Staff Feedback Thread

[Saronsen]

so why did we remove a bunch of faction perks without notifying said factions? khara, vagrants (were they notified?) and GC come to mind but im willing to bet theyre not the only ones
i dont care that you "reworked" cloaks, this was a long held faction perk.
to say that sitting still and not draining fuel when you can be decloaked just by a ship coming into range of you is a valid replacement makes me wonder what youre smoking

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User was banned for: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=202684
Time left: (Permanent)

[Champ]

This 'warning' against Doc Holliday is foolish, unnecessary, and sets an unreasonable precedent for the rest of the server.

Firstly, interpretation and enforcement of the server rules is largely discretionary, so too are they frequently re-written, so I'll here invalidate the argument that staff were bound by duty or obligation.

Next up, that sanction has cut out some important context, important enough to still warrant its own explainer despite so many re-writes:

For examples, see here.

Now let's go through what applies from that link to the up-until-now uncontroversial name of Doc Holliday:

1.4 Names of new characters should be set up with role-playing nature of our server in mind. This means that:

- Names should contain no swear words. ✅
- Country of player origin must not be used in character names. ✅
- Faction tags can only be used by the actual members of player factions or groups. ✅
- Names with excessive use of random symbols, capital letters, numbers, symbols, leet speak, emoticons should not be used. ✅
- Names should be in good taste and not reference real-life atrocities ✅
- Names should not contain meme-references ✅

I defy anyone to declare 'Doc Holliday' is a meme reference and should you dare, you must be even less funny than I am.

What follows after that within the explainer are recommended guidelines. The purpose and spirit of the rule is to have names suit a role-playing server. The post goes further to say that the staff won't bother to pursue all names not suitable for roleplay (random numbers, symbols, leetspeak etc.) but "we will take measures against players who use unacceptable names."

I would argue it is obvious to anyone that Doc Holliday does not constitute an unacceptable name not suited for a roleplaying server based on a half-built space opera more than 2 decades ago. Doc has done more roleplay under that name than most of the rest of us have ever bothered to do. This does not exempt them from any rules, but it makes it apparent that if the purpose of the rule is to encourage appropriate roleplay, Doc has been fulfilling that metric for a long time. Some might say too long.

So, why the warning? Because it's a reference to an old name / character most of us don't even recognise. Why do we dislike references or imports? Because they're boring, repetitive, uncreative. Do you know what most of the roleplay on this server is, and has been since its inception? (It's boring, repetitive, uncreative).

If someone makes their first character named Luke.Skywalker, what would the most experienced, skilled roleplayers on the server do? Immediately recognise they're a newbie. Ignore them. Treat them with some derision in roleplay. Make some coy jokes. Maybe take the angelic approach and //give them some polite advice, or even invite them to a group and tutor them if their heart's in the right place. Not report, them, just educate and redirect. And that's for the most egregious example, using a popular and memorable character name. Even if a report came through, most admins wouldn't have given a damn, because banning or Bastilling newbies because of silly choices they will soon enough themselves learn from and regret would be counter-productive. If original, or at least, in-universe roleplay is the goal, then surely at least roleplaying some other character is a middle-ground, better than not roleplaying at all (with which the server also is and has been, for decades, brimming).

My point is, this boils down to a misapplication of the server rules against 0.0.

Server Administrators are obliged:

• To develop and safeguard the health of the Discovery Freelancer community, official server, and forums.
  
• To be fair and treat all players equally independent of their level and faction alignment.
  

I would not and do not advocate for forcing a rename of an uncontroversial character that is simply a niche reference for new players. Therefore, I don't advocate for forcing said rename for experienced 'high-level' players. If you don't like the reference, the original character, or what Doc is doing with the roleplay, and you think it's boring or bad roleplay, do what I do. Ignore it, like you would any level 3 ship in Pennsylvania with a character name you think you might recognise. And if you can't sit still enough to do that, there's an entire subforum for you.

P.S. If the staff are going to concern themselves with forcing a rename of every account, ship, and character that has a name that exists elsewhere, you're going to have an absurd amount of work ahead of you, and surely you have something better to be doing.

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[Saronsen]

what the fuck is wrong with you people?

doc holliday and other peoples names who have been the same for years shouldnt be bothered. dude has thousands of roleplay posts. i dont even know why we're enforcing names the way we are now.
youre 10 years too late to make a shift to a Hard/Heavy/Serious roleplay server, so unless the names are xxsnipers_get_more_headxx, you need to stop handing out warnings for this shit.
and if you look hard enough, everything is a reference.
we should start warning people for using character art/images of real life characters, anime characters, other games, etc.
hell, considering AI art is trained on real art, we need to warn them too for using references.
make sure to delete crayter too, since theyre just a battlestar galactica import.
auxesia seems a little too similar to Vanu from planetside, best you delete them as well. too much of a reference.

stupid, dumbass slippery slope.
just stop.

