Greetings,
I think town bans have at least the following troubles to be kept like they are:
- Town player leaders can abuse of this tool, such as PO Katharina Brightrim does, banning my char for whatever reasons
- It makes players lazy, as they can solve via mechanisms something that should be solved by players and their chars
- It favors inactive players who can make some clicks and come back the their inactivity
- Inactive players can spoil the game for active players doing nothing RPish, by not allowing them to enter towns and use tools, etc
- Kind of forced RP, specially when it unjustified
While I'm aware town bans can't be just deleted as the bad guys would come and massacre civilians, there must be some changes to soft the bans. I propose one or more of the followings changes:
- Turn total bans for partial bans. So the banned one can access the town sometimes (IG nights, certain limited hours, etc.)
- Allow the banned ones to pay guards a bribe to enter
- Find a way to make harder for town leaders to set a ban, to prevent the abuse
Regards,
PO Bidukan.
About town bans.
Moderator: Developers
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Alytys Lamar
- Posts: 2199
- Joined: Sun Apr 02, 2006 5:13 pm
- Location: Always in the middle of nowhere
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Re: About town bans.
This is not a proposal - you should solve it IG- Town player leaders can abuse of this tool, such as PO Katharina Brightrim does, banning my char for whatever reasons
I have no idea why this is a proposal, nor do I understand what you want to say with.- It makes players lazy, as they can solve via mechanisms something that should be solved by players and their chars
- It favors inactive players who can make some clicks and come back the their inactivity
- Inactive players can spoil the game for active players doing nothing RPish, by not allowing them to enter towns and use tools, etc
- Kind of forced RP, specially when it unjustified
And the last point again - This is not a proposal - you should solve it IG
Maybe something to consider - but it can also be abused like you mentioned - to kill someone. Should a town not be a safe haven ?While I'm aware town bans can't be just deleted as the bad guys would come and massacre civilians, there must be some changes to soft the bans. I propose one or more of the followings changes:
- Turn total bans for partial bans. So the banned one can access the town sometimes (IG nights, certain limited hours, etc.)
- Allow the banned ones to pay guards a bribe to enter
Since I returned I didn't see any abuse of this tool.- Find a way to make harder for town leaders to set a ban, to prevent the abuse
my 5 cents to it.
Re: About town bans.
If you didn't notice, the post has two parts, the first one is describing the problems town bans bring, and the second one where I bring up the proposals.Alytys Lamar wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:02 pmThis is not a proposal - you should solve it IG- Town player leaders can abuse of this tool, such as PO Katharina Brightrim does, banning my char for whatever reasons
I have no idea why this is a proposal, nor do I understand what you want to say with.- It makes players lazy, as they can solve via mechanisms something that should be solved by players and their chars
- It favors inactive players who can make some clicks and come back the their inactivity
- Inactive players can spoil the game for active players doing nothing RPish, by not allowing them to enter towns and use tools, etc
- Kind of forced RP, specially when it unjustified
And the last point again - This is not a proposal - you should solve it IG
Maybe something to consider - but it can also be abused like you mentioned - to kill someone. Should a town not be a safe haven ?While I'm aware town bans can't be just deleted as the bad guys would come and massacre civilians, there must be some changes to soft the bans. I propose one or more of the followings changes:
- Turn total bans for partial bans. So the banned one can access the town sometimes (IG nights, certain limited hours, etc.)
- Allow the banned ones to pay guards a bribe to enter
Since I returned I didn't see any abuse of this tool.- Find a way to make harder for town leaders to set a ban, to prevent the abuse
my 5 cents to it.
Re: About town bans.
I can see that this is clearly a knee-jerk reaction to there being consequences for your characters actions, but allow me to clarify some things:
Additionally, pointing fingers like you are doing is against our "Forum and Chat" rule.
Of course, banning someone for "whatever reasons" via an in game mechanic, without proper associated RP or logical reasoning behind the character doing so, should be looked into by a GM. Though this is clearly not the case here, as seen by the official declaration of the ban here viewtopic.php?f=89&p=715475#p715475.
