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The event "The Assault on Taekir" is beginning in 1 day, 7 hours.

No OOC gangbanging mandate

 
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Abandoned Realms



Joined: 23 Jan 2004
Posts: 346

PostPosted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 3:11 pm    Post subject: No OOC gangbanging mandate

In the next couple days, up to about a week, the rules of Abandoned Realms are going to be fixed up a little bit in response to problems that have surfaced over the past few months. Most of these changes can wait a little bit, while they are finalized and debated further, however, this one will be announced now before it is finished, so you can get in some practice obeying it.

When OOC gangbanging was last discussed, we felt that it might still be possible to allow people fight together at rank 50 and make life up at the high levels more interesting, perhaps a bit sentimental of better days on AR. Unfortunately it has turned out that there are far too many who are just too irresponsible with it, basically ruining the level 50 scene for their own personal enjoyment with no IC formed groups even remotely capable of stopping them anymore. So this will no longer be allowable as of now. (Yes, even in cabals.)


It is only the difficulty in enforcing such a rule which has put us off implementing it in the past. In the present times, there has been little difficulty at all in recognising the latest groups, as a bunch of three to six people can be half the level 50s on at any given time, and its easily viewable watching them hop off those characters onto lowbies to level new crap. We hope that this rule can turn around the decline in roleplaying and individual playerskill without resorting to sitebans, but we'll make them if we have to.

Gangbangs with OOC friends is NOT allowed here on Abandoned Realms. We are aware of an extremely worrying number of strong OOC connections made, enough that we know there's gonna be more than a few busts coming. Levelling is still allowable butANY attack your group makes on other players will land you in deep shit. We may lift this ban on it when the quality here picks back up.



*edit-removed the line that was confusing all the guys just skimming the post without properly reading hte note
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Seryie



Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 574
Location: Australia, Adelaide

PostPosted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 3:21 pm    Post subject:

a step towards a better game. Smile
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LABruinCub



Joined: 30 Jan 2004
Posts: 124

PostPosted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 6:03 pm    Post subject:

All right, no more of that Geron/Thardodien/Keitorn bs that's been going around recently. I was starting to wonder when they were gonna get busted. =D
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Adebaldi



Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 272
Location: Tallinn, Estonia

PostPosted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 6:13 pm    Post subject:

Really depends. This might be one of those desicions that will make a bunch of experienced people leave again, since it will take alot of fun out of fighting. The best moments I have ever had in AR have been in huge group wars. I remember as big as 6 vs. 8. And I really never had any trouble with OOC gangbanging, but I guess thats cause I have recently played easy-to-flee classes and I imagine that newbies have probably suffered alot from gangbanging of horsemen and others.

But what if I attack a group of three that is ranking or gaining items? It would really suck if they weren't allowed to fight back, because fighting off groups has been one of my favourite activities in AR.


Quote:
If you know someone OOC, stay the hell away from them if you don't
want to get in trouble.

Thats going to be pretty difficult, especially at 50. Even though I haven't really had too much time to play in recent months I still know pretty much who plays who at 50 so am I supposed to stay away from everybody?

Getting rid of chatroom might be a good idea for stopping new OOC connections from getting made.
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Guest






PostPosted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 7:30 pm    Post subject:

Point taken, also I'm quite curious as to how you'll be able to catch people with this outside of a few factors:

1. Similar IP addresses(same area type of connection)
or
2. Taking note of who's grouping with whom in AR..(if a group of 3 or 4 people seem to always be together, you could assume they know each other OOC)

This is a very difficult thing to take care of, but if it can be done, more power to ya. Although a few of the people I do know OOC rather would fight me than group with me.
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divsky
Emissary


Joined: 13 Mar 2004
Posts: 1054
Location: Iowa City, IA

PostPosted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 8:06 pm    Post subject:

So we can't know anyone we play with anymore? That really sucks right there, as a sense of community is one of the biggest reasons people play muds. Actually, it's probably one of the few advantages muds have over MMORPGs. Muds are more fun when you know the people you're playing with.

