Don’t forget we moved!
https://brandmu.day/
Witcher MUSH Design
-
-
@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:
@bear_necessities I would not share what words I consider worthy of investigation. Ultimately, I can not control what happens outside of my spaces but I can try to keep what I do own as clean as I can reasonably manage. As you have mentioned, it all boils down to trust and there is nothing I can do to establish that at the outset. These games are dictatorships at the end of the day but I feel that faith can be built through consistency and transparency over time.
I’m half-stealing someone else’s thought here that was brewing in my mind, but. What your responses have made me worry about is the sense that you think you can kind of – code fixes to player disputes, and you just can’t. And you may be building yourself a false sense of security by adding these tools that aren’t at all going to catch the sort of harassment that goes on. Like, if you build tools that don’t solve a problem, but you feel like they’re solving some of the problem, then I think you’re actually less likely to actually catch and fix things.
@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:
@farfalla @KarmaBum Every system has cases where it will fail. There is always going to be a situation where I will have to make a gut check. I do not think that this means I should completely abandon my desire to minimize possible footholds and catch whoever I can proactively.
I think that “gut check” is not an accurate descriptor of a lot of staff investigation and discipline that goes on. It’s there, certainly, but I think what more happens is “investigation and using personal judgment,” and no matter what, this will be the bulk of your work in staffing player conflict.
-
@Istus I think your logging everything will have your players trusting you as staff less. Players already have trouble trusting staff on game. It’s part of why predators can get so far (the majority is because they know how to control the story). Some staff has shown to be pretty abusive with their power to a lot of players over the years.
-
@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:
I do not think that this means I should completely abandon my desire to minimize possible footholds and catch whatever I can proactively.
It definitely does not. However, if the proposed solution will turn off a big chunk of players over privacy concerns while providing extremely minimal benefit to avoiding problems, you may wish to reconsider. Or not - that’s the beauty of running your own game.
Having dealt with a wide variety of inter-player problem reports, I agree with others that the mere existence of a conversation is rarely in doubt and defining specific alert keywords nigh-impossible.
-
@Roz The only goal is to provide the means to investigate without requiring victims to justify their complaint. I understand that it is impossible to automate the resolution of an issue, and it is impossible to catch all instances of abuse. If it was possible, the YouTubes and Facebooks of the world would have already implemented it.
By ‘gut check’ I mean making a subjective decision on whatever evidence is available.
@icanbeyourmuse I can not avoid distrust from the outset. If I say I am logging everything, some people will assume I will abuse it. If I say I am logging nothing, some people will assume I am lying.
@Faraday I do certainly have the power to bury myself!
-
For me personally I would not play a game that logs everything I do, however vague the capture. I’m sure you’re a lovely person but I kind of agree with the other posters here – if details are captured, it’s too invasive. If no details are captured in the log, there’s no point to do it.
@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:
If I say I am logging nothing, some people will assume I am lying.
Not sure that’s true? Most games don’t log everything and the player response isn’t, “I think you are logging everything and lying about it.”
-
@imstillhere I think you might actually be misinformed about what most mu do or do not log tbh
fr fr
(she/her) -
@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:
@Roz The only goal is to provide the means to investigate without requiring victims to justify their complaint. I understand that it is impossible to automate the resolution of an issue, and it is impossible to catch all instances of abuse. If it was possible, the YouTubes and Facebooks of the world would have already implemented it.
If you’re only logging interactions and not full content, though, you won’t have any means to do this. A log of the fact that people interacted isn’t evidence of anything. A list of pinged keywords also isn’t evidence of anything. You’ll still have to talk to people and understand what happened. You’ll still be dealing with player logs.
By ‘gut check’ I mean making a subjective decision on whatever evidence is available.
But that is how player management works. You have to be able to make judgment calls based on the evidence available, and it will always be subjective.
-
@hellfrog As in most games ARE logging all content in the way OP describes? I think if that’s the case I am misinformed, yeah, I didn’t realize it is common.
-
@imstillhere ‘most’ games (I only know Evennia and that Ares do it) record all input, yes. It just takes someone good at the code to LOOK at them, usually - and I think Ares logs roll off after a period of time.
Now, a gamerunner saying they intend to log everything in a way that is easily accessible to them and that they PLAN to access it is not the norm, I don’t think.
fr fr
(she/her) -
@hellfrog said in Witcher MUSH Design:
‘most’ games (I only know Evennia and that Ares do it) record all input, yes.
I don’t know enough about the codebase market share to know if Ares & Evennia are the majority yet, but outside of those two codebases, it’s rare for a game to actually log absolutely everything.
Often other codebases can selectively log everything from a particular person, but that requires complaints to come in about that person first.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Pavel well evennia is DEF not in any majority lol, but just from vibes I imagine Ares might be
-
@hellfrog I hope I never have reason to look at them if they end up existing.
I have never seen a game be up front about what they do or do not log.
-
Never seen it? Really? That sounds pretty hyperbolic, or like maybe you haven’t looked. It’s pretty standard disclosure. It was pretty standard disclosure back in 1999 when I wrote my policies on it, and that has not changed afaik. Usually that info is under some sort of privacy documentation.
the entity previously known as Sunny
-
@IoleRae Totally anecdotal, and I certainly have not looked for it. I have only dipped my toes in to three games so my sample size is very tiny!
-
Am I understanding your statement correctly? You have only played on three games?
the entity previously known as Sunny
-
@IoleRae Right.
-
@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:
@IoleRae Right.
In that case, I’d be wary of making such general declarative statements. Some folks around here have played on hundreds (or at least several tens) of games.
-
Yeah, “I have never seen” implies experience in having seen games.
-
Circling back around to some of the original questions here, I have a couple of suggestions for the actual implementation of Experience Points and character advancement.
1: Give out set XP rewards DAILY rather than weekly if possible. It’s not a panacea but it obviously would incentivize daily log ins better than a weekly system would. For instance, every day that you log on, you get 1 XP rather than getting 7 XP per week.
2: Give no XP rewards for +noms, @votes, or whatever. Instead…
3: Give out IN-GAME CURRENCY for +noms, @votes, or whatever. This might literally be ‘currency’ in its simplest form. Or more interestingly, some sort of ‘prestige system.’ For example, a character with 1000 votes is ‘more famous’ or a ‘bigger deal’ than a character with 10 votes. This makes for an objective way to choose which character gets to be Mayor of Shinytown, or Head of the Cat School, or Chief of the Lodge of Sorceresses, or Most Famous Bard in Skellige, etc.
4: Give some sort of gear tokens out MANUALLY, for providing logs to the wiki. Staff can determine what criteria to use, perhaps rewarding events with more gear tokens than one on one RP, or Bar RP.
5: Allow players to trade in their ‘gear tokens’ for specialized gear, rather than forcing them to purchase things from randomized coded vendors.
So, all taken together, players would advance their sheets via automatic Daily XP, they would advance their ‘prestige’ through votes in RP, and they’d get some sort of ‘gear tokens’ from logged events which they could use for character-specific gear, or whatever else there is to purchase in your system.
In the Witcher games, ‘leveling up’ isn’t just about gaining new levels, it’s also about acquiring mutagens, learning new potion formulas, and finding/buying better swords and armor. When you add in a bunch of more conventional D&D-sequence classes on top of this to allow for Elven Mages, Dwarven Merchants, and Halfling Berserkers, it’ll be tough to make a list of precoded items that will fit everyone. Better to use a mix of precoded items for ‘starter gear’ and bespoke item creation to celebrate character milestones.
