Author Topic: Unwritten Rules (Read 3407 times)

Araye · « **on:** November 09, 2006, 05:43:34 pm »

Hi Everyone!

First this is NOT an attack on any GM or Dev.

Recently one of my guild members was banned for running a bot. Using a bot, as everyone knows, IS cheating and deserves the consequences of their choice to cheat. (A bot is short for "robot" and is a piece of code that allows autonomous operation of an avatar and is not allowed in PlaneShift.)

However, after carefully examining the evidence, the guild member was not using a software script or program to cheat. The guild member (as best as I can determine) was standing next to an aggressive MOB (rogue in the Hydlaa/Oja Road LZ) and letting it attack him WHILE AFK.

There is a lot more to the story on both sides, but I think it is simplest to just boil it down to the above.

Now, while I agree that this could be considered "exploiting the game", it is not stated ANYWHERE (except now in this thread). Nor is there a stated punishment (which is a 7 day ban and the items in your hands are deleted).

It is a little shocking that an unwritten rule with an unwritten punishment can be enforced so hastily without warning the tester/player first. And it is this policy that I am a little upset with. Maybe the tester/player could have simply been kicked and sent an email explaining the violation and that a second offense would carry the FULL penalty?

I suggest that this becomes a written rule and that "auto-defense" is turned off. Maybe AFK characters are "sleeping" and can't defend themselves?

Please reply to this and tell me your ideas, but DON'T flame a GM or Dev! Feel free to flame me!

Araye

P.S. Karyuu, if this is in violation of some rule - feel free to delete this topic!

Karyuu · « **Reply #1 on:** November 09, 2006, 05:52:53 pm »

The GM consulted Talad, and was told that being AFK while having a character do an action is the equivalent of botting. I agree that mentioning this in the Player Policy would be good, therefore I will add it in now. However, people are very capable of making up stories (guild members and friends alike) and our policy on seeing automatic character routines without the player around is the same for everyone - 30 day ban. People know it's wrong and people know they shouldn't be doing it. Going AFK while your character continues doing an action for an extended period of time is definitely not a smart decision, and there are consequences. If you're not here playing the game, you are a waste of resources on the server.

I'm wondering now whether an AFK-mode may be useful, perhaps with some icon by a player's name - if it's not turned off within 5 minutes, they're kicked from the server. It would be a nice addition.

bilbous · « **Reply #2 on:** November 09, 2006, 06:00:53 pm »

That would have the added benefit of disconnecting multiclienting people if they stop paying attention to the inactive characters, although it might disrupt complex roleplays where some participant (helper) has to stand around for a while waiting for someone to find them. Were you thinking of some kind of auto-afk when no keystrokes or other input are detected or something manually activated?

Karyuu · « **Reply #3 on:** November 09, 2006, 06:03:45 pm »

Manually activated, so that if you're actually AFK you need to have it on - then if the scenario originally posted happens again, no "I was AFK" line will be accepted.

*edit*

Needless to say the AFK mode will not allow combat.

zhai · « **Reply #4 on:** November 09, 2006, 06:06:49 pm »

The auto-attack thing was discussed in this thread not so long ago, btw. In my opinion, kicking someone out for being AFK for an extended period of time sounds logical. Maybe going all the way to ban them for 30 days and removing their items is a bit too harsh in this particular case since there may have been no intention to cheat or exploit the game mechanics (whereas there are other cases that do deserve this severity).

And I don't want to go off-topic here but I don't quite understand how the ban system goes. Is it the characters that get banned (let's say <Player> cannot use <character name>) or is it the actual players that should not log back in for the time specified by the GM (not using any of their accounts instead of the one where the character they were using when they got banned is)?

bilbous · « **Reply #5 on:** November 09, 2006, 06:08:40 pm »

Ok thank you for the clarification. If this would be a manually activated state would it be like stasis where you are in the game but cannot be affected by the game? What do you think of some kind of auto-boot device to keep people honest, so to speak?

AryHann · « **Reply #6 on:** November 09, 2006, 06:13:53 pm »

I just think that after this episode an unwritten rule should become written in order to avoid ambiguos behaviours in the future!
Everything just IMHO

Karyuu · « **Reply #7 on:** November 09, 2006, 06:19:43 pm »

zhai: I believe for the first two days of a ban the player may not use any of his/her accounts (IP ban), and afterwards it settles around the account used at the time of the ban for the remaining period.

The 30 days in this scenario was scrapped out and 7 put in their place, so it's not nearly as harsh - but this wasn't an accidental "Woops I was by this rogue and ended up attacking" scene either. Nor was the player initially honest about what was going on, a large mark against him.

Quote

Whenever possible, GMs try to give players the benefit of the doubt in questionable situations. We hope players do not attempt to take advantage of this trust, and provide their full cooperation. However, if it is later found that an attempt was made to defraud a GM, the offending player may have action taken against them. Attempts to defraud a GM include but are not limited to misdirecting a GM's attention, withholding information, providing false information, and any attempt to "trick" a GM.

bilbous: Pretty much, although still having access to the chat window would be good. Concerning an auto-boot, did you mean players being kicked off after some period of inactivity? If so, I'd have to say I'm rather against it - for the reasons you mentioned, and because as a GM I would like to stand around and not have to move until someone calls for my attention, as it allows me to concentrate on tasks outside of PS at the same time. (The server kicks me off anyway after some time right now, so I've a lot of practice with this unintentional boot feature

Pain in the arse.)

Ary: Done!

