his throne, which he did figure out via reports from other player chars. He, thus, doesn't need to meet Bob to learn about Bob's actions and plans. Of course, they could be made up by these players but again, they sounded reasonable.
Furthermore, in your char's chase, we closed our eyes multiple times. For instance, we learnt that your char went to Runewick within the first week after the trial despite it was declared as a no-go-area. It wouldn't be difficult to play that spies of the Don reported Bob being in Runewick. There would be good reasons why the spies of the Don observe Bob. Since other players didn't report it, we decided to ignore it but come on man, you can't let your char stay out of troubles for a single week.
In addition, if we would truly play the Don consequently, there would be no trial. Bob would feel some pain in his back on day and never been seen again. It is also very odd to expect that the sentence needs to be discussed. Since when does a judge discuss a sentence? They discuss the case but not the sentence and in your char's case there is nothing to discuss any more. You char is misbehaving on a constant level and there are no signs of improvement but all kinds of prove it gets worse. We even have to force us to ignore your char's actions because he does it so obviously.
The point of including the death sentence is simple to make it obvious to your char and others that he has crossed a line and should step back to save his ass, because it looks as he doesn't see it.


Slavery
The sentence of the big trial was that your char has to ask permission for leaving Galmair and donate the things he collects (see above). This means technically, your char is already enslaved. He can't move by free will and can't collect more property. In that sense, nothing really changes here for you as a player. You are still depended on other players and need to cooperate either to leave Galmair or gain property until the service is done. Maybe it makes it even easier because you are not just depended on the chancellors any longer. The only thing that actually changes is that your char is officially slave now and the addition of the controller stone, which is a role play element. Theoretically, it could be stolen and someone else could gain control about your char. Or your char gets control about the stone himself, etc. There are many options and ways for the story to develop and it is not really restricted. The Don might abstain to rent it to Jeff, Fooser or Juumajin at the current state but that again is just a question of negotiations.


Further motivation of the sentence
Having many players online is also our goal. Experience, however, shows that you should not overestimate these numbers. What was successful one time, doesn't mean to be successful another time. Look at the Games. Similar high numbers the first two times but a fail the third time for multiple reasons. It is true, we haven't had such a big PvP event for a long time and it was obviously fun for most involved, but if we would have such PvPs on a daily basis, it is very likely that these numbers drop soon because people get tired or mad about it. There are many people who don't want to have a war in-game or the risk to be slaughtered by other players as soon as they leave the town walls.
So, what needs to be done is not just pushing all the time but also pulling from time to time. You need to give people a break to recover from your in-game "harassment". For instance, when we played the orcs back then in Gobaith, we always took ourselves back when things escalated and acted rather peaceful and looked for different victims. Previous victims of our terror could do their things in the meantime and achieve their goals until we pulled the trigger again. But if you only push, push, push as you do currently, it just leads to complains. Thus, the sentence also aims to contain you and your gang a little bit and try to balance things. I don't say this always works all the time but we try to create balance as good as we can. And please keep in mind, we do this in our spare time.
Furthermore, a war or ongoing open conflict would need much more activity by us GMs, but we are currently only three GMs and too busy with our RL to monitor such a big event. We even have problems to run proper smaller events as you might have noticed. At least from my side. And you can read in old threads what happens when such conflicts aren't monitored. Even more ranting and from all different sides, which aren't good for anything and cause just even more unnecessary work.


Differences in punishments
If you wonder why only your char and not the others of his gang are punished to death or slavery, it is simply because your char is the head of this gang. The hope of the Don is it will scare the others and he can avoid similar measurements, since those chains are expensive but if this sentence doesn't help, it can always be extended to them.
The comparison to the other cases you listed doesn't work. Every case is different or has different circumstances. They were all differently to your case. There are also months (almost years) between them. The game and the game-play of the Don have changed in the meantime. Just see the next point.


