+- Discovery Gaming Community (https://discoverygc.com/forums)
+-- Forum: Rules & Requests (https://discoverygc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=6)
+--- Forum: Rules (https://discoverygc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=25)
+--- Thread: Improve Presentation of Discovery's Rules (/showthread.php?tid=158145)
RE: Rule-savvy individuals (especially admins) please comment - SnakThree - 06-11-2019
:facepalm:
I forgot who I am responding to. Carry on, Don Quixote.
RE: Rule-savvy individuals (especially admins) please comment - Karlotta - 06-11-2019
Same to you.
RE: Rule-savvy individuals (especially admins) please comment - Lucas - 06-11-2019
As far as I remember, having a roleplay demand issued counts as an actual demand. At least so I have been told ages ago when I was pirated by a guy
RE: Rule-savvy individuals (especially admins) please comment - Nepotu - 06-11-2019
![[Image: PyREdRN.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/PyREdRN.jpg)
RE: Rule-savvy individuals (especially admins) please comment - Kazinsal - 06-11-2019
Staff are discussing that one in particular. Rest assured we want to avoid repeats of something like that happening.
RE: Rule-savvy individuals (especially admins) please comment - Karlotta - 11-17-2019
Periodical bump to ask if the new game masters / leadership now have the will to improve the way the community presents itself and its rules (and to see if its worth the effort to try and achieve anything positive here).
RE: Rule-savvy individuals (especially admins) please comment - Binski - 11-19-2019
Quote:3. HIRED GUNS & BOUNTIES
3.1 All contracts and bounties must be justified within roleplay and conform to IDs. A character may be hired ingame or on the forum by non-generic IDed (non Freelancer, Pirate, or Miner) players, for a minimum of 1 million credits per target. Targets must be informed of the contract/bounty originator before the attack and be able to verify the veracity of it. The reputations of employer and employee must be neutral or friendly to each other, and they must both be hostile to the target unless they're enforcing Official Faction Rights or the target has a generic ID.
[+]Info
3.2 Bounties enacted while the employer is offline, PvP-dead, or farther than one system away must be posted in the "Bounty Offices" sub-forum. The forum thread must specify the employer's name and affiliation, and also specify and verify the affiliation of those who may claim the bounty. A limited payout number, expiry date, or exclusivity to pre-registered bounty board members may be specified beforehand. Players may not hire exclusively their own characters.
I meant to drop a comment a while back on this.
My only concern is that under this current wording, you can hire BG's for assassinations basically, in game, without a post, if the target is still only a system away. I'm still a supporter of needing to be within sight of who you're targeting if hiring a bounty hunter to take them out. Otherwise, a ship pirates a guy, flies off, the next system over the trader finds a BH, says go kill him, then the pirate is doing his thing and a BH shows up, give you hell. But in those cases, it is basically like getting away without having to post the bounty. The only way I'd support that wording is if we are clear that such things are the point. To me though, we should probably keep it as it was, and require a post unless the hiring is done with all parties present. That wouldn't extend to blanket bounties of course.
While on the topic, I'd also suggest that we consider, if its not technically 'allowed', changing the individual bounty system so that bounty hunters need to try to collect the posted bounty first. So if someone bounties a ship for 10 million, the BH's/merc would need to demand that 10 million from the target, and only engage if they aren't willing to pay. And of course that would not count in blanket bounty cases, since the point of them is usually to clear the way for BH's/mercs to help out military factions in combat. Assassinations would still be possible, but it seems it would need to be sponsored by an official faction, as they can add really bad individuals to their bounty board. I know this isn't about big changes but if/when rules get updated, if that were supported, getting it in the rules would be good.
My last comment is with regards to inrp demands. My only concern is that we make sure that roleplay demands CAN be met, and aren't ridiculous and never ending. Just like 1 demand of cargo or credits per encounter, once you demand a ship do a dance or leave your territory, that's it for that one.
RE: Rule-savvy individuals (especially admins) please comment - Karlotta - 11-21-2019
Thank you for your comments.