Does playing with people you know make you trash? I don't think so. Trash players are trash players, period, whether in groups or not. For a long time now AR has been coming down on all things OOC, as if any kind of communication with players outside of the mud was a sin. Where is this going to get us? Where has it gotten us so far? AR is much trashier now than it was before it ever even became RP enforced. I think we need to come up with a more workable balance between enforcing RP/fighting trash and letting the playerbase come together.

AR wasn't more fun "back in the day" because the code was better, the areas more original, classes more balanced. Everybody knows that. When people think back on what AR used to be like they always say "Hey, remember so-and-so?" People make any mud playable.

I sometimes don't think the immortals understand that priority.
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Guest
Guest





PostPosted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 8:09 pm    Post subject: Back in the days...

AR was fun 'back in the days' because even if you knew someone OOC, you hunted each other like mad. It was fun because players knew how to separate OOC from IC.
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Louis



Joined: 19 Jan 2004
Posts: 823
Location: Los Angeles, CA

PostPosted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 10:48 pm    Post subject:

i agree. ooc gangbanging wasn't too much of an issue for me, until just recently, when the whole 50 scene turned ooc. thard/keitorn/geron isn't that bad, but when you have every single 50 in one massive ooc group hooking each other up, returning each other's eq, gangbanging and etc, the game just gets ridiculous.
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Avendin



Joined: 30 Jan 2004
Posts: 400

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 12:56 am    Post subject:

I've never had a problem with this, despite having friends who play the game, whom I incidentally introduced to it. I enjoy the game without having to use OOC connections. Besides, if you want to gangbang, it's easy enough to do it in character.
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Rezakhan



Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 209

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 1:42 am    Post subject:

Im all for the new policy. Im one of the rare people who has had a lot of 50s and knows not a single person out of character, which means it sucks when I see groups like the horseman or the geron/keitorn thing always around together. I dont think the intention of the new policy is to make it so you can never be with someone you know--that would be really hard, particularly with the chat. Instead I imagine it will just cut down on people always logging in with the same people, all the time.
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Davairus
Implementor


Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
Location: 0x0000

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 4:36 am    Post subject:

When it becomes a difficult thing to take care of, we won't need the rule.

p.s. read the note properly. This is for OOC gangbanging. You can still level, quest, etc, at the time. That hasnt been as big of a problem yet.
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divsky
Emissary


Joined: 13 Mar 2004
Posts: 1054
Location: Iowa City, IA

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 3:40 pm    Post subject:

Quote:
If you know someone OOC, stay the hell away from them if you don't
want to get in trouble.


That's what I saw that led me to believe that you can't do anything with someone you know OOCly. I thought OOC organized gangbangs have always been against the rules.
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Eldorian
Implementor


Joined: 20 Jan 2004
Posts: 93

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 4:38 pm    Post subject:

OOC groups were against the rules, except if the target is level 50. However, this has just meant that we've been getting people who permagroup level to 50, then all log on together, clear out the 50s, and log out together. Because our exception for 50s continued to be abused, we simply removed the exception. So is it a big change? Not really, you'd only be affected if you made it a habit of gangbanging level 50s with out of character friends, or were the victim of one.
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Sebryn



Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 1185

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 4:48 pm    Post subject:

Quote:
However, this has just meant that we've been getting people who permagroup level to 50, then all log on together, clear out the 50s, and log out together.

Speaking of which...

Were the Horsemen ever dealt with more severely than just telling them they couldn't log on together anymore? I still see Malikoar (unless I'm just hallucinating) every so often. Just curious.
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 5:06 pm    Post subject:

I agree with this rule completely, it leaves little room for debate and it would seem relatively easy despite the obvious downfalls. If you notice most people in the fifty range knew about this Thardodien, Geron, Keitorn group before they actually made it to fifty. I would ask though, perhaps allowing two people to do that would keep the spice yet at the same time make sure that entire armies are not roaming around at fifty doing gang banging enmass.