The Don's inactivity
The inactivity of the Don is mainly the result that we take him out of the game as much as possible and move responsibilities to the chancellors. For instance, when Jeff requested to discuss the proposal, he was informed by the Don, to discuss it with the chancellors. Although the Don listened to your chars then, this is going to be decided by the chancellors. He might ask questions and point to problems and offer suggestions but if there aren't any, there is no reason to intervene, although your cases are becoming special now. ;)
Also most crimes are dealt by the chancellors nowadays. We see the Don only as the second and highest instance/court and pull him in only when we think things might go out of hand like when you guys almost started a war or someone complain about the decision by the chancellors.
Same for building projects. They are run by the chancellors. The Don only asks questions and checks if things moving on. He would only turn down projects, when we see either the rules or the game harmed.
Furthermore, we recognised that the chancellors are mainly ignored by players when the Don shows up and he gets all attention instead. This is fine due to his status but we decided to use him mainly for events or important matter in order to allow the chancellors to have more impact. If the British queen would show up every day in the parliaments, the Prime Minister would also only be busy with kissing her hand. Some might think this would be better though. ;)
You should actually be aware of this since your char was chancellor recently. The conversation with the chancellors happens mainly via PMs since it is always difficult to find time for everyone to meet and to avoid further delay.
And the Don has never been really emotionally. So why should he be this time? In particular since he told Jeff to go the chancellors with this topic. And the proposal might lead again just to another war, which means more expenses. A true merchant would not drool over at such risky adventures. They love no risk and guaranteed profit. Just observe the stock markets when somewhere conflicts or crises are mentioned.
Plus there are RL reasons, but I don't need to show accountability to you in this regard.


How to continue.
We are not going to change this sentence. Your chances, however, are much better if you cooperate than rant and run wild. Even when the death sentence looks so final, it doesn't need to be. It bears many options. The idea was to let your char flip a coin. Head would mean beheaded or hanging, tail would mean an ordeal or mission that would look like the sure dead of a char. The point is, since it would be your char flipping the coin, you wouldn't really need to take the chance but could emote the result. So, your choice. During the ordeal, either a god could save your char or your friends could run a secret mission to save your char's ass or whatever idea comes up. Even beheading or hanging would not mean that it actually happens. There are so many opportunities. Nothing is given or written down. We are always open for ideas but if you prefer to rant than using your time for creativity, it is your choice of course.
Whether Bob will hate the Don forever now is also your choice but fine. Bob should only be aware by now, that the Don will not accept everything and knows to defend himself. The Don tolerates many things but you should not mess with him. In particular when you are not protected by another town. And even if I wouldn't mind, he will not die until the game team decides another setting. So, I suggest either avoid the Don or win his favour back. Again, your choice but learn to accept the consequences.


Correction
Despite the sentence will stay, I admit that using Krunk together with NPCs surrounding Bob can be seen as unfair since you had no option to rp. Therefore, we are changing this to Krunk and the NPCs are heading to your char's flat and give your char the chance to run off. So, you can choose now between death sentence, slavery or becoming outlaw.
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Kamilar
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Re: Really?

Post by Kamilar »

Oh boy, this was a lot to read! :shock: I'm a little sorry I started but I did want to say that dialing back the forced nature of the punishment and opening up some other options for the character/player was a nice concession. Thank you for taking that into consideration. Thank you also for explaining to the community at large the decision making that led up to the punishment post. That had me a little bit worried.
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Matron
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Re: Really?

Post by Matron »

After reading the long explanation (thanks for the effort, Teflon), I do understand the decision in this case and it certainly makes sense from an RP-point of view as well.

However, it still seems that other chars and players who have disturbed the peace ingame both RP- and OOC-wise are treated more leniently (they put zero effort/time in shaping their characters and show no cooperation/RP at all most of the time).
Then there is Mephy whose actions both ingame and OOC did serve at least a little to create necessary conflict and events who has now to worry about a possible perma death of his char which he shaped for months. Yes, there are loopholes but the current situation must be very discouraging for him.

I endorse consequent RP from side of the GM-leaders and consequent punishment by the GMs, however I still don't see that those punishments are applied equally and in a fair way.

On another note I am confused since you posted in this thread that the staff is lacking numbers but I am aware of people who tried to apply for GM-ship and they were rejected because "no GMs are hired right now because there are enough" (quote is changed to fit the sentence). Does that mean people can apply again? There are several players who really want to help out.
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Kamilar
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Re: Really?

Post by Kamilar »

Matron makes a good point about keeping players interested in making an effort. A policy of rewarding a player's effort to contribute some interesting conflict by severely restricting his character choices will make for some dull RP in the future. Illarion desperately needs conflict. The game is rather monotone and dull. We need to be careful that punishments are for the character only and not the player. Probably the player should actually be rewarded in some way for the effort he made here.

