@Yam said in Banning Bad, Actually?:

@Faraday Do you recall ol’ OnceWas?

Minus one Michelin star for “unclear help file” work.

If a system is supposed to work a specific way, say it is supposed to work that way. If it isn’t, update a file or something, maybe?

This was basically enough to get him banned. This person was freshly new. This is the most hair trigger case I can think of. He was immediately shown the door, although he was sure to kinda’ buckle down on his stance. Mild, probably, but no one wanted to deal with it.

I’m unclear of what your threshold is, as I recall you were not very approving of this behavior.

That is, of course, just half of the story since we do not know Ada’s accounts. We don’t know if Ada has had past interactions with the player before or someone else have already spoken to about this player before. From one telling, it appears to be just be an one-off encounter but it’s only one telling.

Unless I missed Ada’s explanation and not just one log that was provided stating that was it.

@bear_necessities said in Banning Bad, Actually?:

@Yam we don’t ban enough. Coming off a recent game where I had vibes that another player was a notorious creeper and was doing Weird Shit that maybe wasn’t “bannable” per policy but definitely would’ve gotten them booted if it was my game, I think we should ban liberally and often.

I’m in full agreement that we don’t ban enough and definitely not enough warnings are given. Dealing with problem players takes up unnecessary energy and sanity from staff, energy that can be focused more on the other players that are having fun and enriching the story the game runner is putting together.

To me, playing on a game is a privilege, one that could and should be revoked if a player starts becoming a problem. It can be nice of the staff take extra time to sit that player down and explain to them that they are becoming an issue, but that is definitely optional and up to staff. If that player showed potential to be a fun RPer and being able to change for the better, certainly have that sit down, see how they react. If it seems like it will take too much stress and effort to try, just show them the door. There’s no right or wrong option there.

Some of the problem players seem to have an entitlement attitude, where they feel that they are the main character of the game and they deserve most of the attention, get to make the most decisions, get the most stuff, etc. Instead, players are just playing characters that are working together through their IC actions to build up the story that is being crafted, they are not there to have their character “win the game” at the expense of regardless of others. I know that in the past, before I had gotten a little older and had more MUing experience under my belt, I’ve look back at certain games, I realize, ‘Wow, I was an such an asshole.’

What would qualify as power over a person? Or is it just different interpretations on what power over a space and power over a player is?

I would think that banning a player they do not want on their game is power over a player in their space since they are removing the player from the game against their will.

Enforcing ICA = ICC would be power over the player too because even if the player disagrees with the judgement, admin is the judge and their safe is final. This could even result in the player losing their character against their will.

@Lemon-Fox You shouldn’t be discouraged for trying to make the best out of a challenging situation. Despite the odds being stacked against you, you had fun with your friends for a good period of time and that’s important. Being revealed the truth will only make it easier for you make that hard decision to leave and dedicate your energy elsewhere. Life is just a series of experiences and this was one of them, sounds like you made newfriends in this hobby which is a huge plus so that is definitely something worth celebrating.

A mecha game. I’m excited and I need to clone myself to make more free time.

@dvoraen Is Among Us as fun to play as it is to watch people play?

If I recall correctly, I got into MUSHing in the mid to late 90s and my first game was SW1. This kicked off because I had finished reading the Heir to the Empire Trilogy (Thrawn trilogy) and I started reading more post movies Star Wars novels.

@RightMeow If I had found a Robotech MUSH, I probably would’ve played that since my first anime when I watched as a kid was Robotech.

@DrQuinn I definitely see them as RP hooks and also a visual presentation of character development. Both for other readers and the player of that character. I saw in another post that someone mentioned that some players treat these games partly as a CRPG that is closest to a TTRPG and I can definitely see that. When I play a character, I try to create one or pick a roster character that is more of a blank slate and let the character shape itself through the adventures and scenes they participate in.

In my opinion, vignettes can definitely help both for the player to write out how they see their character growing in the story they are part of, but also let others in on it as well. Vignettes also play a part in plot +requests the player puts in, being able to show what may have happened with dice rolls that happened behind closed doors.

I actually have a contrary opinion on AI usage or maybe I’m not fully understanding what is being discussed or critiqued here, but I don’t think using something like ChatGPT is a horrible evil. From my years of enjoying this hobby, my experience shows me that there are three major points I need to develop to contribute good writing to the stories being woven together with those I am RPing with.

First, it’s creativity and imagination with the genre and game that you are participating in. Being able to take in the theme and metaplots, understanding the character you’ve selected, then come up with how your character would act and participate in the scenes and overall fictional world. Second, it’s translating that creativity, imagination, thoughts, and ideas into written form that is both enjoyable and clear for everyone to read. Lastly, it’s being able to cooperate with the community in the game. Coordinating with the staff and cooperating to your fellow players to help create and develop these stories and adventures.

