I don't like the idea of being able to identify a player's entire account. People need to be able to play the game anonymously. Sometimes I just don't feel like talking to people/my guild/whatever and need a break. Similarly, if someone is getting harrassed in game and needs to name change, they should be able to start over with a clean slate.
If someone is a serial offender as far as harrassment, training, etc. goes, then VR needs to stand in and do something about it. Severely compromising people's anonymity in the game so we can have vigilante justice sounds pretty terrible to me.
Not only that, but it is ridiculously easy to troll people this way. A small group of people could easily single a player out and completely destroy their reputation. It's not like the majority of the server is going to be able to verify if the claims are true. Not only that, but people are really dumb anyway and love to jump on bandwagons.
It's just bad all around.
Liav said:I don't like the idea of being able to identify a player's entire account. People need to be able to play the game anonymously. Sometimes I just don't feel like talking to people/my guild/whatever and need a break. Similarly, if someone is getting harrassed in game and needs to name change, they should be able to start over with a clean slate.
If someone is a serial offender as far as harrassment, training, etc. goes, then VR needs to stand in and do something about it. Severely compromising people's anonymity in the game so we can have vigilante justice sounds pretty terrible to me.
Not only that, but it is ridiculously easy to troll people this way. A small group of people could easily single a player out and completely destroy their reputation. It's not like the majority of the server is going to be able to verify if the claims are true. Not only that, but people are really dumb anyway and love to jump on bandwagons.
It's just bad all around.
I don't disagree with this at all. Account "shaming" should be reserved for the worst offenders, and should be handled at the GM level.
That's the reason I specifically said
The only way to then disassociate yourself from a character with a bad rep is to remove/delete it from your account or to create a new account.
No need to create a new account if you delete the offending character.
You would not play this character regardless of how you got the bad name.... might as well delete it and problem solved. There's no Account Shaming. wth is that anyway
People need to be able to play the game anonymously. I agree that you should be able to play without your guild or whomever talking to you but like I also said, this should be part of the server ettiquette. Don't bother me if I'm on my alt. Regardless, your guild most likely knows all your alts anyway.
@Kalok : No one is forced to do anything. You don't have to delete anything. If you want to live with your bad rep, play on. If you have an alt, and someone checks you (remember you have to be checked and then someone needs to remember that offensive person in the first place) then you bear the consequences, and so you should. In time people forget. Alternatively, you delete that offending character and again, problem solved. No more association with the bad character.
Durp said:That's the reason I specifically said
The only way to then disassociate yourself from a character with a bad rep is to remove/delete it from your account or to create a new account.No need to create a new account if you delete the offending character.
You would not play this character regardless of how you got the bad name.... might as well delete it and problem solved. There's no Account Shaming. wth is that anyway
People need to be able to play the game anonymously. I agree that you should be able to play without your guild or whomever talking to you but like I also said, this should be part of the server ettiquette. Don't bother me if I'm on my alt. Regardless, your guild most likely knows all your alts anyway.
@Kalok : No one is forced to do anything. You don't have to delete anything. If you want to live with your bad rep, play on. If you have an alt, and someone checks you (remember you have to be checked and then someone needs to remember that offensive person in the first place) then you bear the consequences, and so you should. In time people forget. Alternatively, you delete that offending character and again, problem solved. No more association with the bad character.
As you say they could Choose to Delete their character then problem solved, i also feel account shaming is a step to far, Since Pantheon is very likely to be a very slow leveling game, Having to delete your character and start over i think is punnishment enough. If they choose to deal with the bad rep thats up to them, but if they Do delete their character and start over, i hope that they learn from their mistake If they indeed did make one, If it wasnt a mistake and they did something bad like ninja looting, harrassment Etc etc then they wont learn a thing they will Soon revert to old habits and do it again, and then will eventually have to start over again.
I saw this a few times on EQ, some people made genuine mistakes and got a bad rep for it, and restarted, learnt from their mistake/mistakes and became a better gamer. Ive also seen the other side of the spectrum where someone would train people and groups Etc to steal named mobs from groups, also seen people who harrass others, they too deleted and remade their characters, they soon returned to their old behaviour and were found out and blacklisted once again.