Illarion as a playground is quite stifled and uninteresting. The quest board is currently full of meetings which I would try to avoid in RL. There's no way would I attend them for fun in my free time and I do question a game atmosphere that promotes detailed administrative tasks as a form of enjoyment and relaxation. There needs to be some creative freedom if the game is going to flourish.
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Re: Really?

Post by Fooser »

If you wonder why only your char and not the others of his gang are punished to death or slavery, it is simply because your char is the head of this gang. The hope of the Don is it will scare the others and he can avoid similar measurements, since those chains are expensive but if this sentence doesn't help, it can always be extended to them.
The comparison to the other cases you listed doesn't work. Every case is different or has different circumstances. They were all differently to your case. There are also months (almost years) between them. The game and the game-play of the Don have changed in the meantime. Just see the next point.
I think the differences in punishments goes to something bigger than just the difference between what Bob got and what other associated characters got. I have a list right off the top of my head. Drathe was hired to harass a (then) ambassador to Runewick that ended with said character being injured and the tavern being damaged. Seeing that from the Cadomyr perspective .. they got nothing. A dead fish. Drathe received full protection. Brawndara walked in to Cadomyr and nearly lit two people on fire and almost burnt the market down. He was protected. Ssarney attacked Galmairians at the teleporter during Mas, nothing was done. Jefferson brought up how he was harassed by Cadomyr, nothing was done. It's interesting how some players, and mephy in particular, are treated differently both IC and OOC, and also speaks to the large amount of hostility directed at certain players who attempt to cause tension and conflict in game, in what has been a rather dull affair since the VBU. There's a large amount of inertia against making things interesting in favor of behaviors that aren't going to grow the game or get the attention of 99% of gamers or roleplayers. If recent happenings are indicative of people wanting to do nothing or to direct problems to players they don't like, then that is rather petty.
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Q-wert
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Re: Really?

Post by Q-wert »

To me it looks like:
acting against town leader npcs > acting against player characters.

The main difference between the incidents mentioned by Fooser and the second battle that happened in Cado is that the battle is perceived as an act against a town leader npc whilst all of the stuff Fooser listed was strife between player characters. The Queen had granted a battle (which happened) which would have allowed the victor to force the Cadomyrian leader-characters off their position. Battle happened, battle was declared over by the Queen. Then Bobs Gang walzed into Cado, attacking anything in sight, including the (for matters of the battle) neutral Queen.

What I do find curious is that Joomajin as well as Jefferson have left town to restricted areas without proper permission, one of them openly attacking other people and both not unknown to the ears of the Don. They don't get punished at all. But if that is within the pre-defined way as for how the Don is to be played, I (as a player) don't mind.


PS: For Ssar'ney attacking Galmairians, I beg to differ. He was attacked by them. I suppose that to be a an ingame matter.
Last edited by Q-wert on Wed Dec 09, 2015 1:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jupiter
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Re: Really?

Post by Jupiter »

To me, that sounds like something that cna be dealt with ig. Form a resistance within Galmair against the arbitrariness and injuatice of the Dons' actions. If something can be understood as an ingame matter, than it should be understood as an ig matter.
If you fear that you can't do aynthing because the Don is gm played, aim at the chancellors and make their lives a living hell (ig wise, of course :P). They are the evil servants of the greedy pig-dwarf!

No idea if you are doing that or not. I just say this because all those things Fooser listed and considers unequal treatment are stuff for some nioce roleplay, in my eyes.
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Re: Really?

Post by Fooser »

You can make an ooc logic but there I no ic logic. Unprovoked attacks on foreign soil caused no punishment for multiple characters. Provoked attack leads to death shackles, script bans, and people spying and auditing your finances. Further, the reason for punishment was never clearly stated. Was it the second attack? If so Bob shouldn't even be in this position. None of Jupiters ideas work because they lead to getting thrown out. Bans from all 3 towns is basically quitting.
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Kamilar
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Re: Really?

Post by Kamilar »

An ig approach isn't enough here imo. Jupiter's ideas on how to proceed ig are alright but this is larger than an ig issue. This cuts right to the heart of what is ultimately troubling Illarion. The game is ghastly dull.