For me, the first part I gained since I was a kid. My past time when I was young was reading a lot of novels, limited television and video games (strict parents growing up so no going out to party or too much tv/gaming). So my brain was already soaked in fantasy and sci-fi fiction. The second part took years of not just reading but also RPing, going from a newbie RPer that wrote probably very cringe and rough poses to something that was more palatable to everyone. The last part also took years as well as I had to shift from a more immature mentality of my character is the main character that I have to build up and shine to games being a cooperative experience where everyone works together to create a brilliant story. This last part has more to do with being more mature with age and experience and slowly developing a better understanding of the hobby.

So my “starting stats” into the hobby were probably a high part 1, low part 2, low part 3. Others may have different starts or a similar one like me. My view on ChatGPT is that it’s a tool, one that can help a lot with part 2. If someone writes their pose and feeds it so it corrects grammar, makes it flow better, etc., I don’t think that is a bad thing. It may even help with part 1 if it can assist the RPer with either a better understanding of the theme, plot, story or provide a different context, I don’t believe it’s a bad thing either. I highly doubt it can help with part 3 since that’s more about the player themselves and their own development.

So my views of ChatGPT usage do not seem to be a bad one, it opens the door to more people to participate and contribute without worrying that their writing sucks or will be laughed at. To me, that’s not a bad thing and if there are more people participating and adding to the story, that’s also not a bad thing. I’m not sure who will be wasting time having ChatGPT just come up with poses completely by itself and just copy pasting into the game, so to me, the concern may be a bit overblown. The final point is that maybe my reading palette is just bland where I haven’t been able to tell the difference between a pose generated by AI or one written by a person, or to the point where it is ruining my enjoyment. Just like I can’t taste the difference between a $1000 wine or a $100 wine.

@Solstice Not surprised by the rigged outcome. Crunchyroll co-produced it with Aniplex, there’s no way they won’t have it picked with how much they invested in it.

@dvoraen KeroKero

@Snackness There are new hires these days in the workforce that do not know what a zip file is.

@mietze I agree with what @Pavel said, sometimes there is just nothing staff can do and it is out of their hands. Through my decades of playing on games (no game running experience and very limited staffing experience), I would also also say that there is no perfect blue print to a successful game. The main reason is because the core of these games are the players, who are human, which means each player is unique in their own way, how they respond, how they perceive things.

The best thing that game runners can do in terms of fairness is to truly ask themselves, am I doing the best I can for the people who are on my game, am I still focused on the vision of my game, am I seriously reviewing incidents that occur on my game. And lastly, am I learning from mistakes I have made, which results in building experience which will only take time. Just like in life, you can do everything right and things just don’t work out sometimes, it can be hard but those times you just learn what you can from that experience and try to move on. Certainly harder done than said, but in life, you can only move forward.

I would also like to add my two cents from my experiences and takeaways from the game as I play (as much as I can due to RL time constraints). I did not see any issue with the clarification of IC theme that was added, because from the previous lore that was available, having children did add potential dire results that can affect a region, or even the realm.

“However, the moment the first child was born to this second generation of Beyonders – the Lost Generation who have never experienced even a moment of life in their respective “real” worlds– new rifts tore open the sky, dozens of them, each responsible for a new threat.”

So having the staff put some sort of thematic control over birth of children in the game makes sense. Now, I don’t know when the staff decided on the official IC system, but the game is still in Beta and I would personally give the staff the benefit of the doubt that they are treating Beta as a real Beta. Now the Betas of video games nowadays that is basically a free advertisement to pre-order the game.

The various posts on this subject though is definitely an opportunity for me to learn how some people can be very uncomfortable with this decision since the bbpost update didn’t hit me as hard as it hit some of the other players or those who are keeping an eye on the game.

I’m definitely one of those who are guilty of not being more disciplined with my Async scenes, which I need to fix on my end. I used to be an avid live scene RPer when I first started MUSHing but back then, I had a lot more free time to dedicate to RP and the people I RP with were also mostly in the same time zone and same time slots with free time. Now, RL is a bigger obstacle which is a shame, which is also why it’s impossible for me to play on more than one game.

Things have changed a lot with technology and also how life has changed for people. My free RL time has reduced and instead of hashing out a scene in four hours, I’m mostly down to two hours on a week night where I can fully focus. Oddly enough, even before Ares, I’ve had really great scenes with fun RPers where we can pause the scene after one night and pick up the next night. Or, even before Ares, I’ve done async (before it was coined Async) where the log was copied to google docs and continued there before the log is posted on the wikidot site for the game.

This is where my personal discipline needs to be tightened up on my end, where if a good scene has to be paused, instead of going fully async, it may be better to continue with a continued live scene on the second day. Async is definitely much harder when more people are in a scene, because everyone’s schedule is fragmented and it is much harder to line up the timing. That is why I try to reserve async to one on one scenes or plot advancing scenes so everyone has a chance to contribute to progression of the plot when they can. That’s one of the strong points of async it allows more people to participate instead of people not being in the same timezone of the majority being left out.

In the end, there are strong pros and cons to async, the challenge is to properly juggle it so it works out for those involved.

On a perfect game, an unlimited number of players. Think of BG3 but every NPC is a PC that is working together seamlessly on crafting the overall story, their individual story, and your story. Every encounter is not scripted depending on the actions you take but their interaction with you depends on when you interact with them, how much of their own story has been built, what the world is like at the time of that interaction, etc.