The Community in EQ policed themselves pretty well, and were far from stupid. word soon got around who the black listed players were and suspected alts/rerolls.
I hope that Pantheons community holds itself to a high standard, as did Eq and polices it's self with good judgment.
Liav said: if someone... in game and needs to name change, they should be able to start over with a clean slate.
I'm not a fan of this. It is to easily abused. The thing about having reputation matter is...well, it has to matter. If you can simply change your name there are no consequences for your actions.
If a player really wants to start fresh they can always start on a new server. Allowing name changes...no matter the reason, whether you are the harrasser or the harrassee should be very limited.
People constantly say that it is "too easily abused" but I see no evidence that is the case. If someone is constantly changing their names in an attempt to get away with something, odds are VR should probably step in and punish them for it.
This would be an example of removing something from the game for the sake of a very, very tiny handful of individuals who might abuse it for something. I once used this argument to argue against training, but then I realized that it's not that big of a deal because it won't be commonplace (intentional trains) and VR can step in when it becomes an issue.
TL;DR: Don't remove things from the game because 2 or 3 assholes will abuse it for personal gain.
Edit: I actually thought of a better idea. Require that in order to change your name, you must submit a report to VR with evidence of harrassment or something. VR will know if you're trying to use it to get away with something because the community should be filing reports against people. This way VR has strict control over how it gets used.
I'd like to see repeat offenders moved to a PVP "prison city" realm (as in Escape From New York). One way ticket for you and all of the toons on your account. If you want to train, harass or generally be an *sshat on an ongoing basis, we have just the place for you! No CS staff, no rules, just a bunch of nasty people doing nasty things to mobs and fellow players. Some folks might even want to jump in voluntarily and see who's king of the hill.
The thing is, we all know VR doesn't have the man power to police things like this. Saying "VR should probably step in and punish them" is not an adequate solution.
The solution is players policing themselves by having reputation matter. If players can easily change their name reputation matters a lot less. Even then it doesn't completely solve the problem because they can just start over on another server...but on the flip side, if a player wants to change and start fresh with a clean slate they have the option of starting on another server.
Liav said:People constantly say that it is "too easily abused" but I see no evidence that is the case. If someone is constantly changing their names in an attempt to get away with something, odds are VR should probably step in and punish them for it.
This would be an example of removing something from the game for the sake of a very, very tiny handful of individuals who might abuse it for something. I once used this argument to argue against training, but then I realized that it's not that big of a deal because it won't be commonplace (intentional trains) and VR can step in when it becomes an issue.
TL;DR: Don't remove things from the game because 2 or 3 assholes will abuse it for personal gain.
Edit: I actually thought of a better idea. Require that in order to change your name, you must submit a report to VR with evidence of harrassment or something. VR will know if you're trying to use it to get away with something because the community should be filing reports against people. This way VR has strict control over how it gets used.
And thus not allow people to nillywilly change their name. Yes. I'm for that. I believe people who were harrased were able to change their name in EQ by doing exactly what you described.
If you're harrassing people, you should be suspended/banned/dealt with by law enforcement depending on how far it goes. Prison server for training and gameplay related harrassment though, I'm down with.
Etiquette in all community driven activities is 95% about communication. Although we as individuals can each contribute and practice it there is another side of this coin -- everyone else.
I think there is a strata between etiquette and conduct. To me etiquette describes the softer day to day examples that when put together as a whole have a significant impact to the atmosphere of a community. On their own though they are mostly contextual, and may be different between various groups of players. This may be lost altogether when interactions are only interpersonal (cliques) or entirely impersonal (group-finders).
Where etiquette helps mold and enhance the atmosphere of a community, conduct is a set of behaviors that can maintain or disrupt it. So why all this talk about defining my personal take on these two terms?