PO Bob has more ig choices as a result of some GM reflection but he's still extremely restricted. The game is boring enough at baseline without the addition of confining stones, all account gains taken away, etc. The prison mine was supposed to be the ultimate in rp punishment. What's the problem with just using that? That's character punishment as it's supposed to be. The more I read/think about it, the more it seems the kind of escalating punishment handed out here is player punishment and it's extremely demotivating. I don't know how the players on the receiving end felt about the events or whether there was any pressure from that side to see this player punished but that's a whole separate discussion. It doesn't seem any game rules were broken and there shouldn't be steps taken to squash future player creativity.

I'm brought to mind of the old client and the division between players who think RP is sitting around the campfire making out and those who seek a little more thrill and adventure. This new client was supposed to accommodate them both. It's failing to do that if there's nothing interesting in the game by nature and players are actively discouraged from promoting something a little more adventurous.

Also, I'd like to propose a 4 month moratorium on any more committee meetings on the quest board. Enough is enough. Send committee invites by PM or something if meetings are really that important but let's not advertise them to prospective players.
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Re: Really?

Post by Nitram »

Okay so this is not really regarding the entire issue with Bob (simply because I do not have sufficient insight into the topic to write a post like Teflon did :wink:), but more a general note on the entire action oriented player quest issue that was raised by Kamilar.
The thing with actively promoting some action is that the environment and in this case especially the town respond to the actions of your characters, provided they have a sufficient footprint.

Now in the good old days (:wink:) the environment did not respond to any threats or actions or what ever. The towns where just a couple of houses and they were there no matter who did what. While did provided a wider degree of freedom to the players who wanted to cause some trouble, because in the end there was not much anyone was able to do against this, as long as the players kept within the borders of the game rules. This surely provided fun for the set of players who were spreading some havoc and at least at the start of everything also for the players on the other side. But to my experience one side usually became pretty upset with the entire situation. Simply because there was no stopping the other side or because there was nothing to gain. Everything did remain as it was and that was about it.

Surely you could conquer Trollsbane for a day or two, but a week later you lost it again and all your work left no impact. The settlements has very little impact on the overall progress of such events or quest.

Now things are different and the towns are a force to be reckoned with. The player government and the GMs can have the towns and their leadership along with the guards react to trouble makers and very effectively stop them. This limits the possibilities of the players who want to cause some trouble, simply not only the players stand against them, but also the towns, with all their current possibility. Now if your characters cause sufficient trouble the town will respond.

This surely causes the problem: If you actually manage to piss all the towns off sufficiently to get banned from everywhere, you very much limit your character to the point where he can't really do any harm to anyone any more. But that is the way it has to be. The environment responds and protects itself against a problem of notable magnitude. If you don't take this into consideration when planning your characters action you will render your character useless very fast.

This does not mean that all kinds of actions are blocked. But you have to be smarter about it then it was required in earlier days.

You have to see that things like banning people from the town or sending them into the prison mine are the most effective things the towns can do. You can't place a bounty on a character and have half the players hunt after him. Well you can, but the victim will not care, since you do not loose anything when dying. So how else are the towns expected to respond?

And regarding the unfair treatment: The town leaders do not like everyone equally. :wink: Usually there are pretty extensive discussions in the internal boards to decide how to handle a particular trouble maker, but in the end there is always a human factor to some extend, based on the experience with the character in the game, how every particular case is handled.

This is pretty much my opinion.
Keep in mind that it's been a long time since I last played this game. Some points may not be fully correct. But this topic reflects my ideas that come up when reading the posts related to the entire story that did lead up to this topic.

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Kugar
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Re: Really?

Post by Kugar »

Q-wert wrote:To me it looks like:
What I do find curious is that Joomajin as well as Jefferson have left town to restricted areas without proper permission
The times you mentioned meeting Jefferson in those places, he got permission from the available chancellor online at the time :P . It was never said by the Don that these characters had to get permission from all chancellors, specifically. I could grab the log files if it becomes a huge ooc issue, but I suppose that to be a an ingame matter :wink:. I played according to the rules as I understood them *shrug*.

As for the whole situation here:
I get it. I get why Teflon did it and I get why Meph doesn't like it. Could it have created interested rp? Yes. Is it an extreme punishment that might create a conflict based character to run from the town and gather an army of his own? Yes. Is there anyway at all of Bob winning in any of the scenarios? No (re static environment). Does it matter? Subjective. Does it affect the way players manufacture their characters into the environment and act accordingly based on these reasons? Yes (Or these players just fizzle out and leave eventually (by my observation and experience here)).