Nikodemus · « **Reply #8 on:** November 09, 2006, 06:30:36 pm »

I'm also against auto kick after a while of inactivity. Like Gms wouldn't like it because of practice issues, also Players would suffer. There countless of situations when you are afk not because you want to bot. Example: waiting on someone in the middle of nowhere.

I'm happy of clarifing the unwritten rule and making it writte =D, i can remember a forum discussion where many people claimed the exact situation wasn't against the rules, so completly fine.

bilbous · « **Reply #9 on:** November 09, 2006, 06:35:21 pm »

Yes that is exactly what I meant. To clarify, if all the traffic is from the server to the client then it can be fairly certain the client is being unmonitored. I am not entirely sure how it could be managed though. As far as you are concerned, well, GMs are not treated the same as players already, can be expected not to abuse the rules and could be exempted fron this functionality.

What I was suggesting was some means whereby if I have a few accounts online and one of them gets into a conversation so that the others just stand around, maybe on a mob spawn, doing nothing but discouraging others from fighting that mob, the inactive ones will be auto-disconnected. At least this way if you are going to multi-client you have to keep dancing between them.

You could combine the two ideas so that if you have to be afk you could be.

How about with that manual afk thing there be some sort of visible indication of your status such as AFK added to your name banner or translucency for your figurine?

zhai · « **Reply #10 on:** November 09, 2006, 07:13:56 pm »

Quote from: Karyuu on November 09, 2006, 06:19:43 pm

zhai: I believe for the first two days of a ban the player may not use any of his/her accounts (IP ban), and afterwards it settles around the account used at the time of the ban for the remaining period.

Thanks. Now, if a player gets a 30 day ban... they could still log in a week after from another account right? Any way to prevent this other that not allowing multiple accounts?

And yes, a 7 day ban punishment sounds fair. Not so much deleting the char's items though... I'd say that is a very harsh punishment. And come to think about it, the auto-kick thing after a number of minutes of inactivity will bring some problems so leaving it as a measurement a GM could resort to in case the person doesn't respond seems wiser, and the bans can take place if the player is camping on an agressive mob while AFK. It's more of a policy than a scripting thing, IMO.

Hadfael · « **Reply #11 on:** November 09, 2006, 07:25:53 pm »

Is it necessary to write a rule saying again that using server ressources without actualy playing the game is wrong?
I think it is in the FAQ for years that PS will have limited bandwidth that is to be used in priority by roleplayers.

About those annoying RL stuffs that keep you AFK (it happened to me to be forced to change keyboard batteries while playing with friends ;P). There is no way to really prevent them without being annoying in a regular RP.
Any way to put your char in a visible /away state is a good idea. The MOBs could not attack /sit-ing or idle chars. But I would really appreciate not wasting my time greeting and talking to AFK players.

Bereror · « **Reply #12 on:** November 09, 2006, 07:30:02 pm »

Make botting and AFK fighting worthless and the problem is solved. Why do players use bots? Because it is boring for them to repeat the same operation over and over again. Why isn't it boring for our characters? How can they keep digging or fighting the same NPC for hours?

The mental stamina should drop much faster if the character keeps doing the same boring thing without taking a break or doing something else. Killing the same NPC 3-4 times in a row could drop it to zero and you would lose focus on what you are doing making it easy for the NPC to kill you in one good hit.

Restoring mental stamina should be very slow process unless you find something else to do. Talking and singing (not in tells nor on guild/group channels) could be one activity that helps you performing boring tasks, so I'm looking forward to see first singing bots in the game

Araye · « **Reply #13 on:** November 09, 2006, 07:46:05 pm »

Quote from: Karyuu on November 09, 2006, 05:52:53 pm

The GM consulted Talad, and was told that being AFK while having a character do an action is the equivalent of botting. I agree that mentioning this in the Player Policy would be good, therefore I will add it in now. However, people are very capable of making up stories (guild members and friends alike) and our policy on seeing automatic character routines without the player around is the same for everyone - 30 day ban. People know it's wrong and people know they shouldn't be doing it. Going AFK while your character continues doing an action for an extended period of time is definitely not a smart decision, and there are consequences. If you're not here playing the game, you are a waste of resources on the server.

I'm wondering now whether an AFK-mode may be useful, perhaps with some icon by a player's name - if it's not turned off within 5 minutes, they're kicked from the server. It would be a nice addition.

Thank you Karyuu for adding it to the Players Guide! $\\o//$

Yes I agree that we are all capable of lying and did not press it any further. I am satisfied with the final ruling.

Also the "extended period of time" my guild member was AFK is unknown to me as I have never received a player's log. I do know that the total time between "/tell target are you a bot?" and "/freeze target" was four minutes and that "/ban target" occured after two more minutes. I'm not sure that qualifies as an "extended period of time" in my opinion.

But the rule being public solves that problem. I have also added a rule to my guild that if a gm finds a guild member guilty of botting, the offender will be kicked from the guild. I feel that if the guild leaders should be helping the gms as they are busy enough as it is.

@Hadfael: Yes it is important to specifically point out certain things. Not everyone understands what constitutes "using server ressources without actually playing the game". I do, but a lot of testers/players do not.

Araye

Nikodemus · « **Reply #14 on:** November 09, 2006, 08:06:24 pm »

Quote from: Bereror on November 09, 2006, 07:30:02 pm

How can they keep digging or fighting the same NPC for hours?

Note that it is not the same NPC for your character. It is the same NPC for us, as we know how things are programmed and stuff. But it is OOC knowledge. A character doesn't know it. So you are trying to make IC rule basing on complete OOC and in this case it would be terrible mistake. First the spawning need to be developed, so that we can finally treat it as ic knowledge and furher develop other things like being mentally tired of constant fighting.
I hope you understand me.