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User was banned for: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=202684
Time left: (Permanent)

[Demonic]

Serioudly? Going after Doc? Really?

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[SnakThree]

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=200651

Staff is going overboard. Imagine not being allowed to name your ship with emotion.

Let's go through some most active OF shipnames to see what could be considered silly.

DTR-Pajarita (bowtie? really?)
|>R<|T-Mastadon (not original, we have Liberty 5ker with such name)
GMS|St.Denis (Denis of Paris? import?)
A/)-Lazurith (seems fine)
ALG-V-Bregenz (city name, seems fine)
RPA|PRW-Fragarach (celtic weapon. That's fine)
1st|LNS-OverLord (That's name of Liberty Dread. Not original)

Okay, got tired. See how this is stupid. If you don't, you need to check your common sense.

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[The_Godslayer]

Doc Holliday has literally been a staple of Discovery RP, along with Med Force. Doc Holliday has done better RP than anyone currently in staff. Doc Holliday hasn't, however, posted a giant rant about how there's no more RP in the server and everyone is a pvper and everythings going to hell because of bittervets and oldfags, and then followed it up by shooting someone on his side of a fight because he thought "they were taking too long to die".

I don't know what beef you decided you have with Holliday, but man up and put it down. Put on your big boy pants, step off of the fake sanction. Apologize to Doc and to the community for this pathetic stunt you pulled.

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I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.

"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"

[HanCloudstone]

Statute of limitations when?
Genuine question if it's not obvious.

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My char info and rp feedback thread

Currently schizoposting from Omicron Chi

[Decktare]

My friends, who still playing, sent to me this thing. To protect my old "friend" I want to say some points.
If you want to continue this "name hunting" you should ban everyone. People in the most characters using name and surname which are exist in real life. Holliday name in Wiki link
With your logic you should ban everyone with name Joe, cause we have USA president with same name now. This situation looks like this.
Instead you should can change this rule so that have not such a wide area of responsibility.

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[LuckyOne]

I have no idea what the staff is trying to achieve by over-eagerly enforcing Rule 1.4, but I can say with confidence that it's not going to be overly-beneficial to the Discovery GC playerbase or the relationship and trust the players have with the Developers/Admins.

[Mellony's Acquisitions]

A few days ago I was doing some pretty fun and solid RP with a character who happened to be played by a mod, and we talked a bit afterwards OORP. I told them how grateful I was to be welcomed into the community and how much I was enjoying playing this silly game again that I love so much.

We briefly discussed any negative experiences that I'd had so far, and I told them that thankfully my experiences over the past month have been far more positive than negative. The mod was relieved to hear this, but said:

"cutting down on toxicity by harshly slapping players who create bad impressions and harass others is one of my #1 priorities as a mod right now, and we don't see everything."

I told them again that while there were some small things I'd seen that were unsavory, by and large my experience was very positive.

We continued to have a very positive and friendly conversation, and as we were signing off for the night, they added:

"I really appreciate you taking the time to report stuff, I genuinely love this community and want to see it continue to live and even grow. it's amazing that this clunky-ass unfinished game from 20 years ago still has so many players, and Discovery's been a big part of my life."

I couldn't agree with that mod more! I love this game too, and I have loved finding people that are passionate about it like me!

But this is the first time I've felt genuinely nervous on this server and forum. Slapping Doc with a warning when he has invested so much time and effort into his RP....an RP that has so much history and work put into it that I do not think it's feasible to compare his current version of Doc Holliday to the historical figure OR the movie character played by Val Kilmer in Tombstone. Our Doc's character is so fleshed out that he looks nothing like those figures.

Beyond that, however, as a new player......this is DEFINITELY something that gives me a negative early impression of the community and makes me hesitant to play.

Is it worth it to invest weeks...months........or in Doc's case YEARS into building RP only to have it blown up because a mod decides to read the rules differently than they have been for the previous 15 years?

As a new player, seeing a character played Doc Holliday makes me SMILE....it makes me grin and makes me happy that there is a playfulness to the server even among characters created by the mods.

As a new player....seeing players get warnings for silly names...but other players who are verbally abusive, swear at mods and admins, and constantly complain have nothing happen to them?


......that definitely leaves a bad impression and makes me feel like maybe this might not be the RP server for me.

And I don't want that. I really love this game, and I already enjoy some of the genuine connections I've made here.

Please don't do this to Doc.

-Mel

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