Well there has been this elephant in the corner that a lot of people are talking right past eachother on. This mostly comes down to a contention for resources and what is considered acceptable conduct on how to handle it. Whether you side more with 'camps and territorial courtesy' or on 'all is fair come race me there' both sides handle contention through competition. They just operate on a different rule set for determining the winner.
Since neither view is exclusive to the other I think it is important to lead by example and try to put the differences aside by crossing both aisles. Competing makes you better and sharing provides opportunity. Having a balance of both is healthy. It is in poor taste to trample over a group without communicating your intent to do so. Similarly bad form to be unsportman-like when someone else does do this to you (and lets you know).
There is a different etiquette amongst those who like to compete, just as there is amongst those who do not -- and it is poor optics to believe that the former lacks any. I am completely in the 'care-bear' camp but still had no issues with guilds that were not and just wanted to compete. What I found personally was when our guild met them on their terms, competed, and commended one another for effort/success they were way way more amenable to leaving us to our 'territory' later on when we needed it. Conversely they had no issues trampling over everyone else who would never meet them on their terms. Both of our guilds experience was better for it by simply accepting both rules of conduct can coexist.
--
On a side note, some of you guys sound really vindictive. I do feel it is important that your actions have consequences but I don't believe the vast majority of cases should result in irreparable exile. Lighten up alittle! Edit: (and I am not talking about online harassment, that is a completely different thing and surely will be a breach of the service policy)
philo said:Liav said: if someone... in game and needs to name change, they should be able to start over with a clean slate.
I'm not a fan of this. It is to easily abused. The thing about having reputation matter is...well, it has to matter. If you can simply change your name there are no consequences for your actions.
If a player really wants to start fresh they can always start on a new server. Allowing name changes...no matter the reason, whether you are the harrasser or the harrassee should be very limited.
Agreed i have seen this in wow first had many times.
IN early Eq you could change your name., BUT you had to apeal to a guide/Gm and explain WHY you wanted a name change, they would investigate sometimes it could take a couple of weeks, sometimes you got your name change sometimes you didnt. im guessing it all depended on what the guide/gm found out in their investigations. Now i dont know what they did, maybe they checked chat logs or asked the community in disguise or something who knows, but i know they did this, because a friend of mine apealed to a GM for a name change as she was being harrassed and stalked by someone, they said they would investigate her story and make a decision and let her know, less than a week later, a gm ported her away somewhere to talk to her and when she came back her name was changed.
I kind miss those days when GM's were in the word interacting with their customers, and the guide program was awesome, it made us as customers feel like the Eq gods actually cared about us.. NEVER got that feeling from any other game.
I hope pantheon have GM's in game and a guide program.
Frankly, I hope they don't allow name changes. Knowing you can change your name is knowing you can buy yourself out of being a poor member of the community. OR - if they allow name changes, there should be a way to see old names for avatars... because I know some people sometimes make names that they decide later they just don't like in retrospect.
My example of that is one naming an avatar Oreanis (a caster) and having friends suddenly start calling me "Oreo Anus"
My implementation of this would be to simply store old names in a table and to have a page on their site where you could type in a name and have it retrieve old names. This way people who just make bad name choices could still change a name, and people who act badly couldn't run from their behavior by changing their name.
good etiquette and decency starts with good parenting to learn social behaviour with the very small.
... now without being philosophical, belitttling or pointing fingers, it should come from the community itself, where one after all gets the picture of what is right (and wrong) in the contemporary. Then a bit of guidance, showing the right path, might not be a bad thing.
So such a thing is not desired to be billboarded on any LFG method. Maybe I am advocating a bit of sneaky manipulation in the environment. Like when you join a group something hardly noticeble would remind a player of exactly that thing that is decent to do. (or am I overstepping boundaries here due to human nature?)
Two things:
1. A few people have said people made mistakes and ended up having to re-roll. Could you guys please define "mistakes"? That seems a bit over the top for a mistake. I could understand if it was bad behavior on purpose. But a mistake? Reputation mattered in XI too but the only people that ever had to re-roll were the worst offenders (betraying your guild, ninja looting, etc). Even if someone did display purposeful bad behavior a time or 2 with a train or some nasty words. Honestly not that big of a deal. Now if they keep repeating it over and over, that might be something. I expect that to be rare though honestly.