@Faraday That is one of the biggest hurdles of a PvP game. Even if you try to rebrand it as a CvC game, it requires a very mature player mindset for everyone involved. It’s really hard for everyone to do something for the greater good of the story, especially when everyone’s vision of the story is different. Even if the staff lays out a clear direction or goal, everyone’s path in that direction or to that goal can differ, which will impact how much they are willing to give to have their vision of the story reshaped.

Another level of difficulty is that the longer the characters last, the richer the character’s story becomes as it continues to build over time. That also means it is much harder to give up on a character or “lose”. It may happen where in a scene, two characters with very lengthy experiences and rich stories clash, and whichever side loses or has to give way, can impact what they have built up rather negatively moving forward. Then a “loser” will result and can even leave a bad experience for them, which sucks for not only that person but also for characters whose stories are heavily involved with that character who lost.

So PvP games may work best on games with short episodes, where characters are “wiped” or killed off in each episode, without consequences that are long lasting. If you lose or die, it’s fine because in a month or two, the slate is wiped clean and a new story is created.

I believe the number depends heavily on how many active staff you have to help manage those players. Having a dedicated team of 8 staff can handle a much larger player base than a team of 3. Staff to player ratio would lead to less of a burnout on the staff side.

PvP games can definitely work and can also be a ton of fun. However, it would require a lot more work than your usual PvE games where everyone can win. Staff will have to be on point and very hands on in PvP games, to ensure that the playing field is fair in terms of rules are being followed, that any loopholes to any rule in PvP engagement are removed before it can be fully abused, and constant checking in on all players (not just the loudest or flashiest) that they are having fun or if they have any concerns.

This also means that you have to size the game to the number of people that staff can handle, not just open the floodgates to anyone who wants to join. Staff will also have to be much more picky on who can play and be very willing to show people the door who are not cooperative with the staff. This, obviously, can stir up drama and accusations of staff favoritism, cliques, corruption, etc. This also will be a heavy drain on the staff, which will have to support each other heavily and have the good players support the staff as well. It will be a challenge but can be awesome if done correctly.

@kalakh These are just the levels of mental maturity and experience that players will go through. Just like in life when people are children who are full of innocence and vigor for discovering new things, the new players that joined the game has found this new shiny thing that they are passionate about and dives head first in, consequences be damned because like children, they probably don’t even realize what consequences were in the RP world and if there were even any. To them, it’s just a game and they want to have fun which is great.

The toxic player that was described has advanced in maturity but also fallen into the pit that many fall into. A lot of veteran RPers do get past this pit and push through to the next level of RP maturity, some much quicker than others, but some never do and those are usually the toxic players, the only thing that they advance and skills they sharpen is further down the path of that toxicity.

We have all seen those types of players, from the twinkish min-maxers who are super knowledgeable about the game system, the stats, how to game the system and perhaps even learned how to push the boundaries and rules while hiding due to their years of experience. The same with the toxic or even harmful brain parasite pests, attention hogging me-me-me pests, and sex pests on the game, they’ve honed their RP skills while also honed their camouflage skills to stay hidden, to trick players into their circle, etc.

Entering this level of maturity usually happens because RPers who were new and fresh into the RP world have become better at their poses and better at understanding the game rules, the stats systems, etc. This also resulted in other players acknowledging their advances. They usually praise this player in their growth, want to RP with them more because his poses are just so nice and descriptive like in the stories they read, their characters are shiny and strong, and they make great decisions in events that help push the party or group forward to success. This is where some of the players then fall into the pit of becoming toxic, they have tasted success, they have tasted praise, it tastes so sweet, they want more. Much more. As they continue to improve and gain success, they may feel that other players and maybe even staff start treating them like they are the main character. Some games even state that every character is a “Main Character”.

These players begin losing sight these games are cooperative games, not competitive games. So they must continue to be better than others, through stats, character status, player status, they must be on top. They are the chosen one. If they continue to find success and are continued to be consistently fed praise and accolades, this only reinforces it. Sadly, they lose sight of the goal of RP, of the innocence when they first stepped into the RP world, and lose sight of the path to an even more beautiful world where cooperative RP weaves a much grander, more inclusive, richer story.

I believe this is what separates the toxic players (veteran RPers or not) and those who have pushed beyond this layer, who have embraced cooperative story telling and RP. The toxic players have not been enlightened to the fact that in the end, all this isn’t as meaningful as they believe it is. The tighter you grip this concept of self-importance over all others, the easier it is to lose those you RP with, those who you may have considered to be friends and RP partners, lose this image you have tried to build up over time. That what is important, what builds a much stronger foundation, is the story and positive experiences that you create together with others. Games are not eternal, we’ve seen the biggest, most popular games come to a close or become ghost towns. What is eternal are the people who continue to RP, who have moved on to another game, who remember their experiences with you. Who had genuine fun with you and who you had genuine fun with.

We all want that fun that we first discovered that was so vibrant and shiny, it is just that over years and years of RPing, honing our RP skills, layers and layers are built over that shiny fun where sometimes, enough layers are built that we lose sight of the fun.