In the creation of the VBU and settlement structure, the Gms could have put a truly animated warlord boss leader character, that players could follow in a town structure, in charge of a town, but, that's also entirely subjective and pretty irrelevant now (or at least at this time). It may have been easier to create conflict, who knows. But the fact is we as players have to work with what we have here. For my own enjoyment of this game, I personally do not mind. I'm past it. There's always going to be ooc influence in a characters actions, because of gem output. If we get new players, you'll see it in action more so. The only way players could go and start a settlement and go and rummage and pillage their enemies was if they where maxed out and littered with gemstones - otherwise they couldn't compete. It's not about 'winning' or 'losing', but 'losing' all the time gets boring so that's what keeps conflict based characters impotent. Balance creates fun, mostly. Irrespective of what people think of Jeff, Bob, Fooser and Juuma, they do not believe themselves to be villains. They're looked on as villains, but they instead look on their enemies as villains. That's why they feel so hard done by their own town. You're welcome for the ooc pro tip! The problem here for them is that they do not have a leader character on Illarion that represents them. Hey, I'm fine with that! But I'm not going to actively become an outlaw with a character I spent so long on. From my experience, it can be very boring and there are no real 'rewards'. There will never be true 'comic book villains' in Illarion. That would require a heavy shake up or a miracle.

That's life. You live by the rules and assimilate to the structure of things. The clever and creative part is making it fun in these conditions. I say that as someone with well skilled characters in all settlements.

End of discursive rant. Woohoo.
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Kamilar
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Re: Really?

Post by Kamilar »

I agree that conflict is more fun in the beginning and when it's drawn out it gets stale and sometimes irritating. That's especially true when the RP reasons for the conflict are flimsy or when it's nothing but PvP. Characters get the consequential RP they earn. I buy that too. But (for Nitram's benefit since he doesn't actually play the game :P ) I am quite sincere when I say the game needs some spice.

What do you guys think about taking players like this with a lot of motivation to create some interesting conflict and give them quest characters to do just that? They could use their skill set to everyone's advantage that way without risking their own player characters that they have so heavily invested in. We need some pickpockets, orphans, stray dogs and there are clearly players ready to fill those roles. Illarion would get the conflict it so desperately needs, the "villain" POs would get that out of their system, there would be oversight of the villainy and we would still have balance in the towns. Is there a down side?
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Re: Really?

Post by Djironnyma »

Kamilar wrote:Is there a down side?
Yes. A quest char is a char used for a quest. That is ever a limited period of time and a specific use which is not to be just mean/evil against other chars. Otherwise you demotivate these player who are not pushed and bullied by these “quest chars”. Their would be no fairness.

It is a better point to discuss/brainstorm new ways to support “evil” chars (=chars which dont fit in any town cause of their flexible moral/ethics) with town benefits (gems/taxes, tools, teleporters, houses, npc's, etc).
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Re: Really?

Post by Nitram »

I would not strictly say no to player quest characters or special characters that are active for a expanded time. That is really a question that needs to be answered case by case.

Just pitch the idea you have to a GM. You are right when saying the game needs all the activity it is able to get. If the GM likes your idea and thinks a special character in your hand will add to the game, you'll get your character.

You just have to ask. :wink:
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Kamilar
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Re: Really?

Post by Kamilar »

@ Dji - I think you misunderstand the concept I'm proposing. I'm not suggesting players be given special permission to go around harassing others. I'm suggesting the players that provide the conflict be given support/oversight to continue doing just that. I hope you can acknowledge that a story needs some kind of conflict to keep it interesting. I mean, there's a reason I'm not watching Care Bears right now, you know? As far as supporting "evil" characters from the game side, that's a separate issue to me.

@ Nitram - Thanks for the support! I just fell in love with you all over again! :D
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Re: Really?

Post by Djironnyma »

Indeed the story need conflict, I/we often decides to react with my char/our guild more extreme/fanatic/radical as it would be good for peacekeeping to provoke conflicts. No one of you rly believe we as players believe that fanatic shit our chars says and do - most of it is done to have an extreme side which you can see as extreme good or evil, considering your point of view. And we do this without getting any special chars or skills or whatever.

