Staff too lenient? Do we need more?
Cheating, abusing code, no-selling.

Incoming wall of text. I'll put a TL;DR at the bottom.

Firstly, I want to be 100% forthcoming with everyone when I start this conversation. I'm a player who has been voided and banned on numerous occasions in the past. I've learned and grown from my bans and suspensions, and I don't think that my bans were unjust in the slightest. If anything, they might have been a bit on the forgiving side.

I also want to say, that Staff have a rough job, and I'm trying to come at them from a place of support with this criticism, and to do so in a constructive manner.

I recently had a local OOC discussion with another long-time player about what we perceive to be a downward spiral in the quality of RP taking place in the game, and I think that there's absolutely something to be said here. The game has grown significantly in the past few years, and I'll be the first to assume that this is a mix of growing pains as well as perhaps a staffing issue on the staff side of the game (not enough?)

I'm going to try and be as vague as possible here and talk about IC events in a manner that's not going to turn into a paydata goldmine, and I ask that responses to this thread PLEASE DO THE SAME.

No selling feels like it is at an all-time high. People getting limbs amputated for IC events and then being allowed by staff to retcon it. People getting beaten nearly to death, tortured, maimed, etc. and still being John Rambo when they're one millimeter from the grave. Characters that will absolutely never break, never have weaknesses, and are pure walking power fantasies, even if their sheets and their backgrounds don't even remotely match this behavior.

Abusing code: This is a massive umbrella, and there's daily examples of this, or at least it feels like it. Sometimes it's innocuous enough- someone recently mentioned that their character had not been paying door fees for a significant portion of time. They had assumed it was because of some IC reason: it was a bug. Was any real harm done? No, not really. A trivial amount of chyen was not moved around in the mix. Big deal.

Then there's much worse examples: Using vehicle code to escape a literal riot of people trying to catch you. Does the code allow it? Yes. Does it make sense you're able to slide across the hood of your car, unlock the door, open it, climb in and ride off into the sunset when aforementioned riot is surrounding you? No, not even a little bit. Another example would be characters beating down every coded NPC of a gang at once, when we all know very well that there are hundreds or thousands of amb pop gangers occupying that turf, and being able to 'win' when fighting 'an entire gang' to me really does scream abuse of a faction because they have a limited number of actually coded NPC's. IC staff responses to these IC incidents have been entirely lacking, which does not seem to be fitting theme at all.

Finally, we have what is literally black and white cheating. I'm going to stay super vague about this, mostly because I've reported it to staff and respect their process, but I'll give a few examples here that seem to keep happening over and over again. Firstly, we have combat logging- which has been reported on characters by numerous people, on numerous occasions, and seems to keep resulting in voids or temp bans. Why?

We have players in the moo who continually reroll from a selection of a few prebuilt characters, go out, do dumb shit that immy characters really should not be doing and then get permed. These characters ALWAYS walk into the dome with loads of OOC knowledge, and will often walk in the dome and explicitly target out characters that were previously involved in perming them. It's been reported, time and again, and the player(s) are allowed to continue to play the moo. Why?

And I want to be 100% clear here with that last part, I'm not talking about 'Oh, this is something I -suspect- is happening.' I'm talking about people rerolling characters with copy+pasted nudes and changing one character in the name of their previous character (such as XXKills -> XXKillz) and what I ASSUME is copy+pasted sheets. I thought this issue had been dealt with and had stopped happening months ago when I experienced and reported it, and yet in the lOOC conversation I had with a fellow player earlier, they described nearly verbatim the exact same thing happening to them in recent times. And I hope that they reported it, I would assume that they have, as a veteran player.

My point in bringing all of this to the forums is two fold: One, I suspect that this is happening way more than one or two people notice, and if we're not being honest with one another and discussing it, we're never going to be able to discover the extent to which it is happening. The other point is that I'd really like to try and see if I'm alone in noticing these things, to bring awareness to staff so that they can xhelp and talk to us 1:1 concerning details and not dump them here and get the thread locked and deleted.

I'm expecting no small level of salt in the thread, but really, if these things are continuing to happen, it's essentially poisoning the well for everyone here. Furthermore, it's driving off what I'd personally consider to be 'good roleplayers' out of a sense of general distaste for the moo. And I don't want that to happen. And again- to be clear and transparent: even in some of the cases that I've listed, I think the person who is doing the items as described either flat-out IS a good, proven role-player, or they have the potential to be so with some course correction. I know it's helped me be a better role player in this game in the past, and I only hope that it will be for others as well.

TL;DR: People are being shits in the game, there's a growing awareness and resentment of it that's poisoning the well, and the staff responses to date don't seem to be sufficient in handling what seems to be an ongoing and growing problem.

I don't think it's any different than it has been before, besides the usual trouble coming with different hats on, and staff handling them appropriately.

I don't want to try and invalidate your criticism, but you're several layers removed from it, from say, a WCS greeter who sees the same thing playing out daily. Just my two chyen.