It was always interesting messing with Thardodien Geron and Keitorn as they obviously felt that this mud was entirely based upon equipment. They wouldnt attack someone unless their prey had eq that any of the three could use.
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divsky
Emissary


Joined: 13 Mar 2004
Posts: 1054
Location: Iowa City, IA

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 8:06 pm    Post subject:

So which is it then? No OOC groups at all, or just no OOC gangbang groups? The way I see it, OOC gangbangs isn't what the problem is, it's gangbangs with absoloutly no RP behind them. And 99% of the time any OOC gangbang will have no RP behind them. So I can see what would make the decision for no OOC gangbangs, unless perhaps the people grouping together are exceptionally good RPers with a legitimate RP excuse behind grouping together for a fight (in which case I'd imagine the immortals might look the other way, as fights like that are actually good for RP). As far as I can see though, 99% OOC gangbangs should be treated the same way as trash PKing with no RP, because that's what they are.

But Dav and Eldorian seem to be saying different things. If OOC groups aren't allowed at all I can see a few problems.

Example 1:
Player: Hey, you wanna come on the MUD I play?
Newbie: Sure, but I've never played a MUD at all.
Player: That's okay. I'll make a new character and I'll show you around a little bit.
By what Eldorian just said, this is against the rules.

Example 2:
Player1: Hey man, want to go on AR and gain a few levels?
Player2: Sure. I'll log on in a second.
Again, with no OOC groups, this is against the rules.

Example 3:
Player A and Player B know eachother over chat. They don't know what character the other plays. They both happen to be in the same group range and by chance end up in the same group.
Well, they know eachother OOCly. Sure, they didn't OOCly form a group. But is there any way they can prove that? Something tells me that some immortals won't give them the benefit of a doubt.

I don't see any problem with any of these examples as long as people keep IC and OOC seperate. Meaning, no OOC information over the MUD, not basing RP on OOC connections, etc. We shouldn't just punish people because they know eachother.

Having a relaxed playerbase where people aren't afraid of getting to know eachother is a good thing. I don't want to see that ruined. That's my only complaint. Like I said, if you want to punish OOC trash gangbangs, go ahead. Because they're just that, trash.
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Sebryn



Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 1185

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 8:21 pm    Post subject:

divsky... what I think they're trying to prevent are situations which you haven't mentioned. I offer the following:

Example 1 (mIRC or AIM or some other chat):
Player A: Hey, Player B... this asshole just killed me. Log on and help me kill and full-loot his ass...
Player B: Alright. I don't like him anyway. Be there in a sec.

Example 2 (also through chat/etc.):
Player A: Hey... log on real quick. So-and-so has a Crown of Might and two dragonscale rings that I want.
Player B: K, gimme a minute.

Following both examples, Player B logs in and meets up with Player A with no/almost no dialogue between the two of them, and they proceed directly to attack someone. In-game info is passed from someone already logged on to someone outside the game, and they proceed to use said info to go kill another player's character.

I think that is more of the angle the IMMs are going for with this change. You can still get groups together for training/ranking/questing/equipment gathering, but just don't PK/gangbang.
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Eldorian
Implementor


Joined: 20 Jan 2004
Posts: 93

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 8:24 pm    Post subject:

Perhaps I should have clarified myself and said OOC PKing groups were against the rules, except when the target was level 50. Now there is no such exception clause. Remember that the subject matter here is not OOC groups in general, but OOC groups who go out and PK.

It is still the case that if you're just out levelling or getting equipment or whatever, you can form groups however you want. The no OOC grouping rule only pertains to PK situations.

And as a matter of enforcement, we bust for it only if we notice it, or can prove it. Hence if we see characters A, B, and C always together from the low levels all the way up to the high levels, you can almost guarantee that if we see them at level 50 going around PKing, they'll be taken aside for it. So it is in your best interest to actually group with different people if you don't want suspicion cast on you.
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a ponderer



Joined: 17 May 2004
Posts: 96
Location: Hawai`i

PostPosted: Mon May 31, 2004 4:41 am    Post subject:

But what if you have made a friendship with the other character IC and you also know him OOCly, so you log on together alot. If you keep the play IC, then you shouldn't be punished. I seriously think that it should be OOC/IC based rather than PK based.

What is the penalty anyway? just so that it's clear, I've never gottten into trouble
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