I dont see why more "dirty" chars now should get pushed chars to "create conflict". Its all about fairness. What they need is no skills or superpowers but the same options as other chars, access to town services even if they are banned from other places. E.g. it would be worth to speak about some kind of black market somewhere in the neutral land (under the hemptie?). a place with npc-traders, tools and some static quests. Maybe with some smugglers sharing a monthly fee against some magic gems smuggled out of an other town. But mostly without a leader or at least without one who cares about anything what happens outside his black market. You could get acces to that market just if you are banned from at least one town or similar.

Anyway such market or "dark" town would cause a massive amount of work. You need a map, NPCs, Quests and Scripts. It would be a projects which would hinder many devs to work on other projects for month if not years. Furthermore a further town or at least town like place would create the danger to spread our low player number even further, make it even harder to find each other.

A other point worth to discuss are ways to sneak automatic into towns e.g. buy a (faked) daily pass / bribe the guard or crawl through a secret dungeon into. but that cause two other problems: first is why should the other npcs in the town deal with the banned person like normal. The other problem/danger is that often ppl are banned who dont play a good played conflict making guy but a harassing char who comes up with 3 lines of text and then attacking everyone they see. The towns and their options to ban ppl are a safe area, mostly for chars/players which have no fighting stats or dont want to play an aggressive char. We also have to think about how to protect them / give them an option to play without the constant danger of being ghosted. I dont want situation again, where i have to tell non fighter chars not to log in if known troublemakers are ig.

You may see the topic is complex every option have it ups and downs. But we have to be fair to every player. And it is not fair to give any char any kind of support what other chars dont cant get cause they are playing not conflict seeking - except questchars, but then as mentioned with a special "duty"/use and inside a limited period of time.
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Silverwing
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Re: Really?

Post by Silverwing »

I might write a longer comment on this topic later but for now:

I am looking for players who want to play quest chars for the orcs what appeared near Cadomyr. A certain background and insight on the quest will be provided. Please be aware that the quest is planned to a certain degree so the quest chars are planned to be a temporary thing.

In case you are interested in this, please send a PM to either me or the Gamemaster group.
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Re: Really?

Post by Mephistopheles »

I want to point out that while these major quests the gms put so much effort into and are rich with different and creative plots, these quests are not really taken as seriously as player conflict. Why? I'm not so sure, when two sides of player chars decide to consider each other enemies they aim to undermine and constantly become stronger than the other group. You have to be the best or your opponent will beat you. With many gm quests such as Akaltut players are sometimes left feeling like they can't really do anything to that giant invulnerable chaos raining beast, because well it was a giant beast that ignored even the strongest chars in the game and you can't just go smith a magic ring in a few seconds to shoot her off into another dimension or something now can you? I feel bored with over powered gm chars running around with largely little roleplay (if it doesn't apply let it fly, not trying to start a flame war or fight the power, just imo) and smashing pc's, then finding out someone else did something like slay them with a magic sword or forge a mighty ring.

My one suggestion for future gm quests like those would be to get more people to help you and have a couple quest chars and that one big boss char or monster, make them stronger than any one guy but also don't make them unstoppable. Oh and emote more please! Not everyone is guilty of just "fear me for I shall be your doom" and click ghosting or raining hell from the sky, but please don't do that unless it's like some dire consequence for failing to take the creature out in time for it to gain it's final form or some other such nonsense. Take it a step at a time but don't script the damn quests, plan but don't read from a flash card, because we pick up on that. Also the "I'll pour in all my resources to make an uber weapon" get rid of that, it's not relevant to the game world at all really, because everyone will start demanding their own uber weapon and get mad when it doesn't work on some other major threat. This also prevents players from feeling that one person or group had the favor of the gm running the quest. It might take longer to do all this but it will be more rewarding to play out a plot yourself rather than read from a script planned beforehand.

Ps, Consider another, more lenient/darker town, and letting the gems of power be objects of strife. Realistically I see factions forming around this shaky alliance of the three cities just waiting to get their hands on the power they have. Sure it'll be alot of work but the client is hardly half done, time to consider some features to help fix that. Let players war for these objects of strife but never let any town have more than 3 gems. This cylcing of gems and conflict will allow for gem circulation to be more dynamic and certainly drives players to accomplish things, pc's that want peace will have their job cut out for them :p
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