2. Who defines what proper etiquette is? Serious question. This isnt EQ nor FFXI nor VG. This is Pantheon and people from different games will flock here for an oldschool experience. Ive learned from reading these forums about some of the EQ etiquette. Some of it is shared in XI and some of it is alien to me. Im not sure about VG, but vanilla WoW, AC, DAoC, Lineage 2, FFXI, and Ultima did not have camp checks or lines for rare spawns. So in my mind no one should be assuming this type of thing was shared equally among oldschool games. So Should the Etiquette go the direction of EQ? Why? Will VR have something outlining these expected behaviors? If not then how will the community attempt to educate the players? I guess my biggest problem with this is the assumption anyone can control this. MMO communities are kind of organic things. The expected behaviors of players will solidify within the first year. And unless VR specifies it, it may or may not turn out like EQ. Each of the oldschool games I mentioned earlier did have certain shared etiquette, but there were some that were different or even opposing. And this doesnt even get into server rule sets within the same game.
For the record Id be happy to go with the EQ etiquette if that becomes the norm. I just dont see it as something that you can force.
In response to #2 amsai:
It can't be forced. Etiquette is adopted by the community.
In regards to camp checks, it was the norm but I never really considered to be because of etiquette. Sure it was a way for someone to declare they had a specific area camped...but it was moreso for the person who just entered a zone to get information about what areas were in use so they don't waste time running...or clearing...to a certain area only to find someone else there already. I guess it was common courtesy /etiquette. It was just the norm. A way to communicate.
No way will VR have anything outlining expected behaviors that's not how that works. (as far as the etiquette we are referring to)
Hopefully, we as testers can adopt certain behaviors/etiquette during testing that will set a precedent and carry over into live.
I'm unsure if that will be possible considering the way most games are these days. Most people haven't been a part of a community where players are courteous to each other, or where reputation matters, so hopefully they catch on quickly.
I don't recall ever having to find my replacement. Maybe it was a server thing, but typically we'd notify the group and group leader you would need to be leaving (I typically gave 30-60 minutes), and they would begin looking for a replacement.
I would often stay as long as possible to ensure the replacement arrived if losing any 1 group member could create trouble for the group, even if it meant staying a little longer than intended.
Not sure I would have wanted my reputation on the hook if the replacement I found, turned out to be a douchebag anyway. :)
Amsai said:Two things:
1. A few people have said people made mistakes and ended up having to re-roll. Could you guys please define "mistakes"? That seems a bit over the top for a mistake. I could understand if it was bad behavior on purpose. But a mistake? Reputation mattered in XI too but the only people that ever had to re-roll were the worst offenders (betraying your guild, ninja looting, etc). Even if someone did display purposeful bad behavior a time or 2 with a train or some nasty words. Honestly not that big of a deal. Now if they keep repeating it over and over, that might be something. I expect that to be rare though honestly.
2. Who defines what proper etiquette is? Serious question. This isnt EQ nor FFXI nor VG. This is Pantheon and people from different games will flock here for an oldschool experience. Ive learned from reading these forums about some of the EQ etiquette. Some of it is shared in XI and some of it is alien to me. Im not sure about VG, but vanilla WoW, AC, DAoC, Lineage 2, FFXI, and Ultima did not have camp checks or lines for rare spawns. So in my mind no one should be assuming this type of thing was shared equally among oldschool games. So Should the Etiquette go the direction of EQ? Why? Will VR have something outlining these expected behaviors? If not then how will the community attempt to educate the players? I guess my biggest problem with this is the assumption anyone can control this. MMO communities are kind of organic things. The expected behaviors of players will solidify within the first year. And unless VR specifies it, it may or may not turn out like EQ. Each of the oldschool games I mentioned earlier did have certain shared etiquette, but there were some that were different or even opposing. And this doesnt even get into server rule sets within the same game.