(11-19-2019, 06:02 PM)Binski Wrote:Quote:3. HIRED GUNS & BOUNTIES
3.1 All contracts and bounties must be justified within roleplay and conform to IDs. A character may be hired ingame or on the forum by non-generic IDed (non Freelancer, Pirate, or Miner) players, for a minimum of 1 million credits per target. Targets must be informed of the contract/bounty originator before the attack and be able to verify the veracity of it. The reputations of employer and employee must be neutral or friendly to each other, and they must both be hostile to the target unless they're enforcing Official Faction Rights or the target has a generic ID.
[+]Info
3.2 Bounties enacted while the employer is offline, PvP-dead, or farther than one system away must be posted in the "Bounty Offices" sub-forum. The forum thread must specify the employer's name and affiliation, and also specify and verify the affiliation of those who may claim the bounty. A limited payout number, expiry date, or exclusivity to pre-registered bounty board members may be specified beforehand. Players may not hire exclusively their own characters.
I meant to drop a comment a while back on this.
My only concern is that under this current wording, you can hire BG's for assassinations basically, in game, without a post, if the target is still only a system away. I'm still a supporter of needing to be within sight of who you're targeting if hiring a bounty hunter to take them out. Otherwise, a ship pirates a guy, flies off, the next system over the trader finds a BH, says go kill him, then the pirate is doing his thing and a BH shows up, give you hell. But in those cases, it is basically like getting away without having to post the bounty. The only way I'd support that wording is if we are clear that such things are the point. To me though, we should probably keep it as it was, and require a post unless the hiring is done with all parties present. That wouldn't extend to blanket bounties of course.
Yes, its meant like that and listed as on of the three suggested changes that have actual repercussions on gameplay (other than making it easier for people to access and understand rules).
The reason I suggested this particular change was that hiring someone to kill a guy that just pirated you is something very intuitive that players would want to do, and is perfectly within RP. I think it was originally made forbidden because 1: people wanted to force players to role play more on the forum 2: avoid extreme scenarios like someone in omicron alpha hiring someone to kill a guy in New York, and then logging off before its done. For reason 1: times have changed and we have more forum-lancing and much less server-lancing. 2: There is some middle ground to be gained to remove the extreme scenarios by having the rule 1 system away and must be logged on. Thirdly, server gameplay needs to be made freer, more intuitive, and less rule-lawyery. As I said, its a suggestion that can be discussed and is to be decided by others.
(11-19-2019, 06:02 PM)Binski Wrote: While on the topic, I'd also suggest that we consider, if its not technically 'allowed', changing the individual bounty system so that bounty hunters need to try to collect the posted bounty first. So if someone bounties a ship for 10 million, the BH's/merc would need to demand that 10 million from the target, and only engage if they aren't willing to pay. And of course that would not count in blanket bounty cases, since the point of them is usually to clear the way for BH's/mercs to help out military factions in combat. Assassinations would still be possible, but it seems it would need to be sponsored by an official faction, as they can add really bad individuals to their bounty board. I know this isn't about big changes but if/when rules get updated, if that were supported, getting it in the rules would be good.
If I understand correctly (not sure I do) you would REQUIRE the bounty hunter to ask the target to pay the bounty to him, and if it payed, the bounty hunter cant kill the target? That would be something like a debt collector ID, not a bounty hunter.
I guess you could make a separate debt collector ID for that, or let the BHG ID do both debt collecting and bounty hunting, or allow the BHG to extort the target without making the extortion mandatory. Forcing BHG to ask for credits would defeat the nature of the ID though. I personally dont really endorse those options and dont think they would be accepted by GMs/devs, but I guess you can launch the idea to them separately.
(11-19-2019, 06:02 PM)Binski Wrote: My last comment is with regards to inrp demands. My only concern is that we make sure that roleplay demands CAN be met, and aren't ridiculous and never ending. Just like 1 demand of cargo or credits per encounter, once you demand a ship do a dance or leave your territory, that's it for that one.
You seem to be right about that, there were some changes regarding that rule not long ago (according to what Kazinsal said above at least), I will check if the new wording is better.