Why would the town allow someone whom they deem a threat to the realm, to the point of issuing a ban, allow for said person to freely use their tools?
You can not simply separate "RPish" and non"RPish" aspects of the game. Even said non"RPish" aspects of the game must follow RP logic, be accompanied by emotes, and so on. This is stated clearly in the game rules.
As for "forced RP":
"So called power-emotes that force a behaviour or an effect on other characters and leave no room for reaction are forbidden."
Your character is not allowed to enter Cadomyr for the duration of the ban. There are plenty of ways to react to this.
Hell, in your case specifically, Katharina even included in the announcement that it was only temporary and that she would seek out Bidukan for his side of the story.
If that is not allowing for reaction, then I don't know what would qualify.
"The purposeful attacking of a character without clearly traceable and reasonable roleplaying reason is forbidden. Immediate killing of a character right after resurrection ("res-killing") is not allowed."
In addition to the rule above, even if the guard does not mechanically prevent you from attacking someone, that does not mean the guard does not exist. Same as presently, you can not just kill someone in front of a guard NPC just because the engine limitations make it so the guard NPC will not react unless a GM is present or you are currently banned and trying to enter the town. RP logic dictates that the guard NPC would step forth to defend a civilian in need, upon witnessing such an attack. Ignoring that would be a breach of the "realism" rule.
1. You have to have qualified to be a town leader in the first place.
2. The character you want to ban has to be online for it to work.
3. You can only ban a character for a short duration.
Any longer bans have to be set by GMs upon player leaders request, as such any longer ban has already been approved by the GM and is definitely not so called "abuse".
Additionally, given that this is the proposals board, here are some relevant quotes from the guidelines for making a proposal (viewtopic.php?f=94&t=38019)
Whether or not the tool is being abused is not for you to determine.
Additionally, pointing fingers like you are doing is against our "Forum and Chat" rule.
Of course, banning someone for "whatever reasons" via an in game mechanic, without proper associated RP or logical reasoning behind the character doing so, should be looked into by a GM. Though this is clearly not the case here, as seen by the official declaration of the ban here viewtopic.php?f=89&p=715475#p715475.
Lazy players? You mean like making a forum post about something that should clearly be solved by the chars in game?
This point is moot. Inactive players would not be player leaders to begin with, and thus not hold the power to "make some clicks" to ban a character from the realm.
The moot point of inactivity aside: There are consequences for your characters actions. Some include the non"RPish" aspects of the game, like access to a realms tools.
Why would the town allow someone whom they deem a threat to the realm, to the point of issuing a ban, allow for said person to freely use their tools?
You can not simply separate "RPish" and non"RPish" aspects of the game. Even said non"RPish" aspects of the game must follow RP logic, be accompanied by emotes, and so on. This is stated clearly in the game rules.
Whether or not a ban is justified is something to deal with in character, not out of character.
As for "forced RP":
"So called power-emotes that force a behaviour or an effect on other characters and leave no room for reaction are forbidden."
Your character is not allowed to enter Cadomyr for the duration of the ban. There are plenty of ways to react to this.
Hell, in your case specifically, Katharina even included in the announcement that it was only temporary and that she would seek out Bidukan for his side of the story.
If that is not allowing for reaction, then I don't know what would qualify.
Just for the sake of the argument. IF the town bans were to be removed, then it would still not be permissible for the "bad guys" to come and massacre civilians.
"The purposeful attacking of a character without clearly traceable and reasonable roleplaying reason is forbidden. Immediate killing of a character right after resurrection ("res-killing") is not allowed."
In addition to the rule above, even if the guard does not mechanically prevent you from attacking someone, that does not mean the guard does not exist. Same as presently, you can not just kill someone in front of a guard NPC just because the engine limitations make it so the guard NPC will not react unless a GM is present or you are currently banned and trying to enter the town. RP logic dictates that the guard NPC would step forth to defend a civilian in need, upon witnessing such an attack. Ignoring that would be a breach of the "realism" rule.
It already has plenty of limitations.