For the record Id be happy to go with the EQ etiquette if that becomes the norm. I just dont see it as something that you can force.
Regarding #1. No one is forcing anyone to do anything. Everyone makes mistakes. However, if your character got a bad rep for whatever reason (like training on purpose, ninja looting, etc.etc) and you feel that people are not willing to group with you or allow you into a guild because of your reputation, then yeah, you may think of rerolling your character just like you said. But that's not rare... happens a lot... people even make special alts to grief others. This is the reason I would like to see all the characters on an account. Actions should have consequences. But again, no one is forced to do anything. Yu may have a spat with someone who's trained you on purpose dozens of times but I have never even heard of him. So I would probably group with that person. In rare instances do people get a server wide rep and yeah, they might have to reroll...
@Liav I'll repeat what I posted above: "The thing is, we all know VR doesn't have the man power to police things like this. Saying "VR should probably step in and punish them" is not an adequate solution."
In extreme cases sure, VR will step in...but VR can't police everyone who trains people multiple times. Saying that "VR should be able to look at all the reports to the same account and take action." is not a viable solution. Shrugging it off as a non issue because VR will handle it isn't sufficient.
I believe the thought of the VR team is that they are purposefully leaving a lot of these type of issues for the community to police themselves. That is part of why there has been so much discussion about going back to a scenario where reputation matters. VR knows they can't police everyone sufficiently. They are relying on the community.
Depends on how robust they build the guide program and what powers they will have compared to GMs.
As for etiquette, only time will tell how things shape up. It's not really something that can be planned, it just sort of forms over time and on a server by server basis. I do remember players in most groups would let everyone know they were leaving in 15-30 minutes. They would ask the leader if there was a list and if not would try to find a replacement for their role prior to leaving. Would be nice but we will see, might be easy enough to fill slots regardless, considering how deep VR is getting into making it easy for players to find one another for groups.
philo said:@Liav I'll repeat what I posted above: "The thing is, we all know VR doesn't have the man power to police things like this. Saying "VR should probably step in and punish them" is not an adequate solution."
In extreme cases sure, VR will step in...but VR can't police everyone who trains people multiple times. Saying that "VR should be able to look at all the reports to the same account and take action." is not a viable solution. Shrugging it off as a non issue because VR will handle it isn't sufficient.
I believe the thought of the VR team is that they are purposefully leaving a lot of these type of issues for the community to police themselves. That is part of why there has been so much discussion about going back to a scenario where reputation matters. VR knows they can't police everyone sufficiently. They are relying on the community.
VR absolutely has the power to look through logs to find evidence of harrassment, especially if it originates from multiple (new) characters on the same account. As far as things like training, it gets harder to deal with but it's still doable.
The idea that VR is powerless is equally as laughable as the idea that they're omniscient, which I am not suggesting.
Of course they have the power to check the logs. Unsure why that is even brought up? That doesn't mean they have the man power, or that is it necessary, to look through the logs for every person who trains someone a few times. Like mentioned...again..."In extreme cases sure, VR will step in...but VR can't police everyone ".
The idea that VR is powerless is equally as laughable as the idea that they're omniscient, which I am not suggesting.
Agreed, that is laughable ^. Please understand what is being discussed.
I'm not exclusively talking about trains. Please understand what is being discussed. Or don't, I don't really care.
Etiquette is fine and dandy. Officially sanctioned name changes on a strict case-by-casis basis is fine and dandy. If you want to debate that with me, feel free. I'm not going to bother continuing to talk past you or have you talk past me.
We have to rely on the community to police the playerbase through the use of reputation and general etiquette. Trains was just one example. Only in extreme cases will logs need to be gone through. For your standard everyday type of etiquette issues (or lack there of), the community will have to police itself. Trains were the given example but of course that is not all that is included. It is a much broader topic than trains. To say "I'm not exclusively talking about trains." is a given, thus the understand what is being discussed part...