RE: Rule-savvy individuals (especially admins) please comment - Karlotta - 12-02-2019
After discussions with two people who attempted to justify the staff’s apparent refusal to undertake the now relatively simple task of making rules more accessible for new players as described in the OP, I think something needs to be said about the only “argument” they gave:
“Whether something is better or worse is just subjective and personal opinion, staff opinion on this is different from mine, staff opinion matters more, and therefore there’s no point in talking about it.”
While this is undoubtedly true for things like music, art, and poetry, it certainly isn’t true for everything, and isn’t true for most of the changes proposed here. To understand that, you’ll need to take a closer look at what is currently ingame and on the forum, taking the perspective of someone who doesn’t already know the rules before reading them. You’ll see that the rules that we expect every single player to read are presented in a worse way than almost every single irp infocard in the backwater of Gallia that literally nobody reads except those who wrote them. I’ll go through it in detail (open the relevant infocards/forum posts to actually compare them):
“Discovery RP 24/7 Server Rules” item
- Such an Infocard would be permanently accessible if it was in the Help System instead of on an object that is lost upon ship destruction. Although this infocard is too poorly written to be put there for the reasons below.
- It should simply be called “Server Rules”, because the long name isn’t required anymore without the existence of other servers.
- Excessive use of underlining, red text, and exclamation marks reduces their usefulness for emphasis (and also looks angry and amateurish). “If you break the rules, you will be punished” is the only thing that needs red text to catch the attention of people who are originally too lazy to read the whole thing.
- An additional way to focus and keep the reader’s attention is to remove every word that isn’t really conveying useful new information and just wastes time and patience. For example in the first paragraph: “Admin Note:, brief, Discovery Freelancer RP24/7 official, (November 2016 revision), on Discovery Freelancer 24/7”
- The numbering does not correspond to what is on the forum, making it more confusing than useful.
- Is from 2016 and obsolete with for example rule 13 in the infocard (4.3 on the forum). If the forum and ingame rules used the same text, it would be easier to keep them in sync when a rule update happens.
While I’m at it, I might as well go through the other 2 starter info cargo items.
“How To Get Started” item:
- “should be viewed as out of roleplay information” self–evident and useless clutter sentence
- “wastness” should be spelled with v
- “This item takes only 1 unit of cargo and you may buy it from any base ingame. Feel free to carry it with you at all time” useless (and inaccurate) sentence. Things explained here are now in the Help System anyway, which can be read without carrying anything.
- the advertised “/restart BEGINNER” template does not exist.
- “Any ship has the capability to mine simple resources you can sell for profit” is misleading about the true nature of the mining system, and doesn’t mention co-op mining
- “once you launch to space, the helium field being planet Erie…” sends people to an isolated and boring activity. If you help them mine, it’s better to send them to a busy place like the now existing premium scrap field in New York.
- Things like credit transfers and mining are now explained in the Help System anyway. The cargo item should probably be removed and the green welcoming logon message should mention the Help System and where to find it
“History of Sirius” item
It mixes story lines of all houses, including points that aren’t important in the grand scheme of things, and thereby provides little context for why the items are relevant and for who/what.
All of the above (and below) problems are solved by the current version of the Help System and rule write-up in the OP (for the latter of which I’ve been waiting on a staff reaction for more than 1.5 years now.)
Now for the rules posts on the forum:
- Players are made to read through 18 lines (259 words) before learning the first bit of information that actually reveals what they can or can’t do on the server (rule 1.1). They are first told that they should play fair (which is as much an encouragement to complain about other people’s unfairness as it is to play fair oneself, there being differing views on what “fair” means even for long term players), told that rules shouldn’t be weaponized (again just as much an encouragement to accuse others of doing it as it is to not do it oneself), told about the rule clarification thread (which is dreadful for reasons that will be given below), told how Game Masters are to behave (rather self-evident and something directed more at game masters and less at new players), and then another paragraph, now in green text, again about how people should be fair, which also wishes those who look for loop holes “good luck” (which again gives a bad impression of staff and members). All this is unloaded on first time readers before telling them what the rules even are, or them really being concerned by these topics yet at all, or knowing what is supposed to be considered fair or unfair, or what the rambling about loop holes and weaponization could be about. If it is necessary to write about these things in the rules, it makes more sense to put it in a place where it is actually relevant, for example where rule violation reports are submitted, or at the end or in the spoiler to a rule where people already have some context to it, and not before they even know what the actual rules are (which is what they’re really starting to read the post for).