@TalonCzar You reminded me of an incident where I, long ago, almost insulted a very famous character over public SIC and got called out for it by the same person, which made me excuse myself for it. I wonder if he did that stuff even then. By 'long ago', I mean like, two years ago or so. When I was a new player.

I think some things have improved the past few months, some have gotten worse. It's always gonna be ups and downs like this, I certainly think BGBB is distracting them more than it used to, so maybe we should stop spamming the forums as much as we do? Err, I had something else to add, but I lost the thought.

I have spent more time dealing with cheaters and OOC drama from players in the last two months than I ever remember having to before. I've had people carrying metagrudges across 5+ characters and I've seen people straight up logging out in the middle of combat to avoid dying and being welcomed back to the game when they deigned to log in hours later - multiple times. I've seen people persist in sexual grossness despite being told to stop. And always the no-selling. There comes a point where the illusion of any kind of IC world is totally broken by a player making no real investment in the game who is able to demand your time and attention due to your IC role.

I know it's a hard balance to strike but there is definitely some disharmony present both IC and OOC that was not so much in the foreground before.

I don't think some of you get what you're doing. From the boards, to xooc, to actions in-game, the dog-piling 'cliques' (god I hate having to use this word in my 30s) and in part even this thread. Staff members are volunteers (this doesn't mean they're immune from criticism). They want to provide a fun experience for you. Create for you - whether plots, build areas, code, little nuggets of personal fun that last only a few moments. They don't want to babysit you. They don't want to have to mediate between players not being able to act maturely.

Except over the last few months they've had to do this constantly. At some point staff -will- run out of energy to deal with every single issue, it'll drain them, it'll make the experience not fun for them at all. It takes up a lot of resources (time, energy, motivation) to handle these kind of issues. Which means there's less time to handle other matters and/or those issues pile up because the ones happening in public view, the nastiness between players on the boards, in xooc, they're the pressing ones since they affect the entire playerbase.

This isn't an issue of staff being too lenient. This is an issue of an increasingly aggressive and unaware portion of the playerbase taking up resources and grinding a group of volunteers down. Fix that among ourselves and you'll start to see other problems which may exist getting fixed.

That's not the point of this post, whatsoever, and if it's badly titled, I accept that 100%

The intent of the post is to discuss community issues what seem to be plaguing the game, and if staff are overwhelmed and are not able to cope with it, what we might be able to do and recognize as players. There are new people here that legitimately don't know what's going on, and they should have some awareness into what actually is cheating and harmful to the game as a whole.

Also, I'd like to not be accused of doxxing posters IC information when they themselves post about being topside and dealing with topside issues in this same thread.

Thank you.

Your example of the player who got away in his car. It rings of "this did not go my way or how I wanted, therefore it is abuse of code or rules". It is not that players fault that there is a lack of vehicle combat code or that the 15 people ready to riot were too slow on a draw. If you want people to agree to doing being surrounded by 15 people in their car you need to agree to possibly being dragged down the street as a hood ornament.

That's all a I really gotta say on the entire premise here. I'll see my way out now. :D

No grizzly, it smacks of code being abused. You're really arguing that 15 people were sitting with their asses on their hands in a tense situation?

I *literally* had Kill X in my buffer and hit enter when said character appeared. What happened? They got in their car. Nothing happened. Because the character was removed from the room server-side before my client was updated, and my command was sent to the server and acknowledged. That's not a RP issue. That's a code issue.

And Storm's probably right, in that there might be bleed going on. It's certainly frustrating when you say "Hey, I xhelped this person cheating before!" And then 2-3 other people also say "Hey, me too!" and then you see the character still on the who list.

Part of that is bad on us, for questioning what efforts staff have taken to cut down on this. But I think partly it's bad that we don't have any insight into the process (even after the fact)

Perhaps we could have a police blotter style thread in the game updates that posts quarterly bans and suspensions, and the basic reasons why, like we do with the town hall meetings? That might help in making players feel like due diligence is being carried through to completion when they report cheating.

I work RL in an enforcement capacity. And, I can say that constantly having to deal with immaturity, bickering and people that just blatantly disregard common sense and courtesy rules can make a person just...give the fuck up. And, Staff quite honestly don't get enough credit for what they do. In the least. Stop pointing fingers at Staff, because as the saying goes, for every finger you point, there's three more pointing at you. Staff VOLUNTEER, at the detriment of their own play-time, at the detriment of their own enjoyment and even sometimes at the detriment of their own personal time to bring a better game for us. So, maybe we need to have a bit of respect for all that they do and say thank you. And show that thanks by not giving them bullshit OOC drama to deal with. Over and Over and Over. Then they can help give us IC drama that is much more enjoyable.

You see someone playing poorly, pull them aside and offer them advice. If they don't take it, then move on. Play with someone else. Leave notes for the GMs to get to when they can. If they can. But, overall SD is a world that is run by us, the players. We're the problem. Not Staff. And, we're probably making it all the more less-fun for staff with the things I've been seeing lately in the boards, xhelp, etc.

