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.