- The rule clarification thread is now 9 pages long (90 posts), and still contains now obsolete posts about now former rules, which make it utterly confusing and annoying to look through to see if something hasn’t already been clarified. A much easier-to-find and upkeep way of clarifying rules is to use spoilers underneath the corresponding rule.
- With 1.1 the rules start by listing the usual things that are forbidden on most public gaming servers. They probably need to be said near the beginning, but the most important information is that which explains how the game is to played: That it’s a role play game and in what universe it’s set in.
- Rule 1.6 is the one for character naming, but the character name rules reference it as rule 2.3
- There is no mention of what is considered valid role play (in 3 and 1.6), metagaming, or powergaming (1.5) (there is just some information on what is not under 1. and 3.1)
- Placing the forum rules (2.) between community rules (1.) and server rules (3.) keeps them from having consistent numbering if they were to be identical and optimal on both server and forum. Most people will play on the server before using the forum, so ordering them as community rules (valid for server and forum) first, then server, and then later forum rules (after other things that are relevant for server gameplay like hired guns and bounties) will make it optimized for more people.
- Since pornographic anime is pornographic, and ponies and furries are imports, there is no real need to list them explicitly (it also gives a bad impression of the community if you do). It can be added in rule clarifications in spoilers for those who choose not to “get it”.
- Things like trial by forum and off topic are enforced but not written down as forum rules. If the server rules are listed after/separate from the other rules, it’s not a problem to make them a bit longer and more explicit
- Rule 3.1 under “server rules” is related to community rule 1.1 (the 2 are therefore best combined for better context in community rules) and is also enforced on the forum, but not mentioned in forum rules. It’s likely that the swearing and insulting is seen as less severe in role play stories about one’s own characters than in communications directed at other players’ characters. See above point about making forum rules more explicit.
- In Rule 3 writing out ROLEPLAYING and ROLEPLAY twice in all caps leaves the impression of an angry nerd yelling at someone who he considers an inferior being because they aren’t as deep into ROLEPLAY as he is. It also does nothing to explain what role play is or how it can be turned into acceptable all caps ROLEPLAY.
- 3.4 doesn’t differentiate between sieging, intentional shield-fuel draining, and acceptable shooting to keep someone from docking, and should be turned into a real sentence mentioning the forums
- 3.7 recruit ID no longer exists
- 3.9 belongs into faction rules
- Use of the abbreviation "PvP" without explaining what it means
- Rules 3.4, 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8 also concern pvp, but are not under "PvP rules"
- 3. and 4. repeat the lengthy name "Discovery Freelancer 24/7 RP" without real need for it, making headers harder to read and identify
- 4.4 is under "PvP rules" but is really about IDs and their restrictions, many of which have nothing to do with PvP.
- rules 4.4-4.6 seem to be redundant with what is written in the IDs and can be made much shorter by just saying “characters must play with a single ID and follow restrictions in ID and gear/ship infocards”. If there is a conflict with a couple of things like nomads and zoner whale, those few infocards should be amended accordingly instead of making these 3 rules so long and complex.
- The last grey paragraph is related to game master rules and sanctions (like some of what is said at the beginning), and is therefore easiest to understand when in context with that in a “rule violations and sanctions” subsection.
- The green text at the end is totally irrelevant for 99.99% of players who don’t get permabanned and can therefore be hidden in a spoiler, because apart from being a waste of time for most players to read, mentioning permabans in such detail also leaves a very bad impression of the community.
If there is still someone who still believes that all this is “just subjective and therefore irrelevant”, I’ll write detailed explanations for the “Player Owned Bases”, “Bounty Hunting”, and “Faction Rules” too when I have time.
RE: Improve Presentation of Discovery's Rules - Karlotta - 09-28-2020
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