That only works if player B isn't fixated on killing/slandering/harrassing player A no matter how many times anyone perms them and will cheat to avoid any consequences whenever possible.

There's a reason why in my examples I listed, there's not a laundry list of taking to tailors and they made you bad clothing or something. It's usually involving red text, or the lack thereof- which almost always invalidates the concept of RP consent.

then that is a blatant rule violation and I would imagine that Staff -do- deal with that

Well no, they haven't been, so it's continued to happen to be something I have directly observed and experienced from multiple players. Blatant obvious rule violations with no punishment. That's why I posted in this thread about how that was bothering me.

It's in a far better place both in population and codedly. I remember a year and a half ago when input and move lag was at unreal levels, and it being a constant, daily annoyance. Game runs buttery smooth today in comparison.

From the sounds of things, it sounds like myself and maybe one or two others have been experiencing problems with specific other players, and that being a relatively isolated thing is a good, good thing indeed.

As I eluded to in my original post, I'm thankful for not being perma-banned, and I'd like to at least THINK that I contribute positively to the community. Perhaps I'm speaking from a place of bias here when I suggest that there should be more bans, and I accept that. And yes, more staff would be great. I've done soft-staffer duties in previous characters and roles, and I really do understand in part what it's like being a temp staffer from that experience. It's a slog.

I think maybe xhelping would be better, since it sounds like you've noticed quite a lot of shitty in game stuff that should be addressed specifically, and putting it out there vaguely for all doesn't seem very helpful.

Maybe you all need some kind of veteran only forum to work out frustrations or some such. Its encouraging you all care about the game so much, but the stuff in xgame, ideas forums, and passive aggressive memes are pretty bummer for the rest of us imo. Y'all need some kinda drum circle and hug it out.

Sorry you're frustrated. I like forums usually and I hang out in ooc when I'm not actively rping. But these forums have been really eek lately and I think I'll peace out and just subscribe to slithers update posts.

In the past, I noticed people talk about some serious rulebreakings that weren't found until someone mentioned it in passing, I think staff had to dig into logs from months before then, since it was an older matter. I don't think we see everything, but they definitely have a large workload on their hands. And I don't think openly complaining about how staff handles things will make them more motivated to help.

I will be perfectly honest and say posts like these are troubling to me. The forums have been absolutely painful to read lately from a new player perspective and airing out more dirty laundry is just really.. well, sad. I'm not saying I want to turn a blind eye to this. This is not my first rodeo in a MUD/MOO community and sad to say, everything described in the OP is nothing I haven't heard before. Having been a staffer in games long since past, I also know that there is so much going on behind the scenes that players don't even get a whiff of.

I have faith in staff in how they're handling things. A lot of what's happened lately is a result of people being people and the nature of the internet.

I think we need to be wary of romanticising "the good old days". Cerberus was kicked from staff with very good reason, nothing short of attempting a coup amidst staff and I don't think it is a co-incidence that there hasn't been a reddit outbreak since his absence. It wasn't an easy decision to remove him and let's not be toying with staffer feelings by questioning their judgement on this.

All in all staff do a great job doing what they do, particularly when you consider they aren't obligated to do it at all. They could if they so chose just be playing the game without any responsibility beyond playing their own character to the best of their ability. You can bet if that is what they chose to do they'd be kicking our collective asses in game rather than helping us progress our characters and plots as they do now.

There are always going to be better players and worse players in the community, particularly in the vicinity of a WCS greeter where players are new to the game and have yet to learn the standard expected of them. It is the responsibility of the community at large to coach players up to the expected standard. If players consistently fall short of the expected standard you can bet their characters won't get anywhere in game until the player learns how to play in a manner that is in keeping with what the community expects, as evidenced by the fact their characters keep getting permed. Try your best to play on and if it becomes too much extract yourself from situations where you are having to play with the rogue element and/or report accordingly.

All the best.

I'm going to write a thread about these behaviors, list probable motivations for them (bc I want to believe the best of our Sindome writers) and solutions for overcoming them. So far I have the vehicle code abuse, combat logging, remaking old chars, and no-selling. If y'all throw anymore out, I'll do my best to include them and find suggestions for alternatives.

My best friend jere-bear just could not for the life of him make an original char in our D&D group. I got together with him, hashed it out, and he really just wanted to tell the story he had stuck in his head, but dynamic events kept preventing them. So we made that char an NPC he narrated. He wasn't purposefully rehashing this guy to spite us or being stubborn. he just couldn't think of anything else when he had this story that HAD to be told.

If you're like me,. you're a little damaged, obsessive, and really believe in a good story. I expect these people we're calling out are too, but only staff can have the one on one dialog necessary to find the root, and extract a more cooperative player. my two cents

@MongOfTheWeek I thought the announcement was Cerberus resigning, not being kicked out?

Maybe take a little break from the OOC sides of the game and just go RP with your fellows. :)

In the future miscategorized posts will be deleted.