1. You have to have qualified to be a town leader in the first place.
2. The character you want to ban has to be online for it to work.
3. You can only ban a character for a short duration.
Any longer bans have to be set by GMs upon player leaders request, as such any longer ban has already been approved by the GM and is definitely not so called "abuse".
Additionally, given that this is the proposals board, here are some relevant quotes from the guidelines for making a proposal (viewtopic.php?f=94&t=38019)
You're making some heavy assumptions regarding what is abuse, what reasons are needed for such a ban, and how the ban system works. Next time you should try to learn more about the system before you make a proposal post.Makes no unsupported assumptions
There have been several threads like this in the past. This post is adding nothing new that those proposals did not already cover, something you would know if you had researched past proposals on the topic. Next time you should research before making a post in the proposals board.Shows a knowledge of the workings of the game and research into past proposals (is not repeating a proposal already denied).
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Katharina Brightrim
- Cadomyr
- Posts: 956
- Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2011 8:13 pm
- Location: Göttingen
Re: About town bans.
The "abuse", as you call it, has purely IG-reasons. If your char threatens to kill a citizen of one realm, then it's just a logical IC-reaction of a town-leader- CHAR to protect their citizens. Besides, calling somebody out specifically... Good style. Also, I would leave the decision whether the use of a tool is abusive or not to a gamemaster. Besides, in the almost four RL-years since I am playing Kat as a town-leader, I used the ban-feature three times, not counting the ban of PKing baddies. If that's abusive in your understanding...
Of course, it can be an issue if player leaders become inactive, but I think that I am active enough (Yes, I do have some RL-things that need to be dealt with, some responsibilities I have to look to, so I am not around 24/7, but still). Also, you will understand that after playing the game consecutively for the last 6 RL-years with one week over that time being my longest off-time, and especially after December, where I literally put several hours actively into the game for the players to have a good time, there can be some semi-active times especially when exams and turn-ins approach. Making statements like you did is just rude and a complete understatement of my actual activity. I am always available on the forum and on Discord, I am online in the game almost every day. Where do you take the audacity from of returning to a game you haven't played for about a decade and tell people that they are inactive?
And once again, because I already explained this in the past: If your CHAR - CHAR, not you as player - does something and gets a reaction (Banning somebody who threatened somebody's life is absolutely legit in my eyes), then deal with it IC. There is a chance to react to a public post, not like it's a diary or something in which she wrote "Today I banned Bidukan" and you had to find it out IG by trial-and-error.
Whether it's unjustified or not is another IG(!) matter. Just saying as much as: My char ignored multiple cases in which your char disrespected her IG (yes, she does have some status IC), disrespected other Cadomyrian chars, etc.
"It makes players lazy". If the ban was the last thing we heard about this, yes. Just banning without ever taking this thing up would indeed be lazy. But instead, my char pointed out that she would investigate further into this and only make this ban a first temporary step to prevent something from actually happening.
"Doing nothing RPish" -> Banning a char who threatens to do something bad to prevent them from doing something bad is RP, like it or not.
"Kind of forced RP" -> Same logic as if you say "not being allowed to murder somebody is violating my human rights".
An OOC-post like this honestly just discourages me from playing with you. Congrats, if that's your goal. What do you think to achieve from kicking people's shins in public? Send me a Discord-Message that you don't understand why that happened and we can talk it through OOC, if necessary. Or even better: Send an IC-letter to my char and ask her for clarification. Or if you want to go public: Have your char complain about it in public. But no, you just take an IG-matter and write a "proposal" in which you complain about _my_ (Me, as a RL-person) abuse of something my char did IC. In which you make false statements about "somebodies" activity. Where do you think this is going?
Of course, it can be an issue if player leaders become inactive, but I think that I am active enough (Yes, I do have some RL-things that need to be dealt with, some responsibilities I have to look to, so I am not around 24/7, but still). Also, you will understand that after playing the game consecutively for the last 6 RL-years with one week over that time being my longest off-time, and especially after December, where I literally put several hours actively into the game for the players to have a good time, there can be some semi-active times especially when exams and turn-ins approach. Making statements like you did is just rude and a complete understatement of my actual activity. I am always available on the forum and on Discord, I am online in the game almost every day. Where do you take the audacity from of returning to a game you haven't played for about a decade and tell people that they are inactive?
