Lifelike moderators... uber skills.

[Rageburst]

I think it would be a nice idea for in-game moderators to kind-of have a god-like appearance (or like servant of god). Players who are caught scamming or cheating or hacking can have the god\'s wrath on them, which is shown by some kind of animation. These don\'t do much for gameplay mechanics, but it adds to its environment, which makes it a \"cool\" factor.

Here are a few examples:
Lightning strike from the sky = means instant death to a player for doing a bad thing.

A banishing animation (makes player gradually disappear into smoke) = a kick from the server and possible suspension (permanent or not).

Gold light shining down from the sky to a player = a moderator wanting to help a newbie with problems.

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Lesser moderators (devoted gamers who wanted to help the main game moderators) can be bounty hunters, or represent some invincible assasin clan that controls the government. They are the only other ones who can unconditionally (no consent for dueling) kill other players who cheat. Unlike the moderator, the lesser moderators must kill the cheaters conventionally by PK... albeit, using invincible skills. The main moderator instead... uses a name list, rather than actually roleplay a kick from server and whatnot.

They share common abilities as the moderator:

Damnation (enemy becomes engulfed with fire): This means gradual death to a player caught scamming, cheating, cursing too much. Then player is then kicked from server when body becomes smoke. During this time however, other players may jeer and mock him/her while the burning is in effect.

Poison dart: This results with the cheater gradually dying.... constant loss of life. Obviously, this is a lighter punishment than Damnation.

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These ideas make it so that the lesser moderators also have some sort of fun. If cheating and hacking is too much of a problem, then why not integrate gameplay that fights against it? I\'m sure there are many gamers who would love to be a lesser moderator if they can roleplay an undefeatable assasin. Of course, approval of a lesser moderator should be done very carefully!

[Rageburst]

In this regard, hacking and cheating doesn\'t essentially need to be patched up... If you can do it without anyone noticing... kudos to you... otherwise, watch out for that assasin clan.

The idea can be tweaked to better fight hacking and cheating... I\'m sure this will be a major concern for the developers.

[Kundalf]

about cheating: I think it should be prevented by verifying the correct client settings by the server somehow (synchronization/checksum). So the appearance of a god or an assasin clan wouldn\'t be necessary at all. They would poison the ingame climate anyways I think.

well about hacking: I don\'t think you can do much about that in the game or do you want to identify the hacker by ip and then punishing any player that uses this ip ?
I think thats rather a server - security  issue and has nothing to do with the game...
or did you mean hacking the client code ? Then the verification of the client mentioned above would be a solution to check if a client is valid....

[Rageburst]

Ruin the game atmostphere? I think not. Everyone will be like, \"Shhhh, the assasin is watching us. Hide those counterfeit gold bars!\"

It\'s the perfect implementation of community laws. The lesser moderators are enforcers of the law. God, or the main moderators control the ultimate means of controlling people faith.... by displaying magical works of lightning and banishing... and defending everything in the name of proper gaming.

I remember playing an MMORPG, and whenever the GM comes on, it\'s like \"Hello GOD, please bless me with more money....\" and that\'s how my idea came about. I wanted a god to shine light on me while pming me. Also, people would know if a moderator is on or not too and the presence is known.

There are always moderators out there. They simply have to click on a person and kick them out of the server. There can be automatic cheat detection as well, but sometimes, it\'s hard to avoid non-software related cheaters (like those who scam people by selling cheap trinkets for lotsa gold).

Kicking people out of a server is merely an implementation issue that I would leave to the developpers to figure out since we\'re not making this game are we?

Moderation exists in almost all good games, and so as long as it\'s well designed, moderation actually helps control \"security\" breaches via hacking as you mentioned. By hacking, I obviously mean things like unlimited gold, god-like speed and so on... This is done infinitely many ways.

[kyp14]

I like the idea except for the

Lesser moderators (devoted gamers who wanted to help the main game moderators) can be bounty hunters, or represent some invincible assasin clan that controls the government. They are the only other ones who can unconditionally (no consent for dueling) kill other players who cheat. Unlike the moderator, the lesser moderators must kill the cheaters the conventionally by PK... albeit, using invincible skills.

giving these people invincible skills would unfairly advantage them when they went out hunting doing quests etc I would think that maybe instead these players  

A) if they are strong enough dispatch the player offending the rules with fighting skills even if its a non fighting zone
                                     
                                      or

B) inform the moderator the name of the person so they are removed from the server and that cool animation happens

[legbreaker]

cool idea haha...struck from lighting thats fun...i will be the first one to get struck

[Rageburst]

It can be made so that the lesser moderators can kill monsters or do quests conventionally as anyone else.... but becomes invincible only against human players caught hacking/scamming.

Only a select few people can become lesser moderators. If there are incidences of people abusing their moderator privileges, the main moderator can ultimately decide the fate....

This is done by many people \"praying to God\" after witnessing a lesser moderator performing unforgivable acts.

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So the idea is cool or not?
Most good games ALWAYS have to deal with hacking/cheating.

However, the gameplay design can be tweaked to allow hacking and cheating! It\'ll become so frustrating to hackers and cheaters that the game will usually not even be worth hacking.

This is one way, and IMHO, a cool one.

[kyp14]

pray errr ummm errrr I leave the groveling to you praying to anyone but GOD himself even if its just a game just doesn\'t seam right    

(sorry bout that little mumble but i think you get what i mean)

[windwalker]

Rageburst
no

[Kiva]

lol Rageburst, I doubt there will be one such thing as an invincible assasin guild with uberplayers who get an unfair advantage with their characters. There will be GameMasters, yes, and there will be Guides (Lesser - Help-Only - GameMasters ), and as far as what I know, GameMasters will be able to kick/ban players who are not exactly needed. As for the \"Oh-o-d00dlike-kewl\" effects... They\'re not really needed, but, of course, it would be a fun thing to see once in a while.

Edit: About the godlike appearance... I personally wouldn\'t like looking like a huge flaming hand if I was a GameMaster.. I mean, firstly, it\'d draw too much attention and second of all, don\'t you think people would stop cheating/scamming/laming/whatever if they saw the big hand of uber killing l337ness (and so on)...?

[Fanomatic2000]

A good idea would be if the Gamemasters were invisible. They would be more fearsome that way (I mean, you don\'t know when they happen to be around)

Bigbrother is watching you    

[Clover]

Lol, I think I came up with this idea like 6 months ago, glad someone brought it back up.  I really like this deal, I could probally even be one of the lessers moderdudes  

[Kiva]

Oooo... Clover with more power than other people? Not good.. *Hides*

[Clover]

Thats right grono, no more running away from me or ZZZAP ZZZAP ZZZAP!!!!!