And once again, because I already explained this in the past: If your CHAR - CHAR, not you as player - does something and gets a reaction (Banning somebody who threatened somebody's life is absolutely legit in my eyes), then deal with it IC. There is a chance to react to a public post, not like it's a diary or something in which she wrote "Today I banned Bidukan" and you had to find it out IG by trial-and-error.
Whether it's unjustified or not is another IG(!) matter. Just saying as much as: My char ignored multiple cases in which your char disrespected her IG (yes, she does have some status IC), disrespected other Cadomyrian chars, etc.
"It makes players lazy". If the ban was the last thing we heard about this, yes. Just banning without ever taking this thing up would indeed be lazy. But instead, my char pointed out that she would investigate further into this and only make this ban a first temporary step to prevent something from actually happening.
"Doing nothing RPish" -> Banning a char who threatens to do something bad to prevent them from doing something bad is RP, like it or not.
"Kind of forced RP" -> Same logic as if you say "not being allowed to murder somebody is violating my human rights".
An OOC-post like this honestly just discourages me from playing with you. Congrats, if that's your goal. What do you think to achieve from kicking people's shins in public? Send me a Discord-Message that you don't understand why that happened and we can talk it through OOC, if necessary. Or even better: Send an IC-letter to my char and ask her for clarification. Or if you want to go public: Have your char complain about it in public. But no, you just take an IG-matter and write a "proposal" in which you complain about _my_ (Me, as a RL-person) abuse of something my char did IC. In which you make false statements about "somebodies" activity. Where do you think this is going?
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Charlotte-ate-wilbur
- Posts: 228
- Joined: Sun Mar 12, 2017 6:42 pm
Re: About town bans.
These things get heated, there has been alot of investment in these debates over many years.
The problem that I find with the general consensus is that a majority of people are lumping 'evil chars' into a very unfair generalization. There are bad guys bad at being bad guys, however when someone comes along and puts tremendous effort into rp and even collaborates with the players they interact with and they put themselves out there to be lumped into a group that 'just attacks everyone' or whatever the other common tropes 'good guys' say about 'bad guys' here.
The fact of the matter is, npc guards enforcing town bans is really forced rp. If a player cannot emote or react to being pushed out of the way- there is nothing you can do once it's done besides try and plead with the town. Even then the result can vary based on how the player feels. We all know Sammy's trial had a rather soft punishment for the crimes he was accused of (I'm not saying he did anything, in fact I can't confirm anything that happened in the rp except whats on the forum, this is an example nothing more.) where historically other characters received harsher punishment for what may be argued as lesser crimes or greater crimes. The fact remains that these results vary based on too many variables, did the char have a good relationship with the judge maybe? Maybe the player themselves didn't want to be too harsh on the other player.. which is an ooc influence on decision making and wouldn't even be possible to prove, yet it's not beyond belief.
The problem with the guards is the community's resistance to compromise or mutual terms. I'm genuinely tired of hearing the same excuses about 'bad guys' after so many years. To be honest it's insulting that the majority of people feel this way here. However if it's not obvious that this debate will continue to resurface and cause heated debate, over and over then obviously there is an issue in which the general consensus has not solved.
Time to come to mutual terms, or continue having these arguments.
Tl;DR - These debates have been going on since 2014 and will continue to fester until one of the following happens A) There are no more npc guards - B) Guards are changed to monster guards based on Jupiter's plans - C) There's SOME kind of compromise - or finally D) There are no more evil chars, period.
The problem that I find with the general consensus is that a majority of people are lumping 'evil chars' into a very unfair generalization. There are bad guys bad at being bad guys, however when someone comes along and puts tremendous effort into rp and even collaborates with the players they interact with and they put themselves out there to be lumped into a group that 'just attacks everyone' or whatever the other common tropes 'good guys' say about 'bad guys' here.
The fact of the matter is, npc guards enforcing town bans is really forced rp. If a player cannot emote or react to being pushed out of the way- there is nothing you can do once it's done besides try and plead with the town. Even then the result can vary based on how the player feels. We all know Sammy's trial had a rather soft punishment for the crimes he was accused of (I'm not saying he did anything, in fact I can't confirm anything that happened in the rp except whats on the forum, this is an example nothing more.) where historically other characters received harsher punishment for what may be argued as lesser crimes or greater crimes. The fact remains that these results vary based on too many variables, did the char have a good relationship with the judge maybe? Maybe the player themselves didn't want to be too harsh on the other player.. which is an ooc influence on decision making and wouldn't even be possible to prove, yet it's not beyond belief.
The problem with the guards is the community's resistance to compromise or mutual terms. I'm genuinely tired of hearing the same excuses about 'bad guys' after so many years. To be honest it's insulting that the majority of people feel this way here. However if it's not obvious that this debate will continue to resurface and cause heated debate, over and over then obviously there is an issue in which the general consensus has not solved.
Time to come to mutual terms, or continue having these arguments.
Tl;DR - These debates have been going on since 2014 and will continue to fester until one of the following happens A) There are no more npc guards - B) Guards are changed to monster guards based on Jupiter's plans - C) There's SOME kind of compromise - or finally D) There are no more evil chars, period.
Re: About town bans.
Actually, since my return (8 months) I have seen people insulting, threatening and attacking, yet, nobody banned. Your char previously banned mine because I received an attack of some Cadomyrians in Galmair, makes sense? And this time, your char bans mine to protect Inara, though my char has never attacked in Cadomyr and has never attacked a Cadomyrian. Kat's risk forecast is so horrible.Katharina Brightrim wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 6:14 pm The "abuse", as you call it, has purely IG-reasons. If your char threatens to kill a citizen of one realm, then it's just a logical IC-reaction of a town-leader- CHAR to protect their citizens. Besides, calling somebody out specifically... Good style. Also, I would leave the decision whether the use of a tool is abusive or not to a gamemaster. Besides, in the almost four RL-years since I am playing Kat as a town-leader, I used the ban-feature three times, not counting the ban of PKing baddies. If that's abusive in your understanding...
Regardless that, I would expect Kat calling for knights to protect Inara, but guess what. There are not knigts. So better use a mechanism to win. Poor IMO.
Last edited by Bidukan on Fri Jan 22, 2021 7:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Katharina Brightrim
- Cadomyr
- Posts: 956
- Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2011 8:13 pm
- Location: Göttingen
Re: About town bans.
"to win". How do I "win", by having my char being consequent in her actions? This game is not about winning or losing, it's about playing a character and staying true to their values and opinions, the rule is play with not against each other, after all. If my char, who has the power to do it, sees the behavior of your char as troublesome, then she reacts to it. Of course sending people to get somebody's head is ONE option to deal with conflicts, however, it is not the way my char deals with conflicts. Telling me not to do this is force-RP by your logic.
Everything else you bring up here has nothing to do with OOC-stuff and is purely IC. You can ignore the things that were brought up (not just by me), if they don't benefit you, but then we do not need to 'discuss' here.
Everything else you bring up here has nothing to do with OOC-stuff and is purely IC. You can ignore the things that were brought up (not just by me), if they don't benefit you, but then we do not need to 'discuss' here.
Re: About town bans.
Delete please.
Last edited by Bidukan on Fri Jan 22, 2021 7:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Amelia Rotholz
- Galmair
- Posts: 377
- Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:49 am
- Location: Galmair
Re: About town bans.
May I propose to bring this in a private discussion or at least move it to the General Forum?
This discussion changed topic from a valid proposal (rethink ban mechanism) to a discussion about abuse and handlig issues IC-OOC.
Thank you.
This discussion changed topic from a valid proposal (rethink ban mechanism) to a discussion about abuse and handlig issues IC-OOC.
Thank you.
Re: About town bans.
That's my entire point. Your char should react if you want, sure. But town ban makes it too easy. Click and voila.Katharina Brightrim wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 7:22 pm "to win". How do I "win", by having my char being consequent in her actions? This game is not about winning or losing, it's about playing a character and staying true to their values and opinions, the rule is play with not against each other, after all. If my char, who has the power to do it, sees the behavior of your char as troublesome, then she reacts to it. Of course sending people to get somebody's head is ONE option to deal with conflicts, however, it is not the way my char deals with conflicts. Telling me not to do this is force-RP by your logic.
Everything else you bring up here has nothing to do with OOC-stuff and is purely IC. You can ignore the things that were brought up (not just by me), if they don't benefit you, but then we do not need to 'discuss' here.
Re: About town bans.
I would like to bring forward two things:
First, as far as I can tell, it is a known goal to change the way the NPC's guards work, and it seems like effort is being made in that direction.
Second, I really think this situation could have been averted had a conversation happened oocly by either party.
Bidukan, you are well within your right to feel that the ban is unfair. That does not entirely make it so.
Kat, bans are tricky, and I'm sorry about that.
But this conversation could have gone as far as,
"Hey, can we negotiate that my character (Bidukan) owes a fine of some kind, so I can still go to the wine festival and get trashed?"
Or
"Hey, my character Kat is going to put a temp ban on Bidukan, but I don't want that to be a long standing thing. I would love to talk to you oocly about potential lesser punishments or how to move the RP forward, or in the next few days Kat will put some other option on the table."
Sorry for any trouble caused to the both of you.
First, as far as I can tell, it is a known goal to change the way the NPC's guards work, and it seems like effort is being made in that direction.
Second, I really think this situation could have been averted had a conversation happened oocly by either party.
Bidukan, you are well within your right to feel that the ban is unfair. That does not entirely make it so.
Kat, bans are tricky, and I'm sorry about that.
But this conversation could have gone as far as,
"Hey, can we negotiate that my character (Bidukan) owes a fine of some kind, so I can still go to the wine festival and get trashed?"
Or
"Hey, my character Kat is going to put a temp ban on Bidukan, but I don't want that to be a long standing thing. I would love to talk to you oocly about potential lesser punishments or how to move the RP forward, or in the next few days Kat will put some other option on the table."
Sorry for any trouble caused to the both of you.
Last edited by Vern Kron on Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Katharina Brightrim
- Cadomyr
- Posts: 956
- Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2011 8:13 pm
- Location: Göttingen
Re: About town bans.
viewtopic.php?f=89&p=715475#p715475Vern Kron wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:00 pm Or
"Hey, my character Kat is going to put a temp ban on Bidukan, but I don't want that to be a long standing thing. I would love to talk to you oocly about potential lesser punishments or how to move the RP forward, or in the next few days Kat will put some other option on the table."
This happened. IC.
Re: About town bans.
While I agree with what you are saying happened from an IC forum post, there is a difference between an IC post and reaching out as PO to PO. I am not some exemplar of this, so please don't take it that way.Katharina Brightrim wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:03 pmviewtopic.php?f=89&p=715475#p715475Vern Kron wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:00 pm Or
"Hey, my character Kat is going to put a temp ban on Bidukan, but I don't want that to be a long standing thing. I would love to talk to you oocly about potential lesser punishments or how to move the RP forward, or in the next few days Kat will put some other option on the table."
This happened. IC.
But while your message was intended to be one that said "we will deal with this soon!" it can come across as "I will deal with this when I feel like it", and that can be dismissive.
There is also a significant difference between a forum post for the IG world broadcasting information to all, and an ooc message, PO to PO, saying 'Hey, I still want to find a resolution to this, and I don't want this to be painful for you. What can we do to find a solution that works for both of us?"
One is a somewhat merciful gesture by an IG character, the other is players working together. Both are good, but the second makes the first MUCH easier to interpret.
---
I'm editing this to add:
If you would like to discuss any of this further with me directly, please feel free to reach out to me on discord.
Re: About town bans.
Accussing an other player is no way to start a proposal. Therefore, I close this thread.